The Marvel Comics Memory Album Calendar 1977

This is the 1977 Marvel Memory Album. It’s a calendar that my dad bought me for Christmas in 1976, when I went to live with him once my mother gave me the choice of which parent I wanted to live with when I turned 12 earlier that month. I would much rather detail the memories of the recovery period that followed. After all, this blog is called “Aftermath.” It seems appropriate. Heaven knows that I’ve told the abuse stories for long enough. It’s time to visit my safe space. It’s the place I go in my head when I need respite from the dark recesses of memory. This calendar is an excellent artifact around which to build that narrative.

After the usual Christmas holiday visits to my mother’s family and my stepfather’s family in southern Michigan, we went back home to the upper peninsula to pack all my things for the move to my father’s house. He had told us that he and his new (third) wife Peggy, whom we had met at their wedding the previous summer, lived in a two-story home along a wooded area with a spacious yard that had a fish pond. We had directions and drove up and down the road they supposedly lived on but found no sign of this dream house. After stopping to ask for help, we found the address. It appeared that everything my dad had said was true, except for the house part. He and Peggy and her two oldest children apparently lived in an unfinished basement built into a dirt bank. Near the road was the burned-out husk of a house that had been destroyed a few years before. We went up the driveway, still unsure. There was a sliding glass door facing out over the spacious lawn and pond, sure enough, and I could see my dad inside.

My mom was LIVID. L-I-V-I-D, man. A litany of curses familiar to me only because they were usually reserved for my father spewed from her mouth. We went up to the door, and sure enough, this was the right place. I hugged my dad, and then got out of the way because I knew I would be trailed closely by my mother. I spotted the lit Christmas tree with presents still under it, undoubtedly saved for my brother and me, even though Christmas was a week previous.

My mom barely held her contempt and had some very direct, but hushed words for my father. I felt a chill, because I was afraid that this meant she wouldn’t let me stay with him, and that I’d be in for five more years of beatings…or more. After she was done with him, she took me aside, and asked me if I was sure I wanted to live here in this basement. I knew by now that my decision to live with my dad had hurt her feelings, so I tried to contain myself a little better than I had when she asked me who I wanted to live with. “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.” There were tears in her eyes and she hugged me, something she NEVER did. I’m not sure if it was because I would rather live in a concrete box than with her, or just because she knew she would hardly see me again beyond visitations in the summer and the holidays as had been the case with my dad. It could have been both.

We unpacked the rest of my stuff, including my bike, which we had tied to the roof. Looking back, I didn’t actually own much then. My brother and I had shared a small bedroom in our mobile home. My brother and sister got to keep most of the toys that I had been given. I was 12 now and was supposed to be beyond all of that. I had gotten a BB gun for Christmas from my mom and stepfather, as well as a Detroit Lions bulletin board. It took two trips to my new room to get everything in. I had my own cinder block partition two doors away from the fireplace. It was good enough for me!

Everyone sat down to let my brother open his Christmas presents because he wasn’t going to be able to stay. That was the first time it really hit me. Jeff and I were going to be separated for the first time since he’d been born. We’d been sharing a room for years, while my younger sister had her own. We had bunk beds with matching sheets and identical NFL bedspreads. I wasn’t even sure I could sleep without him in the room. Suddenly, I had second thoughts about leaving him behind. But no, surely with me living with my dad, Steve wouldn’t dare beat on Jeff the way he had me. I knew from stories that my dad had fought Steve years before and came out on top.

After the presents were given, I said goodbye to my brother, my sister Wendy, and to Steve. I remember looking him in the eye and just feeling victorious, like I had beaten him at his own game simply by outlasting his abuse. When my mom hugged me, I didn’t think she was going to let me go. She whispered to me that if I wanted to come back, to just call her and she would be there that same day. I tried to fight back tears but lost the battle. I told her I loved her and watched her go.

Afterward, I got to open my Christmas presents. Among them was the calendar that started this whole thing. At that time of my life, I wasn’t a big Marvel fan, but that hardly mattered. It was a comic book item, something I had not been allowed to have in my room at my mother’s house. And I hung that calendar proudly over my dresser in my cinder block room with some Scotch tape. The first page was January and featured the Fantastic Four, fighting Skrulls. I had never read a Fantastic Four comic in my life, but I had watched the cartoon with my dad when I was little. I knew who they were, and that was enough. When my dad came in to tuck me in (he had no idea what to do with a 12-year-old who doesn’t need to be tucked in, but give him some credit for trying), he kissed me good night and told me how glad he was that I was there with him. He closed the curtain over the empty space that would someday have a door and turned off the “living room” lights outside my very own room. Moonlight leaked in ever so slightly from the basement window, illuminating the calendar on the wall, and just before I fell asleep, I felt silently grateful for my new situation. I was finally out of danger. I felt warm and protected, from both Skrulls and my stepfather.