The Brink: a memoir

By Jaime Andrews

Andrews unblinkingly delivers this tale of her troubled adolescence, detailing her descent into depression, promiscuity, drugs and institutionalization - all before the age of 18. Told from the point of view of a teenage sociopath, The Brink is funny, harrowing, lurid and absolutely true.

A deep, dark look at growing up in 90s

• Language: English
• Publisher: jaimation, llc
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987740316

Jaime Andrews

Jaime Andrews has been a comedic commentator (TruTV's World's Dumbest), an album cover-girl (My Chemical Romance), a columnist (Backstage, New Thinking), a commercial queen, a theater manager and, most recently, an award-winning filmmaker (Division). Way before that, though, she was the big mess you'll find in these pages.

Book preview

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

― George Bernard Shaw

Also, women.

― Jaime Andrews

PREFACE

I barely recognize the person to whom you are about to be introduced. You may not like her, but that’s fair, because she didn’t like herself very much either. Yes, she is me, but she also couldn’t be further from the person I am now. I am so sorry for the people she hurt with her actions, and for those she may hurt with the words found herein. With gratitude to my mother and sister - neither of whom will read this - but who are responsible for me finding myself again. Just know…it takes a second book.

ONE

The desk I am sitting at says that I am a slut. Not as a self-declarative, but actually using my name. Huh. I wonder if the chick that wrote it knows that I sit here. It’s obviously a chick. It’s obvious, not just from the swirly and bubble-bedecked handwriting, but also because guys tend to be more appreciative of that sort of thing. What are the chances that I should sit at the one desk in this school that says something awful about me? Maybe there are more of them. Maybe they all say it.

I consider writing in retort, No, she’s just misunderstood, or lonely or sad or lacks self-control while under the influence, for God’s sake, but I can’t fight anymore. Besides, sticking up for yourself in third person seems pretty lame.

The next day, I find that someone has done the job for me. It says that I’m nice. I can’t imagine who this benevolent defender could be, considering that I don’t have many friends. The friends that I do have would probably agree with the initial statement. Heck, one of them might have written it. The exchange goes back and forth for a couple of days with a third party finally interjecting an emphatic testament to my whoredom, which seems to silence all. It’s funny that I’m not running to class every day to see what is said of me next. My head is an observation balloon. I’m numb.

I’m 14 now, in my first year of high school. I can map out

exactly how it got to this point, but am not particularly cognizant of why. Let me begin at the beginning: I’d had an impossible standard set for me at birth when my mother cooed, She’s perfect, upon first seeing me. True, she was on lots of drugs at the time. Funny how much better things can look that way.

I was born on a Thursday. I often think of that old adage, which claims Thursday’s child has far to go. When I hear concepts that make sense to me, I am haunted by them. I debate whether being Thursday’s child means that I will go far, or that I have a lot to learn and it will be a long road. I had always imagined it would be the former, but it is certainly looking like I’m going down the latter.

My parents don’t love each other. Okay, they don’t even really like each other. It’s my mom’s second marriage and, to be sure, it is one of convenience. She didn’t think anyone else would have her, what with a young daughter from a rocky three years with her high school sweetheart. Mom’s first love came back from Vietnam all pot and parties. When my dad came along - her boss at the bank, from a good family, socially inept - he must’ve looked like salvation.

Dad worked a lot. He also spent a lot of time in the basement. I believe that he was forging a special relationship with a certain illicit cable network. Often when descending the stairs to his lair, the sounds of soft sighs and saxophones would abruptly shift to the roar of a stadium and the bleating of some cocky sportscaster. I used to have nightmares about the basement. Some demonic force like a figure made of red-hot wrought iron would be coming toward me slowly and I was unable to run. I guess everyone has dreams like that, but these dreams, coupled with the knots like ghoulish faces in the fake wood basement paneling, always propelled me up the stairs at a dangerously fast pace. Sometimes I would dream that the stairs were gone entirely, and there was no escape.

Everything from my preadolescent years is kind of hazy, which is funny because it’s the stuff that followed I’d prefer to forget. I’ve been told that I used to hurl myself over the bars of my crib and on to the floor. My parents would be woken by a thud in the middle of the night just to find me on my girly-pink carpet, staring up at them. Nine months old and already looking for a way out. Once my mother said they were meeting with an insurance agent in the living room while I was screaming and tossing myself against the walls. She said it sounded like I was being tortured, but they went on with their meeting as though nothing were happening. It’s called Ferberizing. Your parents are supposed to just let you freak out alone. Is she all right in there? the agent apparently asked. They told him to ignore me. They certainly did.

My revisionist history speaks of a happy childhood, but the second hand reports seem to belie that. I was precocious and petulant, given to tantrums and willful misanthropy. On a trip to the pet store, the killie-shiller asked if I wanted a pretty fish. I said I wanted an ugly one. When people asked if my favorite color was red or pink? I would say it was black. I was no more than four. Maybe I was just rebelling against what was to come. My favorite movie was Watership Down. You know, the cartoon with all the dying bunnies? I watched it over and over and over again. I planned a performance of it in our backyard. I didn’t follow through, though. Nobody else was interested. This would be a recurring theme.

Our family meals, generally a rotating repertory of the easy-bake variety, were invariably held in front of the television set. My father would eat his reheated portion alone in the basement when he finally returned home from a day of work in the city. I hadn’t been conscious of being resentful of his consistently subterranean state, but I must have been. I know this because one Sunday morning when Mom, my sister Carrie and I were going to church, I turned the lock on the basement door before leaving.

As we pulled out of the driveway, our lamppost flickered. My mom said she would have Dad look at it, but I was pretty sure that he was doing just that. I was particularly exultant that day at First Presbyterian. I knew we would be going out to lunch afterward too. We always did.

Dad was pretty infuriated when we finally got home, particularly because we hadn't recognized the lamplight’s flicker as Morse code for SOS. There were no sailors amongst the women of my household, it seemed. I’m sure I was scolded, I’m sure I said it was an accident, and furthermore, I’m sure my sister and I laughed about it afterwards. As angry as dad was, it was hard to take him seriously. His rage was impotent because it was omnipresent. Dad would bristle if you weren’t pouring your cereal out right or if the door closed too loudly. When someone is mad all the time it’s hard not to find it funny. You have to laugh as your nerves are fraying.

My mom felt guilty for staying with him so long, but it’s not her fault. My dad puts up a pretty good front and it’s easy to dismiss men’s quirks, particularly when they mirror your own father’s. Pop-pop had the capacity to make my dad look downright warm. Plus, there was staying together for the kids, a phenomenon which I’m fairly certain does more harm than good.

My mom has told me that dad’s behavior didn’t seem to faze me when I was little, that I just ignored him. She knew it bothered Carrie, though. It must have been hard for my sister. Her real dad was gone. He had tried to be partier and parent but my mom wouldn’t stand for both and he opted for the former. So poor Carrie found herself a flower girl at four, heralding the welcome of this cruel alien into her life. Then, just over a year later, my arrival forced her into the big sister role. Dad could be ever so slightly more forgiving with his own spawn, but he had less patience for that which he had not created. When she grew older and heavier under his scrutinizing eye, he would compound her self-loathing with a Carrie, don’t eat these post-it on his potato chips. So, you can’t blame me when I agreed to say that I had eaten 2 of the 4 missing cupcakes, for example. She was my sister. She was beautiful and terrifying. I wouldn’t even tell anyone when I heard her retching in the bathroom later on. I didn’t even know what that meant.

Carrie had no trouble manipulating me. 5 1/2 years my senior, my little button face must’ve seemed an easy to push emblem of our mother’s disastrous union. She was able to con me out of the larger bedroom by telling me she had seen spiders in there. She was willing to switch with me because, see, she wasn’t afraid of spiders. I didn’t even realize I’d been duped until years later, by which time I believed she deserved the larger room by virtue of her chronological superiority, if not her utter savvy in the realm of child psychology.

I’m sure it was fun to torture me, really. I was probably even more of an exposed nerve than I am now and the thrill has still not worn off for legions of my peers. Having me around the house must have been tantamount to your very own personal, poke-able Pagliacci, a cartoon puppy to kick around. Heck, Carrie would even invite her friends over to get in on the action. Her best friend Lisa would stand before me in the kitchen and say, Jaime, I love you, before turning sharp an instant later and sneering, Jaime, I hate you. She would go back and forth like that as my face rose and fell with every reversal, and then contorted with confusion and tears.

And I don’t mean to be all victimy here - Poor me, and all that - Carrie and I really got along. I mean, I gather that other stuff’s just normal sibling shit.

Our senses of humor and self were similarly warped and we spent a lot of time laughing uncontrollably at jokes nobody else would understand. At one point we even proposed building a communication window between our rooms. Okay, that was my idea…come to think of it, my sister probably counted on it being denied. There aren’t too many parents keen on putting holes in their walls at the request of their children. It was nice of Carrie to humor me though.

Of course, she also smacked my face so hard once that a handprint of broken blood vessels stained my cheek. She told me to explain the mark to my mother by saying I’d walked into a door. When the flags as red as my face went up at school the next day, I was summoned to the school nurse. She asked me with concerned eyes what had happened, and my typical-of-abuse excuse prompted a call home. Mom verified the tale of my clumsiness because as far as she knew, I had, in fact, walked into a door.

TWO

It’s funny that the administration of Seamen Neck Elementary School – yes, Seamen Neck – was so concerned about my well-being, seeing as how they exhibited little of this concern while I was actually under their care. On an almost daily basis, I was sent to the nurses’ office following an incident with one Gianni Giancoli. How the in-school beatings of a very small girl by a rather prematurely large boy were allowed to continue, I’ll never know. If it’s true that such violent behavior is an expression of a young boy’s affection, then Gianni must have liked me an awful lot. I would say that there was a huge hole in that theory if it hadn't borne the cliché you always hurt the one you love. Clichés have to be true or they never would’ve gotten that way.

My yen for retaliation was not out of love. For weeks I saved my Flintstones’ vitamins with the grand plan of taking them all in one day, consequently garnering the superhuman-strength to pummel my foe. It worked too. That day, at recess, I straddled Gianni in the schoolyard and flailed at his face, which he fought to block as he cried. Back in the classroom, Mrs. Romanoff cheered my name, along with the other students who surrounded us.

I think this may have been a dream. If it were reality, I’m fairly certain I’d not have seen my teacher cheering from her desk. It was pretty vivid though, and I derive pride from it nonetheless. Meanwhile, in reality, my head was being slammed so hard into our wooden cubbies that my mom said I was coming home with eggs on my head. The last of these lumps was so Grade-A large that my mother finally called Gianni’s parents.

After his torture was exposed, Gianni would give me money instead of contusions. I’m not sure where he got the payoff cash, though the Giancolis clearly had a bit of money. Theirs was the glowing, animatronic-laden house people drove for miles to see around Christmas time. When mom found the cash, she - knowing I hadn’t an after-kindergarten job - made me return it. I resented this, thinking the money only fair restitution for my pain and suffering. Were we litigious, I could have gotten a lot more. People didn’t do stuff like that then, suing for every little thing. We weren’t that kind of family, anyway, however I might have wished we were.

Resentment was already making a strong showing in my ever-so-young palate of newfound emotions. As crayon drawings of our families were returned to us I noticed that John Fozzio, who resided across the way from me in class as he did on Sylvia Lane, had a gold star on his paper precisely like the one I had, despite the fact that his drawing was clearly inferior to my own. I brought them both to Mrs. Romanoff and pointed out the discrepancy of product in relation to the similarity of reward. She explained to me that my drawing was good for what I could do and John’s was good for his apparently diminished capabilities. After all the kid had been born with an extra finger and, lest you think young lisping John a miracle, you should know that the finger betwixt his thumb and pointer was as useless as it was boneless, and was more likely a result of his loud, scary mother’s chain smoking than any marvel of evolution.

I was not yet prepared to accept our society’s glorification of mediocrity and balked against the communist line of the classroom, reasoning that if something is better it deserves corresponding praise. She called my mother to remark how strange it was that I’d done such a thing. Though my mother understood my motivation, Mrs. Romanoff thought my question highly unusual and deserving of some sort of reprimand. Maybe that’s why she let me get beat up so much, to take me down a notch.

I know it’s gross, but I always thought that I was special. Different. I was a natural leader - or more likely, bossy - but only because I was sure that my ideas were better. I never pointed this out to friends, I simply enforced my will. Playtime at my house meant improvisational games, playwriting, poetry and architecture. Yes, architecture. We would draw our dream homes, 6-story behemoths with amusement parks on the top floor. Not likely to be structurally sound, but something to work toward, nonetheless. We would also plan our dream weddings.

My love for all things penis-bearing reared its head early on. I chased Lyle Caruthers around the classroom and declared him my boyfriend. If only men remained forever that easy. Actually, come to think of it, in that year’s class picture he is leaning rather precipitously toward this cute blonde. I guess I should’ve paid closer attention to her moving in on my toddler turf.

Oh-so-sadly, she of the flaxen locks moved by the end of the year - and not a lick too soon either as she had been cast as the lead in the kindergarten play. See, my performance yen was also in full effect by this time. I’m sure it had nothing to do with needing attention. No, I had something to communicate! I was thusly called upon to tackle a dual role in Millions of Cats, a lovely tale in which the eponymous felines present themselves to a prospective master and, in their competition, wind up clawing each other to death, leaving only the loneliest little kitten. 

That’s a pretty dark show for kindergarten, and it thusly appealed to my sensibilities. So, I got to be a Siamese cat (which were totally my favorite) as well as the loneliest little kitten, the one who is eventually adopted due to an apparent pacifism that kept him out of the fray. I have no idea if I pitched a fit to have these roles bestowed upon me or whether they just were.

My mom always makes a big deal out of the fact that I got to name the gerbils in first grade. Had I been assigned the task or had I just adamantly rejected the other options and asserted the superiority of the names I had chosen? I think the latter is possible. My sister got a Yorkshire terrier at about this time and I stewed that the name Samantha was chosen. That was no kind of DOG’S name. Not to be out-gifted, the dog doling resulted in me getting gerbils of my own, progeny of the class rodents. Being white and brown, I named them Sugar & Cupcake, not exactly boundary-breaking in terms of childhood pet names.

Anyway, Lyle and I remained an item, though by the following year he had grown prematurely awkward. I moved on, but not before baring my pointless little body to him after a swim in the pool one day. For some reason I had coerced his little sister to join me in the flashing. This is more disturbing in retrospect. I had a bit of an exhibitionist streak going. Following a shower one day at home, I stood naked on the window ledge of my room facing the street. I implore any psych majors to offer their hypotheses in this regard.

Carrie and I were kind of over-sexualized. Mom used to tell us salty jokes early on, and her and my sister both would make fun of my tiny little behind.

Once they burst through the unlocked bathroom door and took pictures of me in the shower that came out as all crouching body and big, wet, shocked head. Pictures like that coming through a Fotomat would put child protective services on high alert nowadays. Do parents still take naked pictures of their children? They did seem to take it pretty seriously at summer camp when I tried to pull the same shit on a whiny little camper girl in the locker room. The shocked and dismayed administration took my film and called my mother to come and pick me up. She couldn’t very well yell at me considering she was the one from whom I’d learned the technique.

But back to first grade, where a new enemy was born in the pale and paunchy person of Aaron Lubble. He competed with me at every opportunity. He probably imagined he had thought up better gerbil names, and was likely real pissed when I was given the titular role in the Mrs. Malinski production of the Little Red Hen. C’mon, I had experience! Okay, I was to share the role with Dana Strong, but I did get to take the reins entirely when she puked at dress rehearsal.

Things with Aaron came to a head later in the year when I started a class newspaper. I told you that I was annoying. As editor-in-chief and head reporter, I was dealt the unfortunate card of having to let Aaron go following creative differences. Something concerning the masthead, I believe.

He immediately started his own publication and we devolved to sadly sexually segregated staffs. Though neither of us was ever official enough to say, go to print, Aaron and I each had badges proclaiming our multitudinous titles taped to the corners of our desks. Each day, the two of us became more and more multi-hyphenate, attempting to best each other with the scope of our respective positions. By the time my placard proclaimed involvement in every aspect of publishing that I could fathom, it was half past the boiling point and Aaron, en route from the bathroom, ripped from my desk the symbol of my leadership. I sprung from my chair and removed his as well. A fairly weak retaliatory gesture I grant you, but I saw no reason to escalate at this point, not that I would’ve known how to do so.

A chase ensued and I ended up with my back bent over the radiator, my shoulders being pushed down by Aaron. I have no idea where Mrs. Malinski was, I saw only fury. I charged at my attacker, driving him across the room. Near the blackboard, my nauseous new compatriot Dana grabbed and held him fast. She was a big girl. I sunk my teeth into the porcine flesh of his right upper arm and he squealed, as could be expected. I was a rabid beast. I was snarling. I drew blood.

Although a discussion was had with the principal, the reprimand ended there. I had gotten away with it. I maintain that the powers that be had decided Aaron deserved the wound he received and that, myself blameless, no parental intervention was required. I breathed the heaviest sigh of