The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss Read Online Free PDF

the Kemp sisters to be taken out of circulation. In 1941, Joe Abseck moved to Ogden, Utah to work as aircraft inspector at Hill Field, now Hill Air Force Base; Mayme stayed on at the coal company. Their two daughters, identical twins, were born in September that year. Mayme and the girls joined Joe in Ogden in 1944; after the war they all returned to Paonia—and stayed there.
    The trick was how to make a living in the rather narrow local economy. Joe and George, his younger brother, decided to start an electrical appliance and repair business. When my parents made their fateful stop, the Absecks urged my father to become their partner. The new venture made sense: construction was booming across the country as a wave of enlisted men returned, all looking to forget the war, settle down, build a house, have a family, and live the American Dream. For my parents, the prospect of a “normal” life in a quiet little Colorado town must have won out over the lure of big-city excitement on the coast. My father signed on.
    Thus marked the founding of A&M Electric (as in Abseck and McKenna), the name under which the business thrived until it was sold decades later. My father, however, afflicted by perpetual restlessness, was by then long gone. After a few years at A&M, he cashed out and began working for a Denver company, Central Electric Supply, as a sales rep in western Colorado and northern New Mexico. His position at Central Electric, a mid-sized firm managed by a Jewish family, proved a better fit; he worked there until his retirement in 1972. It was the kind of job you could expect in those days, but not anymore—lifetime employment, modest but livable salary, a good pension. He was on the road every Monday, beyond the reach of the home office, and spent each weekend in Paonia with the love of his life. Mom spoiled him outrageously; there was a chocolate cake waiting for him every Friday, and steak and baked potatoes for dinner every Saturday. It was a point of pride with Dad that he could afford steak once a week, and indeed times were good back then on his $20,000 a year.
    The good thing about the new job was that it didn’t tie him to a desk. Being in constant motion appealed to our father, though it may have had adverse consequences for the rest of us, given his five-day absence every week. After a few years, he got a small plane and covered his territory by air. This allowed him to be home more. The plane also transformed one of the major stresses of his job, driving the mountain passes under treacherous conditions, to one of the major pleasures of his life, flying the mountain passes under treacherous conditions. He didn’t mind that at all; in fact, I believe it was one of the few times when he really felt free.
    Being a weekend father probably made putting up with his sons more tolerable, at least for him. In later years, as we began pushing back against parental constraints, his absence undoubtedly changed the family dynamic in profound ways. His traveling was probably healthy for our parents’ marriage, however, in that it kept them from ever tiring of each other. If “Terry and Denny” had never happened along, it might have been a perfect marriage.
    There is little doubt that our presence threw a wrench into their idyllic fifties fairy tale. Elder relatives have told me that kids were never part of the plan, or at least not part of our father’s. Our mother might have had other ideas and “pulled a fast one,” as one relative suggested, by getting pregnant with Terence. After that, another fast one was almost inevitable, and four years later that led to me. Whether I was an accident or deliberately foisted on my unsuspecting father, I’m grateful for the outcome.
     
     
    Until her death in early 2012 at age ninety-seven, Aunt Mayme was the beloved matriarch of an enormous and tight-knit brood of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren, all of whom can be traced back to her and her