This reminds me of when my grandmother, uncle, great-uncle, and great-aunt all lived together in a house only 3 blocks up from where I grew up. For a long time, theirs was the only house on the block, and the block behind them was completely empty. Anyway, these were all relatives from my dad's side of the family, the uncle being my dad's mentally-impaired brother who was already about 40 even then. I remember going over when I was 3 and 4 to watch game shows at their place, and it didn't seem terrible then. Her house was just where I went to watch Press Your Luck reruns. However, the more I visited, the more I remember how terrible their place was.
My uncle had the front of the house, a former porch converted to a spare bedroom that you had to walk through to get to the rest of the house. He had his own TV in there and a scattering of kids' books, plus a poster of a DeLorean. He had really bad eczema, and more than once I saw parts of his body covered in duct tape to keep him from scratching. Somehow, he'd gotten employed by a local dry cleaners for a time. He kind of looked like Cledus T. Judd did early in his career. My great-uncle was severely mentally impaired and had really bad teeth. Pretty much the only thing he could say coherently was "Dumb Polack!", and he otherwise just made a sharp sucking noise with his mouth. He, great-aunt, and grandma shared a back bedroom that I never ventured into.
They only ever ate junk. I remember they had an affinity for Pizza Rolls (which I shared until I realized the horrifying shit that goes into them -- "pepperoni flavored meat topping" anyone?) and fast food. Both my grandmother and great-aunt loved McDonald's food, but they preferred Pepsi to Coke, so they'd get their Quarter Pounders or Big Macs and fries at McDonald's, then go next door to Arby's (which is no longer there) for their Pepsi. Sometimes they were too lazy for even that, so they just had roast beef and curly fries.
In relation to the above, all of them were very overweight and sedentary, with no muscle tone at all. Grandma in particular had epic bingo wings. I would bet anything that grandma and great-aunt both had the diabeetus like dad does, given their affinity for saccharine in their coffee, but at least dad, lazy as he is, treats it. They were slobs par excellence as well. I remember seeing empty half and half packets, discarded fast food bags, dried up Papermate "ultra fine flair" pens (the only kind they used) etc. all over their floor every time. One time, I went to use their bathroom and found a dried-up bell pepper on the floor.
Great-aunt apparently had some degree of aphasia, as she was constantly asking for "whatchacallit"s. She also referred to local businesses by unusual names; for instance, she would refer to Jim's, a supermarket that closed when I was 4, by Jim's last name instead, even though no one called it that. She also referred to the Ace Hardware in town by the owners' names, although to be fair, they DID have their names on a sign on the front even if everyone else just called it Ace Hardware. Great-aunt shat herself at least once in my presence; surprisingly, I don't remember any foul smell, just her shouting "OH, CHRIST!" and going to take care of it.
Both great-aunt and grandma died around the same time. I was in 6th grade, and Dad pulled up to the school in Grandma's old Buick Park Avenue and took me to the funeral in the middle of class. I think great-uncle died around the same time with less fanfare (or maybe someone else had gotten custody of him first), and uncle went into a foster home. Dad later went to clean their house and we ordered a pizza. I think it was the last time I had pizza from that particular place (which I still think was the best pizza ever) before they burned down and rebuilt. It just wasn't the same after the rebuild, and the owner promptly sold to someone else.
Grandma's house did manage to find another owner, who cleaned it up and made it look presentable. But they didn't last long either, and pretty much the whole neighborhood is dead by now (in many cases, literally; the town has always skewed elderly, and I swear it's just getting sadder and sadder as no new blood is entering to replace the increasingly dying populace).
I have only one great-uncle left on that side of the family. He lives on the main highway into town. In 1984, they built a Kmart next to his house, and a few years later, they wanted to make the store bigger, so they asked to buy his property. He refused, and as a result, the store sits awkwardly on an L-shaped lot, half the store jutting out behind his backyard.
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As for dad, he and mom divorced when I was 4. Dad lived in a motel north of town which later burned down, then an apartment in the next town to the south, then a trailer in that town. There, he married my stepmom, who worked at the hospital. Not long after I finished 6th grade, they and the trailer moved to Grand Rapids. That's over 4 hours away, so I didn't get to see him much. However, I was entering puberty, so I did enjoy raiding his porn mags, much to my stepmom's chagrin. Their neighborhood also had an ice cream truck, the first I'd encountered since the Good Humor man stopped hitting my neighborhood when I was 5 or so. By this point, dad was working as a truck driver, and when I came to visit, he often took me on the road with him, which I enjoyed.
Around the time I was 14, dad and stepmom split up, and from what I can figure, she's still there. I remember coming down to see a barren trailer with only a couch, TV, and fridge (and the porn), plus the stereo and computer (a beat-up Performa that was old even then, but had enough power to run some games I liked) I'd brought with me. That whole time, we had nothing but Coke and Hot Pockets, with the occasional fast food.
The next time I visited him, he'd moved to a small town north of Grand Rapids and was living with some random lady and her pregnant teenage daughter. Somehow, he'd also regained custody of my uncle/his brother at this point, although that didn't last long. I slept one night on an air mattress next to my uncle in this roach infested (!) trailer, drinking Pepsi Twist like it was going out of style, before I'd decided enough was enough and asked to go back home. He didn't last long there, and I barely heard from him for the next decade. Apparently he spent almost all this time driving trucks, only quitting when his shoulder injury flared up too badly for him to continue.
He'd still call me on my cell though, and we'd talk about what he was doing. From what I could tell, he was either living in various people's houses or a crappy Chevy van he'd bought, having barely enough on disability to get smokes and diabeetus supplies before he pissed away the rest. Imagine my surprise July 2014 when he shows up unnanounced in my driveway! I was about 75% done moving to the next town 15 miles south, aka the last town he lived in before moving to Grand Rapids. So he'd frequently come over and we'd go out to eat, or just shoot the shit in his van. Again, he'd found a couple places to crash, including the homeless shelter for a time, but he kept up his habit of using people until they tired of him. I actually met one of the people he was bumming off at Goodwill once. He's also spent some time in the hospital after having two heart attacks (one of which caused him to collapse in the bathroom and bruise his spine) and hypocalcemia (low calcium). Truth is, he's never taken care of his body very well; my mom said that he barely had any teeth even when she first started dating him.
As of this writing, he's living out of a no-tell motel in the town I live in now, eating mac & cheese or pizza and drinking Diet Dr Pepper by the case. Mostly he just texts me with random shit. The thing is, my dad isn't a terrible person: he seems to be at least average intelligence and he has a good sense of humor, but he's incredibly lazy and likes to pass the buck. I cringe whenever I see lazy, slovenly side come out (which is way too damn often; I still throw shit on the floor now and then), fearing that my dad's genes are taking over. But then some better side of me takes over again.