- Joined
- Apr 2, 2016
I'm still 400 pages behind, and probably will be until Nick goes to prison or crashes his car into his church in a final pyrotechnical display of adolescent ODD.
But I wanna go back about five years ago, when a Farmer researched Ron Toye's divorce records and discovered that Ron had been abusive to his first wife, threatening to kill her animals and hitting her with a television remote. Nick, upon hearing this, affected a solemn demeanor. He silently poured himself a glass of whiskey, and then, with the most concerned expression, told Monica Rial, Ron's then-fiancee, that if Ron had done anything to her ever, he would help her however he could. He would get her out of there if she was being harmed, that he had represented desperate women scared of their partners before and hated the idea that she could potentially be in danger.
That scene has played over in my mind reading all of this. The absolute sociopathy of this man... Able to put on that mask of stalwart, masculine concern without a missing a beat while living such a gross life himself.
And maybe shit was a lot better in the Rekieta household at the time, but I doubt it. The first time I saw Kayla on Nick's show she was crying because she had made the baby sick by feeding her an old bottle that was on the kitchen counter instead of a fresh bottle and Nick had taken over cleaning up all the puke because she just couldn't handle it and felt like a bad mother. She also spoke about her psych meds, which by her demeanor on the show pointed at benzos. During that time Nick was drinking often enough on his show that people gave him good natured ribbing about it. House was already in such obvious disarray that they made an infant sick and Kayla was clearly already a shambles. (And the kid they made sick was the one who held the police officer's hand when she left the house and asked if the policeman could get her some clean clothes.)
The ability to put on a display like that is chilling. I bought it at the time. But Nick and Kayla had been showing us who they were all along and they were way worse than anything Ron Toye, an asshole if there ever was one, brought to the table. Ron threatened to kill a dog. Nick blithely kills animals, even torturing them when it suits him. Ron hit a woman with a remote. Nick has knock-down, drag-out fights several times a day with his daft, disaster of a wife and she throws things at him and hits her target well-enough that she may leave bruises. They can barely manage to keep their kids clean and fed even when Nick isn't snorting whatever the fuck unidentified brown substance he can get his nose into. Nick was who he was when he put on his mask of concern for Monica years ago. Had he managed to stave off his drug habit for a bit longer, who knows how long it would have taken his mask to slip.
And then you read the warrant affidavit, remember all the breadcrumbs of dysfunction Kayla and Nick dropped along the way, and realize those kids have been suffering for a long time, much longer than their parents' current addiction arc. Imagine ballwashing and nose-wiping a zoosadist and his violent slattern of a wife (RIP CRP).
But I wanna go back about five years ago, when a Farmer researched Ron Toye's divorce records and discovered that Ron had been abusive to his first wife, threatening to kill her animals and hitting her with a television remote. Nick, upon hearing this, affected a solemn demeanor. He silently poured himself a glass of whiskey, and then, with the most concerned expression, told Monica Rial, Ron's then-fiancee, that if Ron had done anything to her ever, he would help her however he could. He would get her out of there if she was being harmed, that he had represented desperate women scared of their partners before and hated the idea that she could potentially be in danger.
That scene has played over in my mind reading all of this. The absolute sociopathy of this man... Able to put on that mask of stalwart, masculine concern without a missing a beat while living such a gross life himself.
And maybe shit was a lot better in the Rekieta household at the time, but I doubt it. The first time I saw Kayla on Nick's show she was crying because she had made the baby sick by feeding her an old bottle that was on the kitchen counter instead of a fresh bottle and Nick had taken over cleaning up all the puke because she just couldn't handle it and felt like a bad mother. She also spoke about her psych meds, which by her demeanor on the show pointed at benzos. During that time Nick was drinking often enough on his show that people gave him good natured ribbing about it. House was already in such obvious disarray that they made an infant sick and Kayla was clearly already a shambles. (And the kid they made sick was the one who held the police officer's hand when she left the house and asked if the policeman could get her some clean clothes.)
The ability to put on a display like that is chilling. I bought it at the time. But Nick and Kayla had been showing us who they were all along and they were way worse than anything Ron Toye, an asshole if there ever was one, brought to the table. Ron threatened to kill a dog. Nick blithely kills animals, even torturing them when it suits him. Ron hit a woman with a remote. Nick has knock-down, drag-out fights several times a day with his daft, disaster of a wife and she throws things at him and hits her target well-enough that she may leave bruises. They can barely manage to keep their kids clean and fed even when Nick isn't snorting whatever the fuck unidentified brown substance he can get his nose into. Nick was who he was when he put on his mask of concern for Monica years ago. Had he managed to stave off his drug habit for a bit longer, who knows how long it would have taken his mask to slip.
And then you read the warrant affidavit, remember all the breadcrumbs of dysfunction Kayla and Nick dropped along the way, and realize those kids have been suffering for a long time, much longer than their parents' current addiction arc. Imagine ballwashing and nose-wiping a zoosadist and his violent slattern of a wife (RIP CRP).
