My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem (10 page)

“Son, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it,” I said. He hung up on me.

Now I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. It was like a bad dream. I was crying for Ronnie, and I was crying for what I had just said to Marshall.

I have apologized to Marshall so many times for saying I wished he were dead instead of Ronnie. Of course I didn’t mean it. But Marshall refused even to discuss the subject. His feelings came out ten years later on “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” when he used my words against me and said that I was now dead to him. I can’t listen to it without sobbing. I am so sorry I said that. It’s something I will regret to my dying day.

After Ronnie’s death, Marshall fell into a deep depression. He’s since said he was struck dumb for three days afterwards and considered killing himself as he listened to the tapes they’d made together. He locked himself away, writing. References to Ronnie are scattered throughout my son’s songs, including his chart-topping single “Stan.” He also part-dedicated
The Marshall Mathers LP
to his memory.

I wrote down my feelings, too. Letters to Marshall, poems penned in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep for grief. The year after Ronnie died was a dark time for us all.

Todd remained in jail. It took a year for his case to go to trial. We all assumed he’d get off. He’d killed a crazy guy threatening to rape and murder his kids. Any father would have done the same. I spent hours with Todd and his lawyers going through the evidence.

Mike Harris had been the local nut in their life and a menace to the police department. He had come at me glassy-eyed with a knife when I was pregnant. Todd had met Janice, the woman who was to become his second wife and the mother of his youngest sons, Korey and Bobby. Mike Harris was her brother.

Harris was insanely jealous of Todd. He shot out the windows of Todd’s house, he fired at his white German shepherd dog, and he put sugar in the gas tank of the antique truck Todd was restoring, destroying the engine. When Todd took the kids fishing, Harris appeared from nowhere and threw his angling gear into the lake.

Todd did everything to avoid Harris, but the man just would not let up. Todd’s marriage was in trouble, too. Janice had become close to my father, Bob Nelson. Who knows what was happening there? When her second son was born, she called him Bobby Ray Nelson, in honor of my long-absent dad. Todd told me all this on a visit to Michigan; then he flew back to Missouri.

Janice picked him up at the airport. He was exhausted and hungry and hadn’t slept on the flight. Todd had baby Bobby with him, and while Janice popped into the grocery store, he stayed in the car to mind the baby and three-year-old Korey.

Harris appeared from nowhere, shouting, “I’m going to rape the little bastard on the back seat.” He tried to yank the car door open. Todd shouted at him to go away. He was rummaging in the glove compartment for the spare car keys when he found an antique gun belonging to Janice. He waved it at Harris, who fled.

A few minutes later, Harris reappeared with a sawn-off shotgun. He shouted, “I’m going to kill the kids! He concealed the gun in a paper bag in his exwife’s car, which was blocking Todd in, ran back toward Todd’s car, and tried to open the door to get to the boys.

Terrified, Todd cracked. He grabbed the rusty old .38, jumped out of the car, and just fired and fired. Harris tried to karate-kick him, spinning around, grunting death threats. A bullet caught him in the back of his shoulder blade.

Janice emerged from the store. Todd asked her to drive him to the police station. He walked inside, shocked and pale and nauseous, and handed over the gun. Ballistics experts said Harris was running away when he was hit by the bullet.

Todd’s first lawyer suggested he plead temporary insanity but Todd refused. He knew he was innocent. I agreed. But he was charged with manslaughter and gun possession, and denied bail. Todd rightly insisted on a trial. He was not guilty.

I wasn’t allowed inside court, because I had a history with Harris. The defense wanted to call me to tell the jury what had happened when I was pregnant with Nathan. I spent the entire two weeks sitting outside the court. In the end I wasn’t needed and was allowed inside for the final day. Todd was found guilty and sentenced to eight years—five for manslaughter and three for the gun offense.

It didn’t matter how many times I banned Kim from the house; she always returned. She’d flounce through the door, give me the finger, and say to Marshall, “You have a choice—me or your mom.”

Not even Marshall’s friends could understand the hold she had over him. I once asked him, “What is it about her? She can’t be that good.”

He just shrugged and said, “She’s my girl, you’re my mom. I’m in the middle.”

He said he felt as if he were in the midst of a tug of war. I felt the same, except it was Kim in the middle, pushing Marshall and me apart. She drove me crazy, breaking my ornaments, taking my stuff, calling the protective services. She was horrible to Nathan, too. She simply referred to him as “the little bastard”—but only when Marshall wasn’t in earshot.

When a live tarantula arrived in the mail addressed to me, I called the cops. I was constantly on edge. This wasn’t helped by some neighbors’ kids who were constantly jumping on Nathan when he’d go out to play.

Nathan, who was six, was friends with some children who lived just up the road on Dresden. They came over crying, saying their mother was drunk and had hurt them. Nathan hung his head. One of the kids said, “Mama hurt him too.”

I drove over to the woman’s house with Marshall and Kim to confront her. She was ex-military, twice my size, and walked like a man. She flicked a lit cigarette into my hair. I grabbed hold of her and pinned her against a tree. I was like dynamite. I’d have pummeled her into the ground if Marshall hadn’t pulled me off her. Even I couldn’t believe I’d floored a military woman twice my size. I’m not violent—I’d never had a fight before—but I’m a tiger when it comes to kids. No one hurts them.

The police questioned us both. I told them what the woman had done. The family split the next day; they just packed up and left. Then someone firebombed their house. The detectives quizzed me. I knew nothing about it, but it was time to move.

I couldn’t sell the house. The area was going downhill.

Most people were moving out, as renters were moving in. I rented it to a couple who seemed nice and put down a deposit on a cute place I’d found in Saint Clair Shores, thirteen miles from downtown Detroit. Until 1951, when it became a city in its own right, it was known as the largest village in the United States. The punk singer Patti Smith raised her family in Saint Clair, although by the time we moved there it had seen better days.

Marshall got a $5.50-an-hour job at Gilbert’s Lodge restaurant with his old school friend Mike Ruby. When they weren’t working, they were making music. Marshall was M&M; Mike called himself Manix. I thought they were great and did my best to keep their spirits up when the Detroit rap scene thought otherwise. Kim didn’t help his confidence—she constantly derided him for being “nothing but a hamburger flipper.”

Not that Kim worked much. She wanted to be a model—she was certainly tall enough—but she didn’t seem prepared to work at it. She got jobs here and there, including a brief stint cooking pizzas alongside Marshall at another place, Little Caesars, but they rarely lasted long. Marshall was still trying to prove himself to Kim’s mother and stepfather, but time and again he came home upset because they’d called him “Mr. Smart Ass” and refused to let him in the house. I did my best to keep his spirits up. I still mothered him, sorting out his car insurance and money problems. When my bills were overdue I kept it to myself—I didn’t want him to worry. Even when the couple who rented our old house on Dresden stopped paying, I kept quiet. I struggled to pay for both places and continued to pander to Marshall’s needs.

He was always overspending. I blame myself for not teaching him how to balance his bank account. I just didn’t want him to worry about such minor things. I lent him money when he needed it, and once I cashed his $141.30 paycheck. I gave him $150 in return. Two days later, Marshall asked me for his check back. He’d spent the money and needed more. I explained I’d cashed it for him. He accused me of stealing it. It didn’t matter how many times I explained to him that I’d given him the money already, he could and would not understand it.

“You fucking bitch, you stole my check!” he shouted as he stormed out of the house.

Kim followed, saying, “She took your money,” and uttering other garbage as they left.

That one instance was turned against me in 1999 when he gave interviews saying I ordered him to get a job, took his wages off of him, and then threw him out of the house. This, he claimed, I did on numerous occasions. I should have defended myself at the time.

Marshall tried living on his own a few times; it was never long before he returned home. Kim found a house in a rough area of Detroit, apparently getting her mom to cosign. Marshall followed her. It was there that she claimed someone was regularly breaking in and stealing things.

Our house was strangely quiet. I hadn’t seen Kim in weeks. Finally, I asked Marshall where she was.

“We’ve split up,” he said glumly.

I tried not to look too pleased. They were forever breaking up but usually got back together within a few days.

“Do you want to talk about it, son?” I asked.

He shook his head and I decided to leave well enough alone. A few weeks later he introduced me to Amy, one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met. She worked with Marshall at Gilbert’s Lodge and appeared to be absolutely smitten with my son.

The moment Kim heard Marshall had a girlfriend, she got on the phone. She claimed her new boyfriend had smashed her car windows; she needed Marshall’s help.

There was always a drama. Kim called our house constantly. She also rang him at the restaurant. Marshall said she often pretended to be me, conning his coworkers into putting her through.

I thought Marshall had finally seen through Kim, that he was over her and happy with Amy. Then Kim dropped the bombshell that was to change Marshall’s life forever. She was pregnant. My initial reaction was that Marshall couldn’t possibly be the father—he hadn’t seen Kim in weeks and was happy with Amy. Marshall said he could be the father—it transpired he had been seeing Kim again. He dumped Amy. Chaos reigned once more.

On October 17, 1995, Marshall’s twenty-third birthday, Kim brought home a bundle of newborn puppies and let them run loose in the bedroom.

I asked what she was doing with them. She just laughed.

“No, Kim!” I shouted.

But she kept on laughing. I gathered the dogs back up, put them into a cardboard box, and ordered her to go to her parents’ home to drop off the puppies and then to come back. Marshall was working at Gilbert’s Lodge, but she phoned him to say she’d been kicked out and forced to go to a rat-infested motel—all untrue. Two hours later, Marshall came storming in through the door like a madman.

He started to hit me with his fists. Kim had wound him up with her lies about me throwing her out. As he hit and kicked me over and over, Nathan cowered, crying underneath his blanket. I screamed for mercy, for him to stop.

“Bitch, you want to call 911?” Marshall yelled.

He picked up the phone, dialed the dispatcher, and then hung up. Then he really went for me. He grabbed one of the weights he’d been using to bulk up his arm muscles and held it over me.

“Help me God, I will kill you,” he snarled.

At that moment three police officers walked through the door. They’d traced the 911 call. They cuffed him and he was taken off to jail. It was his birthday that day. I begged them only to have him leave, as he needed a cool-down period. He was released the next morning. I refused to press charges. I insisted there wasn’t a mark on me. There were plenty, but I could hide them as they were under my clothes.

Now Marshall swears to this day that he cannot remember attacking me. But he had shoved me a few times when he was a teenager, once breaking my finger. He didn’t mean to do that; it was an accident. This time he really had hurt me. Yet still I made excuses for him. His blinding temper tantrums started after he had been bullied by DeAngelo Bailey. He was like his father; he didn’t know what he was doing.

In court, the judge warned Marshall he could get three to five years in jail. I lied when I spoke to the judge. There was no way I was going to lose my son. I told the judge that we’d just buried Ronnie, even though that was almost four years before. I said he was terribly upset over Ronnie’s death and that he was under a tremendous amount of stress. I kept on apologizing for his behavior.

Marshall wouldn’t look at me. He hung his head when the judge addressed him.

“I’m talking to you,” the judge said. “You could go away for three to five years. You need to apologize.”

“I’m sorry,” Marshall muttered sullenly.

“Look at your mother,” the judge said.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Marshall said.

The judge told him he was free to go as long as he agreed to go to counseling. Without my evidence there was no case. Outside court, Marshall and I hugged. I hoped we could put that awful moment behind us.

Once again Kim moved back in with her family. Marshall vowed they were over for good.

The baby was due on my forty-first birthday, but Kim went into labor early. She got a friend to phone afterwards.

Marshall grabbed his coat. He couldn’t wait to see the baby.

I told him, “You guys have been broken up for a while. Don’t get back with her just because of the baby. Don’t let Kim use the baby to soften you up.”

He came home from the hospital several hours later with a massive grin on his face.

“That’s my baby,” he said. “She looks just like me, Mom.”

Kim refused to put his name on the birth certificate. She said it was because she didn’t have a father’s name on her certificate when she was born twenty years earlier, so why should Hailie? It seemed cruel and made no sense, but that was Kim all over.