What Was in That Batter?

Every year on the Saturday before Labor Day I ended my vacation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore with a trip to the West Ocean City Flap Jackery and treated myself to a heaping platter of Delmarva pancakes.

This time, though, my annual journey would lift me into a world I could never have anticipated in a decade of breakfast dining on the ocean.

As I took my first bite I found myself lifted out of the tiny cafe and transported across hundreds of miles of space and back in time to my parents’ middle class home in Elizabeth, New Jersey in the 1960s.

“Crash” came the sound of all the plates on the breakfast table tumbling to the floor followed by a bloodcurdling scream from my cousin, Carey Stupolski, a guest in the home of my parents, Stan and Martine Fizurski.

Carey had joined us at a number of meals in the last three weeks because she and her family had fled their apartment in our city’s lower class projects after witnessing several violent confrontations between her parents.

As my cousin explained it, “I sat eating a plate of Uncle Stan’s delicious pancakes and reached for a glass of orange juice. All of a sudden I found myself tossed off my chair into mid-air with most of the dishes falling on top of me, in a perfect line, as I landed on the floor.”

Luckily, Carey escaped with nothing more than a scare and a bruised ego and the serving plates and glassware from the Fizurski home escaped with few breakages.

The breakfast incident, though, capped off a traumatic number of months that had brought sadness and concern, both for my cousin and that of her mother Marcia and sister Penelope.

Their father, Jason Stupolski, had gone from a hardworking father and husband to a destructive alcoholic with dangerous schizophrenic tendencies.

The family got a much closer glimpse into the dismal future they faced the previous Thursday. While walking to school with her cousins, Carey narrowly escaped injury when her father attempted to abduct her and nearly ran her over with the junkyard reject car that provided his current mode of transportation.

Jason also narrowly missed the traffic officer on duty, which yielded him a stern 10-minute lecture and a warning, “Good for you I am in a good mood,” the policeman said, “otherwise I would, at the very least, issue you a summons and possibly land your ass in jail. Drive carefully from here on out and don’t you dare endanger anyone else’s life or you’ll be wearing a striped suit for a long time.”

Not that he hadn’t come close to putting the life of a family member in danger. Two weeks before, Marcia had thrown Jason out of their home after another one of their raucous and boisterous fights.

The following week, after his wife had notified him of their impending divorce, he had broken into the apartment and attempted to physically assault her.

Luckily my dad, visiting with our family at the time, had forcibly escorted Jason from the premises.

Back to the fateful morning of the falling plates:

Turns out the bizarre incident had capped off a series of strange happenings in our home and that of my aunt and my cousins.

A few weeks prior as my mom began preparing a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, the oven door on our stove popped open for no apparent reason. We thought something caused the turkey to come back to life and seek revenge for becoming our main course.

Another time, our television screen turned purple before the TV stopped working, but it suddenly came back to normal within a few minutes.

Just as the family started to recover from the latest shock the kitchen door flew open and in walked a very large man—about eight feet tall—with strange-looking skin that had almost a bluish tint,

The creature said. “I am from the planet Turkon. We have had your earth under observation for about six months. Our scientists believe Turkon received an unusual blast of energy from your sun because an explosion from a meteorite pushed our planet closer to the sun. Our planet’s experts predict that this will cause Turkon to overheat and explode, killing all Turkonian inhabitants.

“We witnessed the domestic warfare taking place in your relatives’ home. We devised the other incidents to further distract you and make it easier for us to take over your earth. After that, we planned to create distractions at other places around your planet. This would allow us to make it our new homebase to replace Turkon before it burns out of existence. Rather than engaging in warfare with your civilization we decided to scare your people into leaving earth to us.”

Just as suddenly as he had appeared the Turkonian vanished into thin air.

Almost immediately, another stranger knocked on the kitchen door.

He said, “I am Col. Sandford Jones of Homeland Security. We saw the meteorite explosion and monitored the Turkonians as they watched the earth. We listened in on their meetings and waited for the radicals on Turkon to make their move. We then captured some members of the Turkonian faction bent on taking over. Fortunately, while observing their planet we discovered a more moderate and reasonable faction. We will work with them to save their planet without having them take over ours.”

Earth survived the threat, and so did the Stipolski and Fizurski families. Soon after the incident the family court finalized Marcia’s divorce and the family counseling service had Jason committed to a mental health facility, where he died three years later.

Marcia trained in bookkeeping and got a great job with a local accounting firm. She and her two daughters moved to a new home in a better section of town.

Within an instant my traumatic excursion into the past ended. I saw a big cloud of smoke and found myself transported back to my table at the West Ocean City Breakfast Club.