When Roberta's mother first found out the Roberta was on drugs she flipped out. Barry states, "the cords of her neck were sticking out extremely and she had to restrained by others to keep from killing the author" (4). This type of parenting would cause any young kid to grow up a little disturbed and disoriented. .
The father was no prize either for he was a butcher who was very aggressive as well. They called him the knife man because of his occupation and because of the murder-spree flight he went on from the Northwest in 1967. The fact that Roberta knows about her father and his past makes everything much more difficult for her. Fortunately for Roberta he was dead as she did not have to deal with him also. If she had to deal with Clyde, her father, then drugs and alcohol might not be the only things that she was getting herself into. .
Roberta's neighbors did not help out the situation either because they were people of who lived a life of poverty as well and also have flaws of their own. The first of her demented neighbors is Old Red. This guy has some major problems with his life and his dying urge to show people what he looks like without any clothes on. Old Red is believed to be a businessman, an executive at Boeing who is very high up in the company, yet he always seems to get these urges to run out in the street and flash the neighborhood. Another neighbor that is would be very disturbing to a little girl is the saggy underwear guy. The saggy underwear guy is a drunk that lives on the same street as Roberta who doesn't seem to ever want to pull up his pants and doesn't care what anyone thinks about him. "I AM what I AM and that is ALL I AM and I AM IT" (6), he said just before he fell over the side rail and landed into a bush. The owner and landlord of all the houses where Roberta lives is Mr. Harmong. She describes him as, "the cheapes chintziest most pig-lipped tightwad skanked-out lardo king landlord of all time" (7).