Life In the Psycho Lane

Are you really that interested?

2012-04-25T13:23:00.001-07:00

Are you really that interested in what is in this blog or are you just trying to figure out who I am?

Christmas 1978

2010-12-08T15:14:00.000-08:00

The baby was just months old. It was cold, bitterly cold. The old house was built in 20 AD. That was an exaggeration. It was old, probably built in the 1950's after the furniture business started booming. It was not uncommon for manufacturing plants to build cheap housing for the influx of labor or as a selling point to those moving for the job.

The house had no insulation and the windows may as well have been open. There was plastic stapled around all the windows in an effort to resist the winter winds. The floors and the walls were uneven like it had been constructed before the invention of the level. The landlord promised that he would insulate the little red house the following spring. For now they would simply dress warmly.

Money was tight. Penelope had been fired from her job as a receptionist when she told them she was pregnant. They did not want some big fat woman sitting at the front desk. Carlos had been going to college and had to quit to find full time employment in order to support his growing family.

He had only been working at this job as a mechanic for a couple of months and the insurance did not go into effect for another thirty days. His wife's pregnancy would not be covered. Penelope went to the Welfare Office and because they had both been unemployed and were now underemployed, they qualified for government assistance. There would be WIC for her and the baby and because it was a small town, the OB doctor that she would have paid for would be her doctor at the free clinic.

Christmas was only three weeks away and there was almost no money for any gifts. They managed to scrape a few dollars together and would buy his family a small gift each and Penelope's family would get a small gift.

Penelope's family had never had much but had always been generous at the holidays so it pained her to not be able to give the way she desired, but the little gifts would have to do. Her family received the gifts with grace and thanks. They knew both her heart and their circumstances.

Carlos' family had always seemed to have enough of everything. They owned a fine home on the other side of town and Penelope always felt that she was not worthy when she went to visit his mother. The little gifts were wrapped and given to each one. You could see the disappointment of each of their faces as they opened their gifts, but they smiled politely and said thank you.

His brother, not so much. He opened the little gift and handed it back to Carlos and said with disdain, "Is that the best you could do? You may as well not done anything!"

Penelope and Carlos left suddenly and vowed to each other that this was the last Christmas that this would happen. It was the last Christmas they gave his brother a gift. Every Christmas, there was a little something for everyone but his brother.

Christmas is supposed to be a time when gifts are given and received in a selfless spirit. But should that not be required of every occasion where a gift might be given or received? Most adults teach their small children the gifts of greed and avarice and wonder why, when they become teenagers, those same children are never satisfied with what they get.

When you celebrate Christmas this year, don't tell your children that a fat man in a red suit is bringing them a truckload of stuff. Tell them the truth so when you tell them the Truth of Jesus of Nazareth, they will know that you tell the truth and they can believe you. Otherwise, the Story of Jesus becomes just that - another story.

Joyless and the Christmas Visit

2010-12-08T08:39:00.000-08:00

Joyless was eager to see his father and for once it seemed as though it was to be a reality. Joyless was only 7 years old and his parents had been divorced for more than a year. Visits to his father were spotty at best. He was supposed to take him every two weeks but it often did not happen. He blamed his mother for his father's lack of attention. He knew his father wanted to be with him. This time he would prove it.

Joyless' mother had often said that his father hated him and did not want to bring him home from the hospital when he was born. That was a horrible thing for a child to hear. Joyless wanted to believe his mother was a liar but this night he was to hear the brutal truth.

His mother and new step-father were going to West Virginia for Christmas and had arranged for Joyless to stay with his father during their trip. At the last minute his father had called and said that Joyless could not come. His new wife's children would be there and he wanted nothing to interfere with his new wife and her plans.

This was not going as planned. Joyless did not believe his mother when she told him and he insisted on being taken to his father's house. The whole trip, Joyless seethed inside, just knowing that his daddy wanted him and would insist that he stay with him for Christmas.

When they got to the house, Joyless and his mother and step-father all went inside while his half-sister waited in the backseat of the car.

"I thought I told you when I called that he couldn't stay." His father made the statement as they stood at the door.

His wife asked them to come in out of the weather and told them to have a seat.

"I want to stay here with you!" Joyless was starting to cry as he spoke. His lip quivered as his voice choked back hot tears.

"You can't stay. We have plans and they don't include you." His father's voice was cold and harsh.

Joyless stormed out of the house and ran to the car. His sister was waiting in the back seat and she pulled him close to her. She tried to comfort him but knew that he was hurting too bad. She knew from her experiences with her own father that whatever had happened in that house would never be forgotten.

Just as the door was shutting behind him, the woman called to Three and handed the boy's suitcase to him and said, "Don't forget his things."

They never even gave him a Christmas present. The harsh reality began to wash over him like a warm evil cloak. He was unwanted by his own father. He told himself that it did not matter. He did not need him either. But the ugly truth was that he needed his father. He needed to know his father loved him. Joyless needed to know that this man who slapped him and called him names loved him. He wanted that more than breath itself.

That moment in time was a turning point for Joyless. It showed him that he would have to survive on his own without his father's love. He had his father's hatred and that would have to do. He would prove to everyone that he could live without love. Somehow he would find a way to get even with everyone.

The Commitment Part 1

2010-11-12T05:45:00.000-08:00

There was no denying that they were in it together. She thought about what had happened and wondered how it had gotten that far.

The diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia was something that would have to be lived with. There she was. The knock at her door was an orderly who matter-of-factly ordered her to the dining room. Her drugged protests went unheeded as he walked to her bedside and proceeded to help her to her feet.

Three steps was all she took. The floor was cold against her cheek and she just did not want to move.

"What the Hell had happened? How did it get this far?" Her thoughts wandered as she felt the orderlies lift her to the bed.

"Tode ya i cudn make it." and she slipped back into that world that only drugs brought into existence.

The stelazine and thorazine were potent by themselves, but together they were unstoppable. The thoughts were still there, but were mushed together like adding chocolate to a white cake mix. After a while it was all just one milky brown color and there was no way to separate anything.

The PG Hospital wing was sterile, but it was still a hospital. Some of it was coming back. The day she committed herself was still hazy, but it was slowly coming back. The drugs must have started wearing off.

Dr. C stopped by her room and reminded her that he did what she had requested. He put her in the hospital and knocked her out. That was little consolation when her every move had the room spinning and thoughts that were so close slipped into the oblivion of drug-induced haze.

And the question remained far into the next day. "What the Hell have I done to myself?"

The Journey Begins

At the ripe old age of 23 she felt trapped and all used up. She had lost her virginity when she was 18. To say that she was naive and uneducated in that area was an understatement. She had only been dating for 2 years and they were kids just like she was. It had been a different time. Saying, "No." to those boys had been easy. It was not that easy when a man was intent upon taking what was not being offered. Afterward, she was simply ashamed and did not know what to do so she did nothing. Everything had always been her fault, so this must have been her fault, too. She had learned to live with it and did not even know it had a name and that name was rape.

Keeping her mother's husband away had been easy because he was afraid of being caught and she just remembered to keep her bedroom door locked at night. Now, this new door had been opened and there was no turning back.

She left home 3 months later because she just knew that everyone could tell that she was different. She had saved $60.00 and packed a suitcase, took a Greyhound bus to the state Capital and tried to make a life.

It was the beginning of a treacherous road filled with horrid choices and the aspect of life-long consequences.

Remembering Shame

2010-11-12T05:40:00.000-08:00

There was no reason to remember how it felt. The darkness descended and it was years before the knowledge would be brought to light. Yet it was always there. Like pigment on skin it refused to leave.

It was sometimes difficult to know when the real world was truly real. I lived on starships that sang and planets where all beings lived in peace. Blurring of the lines between the mundane activities of daily living and that of transporting to new worlds was not uncommon.

But even fantasy worlds have their drawbacks. The problem with having a visual thought process is that as the words come, so do the visions that the words describe. You can say you saw a pansy. I then see the pansy. My mind conjures up the deep purple and the pale white that goes to make up the illusion of a face. I see the deep yellows and can almost smell and touch my vision. There are things that I cannot listen to because of the vivid imagery of my own thought processes, but I can watch them and feel little. I can see the reality without truly experiencing it.

When certain shows are narrated, my desire to quiet their voice is enormous. If they describe a horrific murder, I experience it in my mind and it haunts me for days. On the other hand if I witness something first hand, I know what has happened and have no desire to mentally embellish it.

My life as a child was, how do I say it, interesting? Sexual abuse conjures up the image of a child being penetrated by an adult. I do not recall that particular thing happening to me. But, there are things that happened that I wish I did not have to forget.

My father had just returned me to my mother. It was something akin to returning a defective hair dryer. I was 13 when my mother met and married Three. I have to admit that I thought he was nice looking and since I was an aspiring artist, I drew pictures of his face and gave them to my mother.

I used to scratch his back. He lay on the floor and I would sit on his lower back and scratch his back. I did not know what that was doing to him and my mother never should have allowed it to be done. He was laying there on the floor becoming aroused while I sat on his rear end and scratched his back.

There was one time that I was thankful for having gas. Oh, I was not thankful at the time, but looking back I think it kept me out of trouble for a while. It happened one day while I was sitting on him and scratching his back. I farted. It was not one of those girly ones either. It was a big fat loud one. It was one of those that made a 13 year old hide their head in shame for days! I never sat on his back again.

There was no HBO or cable or satellite television in those days. There were maybe 3 channels if your antenna was pointed in the right direction. Fifty years ago a 13 year old had not seen sex on TV nor in the movies. I was not living in such advanced times and had no clue as to what made a man do what men did. I had no desire to know either. I liked my somewhat sheltered life.

I would still scratch his back from time to time but never like before. But, looking back, I can see that he never quit trying. There was never a time when I was ever considered as being athletic, but my joints were nimble and I could do contortions that most people could not do. When he found that out, he asked me to do it often, until I just tired of being a trained animal.

When we moved out of state to the mountains, I thought things would be better. He was taking Mom, my brother and myself to his home in West Virginia. It was there that fantasy turned to horror.

Mom was pregnant with my little sister. As mom grew larger in her pregnancy, things between her and Three got worse. The fights were louder and his lechery started showing up more. We were living in a 1 bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor. Joyless slept on the roll away bed. I slept on the sofa. Mom and Three shared the bedroom. And then it started.

Three, "Joyless, come here! If you look through the keyhole, you can see your sister in the bathtub!"

Mom, "Three, your perverted son of a bitch!! Stop it!! Leave her alone! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M BUSY!!" She yelled at him constantly about everything and her yelling came to mean nothing to him.

I had just started undressing when I heard the commotion on the other side of the door. I hung a towel over the keyhole, made sure the door was locked and continued with my bath. I made sure that I was never alone with him and then there was little brother to worry about.

The drama begins. Three comes home from - wherever (work, bar, it does not matter). They fight and suddenly he is choking Mom yelling at her, "I WISH YOU'D LOSE THAT DAMN BABY!!!"

Joyless and I run over to him and start hitting on him yelling and trying to make him stop. He does stop. The neighbors yell and they scream at each other and it is over as suddenly as it started. Mom can still breathe and life goes on.

It was a Saturday. I know because it was cold outside and brother and I were home. Mom wanted to knock him out when he came home. He was becoming increasingly erratic in his behavior. You never knew what would set him off.

Mom was anxious and looking furtively about the kitchen. "I need something to knock him out."

I handed her the iron skillet. She said, "That should do it."

She held it in her had for a few seconds and handed it back to me saying, "It might kill him. I don't want to kill him, just knock him out!"

I thought about what she said as I put the skillet away and thought to myself, "So what? What difference would it make?"

She finally handed me a bottle and asked me to fill it with sand. I took the bottle and put rocks and sand and some water in it trying to make it as heavy as possible. By the time I got back upstairs her plan had changed and she had 2 boards leaning against the wall. I have no idea where she got them, but there they were. Once she decided what she was going to do, we settled down, ate dinner and waited.

When he finally got home, she met him at the door and asked him where he had been. They started arguing and swearing at each other. As the argument escalated, she moved backward to where the boards were leaning against the wall. She picked up one and slammed him hard against the side of the head. He stood there looking at her, stunned for just a few seconds. She raised it again and as she was about to connect a second time, he laughed at her. He took the board from her and broke it in half across his knee while he laughed.

My heart sank and all I could think was that she should have used the skillet.

"What the Hell's wrong with you, Spet?" was all he said as he walked past her.

It was just too weird. Nothing phased that man. I was in shock, but there was no time for wondering what would happen next. He just wanted to play cards.

I hated playing cards with him especially when he lost. He just started swearing and throwing things and it was just a mess. Once he just took the cards and threw them up in the air. Joyless and I picked up the cards when he left the room and try as hard as we could, we could not find 5 of the cards. We looked everywhere. When I lay down on the sofa to sleep, I looked up and they were hanging on the chandelier.

President Kennedy was assassinated that year. The baby was born shortly after and we called her Lost Innocence. Three sent Joyless to the bar with a note that said, "Give this boy a bottle of beer." and scrawled his name. Three came home drunk one time. I remember that well. It was close to Christmas.

Three said he was going to his brother's house to do something. About 1:30 that morning, someone propped him against the door and the high heels clicked down the hall as he banged on the door. Mom got up and went to the door.

"I love ya, Spet." and he threw up. "Ya know I lub ya." and he threw up again. She managed to guide him to the bathroom and hollered at me to clean up the mess and she would give me a dollar.

I managed to get it cleaned up. I would have done it anyway without the dollar. I loved my mother and felt sorry for her. I tried to go to sleep, when Mom asked me to help her get him into the tub. By the time I got to the door, she had him in the tub. I stood by the door when she turned on the cold water. The tub was an old tub and the faucet was one that stood straight out instead of curving down like modern faucets. The ice cold water hit him full force right in the crotch. He would have jumped clear out of the tub if he had not been so drunk.

I went back to bed and listened. She got him out of the tub and led him into the bedroom. I got up to see the carnage and noticed blood all over the place. She told me he had come home with his hand cut. It was quiet for a while. She went into the kitchen and brought out a butcher knife. I shut my eyes and willed myself to sleep.

Nothing was stirring the next morning and I went to the bathroom. There was blood on the walls and all over the tub. I used the toilet quietly and silently walked the few steps to the bedroom door following the drops of blood. I looked in and saw Mom lying on the bed awake. Three was hog-tied and asleep beside her. There were splotches of blood everywhere. It was not too long after I glanced in that Three started to stir, choking himself as he tried to straighten up. There was a pile of clothes at the foot of the bed. They were all either torn or cut up.

It did not take long to find out what had transpired the night before.

You could see the fear awaken on his face as he tried to look at himself and he screamed, "What've you done? You crazy bitch! What'd ya do ta me?" I had to stifle a laugh as he continued to rant and simultaneously choke himself.

There was the 6 foot 1, 185 pound crazy man tied up like the pig he was, screaming like a baby. Yes, I thought it was funny. My 5 foot 7, 100 pound mom had him in a real bad way and I was hoping she would leave him that way.

When he calmed down and she had had enough fun, she brought the knife close to his face and gave him one of those looks. It was a look that said, "You are mine and I can do what I want with you. You can't guess what I'm gonna do next." When he thought he was going to die, she took the knife and cut the rope setting him free. He was still hung over so he was in no shape to start any fights. He was too busy checking body parts to cause any trouble.

Mom had cut up the clothes that she could not tear in half. The only clothes that he had to wear were the clothes he wore home that belonged to his brother and a pair of shorts and old torn T-shirt that was in the laundry basket.

Yes, we were just one big happy family. All that happened in just 2 months. Intermixed with all of that was Three's hatred of Joyless. He choked him holding him against the wall all the while watching him turn purple with me begging him to stop. He berated Joyless calling him names and telling him how worthless he was. It was heartbreaking. I was scared and felt hopeless. There was nowhere to turn and no one seemed to care. It was frustrating and deep inside I knew that there just had to be a better way. I lived for the day I could leave.

The Letter

2010-11-12T05:37:00.000-08:00

   At 17 she was looking for her father. Her mother got an occasional child support check from the child's father and it appeared that since he had never relinquished custody that he could send money whenever it suited his needs. Her mother knew nothing of the lengths that she would use to find her father.     She found the last child support check laying on the table and wrote down the name and address of the bank. She then called the bank but got no information from them, not even a promise to let her father know she wanted to contact him.
     Not knowing exactly what to do, she contacted the Sheriff's Department to see if they could tell her something. It was not that she wanted anything in particular from the man, she just wanted to know that he still loved her and cared what happened. The letter to the Sheriff was simple. She was looking for her father and wanted to know if he was still living. She thought if that was the question, she would get some kind of answer.
     The Sheriff did indeed answer and it was short and to the point as well. It is just too bad that the Sheriff's letter arrived the day after her father's letter to her.

"October 10, 1966

Dear Miss D******:

An officer of this department has contacted your father.
He assured our officer that he would get in touch with
you immediately.

No further action has been taken by this department.

Very truly yours,
C****** J. P*******, Sheriff"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   October 9, 1966
******,
     We have just moved from S*******, C****.
As we were closing our account at V*****
F*******, the bank informed us that you
have been making inquiries as to wheather
or not I was alive, etc. I can assure you
that I am very much alive; and, furthermore
young lady, it isn't any of your business
where I am or what I'm doing - or where I
live! If we wanted to hear from you we
would have sent you our address. Every
time you wrote, it was complaining about
what a sad life you had. Well, you're just
about 18, and you can make of your life
what you wish - good or bad! I wasn't very
happy as a child either, but I didn't look
to my parents to give me instant happiness!
As ill as I have been, you should be grateful
you get your check every month + L***** has
been good enough to write the check out!
   We gave you several chances to live
with us like a human being, but you obviously
preferred another way of life so now you're stuck with
it. Sorry about that chief.   A******** D******

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was handwritten and took up one page. Nothing could have prepared her for the anger and total lack of love that was in that letter. Never in her wildest imagination did she think her inquiries would anger him. The love that she wanted from him was not there and never would be. She wanted to invite him to her graduation and let him know how she was doing, but that would never be. She would graduate with no card, no congratulations from her father. She would try desperately to forget that he existed.

Looking back at the letter, thoughts of L***** came to mind. The chance to tell him that L***** was a pedophile that sent pictures of his child to his ex-wife and who knows where else would never happen. L***** would never have to concern herself about his daughter telling about the men that came to visit while he was on the road working. Those several chances were precisely one and if living with a pedophile was living like a human being it was hardly worth the cost to trade one child molester for another. Having a step-father after her was a little more palatable than having her step-mother after her. That is choosing the lesser of two evils. Neither was a good choice. One just had a more comfortable life style, but at least she knew one thing for certain. Her mother definitely loved her. That was the big difference. At one place she knew she was loved by at least one person.

His daughter would never tell him how she was crushed by his letter. She would never tell him that. She would never tell him that it never mattered how many awards and pieces of paper he would get throughout his life because the only piece of paper connected to him that mattered to her was The Letter.

The Letter was a statement of how he felt about his daughter. It was permanently etched upon her heart and his indifference seared upon her soul for life. There would be no reconciliation, ever.

She would contact him again. There would be a different wife but the results would be the same except that the hostility would be more open, more tangible. She would contact him again and find yet another wife only this one would be a woman that she would come to love and wonder what she possibly could find attractive about her father.

She would try to have a relationship with this man, this sperm donor who created a child with her mother, but The Letter would always be between them and would never be resolved.

Men, if you think you have no influence upon your daughter, you are very wrong. Don't write her some vile piece of trash no matter how badly she behaves nor how much she whines because one day, she will grow up and you will see that she truly is a wonderful woman and you will be glad that she is your daughter and you will want to know her and enjoy her company and the grandchildren she will give you.

Three Schools in Four Weeks

2010-11-12T05:34:00.000-08:00

I grew up all over the place. At one point in my school days, I was enrolled in 3 schools in one month. That was an interesting time.

My mother let the kids go to Virginia to visit relatives for the summer. Actually, I am not sure if she really had that much control over what Grandma did.

Grandma was a drunk in a dress who dipped snuff and put on airs. Mom told me that when I was born, my grandmother doted on me and it all ended when my father took me away with a promise to bring me back. He just didn't say it would be several years later when his next wife grew tired of taking care of a child.

What I remember about her were the impromptu trips we took and how she would spit her venomous words at me while doting on my younger brother. The trips would start when I was called out of class to go with my Grandmother. My brother and I would crawl into the back seat of that old Plymouth. Grandma would be in the driver's seat with her bottle of wine disguised in the brown now wine bottle shaped paper bag. The top of the bag was wet and clung tightly to the top of the bottle. I could see her can of snuff in her open purse with her white gloves.

Grandpa didn't drive. He hadn't driven since he lost his eye while working for DuPont in the early 1950's. He called her “Nanny” and they were quite a pair.

Grandpa bought her wine every week. Everyone in town thought he was the drunk. They didn't know that the properly dressed woman who accompanied him in the car was the real drunk. She wore her little hats and her gloves and her dresses were always ironed. She always had a smile for the public. At home she was mean to me and contrary to everyone but my little brother. She idolized him.

It was years before I knew that my mother would come home to an empty apartment and have no idea where everyone was. This was the time before cell phones and GPS and laws against drunk driving. Mom and her husband would come home from work. The apartment was dark and void of human existence. Then she would call the places in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia where she thought her mother would go.

I remember Grandma and Grandpa in heated arguments about her driving. Then there was the spitting. Every traffic light or stop sign had a dose of spittle (she would open her door and spit her snuff when she stopped) and after awhile would be the gulps of wine from the “concealed” wine bottle. The thing that was truly amazing is that the few accidents that she was involved in were not her fault and to my knowledge she was never detained and never arrested.

The arguments that the grand parents had were often times comical. They had 10 children and every now and then it would escalate into something like this:

“Nanny! Why can't you treat me right?”

“Shut up, George!”

“I just don't believe that boy was mine!”

“That's right, George! His father was a gentleman!” She stood proud and drew the word gentleman out, enunciated clearer than necessary.

Now, I have no idea if there was any true cause for concern about the parentage of the children, but it was disturbingly funny to listen to. All the children were grown, on their own with children of their own. If you owned them all those years, why bother at that point? What did it matter? I mean, just give it up!

The year I was enrolled in 3 schools in 30 days started as one of those trips. One of those trips where everyone disappeared while Mom was working, but this would be the last one. Mom had finally had enough. I was 12.

I wound up at Aunt Oblivious's home. I told her that I was tired of all the fighting and arguments. She contacted my father and they made the arrangements for me to take the train to Tennessee. She never told Mom that I was leaving until Grandma came to pick me up to take me home.

I did not know at the time, how disturbing it would be to have your child disappear. I was a child only thinking about myself and how happy I would be if things were different. If things were better, I would be happy and Daddy would make it better.

My father had just moved to Cumberland, Tennessee and it was a 4 bedroom home with 2 bathrooms, woods and lots of land to play on. The formal area was upstairs and I would be living in my own room with my own TV and they had a piano. I wanted to learn to play the piano. The baby grand piano was downstairs where I could learn to play.

The time to enroll in school came quickly and my father decided that I should learn to be a good Catholic girl. How better to do that than to attend a private Catholic school. I had always gone to public school so having nuns as teachers was discomforting. Mom had told me that when she went to Catholic school, the nuns had been mean to her and hit her with rulers for stupid things like her shoes (which were too big) falling off in class. Right away there was the issue of trust.

It did not take long for me to be removed from Catholic school. I think I lasted a week. My father's visit to class confirmed my departure.

The nun asked this question, “If a rosebush talked to you, what would you say to it?”

She called on several others and they answered with what I thought were stupid answers. They said things like,

“I would ask it how it could talk.”

“I would say hello.”

“I don't know” was my response. To me, I thought it would depend on what it said to me and I just wasn't sure that I wanted to talk to a rosebush anyway. Crazy people did things like that.

She asked me the question again and I gave her the same response. She asked me a third time like if I heard it again, I would have a different answer, but nothing changed and my answer remained the same.

My father took me home early and gave me his “I am disappointed in you” speech with a heavy dose of the “how could you embarrass me” speech thrown in. It ended with the “if you aren't going to co-operate and learn from that fine institution” speech then you will just have to go to dreaded public school.

It didn't matter to me. I wasn't learning anything at Catholic school except how to sing. What daddy didn't know was I was in accelerated classes back home with Mom. I was already a year ahead of the curriculum.

Public school was okay and all the neighbor kids went there so at least I had friends. But it just wasn't to be either. I was 2 years ahead of their curriculum but they also had singing. I got good grades but I was bored.

After 2 weeks, his second wife decided that she couldn't handle me. Her promise to give me piano lessons ended with, “Learn it on your own and I'll see if you're really committed to it and then we will pay for lessons.” My practicing songs for school was met with. “What are you doing? You can't carry a tune in a bucket.” So I didn't practice where she could hear me. I needed braces. I got a tic in my hair. I got bit by a chipmunk I tried to save from the cat. I stepped on a nail while nosing around a house that was under construction. While trying to adjust the spring on a ball point pen the refill shot out, hit the ceiling and left an ink streak about 4 inches long. I was there when two men came to “see” her while my father was gone. I was no longer the cute little girl that she photographed 3 years earlier. I was in between and there was not enough cotton to fill out what she said God had forgotten. I was pre-puberty and I was a kid.

My father came home from work and they had a raging fight in their underwear and within 24 hours I was on a plane headed to Maryland to live with my mother. I heard them arguing through the walls and the ceiling in my room in the basement. I sneaked upstairs to see what was really going on and I saw them arguing. My father yelled something at me and I went back downstairs.

I should have started packing then, but I waited until I was ordered to pack. His wife told me she would send the rest of my stuff later. My father drove me to the airport with some half baked apology/accusation and that was that. His wife had me wear a dress that obviously didn't fit my form. But like she said, "What God has forgotten, we'll fill with cotton."

When I arrived in Maryland, I was enrolled in Riverheads Junior High School. It was the following summer that I went to the University of Maryland to attend summer classes.

Life Goes On

2010-11-12T05:31:00.001-08:00

Life was never just life. It was filled with drama, violence, distrust and those were the good days. The bad days were brief but burned deeply.

Uncle Perv, the uncle who should have been eliminated many years before had a dirty little secret. It was not that he was old and his feet stank. They stank so bad that his wife did not sleep with him and if his bedroom door was open the smell permeated the rest of the apartment. He was an alcoholic. He drank only on the weekend but he drank from the time the factory whistle blew until he fell asleep on Sunday night.

The thing about Uncle Perv and Aunt Oblivious is that they fit together so well. He worked and she worked and they lived in squalor. Every penny that he made went to alcohol. He drank up his entire check during those two short days. The electricity was generally disconnected due to none payment. They lived with kerosene lamps for light and wood-burning stoves for heat. There was an ice plant where they would pick up a block of ice and keep milk and other perishables in an ice chest.

The cockroaches ran rampant. At night when the lights were out and the place was silent, you could hear them scurry. If you walked into the kitchen with a lamp, you could see not dozens, but hundreds run from sight. Hot water for bathing was heated on one of the wood stoves. Every now and then Aunt Oblivious would pay a bill and the lights would be turned on.

There is a peculiarity of growing up around perverts and those who turn and look the other way. If they really see it; if they truly acknowledge what is going on, they might actually be required to do something about it. So, it is every child for themselves. My mother knew he was a pervert. I knew without knowing for years that this was the case. The reality of my knowing was proven when my mother told me that they all knew what he was. She told me that when I finally had a child of my own.

There was some kind of gathering at their upstairs apartment. From my perspective as a 6-year-old there were a lot of people there. There were other children and this was the first time that I remember being there. My uncle called me to him. He lifted me up on his lap. He smiled at me and put his hand under my dress and his fingers went ... I knew instantly that this was wrong and suddenly I heard my mother yell at me to get over there. I knew that I had done something wrong. The whole interchange probably took less than thirty seconds. That was all it took to start a chain of events that stole my innocence.

She said, "I told you to stay away from him! He's a dirty old man! Why can't you listen to me! I ought to whip your ass!" That was Mom. She handled things the only way she knew how. It was nothing less than effective.

You can bet that little interchange taught me a lot. I did something wrong. My mother wanted to punish me and I would try my best to stay away from Uncle Perv from now on. The truth would come out, but it would take almost thirty years.

Everyone in the family either knew from personal experience or from anecdotal evidence that Uncle Perv was a pedophile. No one ever called him that. They just did the best they could to keep their children away from him. He never got reported, that I know of. They blamed the alcohol. They blamed his wife. They blamed the children. They blamed the weather, the time of day and the wind. They blamed everyone and everything but him.

How adults reconciled the avoidance of this issue with the damage that was being done to their children and to others is something I never found out because no one ever spoke openly of it. It was the family's personal disgrace. Much later in life whenever I asked anyone about him and his nefarious deeds, they looked at me like I had lost my mind. So, I never verbalized anything until people started dying off. The perpetrator is dead and gone, but the effects of his perversion live on in his prey and their descendants.

Where do I go from here? Well, let us go into the hallowed halls of first grade. It was a time of learning, a time of wonder. It was a time of wondering how adults got control of things.

I had a best friend. Best was the closest thing to a sister that I ever had. She, too, had a little brother and his name was Typical. He was just a little brother that hung around when we did not want him to and kind of made a nuisance of himself.

My little brother, Joyless, was a bit different. His father hated him. Well, maybe he did not hate him. Mom told stories of how his father had wanted to leave him at the hospital when he was born. When his father asked her who the Joyless' father was, she would lash out in anger and tell him that the child belonged to his father.

An example of Two's dislike of his own son was dinner. Joyless and dinner time were not friends. There were so few dinners without an argument, that I think I only want to remember a happy dinner. I only assume that, statistically speaking, in all those years, there had to be at least one happy dinner.

Typically, dinner went something like this. Mom and Two would come home from work. They would change clothes arguing about who did what to whom on the way to work and on the way home. While Mom cooked dinner, they would argue about grapes; about what to watch on TV; about Grandma and Grandpa living with them; about sandstorms in the desert; about anything.

Then it was dinner when the real fun began. Joyless was a picky eater and had medical problems. On of those problems was his blood's inability to coagulate properly. That made him a free bleeder. Joyless just never knew when to stop.

He would say, "I can't eat that." or "Don't like that." or maybe just make the yuk face. And with that the battle was on.

His father would say, "Eat it!"

Joyless, "NO!"

Two, "I SAID EAT IT!!"

The exclamation mark came as a slap to the face. Then the blood from his nose pooled on his plate. His father was still yelling at him to eat it.

Mom would say something calming like, "Are you happy now, you son of a bitch?" Mom was never silent on matters of the safety of her children. Unfortunately she knew little about how to deal with these things or how to truly keep her children safe, but she tried.

When he was about 5 Joyless would look at his father and say, "Are you happy now?" That comment would bring on a tirade between the parents with the grandparents getting up and marching off to their room, slamming the door and turning on their TV.

Learning to eat without looking up was the only way that dinner was palatable. Mom was a good cook and the food was good, but the chaos was unnerving and, like change, it was a constant in life as we knew it.

We were the first ones in the apartment building to get a color television. Joyless was enamored with the inner workings and every time the repairman came to work on it, he was right there asking questions about the inner workings. It was not too long before he wanted to take things apart to see how they worked and then try to put them back together. When he got it right, all was well with the world. When he got it wrong, there was Hell to pay.

It was the belt or the switch or the fist. You always wanted her to have the switches nearby. They stung pretty bad, but they did not hurt nearly as bad as that belt or her fist.

Life Begins

2010-11-12T05:29:00.000-08:00

It was difficult. High school was not quite a total misery, but it did come in second only after home life. There is a phrase for you. Two simple words - home and life. It assumes that you live in a home and not a house and it assumes that life is something pleasurable. A pleasurable time at home was not exactly what any sane person would use to refer to my formative years.

Life began for me technically on my birth day. I chose to remember the part that started when I was six. I left my father's house to live with my mother. There are anecdotal incidents that I remember with great clarity.

I remember being dressed up in a light blue dress with tiers of ruffles, a ribbon around my hair with a bow on top and my hair down to my waist. I do not remember the occasion.

Another instance I remember playing outside at the apartments we lived in. My playmate was a little older than me and we were out back playing. She suddenly started picking her nose and she turned to me and said, "Watch me eat it." I watched, repulsed and shocked, as she did just that. I never played with her again. I remember my father asking me why I did not play with that nice little girl and all I could say is, "I don't want to."

I remembered once when my mother came to visit me with her new husband that I was terrified of her and I hid and would not come out and talk to her.

I remember my father said that he married Lucy and we moved to a house to live with her. She introduced me to neighborhood kids, laid out my clothes for me and taught me that if you are bigger than the other person, you can make them do things they do not want to do. I was playing outside with some of the kids when an older boy hit me and threatened me. Of course, I ran home and told Lucy and she told me that I needed to hit him back. She explained that if I did not go back and hit him that she was going to whip me. After carefully weighing my options, I ran out, popped him a good one and ran back home.

But I found myself at the age of 6 on an airplane going to Washington, DC to live with my mother. I threw up on the plane and mostly it was just misery. I did not know what to think about this woman I was to call mommy. She was a scary figment of my nightmares and suddenly there I was.

I remember inconsequential things before I was 6 but after my 6th birthday, life took many turns.