Going home (part 2)

I stuck it out for as long as I could stand it. I paid my rent and could barely afford hot dogs. I couldn’t afford hot dogs and buns, that’s for sure. You make do. There was no nest egg. There wasn’t even enough left to buy eggs by the time the next payday was due. Or a used black and white TV or any of the other things I dreamed of. And there was total isolation. I had no contact with anyone my age. No friends at work and no one talk to. I couldn’t even afford a phone anyway. I did what I always did in my spare time. I walked the streets at night. Infinitely less interesting than in the city, the shitty little new town offered nothing. I remember one Sunday I had just cashed my joke of a paycheck and was going to blow some on an afternoon movie. I walked up and stood in line and when I got to the ticket area the woman looked me up and down and said “We don’t let your kind in.” What the fuck was my kind, I wanted to know? Was this X rated for adults and I missed it or what? I argued with her and she called a manager and he agreed. Then I figured it out. They didn’t let hippies in. I was wearing a headband, love beads, faded bell bottoms and a plain t-shit. My Arizona clothes. Hippies were the scum of the earth. Hmm, at work, Mexicans and women were the scum of the earth. At school Guntowners were the scum of the earth. I couldn’t seem to win. I left with no more argument. And that is how I missed a re-showing of The Sound Of Music. Julie Andrews was on my last nerve. I decided to put her on my ever lengthening shit list and there she stayed.
*
I walked a lot. I’d walk until I was exhausted from work and walking and then I’d go home to my shit hole and sleep. My shit hole was pretty big for fourteen bucks a week. It had a large living room with those big old fashioned floor to ceiling windows overlooking the square, a big old crummy kitchen and one bedroom and a bath with a rust stained claw foot tub. There was peeling ancient wall paper everywhere that I scotch taped back in place. It was clean though, there were no cockroaches. I was afraid of bugs and it was the one thing that would run me out of a place. Still is. It wasn’t a bad place. But, it’s so boring to be alone all the time at that age. I still went to the library, but, it was small and out of date. I could usually find something though. I could get magazines at the laundromat. People brought stacks of old ones there and dropped them, no one cared. I missed my grandma. And I didn’t know any of the young men who cruised in cars, so I wasn’t about to get in like I did back home. Besides, I’d never been in a car with a guy alone. It didn’t seem like a good idea. So, you can tell, I was a real wild swinger, can’t you? Pure trouble, that was me. Alone at home, reading Swiss Family Robinson and The Old Man And The Sea because they were the only library books I hadn’t read yet.
*
I was totally bored after a few months of this new life and decided to stop wasting my money on stupid stuff like groceries and use it to buy bus tickets home on weekends so I could see my Gran and hang out with Ann. Life then returned to semi normal as we took back the streets of Guntown. I was so frustrated by hatred and bigotry and the constant unrelenting unfairness of everything in my life, my attitude was terrible. I cussed constantly and asserted myself with anyone who even tried to push me around. I wasn’t having any more of it. I fought in the streets and sometimes won and sometimes got broken, but, I always got back up and I never let anyone have the last word. Except for my gran, I stayed the hell out of adults way. I wouldn’t even give those suckers a chance to fuck me again. I wasn’t playing or fronting, I may have been tiny, but, I was a tough girl. I had a big chip on my small shoulders and it wasn’t going away anytime soon. Around Christmas time that year it got a lot bigger.
*
My Grandma mentioned that my Aunt Bitch Face was having a Christmas dinner with the whole family. I should have know to stay away, I just should have known. Filled with holiday spirit, I saved and spent every penny I made on presents. Oh, they weren’t very nice ones, but, they had thought behind them and I made sure everyone had one from me. Everyone. All excited I boxed them up and toted them by bus to Guntown. My Grandma and I went to the aunts house and she had a tree with lights and I put my presents under there, hoping no one would make a joke about how cheap they were. Christmas songs were playing on the record player and everyone was milling around. My little cousins were so cute. I could smell turkey cooking, and god, it smelled good. I hadn’t had a big decent meal in a long time. I was thinking that going there was a pretty good decision when Aunt Bitch Face pulled me aside. She said she had something personal to tell me and we stepped out onto the back porch. She said “Now, this is a family gathering, family only. “ She then pulled a five dollar bill out of her apron pocket and handed it to me and continued “now, you go find something to do uptown and have a nice Christmas. “ I stood there stunned while she went back inside. She opened the door and handed me my threadbare jacket. And that was it. I walked up to the town square, which, by the way, is closed on Christmas (and she damn well knew it), not even a bar was open. I ended up just walking around looking at lights in the snow. Then it got dark and cold. I didn’t own a decent coat or a hat. The bus wasn’t running on Christmas day and I was freezing. I ended up going into the post office entry way and it was unlocked and heated. So I sat down on the marble floor under the stamp machine and slept there all night. I caught a bus out the next day. It’s not that bad, I wasn’t frozen like the little match girl, but, I was hungry. I could have gone back to Grandma’s, but, I knew if she ever found out her daughter had treated me so bad, there would have been a big family fight and I’d have been the cause of it. I’ve never said a word until now. Merry Christmas, Bitch Face, I hope you choke on your next turkey. You nasty old cunt who pretends to be nice.
*
I’d just like to mention that this was the same aunt I confided in when I was around five. We were traveling and in a public bathroom at the time, I forget what state we were in. I do remember that I thought, at the time, she was an adult who might help me. I was afraid and abused and traumatized. Somehow in my childish mind I thought she’d hug me and let me come live with her or at least, travel in her car, where I’d be safer. It took a lot to walk up to her, she was fixing her hair and had her back to me, but, I could see her face in the mirror. I was ashamed and I looked at the floor and told her my butt and pee pee hurt real bad. Real bad. She turned around and said "That’s because you people are dirty, you need to learn to wash yourself." "You people"…….."are dirty", that’s all I heard. I still think she knew damn well what I was saying because of the look on her face, she just didn’t want to deal with it. I wasn’t her problem. I learned that day, that there is no one in charge and you have to take care of your damn self. Children like me were worth nothing, the world was better off without the little fucking pieces of stinking garbage. Which is what I was. I was forever convinced that every adult had two faces and if you told on the bad one, they would torture you and cut you up in a million pieces and eat you or bury you so deep you’d never be found. They could literally erase you from the face of the Earth. In a heartbeat. I'd seen it happen.
*
I’ve never said a word to my family about the horrible sexual abuse I suffered until recently. I told my mother I’d been a victim and she immediately said, “Was it Andrew? Because I know he cheated on me and it broke my heart.” I was stunned. I said, no, it wasn’t Andrew and I walked out. We have never discussed it again. Thanks for your concern, mother. I will say this, it was ongoing, severe and bizarre and at the time it happened I needed a hospital. I needed psychiatric care too. Of course, I didn’t get it and I had night terrors, flash backs and I never healed right inside and it’s caused physical problems. And it’s just to much to talk about, even here. I was one fucked up little kid and my ideas about sex and phobias about it carried on into adult life. Bad men ruin children, they think it’s just a momentary pain, but, they ruin their minds forever. They should know that. And they should be locked up forever so they can never ever ruin another life, but, they aren’t, are they?
*
That’s about enough on that subject, now were talking about a teenager who needed to find a path in life. And there were no damn maps available. Ann’s big sister had the summer off from her kids, their real daddies had them and she decided to travel the United States and see this big old land she’d heard about, mostly from me. Traveling, to her, was finding a boy friend who had a car, but, no regular job to go to and taking the welfare check, cashing it, filling the car up and heading out on the highway. The rest she’d figure out later, when the money ran out. Ann and I, restless and bored, decided to go with her. I quit my job, by just not going there anymore, and paid up my apartment for a couple of months. I had eleven dollars left. We piled into the backseat of his rat trap car and took the hell off. Lighted out of nowhere to no place. It was awful and wonderful. We slept in the car or on blankets on the ground. We ate bologna and cheese slices and drank hot soda. We scratched out endless mosquito bites until they bled. We drove all the way up to Canada and saw the sights. Ann and I would walk the streets where ever we parked while Iver and her man bar hopped. Iver was a fighter and if any woman so much as looked at her big dumb man, there’d be a scrap. They’d tear the place up and take it to the streets where we’d join in to back her up if needed. Usually she could clear a tavern all by herself though. She screamed the oft heard hillbilly phrase “I’ll snatch you bald headed, bitch!” Which she did. We thought it was hilarious. Sometimes there was a minor gun fight from the men but, no one really aimed right at you. It all was redneck scare tactics. You learned to duck in case they had bad aim. When we’d hear sirens, we’d run and jump in the jalopy and tear out, laying rubber and laughing..on to the next place. Beer cans flying out the windows, just in case. From the northen borders we turned and went south and then west. I loved San Fran the best and we got to see it in it’s hippie heyday. It was a true Happening with a capitol H. And I wanted to stay and live there, but, the rest of them weren’t hippies and I was scared to go it alone again. I was tired of being alone. We stayed long enough for me to see what was going on and talk to the real hippies about the state of the world and hear some music, but, the rest of my gang was bored. They wanted keggers, not pot smoking political parties and peace rallies. Truthfully, the people I was with, except for Ann, weren’t smart enough to figure out what the hippies were about. And Ann wasn’t interested. I think we saw at least half the states, though not in tourist fashion. In Guntown white trash fashion. He had some redneck hillbilly friends in Colorado and we stayed at their dilapidated ranch, partying hard for a week or two and seeing the mountains on horseback before we moved on. I do remember a particular event there I loved. They had this tire swing out over a small cliff and all the drunk party goers would swing out as far as they could and see who could make the biggest splash in a quarry there. I loved it and I didn’t even drink. It was deep as hell and I couldn’t even swim, but, I could “not drown” real good. I was never afraid of deep water. And someone had an old guitar and they’d yell at me to play “them fuckin’ hippie war songs” and laugh. I did, I knew I was pretty good and loved the “stardom.” They loved Eve Of Destruction, it was a favorite tune, even for rednecks.
*
Dirt broke, we got the idea to cash rubber checks. I’ll leave it to you to guess who came up with that idea. Don’t even say me, you’d be wrong. He said they’d never put young girls in jail even if we got caught. And it was his car we were sight seeing in. We’d hop over to Iowa for a couple of days. Back then, checkbooks were kept out on counters in the small towns and used by anyone who forgot their checkbook. We’d make up names or write in someone’s name we didn’t like, like the school principal, gas up, get some petty cash and take off. I hope the law never finds me, I probably owe some bank a hundred dollars. That was a lot of money back then. We were an awful bunch of dirty, tired, hick, flea bitten (literally), petty criminals when we finally came home. The whole car stunk and was full of beer cans, potato chip wrappers, tacky county fair prizes, stained smelly blankets and a stray skinny kitten I had rescued somewhere. It was on it’s last legs. The car I mean, not the cat, which I gave to my gran. It broke down for good when we pulled up in front of Ann’s shitty house and Ivernelly’s boy friend got hauled off to jail on a warrant. The cops were waiting, they knew we were coming. But, to our relief, they only wanted Iver’s man on some past deed. She stood in the street and screamed that she’d wait for him forever, and she actually did. They were later married, had more kids and are still together , living in a holler, with a pack of screaming hillbilly grandkids. He gave the car to me and Ann. We cleaned it all up and sat in it a lot. It was our prized possession for awhile. I painted a hippie scene on the side of it in model car paint. Sometimes we slept in it, but, we never got it to move again. Someone eventually stole the bald tires and it was propped up on cement blocks. I went over and got my job back, they had such bad working conditions, I think they were used to people walking out and returning. Life returned to normal.