Where Is He?

 The girl heard a knock at the door there at the row house they lived in. She, 16 and very pregnant, went to answer the door at night by herself. 

She turned the knob and the door pushed open. Long sharp fingernails dug into her arm as she was pushed back against the wall. 

It was the mother of her step-father's son. She was a prostitute and often her only clothing was just a bed sheet wrapped around her. She was a big girl. Very pretty but very large frame and stature. She had her "boyfriend"(?) with her.

Where is my son, she demanded. The girl froze, speechless. 

"Let her have him" came a voice from the top of the steps. The step-father. The boy came down the stairs and out the door they went out into the night.

This boy had the saddest life of anyone.  

The Games Children Play

 The girl, due to being close to giving birth, didn't go outdoors to play...but her little brother did. He didn't tell at that time what the neighborhood kids played there in the inner city of Baltimore. But eventually he did tell. He told his big sister. 

There were, and I'm certain still are, rats the size of cats in Baltimore city. You can see them in the middle of the day in the street. 

The kids played a game where they threw things at them and scored points for hitting one. 

He was pretty young when he joined in this game but as an adult he is sickened that this is what he did as a child to have something to do in the summer that he spent in Baltimore. His sister wanted to cry hearing this. 

What was his mother doing while he played with rats?

Macaroni and Cheese

 About once a week the girls husband gave her quarters so she could go to the laundry mat and wash clothes. This was pretty much the only time that she ever left the house so it was an exciting time for her. There was a tv at the laundry mat and she got to watch the game shows. The majority of her time in Baltimore she was alone without anyone to talk to. She pushed her baby in an umbrella stroller and carried the laundry up the street a few blocks or so away from the upper floor apt of a row house in Baltimore. This apt had 3 rooms. A kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom. Every word spoken upstairs could be heard downstairs. It was better than the previous row house though. They only lived there a couple of months or so maybe.  Soon after moving in the girl heard noises in the night. She woke her husband. He said, it's just a rat in the wall. She slept restlessly. The next morning when she woke up there was a grapefruit size hole in the wall. About 2 ft from the baby's crib. She refused to ever let the baby sleep in there again. 

The girl always tried to get the clothes dried to where there might be some quarters left over. One day she had 50 cents left over!!  She stopped at a little mom and pop store on the way home from the laundry mat and bought a box of macaroni and cheese. She was so excited. She was very hungry. She stood and watched for the water to boil and finally she tore the box open and dumped the macaroni into the pot.  And floating in the water with the noodles were roach egg sacs. She wanted to cry. She looked at the box and the expiration date had come and gone 2 years prior. 

She went back to the store and spoke with the cashier. He could barely speak English. She told him the problem. He just shrugged his shoulders at her. She didn't get her money back.  Another day with nothing to eat. 

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To date, the girl always looks in the water to make sure there are no roach sacs in there when making macaroni and cheese. 

The Wedding Of The Girl's Mother

 The girl sat on a pew in the church by herself.

 She watched as everyone prepared to start the wedding. The grooms brother had come from Baltimore to be the best man. He was struggling with getting his tie clipped on. He looked up at her and asked if she would help him. She sat there and just looked at him unspeaking. She was wishing that she could disappear. She decided to just pretend that she didn't hear him. 

Her mother spoke up. "Help him!  She beamed. 

The 15 year old blushed uncontrollably as she approached him. Her face felt hot from the embarrassment. 

She reached up to try and figure out how to fix it. Her mother said, Smile!!!  SMILE!!!!  The girl smiled. Her mother snapped a picture. She seemed so proud. 

The girl didn't realize that her mother had come up with a plan. 

Tennessee 18/19 years old

 It was at the time that the girl was then residing with the 3rd grown man that she began having emotional issues. 

As good looking as the man was, and as nicely as he treated her, she didn't understand her role there. She didn't love him and she felt that he couldn't possibly love her...they didn't know each other. 

After so much time of abuse by the people who were supposed to love her she couldn't differentiate between what was normal and right and what wasn't. She became the one who mistreated and acted unrational. And she became very depressed. 

She made an attempt on her life but at the last moment she spit the poison out.  

She called her father crying and he sent airfare to get to Tennessee where the rest of her family was. 

As she flew into Chattanooga the plane was circling low for landing and she looked out the window and could see a big ice cream cone atop a building, people in cars driving down the street....and grass. Lots of grass. She got a big lump in her throat as she fought back tears. It looked like heaven to her. So beautiful compared to what she had just left. 

She arrived minus one child. Her beautiful son. When she had left his father two of his paternal aunts took him and wouldn't give him back. With no money, knowledge of what to do, and no family support she had no idea what to do. It tore her up inside that she wasn't able to bring him with her to a better place where her family was where she could get help. 

When she got there she told her family that she had to get him. They said no. She told them that she had a tax return check being mailed to her and she needed help getting it. $1,200. They said, forget about it. 

As it turned out...no one really wanted her there. Especially her mother it seemed. Soon after her mother left without saying anything to her. 

With only completing the 9th grade and not ever being taught to drive or taken to get a driver's license the girl felt very afraid, alone, unwanted and thought that surely she must be the scum of the earth. 

Before she left Baltimore she had already began sitting in the back seat of cars if she was taken anywhere. She felt that she wasn't good enough or important enough to sit in the front seat. Now she felt even lower than that. But when her daughter started calling her step-mother mommy and the girl by her first name.....the girl lost it. And she slunk off in the middle of the night to see if there was someone somewhere who was undesirable and unwanted such as herself. Maybe she could find someone who could find something about her that was desirable enough to love her for. Or maybe she could earn love if she was compliant and obedient. Just do whatever they say so she could be loved. Then she would have somewhere to live. She couldn't understand why she was so unwanted and unlovable. It had to be something that she was just born with. She didn't think it was something that she could change about herself. She was just born to be unwanted. 

Her shame and feelings of being less than other people led her to not being able to go to restaurants like McDonald's. She felt like when she went in the good people could tell that she wasn't like them and would want her to leave. She kept her head down and avoided making eye contact. Tried to be as invisible as she could. 

She Looks Like An Ethiopian!!

 18 years old

They let the girl leave Baltimore and go see her family in Tennessee for a visit. 

By this point her husband didn't come home from work until late in the evenings and it was a sexless marriage. He told her that her protruding pubic bone hurt him. 

At her mother's house she was given her sister's room to sleep in and as she undressed for the night her sister barged into the room. She stopped dead in her tracks, looked at her unclothed body, and yelled loudly, "she looks like an Ethiopian!!!!"

The girl laid on the bed and cried hard until she had cried herself to sleep. No one came to comfort her. No one checked her weight. No one asked her if she had food to eat up there in Baltimore. And then her husband came and she and the babies were sent back with him.

Ed - 8

 Ed took the girl to a bar with him and his brother. She had never been in a bar before. She was 17. 

There were pool tables and Ed and his brother played pool. They were talking and suddenly she was shocked to see Ed's brother punch Ed in the face.

More shocking though was the next thing she knew she was on Ed's brother's back, legs wrapped around his waist, screaming "don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!!!!!"

The brother very calmly and gently said "it's ok. It's over now. You can let go." The girl slid down. Embarrassed. 

Then somehow she was leaving with the brother without Ed and he parked his truck in his mother's driveway. They never got out. The brother played old country songs on the radio.

A song came on called Sneaky Snake and the brother started putting his hand on the girl's leg like it was a snake. She tensed up. Afraid. What would Ed do when he showed up?

They sat in the truck all night. Ed came and got her. He never said a word about any of it. 

She couldn't understand why she had reacted so strongly to him being hurt as he hurt her every day? Why? Why did she defend him?