This is the very beginning of my book, I've
started it and have been messing with it for a
while now and would love feed back.
Cup your hands before you and imagine that resting safely in your palms is a lovely white dove. Its head bobbing softly as it coos, feathers perfectly smooth and in place. Can you feel its heart beating steadily against your hand? This dove seems fragile, almost as if it is made out of porcelain, but it is a special dove. A dove that is strong and able. A dove that can take all the malice and poison from your heart and mind and fly away with it on its wings. Fill that dove up with everything that is holding you down and trust that it will have the strength to soar, just like you have the strength to soar. You do have that strength you know, if you just let everything else go. Take a moment and fill the dove up....
Chapter one
There are cop cars outside of our house again. I use the term house sparingly, what I really mean is the sagging double wide trailer that's slowly decomposing on its four and a half acres of land. My brother is laying on our pallet of blankets and sheets on the floor with the covers up to his ears. I know he isn't asleep. Who could sleep with all the screaming? He just doesn't want to be caught spying.
The window is ice cold under my hands, but my body is damp and shaking. Why do they have to fight so much? I want to know what is goin' on, like always, but I don't dare leave the bed room. Instead I peek out of the window and count the number of cop cars out side, lined up like they are waiting to march single file into our house and arrest us all. Cop cars scare me.
***
I was born on October 6th, 1992. My aunt Kathleen, or Bubbie as I have called her all of my life, was the first person I ever saw. I am one of nine children, My mother has two girls and three boys and my father has three girls and three boys. I am some where in the middle. I grew up in Saint Augustine, Florida and was raised by my parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents. I've learned a lot, and it started from a young age. Lets start at age 6, in kindergarten.
***
Hours after the cops left the head lights from my mothers Cadillac roll across the walls of our room. I've been waiting for her to come home so I can tell her about my day. About how my only friend in kindergarten spit on my shoes and when I slapped him the teacher made me sit in the corner for what seemed like hours. I wanted to be the first to tell her about the cop cars, and which of my aunts left in one this time.
Slowly I got up from my pallet and tip toed to the door, I did not want to wake the sleeping form in the queen sized bed. He would be very mad if I woke him. With my breath held I opened the door and shut it behind me with out a sound. As soon as I was half way down the hall way, past my grandmas closed door, I knew I was safe. My mothers arms where only a few minutes away! I waited for her in the kitchen, wondering if she would be too tired to talk to me tonight. I glanced at the numbers on the microwave but they danced before me, impossible to read.
When she came in she looked tired. Her long, thick hair is pulled back into a pony tail but some of the wispy curls escaped and framed her face. She smiled when she saw me, “Why are you not in bed, it's late.”
I loved that she never said “Ain't” like everyone else in my family. She is so smart, I wanted to be just like her. Ignoring her question I began telling her about the cop cars. “They were yelling too loud again and hitting each other. The cops came and took them away again!”
“Figures” is all she said, she isn't not even looking at me any more.
Instead she is opening the micro wave, peering in. Nothing. She went to the oven and opened it, and then slammed it shut again. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, pulling the hem of my over sized t shirt over my knees. I did not want to tell her Bubbie, my most beloved aunt, fed her dinner to the dogs again. She stomped over to the fridge, knowing it would be empty but looking anyway. She stared into it, the light illuminating her face and making the dark, puffy circles under her eyes stand out. Her shoulders and face began to tremble, and suddenly I am wishing I had stayed in the room with my brother and dad. I did not want to watch her cry again. “Mommy, I saved you some food..”
She looked over at me as if she is just realizing I am in the room. One single tear clung to her chin. “You should not have to horde food, it isn't right.”
Instantly I felt guilty, of course she didn't want my stupid cereal from school. I had just thought that maybe I could save it for her. When my teacher had asked why I put my breakfast in my backpack I had lied, telling her I was feeling sick and wanted to eat it later. I am a good liar.
I hopped down from my grandmothers wooden dining room chair and opened the freezer door. Way in the back, behind a bag of freezer burnt pees is a plastic cup of lucky charms and a frozen half pint of chocolate milk. I stuck the milk in the microwave and hit the button that said one. I liked the number one the best because it could not scramble itself up to look like something else, and I did not have to worry about writing it backwards. A one is just a little line, nothing else. I grabbed my mom a spoon and put the warm milk and cereal on the table for her. When she sat down I wiped the tears from her eyes, and kissed her cheek, just the way I see dad do it when he is in a good mood.
Instead of smiling at me like I hoped she would she begins to cry more. There are too many tears for me to wipe away now, so I cry too. I cry because I should have known better, I should have known she did not want my stupid lucky charms, or my stupid chocolate milk. “I'm sorry.” I whisper into her thick hair. It smells like shampoo and Chanel number 5.
She puts her arms around me and hugs me tight to her, so tight I almost can't breath. I don't even give a care. I squeeze her back and cry on her shoulder as she cries on mine.
***
I don't remember her eating, or putting me back under the covers next to my brother. In the morning I wake up on the floor again, so tired I can barely open my eyes. I can hear her snoring above me though, and I remember that I forgot to tell her about slapping my friend at school.
I hate school. I hate getting on the bus, and having to find a spot to sit. No one wants me to sit next to them, they say I smell bad and have fleas. I wish I were a wolf. Then I really would have fleas and I would not need to go to school. My family fighting all the time would make more sense too, I watched a show on animal planet that said wolf packs fight so they know who is boss. If I were a wolf I would be boss, and I'd bite everyone's muzzle to prove it!
I've gotta pee very badly, but if I get up I might wake up my dad and then he'll make me go to school. Maybe if I lay here until its too late I can stay home today with mom. I twist around on my pallet and try to make out the numbers on the digital clock. Is that a five or a two? I sigh in frustration, if I were a wolf I would not need to know my numbers. I would be too busy hunting moose to tell time. Thinking about hunting makes my tummy growl. If I don't go to school today I might not eat until dinner time. This makes me jump up and run to the bath room, I don't want to miss the bus after all. The only good thing about school is that I get to eat.
Sometimes, if I'm really hungry or if I want extra to bring home with me, I'll take other kids food. It's easy and I'm even kinda proud of myself for thinking of it. I just leave the cafeteria for a minute, and when I come back I tell the person next to me the teacher wants to see them. I point to a teacher that is far enough away. When they leave to see what the teacher wants, I grab what I can off their tray and put it in my backpack, then I toss their trays in the trash. Sometimes they accuse me of taking their stuff, but I've gotta a lie for that too. It surprises me how good I'm at telling lies. “The cafeteria lady thought you were done, she threw your tray away.”
Normally they don't want to talk to me long enough to argue, they think I'm weird. The only time any of the other kids talk to me is when they are accusing me of stealing their food. Even my best friend in kindergarten wont talk to me any more. He says he can't be friends with a girl, even if I do smell like a boy. I cried in the bathroom a long time after he told me, even though my teacher is knocking on the stall door asking me to come out. She isn't my mom, so I don't have to listen to her. That is what my aunt told me. I like to cry by myself, or with my mom. My mom doesn't call me a baby or ask what is wrong over and over again. My mom knows what is wrong, that is why she cries too.
When I came out of the stall finally, my teacher asked me the question only my mother knows the answer to, “What's wrong honey?”
I did not want her to call me a baby, or worse try and make the other kids play with me. “Nothing is wrong, bitch!” I yell at her.
I know saying that word is wrong, but it is better to have the teacher gasp and have me sit in the corner then tell her that no one likes me. If I tell her no one likes me she will lie and say they do, and make them play with me to prove me wrong. My aunt Peggy Sue says if someone doesn't like me I should give them the three mothers. Mother had em, mother loved em, mother fuck em. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me, so I don't give them the three mothers when they put soap in my hair or call me fatty. Instead I ignore them. Sometimes it gets pretty lonely when you ignore the whole class.
***
When I get off the bus at the end of the day my dog, Heidie, is waiting for me at the end of the drive way. She is my best friend, even though I'm a smelly girl who can't write numbers and letters the right way. I run to her and hug her every day after school. My bus driver thinks Heidie is a person. When she asks where my mom is to pick me up I tell her Heidie is watching from the drive way. “Well, sugar, maybe ms. Heidie should come meet you at the actual bus stop tomorrow, so you ain't crossin' this road alone. Ya hear me?”
I do hear her, but I act like I don't as I run down the steps of the bus. Sometimes, when I feel her eyes on my back, I cut through the ditch instead of walking all the way down to our drive way. Nanny says it is tacky when I do that, maybe that's why the kids laugh and point at me from the bus windows. I don't give a care though, it feels good to run across the couple of acres of front lawn we have. It feels good to know I don't have to see their dumb faces again until in the morning.
Heidie is a German Shepard/Chow mix. I know she has chow in her because she has purple spots all over her tongue and her fur is really thick. My dad was very surprised when I told him that, he wanted to know how I knew. I didn't tell him I found out watching animal planet, he might think that is dumb. Instead I shrugged and said, “I thought I heard you say it, sir.”
My dad loves Heidie almost as much as I do. I think anyone who meets her loves her to death. She makes me feel so good inside. My dad has other dogs too, but they are only meant for hunting. There is a pack of em' and that makes me happy because wolves hunt in packs too! When dad isn't looking I feed them hand fulls of dog food through the chicken wire. They are kept penned up in the back yard so they don't kill the cats or chickens. Sometimes I feel bad for them, because they can't run around free like Heidie does.
The picture above is of my two youngest brothers, Heidi and myself. (Buddy to the far left, David in the middle and me on the right.)
My dad did not name the dogs because he says they are not pets, but I gave them names in my head. I do a lot of things in my head, like learn how to read and hunt moose with my pack. The brindle one is Demi, and the the one with spots that look like coffee stains is Sassy, and the biggest, meanest one with the ripped up face I named Boo.
***
One day My dad was sleeping and I was really bored, stuck in the room. My mom was at work and my grandmother was grocery shopping. My brother would not play with me because he did not wanna wake dad up so I slipped outside instead. Heidie and I ventured into the woods that made up the last acre and a half of my grandmothers property and “Hunted”clad in my dads red flannel shirt and armed with a stick. This day I was getting tired of the game, having done it a million times before. What I really wanted to do was hunt for real, with a pack.
***
The pen was easy enough to open, I just lifted the latch and it swung open. I was not expecting how ever, the dogs to be so crazed as they came barreling out. They always seemed to like me, I fed them and talked to them everyday behind my fathers back. So when I began running, encouraging them to follow me into the woods, I was quite surprised when Boo latched onto the leg of my pants. I was even more surprised when the other two followed suit, nipping at my fingers and growling. “Hey, cut it out!” I hollered at them.
Raising my hand, I slapped Boo across the face, hoping to cow him into letting go of my pants leg. He snarled and pulled harder, ripping the clothe. I fell back and the dogs circled in. I was getting scared, when Heidie, despite being a bitch, ran into the fight. Instantly the three dogs jumped on her, and started tearing at her. I screamed bloody hell, picking up the nearest stick and whacking them with it. “You little mother fuckers! Stop!” I screamed in my six year old voice.
They wouldn't be stopped though, the hounds had her out numbered and had drawn blood by now. I plowed my self into the middle of the fight, kicking and punching with every once of strength I had and screaming obscenities the whole time. I was bit quite a few times, but Heidie was not holding her own too well at all. Tears streamed down my face and I was bleeding just as much as the dogs, when suddenly a shot rang out.
I turned fast, my heart in my throat, to see my father running towards me with anger in his eyes. He grabbed me by my bloody collar and threw me, literally, out of the fight. Then he pressed the barrel of his gun to Boos head point blank and pulled the trigger. The big dog yet out one, short yelp. The other dogs broke up, with tails between their legs and noses touching the ground.
With out a word he grabbed the brindle dog, lead her a few feet away and shot her. He did the same to the other one. Heidie was laying in a bloody mound, whimpering but still alive. I was too shocked to cry, blood was all over me. My father came up to me in a few long strides and took my face in his hands. His eyes, identical to my own, burned through me with hate. “Did she bite you?” is all he asked.
I opened my mouth but no words could be formed. I was scared shit less, as my aunt Margret would say. I did not know if Heidie her self had bitten me or not, but I knew it was entirely possible. He knew it too. “Answer me girl!” he bellowed in my face.
“No sir.” I whispered.
It was the first time I had ever blatantly lied to my fathers face. His eyes searched mine, making me want to piss my pants. He knew I was telling a lie, he knew there was no way on gods green earth I had been in the middle of a dog fight like that and had not been bitten. I looked up into his face and lied again, “No sir, she did not bite me, I promise.”
He let go of my face, leaving red marks on my cheeks. “Take your ass in the house and get Nanny to clean you up. I gotta bury my dogs. When I'm done I'll come get you” he snarled at me as nastily as Boo did.
“Yes sir” is the only thing I knew I could say.
I didn't dare ask him if he was gonna to shoot Heidie too, or if he would ever forgive me. I knew deep down he hated me even more now, hated me for more than just being born. I knew that as soon as he was done burying his dogs that I was gonna to get the living hell beat out of me.
***
I went inside to my grandmother, who everyone lovingly referred to as Nanny, and put my bloody, drool crusted head in her lap. My aunt Mary, Peggy Sue, Margret, and Kathleen all clucked and shook their heads at me as they all suddenly took their places around the dining room table. Where had they been just a few hours before? Why did they choose now, in my hour of shame, to gather in the kitchen for gossip and coffee? “Girl, you ain't no hill billy, where are your shoes?” My aunt Mary asked.
I didn't bother responding, they knew I hated shoes, they were just trying to get a rise out of me. Instead I buried my face in my Nannies lap and cried as she patted my back. I could hear my aunts whispering around me, “That girl ain't got no sense at all, runnin' around here like she crazed. She act like she was done raised up by a pack of wolves.”
Suddenly my aunt Kathleen, Bubbie is what I call her, chimes in, “You stop bad mouthing my girl, don't make me take the broom handle to you Peggy Sue!”
I squeezed my eyes shut, please, not another fight. Isn't it bad enough aunt Jennifer is in jail? Nanny felt me tense up, she petted my hair some more, smoothing it away from my neck. “Why don't you go get in the bath tub Randa? I'll bring in some band aids and medicine for your cuts in a minute.”
I silently obeyed, thankful I could escape the room. Sometimes I hate being at home more than I hate being at school. I passed by My brother, Buddy, and smiled at him ruefully. He looked at my bloody condition in horror. People often said I should have been born the boy and he the girl.
***
It is a Saturday morning, because Saturdays are the days mom doesn't leave first thing in the morning for work. But she isn't in bed either. Soft gray light filters in to the room, illuminating my fathers sleeping form, and the empty space beside him. The red numbers on the clock say it is 6. Maybe she just went to the bathroom.
I tip toe to the door, breath held as always. I'm very good at making myself small and unnoticeable. Even if my dad is awake I doubt he would see me slipping out the door. Before I let the door click into place behind me I peeked into the room once more to see if my dad had woken. He hadn't, but my brothers eyes were on me, as always. He watched me like a hawk, as if I would fly away any moment. I waved my hand at him to follow me and placed finger over my lips.
Together we slip past my Nannies door and down the hall way. Sitting in the wing backed chair in front of the window in the living room is my mother. She doesn't see Buddy and I huddled together at the end of the hallway, she is looking out of the window, a Steven King Novel loosely held in her lap.
She looks so odd, I stop and stare, trying to figure it out. She is wearing the same night gown she wears every night. Long, white cotton with lace trim around the hem. Her hair is down, which is different since she normally pull it back in a bun. That isn't what's off though... it's more than her long, wavy hair tumbling around her shoulders. The look in her face, It's peaceful. There are no lines across her forehead or around her mouth and eyes. Her back isn't rigid and she doesn't have her fake smile plastered onto her face. “Mommy?” I hear my brothers voice call out.
I hold my breath, hoping she doesn't hear him. Hoping I can keep looking at her like this for just a moment longer. Her head turns towards and a warm smile breaks across her face. She lifts her arms towards us and we come running, colliding into her lap in a fit of giggles. Her Novel tumbles to the floor, I know she doesn't care about losing her spot though, she's read that book at least 3 times. We climb into her lap and she cuddles us close to her, I press my nose to her shoulder and inhale the smell of her perfume and shampoo. “We're leaving” she whispers to us, as if the house itself is ease dropping and will try and stop us.
I look up into her eyes and nod my head, this is the first I've heard of this. “We are leaving right now, the car is packed. Don't take anything, just go get in the car, quietly.”
She says this in a hushed tone, but it rings loudly in my ears. Leaving? Right now? I open my mouth to ask her but she places me on my feet before her and stands up before I can say anything. “Don't worry about changing your clothes, just go get in the car.” she says and then walks down the hall way towards my Nannies room.
She knows that is where She'll find my youngest brother, David. David is small and tan and has my mothers face. When he was brought home from the hospital he reminded me of the baby orangutans I would see on Animal Planet. His hair is thick and pitch black. He doesn't eat much, or do much of anything. He is my grandmothers pet, her beloved. She coddles him like no other.
In my mothers old Cadillac, I sit in the front seat, eyes peeled to see where we are headed. A trash bag filled with cloths sits between my legs and all my mothers paper backed books are resting in my lap. My brothers are in the back, on top of all our bedding. I try to ask mom where we are going, but all she says is that we are leaving. So I sit back and watch, and I think about how mad my dad is going to be when he wakes up and finds us gone. Or maybe he wont notice at all... I think about my aunts too, and what they will say about my mother leaving. What nasty rumors they'll make up and how many hours they will spend gossiping about the scandal of it.
I start crying quietly, thinking about my Bubbie and Nanny. What if we don't come back? What if they don't know how to find us?
We've been driving for a while now and have left Saint Augustine. Outside my window I see nothing but fields with potatoes and crows. A house occasionally comes into view and I wonder if that's where we are going. We don't stop at any white washed farm houses though.
We drive past pastures with cows and I try and remember what everything looks like so I know if I'm going the right way when I walk back home.
I miss Heidie. Mom said we couldn't bring her with us. She chased our car for blocks, all the way out to the highway. I cried and watched her in the side mirror, asking my mother over and over again why we couldn't just stay home.
Finally we came to a town. It was small and had a lot of churches. We drove through it, my brothers pointing out the McDonalds and Dairy Queens along the way. My mom still would not tell us where we were going, or if we were staying or just visiting. She just stared ahead and drove, taking us into this neighborhood lined with old, two story houses with screened in verandas. The live oak trees were just like the ones in Nannies yard. They grew all twisted and had moss dripping from their limbs like lace sleeves on a dancer.
I was starting to get excited now, what if we lived in a house like these? You could see the river behind the houses, right in the back yards almost! And these houses were so big, Nanny and everyone could come live with us! I had my face smashed against the window, thinking a million miles a minute about all the pretty rooms and the big yard. None as big as my Nannies yard, but still big, and fenced in!
At the end of the block my mother pulled into a drive way and turned off the car. Us kids were completely silent as we looked at what was going to be our new home. Before us stood a trailer, green fungus covering the sides of it so you couldn't really tell what color it truly was. There was a built on porch that looked silly tacked on to the ancient tin can. Right next to the steps of the porch is a huge hibiscus bush. The flowers were bright red and the size of saucers. The yard was fenced in with one oak tree growing close to the road. Acorns littered most of the yard and spilled out into the ditch. In the back yard there was a squat little fig tree that we would later climb and eat out of all the time. I looked from the trailer to my mother in disgust. It was the ugliest fucking house on the block, and it was ours.
