Part 24: Codename-Pox, In her words (Part 1)

I have chosen in my adulthood not to dwell too often on the events of my early childhood. While one can not deny the impact that one's early years plays on their development; I feel that far too often it is used as an excuse for weakness. I don't talk of these events to illicit feelings of pity or to make excuses for the path I have taken in life, for I am very aware of the things I (we) do. I understand the weight of these actions and accept any punishment or recourse brought on by them. Freudian psychoanalysts, sociologists, or others may think they can pinpoint why it is what I do; and that is fine. I don't care. It doesn't matter, because I am me and I am here right now.


My mother was 20 when I was born. She'd dropped out of high school at 16 when her mother died of emphysema and spent the next three years traveling the country to find a purpose in life. Then I came along. While she did seem to have affection for me at times she seemed more interested in the behaviors that left her a poor single mother in a poor town in the first place. The house not only filthy was also cold in the winter and scorching hot in summers. Meals consisted of whatever was laying around the house or bought at the convenience store around the corner. Mother seemed to go there quite often to buy the bottles of cheap wine from the creepy long haired man behind the counter. Sometimes she'd have me sit and wait on the counter while they "looked for something in the back". This seemed to happen when she "forgot to bring her purse." She did try to work but never seemed to work longer than two or three weeks at the same job. We got by on government assistance, running from landlords and the kindness of her men friends that would come and visit her late at night. She would lock me in my room when they came over. I always worried that they hurt her; why else would she lock me in my room


I had no friends and my babysitters were usually old shut-ins that chainsmoked and hit me if I made a noise or touched things. When I was old enough to take care of myself (in my mothers opinion that meant out of diapers) she would leave me alone in the house to fend for myself. I spent most of the time in a corner crying.......hungry. As I grew older I learned to take care of myself and even the house. I still cried. Often. I would sometimes go days without speaking to another person. School came as a huge relief to my mother because to her it was a free babysitter and I would be out of the house. She seemed to be out of work a lot more when I started school and there seemed to be more "male friends" stopping by even during the day. While I did well in school (reading was a favorite subject) I didn't socialize well with other children. I wasn't used to being around them, until my sisters came when I was seven. Mother had called them Her "other happy accidents" and seemed thrilled when they came. Of course I was left to take care of them.


After a few more years of unemployment and many "male friends" mother introduced us to a "special" friend, Stan. They had met at Mom's new job and we were going to move into a big house with Stan. Times were good for a while. We ate better and the conditions in the new house were much more comfortable. I still took care of the twins as they would go off for days at a time or stay locked up in their bedroom after nights out with their friends. Stan was a petty criminal on the side but didn't prove to be very good at it. He had several visits from policemen and detectives. He would even spend weeks away from us. Mother would always say "Stan, had to go away for a little while, but he'll be back." Like I cared. It turned out Stan had a penchant for overdrinking and his drunkenness usually led him to beat my mother or me or both.


At ten my mother beat me for the first time. The school was suspending me until they had proper immunization records. She had plans this week and didn't really have time to take me to the doctor. I had never seen a needle before and I was ten years old. It was torture and I screamed all the way home and locked myself in my room. Stan came home in a great mood, he had finally made the right connection with the right people. He came in a kissed mother and explained he had a courier job that was going to make them great money. Why was the old one crying, he asked. The door shattered open when he realized it was locked and he drug me still screaming and hurting from the doctor into the living room. "Get the twins, stupid, bring them to the living room." We gather in the living room. Mother and I sat on the couch and the twins sat on the floor under a hanging fern. Stan stood in front of us with mania in his eyes. He explained that a very important man is paying him a lot of money to carry a small box to another very important man. He held the small cardboard box carefully as if it were an egg. He went on to explain that under no circumstances are we to touch the box it was dangerous (or at least the men who wanted him to carry it were dangerous). He would be taking it in the morning to the man and he would get his money. He lit a cigarette and poured himself three fingers of bourbon. He grabbed my mother and groped her as they went down the hall to their bedroom. "And stop crying you little baby!" He screamed as he carried my laughing mother down the hallway. Tears filled my eyes and rage filled my heart. I walked over to the box and picked it up. It was light and whatever was inside contained a liquid. I rubbed my throbbing injection site, picked the box up over my head and threw in to my feet. It made a sickly crunching noise, much louder than I expected. I had just barely seen the bright green liquid seep out of the box when the vapors overtook me. I would have passed out from the fumes had Stan not heard the breaking glass, run down the hall and literally punt me across the living room. In his screaming tirade he beat me like no other time before and probably would have killed me if not for the fire that was now blazing two feet from the twins. He had spit out his cigarette as he was screaming about what I did and what the people he works for will do to him. And in his anger he put out the fire by smashing the fern and pot onto the fire. One ran away as the other lay entangled in the fronds. Bruised and bleeding I limped over, removed the plant from my screaming sister and picked her up. I grabbed the other twin and went to their room and locked the door. I listened as the coward alternated screaming at my mother about her worthless children and crying like a child at the thought of what they would do to him. I heard my mom cleaning the living room. I felt ill......feverish...I broke out in a rash. My throat was soar and swollen. I could not sleep for the aches and pains I felt. Red dots would appear on my body and vanish almost as soon as I discovered them. I itched, coughed, sneezed, vomited and cried through the night. In the morning I felt better.


I walked into the kitchen where Stan was having his morning coffee. He looked at me with contempt and hatred. I touched him on his cheek and smiled. He pushed me away but I still smiled. Later that day Stan noticed a black patch forming on his right forearm and small red bumps with white centers on his neck. At 5:00 my mother's screams rattled the house. I walked into their room as my mother cried over his body desperately trying to dial 911. . She begged them to send an ambulance in a hurry as her husband wasn't breathing. Stan was dead.........Bubonic Plague. (Something that would baffle the doctors at the hospital)

We waited for the ambulance to arrive even though it was obvious Stan was gone. My mother lit a cigarette and sat on the front steps of the house waiting for the authorities to arrive. I sat with her and watched her as she began to break down. I touched her hand and she looked down with pride in her tear soaked eyes and took me in her arms and embraced me........I just smiled.