Scar # 4 Heartache, Work, Esquire and a Yellow Folder

MEMO:    
To my readers, I wrote this one night and had a pretty difficult time with it. I have thought about it in fleeting thoughts. I did not edit this post, so I apologize for the grammical and spelling errors. I just don't care to read it at this time and edit. Hope you are able to follow even with the errors. 

Be Happy and peaceful!
Me


When I got home with my mom, she said I needed to get a job and help out with the baby girl during the day if I wasn’t going to go back to school in September.

I quickly got a job at a men’s clothing store, owned by two Indian brothers who spoke Urdu. The store was in a strip mall in Oxon Hill it was small and catered to the younger male. PERFECT for me! I LOVE young men!  I was working part time in the evenings for a week or two and watching baby girl until school started. I really thought I was going to attend school, after all Dr. White emphasized the importance of an education and made me feel confident with my intelligence .

The first day of 10^th grade, I can remember what I was wearing; a white shirt tucked into a teal green, high-waist skirt with suspenders which criss-crossed in the back. The short skirt showed and enhanced my skinny, shapeless, stick legs which I was really insecure about. I wore white pantyhose with black flats. I walked in the front double doors with all intention of going through with my education, looked around and felt so isolated from the “school” crowd; I turned right around and walked out, never to return again. That was the last of my formal education. September 1988.

I didn’t tell my mom at first, I pretended to go to school every day, ending up at someone’s house, drinking and smoking cigarettes all day until it was time to call mom and ask her to come pick me up. This went on for about a week and I decided I was going to just fess up and tell my mom. She tried to convey the importance of my education, but hell, at that point I had been out of school for so long, and I really didn’t feel I belonged there, besides, I was a fantastic employee and the brothers offered me a “management” position. I wanted it and mom was surprisingly supportive. She said for me to earn my keep, I had to watch baby girl as often as I could. I loved baby girl and wanted time with her…she was now two years old and so much fun.

I had friends who I could count on to pick me up during the day and take me to work. I was meeting so many men, most of them five or more years older than I. I would let them pick me up after work around 9pm and I would sleep with them. Who knows what I was looking for? Some say love, security…I say I was a SLUT! Those licentious days got me into trouble, trouble that has haunted me for more than twenty years.

In the early spring of 1989, I became pregnant. I was not sure who the father was. I told my mom and she instantly kicked me out of the house. I asked the brothers at work for an advance so that I could pay for an abortion. My best friend took me to the clinic. When I got back to her house that day to rest, I cried all night, I was in emotional and physical pain. I did not believe in abortion and felt I had just committed the ultimate SIN!

I was awake for the entire procedure and can still hear the words of the doctor;

FADE IN:

On the table of an ABORTION clinic; LEGS UP and OPEN for ALL to see! The nurse was holding and caressing my hand with her thumb. I was so afraid, and feeling sorry for myself. So many things were running through my head. What would my life be with a baby? What is it going to be like without one? I can always have another one day when I am able to care for it and when I know who the father is.

I was touching my stomach, which had not started to show, I was about 11 weeks along. I was taking the deepest breaths I had ever taken in my life.

Dr. Monster

Ok, you’re going to feel a couple of sticks, that’s the needle to administer the local anesthesia. We’re gonna let that sit for a couple of minutes to kick in. Then we’ll start the procedure.

Me

(I was crying, not a hysterical cry, just some tears.)

OK, is this going to hurt?

Dr. Monster

It won’t necessarily be painful, just really, really bad cramps, like your period times a hundred.

OK, you’re going to feel some pressure, I just need for you to relax your legs and pelvis.

THAT VACUUM

SUCKED THE LIFE OUT OF ME!

LITERALLY!

There it was; the moment, the ONLY time I would EVER be pregnant…and it was SUCKED right out of me! I didn’t know it at the time, but later in life realized and always felt it was GOD, the universe or the procedure itself (causing damage) or ALL three; PUNISHING me for my decision to KILL and take my child’s life. What a DIRTY WHORE I was! I could only think self-loathing notions of myself. I WAS WORTH NOTHING to NO ONE and would NEVER be! That was going to be my worth for many, many, many years to come.

 FADE IN:

The following day...

I was knocking on mom’s door, suitcase and purse in hand. She had moved in the months since I had been at her house and she now lived on the ninth floor of a high-rise with even more friendly roaches, granted a slightly better neighborhood, but one less bedroom. The couch would be my only option, I was used to it.

She opens the door, I expected a big hug and a kiss… none of that dear girl. She held the door and said come in. I walked past her and walked straight to baby girl who was so happy to see me, I grabbed her, picked her up and held her the way I needed to be held.

Mom

So, are you still pregnant?

Me

No mom, I got rid of it.

(While I was holding baby girl, kissing her chubby cheeks)

 

Mom

You know that is an abomination to God; it’s a sin that is not forgiven. I will pray for you, but you need to change your ways.

Me

Yes, Mom…I know. Can we please talk about something else?

Mom

What else is there to talk about? You need to pray for your soul, you need to ask Jesus for forgiveness, but most importantly, you need to accept Jesus into your heart. Then you will be saved.

Me

Mom, I need a place to stay, can I please come back home and stay? I won’t do this shit anymore. I will take Jesus into my heart. Just please let me stay here.

 

Mom

OK, you can stay…the first time you FUCK UP, you’re outta here!

I stayed with Mom for about two months, just in time for summer fun, after all, I was 15. I had still been working at the clothing store, checking in with mom as much as possible when I was out, she wanted to know where I was all the time. So, I checked in and lied about where I was and who I was with, I was back to my old behavior…drinking more  and more...blacking out just about every night and more shameless behavior.

While  I was  at mom’s and taking care of baby girl when necessary, which seemed to be all the time, I started to snoop in her paperwork, she had file boxes GALORE in her closet and under her bed.

The subject of my dad never came up since that elevator ride, last August. While snooping and reading the piles of paper work in her closet, I came across a file which had some legal papers, naming who I believed was my father. I also found divorce papers which had my MOM and DAD’s name on it. What the FUCK? The date was 1978, I was FIVE years old! She and my grandmother had ALWAYS told me he died when I was two. I NEVER knew him! I knew the name was my father because I found my birth certificate which had his name. There were so many legal documents with his name all over. I had to put the files back before she came home each day, but every chance I got in those two months to snoop and learn, I took some paperwork and kept it separate from the original files.

As summer came, I now had a boyfriend who told me he loved me and I just went with it…hadn’t really heard that for a very long time. He was six years older and worked at a liquor store…PERFECT! Love and Liquor! Just what I wanted!

I started that summer on a quest to find my dad! I called “information” …which back then was the operator (press “O”), you could get up to four phone numbers at a time, so I would ask for his last name in the cities that were listed in all the paperwork…Oh, not in my 15 year old brain did I think; there’s gonna be a phone bill for all of my phone calls to different states, asking if they were related to me or my dad.  The phone bill came and it was OUTRAGEOUS… more than five hundred bucks! Pointless to say, SHE WAS PISSED! There went my safe couch in her one bedroom apartment on the ninth floor. Goodbye baby girl, goodbye friendly roaches!

I did manage to accumulate some paperwork, I had gathered enough to fill a file folder, a yellow one... covered in scribbling and the word… “DAD” drawn on the front in bubble letters…doodles all over. I made sure to take that when I left…she was clueless…she didn’t know why I ran up the phone bill, she just figured it was a rebellious teenager out to make her life more financially difficult on purpose. YES, that’s what I was doing! (Insert sarcasm)

I got a hold of my boyfriend; he worked at Esquire Liquors, so I'll refer to him as Esquire. Esquire picked me up and offered me to sneak into his parent’s house and sleep there at night and leave before they woke up. He would pick me up after they left at the bus stop up the street. His mother was not fond of me. His dad was indifferent. We would get hotel rooms every weekend and party all weekend. By this time I had quit my job and was dependent on Esquire for everything! He wanted to move in together and promised me the world. It was going to take a bit to save up the money for the deposit and first month’s rent, he started hustlin' crack to get the money together. He paid for me to stay in hotels a few nights a week. The other nights I would couch hop again, from one friend’s to another.

September came and I was 16! An adult in my mind, I had a boyfriend who loved me, I was on my own, making it day to day… I finally got another job, this time across the Woodrow Wilson bridge at a telemarketing company which sold new technology phone features to current Bell Atlantic customers; call waiting, *69, *67, and caller id. Esquire let me drive his car to get back and forth to work…it was about 30 miles away…oh, I didn’t have a driver’s license, he didn’t need to know that…plus, I had a fake id that was a driver’s license. Who cares? It was the least of my worries.

Money was saved and there I was signing my first lease on my own home… That's right a 16 year old girl  I said I was 18 and they just made the lease and we signed it.

A Place to call home!

A place I CAN’T be told to leave…

finally SECURITY!