6

Sometime in the late seventies
I remember my sister's visits. The days she would come and go, bringing her baby daughter with her. My little neice was not so much smaller than I was at the time. Babies held no real fascination for me either. I just vaguely remember my sister and her child Paulina. OH, I grew to love Paulina much later but then I didn't really know love. My sister was still so young and full of life. Her black hair fell far down her back in bone straight strands. I loved to watch it sway when she walked. She always kept it in ponytails and I imaged swinging from its shiney brilliance. MOm's hair was similar to my sister's strands. I would look down at my wavy red hair and frown. I would wonder why I was caught between my mother and father; a mixture of colors and textures. I didn't know, at the time, that my sister had a different father.

My father was good friends with a man named O.V. and they loved to go fishing together. I have fond memories of laughter and fish frys and of being doted upon by O.V.'s wife. They were an African American couple and it matters not to me but apparently, it did to everyone else in the small town of Ashland Ms. I asked my father why they never stayed the night with us when sometimes it was so late when they left. I will never forget his words in his reply. "They can't stay, blacks don't sleep over with whites."

My aunt spoiled me when she got the chance. When I was very small she lived in Nashville Tn. She would bring soveniers and toys when she came to visit. I remember one time I hid in her car when she was leaving. She got to the edge of town and realized that I was in the back set. She called my mom and, when verifying that it was alright, took me to Nashvill with her for a couple weeks. There, she spoiled me even more. I learned that she worked for the telephone company, AT&T. I met her friends that worked with her and her neighbor. I remember two names even now as an adult. I remember Dot and Ms. Armstrong. I would hold my arm up and make a muscle when my aunt said her name. Then I would giggle.

I loved to go to my aunts house. No one touched me there.

But life was not all light and all smiles. NO, even then when life was at its purest, life was not all it seemed to be.

 I was young and fresh and almost untainted. It was a canvas of flowers; pink ones. They were soft and they billowed in the breeze. I ran through this feild of flowers in my little dress with the bells sewn in the hem. My little patent leather shoes would carry me far far from home into the beautiful natural heaven of flowers and birds and frogs...and things like that. I little white ruffled socks would make me even prettier as would the bows in my long auburn hair. My black eyes would twinkle with soft innocent wonder.
Something spilled upon the canvas, dark ink. It spreads quietly and furiously dragging through the swaying grasses eating the flowers whole in its disease. It crept and pulled the light into its gaping maw of darkness. It devoured the beautiful innocence. But it is slow...no being that which eats in rage or starving hunger but something much much worse than that. It is slow death not even born yet. It is clowing sweet nectar not yet soured and rotten. It touched the hem of my dress and I gasped. And it started.
I started to like what was happening to me. I thought it was okay. I thought it felt good and that someone really special loved me. I took the hand and guided it to where it was supposed to be. I helped him to taint me. I became friends with death at an early age. Much too early to really comprehend what it meant for me.