25

1985




Junior high



I was scared to death of a new school again. I remember when daddy transferred me the last time and how I had hated it. Now I was just a little girl amongst other little girls pretending to be an adult. Basically that is how it was. There were no outcasts like me. I called some new kids my friends but they would always act like something was wrong with me when the popular kids came around. But, by this time, I was used to it. I remember the exchange students and the gifted students who would speak to me but not much more than the others. I guess I was still alone in a way.



I hated homework, I hated class too. I was picked on relentlessly by the the students who had transferred from the elementary at the time that I did. Some of the more popular names were 'scarey Sherrie' and 'Satan worshipper' and of course just 'witch'. They thought I was crazy because I would talk to myself during class and draw pictures of people being decapitated and mutilated. All those pretty little girls with their pretty little poofy hairdos thought they were so much 'better' than me. They thought that since they wore the same style clothing and had their own little cliques, that they were more worthy of rewards and attention.



I didn't have the luxury of having a boyfriend either. The boys shyed from me for many reasons. For one, the popular girls would shun them if they talked to me and they were scared of me too. Even some of the teachers still sneered at me because of what had happened in the elementary school when I was 'sick'.



1986



Spring



I liked to read comic books at home and would stay in my room trying to draw the scenes from the comics. I loved to read and sketch and even to listen to music...alone. My brother was always good to me and would take me to the movies every weekend. And, almost every weekend, I would have enough money saved up to buy the latest comics that I loved.



Some days, George, the spirit of death would come by my house. I wouldn't know he was there but I would suddenly feel his breath on my neck and turn to see him getting ready to touch me. I would shove him away and run outside to my father or to the back of the house to my brother's room. He never stopped trying his filthy attempts to get near me. One time I locked myself in the bathroom and waited for him to leave. It was one of those days when no one was there but me and my grandmother. He was like a rabid dog as he pased just outside that bathroom door. I could hear him breathing loudly and watched the door knob wiggle this way and that. I remember that I would lay in the floor and stare underneath the door, waiting for his feet to disappear from behind the crack near the floor. When I thought he was gone, I would come out of the bathroom and go sit by my grandmother's chair. Even if she was sleeping, I would feel safer.



1986



Summer



Mother worked all day at a factory in Holly Springs. Before she left every morning, she would cook breakfast. Daddy would carry her to a friends house to get a ride to work because moma couldnt drive. Then when she got home, she would clean and cook. Mother was always busy. Daddy worked for himself, basically. He had a store but now he was trying new ideas with the building that had once been his gas station. My father refused to work for others, even if it meant we had to have less than others did. But he hunted every winter and grew crops every summer. I was made to help in the garden and then help with skinning the animals we ate, even cleaning fish. I do remember learning so much from my mother and father.



But, If I was bad or refused to work in the garden, clean the animals or the fish...I would be beaten with a belt. I think Daddy loved his belt, he even threatened to use it on Moma. But I guess that is another story and if I start there, I may wander off these pages and get lost in some other torment. Let's finish this one, shall we.