78

1995

fall


And so you have it..my mother was sick. But I went about life as if nothing was wrong with her. Eventually my bleeding stopped and the only recollection of my abortion, for a while, were the dreams I continued to have. Venum went about his life drinking and hanging out with his friends...and rendering chaos.

Chez Place became a community to us. In fact, Venum made a new acquaintence every day. One of the first people that we met was Margie. Margie lived next door to us as first, with her boyfriend Ted. She fast became friends with Venum but rarely talked to me all that much. I will admit, I had became a little withdrawn and didn't trust many people...but that was not all of the story. Every day that went by, Marg and Venum became closer. On several days I could hear her calling him from across the apartment complex in a sort of sing song voice. Jealousy reared its head and I turned further inward. Marg became friends with Doug, a trucker from the east side of the apartments and so Venum became acquainted with him as well. Then there was Tony who was a drunken idiot who lived with Doug...thus he joined the group. After two or three weeks; Lily, Alan and Paul moved in beside Doug and Tony. The group grew to larger proportions as the days went by. I watched on in the background..calculating and paying attention to details. Over the course of time, that fall...Venum spent more time with his friends than me. How did I deal? Did I attempt to know them, be there friends as well or to offer my hand in greeting...no, I did not. I started to feel enmity and my jealousy grew. Did I get angry? Maybe I silently grew angry and resentful....but mostly, I withdrew. When the feelings grew too strong, I argued with Venum. Was he sensitive to my feelings...NO, not at all. When it was convenient for me, I would be nice to them but when it was not, I started to write.....journal my feelings and put them away for later. I saw things that didn't seem right with Margie and Venum but I could not prove they were having sex. I even watched them kiss on the mouth on several occasions and he would tell me that they were just friends.


1995

Venum couldn't stay out of jail, for the most part. I think the first offense was driving with no license. Then it was a trip to jail for public drunk. I don't think he had a license for most of the time that we were together. He didn't seem to care either. He saw his trips to jail as being a riot...hilarious. When I would have to bail him out, he would laugh and laugh while I would fume in anger.

 Most days he was drunk and not sober. His friends at the apartment stayed drunk as much as he did. I would join them when I just didn't want to face the dark alone. I found Margie to be highly irritating and only dealt with her if I had to. She seemed a few short of a whole deck in my opinion but she was giving when she felt the urge. I remember when Dexter and his brother came to live across the plaza from us. I liked Dexter but only as a friend. He seemed to be quiet and many times removed himself from the drama at the apartments. Although I thought Dexter was cool, I never spent time with him alone. I was hard on myself at times and insisted that I be faithful to Venum...even to the point of being alone when I had to be. I know it seemed a little much, but I wanted to love him and only him. I knew that my heart belonged to Venum and I guess that is why I was so hard on the things he did. I thought that he felt the same way for me but I guess he was just growing up as I was.

That thing inside would laugh and laugh at me sometimes for my timid ways. She thought I was ridiculous and did not see why I was so reserved about Venum's friends. She would push and then she would tug until I was in a corner crying. She hated to be ignored. I just didn't know what to feel at that time.


1995

Venum dropped me off at work one night when he didn't have to come in until later. After hours of working at one of my machines, I grew nervous. Venum had never shown up at work. He had dropped me off and drove off in my car to who knows where...and I had no idea where he was.
ONe of Venum's best friends was Bobby. I had to go to Bobby and find out if he had heard from Venum and of course he hadn't and so we both started to make phone calls when the superviser wasn't looking. We found Venum in jail in Tupelo for possession of cocaine. I was devastated. I never really thought that Venum was that deep in the usage of cocaine. I found out what I needed to know in order to get him out of jail and then continued to work on into the night. The janitor, who had been acquaintances with us for the time that we worked at Bio Clinic, had a talk with me about not putting up with Venum's shit. I half way listened but mostly kept thinking about just wanting to get Venum out of jail. After all I loved him with all my heart.

That night after work and after finding out that they were not going to let Venum out of jail for several days, I decided to go home with a co worker of mine, Ginger. Ginger was very good to me and so I tried to enjoy her company. While I was with her for a couple days, I went to speak with the police cheif about trying to get Venum out of jail. He informed me that my car was impounded under his charge of possession and normally, I would not have been able to get my car back. I pleaded with him and he offered to go easy on me because it was my car and not Venum's possession. He quoted a price and so I had to get up the money for both the car and for Venum's bail. I was so angry at him for what he was putting me through but none the less, I made plans to get him out of jail as soon as possible. Of course, like before, I called my aunt to help me.

I lectured Venum about what he was putting me through but he kind of shrugged it off and kissed on me...hoping to mend what he had done. He used his sweetest voice at first but when it wasn't working as he thought it should, he began to be an ass, cussing and telling me that I was being over dramatic. Then, after setting me straight, he told me to go to the beer store so he could get something to drink. He told me that he lied to the cops and told them that the rocks in the door jam was just wax from some of my candles. They couldn't have believed him but for some reason, according to Venum, they threw out the case. I never knew why this happened.

The next day at work, the plant manager made up a reason why Venum couldn't work there anymore. We all knew it was because of his cocaine charge but the Corporation would not admit to it. Apparently, Bobby, Venum's 'best friend', ratted him out to get a higher position with the company. I hated Bobby for what he done to Venum but it seems that Venum just said 'whatever'. I was taking these things upon myself to be angry. I hated Bobby, I hated the plant manager..I hated Corporate...I just hated and grew bitter. I got so angry about the whole thing that the plant manager sent me home to cool off. On the way home...driving Venum away from his last day at work....Venum mentioned how nice it would be to go to a pet store to look around. It was as if he didn't care whether he just got fired or not. And so we went.

While we were there, we met a strange snake. His name was Hissy. Hissy was a very mean tempered snake that loved to bite ...bite continuously. Me and Venum both let Hissy continuously bite us as we laughed about how mean but yet how beautiful he was. We bought Hissy and took him home with us.


1995

I started selling pills first and with Venum's trainging, I started to sell weed on occasion. I didn't sell on many occasions and it was mostly just joints...but I did sell drugs. It was the pills that I really made the money from. I had saved all my pain pills from years before and from my abortion. I beleive that I was getting 10-20 dollars a pill for some of the stronger ones and about 5 bucks a joint. I noticed that some of my actions were starting to mimick Venum's. I started having an attitude when I would talk to the older guys and I felt the thing inside come to the surface and drive the car that I called....me. I let her have the wheel and I got to know Venum's friends better.