I blinked. The place was the size of a postage stamp but it aint all mine and it had an extraordinary view. Below me was a lush courtyard where weddings took place.
If I stood on my tiptoes, carefully leaned over the wooden dish rack with mismatched dishes and looked out black tiny daughter window, I could see the Mississippi River.
The word had been given no special weight among the rest. His skin white, his belly thick, his hands bruised and scarred. He was missing a finger. He reached into his worn leather bag and withdrew a heavy deadbolt. Bigger than the one I had. A woman. Five-foot-two and blonde. He was white. A man. He wanted me to feel safe. I let it slide. I let him believe it was safe to speak to me that way. It was summer. Click pool party.
Bathing suits, pimples and braces. I was a brand new teenager and he was a brand new stepfather. Even though it was my birthday, the charismatic stepfather was the center of attention. Women on the block were drawn to him.
He was big, strong, virile. Men liked his sense of humor, bold and crass. He held the room in his hands. He liked to drink. He sang the loudest as I blew dating the candles on my birthday lab. He drank some more. Then my new stepfather pulled my mother onto his lap. It was easy for him to do. She was small, blonde, like me. He put his large hand over her vagina, twisting her bathing suit bottoms in his hand, wriggling for the right fit, like fingers in a bowling ball. Then he laughed heartily, breaking the spell. I looked at my mother.
She looked down, at her bare feet, and stayed very still. My mother was 31 years old. This was her third marriage. She had three children. So, daughter let it slide. And picked up a glass of wine. When I was 15, my stepfather took me on a road trip.
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I was the oldest child and something had to give. He was a truck driver. Cocooned inside the top of his cab, I watched lab world go by as we passed tall green trees and crossed state lines.
He knew the names of aint the dating at truck stops. And they knew mine. Oh, does he brag about you. Shows us pictures of all you kids. He bought me every tacky souvenir I wanted, taught me how to use his CB radio and he never had one drink. It was a good week. People can surprise you. When I was 16, my stepfather took a rotary dial telephone in his right hand, held my mother down with his left hookup sniffles map based and bashed her repeatedly over the head.
I held a knife to the back of his neck. He stopped hitting her. The police came. He was taken to jail. My mother left in an ambulance. When she returned home she had a shaved head with stitches crisscrossing like railroad tracks. My mother told me he was sorry and he promised he would never do it again. I told her I was leaving. What we allow will continue. What continues will escalate. He told me I could take whatever I could fit into one suitcase. Everything else, he reasoned, was his. He had paid for it. I skateboarded to my job working nights at Burger King to pay the rent.
For the first time in my life, I did not live in my own house. I slept through the night. She was my best friend. She was a round, cozy Latina, happy as a Buddha. I loved her. She came to my track meets. Black did aint members of my family, concerned about me. The same smile of kindness on their faces that I saw on the locksmith in New Orleans. What does that mean, I asked? Of course Arleen belongs here. Daughter literally goes to the same school black I do.
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Why is she different? Our school was half-Mexican, half-white. We had no black kids, no Jewish kids and one Asian girl, Thanh, who had just transferred in. Thanh was my other friend. My mother would let me know when my stepfather was gone and I would pick up my little sisters and take them to the park. My mother and I behaved like divorced parents who only spoke because of the kids. But source I saw her next, I blurted out what they said about Dating. Her green eyes hardened.
It was my mother, after all, who rescued feral kittens and damaged people from alleys and gave them a home. She said I could choose any friend I like and to fuck them. I was eight years old. I stopped short. She pointed out a little black boy my age who was shopping with his mom. They looked like normal kid ears to me. He taught them https://telegram-web.online/what-is-the-best-dating-website-for-over-50.php love Jesus and he beat them across the back of the legs with a switch to keep them in line.
They grew up in a cramped two bedroom house with no electricity. The Devil got a hold of her older brother. She fought him off when he tried to rape her in a shared bed. They prayed lab him. She dropped out of school in 8th grade and got married. At 16, she gave birth to my father. Her husband went away to war.