Georgia
Shortly after Christmas was over it was time again when we couldn't pay the rent and had no place to go so we moved to James(stepdad) hometown Redmond, Utah. We only packed small things like our clothes and my boombox (stereo) because this was all we could fit in our car. We drove for hours and when we finally got to this little town in the middle of no where we drove straight to a house that was a beautiful brick home build probably 1940s. James told us it was home for a while so we went inside and it had furniture and beds and pictures on the walls, the only thing it didn't have was electricity. The people who owned the home was gone for the next 6 months or so, so James decided it was time to move us in some strangers home and they had no idea we were living there. I remember the room was my favorite it had Vanilla Ice pictures all over the walls and he was such a babe. So I was happy with my new home and room, the electricity never was turned on, and I am not sure what kind of lie James told the neighbors but they must of bought it.
James started collecting chickens and roosters and started a little chicken farm so he could fight the roosters. He started attending cock fights with our roosters and he was not very successful at winning, until we got Bart. I named the pretty red rooster with multiple colors on its tale Bart after Bart Simpson. James told me not to name the roosters because it gives them bad luck, but I called him Bart anyway and it stuck. Bart was the best fighting chicken he had. So James was starting to make money, well illegal money but hey it was finally money for him to buy his own drugs and alcohol with. He would drag me to the chicken fights and I hated them! I hated seeing the chickens fight to the death and then having to clean up a dead chicken after a fight it was always bloody and messy. I remember one day I had to go clean up the dead chickens after a fight and then I had breakfast and it was fruit loops and I couldn't eat my breakfast after seeing the dead chickens, I threw up the couple of bites I did eat and to this day when I smell the cheap brand of fruit loops I still gag and have images of dead chickens.
I had good memories while living there, my dad brought down my trampoline that he bought me when I was a younger kid about 5 years old and so he brought my trampoline for me to have down to Redmond, it was nice to see my dad, I didn't see him very often he wasn't the greatest at being the father figure in my life but it was all I had and it was 100% better then James. I remember sleeping outside on my trampoline and spending all day on it. It was my only toy or activity I had and I loved it because my dad gave it to me. Whenever my dad gave me something I treasured it, I wouldn't even throw away my candy bar wrappers after I ate the candy bar he gave me. I wanted to keep everything he gave me.
I adopted 2 or 3 baby ducklings from a friend of James and I loved those ducks. I treated them like they were my baby so I even decided to give them a bath and in doing so it washed off there floating oils (I didn't know this would happen) and then I would put them back in the small water canal that ran through our property and they started to sink, I had to save them! I then found out that I can not shampoo my ducklings. I took great care of those ducklings until the neighbors cats got a hold of them and had them for dinner. I was so sad and started hating cats after that. The neighbor had 100+ cats roaming everywhere and in his house. So my step dad James would set out traps and we would trap the cats and I was so excited to trap them since they killed my ducklings and would kill the baby chicks. Well after we trapped them I didn't know what the consequence would be until James made me go with him one day to get rid of those filthy cats. He had trapped them in a metal cage tied rope to the cage and through them out in the lake. I was heartbroken and cried and begged him not to do that, but he didn't listen to me and did it anyway. I never wanted to trap cats again and would sometimes set off the traps so they wouldn't get the cats.
Well like I said Bart was the best fighting rooster James had and it was getting close to the time that the family was going to move back into the house so we had to get out before they got home and found us in there home. So James had a great idea to move us to Georgia where he could fight Bart and his other roosters and make real money doing it (those were his words not mine). So my mom agreed to it because she didn't have a brain. So one morning I woke up and my trampoline had been stolen!!! I cried and cried and cried it was the one thing I loved most and it was from my dad! I seriously had a breakdown crying. My mom and James told me it was stolen and then when my mom eventually divorced James she told me they sold it so we would have gas money to get to Georgia. I was so angry, and you will soon find out that James never sold his items but always sold mine for his own gain.
So we packed up the roosters and some hens in cages and put them in the backseat of our old beat up brown ugly as can be car that barely ran. We didn't have room for anything but some clothes and of course I had to bring my boombox. At this time we were down to nothing, we didn't have anything we owned to our name, since James did such a great job at selling it all. The chicken cages filled the backseat of our car so I had to sit in the middle of my mom and James the entire way to Georgia. James smoked a million cigarettes and drank nothing but beer the entire way and it was summer and hot and so stinky like old hot beer, sweat, smoke, and chicken crap! The car kept breaking down and over heating so we would have to turn the heater on full blast to cool the car so I would have hot air blowing on me besides the hot air from the windows and it started getting real humid on top of it all. We had to put all our money into gas and fixing the car that we had no food of course. I was starving and crying about it non-stop. I just wanted to eat something, I had gone 2 days without food and I was starting to get sick. So my mom pulled into a truck stop somewhere along the way and told me the only thing we could do was sale my boombox (my second my prized item besides my trampoline. My dad bought the boombox for me for Christmas, so I really cherished it). I started to cry that I had to sell my boom box, I didn't want to it was my only possession and it was from my dad. I begged them not too, but it had to be done. So my mom and I walked around all the diesel trucks and asked them if they would like to buy my boom box so we could get some food to eat. We were turned down by a lot of people until one truck driver said yes he would buy it, I was so full of mixed emotions to say goodbye to the boom box and yet so hungry too. The truck driver said he would buy it but he wanted to eat with us. So we agreed and we went into the gas station diner and ordered food. I ordered pancakes and my mom didn't order anything, she was feeling guilty for this mess we are in. I felt so bad that my mom wasn't eating that I felt guilty and tried to share my food but she wouldn't eat it. I couldn't finish my pancakes my stomach had shrunk from not eating and I was so emotional and stressed about my mom and my boom box. My mom started getting angry at me for not finishing and was mad that I was wasting food this nice man was buying for me and I was so hungry why am I not finishing the pancakes, but I was stuffed and felt guilty for eating. So it was time to go and I had to give him my boom box, I started to cry even now I am crying just remembering this ( I will need counseling after this). The man felt bad for me and said that he had a daughter who loves music and he would feel bad taking away her stereo so I could keep it and he would still buy my breakfast. I was so happy and then felt guilt for not selling it to him but so relieved too that I didn't have to say goodbye to my dad, that's what it really felt like was saying goodbye to my dad not the boom box. I walked back to the car and got a ear full of mean comments from James, he called me all sorts of bad names. All I could do was cry and feel guilty for being hungry. James of course finished off my left over pancakes and didn't share them with my mom.
The car kept breaking down on us, it had its finally day when we were in Alabama and we broke down and pushed the car into a gas station that had a garage. We had no money to fix the car and we didn't have anyone we knew in Alabama. I had to call my dad and beg for money and told him we are stuck in Alabama and James got some money wired to us by his friend Buster who lived in Georgia who was going to hook him up with cock fights. So Buster wired us some money and we got the car to run enough to get us to Georgia.
When we got to Georgia we drove straight to Busters house who he lived with his parents. Yes a grown man living with his parents, it makes sense right? Why would James have any real friends with real jobs other then illegal cock fighting. We were greeted by Buster and his parents. I remember as we drove up to the house it was white and they were sitting in there rocking chairs on the front porch peeling peas. The mother was a older lady and was so beautiful to me, not beautiful like the world would call beautiful but she just had a beauty about her, she had long white hair and was slender and older. She was kind and taught me how to peel peas and she let me eat as much as I wanted. We slept there for a week until my mom got a job at the chicken factory (not the illegal chicken factory). We then moved to a white trash trailer court and the trailer was furnished so we had a bed and couch. My mom put all of her money into paying back Buster and his parents and then the first months rent for the trailer. I was put in school and the kids were nice to me, they all loved to hear me talk, they said I talked funny and wanted to hear my accent so they would call on me to do the reading. I didn't know what they were talking about I thought they sounded funny.
I made a friend who lived a couple of trailers down and she was nice and invited me to her weird church that has lots of singing and shouting and money tray getting passed around, it was really confusing, but the people were nice. I remember seeing smoke come out from under the door and all the adults would get up during the song and go into the room as the music still played then they came out and I had no idea what happened. Church was not boring that was for sure.
We became friends with James friends and they were nice people, they had 2 daughters one was 15 and boy crazy and the other was my age and she was really skinny and pretty and I would hear all the time that I was fat and needed to be pretty and skinny like this girl. I was nothing to James, he didn't like me and I didn't like him. He would call me names like cunt in front of all his friends and they would all laugh and I remember being so embarrassed and ran out of the house outside and started to cry, my mom found me and told me not to worry and cry because sticks and stones brake bones but names will never hurt me. I told her it was a lie, and I didn't like it. She told me that in this life we will be called names and we just have to get over it and deal with it and not let it bother me. Not the best advice, and why did she always take the men in her life side of things and not stick up for me.
Same story as usual we didn't have food to eat, it was always spent on James drugs. We would get canned food from the food bank and I remember eating pears out of a can for dinner and that was the only meal I had all day. I hated pears but I came to love them some days that was the only thing we had.
One night while my mom was at work James friend came over and brought some cocaine with him, so James who was already drinking all day started doing cocaine with his friend right in front of me and I got freaked out. James and his friend started getting crazy and had the music up so loud and was swearing and just being jerks. I told James that cocaine was not ok and not to do this in our house and I was going to tell my mom when she got home about this. James started yelling at me and of course calling me inappropriate names, he got really angry with me and told me to shut up and I would die if I told my mom. I was so scared, I went in my room and started crying. I remember thinking how hungry I was and how he just spent our money to get high. I remember praying that my mom would get home soon so his friend would leave. (again I am so thankful for being watched over in my life, another scary situation that could have gotten worst). I went into my room and hid in my closet and was in there for a long time, I tried to calm down and get my mind off of what just happened. I didn't have any toys while living in Georgia since we came with nothing, all I had was a McDonalds toy Crueler Deville toy and I remember holding her and trying to play and drown out the noise from James and his friend and there loud music. I remember my mom coming home and finding me in my closet crying so hard I could hardly talk and scared out of my mind. I told her what had happened and she yelled at James and they got in a big fight. James then put a knife to me and said you better not sleep tonight because I am going to kill you. As soon as he let me go my mom and I went back to her room and waited until James passed out, then we snuck out the window and pushed the car up the hill until he couldn't hear us and started the car and went to a gas station to call my grandma in Utah for help. At this time my grandma was not talking to my mom because of there last fight and my grandma was not happy that we moved to Georgia, so my mom wouldn't talk to my grandparents I had to call them and my mom told me word for word what to say to them. After I told them about James threatening to kill me my grandma insisted on talking to my mom if we wanted her help then my mom had to talk to her. My mom thought long and hard and was so mad that I made her talk to my grandma. She swallowed her pride and got on the phone. My grandparents bought us a bus ticket home from Georgia to Utah. We had to find away to Atlanta to get to the bus. So a friend of my moms put us in the back of her little pick up truck and drove us to Atlanta which was like a 3 hour drive or so. It was freezing. The wind was so cold. I remember my mom and I laying down under a blanket and snuggling trying to stay warm. The wind from the freeway speeds kept trying to steal our blanket from off of us and sometimes we would put our heads out of the blanket and try to get the truck drivers to honk by moving our arms down like a honking horn motion. It wasn't the best trip of my life, but we made it to Atlanta. When we got to Atlanta and to the greyhound bus station I was freaked out! My mom and I was the only white people there. It was a huge bus station, and the people there were very scary looking. I remember people staring at us. There are just not enough words to describe this place, plus I am a little white girl from Utah. So it was a rude awakening for me. I clung onto my moms arm and tried not to look scared or look anyone in the eye, it was a whole new world. We eventually got on the bus but it was impossible to sit by each other. So the whole trip from Georgia to Utah I was sitting by a complete stranger and it was very frightening for me. The people who ride the greyhound bus are not your average normal looking or smelling people. My mom tried to ask people to switch seats so we could sit by each other but people did not want to give up there seats, they wanted to keep the window seat. I was pretty scared and didn't sleep a wink during the entire trip to Utah.
James started collecting chickens and roosters and started a little chicken farm so he could fight the roosters. He started attending cock fights with our roosters and he was not very successful at winning, until we got Bart. I named the pretty red rooster with multiple colors on its tale Bart after Bart Simpson. James told me not to name the roosters because it gives them bad luck, but I called him Bart anyway and it stuck. Bart was the best fighting chicken he had. So James was starting to make money, well illegal money but hey it was finally money for him to buy his own drugs and alcohol with. He would drag me to the chicken fights and I hated them! I hated seeing the chickens fight to the death and then having to clean up a dead chicken after a fight it was always bloody and messy. I remember one day I had to go clean up the dead chickens after a fight and then I had breakfast and it was fruit loops and I couldn't eat my breakfast after seeing the dead chickens, I threw up the couple of bites I did eat and to this day when I smell the cheap brand of fruit loops I still gag and have images of dead chickens.
I had good memories while living there, my dad brought down my trampoline that he bought me when I was a younger kid about 5 years old and so he brought my trampoline for me to have down to Redmond, it was nice to see my dad, I didn't see him very often he wasn't the greatest at being the father figure in my life but it was all I had and it was 100% better then James. I remember sleeping outside on my trampoline and spending all day on it. It was my only toy or activity I had and I loved it because my dad gave it to me. Whenever my dad gave me something I treasured it, I wouldn't even throw away my candy bar wrappers after I ate the candy bar he gave me. I wanted to keep everything he gave me.
I adopted 2 or 3 baby ducklings from a friend of James and I loved those ducks. I treated them like they were my baby so I even decided to give them a bath and in doing so it washed off there floating oils (I didn't know this would happen) and then I would put them back in the small water canal that ran through our property and they started to sink, I had to save them! I then found out that I can not shampoo my ducklings. I took great care of those ducklings until the neighbors cats got a hold of them and had them for dinner. I was so sad and started hating cats after that. The neighbor had 100+ cats roaming everywhere and in his house. So my step dad James would set out traps and we would trap the cats and I was so excited to trap them since they killed my ducklings and would kill the baby chicks. Well after we trapped them I didn't know what the consequence would be until James made me go with him one day to get rid of those filthy cats. He had trapped them in a metal cage tied rope to the cage and through them out in the lake. I was heartbroken and cried and begged him not to do that, but he didn't listen to me and did it anyway. I never wanted to trap cats again and would sometimes set off the traps so they wouldn't get the cats.
Well like I said Bart was the best fighting rooster James had and it was getting close to the time that the family was going to move back into the house so we had to get out before they got home and found us in there home. So James had a great idea to move us to Georgia where he could fight Bart and his other roosters and make real money doing it (those were his words not mine). So my mom agreed to it because she didn't have a brain. So one morning I woke up and my trampoline had been stolen!!! I cried and cried and cried it was the one thing I loved most and it was from my dad! I seriously had a breakdown crying. My mom and James told me it was stolen and then when my mom eventually divorced James she told me they sold it so we would have gas money to get to Georgia. I was so angry, and you will soon find out that James never sold his items but always sold mine for his own gain.
So we packed up the roosters and some hens in cages and put them in the backseat of our old beat up brown ugly as can be car that barely ran. We didn't have room for anything but some clothes and of course I had to bring my boombox. At this time we were down to nothing, we didn't have anything we owned to our name, since James did such a great job at selling it all. The chicken cages filled the backseat of our car so I had to sit in the middle of my mom and James the entire way to Georgia. James smoked a million cigarettes and drank nothing but beer the entire way and it was summer and hot and so stinky like old hot beer, sweat, smoke, and chicken crap! The car kept breaking down and over heating so we would have to turn the heater on full blast to cool the car so I would have hot air blowing on me besides the hot air from the windows and it started getting real humid on top of it all. We had to put all our money into gas and fixing the car that we had no food of course. I was starving and crying about it non-stop. I just wanted to eat something, I had gone 2 days without food and I was starting to get sick. So my mom pulled into a truck stop somewhere along the way and told me the only thing we could do was sale my boombox (my second my prized item besides my trampoline. My dad bought the boombox for me for Christmas, so I really cherished it). I started to cry that I had to sell my boom box, I didn't want to it was my only possession and it was from my dad. I begged them not too, but it had to be done. So my mom and I walked around all the diesel trucks and asked them if they would like to buy my boom box so we could get some food to eat. We were turned down by a lot of people until one truck driver said yes he would buy it, I was so full of mixed emotions to say goodbye to the boom box and yet so hungry too. The truck driver said he would buy it but he wanted to eat with us. So we agreed and we went into the gas station diner and ordered food. I ordered pancakes and my mom didn't order anything, she was feeling guilty for this mess we are in. I felt so bad that my mom wasn't eating that I felt guilty and tried to share my food but she wouldn't eat it. I couldn't finish my pancakes my stomach had shrunk from not eating and I was so emotional and stressed about my mom and my boom box. My mom started getting angry at me for not finishing and was mad that I was wasting food this nice man was buying for me and I was so hungry why am I not finishing the pancakes, but I was stuffed and felt guilty for eating. So it was time to go and I had to give him my boom box, I started to cry even now I am crying just remembering this ( I will need counseling after this). The man felt bad for me and said that he had a daughter who loves music and he would feel bad taking away her stereo so I could keep it and he would still buy my breakfast. I was so happy and then felt guilt for not selling it to him but so relieved too that I didn't have to say goodbye to my dad, that's what it really felt like was saying goodbye to my dad not the boom box. I walked back to the car and got a ear full of mean comments from James, he called me all sorts of bad names. All I could do was cry and feel guilty for being hungry. James of course finished off my left over pancakes and didn't share them with my mom.
The car kept breaking down on us, it had its finally day when we were in Alabama and we broke down and pushed the car into a gas station that had a garage. We had no money to fix the car and we didn't have anyone we knew in Alabama. I had to call my dad and beg for money and told him we are stuck in Alabama and James got some money wired to us by his friend Buster who lived in Georgia who was going to hook him up with cock fights. So Buster wired us some money and we got the car to run enough to get us to Georgia.
When we got to Georgia we drove straight to Busters house who he lived with his parents. Yes a grown man living with his parents, it makes sense right? Why would James have any real friends with real jobs other then illegal cock fighting. We were greeted by Buster and his parents. I remember as we drove up to the house it was white and they were sitting in there rocking chairs on the front porch peeling peas. The mother was a older lady and was so beautiful to me, not beautiful like the world would call beautiful but she just had a beauty about her, she had long white hair and was slender and older. She was kind and taught me how to peel peas and she let me eat as much as I wanted. We slept there for a week until my mom got a job at the chicken factory (not the illegal chicken factory). We then moved to a white trash trailer court and the trailer was furnished so we had a bed and couch. My mom put all of her money into paying back Buster and his parents and then the first months rent for the trailer. I was put in school and the kids were nice to me, they all loved to hear me talk, they said I talked funny and wanted to hear my accent so they would call on me to do the reading. I didn't know what they were talking about I thought they sounded funny.
I made a friend who lived a couple of trailers down and she was nice and invited me to her weird church that has lots of singing and shouting and money tray getting passed around, it was really confusing, but the people were nice. I remember seeing smoke come out from under the door and all the adults would get up during the song and go into the room as the music still played then they came out and I had no idea what happened. Church was not boring that was for sure.
We became friends with James friends and they were nice people, they had 2 daughters one was 15 and boy crazy and the other was my age and she was really skinny and pretty and I would hear all the time that I was fat and needed to be pretty and skinny like this girl. I was nothing to James, he didn't like me and I didn't like him. He would call me names like cunt in front of all his friends and they would all laugh and I remember being so embarrassed and ran out of the house outside and started to cry, my mom found me and told me not to worry and cry because sticks and stones brake bones but names will never hurt me. I told her it was a lie, and I didn't like it. She told me that in this life we will be called names and we just have to get over it and deal with it and not let it bother me. Not the best advice, and why did she always take the men in her life side of things and not stick up for me.
Same story as usual we didn't have food to eat, it was always spent on James drugs. We would get canned food from the food bank and I remember eating pears out of a can for dinner and that was the only meal I had all day. I hated pears but I came to love them some days that was the only thing we had.
One night while my mom was at work James friend came over and brought some cocaine with him, so James who was already drinking all day started doing cocaine with his friend right in front of me and I got freaked out. James and his friend started getting crazy and had the music up so loud and was swearing and just being jerks. I told James that cocaine was not ok and not to do this in our house and I was going to tell my mom when she got home about this. James started yelling at me and of course calling me inappropriate names, he got really angry with me and told me to shut up and I would die if I told my mom. I was so scared, I went in my room and started crying. I remember thinking how hungry I was and how he just spent our money to get high. I remember praying that my mom would get home soon so his friend would leave. (again I am so thankful for being watched over in my life, another scary situation that could have gotten worst). I went into my room and hid in my closet and was in there for a long time, I tried to calm down and get my mind off of what just happened. I didn't have any toys while living in Georgia since we came with nothing, all I had was a McDonalds toy Crueler Deville toy and I remember holding her and trying to play and drown out the noise from James and his friend and there loud music. I remember my mom coming home and finding me in my closet crying so hard I could hardly talk and scared out of my mind. I told her what had happened and she yelled at James and they got in a big fight. James then put a knife to me and said you better not sleep tonight because I am going to kill you. As soon as he let me go my mom and I went back to her room and waited until James passed out, then we snuck out the window and pushed the car up the hill until he couldn't hear us and started the car and went to a gas station to call my grandma in Utah for help. At this time my grandma was not talking to my mom because of there last fight and my grandma was not happy that we moved to Georgia, so my mom wouldn't talk to my grandparents I had to call them and my mom told me word for word what to say to them. After I told them about James threatening to kill me my grandma insisted on talking to my mom if we wanted her help then my mom had to talk to her. My mom thought long and hard and was so mad that I made her talk to my grandma. She swallowed her pride and got on the phone. My grandparents bought us a bus ticket home from Georgia to Utah. We had to find away to Atlanta to get to the bus. So a friend of my moms put us in the back of her little pick up truck and drove us to Atlanta which was like a 3 hour drive or so. It was freezing. The wind was so cold. I remember my mom and I laying down under a blanket and snuggling trying to stay warm. The wind from the freeway speeds kept trying to steal our blanket from off of us and sometimes we would put our heads out of the blanket and try to get the truck drivers to honk by moving our arms down like a honking horn motion. It wasn't the best trip of my life, but we made it to Atlanta. When we got to Atlanta and to the greyhound bus station I was freaked out! My mom and I was the only white people there. It was a huge bus station, and the people there were very scary looking. I remember people staring at us. There are just not enough words to describe this place, plus I am a little white girl from Utah. So it was a rude awakening for me. I clung onto my moms arm and tried not to look scared or look anyone in the eye, it was a whole new world. We eventually got on the bus but it was impossible to sit by each other. So the whole trip from Georgia to Utah I was sitting by a complete stranger and it was very frightening for me. The people who ride the greyhound bus are not your average normal looking or smelling people. My mom tried to ask people to switch seats so we could sit by each other but people did not want to give up there seats, they wanted to keep the window seat. I was pretty scared and didn't sleep a wink during the entire trip to Utah.
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