It rained all night, I didn't sleep too bad though. I was grateful for the porch roof at the abandoned house I was still sleeping at. I was regularly watching sweeps being done on homeless communities in NY and across the country. The despicable way the homeless were being treated and criminalized I was learning in my own hometown. Each morning I had to pray to get up and get going, I felt ashamed and ugly. It reminded me of being a girl and always being shamed because I was "welfare." There was always the other line—the line for the other kids like me. It never amounted to more than two or three kids. I couldn't figure out why there had to be a big deal to have a whole separate line when there was only a couple of us usually, but I had to be separated and I thought how could adults not know how that felt. Once I went through whatever line I was in the looks ranged from animosity to name-calling to threats of being beat-up all through grade school. Being in separate lines caused unwanted attention all the time. Memories kept flooding back now after working so hard to not have to live this way again. The same group from high school involved once again. I went to school with these people denying me the rightful assets I worked my whole life for. My career that I loved was destroyed, homes I worked on all these years were being sold and once again no one cared about me.
People were in tents or directly on the streets with tarps. I was dry and okay for today. I woke up grateful I got through the night and glad the sun was coming up too. I liked getting up early now that I was sleeping better. I used to love a nice morning with my coffee, my pen, and my spiral notebook. It's taken a while to transfer this to the laptop, but so far I'm not doing so bad. After 20yrs of my journals were stolen by my ex and his cronies, I continued to keep writing longhand in a journal, but at each place I rented, they were stolen along with legal documents, my daytimer, and other personal things, that I stopped writing in a journal except for short ideas for writing. Over time I slowly transitioned and now I was doing pretty good getting my writing on my blog. Blog writing is different than the emotional, stream of conscious writing I was doing, but I was happy to be regularly writing again. I was feeling stronger each day and my writing had always been a part of my routine whether in the morning, at night or anytime I needed to.
I sat outside the new Stewarts and it was nice. They now had outdoor picnic tables and you could sit under the black umbrella and eat or rest, which was what I was doing. Lugging my suitcase around gets tiring and so I sat for a little bit to collect my thoughts. The old Stewarts was gone, the one me and my cousin sat at all those years ago eating sherbert ice-creams on the porch. Here I was sleeping on the same porch "Peacefully Protesting" what had been done to me and what was still going on. Each day I would get up early and watch the guys put up the new one with such precision. I marveled at how organized and adroit they were at coordinating it all and making the new one come to life. It was bigger, had more booths and a nice bathroom, and of course pizza. I had been looking forward to the pizza—I missed having pizza. I thought how all that can be done so easily, but I was still homeless and no one was helping me. How could men work efficiently at some things and pretend to be so oblivious to others? I had applied to Stewarts a few times over the years when between professional jobs and never heard anything, I usually got a professional job and didn't hold a grudge. I was very grateful lately for them being there.
I was grateful, especially for the bathroom. When your homeless it's so hard to find a place to use the bathroom—15 minutes in the bathroom and I felt human again. It's awful to not have access to a bathroom. A few minutes in the bathroom and I can start the day. I hate not being able to wash. I spent my childhood fighting with my mother that had to control me when I used the bathroom. I was only able to take a bath once a week, it was hard and it wasn't about water because even when I just took a sponge bath she raged. My Grandmother was different, when I was with her I could use the bathroom whenever and had much more agency. My mother would accuse both of us of being "high and mighty," for thinking we are something. I never felt that way and mostly felt diminished and humiliated when she would storm in the bathroom while I was trying to wash up and start yelling and shoving me around. I felt especially vulnerable in the bathroom, especially because she would sometimes summon her boyfriend to look at me in the bathroom. I was always uncomfortable around these men, they weren't my father, step-father, or family, and they all mostly sided with her. Having a safe, nice clean bathroom was always a priority and my ex knew that. I talked about it as soon as I met him and it continued until they violently put me on the street. It was horrible trying to find a place to clean and go to the bathroom. I had an irritable bowel as a child and all through my marriage from the abuse, but at least now it wasn't a problem.
As I sat at Stewarts he slowly went by. The large graphics he used to display his plumbing business was changed again—another new truck and new logos. I sat dumbfounded and uncomfortable, he had already driven past yesterday, as he stared at me out his open window. It was cool and had been raining and was just clearing, but he was leering out his window pretty far looking at me in a menacing way. He now looked to me like the felon he was and always had been. He had numerous DWIs, drank with my ex and my 1/2 brother all the time, and did time for felony DWI. What a scumbag I thought and found myself saying it out loud thinking of the "lifetime order of protection" he had against me after having me arrested. I had merely called him to ask if he could help me hook up my washer recently. I had given him so much business over the years and never asked anything in return—I didn't think it would be a big deal. Cops pushed in my door, took me to a neighboring town 45min away at 10pm at night in a blinding rainstorm—then I was taken to Jail. I was accused of "harassing him!" I was shackled and humiliated by the whole ordeal then accused of "harassing the cop" that took me to Jail when I tried to get him to take a report of Sexual Assault that I thought was related. I was being harassed repeatedly after that assault. I called him at the most that night twice, pleading with him about what was going on, but after all these years I finally knew the truth—he had been involved since we were teenagers.
He had been a friend of my 1/2 brothers since we were kids—he was always around. My mother called him her "Second son." I considered him like a brother, but now knew how horribly wrong I had been. I thought of all the times I gave him work at our properties. Whenever we had some plumbing problems I made sure my ex called him, so "the men" could discuss the problem and fix it. I always paid for 1/2 and did all the research and price comparing, but he always got all the credit. They had also become friends and went snowmobiling and to strip clubs in Canada every winter. I also had his first wife in my wedding, she caused numerous problems and threatened to back out repeatedly. I knew now all the fights had been on purpose and they all knew and went along.
I thought of my dog "Casey" and I felt like crying. I had been giving Casey the water and I had come to see that my ex had not been changing the filters. I was told he had a cancerous tumor at 5yrs old. He could barely move the mass was so big. This plumber was there because of how backed up the sink had gotten and I know now it had all been deliberate. I had no money and my ex would not give me money to take him to the Vet, plus I was so weak by that point from the constant rage he was displaying. I knew Casey died because of what they had been doing, but the Vet just said it was a tumor and he had to be put down. My ex's Aunt never drank the water in the house and here my ex was telling me it was ok after we were going to take care of her in her home and she was going to give us the house for all the years of taking care of her and her sister my MIL who was blind. It had been difficult over the years they were very demanding and had made constant promises of the rental income I would have. Giving me nothing all those years was going to finally pay off I thought and things would be easier. Whenever they got too demanding and they were very demanding my ex would say how it "will all work out."—I had no idea he meant just for himself!
Memories of how they were to me over the years flashed back. His wife was younger and would have tantrums about everything. I remember he was the same, very spoiled. His mother was like his girlfriend. I remember when they got married his mother wore what appeared to be a wedding dress to their wedding and spent the entire time on his arm according to his new wife, who also pretended to be my friend. When my wedding came a short time later, she caused numerous fights and threatened to back out 2 weeks before the wedding. She was going to be my Matron of Honor and instead became the maid of honor. I had no friends really, the fights had started shortly after we got engaged, the isolation all a part of keeping me from knowing what was going on. They all pretended they didn't really see each other, none of my family came to their wedding and refused to come to mine. My mother raged that she wanted no part of my wedding but then agreed to come. Her boyfriend never responded to my invitation, my 1/2 brother's father, but then all of them went to the stag. I had no idea at the time what this really meant.
I had thought I was being a good girlfriend and soon-to-be modern wife allowing my new husband to have some dancers. It was shortly after the trend to have weddings that lasted entire weekends and stags where men often got into trouble because they ended up being so bad. I was a modern woman and thought it better to have a "couple dancers" that was more a show than strippers and all was on the up and up I was told. The stag was a huge success, men were lined up around the block to go. I was to horribly learn recently they all went because I was just a whore and being set up as some kind of sold slave to serve my new inlaws and the marriage and it had all been set up to exploit me like the drug deals my ex did with all these people. When I first thought of the stag recently in the way they did I wanted to puke. The gambling I was told went on and I imagined some of it was to bet on how many years the marriage would last. I remember the dress shop where I got my dress and the train had been so long. I was not aware at the time, I just liked the dress and only years later did I understand the old wives' tale about the longer the train the longer the marriage. I shuddered to think my dress might have also been set up. It was the first one I tried on and it was on sale and I loved it, but because so much else had been set up I thought how that could have been too. It was one of those shops that were rather high-end and I doubt the woman who sold me the dress would be my friend and the dress was really discounted among many others that weren't.
The marriage ended up being 20yrs and the train was really long. To think these men sat around bet and gambled, drank, and set up my marriage was so disgusting that I was getting so I could not stand men anymore—I was finding I wanted to throw up most days now. My mother quipped when she was taunting me about how she had slept with my ex "want to play a number?" My MIL and her sisters played numbers all the time. I had no idea my Mother knew. It was a joke for my ex to ask me to play a number knowing I never did—I never gambled and didn't like it. He would usually go and get his Mother her numbers. When I met them I thought it a small pastime. They had all sorts of meanings for numbers and would all talk on the phone about the numbers that came out—it was constant for them. As the years went by, it bothered me more and more. Now I would say they were gamblers and criminals. I feel sad today having to face that. I was asked constantly if I had gone to church. We went pretty regularly, but I could never reconcile the gambling with the Orthodox Catholic Church we went to. They were very difficult people and after burying my MIL thought it all had been laid to rest and I had done really well with the difficult relationship with her. I had no idea the horror she and her sister had planned for me all these years later.
Once again, I can overhear older men talking and it makes me sick as I sit trying to write and a group of older ones talk about having horses. They keep saying they owned some and they are calling them "its." One saying how he liked the horse's name, but it never won and they put it out to a field to retire and then went on in that dismissive way that he was paying so much for something that gave him nothing back "it gave nothing back." I'm getting so hearing what men really talk about when no one is around is disgusting. Beautiful Racehorses are "its" and give nothing back. How awful to think horses give nothing back. They are beautiful sentient creatures that have feelings. Women recovering from abuse have found them healing and I had right away gravitated to taking horse-back lessons once my marriage ended.
Then they started talking about Prostitutes. One of their friends had been solicited for $20 one man said and all the men in the group laughed when he replied "I wasn't going to marry her for Christ's sake." I sat again wanting to get sick of how loud they were talking and what was the point they were making? $20 was so much money? I would not want to kiss any one of these men for $20 let alone what she would have done and in many cases being forced to do. Obviously, they thought that was too much money for something sexual then one went on to say he wished he had a few 20yr olds—they all laughed. I felt sad and disgusted about how men talk when women aren't around. How crude they really were and only pretended to be decent. It had been so long for me to just listen to men, it had been so long that I was around any men at all or anyone for that matter. It was starting to really sink in how isolated I had been even though I had worked so hard to overcome so much of this. My sweet dogs were my family and I missed them all terribly every day.
The older I get the more I understand how sexually immature these men become as they age. How what I was so shocked about is normal to these men. That it's just no big deal to treat women as things, as "its" not having agency. I had no idea, thinking that maturity comes with age, but sadly it doesn't. These men all seem to be in their 70s, 80s maybe, and are going on about 20yr olds. It's not hard to imagine why Trafficking, Pedophilia, and other perversions are so prevalent today—some men never grow up and remain disgusting little boys. What adds a new layer for me is to horribly realize that certain women are always considered whores, low-class or ones to be used like the abusive Jewish man recently I got scammed into renting a room from that wanted to lock me in his house and called me a "Shiksa." A woman they don't care about at all, just to be used and discarded—we're not even human beings, probably why these men could careless the way they were loudly talking just in ear-shot. I was not the type of woman they needed to concern themselves with.
I'm getting disgusting comments and overt displays of sexual harassment all the time now, even more so than at the many jobs I had over the years building my career. Men didn't need to be covert about it now. The cover-up to smear my reputation and paint me as a Prostitute was constant, unrelenting, and ongoing now and had been set up that way from the start of my marriage. A "whore who did nothing" in my 20yr marriage and deserved to be put on the street they all said. Even the judges, lawyers and filthy DA we have here. They were all going to stick together too, as men and women are apt to do in these kinds of cliques. All the ones I knew did and it included the whole community now. Everyone is only 2 people away now from being connected.
Connected powerful men that always had other men that went along with them. They even had a diagnosis to cover that up too—Schizophrenia. To think things have a connection and are related. I worked in Information Technology for years and networks are connected, but this was just another way to smear me. Men were giving me $20 in the beginning and I thought it was because I was homeless, it wasn't, it was some kind of rate for sexual favors on the street. They all would laugh and snicker and again I had no idea this was what it was about. I remembered when cops said they would "throw me $10" after forcing me to walk to get my car one night after they arrested me. I had gone to see my ex to ask why he stopped giving me the $100 he was supposed to give me each week and they arrested me. I had been in shock and they left me sitting handcuffed 6hrs to the rail until 8pm at night when they finally let me go. I was then attacked by a few of them because I had asked to use the phone to call a cab—I had no money on me. I was to learn one man's name and he was a relative of my Girl Scout leader as a girl. This mattered nothing to him and he kept remarking at the "way I turned out!" Insinuations about me being a Prostitute were constant, dirty, and degrading. Again, I was told to go walk the street—I kept struggling to understand.
It's a small town and everyone knows everyone all the while pretending no one knew anyone all these years and no one got together, but I was to find they all got together, all saw each other over the years and all basically knew or were directly involved—I was just a whore after all. I had been one since I started school in this town. I imagine how different things would have been if I had been allowed to see my Father. I had a Father, Grandparents, and other relatives, but my Mother accused my Father of being the Domestic Abuser, which was a horrible lie. She had always been the abuser and was now making threats and attempts on my life because now I knew the truth of how she was involved in setting up my marriage and in effect selling me to a drug dealer. Others now laughed in my face about how it took me so long to understand. My retort would be how could I have possibly thought this was the filth that connected all these people, I would then be like them and I was nothing like them. I did not get off on subjugation of other people, especially poor marginalized ones, young innocent good ones. My life was busy learning, growing, and maturing, not feeding off others in a covert predatory manner that enabled me to build a false self of lies and deception—I was not sexually perverted. I did not find young people sexually attractive in a dirty depraved way.
We all have sexuality, which is part of who we are, but to think you have domination over this is akin to the way these men talk about the ownership of horses. Our sexuality, our bodies do not belong to men. It's hard to imagine not that long ago my Grandmother could not own the land she had. She also had been an accomplished Archer, winning numerous awards and trophies, but she was forced from the Sacandaga Lake and the land with nothing and had to start over with a small daughter after my Grandparents divorced. To think these same families were doing the same to me was just too much. My Father also left the city after I was not allowed to call him "Dad" ending his successful music, his band—it was awful. He had been taking me up to the lake to the camping park. His military tent was like a house and I loved going with him. I also liked his new girlfriend, she taught me to crochet and was very nice to me, but it enraged my mother who viciously raged about my Father all the time. She always called him a "no good drunk!" and I was always the same.
My grandparents' house was deliberately destroyed, another inheritance that should have been mine. I was told the home I worked on 20yrs would also be condemned. They all worked together and pretended they had no idea about each other, all enablers—Bystanders. My 1/2 brother, his father, and my mother's "second son" our plumber attending the stag but refusing to attend the wedding had been devastating. I had no idea why. Men do just attend the stag, but these men were directly invited. They constantly played games over the years that now it all made sense but at the time I was told I could not take "ass-busting," I was "too sensitive." Dinner time was the worse, my 1/2 brothers would bully, make fun of me and call me names being egged on by my mother the ring-leader. The verbal and emotional abuse started when we were very young with my 1/2 brothers. My mother was usually in a rage about something and one of the ongoing excuses was always that I and my Grandmother didn't accept them, which was never true—they never accepted me. Her beatings were regular and usually centered around accepting "the boys," as real brothers. She constantly accused me of not seeing them as real brothers. We had different last names and problems with the school because this was constant. I was repeatedly blamed for not taking care of it, she refused to ever go to school to help me. I was often left to explain. Just because my mother forced these relationships as legal the school did not see it that way. It was a denial of the truth, they weren't my full brothers and today I would not hesitate to say they aren't my brothers at all—1/2 or otherwise.
I was not allowed to call my father "Dad," but she would rage about me not accepting her boyfriend's sons. I was not allowed to see my family, but she would rage about not being nice enough to her boyfriend's family. Her communication over the years was always in reverse of what was actually going on. She lied about everything and would say the opposite of what was actually the truth, but when I was little I never knew she was lying. If it was happening she would say it wasn't. If it was up she would say it was down or she would have these quips she would use to shut down any meaningful conversations or the truth if I needed clarification. She often just outright refused to talk to me, which was part of the reason it took me so long to get the truth—the shunning was constant, painful, and crushing.
They all knew exactly how to isolate me, which was shocking when I could finally put it all together. That all the abuse, name-calling, fights, and violence had all been deliberate over the years. I had a hard time eating what she cooked and developed an eating disorder and irritable bowel because dinner time was so awful. She would leave meat on the counter for hours in the Summer, often it would be brown by the time she cooked it. I was very sensitive to food not being fresh and could smell the rancidness and often got sick from it. She would beat on me all the more for thinking I was too good to eat her cooking. I would often be forced to eat things that were bad, disgusting, and old—I can't eat leftovers to this day. She would be so high from her "nerve pills" and would cook things that had mold and were rancid from weeks and months in the refrigerator. I came to see lately she enjoyed inflicting pain. When I was a girl she would cry it was because we were so poor, because she wasn't that smart and she would constantly get me to feel sorry for her even after she would rage for hours over something that I didn't do or had no idea about. I learned to never ask her for anything. We would often be able to get welfare things like "free cheese," but she always complained. We had food stamps too, but she constantly complained my Father gave her nothing. As soon as I could babysit I bought everything I needed including things like soap and shampoo. This would often make her even angrier that I spent too long in the bathroom and needed all these special things that made me think I was better than everyone else. Things like my acne never concerned her—it was my fault for buying and using too many "special soaps."
The more I look at these relationships the more horrified I am that it all became normalized. She would always tell me to stop crying after a beating because I needed to "let it go," it was in the past and my problem was I always "wanted to bring up the past." Mostly I wanted to understand why after trying so hard to be good to her, to do all she wanted, to love my 1/2 brothers and their family, to do all the chores she wanted, and to not bother her, that I was still called names, beaten, and told I thought I was better than them. I would try to explain, but of course, that never worked. I was always sorry, I never intentionally disliked my little brothers, in fact, I defended them all the time. My younger 1/2 brother was Special-needs, we were always late to school from having to walk so far, and we were welfare, so it was constant threats from other kids to beat us up. I loved both of them, but I was always the brunt of their "ass-busting." I had no idea all the rewarding my Mother did for this behavior would turn them into the kind of men that had no problem putting me on the street with nothing and not just to have no money, but to be abused sexually by other men. Why was it that so much of it revolved around me being a Prostitute? Why did the jokes always have the subtle thread of Sexual Abuse? Recently my 1/2 brother even threatened to rape me. He was with one of his friends and I wanted the camera I loaned him back. I was growing increasingly afraid of him. Before my Grandmother died she warned me to be careful of him, but I had no idea the violence he was capable of. He and his friends had parties all the time, every weekend he had "keg parties." I was always uncomfortable with the way they drank. It was all about "drinking games." These games were awful and usually involved drinking way too much, too fast, and being the target of "ass-busting." It's not the way to learn how to drink.
I never liked drinking. I had been pressured by my cousin and her boyfriend who was older. I didn't like having too much and then being left. Girls would go off with a guy or their boyfriend and leave you. I tried never to drink that much because you never knew when you would be left. It was the same with harder drugs. My cousin at the time was hanging around the "heads," at school who did drugs. Then there was the other group the "jocks." The girls were mostly tough and did a lot of drugs. Stories of being at a concert and tripping on acid and then being left were told all the time, they thought it funny. I usually had a car and would often drive, so having too much wasn't what I did. I hated being that out of control and not being able to get home, but guys wanted to get me drunk all the time. Most of them were older. My cousin at the time was hanging around with guys that were 7-8yrs older than us—I was barely 14yrs old when she got pregnant.
Sleeping with a guy just to stay with him was not something I wanted to do. I wanted to go to college and leave here, but here I am being told in order to find a place to stay now I needed to sell my body. This is my hometown and nothing has changed since I was a girl. I went to school with all these men; lawyers, judges, friends, everyone knows everyone and this is what is going on in my hometown, only now they have the power to force you to give them sex—legally. Some even have badges and guns to do it. Sex or a place to live, your choice. Then they laugh in my face and say how women get everything and so many of them after their divorce got nothing. They were going to make me the example of having been forced to pay for their own children. I didn't have children partly for that reason. I could not pay for them and had no help, so here they all were going to make me an example now amongst other reasons. I had worked enough to have a safe home, a new car, and rental income. I could finally be safe, but they were all going to make sure I was on the street, not just on the street, but the target of every violent pervert in the community. For a woman alone it was a nightmare that you grow up understanding at a young age.
You don't lead men on, you don't dress too provocatively—you don't ask for it. I see now the threats were always there. "Where's John?" they would always say whenever they happen to see me alone, which was only at the Supermarket. I never went out with girlfriends or anywhere alone. The grocery store was about it, but I was always looked at suspiciously. I accepted this. I was from a "broken home," a working girl, but I had no idea how deep the hatred went. How deep the drive to hurt me, to degrade me, and want to destroy any success I achieved and it was all planned from the start. I was never Rhonda to these men with a history, personality, or memories we shared. I was a thing, object, merchandise to be used. They bullied together at parties, standing in their circle as men are apt to do. The woman in the kitchen the men somewhere else. We never talked together. I didn't mind if this meant a good marriage. Having a good one was important to me, but I didn't know I had never been considered a wife in the real sense to these people. I had been from the start someone to be used, discarded—dumped somewhere.
It's hard to write this after so many years thinking after all the hard work I would finally be given some credit. The last "friends reunion," was to be the last time I would tell myself that if I worked hard enough I would finally be accepted. It is difficult to see my youth and my marriage was wasted—destroyed by the secret they all shared and enjoyed. After the violence, I was subjected to and the subsequent seizure from the planned sexual assault, I am finally able to confront the lies and horrible black cloud that had been following and stalking me for a long long time. Enablers that became stalkers following me everywhere because destroying my life was funny—what kind of life does a whore have anyway? These people never had any interest in accepting me over time but made it seem they would if I tried hard enough. If I was a "good wife" to the friend they all loved. "Take care of the big guy," they would always say and laugh. It had all been a joke from the start but to me a horrible nightmare.
If I worked hard then it was all 50/50, which I did constantly. It would all be divided if anything happened and why was I focused on divorce, I had no family that visited and "didn't get along with my mother," that was the reason I didn't trust my new husband and his family they said, maybe I should talk to someone about my "issues." My ex was always counting the money, we were always poor and I owed him all the time. I bought everything, even his clothes. There was never enough and bill paying was awful regardless of the numerous raises and promotions I got over the years. My having to "commute" was always said in derision. Why didn't I have a local job? What exactly did I do anyway? A good woman is a nurse or teacher and all of my ex's friends did not have to work or if they did it was just for some extras. Whores don't have careers, we all know what their career is.
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