Woke up cold, hungry, and damp. It had poured all day yesterday and I spent it shivering in the new sleeping bag I just got from Walmart, my second one. It was toasty and warm in the Abandoned House, rating of 10 degrees, but once cold on the inside of my body I was having a hard time getting warm again. I had gotten up to pee and was cold again.
I figured maybe I would have something to eat. I had gotten some Swiss cheese and thought some of that and crackers would be ok for breakfast, but the ziplock sealed plastic bag had been opened. I remember when I checked the bag, the strip was there on the bottom of the bag, but I hadn’t removed it. I had another one I was still eating, Cheddar cheese one, both from Walmart. The ones prepackaged and sealed, not from the deli. I knew it had been opened, but I usually have to give the benefit of the doubt, before I know for sure now. It smelled funny, but not old, stale, or rancid. It smelled different, but I thought with all the stress, I was just needing to settle down. As soon as I ate it, the pains started in my stomach, and I knew what it was—same filthy shit as before.
“You can go shopping at Target, Gifford sarcastically laughed after pushing up the Target cart to the steps with my things hanging out of it. I looked at him remembering our first encounter all those years ago when I made my first call to Police about my husbands abuse at our 20yr home on Evelyn Street, I was now living in, while he was up at what was supposedly our other property—our new home, a one family. This was 8yrs ago now!
“I like your new apartment,” “424” quipped and got back into his fancy SUV, that was so big it looked like an Escalade. Must be nice, I thought, tears stinging my face as I yelled. Must be nice to drive around in that fancy SUV after taking my car! He used to tell me his name was 424, more jokes.
I was again humiliated, degraded—defeated. Can’t you see I can’t carry this stuff around? Look over there, it’s my suitcase, everything stolen! How about the gold band you took, Gifford? but I knew he would just ignore me pretending I was crazy, which is how they look at you whenever you talk too much or ask about how abusive their behavior is. I was weak and tired having been up all night and in shock from yet another violent arrest and the devastating loss of another home I could possibly finally buy. An “Abandoned/Vacant one no less! I wasn’t going to get any “Regular Mortgage” now, after courts destroyed my excellent Credit deliberately! This! after just paying cash for my new car they took, paying off a previous new car in 4yrs and not just one Mortgage but 2!
It had been so long since I felt that way about a home, but yelling about my losses only made them more vicious, as if to punish me for crying about it—you’re suppose to take it. My ex would listen for a few minutes then start lecturing about how crazy I was acting or hysterical. “Where do you get this stuff?” he would roll his eyes, shake his head incredulous and I would fall apart; tears rolling down my face trying to explain my hurt feelings. He was older, more experienced and assumed that air of authority that said I was making a big deal out of nothing—and everyone of course agreed with him.
The restroom was dirty; the toilet pretty bad, but I had diarrhea and knew I would be blamed even though I tried to clean it, excrement was hardened on the toilet seat when I lifted it praying it would not clog. I felt sick remembering the constant bathroom cleaning I did throughout my 20yr marriage. I never minded though, having a private bathroom, clean, smelling nice; lovely towels, linens, and pretty things a dream come true. I had a nice bathroom at our 2-family and one at the Lakehouse. Both modest, but I was comfortable and happy.
We had remodeled the one at home numerous times over the years, waiting to retire to finally do the one at the Lakehouse. It wasn’t that bad, but today I know making it not that great was part of the abuse. The stereotypes of “Welfare whores,” have no class, or style, and are basically low-end—“WhiteTrash!” When I stayed there close to the end, he replaced all my stuff with ugly stuff from dollar stores. I’ve found some cool stuff at them, but you know the stuff you would use if you were asked to decorate a place, “Welfare style.” It was to make me look that way. The decor of the “WelfareQueen.”
I was still in my sleeping bag when they descended before Officer Gifford arrived with the other 2 in tow, “to bring me my things,” they said. Remember that show “Starsky and Hutch?” I haven’t watched TV in over 10yrs, so the current stars I have no idea about. I’m also thinking, “Ken and Barbie!” She leaned over me and called my name, Rhonda; as if she knew me, I was startled and was shaking after having fallen asleep fitfully—the bad dreams returning.
You know that between place when your kinda sleeping, but the anxiety and bad dreams put you in a place where you forget where you are upon waking? startled, I started to cry. I had been crying all night and hadn’t yet caught up with myself. We want to bring you your stuff, she said. I could tell she was some kind of Law or Social Services. She was very pretty and had that soft voice that pampered women around here have. I don’t want the stuff, afraid now it would make me a target of more violence. What did these people do for a living? “Maybe Catholic Charities,” can help you she cooed.
“Do you people have any fucking clue?” I was on my last nerve and spit was projecting with every word. It must be fucking nice to drive around all fucking day in a fancy car and do fucking nothing! Do you ever do any fucking research? By this time, I didn’t care who they were, my life in so much danger now, I was beside myself, still in the sleeping bag, while he told me that I needed to go to DSS and they were there to “help me get a place legally!” he said in that way that automatically imputed blame.
What the fuck? I said, you both need to leave. You fucking both need to leave. I had enough of their games, their jokes—their blatant hatred, acting like they were all fucking clueless about what was going on. “Barbie and Ken” the icing on the cake. They floated away as people with protected, well-paying jobs, entitled privileged arrogance do. They didn’t need to be bothered with some white trash crackwhore that didn’t want to be obedient and play along with their game of pretending they are there to help you when we all know they aren’t—they don’t need to. So far up the food-chain that anything you say is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what you say to people like that, their eyes glaze over and they will just repeat their refrain that they were trying to help you.
They’re j u s t t r y i n g t o h e l p y o u—said very slowly, knowing just how to enunciate the helping part to sound like you are mentally ill and need a certain kind of help. The kind that says a loser like you got yourself in this position because you deserved it and their doing you a favor. “It’s not like that,” she continued in that smooth as silk monied drawl that belies how fucked up what is going on is—it’s only that I can’t admit what a welfare whore I still am! Forgetting it’s no longer the meme of the “WelfareQueen, it’s “CrackWhore!” Drug-addicted, grew up poor, abused; suffered sex abuse; goes on to have dysfunctional relational skills—“Underserved!”
You know, underserved when she is always served. The kind of protected, cared for woman that doesn’t have to express any horror about your treatment because it’s all part of her job. She sees women like you every day. Driving around in their company car to visit people like me—“Generational Sluts.” We all know the program, it’s been working quite well since I was 5yrs old!
Around 10yrs old or so after we moved to the East-End of the city, the “bad section,” my mother having yet another new boyfriend, I watched women’s belonging dumped on the street, mostly just clothes. Cops barring her from going back inside to retrieve her furniture, she spent a year paying off on a “Lay-A-Way.” She would tussle with the cops; crying, distraught—pleading, before it was a “Protocol,” to arrest her for “Harassing a cop.” They would often tussle. Cops enjoying the play. It seemed a dance to my young eyes.
I thought of the magazines my cousins read. You know the kind; salacious from the 1970’s—seedy. The strong, macho cop; the hussy tied-up. The detective protecting her bared, ample cleavage from some predator—she swoons in adulation and sexual submissiveness.
Me and my mother’s new boyfriend wrestled. We watched Kung-Fu—everybody wrestled. I never really liked “Wrestling,” but it was big for them. One time he punched me so hard in the stomach, it knocked the wind out of me. He had been in the Service and chalked it up to being so strong he forgot.
I didn’t wrestle after then; I was never a kid really, and it seemed too sexual to me anyway, after my cousin tried to have sex with me. He read those Detective magazines of his mother’s and “PlayBoy.” I thought he was really cool, and flattered he loved me. He was older, experienced—handsome, but I wasn’t going to have Sex with him—I watched “Shampoo,” with Warren Beatty and my mother’s old boyfriend, “Buddy.” He was my cousins uncle and let me watch late at night, while he made Wedding cakes and I knew about men having all that Sex—I was 5yrs old after all; my cousin was pretty angry with me, but me and Buddy knew about Shampoo. Buddy always let me watch movies—I loved movies.
My mother and him, wrestled all the time. Then they would all pile in cars to go watch or help some woman get her stuff from some son-of-bitch. Sometimes it was just the fight—the tussle. The drama of watching it all. People would gather all around and it would become another event—a wrestling match. When I was really little and we lived in better neighborhoods, I was forced to ride along, as I got older, my mother didn’t care if I stayed home—she didn’t want me around, and I didn’t think it was “fun.” Back then it was high drama. It’s why I was as afraid of cops as I was of my mother. I hated the sex of it all—the sexualized violence.
Why couldn’t she just get her stuff? Sometimes she was allowed. Women would try to move a washer—back then a huge ordeal, cops watching; like recently from one eviction the woman tried to prevent me from getting my things. I had to lug the few boxes out as cops paced, checked their watches, standing in a circle, 4-5, talking, laughing. “Nothing we can do,” unless the landlord wants to let you back in, they smugly told me. I still had time according to the court papers to retrieve my things. She did open the door, but after stealing my brand new Queen Posture-Pedic $800 mattress, she or someone else, probably figured who cared about a couple boxes.
This! after a month, giving her $1200, unloading a storage unit of 20yrs worth of belongings yet again, into her garage because the stairs were so steep and carrying it up all by myself would take time, she offered the garage, but it was a scam to try and lock it all in the garage and steal it all, while evicting me.
I was 10yrs old again—nothing has changed here in 50yrs! Aren’t there laws? I could just beat the fuck out of her, but everyone had “orders of protection,”—the new black.
Hi, how ya doin? first person says. I’m going to call the cops, the second person says. Are you ok? first person says? Your harassing me, second person then says. I’m going to get an order of protection, second person then says. Seriously? first person says—what the fuck? Your violent, says second person. This is unreal first person says as cops drive up and surround first person.
“This is not a game,” one cop remarked this time before telling me I couldn’t stay at the station. Really? I think. You think? Stay here, seriously? Why the fuck would I want to stay here unless forced? I think. A game? I think. What the absolute fuck do these people really do. “I just came on the shift,” he sneers, of course he did I think.
I continue to try and get stuff packed that was just thrown in the Police station lobby once again. Another $300 gone. Human-beings need a few things, a few more than a suitcase. I’m going through how to carry Propane tanks on the street; is this possible I’m thinking? scared, feeling myself falling apart, but trying to hold it together—it’s Winter. He’s undeterred and keeps up the sarcasm.
I’m sure now nothing has changed. Was there ever any laws that prevented this? I guess not. You can do this repeatedly over 10yrs with the same Judge even—a woman no less!
Judge Lorman signing yet again, another order of protection. You want one? I asked the cop doing my prints?—everyone has one. When my finger-prints were taken yet again and the computer didn’t work, the cop taking them then arresting me while printing accusing me of “Harassing him!” after the computer kept not taking them—his anger rising exponentially. This cop at least understanding the very nature of taking a persons hand and rolling it repeatedly on the glass has a certain tension built in, especially for a woman.
This time the landlord—“Landlord?” of an Abandoned/Vacant House? getting an order of protection? what the hell? where my stuff still is? along with previous stuff at the Police station, and the stuff I’m now trying to stuff into my 1-suitcase to walk the street once again. I’m losing track how many times this is? will keep it at more than 20x! for brevity. At least my new washer and dryer they already stole, I don’t need to worry about lugging them somewhere. I don’t need clean clothes—“WelfareQueens don’t wash!”
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