Maid

Woke up at 3am, neighbor next door continues the noise harassment. It’s piercing intervals of electronic buzzing, humming, and gets louder and then quieter; alternating between tempos so you can’t get used to it. I usually wake up, only sleeping a couple hours before it starts again. It was 27 degrees this morning, my little blue Walmart bag has kept me warm the past 4 months—3 at the Abandoned house and one month rough sleeping on a park bench in the Homeless Veterans Park, all spent Peacefully Protesting and raising awareness. 

I make my way to the bathroom, cold, tired, and missing a coffee maker. I’ve bought around 6 the past 5yrs moving around. Most were stolen from the illegal evictions, which allowed unscrupulous people to steal my things. It’s too cold to do much of anything, but I put on my gym clothes; grateful I feel better and can get a shower at the gym. The past week was a blur, I spent most of it sleeping. The noise harassment keeping me up at night and processing more grief and loss has resulted in my bad dreams returning. I wake up in a panic wondering how all these people could do this? Wondering what it takes to be this cruel to someone that did nothing to any of them. I’ve had to go back all the way to the beginning to release the old pain that I thought was long over. 

It’s cold walking up Market Street to the gym, but as I walk I try and be mindful of those that can’t. My SIL is no longer here, suffering similar abuse. We had much in common, but they like everyone else stayed away, going along with this horrible deception. In the end we had been talking, but by then it had been too late. I think of her as I walk and the many that don’t make it out of these kinds of abusive marriages. I’m still dealing with death threats and attempts. My mother has tried to run me over and has threatened me numerous times along with her friends. My ex continues with his friends to be violent and of course the continual violence by cops here.

When I was a girl the attacks by her friends were pretty regular, always accusing me of not being good to her. The constant beatings she gave me never mattered. The fact I was always told to get out never mattered and all the other abuses no one paid attention to and went along with. It makes sense in some ways today, all the times she told me to get out, telling me she had no money when the truth was the welfare she got was for me not her other boyfriends that she complained gave her nothing and could not support their children, which my money helped pay for. 

I was the “Welfare whore,” but they weren’t welfare even though my money was used to support them! It’s hard to deal with today, as they all conspired to leave me with nothing after setting me up with a violent coke dealer after living off my money since I first moved in with my mother’s first boyfriend after my parents divorced. 

I hadn’t thought of my 1/2 brothers father in a long time. He was the first boyfriend my mother had after leaving my father after just a year of being married. My whole world destroyed just like recently, but none of them cared—they were all involved again! I was sick all week remembering all the abuse trying to come to terms with how they all shunned me, picked violent fights, constantly told me they never got together, but did all the time. It was usually awful, but I was told it was always my fault, just like when I was a little girl.

“I did not go to your brothers wedding,” my mother raged. The pictures laid on the table after she threw them at me, lunging at me in that way she always did when she was about to hit me, but would rage initially if I would accept the lies she told rather than the truth. The pictures were proof, but things like that never mattered. One of granddaughters brought them, it was becoming apparent they didn’t care, I had nothing now and it didn’t matter—their plan had all been actualized. I was to “move on,” and let it all go, “walk the streets,” she sneered repeatedly. So showing me the pictures now was no big deal. 

My mother called me when my 1/2 brother got married, I was at college. “They eloped,” she said breezily and I didn’t go either, so don’t worry about it. That was about it, she said and hung up. It didn’t matter really after all these years, but I was still piecing things together and it was just another indication that this had started long before my wedding, long before they told me my 20yr marriage was “null and void,” because I was supposedly “mentally ill,”  according to Judge Lorman and entitled to nothing—“you did nothing,” all the judges said! 

I was still trying to understand how this was possible? If “your own mother doesn’t like you,” one contemptuously told me, then it must be you! Judge Skoda refused to let me stay in the Lakehouse and refused to take the threats of my sweet dog “Bentley,” being used as a bait-dog for dogfighting and would be taken!

Other pictures were strewn about from the same pile; pictures of various Christmas parties they all got together for and told me they never got together! I sat just taking in my mothers rage, knowing it was better to keep quiet. I hadn’t seen her in 20yrs and her temper had gotten even worse, exploding into violence even quicker than when I was a little girl. I was still unsure of where I stood and I knew better than to challenge her, even though the pictures were obvious, she kept saying adamantly that “she never went,” gritting her teeth and clenching her fists. 

For most of my marriage, I didn’t know where she lived. I was told repeatedly she didn’t want me to know where she lived. She had done this before and I was surprised she had moved only a few miles from my new Lakehouse when we first bought it after we were married—I had no idea. Her new boyfriend came with my 1/2 brothers kids,  after I had invited everyone for a Memorial Day weekend party and told me she didn’t want me to see them! I had no idea why. I had run into her and she was friendly in that superficial way she usually was, but I thought maybe she would stop by. I had also been talking to my SIL about visiting and she seemed receptive, but my other 1/2 brother was making excuses. Their cousin had started a photography business.

This particular cousin, I had once considered a best-friend when we were girls, but the constant bullying and abuse over her brother molesting me and her relationship with him, finally ended our friendship in our early 20s. She would periodically call me only to start a fight and the conversation would devolve into abuse over her brother.

She had called me when I first met my ex-husband and her and her brother invited me to a party at their other friends house. I was hesitant, as usual, but thought what went on with us as kids was over and the subtle blame always kept me trying to make an effort to get along. I know today this was all on purpose and part of the grooming to accept the constant stalking that would invariably occur, but I had no name for it back then.

He had gotten divorced and had a new girlfriend. They all lived on the Southside of town, but pretended they didn’t get together very much because by that time he was into Heroin too much. I had no idea what that really met, but agreed to meet them at their mother’s house. They were all excited for me to see this new guy. My cousin and him had been friends a long time. They went on about how hard he worked, came from a good family, was a “nice guy,” and they all liked him. “He likes money,” my cousin laughed, when we arrived at the party and were sitting just hanging out. I was to meet him there, this new guy they all liked. I didn’t like the sound of it, but because they all talked of how hard he worked, I thought it was related to that. I had no idea the money he loved would be stealing all mine and just using me as a servant. I had no idea if the kind of extremist views they all held. The criminal business he had selling coke or the violence it involved.

My 1/2 brothers daughters had been going over to this cousins house to have their pictures taken shortly before my SIL passed away. I was concerned after calling this cousin because threats were being made about me not “seeing the family!” again. It had been an old tirade that she often blamed me for, calling me periodically to bully and blame me, often bringing up and denying her brother had molested me. “It was no big deal,” she would always say, “he had just gotten fresh!” but this time something was far more ominous, especially concerning my SIL and rumors she was being arrested constantly with numerous orders of protection and was trying to get her name on their house. I felt protective in ways and it seemed so over the top in the same way they would talk about me. 

“Why don’t you see your brothers?” she sneered once again. This time I wasn’t going to take so much of the abuse and blame, trying to assert myself by saying that my relationship with my 1/2 brothers and mother wasn’t her business. This enraged her and she once again started in about her brother. Their relationship was never right. It had become obvious at various times, but always covered-up by picking fights or she would threaten to not be my friend. Then all of them would not speak to me. I always found it hard to deal with all of them, but they would all gang up on me, but back then I took the blame because they were all together, so it was always like they all agreed and I was wrong. It was too humiliating to talk openly about these kinds of things and it was just a shameful secret between us, no one else because they would deny they even got together! giving me the silent treatment.

I was being told her daughter had “brain damage,” from all the parties. That men were constantly there from the bars and some awful stuff was going on. I found it hard to believe they would subject their daughter to this, but I knew how my 1/2 brother was about his “drinking parties!” I was often the brunt of the ass-busting and bullying for not drinking in the early years of dating my ex. “Drinking games,” were constant and often people got very drunk. I would leave early because I always drove and didn’t want to deal with the rough-housing that would often ensue later. I learned to always leave early, having no interest in that kind of bullying or trouble making. 

Get us some napkins, the man told the blond boy as he put the radio on the table and they hurried away. I had been getting something to eat at McDonalds, writing, and charging my iPhone. They came back and he turned on a game as a little girl and her mother slid into the booth. She asked something about the game and the man excitedly answered as they got settled. I sat listening to a new trailer called, “Maid,” about a woman working as a maid and fleeing a domestic violence relationship.

 The volume of the game got louder as the man sat mesmerized; listening and responding to what was going on oblivious to anyone else. I got nervous listening to him get alternately angry and excited, the woman cooing approval for what was going on; nestled up close to him, while the 2 children sat across from them. I found that uncomfortable and thought she might be a girlfriend and not a wife. I would have sat with one of the kids on the other side, but what was even harder to see was the quietness of the children—they didn’t say a word. I felt afraid for them sensing that the slightest talking from them would get the man angry.

What an awful way to eat dinner, I thought. I kept writing trying not to judge. Maybe they had spent time together earlier, I thought, but I couldn’t help finding it cruel. I thought of the little transistor my mother’s boyfriend had in the kitchen, on all the time, while he made cakes and I watched movies. Today knowing he was incapable of loving me. Usually drinking, oblivious—detached from being coherent. He didn’t care, I was a child he liked to watch—a toy, later a servant to sell to another man. 

I thought of the meal-times that the bullying was so bad from my mother and 1/2 brothers I would often be forced to finish eating as I sat crying—I could not be excused no matter how  much I wanted to be and eating what she made was making me sick. Dinner was often a time for the ganging-up that would often occur. 

 Chores were always doled out to me. I did all of the house-cleaning, laundry, and dish-washing. There were usually 4-5 piles a day of dishes. 6-7 loads of wash, Winters were the worse, clothes would come off the line frozen and had to be then dried on racks, my mother hated dryers she said, but she was never the one to hang, fold, or put the clothes away. I never complained because I would often stay home and clean house and then be free of the abuse. Quiet time to read, do my Art, or listen to music. I was the maid then as now, but as a child and then when married, I never minded thinking women are often the maid. I know today the extremist views that make it far more sinister than just loving and caring for your family.

I worked recently in Maine as a maid, a housekeeper. The work wasn’t bad, as I tried to start over, only realizing the Roomster App I used was just a scam for CraigsList perverts looking for sex-slaves. Someone to rent a room; only to be assaulted, roofied, and told I owed more money than I was told originally before I flew there. I barely got out with my life from that encounter also. Housing there is very difficult and sympathy for victims of sexual violence are treated the same there as here—your blamed. Your a whore, maid, someone that deserves the abuse, especially if the man has money and lawyers willing to lie. My 1/2 brother’s family involved with that one too—stalking continues, but I’m finally cleaning out all the abuse in my life and that feels really good!