I woke up to the awful rumbling of something, but I wasn’t sure what. As I opened my eyes and pulled back the layer of sleeping bags, by now I had two doubled up, I could see in horror what it was. The sound of thunder as the lights flashed and the snow sloshed against the side of the road—snowplows! My God, I thought I’m sleeping in a Parking lot, forgetting it could snow soon and the plows would be out. Seems such a simple thing when your housed, but after having no sleep, being continually threatened by cops, and being terrified of going to jail, I wasn’t thinking about plow trucks or the snow that would arrive eventually—it was Winter after-all, Christmas in a few weeks!
I was still homeless, still in shock this could all continue. I loved the sound of the plows on the Thruway. I commuted my entire career and would have done it again before this all started. I still really liked Albany NY, about 45min from my small town. Back when I first started commuting the snow seemed endless, days of it. Snowbanks most of the Winter, the commute could take a couple hours, backed up for miles. It was scary not only because of the snow, but back then you could wait for hours for help unlike today, help arrives pretty quickly and with things like Triple A, you are in good shape to get a tow. By the time I got Triple A, I had purchased my own new car and was having a much easier commute.
Breaking down was pretty regular with the old clunkers I used to drive. They weren’t awful, but old cars need constant work. Poor people buy cars that the wealthy trade in and it’s usually around the time the car needs just about everything! My ex refused to take care of my car and I was often taken advantage of by local garages. $500 was usually the minimum I would have to pay, often finding out later it could have been done a lot cheaper!
I loved the guys with the Plows, I would always follow them home. They would push the snow out of the way and clear a path through the highway, lights flashing, effortlessly allowing my little entry level car a way home. I never minded they went slower. I was ok going slow and liked the company. By the time I reached my small town; the Thruway desolate, back then no one really commuted. Back then there were no SUV’s and it was mostly me and the Snow plow guys. They would wave me on, carry me home, never mean, never cut me off or aggressive, I felt a part of some secret tribe of night dwellers, especially if I went shopping after work and caught some weather on the way home, driving even later at night. Their swift movement with such large equipment and trucks always made me feel safe, in ways my then husband never did.
I don’t remember when he made it a rule he wouldn’t help me, it was like so much else looking back now just became part of our relationship. He would say he didn’t know about cars, he can recommend a garage, one of his friends he took his car to, but usually it was the constant insinuations we shared everything 50/50 and this was just part of being partners—you got your own car fixed! We were partners after all, “why did women always assume men like to work on cars?” he would casually say, always quick to shame me about thinking I was a “Feminist,” and yet still expecting these kinds of things. It would shut me down, confused, not knowing what to do other then to find my way in the often confusing marriage I found myself in. As the years went by, I realized he did nothing for me, today knowing that was the plan from the start. The insinuations I was somehow a man, always broke me. I was young, wanting to please my older husband and subtle attacks about my femininity always hurt, especially because I didn’t have children and the comparisons to all his friends wives was disempowering—what could I say? They were the real women—mothers!
I came from a different generation of women making our way with a career. The first generation that was now building them; independent, earning our way, asking for more power. I had no idea the rage simmering beneath the surface of our marriage over this. The competitive way this was consistently used against me. I struggled to understand why my then husband did not appreciate my career, the good money I was making, all the nice things I bought for him with it, and the time it afforded me to contribute even more—I usually had good benefits. Time off was usually spent taking care of his blind mother and mentally-ill Aunt, isn’t that what good wives do? I was learning as so did as a girl to constantly try to please and failing miserably!
I’m soaking wet, and look out through the layers to hear the plows. It’s the really big ones, so maybe I’m safe for awhile, until the smaller trucks do the parking lot. I don’t want to get out of the sleeping bag yet, I get too cold and then can’t get warm—chilled inside. I thank God for my new sleeping bag and the warm coat, I was recently gifted, but I get cold easy.
A pretty white snow blankets my sleeping bag, about 2 inches, it’s quiet and still—first snow fall of the season. It’s a beautiful first snow, but then I always love the first snowfall. The start of Winter, the expectation of things to come—the Holidays. I love the holidays, I think of Bentley my dog and get upset thinking of how pretty the Lakehouse is in Winter. I don’t think too long about it, it’s too painful. All those years of hard work, the constant assurances that it was all 50/50! not only did I own a home, but a beautiful property on the Lake; a retreat, an Art studio, a place to retire. The beautiful woods, the lake, the solitude to create; to paint. I had just bought new skis before this all started; finally after all the sacrificing, dreams of skiing again, another activity I gave up to pay off our Mortgages, could finally come true. My ex went snowmobiling all the time, every year to Canada, telling me he got money from his Aunt or overtime.
We made the same amount of money, but as the years went by I became “Salary,” and didn’t get paid for extra hours, while he had a Union that paid overtime. We were partners and it was all 50/50, so his overtime afforded him some extras is how he explained it. I couldn’t argue in the beginning, after all, I had a career, right? There was always some kind of explanation backed up by all his friends wives that sneered and told me repeatedly “they didn’t have to work!” Women that were often cruel before we had names like “Karen!” for them. Back then I saw them as the quintessential “Feminine,” I was the working-girl. I never minded, I loved what I did, but as the years went by the abuse got worse and worse.
I fall back asleep and wake up a few hours later and know I better get up—I’m really wet, shivering now. I know I’m in danger if I don’t get warm. I think of my blue feet after the time I spent on the park bench recently by the Homeless Veterans Apartments being built. It scared me terribly, as I thought of my grandmother when she had numerous fingers and toes removed. Most asked if she was Diabetic, she wasn’t. She had a stent put in and said if she had to do it again, she never would have. The last 5yrs of her life was spent having her fingers and toes slowly removed, in and out of the hospital in agonizing pain. She could of just spent it more peaceful. I read about stents years after she died and learned the problems with the early ones, her words painful, she knew it was the stent and said she should have never allowed them to open her up! After the way the hospital has treated me the anger is hard these days to deal with.
My hands are deep red and I can’t move them, my gloves soaked as I try to roll up my soaked sleeping bag and head to the only place I can get warm and a cup of coffee and some food—Stewart’s. I feel dizzy and nauseous from not eating since yesterday morning. I don’t drink either because there is no place for me to go to the bathroom now and I’m scared to get arrested for that. The pain at times is bad, but being arrested is far worse. I’ve been arrested over 20 times now, all nonsense, but it never gets easier. The handcuffs, the threat of violence, sitting at the rail for hours on end, the rote commands, lack of empathy and what feels like more harassment as they say the same things over and over again. My head feels like it can’t process it anymore. It’s like noise harassment. I remember Bentley would rub his ears on the side and whimper. Each apartment we rented was the same—constant pounding, electrical noises, banging all night long and other kinds of loud noises. I knew he was in a lot of pain, his beautiful Shitzu coat we had groomed to be so nice was all falling out. I had learned to cut and groom my dogs and do the sweet little top-knots Shitzu’s are noted for, but after having such a beautiful one his coat was terrible now. I kept buying different food, but I knew it was the horrible stress of what was happening to us. We were constantly being denied heat, being kicked out all the time—threatened and harassed repeatedly. The noise a part of the continual harassment, like the repetitive cops rote commands to any questions or discussion to their senseless abuse—robotic.
I look in my mirror trying to comb my hair after making my way to Stewart’s. I feel the clumps and start to tear up. It comes out in gobs now. My food has been tainted numerous times, my refrigerator shut off giving me diarrhea and sickness, plus something was often put into my food to make me sick and it makes my hair fall out.
“Special K!” my ex would laugh and joke about his friend from work. I had no idea then about the drug Ketamine or that it was used to drug and rape women. I often had the symptoms and after being scammed out of a room in Maine through a room App that was a front for Craigslist, I understood more. I had been roofied a few times there by the predator that rented me the room and he was a “Pharmacy tech,” he had bragged among other things. I also remembered my mothers boyfriend Buddy’s daughter had moved there and had come by when I first married to laugh, joke and make comments that now in retrospect make more sense that it was all setup, just like what was happening to me in Maine. She had moved there shortly after and I had forgotten. I hadn’t seen her since I was first married or was I ever treated very nicely by her. I was told by Buddy, she was “Blood,” I wasn’t “Blood, is thicker than water” my mother would say whenever her name came up or any of these others I was expected to get along with and was always blamed for not being able to.
I think of the ugly hair-do’s I was given, the awful cuts, as my mother would rage that I thought I was “Miss high and mighty!” My hair was getting thinner and thinner. I had been fortunate before this all started to work Professionally, make decent money with benefits, but now I looked like the stereotypical “Welfare Queen.” The taunts finally coming true after all the years of abuse and the constant overcoming them, but in spite of all the obstacles I overcame their relentless stalking and attacks were doing what viciously they threatened. “Your a whore,” they repeatedly sneered at me relentlessly lately. “It will be relentless,” my ex told me, “you will have no way out this time, he sneered, raging about the cops arresting me. I sat in horror not understanding how he could possibly do that. I hadn’t done anything to him, his friends or his family.
My nails are dirty, my clothes stained, I smell like I haven’t showered; musky, sweat and body odor. I think of the pretty bottles of “Bath and Body,” I would get on Sale every Christmas—3 for $15 with 3 free. They would last me all year. Then I would head over to Victoria Secret and get a sampler box of perfumes, the one gift from my ex, that made it clear he would never go shopping. “Men didn’t go shopping!” I wasn’t a big shopper, Christmas was different, but I learned over the years not to ask too many times, he had other ways of punishing me in the same way my mother did. There would be some other humiliation in front of others, if I forced them to do something they didn’t want to do.
I remember the first party my cousins ex wife had with her new husband, another guy in the group. It was a Surprise birthday party, but she was angry about it and I felt uncomfortable as she was usually condescending to me and this time was no different, only worse. She had come from church and it was a surprise, it wasn’t too nice of a time. I remember the wall to wall white carpeting that I had left a mark on. It was an accident, but she came flying in the hallway with a bottle of cleaner as I watched in shock, feeling so ashamed; she was on her knees scrubbing the carpet as guests watched and she reprimanded me for being so thoughtless. I was mortified and went into the bathroom to cry.
The bathroom was a pale cream-color, white seemed to be everywhere; I felt dirty and stupid. On the toilet basin sat over 10 bottles of Victoria Secret perfumes, all shapes and sizes—beautiful, I thought. I had just started hearing about them. Pretty lingerie, perfumes—the whole lovely style. She had them all; the lovely bottles, the different gold and blue tops. They were exquisite sitting on the pretty toilet. Are toilets pretty? they are in certain homes, but I was yet to know how to pick out high-end toilets or sinks, stoves and refrigerators or any appliances for that matter. All mine were used, thrifted or cast-offs. I picked up one of the bottles inhaling the beautiful smell transporting me from all the shame to someplace nice and accepting. I vowed to buy some perfume and continue to prove that “girls like me” can have nice homes, do nice things—contribute.
I eventually had quite a collection myself of lovely Victoria Secret perfumes. I was always a size 12, 36B, but even when I could afford the $50 bras from there, I was still a frugal girl at heart and preferred Marshall’s, my favorite store long before they became so popular. I worked out all the time, knowing that being in shape not only allowed me to work such long hours, I worked 10hrs every day after adding in the commute, but that I looked “Middle-class,” which was part of being able to get a Professional job. Looking “Low-class,” mattered! Looking successful, “Professional,” a winner was important. A winner was a woman that was not fat, dressed well, saw her family on holidays, was a “devoted wife, mother and friend” she was also white, middle-class—taken care of.
I often smooth over not seeing my family for Christmas, not seeing your mother was some kind of blasphemy, but I learned to side step it. My mother would usually say she was going to go to her friends whenever I invited her. I would say the same and people assumed she traveled for the holidays, I just didn’t refute this. She did in fact do that. It just wasn’t the kind of Middle-class traveling they were thinking, like going to Florida. When she started to do that with her new boyfriend, it became even easier.
The cop told me not to talk to her! What? I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “She’s a Prostitute,” he said. I sat dumbfounded. “I talk to people because they are people,” he said, she’s a person he went on, but they warned me I might have problems, you know the kind, ones you don’t want when riding a motorcycle. He pointed to his Harley. I knew who he was referring to when he described her and said she was at the gas station next door sometimes talking to men. I also knew it was awful to break down on your motorcycle. I had run out of gas and had a few problems when I first learned to ride.
My ex had ridden for years and we had gotten him a new Harley when he wanted to get back into it. I also got a bike, an inexpensive one of course and realize now my running out of gas was deliberate. “You have to learn,” he would say. Yes, I mumbled, but not flying down the highway at 70 miles per hour and then having no power. I think today after someone stopped on a hill one time, what if I had been going up a hill? He thought it funny. I had no idea, enjoyed riding, but his pressure got to be too much after the hard way he would act when we rode together; by then he was constantly out in the open abusive, the marriage almost over like he planned. I shudder to think now he would have wanted me to be disabled on the motorcycle, bragging all the time how no one could ride like him.
I had met the “Prostitute,” in question and loved her. She had told me some of her story. Yeah, she had a drug problem, she liked Crack, she was trying to survive, but unlike some of the other girls I hat were stealing, she wasn’t doing that, she was selling what she had—taking responsibility. I was sleeping on an Abandoned Porch, she seemed to be in and out of a Crackhouses. I first met her at jail. Pretty, she had been in the military. How could this be, I had thought then before learning of all the misogyny and sexual violence there—all the pain of Afghanistan and the added pain of being a woman there and here.
My new suitcase full of my new things from Maine had already been stolen by other girls on Crack needing a fix and would steal anything from anyone, even things like just borrowing lighters all the time. I had one from Maine as a souvenir that was now gone from loaning it out. Buy a lighter, I had thought, mine was for the Weed that was nonexistent here, but then I thought you learn to be on the take all the time—lighters no exception.
I admired her way of dealing with her situation, even though I was frightened for her. I was frightened for both of us—on the street! How was it possible I was on the street too, but then again are any of us secure where we are? Are any of us what we appear on the outside only. She was so thin and the Men were so cheap, complaining about the $20 blowjobs. Dear God, to get those here now at this time I thought! How was it all possible? Heroin was expensive as were apartments, cars, a decent basic life! Women had careers now, it had been so long ago and horrible watching women get put on the streets when I was a little girl, probably so traumatic it contributed to me not having children, but here we were. I wonder now that I look like a “Welfare Queen,” if no one will ever talk to me again. It’s no longer the “Welfare program,” now but the, “Crack whore,” program. Women you don’t talk to unless you want to violate them in some way, mostly for sex, but after listening to stories the perversions were mostly what they wanted, “Vanilla Sex,” was so passé! We were all familiar with “Fuck buddies, friends with benefits,” on the street was a whole other world of horrible abuse. The program they all knew so well was again taking me down to a place I had worked so hard to overcome. Even after 50yrs, women are still objects, things—toys!
I saw my cousins ex wife recently, remembering all the fancy Victoria Secret bottles belying the secret horror so many girls, raped, trafficked, on the street, had experienced. I called her what I should have all those years ago after she casually said hello in that breezy condescending way she always did. “Your filthy and disgusting!” I had just walked from the Hospital where she worked once again her colleagues just like she was doing calling me mentallyill needing to be locked up—crazy. She had known all along; my 20yr marriage had been setup, my cousin her then husband was not only stalking, sexually abusing me, but his sister! You thought you were so high-end, with your constant shaming me, but all along it was you. All along it was you that was filthy dirty and still you continue! She is still I her fancy house, still contemptuous looks of disgust pretending she has no idea what I’m talking about. “Happy Thanksgiving,” she says in that way that tells me she is so far above me, she doesn’t even have to acknowledge me, but it doesn’t work now as it always used to! Today as the Ghislane Maxwell trial gets underway, I know the type of filthy woman she is even though she has put me on the street with all her lies and deceit. Things are not what they seem.
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