Light In The Dark Of Night

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

 

Hot Springs, New Mexico was a dry hole in the road with a river called the Rio Grande running next to it. The highway into and through the town was paved but all the roads in the town were dirt. My parents had left Oklahoma City for the badlands of New Mexico because they could not pay the mortgage on their little house by the railroad tracks and the slaughterhouse and lost it. Hot Springs was about to get the surprise of its life when the McMillan clan moved into town, oh yeah. I then was almost 8 years old, my brother 11, and my sister 13. A teenager, a pre-teenager, a little one, and two drunks for a mom and dad had just moved into that town. What a mixture for trouble and trouble with a capital T came to town riding in a beat up old black car with balding tires. Both parents drank alcohol with Dad being an alcoholic to the max, Mom not so bad. Dad was Indian you know and Indians truthfully cannot hold their liquor, this is a fact. Dad got a job as a bartender (go figure) and Mom got a job at the only dime store in town and promptly fell in lust with the manager of that store. His name was Houston, no, not the city in Texas. Is this building into something scrumptious?? You bet it is.

 

My family had moved into a 2-bedroom apartment that was built on top of a stable for horses, rodeo horses. Talk about the smell. Three kids and 2 adults lived there but not for long as Dad promptly fell off what he thought was the porch of this upstairs atrocity called an apartment and landed in a pile of horse manure and broke his leg. Was Dad sober, of course not! My family then moved into a house, a little white house, next to a hospital for children with polio. I vividly remember that little white house because that is where my Dad almost killed my Mom. My Mom was madly in lust with the manager of the dime store and my Dad, who was highly jealous of My Mom, discovered Mom’s indiscretion with the dime store manager one day and all hell broke loose.

 

I had a front row seat and saw the whole shootin’ match from the door of my bedroom. Thank you Jesus neither one of them had a gun. I do not remember seeing my brother or my sister at all during this domestic battle that was about to happen directly right up in my own house and right up in front of my own face. Dad came screeching up the road to our house in his beat up old black car with balding tires and slammed on the brakes right in front of our house bringing that old car to a full and abrupt stop. Daddy jumped out of the car, charged up the walk to the house, and threw open the front screen door practically tearing it off its hinges. My little knees were knocking so bad I thought my legs were going to break. My Mom was waiting for my Dad in the living room because she saw him coming up the walk from her bedroom window. From my viewpoint my Mom was prepared for battle. “You whore, you filthy rotten dirty whore” my Dad yelled as he slammed into my Mom promptly socking her in the face and giving her a black eye. My Mom, not saying a word, picked up the heavy black telephone (no cell phones at that time, just big bad heavy black telephones) and hit Dad in the face with it. Dad rebounded and pushed Mom into the oak coffee table and it broke her fall with her breaking it in half. Then Mom blasted Dad with a 5-pound ashtray right to his jaw which dropped him to the floor. Talk about a bad ass battle, lord have mercy!!! In the midst of this battle I was standing in my bedroom doorway watching my parents grind away at each other praying my head off to God, “God, please don’t let my Mom and Dad kill each other, please God, tell me what to do to save them. I don’t want to be left alone God, please save them.” And God answered my prayers and in the midst of the chaos I was impressed to sneak out my bedroom window and run down the street to the neighbor’s house yelling “my Dad is killing my Mom, my Dad is killing my Mom, help me” and they heard me loud and clear and promptly called the sheriff. The neighbors calmed me down a wee bit and then put me in their car and we drove up to my house and watched the battle first hand which was still raging. The sheriff pulled up in front of our house and jumped out of his car and busted up the fight that my parents incidentally had taken outside into the front yard and he put my Dad in handcuffs and put him in the back seat of his Sheriff’s car and prepared to haul him off to jail, but first the Sheriff called the doctor (the only one in town and he made house calls) to come and take care of my Mom. I got out of the neighbor’s car and ran into the house. I stood at my Mom’s bedroom door watching as the doctor, along with Houston, the man who was having an affair with my Mom much to my disliking, who was helping the doctor work on my Mom. You know, to this day, I don’t know why that man Houston was there in our house. How did he know about the fight. Obviously a question that will never be answered. My Mom could not be identified at all as my Mom as she was black and blue and swollen to the max and looked like a puffy ball of red mush and I cried and cried and cried for my Mama and my Daddy that night. I did thank God for saving my Mom and Dad as I cried myself to sleep. The next day my Dad came over and got all his belongings. Knowing that my Mom did not want me I begged my Dad to take me with him as he had told me many times I was Daddy’s little girl but as I stood screaming “don’t leave me, Daddy, don’t leave me Daddy, please,” Daddy drove off leaving Daddy’s little girl standing in the middle of the road crying loudly and left all alone. The Sheriff ran my Daddy out of the state of New Mexico and told him never to come back and my Dad didn’t ever come back. Now I was really alone. My Mom did not love me, my Dad abandoned me and left the state, my brother and my sister were never around anymore, so I became tougher and felt more alone than I ever had.

 

Additional foot note: Trudy, my Mom, was all up in Houston Phillips, with the two madly in lust. They failed to mention that Houston’s wife was fat, sassy, and very pregnant. Houston dropped my Mom like a hot potato after his baby was born. Hey, his wife was no longer fat, sassy, and pregnant. Now Houston had his old playmate back and dumped my Mom on her ass. This happened to my Mom several times over the years. I wonder what her mastery was, huh? Probably the same as mine was, rejection, abandonment, and sexual abuse.

 

In a nutshell, in the 5 years that I lived in this dusty little wild west of a town, I had my fair share of riding life in the fast lane akin to a roller coaster. Stealing a car; being chased by a ghost; house burning down to the ground; sexual abuse by not only my father but also my brother; celebrating the renaming of my dusty little town from Hot Springs to Truth or Consequences named after a television show in Hollywood; being socked in the mouth, hit over the head, and dropped like a watermelon on the ground ALL by who else but my best friends; smoking a pack of cigs like a pro on a daily basis stolen from one of my friends parents grocery store; drinking my first shot of whiskey; and after professing my love for a toe-head by the name of Lee Cox and willing to go to war for him and did, lost him to an older woman in the 5th grade, Lee and me being in the 4th. Lee was not into my way of showing him that I liked him and called me a bully. Me, a bully?? No way! She had it comin!!!! I just know that you people want details on all the above happenings so said details to follow.

CAR THEFT: I had a best friend by the name of Adela. We were both 10 years old at the time and in 5th grade. Adela’s Mom and Dad and my Mom went on a camping trip in their jeep for the weekend leaving Adela and myself to fend for ourselves and fend we girls did. We got bored sitting around eating potato chips and drinking soda pop and got the bright idea to steal Adela’s parent’s brand new car sitting in the driveway all by its little old self all shiny like. Let’s face it, it was calling our names!! “Take me for a ride girls, drive me, drive me!! I am so lonely sitting here all by my lonely.” I mean the temptation was way too big for us not to have some fun with right? Question: How to get the car out of the driveway? Answer: Push it down the little hill that the driveway was sitting on right? Adela put the car in neutral and we pushed the car down the little hill into the dirt street. Question: How to start the car? How to drive the car when you cannot see over the steering wheel? Answer: Adela’s Dad made the mistake of leaving the car keys on the dining room table, bad Dad, GOOD Dad!! And the car said “Opportunity is knocking so go for it girls, go for it.” Adela got into the driver side after she had placed two folded up blankets to sit on in the...