My Twisted Life: Memoirs of Randolph Douglas Hopkins

By Suzie Q Valentine

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My Twisted Life is about the life of Randolph Douglas Hopkins. His voice takes the reader on a journey through Randys first childhood memory of being brutally beaten for a crime he didnt commit. Then living in unimaginable pain as punishment for that crime.

With a strong will to live and simply being too stubborn to die, he endured brutal amputations and bullet wounds using his self taught skills to patch himself back together. Randy never knew his father and cant remember even knowing his name. He grew up roaming the country with his psychotic mother and alcoholic stepdad, never knowing any stability in his life.

With little formal education, due to the frequency and extent of his wounds and the gypsy lifestyle of his folks, he used his self driven motivation to educate himself in the skills that he most needed to survive. Aside from the basics of reading and writing, he became skilled in street smarts and survival with things such as petty theft, pool hustling as well as doctoring and mind control. He turned to drugs at a young age and used heavily throughout half of his childhood and all of his teen years.

He was constantly faced with life threatening obstacles and always found himself longing for death, but yet struggling to live. Randy was determined to not let the abuse against him result in his death, so he struggled to do what ever it took to stay alive. Along the journey of his life, he made true friends and true love. Step inside Randys memories as he tells his story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 12, 2009
• ISBN: 9781438977850

Suzie Q Valentine

Suzie Q Valentine, is extremely creative and eccentric; she has the passion and determination to learn any form of art that interests her. This is her first book, although she does have several poems in a few poetry anthologies. She loves to create and makes her creations come to life in her sculptures. Look for Z~Craft products to find some of the passion of art thats created in her mind. She has the ability to breathe life into her visions, in regards to art and the written word, and to captivate her readers. She was born and raised in a southern California town where she spent 17 years of her life in a very sheltered environment with what appeared to be a normal family. She later married and became a stay at home mom, feeling locked in the marriage for 16 years. She was mentally battered and controlled most of her adult life and has now stepped out on her own. Suzie Q has the dreams of becoming a successful self sufficient artist and is currently building her future with that dream. In the process of rebuilding herself and stepping out of the shell that was formed around her, Suzie Q is committing to the completion of a promise made to a dear friend: To tell the story of My Twisted Life. She has finally found the courage and strength to tell this story to the world. May the spotlight shine bright for her and may the world welcome her creations.

Book preview

My Twisted Life

Memoirs of Randolph Douglas Hopkins

Suzie Q Valentine

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2009 Suzie Q Valentine. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 6/8/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4389-7785-0 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4389-7784-3 (sc)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Chapter 1

My

Tormented

Childhood

Chapter 2

No Fear!

No Pain!

Chapter 3

Shot Down

Chapter 4

You Lift Me Up

Chapter 5

The Whispering

Winds Of Change

Chapter 6

Sweet Love

Chapter 7

I’m Free!

Chapter 8

Desperately

Seeking

Death

Chapter 9

Let The F*ckin’ Money Burn

Chapter 10

Gotta Get Away From Here!

Chapter 11

Killing Whut’s Killing Me

Chapter 12

Farewell

To Everything

I Ever Loved

* Note To The Reader *

My Twisted Life is the true story of the life Randy actually did live.

None of the facts are stretched and none of the truths are bent.

Last names and town names may be omitted or altered to protect the innocent.

You may not believe a lot of what yer fixin to read,

but that don’t concern me none.

It’s all true just as it was the days that I was livin it.

Some of the things yer about to read may not be fully in detail.

That may create a problem with yer ability to believe,

but that does not change that it is, like I said, all true and correct

to the best of my recollection and ability to explain it all.

Thank you for taking the interest in

My Twisted Life

written through the hands of

Suzie Q Valentine

but inspired by the voice and memories of

Randolph Douglas Hopkins.

Chapter 1

My

Tormented

Childhood

I was 3 yrs. old when my mother divorced my real father. Her reason was cuz he was always beatin on her. They’d only been married a few years and I was young enough where I don’t remember nothin of it, but mama told me what he’d done to her. Now mama, she was always real angry at him for what he’d done to her, you’d think she’d get over it after a while, but that just ain’t how she was, she took that anger out on me.

She remarried 2 months after her divorce to a man she’d been screwin for about a year. He’d been living a couple miles away, so when they got married we moved into his apartment somewhere in Pennsylvania. His name was Ronald Perkins, which made my mama sign her name as Martha Hopkins/Perkins. My name remained Randolph Douglas Hopkins - otherwise known as Randy. Ronald didn’t adopt me so my name didn’t change which was fine with me cuz I never much liked the son-of-a-bitch anyhow. Hell he never even referred to me as his son, I was the wife’s kid and that was the best thing he ever called me.

Mama was pregnant with Ronald’s kid when they got married; the baby was born 3 months after the wedding. When my half brother, David, was 6 weeks old my mama was giving him a bath in the kitchen sink. She stepped away from him for a minute cuz she said I fell and was cryin real hard. When she went back to the sink my baby brother was dead. He had rolled off the cushion she had him propped on and drowned. She beat the hell out of me, said it was my fault. She beat me with a rolling pin til my face was so black and blue and swollen that I couldn’t see to look at what I did.

The neighbors started gettin real curious and stickin their noses into our business when they saw my mangled face, so mama decided it would be best if we moved so she wouldn’t get in trouble. Two weeks later we were unpacking in our new townhouse in northern New Mexico where Ronald found a company that was hiring while we were driving cross country.

There were boxes piled everywhere as we settled into our new western home. I fell asleep after a long day of helping mama unpack, forgetting to pick my toys up. I guess one of my toy trucks was left on the stairs, cuz when my step dad came home from the bar at 3am, drunker than a skunk, he tripped over it. I must have been sleeping on my stomach, cuz I remember waking up to a killer pain in my back and a drunken bastard for a step dad standing over me screaming at the top of his lungs:

You fuckin baby killin, no good bastard child! What the hell you tryin to do, kill me with a fuckin toy truck?! What the hell’s the matter with you, you stupid son-of-a-bitch?! You don’t leave yer fuckin toys on the goddamn stairs!

The whole time he’s screamin, he’s nailin me with this steel truck in the back of my head, my back, legs, face, and chest. The more he hit me the more I cried and screamed, the more I cried, the more he hit me.

Shut the fuck up! You want me to keep hittin you?! You want to wake the neighbors? If you don’t stop yer goddamn cryin I’ll beat you til you can’t cry!

He shut me up alright; he slammed that truck in my chest so hard it knocked me breathless. He beat the shit out of me with that goddamned toy motherfuckin steel Tonka truck. The next day I got together all my Tonka trucks and threw them away. I never wanted to be beat like that again and I never wanted to see another Tonka truck either.

When I was 4 we moved to somewhere in Nebraska, where my baby sister, Christina, was born. She only lived a year, my fault again. My mother took us to the grocery store with her one day. Christina was sleepin and mama didn’t want to wake her up so she left me in the car with her while she went in the store for a minute. Mama forgot her purse, so I ran in the store to give it to her. Just as I gave her purse to her we heard a loud CRASH! from outside. We ran out of the store to see what happened, what we saw was mama’s car, which was parked towards the middle of the parking lot, with the nose of another car shoved in the passenger side of the car so far you could only see from the windshield back on the other car. My sister screamed bloody murder, and then our car exploded killing her instantly.

The driver of the other car managed to get out of his car safely and with few minor injuries. He told the police and my mother what happened the best he could, I pulled into the parking lot because my brakes had gone out, well... I don’t know for sure, I was going so fast when I swerved into the parking lot... I hopped the curb I’m sure. I was panicked and tried to slam on the brake, but it was the gas I hit! In tears he sobbed to mama, I’m so sorry ma’am. he begged her forgiveness, when in fact, it was not him who needed to beg forgiveness - it was me.

The police took the man to the police station while mama and I walked what seemed like 10 miles home in the freezing cold and knee deep snow. The police offered to give us a ride, but mama wanted to walk. The whole way she was either dragging me by the wrist or throwing me in front of her and kicking me in the back or the ass, making me fall face first in the snow several times. When we got in the house she carried me into the kitchen by the collar of my jacket, dropped me on the hard tile floor and grabbed one of her kitchen knives.

Take off your jacket and shirt! she commanded.

When my arms and chest were bare she slung that fuckin knife across my arms a dozen times til I fell to the floor and cried, Why?!

Why?! she shouted, Well now, lets just say your my new sharpening stone! she cackled a blood curdling laugh. Now, get this mess cleaned up! she hollered as she turned around to cook something. She turned the oven on to pre-heat while she mixed a batter of something. I got some old rags and a sponge and a pail of water and started mopping up my blood. My arms were bleeding so bad the puddle just got bigger and more messy. A few minutes later mama turned around to see if I was cleaning up my mess, she got pissed off cuz I was bleeding more than I was cleaning. I was on my hands and knees cleaning the best I could with blood running out my body and tears running out my face. I screamed in fear and pain when she snatched me up by the hair and threw me up against the blistering hot oven door. My back hit first, then as I fell to the floor rolling in pain, my arms and face also got blistering burns.

She yelled in rage, You’re a worthless piece of shit baby killer that can’t even clean up your own mess! She kicked me in the gut, throwing me back against the oven, burning my back worse and warned, You’d best learn how to clean up your own mess up, cuz it ain’t gonna get no better mother-fucker! All hell’s broken loose on you now, since you can’t seem to stop killing my babies! Then she went back to her baking as if nothing had happened.

I laid on the floor crying and thinking to myself, wondering how she could blame me for Christina dying. If she had taken her in the store with her then she wouldn’t be dead. I loved my baby sister! Why the fuck would I want to kill her? That little girl did me a lot of good, cuz the whole year she was alive, I didn’t get no beatings. Didn’t get no attention either, everyone damn near forgot I was alive, with the new baby and all. But hell, I didn’t get beat on, so how the hell could I be responsible for killin the little God send?

Mama walked out of the kitchen with her baking done, saying as she left, You ain’t comin out of here til this kitchen is clean. Don’t think you’re gonna be eatin til then either! It was almost lunch time then.

That bitch expected me to peel myself up off the floor with cuts all up and down my arms and blistering burns covering half my body to clean up her blood soaked kitchen. I knew if I didn’t she would have fucked me up worse so I got up slowly, barely able to move and got some plastic bags and put my hands and arms inside them up to my shoulders and put rubber bands around the top of my arms to hold the bags on. The blood stopped running onto the floor so I got back on my knees and started scrubbing the already drying bloody floor. I hurt so bad I could hardly move and I couldn’t stop crying. When dinner time arrived I was still cleaning and the plastic bags on my arms were leaking out blood. It wasn’t as bad with the bags on, but it still made the mess that much bigger and harder to clean up. Mama and Ronald went out to eat cuz mama didn’t want to be steppin in blood while she cooked dinner and ol asshole Ronald didn’t want his stomach to turn and his appetite to be lost.

With no lunch to tide me over and dinner to give me strength, I fell asleep on the kitchen floor long after mama went to bed. When I awoke at daybreak to my step dad kicking me painfully in the side, my arms had stopped bleeding. They were completely numb, but at least I could finish cleaning the little bit remaining. An hour later when I was done I got in the bathtub and took the bags off my still numb arms. I cried when I saw my arms, they were both blue and each cut was white and swollen thick with gobs of dried blood all over my arms. The rubber bands cut off the circulation. Yeah I know, from the way they looked it sounds real bad, but not really, cuz those rubber bands, I think saved me from bleedin to death.

We moved to Bumfuck, MA. after that incident, where we rented a cabin in the woods for about a year, until the next time my folks beat me to a bloody pulp.

Ronald was at work and mama left me at home while she went shopping for a birthday present for me.

As she left she told me, Ronald will be coming home in about an hour for lunch, you stay in the house and play or watch TV until he gets here. She kissed me on the cheek and said, I’d like to take you with me, but that would ruin your birthday surprise and I can’t wait until your father gets home because the stores all close an hour before he gets home.

Step dad. I corrected.

You be nice to him, Randy, if it wasn’t for his paycheck you wouldn’t be getting anything for your birthday. she reminded me. Maybe you could do something nice for him for a change? she smiled and walked out closing the door behind her.

I decided to make lunch for him, so I went to the kitchen and found some Spaghetti O’s in the cabinet. I found a can opener and set the can on the floor and tried to remember how mama got that thing to work. After quite a struggle I finally got the lid off and got up to get a pot to put it in. I couldn’t reach them cuz they were hanging on the wall over the stove and I’d always been taught to never stand on a chair or climb up on something to reach the stove or anything close to the stove cuz it’s dangerous, but I figured it’d be okay to just put the can on the stove to heat it. In case you’re wondering, no, I never was told that I could not use the stove, but then again I wasn’t told I could either. So anyways, I put the can on the burner and turned the fire on. When I thought it had been there long enough I reached up to get it off the stove. Now keep in mind, I was just turning 5 yrs old and wasn’t tall enough to see the top of the stove. I stuck my hand right in the goddamn fire, but I had to get the can cuz it was starting to boil over and cuz I was being nice to my step dad by making him lunch and I couldn’t screw it up. I wanted that can so bad and I was so determined to do something to make Ronald like me that I kept feeling for that can until it was in my hand.

I got it off the stove just as my step dad walked in, I made lunch for you! I exclaimed excited and proud of what I’d done.

Where’s your mother? he asked as he came into the kitchen. What the hell did you do? You stupid son-of-a-bitch! What the hell’s the matter with you, stickin yer hand in a fuckin fire like that?!

What? It’s okay it doesn’t hurt much. I didn’t care about the burn, I just wanted him to be proud of me and thankful that I’d made him lunch, I repeated, Look, I made you lunch! Aren’t you proud? I gleamed with pride.

Oh it doesn’t hurt, huh? You want me to be proud of you? Fuck you! You stupid fuckin child! he scolded mockingly. Well, I guess I’ll just have to give you a permanent reminder to not play with fire! He grabbed the sharpest knife my mama had and looked at my burned hand real close.

But, I wasn’t playing in the fire, I was making you lunch! I protested, knowing I was fixin to be hurt alot more than I already was.

Ignoring me, he grabbed my middle finger, the worst one and laid it on the edge of the counter. The skin was all burned real bad and kind of bubbly lookin, like it could burst and fall at any moment. The other fingers were badly burned also, but none were nearly as bad as my middle finger. Ronald raised the knife and brought it down with the force of an axe knocking my middle finger clean off and into the kitchen sink. I hardly felt a thing and it didn’t bleed much at all, I guess cuz all the blood vessels were burned so badly it couldn’t bleed. He put my finger down the garbage disposal and flipped the switch on, I shuttered and swallowed hard fighting back uncontrollable tears as I listened to the disposal grind through the bone and suck my finger into the sewers.

When the grinding noise ceased, he grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me hard and warned, If you say one thing to anybody about what...

Just then the phone rang; it was his boss saying they needed him back right away. He was delivering supplies to stores or something, I never really knew what he did, didn’t particularly care either. I cursed him after he left. The asshole didn’t even eat the lunch I burned my hand and lost a finger making for him. Son-of-a-bitch!

I didn’t get my birthday present that year, since I was bein punished fer tryin to be nice like mother bitch told me to do. As if it wasn’t enough punishment having my fuckin finger cut off!

We managed to stay in Mollsville for a year, hell the cabin was so deep in the fuckin woods you could murder 50 people and no one would know a damn thing. When I was 6 Mrs. Bitch and Mr. Asshole got restless and decided to move again.

We landed in Florida this time somewhere outside Orlando. As we were moving into our apartment, mama and Ronald decided we were going to start over and that they weren’t going to whale on me anymore. That was cool, I fell for it, they made their apologies and sucked up to me for about 8 months. Just when I thought everything was cool and that I really did have decent parents like normal kids, it started all over again. Now check this out ya’ll, this shit here is really fuckin sick, but I swear to you, I ain’t lying, if this shit didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be sittin here havin a book wrote about it, now would I?

I was sittin on the counter watchin mama cook dinner and kinda learnin how to myself, you know from watchin. Anyways, we were talking and remembering old times and the many places we’ve been and all the things we’ve seen. We were really enjoying each others company.

Mama smiled and closed her eyes and said, Oh how I wish your brother and sister could be with us today to share these memories with us.

I was only 3 yrs old when my brother died and didn’t remember how it happened. I innocently asked, Mama, what made David die?

She dropped what she was doing and slapped my face and shouted, You fuckin bastard! How dare you kill my baby just 3 years ago and have the nerve to forget that you drowned him! She grabbed my bare foot, yanking on it so hard I fell over on the counter. She shoved it down the drain and hollered, Here! This should help you to never forget again! Then she flipped the switch turning on the garbage disposal, she held my leg so tight I couldn’t get it out. I screamed bloody fuckin murder as the pain echoed through my entire body as the teeth of the garbage disposal ripped through the flesh on my toes and ate clear through the bone, devouring my toes, but not stopping there, it continued to grind through my flesh and bone to the ball of my right foot.

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I’m sorry mama! I screamed I didn’t mean to kill him! I cried, Please mama! Please stop! I pleaded and begged for mercy. I still didn’t remember I was just trying to get her to stop ripping my fuckin foot off!

I guess she finally realized what she was doing and flipped the switch off and just walked away pulling her hands roughly through her hair and mumbling to herself, Oh God, what did I just do? Oh God, I just cut my baby’s foot off! My baby’s foot! Oh God I cut my baby’s foot off!

I pulled what was left of my foot out of the disposal and just sat there on the counter top clutching my foot and bawling, but trying to stay quiet enough to be able to hear what mama was doing in case she came after me again. I heard mama’s car start up and hoped that she would take me to the hospital. I cried harder than I ever have when I heard her tires squealing half way down the block as she sped away. Then it all came back to me how my brother died and what happened to me for killing him. I never forgot again and I never talked about it no more either.

The remains of my foot was bleeding so bad I was getting really dizzy. I remembered using rubber bands on my arms two years ago to stop the bleeding, so I got one of them real thick rubber bands out of the kitchen drawer under the counter I was sitting on. I put the rubber band so tight around my ankle it was digging deep into my ankle, the remains of my foot immediately started turning several shades of blue and purple. The bleeding slowed substantially, but it still hurt so much it made my leg ache terribly. I got down off the counter and hopped over to the refrigerator, leaning on the counter for balance and stability and cringing in agonizing pain with every move I made. I got the four ice trays out of the freezer and dumped the ice into a big pot that I got from the dish drainer. I put the pot on the floor and stuck my severed foot into the ice, nearly passing out from the shock. I hobbled over to a kitchen chair and sat down keeping my foot in the ice. The ice turned dark red as the last of the blood in my foot oozed out. After about an hour of nerve freezing, the pain ceased enough to where I could sew the gaping hole in my foot.

I dragged the pot of ice down the hall to my mama’s room where I got her sewing kit. Then I went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat propping my wounded foot on the edge of the bathtub. It was completely numb which made sewing it much easier. It took me about two hours to sew it up tight enough where I wouldn’t bleed to death. Every 10 minutes or so, I would start to feel the needle in my foot so I’d have to stop and refreeze it for about 15 minutes. When I was completely sewed up, I wrapped a towel around it real tight, tied a plastic bag snuggly around my foot and ankle, then taped it with duct tape.

The bandage stayed on my foot for several months, I checked on it a lot at first, all I really did most of the time was take the plastic bag off and check the towel to see if it was too awfully blood soaked. If it was I put a clean one on after drowning the end of my sawed off foot in hydrogen peroxide, I did that every day for what seemed like months. It gradually healed enough where I only had to soak it and change the towel every other week, then once a month, etc... Bein that I was 6, I figured it’d take 6 months for it to stop bleeding and heal up right. By the sixth month I was walking on it much easier and it no longer hurt to bear weight on it. I decided it would be safe by now to remove the bandage for good. With the bandage off, I looked at my foot closely for the first time since the brutal amputation. There were few gaps and all of the bones were covered by the skin that I managed to pull tightly over the end of my partial foot. I sewed it very well for a 6 and a 1/2 year old kid, I was proud of the doctoring I did on myself. It still worked and didn’t hurt much at all so I didn’t worry none about it. I just hobbled around on my one and a half feet for the rest of my fucked up life.

I was never allowed to go to a doctor, hell I never even got my baby shots. If it weren’t for my folks bein so scared of gettin in trouble for what they done to me I could have gone to a doctor and got myself straightened out, but they only thought of themselves and how to cover their asses, instead of my health and safety like any normal parents would do.

Hell every time I got seriously pounded on we had to move to another state or all the way across the fucking country just so the neighbors wouldn’t get suspicious and call the cops and have the bastards locked up in jail or an insane asylum where they belonged. Even though I was always threatened to keep my mouth shut or else, everywhere we moved to I always secretly tried to hint around about the abuse to somebody, but we either didn’t stay around long enough for anyone to figure it out or else the people just didn’t give a flyin fuck about me. They just ignored the little freak cuz they didn’t want to get involved or thought I was lying. Duh! They must’ve been blind cuz you could see the cuts and my missing finger plain as day and I sure as hell wasn’t limping just for the attention! I guess no matter where you go the people don’t change, cuz no one nowhere, gave a shit.

My Unheard Lifelong Cry For help

Oh dear God please

Let me off this crazy train!

Somebody please, open your eyes and look at me,

Open your hearts and give a damn!

See the blood on my face,

Look at the bullet holes in my body;

Tell me you don’t feel my pain!

Look at me and tell m you can’t

See the bones in my ripped arms.

Hold my hand and tell me you

Don’t notice I’ve got only four fingers.

Wash my feet and tell me you can’t

See that half my right foot

Has been severed clean off!

Don’t you fuckin ignore me!

Listen to me!

Somebody please, hear my cry!

Let me pierce yer ears with my scream for help!

Their killing me goddamn it!

Can’t you see I’m dying? Don’t you care?

Somebody please, help me!

Help me to stop the bleeding!

Help me to stop the pain!

Goddamn it don’t walk away from me!

Comeback, somebody come help me!

Please, I beg you, please help me!

Randy

I remember starting at a new school in southern, GA. late in the year, about a month before my 8th birthday, it was my third day there, a very warm day. I was wearing a long sleeved sweater over my T-shirt to hide the fresh wounds from the night before. I had learned how to use shopping bags and rubber bands quite well by this time, and kept them well concealed under long sleeves. Mama had used my arms for her sharpening stone again and a couple of the cuts were so deep the bones were showing. I was wearing rubber bands on my arms at my pits, elbows and wrists, and my arms were lined in plastic so I wouldn’t bleed at school. That’s very embarrassing, I’m sure you can imagine.

My teacher told me, Randy, take your sweater off, your sweating buckets!

No. I muttered under my breath.

With the eyes of all the other 8 year old kids on me, the teacher came over to my desk and asked, What did you say Randy?

Staring at her shoes, I whispered, I don’t want to ma’am.

Honey I know you’re a new student and I don’t like putting new students on the spot like this, but it is too hot to wear a sweater. You need to take it off. she told me.

Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I protested, No. I’m not hot. I said loud enough that the whole class heard me. The other kids laughed cuz I was back talking the teacher.

Quite angry now, the teacher grabbed me by the arm and said sternly, Let’s go outside, Randy.

I pulled my arm out of her grasp and ran out the door fighting back the tears. It hurt somethin fierce for her to grab my arm with them fresh cuts. She followed close behind me and was out the door along with me before I had the chance to run away. She placed her hand firmly on my shoulder stopping me just as we got outside.

Closing the classroom door for privacy, she said, Alright lets get the sweater off before you roast to death.

She knelt down and started unbuttoning my sweater. I froze with fear; I closed my eyes as tight as I could hoping this nightmare would go away. But it didn’t, she got the sweater off.

My God! she cried when she saw my arms. She pulled me close to her and held me like a baby and cried for me. You poor baby, what happened to you? she asked holding up my arms and peeling the plastic off of them to get a better look at them. They were smeared and dripping in sweat and blood.

I fell in some broke glass. I lied.

No you didn’t. she argued, Broken glass couldn’t cut you this deep from simply falling in it. What happened to your finger? she asked, noticing my missing finger.

It got squished real bad and got all broke up so they had to cut it off. I lied again.

She looked at me as if she could see right through my lies. Let’s go see the school nurse about this, okay honey.

Nuh uh. No. I... I got a pointment right now to see a doc fer real! I said and ran as fast as I could away from the school.

I didn’t want to go home cuz I knew I’d be in trouble for being home so early so I walked around town for a while. Around lunch time, I could tell by the growling in my stomach, I saw Ronald’s car drive past me. I didn’t know the area as well as he did so it was hard for me to find a place to lay low. He found me trying to hide behind a parked car and grabbed me by the hair and threw me into the back seat of the car.

When we got to the house he grabbed me by the arm really tight and dragged me into the house. He opened the coat closet, picked me up by one arm and one leg and literally threw me into that tiny little closet. My head hit the wall so hard it knocked me out. He closed the door and locked it leaving me in there four days before he let me out, from Wednesday afternoon til Monday morning. My memory ain’t real specific on a lot of shit, but I remember fer sure that it was four days cuz I remember how shocked and empty and hollow I felt when I became aware of the time frame. He let me out in time to eat breakfast and go to school; my first meal in four days. I screamed and cried and begged for four days for him to please let me out of that tiny little dark fuckin closet, but he wouldn’t. That was my punishment for skipping school! I had to shit and piss in that damn closet and wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything the whole four days. That was hell.

When I went back to school Monday my teacher noticed a large bump and some blood on my head. I didn’t know what she was talking about when she asked me about it; then I remembered hitting my head on the closet wall when I was thrown in the closet. I got scared; I knew she was going to start asking questions again. I wanted so bad to tell her the truth this time, but I was so afraid of what would happen if I did.

She held my hand all the way to the nurse’s office, just before we went inside she knelt down and told me, Randy, I’m going to have to call your mother and make a formal report of this.

Please don’t. I begged as a tear rolled down my face.

I’m sorry. she said regretfully.

She left me with the nurse and went to the attendance office to call my mama. The nurse must of never seen blood before cuz she was gettin sick while she examined me. She played it off real good though I think, she smiled a lot and talked real nice to me while she cleansed and treated the cuts on my arms and put an ice pack on my head. It felt good to get doctored by someone other than me. Made somethin inside me feel, I don’t know; Different. I could tell that she was really feeling sorry for me and that was kinda buggin me, but I ignored it the best I could cuz she was real nice and pretty.

I could hear mama’s raised voice sayin, How dare you accuse me of abusing my child! I discipline my boy when needed, which is all the time. The lil hell raiser! I whoop him when he asks for it, but I do not abuse my boy. Her tone of voice gettin nasty, she accused, "How do you know it wasn’t another student or maybe it was you Ms. Nosy Teacher!" I curled up in a ball and cried. All I could think about was how much I was gonna hurt when she got me home and how much blood I was gonna be scrubbin.

Then the door flew open and mama charged through it lookin like a rabid dog. She snatched my wrist and pulled my arm up to look at it and laughed loudly, saying in a well rehearsed tone, He fell in a pile of glass when he jumped out his window tryin to fly like the idiot child he is! for reinforcement she added, I’ve told the landlord a thousand times to get that shit cleaned up. I turned and looked at my teacher with tears pourin out my eyes but I kept my mouth shut in fear.

When we got home mama got a belt and whipped me until my back, butt and legs were bleeding through my clothes. It hurt so bad I couldn’t walk for days; I couldn’t sit down either cuz my butt was sliced up so bad. I spent nearly a week laying in bed with my backside up while mama and Ronald packed up our lives for another road trip.

Just as the moving van was ready to go and we were loading ourselves into the van my teacher drove up behind us. She saw me walking very stiffly to the van wearing shorts and no shirt; I intentionally turned my back to her so she could see the welts and slices. When she saw them she got out of her car and ran over to me, before she reached me Ronald swooped me up by the waist and threw me in the van.

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Keep your nose out of other people’s business, ya nosy ol bitch! he snapped at her and got in the drivers seat and sped away with mama following in the pick-up truck.

I closed my eyes and prayed that she would come after us and rescue me. I prayed continuously, all the way out of Georgia, through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana where I finally came to my senses and faced reality, no one was coming to rescue me and there was no God out there answering prayers neither. If there was, this shit wouldn’t be happening or else somebody would have done something to stop it, so there definitely was no God. The beatings were never going to stop unless I managed to escape. I didn’t care if I died trying, but I had to try.

Traveling 55mph westbound on I-10 somewhere in Louisiana I opened the passenger door on the moving van and bailed out. I rolled down the muddy sloped shoulder of the road into the thicket. Thinking I was free I got up and came into the clearing to laugh as I watched the moving van grow farther and farther away. I thought mama was in front of the van in the pick-up until I heard the rumbling of the trucks motor stopping at the roadside in front of me, I turned to run, but my left leg buckled under me as a blast of pain echoed through my thigh. I fell to the ground in a daze until I felt mama’s hands on my ankles pulling me up the muddy shoulder face down in the mud and rocks. She sat me in the passenger side and got in and sped away. From the corner of my eye I could see Ronald’s hand gun on the seat next to mama. I looked down at where all the pain was coming from on my left thigh, my leg was covered in blood and mud. The flesh on the outside of my thigh was ripped and torn badly. I took my shirt off and tied it around the wound as tight as I could. I could see a deep gash as long as the outside of my thigh was wide. I couldn’t believe that my own fuckin mother shot me!

She looked