Black in My Rainbow: A Memoir

By Alice F. Omoti

While growing up amid humble surroundings in Roxobel, North Carolina, Alice Omoti begins her sophomore year of high school without any idea that one decision is about to change the course of her life forever.

In her memoir, Alice details her childhood and adolescent yearsyears that are abruptly transformed the night she attends a football game with a friend. After fifteen-year-old Alice meets fellow student James Ruff Dog Ruskins, she ignores a foreboding feeling and accepts a ride with him to a party. A few hours later, Ruff Dog rapes her, impregnating Alice with her first child. Left with no other options, Alice is forced to marry the man she hates with every fiber of her being. Trapped in a faux marriage ruled by physical and mental abuse, Alice unsuccessfully attempts to escape numerous times. But fifteen years later, just as Alice thinks she has finally discovered true happiness, tragedy strikes and causes Alice to question everythingincluding her faith.

Black in My Rainbow shares the intimate story of one womans unforgettable journey through the darkness of her troubles and into the light of Gods love, where she finally takes control of her destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475957310

Alice F. Omoti

Alice Hardy Omoti earned a bachelor’s degree from Shaw University. She is an ordained minister who has recently been installed as pastor of the church, Call of the Small Christian Center. Alice resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her children and grandchildren.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Alice F. Omoti

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5730-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5732-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5731-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012920030

iUniverse rev. date: 11/14/2012

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Black in My Rainbow

I dedicate this book to my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, who proves over and over to be just who He says He is: I AM THAT I AM!

Acknowledgments

The author expresses her appreciation to the following: John Kotlas for the poem; John Letzow, who pushed me to finally submit this book to the publisher; and Rev. Delores Hunter, who encouraged me to follow my dream.

Introduction

We all want our lives to end like a fairy-tale ending: and they lived happily ever after. The truth of the matter, as Job put it in the Old Testament, is that

Humanity has hard service on earth. Their days also like the days of a hired man, like a slave longing for the evening shadow, and like a hired man looking for his wages. We have been made to inherit months of futility, and nights of sorrow have been appointed to us. (Job 7:1–4, NIV, paraphrased)

Chapter 1

On January 30, 1947, Otelia Bush lay exhausted on her bed, holding her precious newborn baby girl. Otelia’s aunts gathered at the foot of her bed, arguing about the child’s name. In the adjoining room was the newborn’s father, John Nelson Hardy. Although he had not married the mother yet, he had already decided that if the baby were a boy, he would be named after him. If a girl, her name would be Margie. That was the final word. So Margie it was. That’s who I was, and that’s who I am to every family member who knows me, even now.

However, when I started school, I found out the attending physician, Dr. Stephenson, had penned a different name on my birth certificate: Alice Faye Bush. Later, my school records showed my last name as Hardy. My mom and dad were married March 10, 1947, thirty-eight days after I was born.

I remember my childhood days as fairly good times, but to hear my mom tell it, we were dirt poor and almost starved to death. She saw things from a different perspective because she was a grown-up. Living with my dad’s mom, Ma Emma, did not help her mind-set. She hated living there with a passion.

My dad’s father died when he was young, so he became caretaker for his mom and three of his siblings. When he found out Mom was pregnant, he moved her into the house with his family. Mom did not like staying in such crowded conditions and wanted a place of her own.

Living at Ma Emma’s was like living at the Ritz. She was always baking tea cookies and doughnuts and making homemade ice cream. Every child in the neighborhood hung out on her porch, which seemed to go on and on and on, wrapping itself seemingly for miles around Ma Emma’s house. A big chinaberry tree in the yard had limbs just right for climbing and enough leaves at the top for hiding. From there you could see and hear things that were not meant for a child’s ears.

When I turned five, we moved into another house. Although I was young, I knew we moved because Mother had had another baby. I also knew that the one room that Dad, Mom, my brother Josh, and I shared at Ma Emma’s house was too small to accommodate our growing family.

Our new house was a long way from Ma Emma’s. To tell the truth, it was a long way from anyone’s house. It was really far back in the woods. Mom would sit by the window and cry softly all day, and when Daddy came home from work, she cried harder. She said she was lonesome and wanted to live closer to people. So it wasn’t long before we moved to another house. It was still miles from Ma Emma’s, but it was not in the woods, and this time we were surrounded by neighbors.

Still, Mom was not satisfied. I had a hard time trying to figure out why. She said she liked where we lived, but she complained that we might as well be living outdoors. Looking back now, I agree. The walls had cracks so wide you could see outside. Although Mom covered the walls with old newspapers and some wallpaper, the wind came through the cracks and the paper would tear and curl.

Now, instead of crying all the time, Mom fussed. The minute Dad’s foot crossed the threshold, she would light into him. She told him that since he was a carpenter, she did not know why we had to live like we did. I don’t know how Dad stood all her fussing for the next six months because I was about to go crazy on his behalf. Soon after my brother Larry was born, we moved again. This house was a stone’s throw from Ma Emma’s house, so all was well.

When I was about ten, someone gave Dad an old wooden building. He hauled it onto Ma Emma’s property and fixed it up. It became a piccolo joint called Scobey’s Place. There was a jukebox in one corner, and a large coal-burning heater in the other. There were no tables, just a few chairs and some benches along the walls. Dad partitioned a small area of the building off with a counter and a drink box and built shelves behind the counter. The shelves held cigarettes, candy, gum, cheese crackers, and jars full of cookies and doughnuts made by Ma Emma.

Dad worked all week, but when Friday came, he would prepare for the Friday night crowd that frequented Scobey’s Place. When I got home from school, I would sweep the grounds, pick up the bottles and trash in front of the place, and when Dad got off work, I helped him sweep and mop the floor. He put the drinks in the box and put chipped ice over them to get the sodas good and cold by the time the crowd started coming in. He let me punch some of the tunes on the jukebox, but I had to make sure one of the tunes was Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino. That was Dad’s favorite. I just punched a bunch: Fats Domino, Etta James, or whoever had a hit back then.

Sometimes Dad let me stay with him in the store until late. But when he got a beer license, it was illegal for me to be behind the counter because of my age. I had to go to Ma Emma’s and help babysit my brothers and some cousins who my married aunts dropped off for the night.

Before my aunts left Ma Emma’s house to go out partying, they always discussed the plan. The plan was to go to Miss Lou’s place first, and then lure the crowd back to Dad’s place. Lou’s was within walking distance from Scobey’s, and the crowd always went there first because Miss Lou sold hard liquor.

Although the plan seemed like a good one, it never seemed to work just right. The crowd drank a little too much booze at Lou’s place, so when they came to Dad’s place they were a bit rowdy. It was only a matter of time before a fight started. You could set your watch by it because it never failed. Around 1:30 a.m., the noise of women screaming and men swearing would wake us up. My cousin Dale and I would race to the window and peer out at the action going on a few yards from us. It was better than watching Gunsmoke on the tube!

When I turned twelve, things began to change for my family. Dad was never home at night anymore, and on the weekend Mom ran Scobey’s by herself. And Dad had obtained his liquor licenses, so the drunkards from Lou’s place got drunker at his place.

Their fights turned more violent. In the past, they’d used their fists, but now it was knives and guns. Ma Emma warned Dale and me about the danger of watching brawls from the window. She told us, Bullets don’t know anybody.

If a fight happened, and someone was hurt bad enough to bleed, Dad hired some of my cousins to cover up the blood with sand the next morning. You would think people would not want to frequent a place where patrons carried knives and guns, but the violence seemed to draw larger crowds. Business was booming. I silently wished Dad would close the place because Mom could not handle it alone anymore. My wish was fulfilled about ten months later.

It was a hot Saturday afternoon in July. Mom and I were a little late in cleaning up the store because one of my brothers had gotten sick. A few people drifted in, and the jukebox was blaring. I quickly crated all the empty bottles, picked up all the beer cans, and swept up the dust and trash. I filled the drink box with sodas, while Mom chipped the block of ice to cover them. The music stopped, and we heard a woman’s voice speaking very loudly, uttering curse words.

I murmured to myself, Oh no, not this early, thinking a fight was about to start. I looked up to see who was speaking. Standing in the front door was a really pretty lady. She was tall and curvy with fair skin. Her hair hung around her head in ringlets. She looked like a movie star.

She shouted, I’m here to get my man! Suddenly, things got a bit crazy and fuzzy. I saw Mom, who weighed about 105 pounds soaking wet, leap across the drink box. I heard her shout, I’ve got your man! Then I heard screaming. People rushed past me, fleeing out the backdoor. I heard car tires spinning on the gravel. The car screeched off down the dirt road, filling the air with dust. My mind had a hard time processing what had happened.

A few minutes later Aunt Teanie and Aunt Emery came into the store and told the two or three people who had ventured back inside to leave. Aunt Teanie told me to go home. I grabbed the money box and ran next door to Ma Emma’s. Mom came to Ma Emma’s later, and we went to our house.

Someone had kept Scobey’s open because I could hear the music, which competed with the music coming from Lou’s Place. I lay in bed wide awake, wondering what would happen when Dad got home. It was daybreak when he finally got there. I covered my head with my pillow and pretended to be asleep. I did not want to hear them fighting about the woman.

There was a lot of whispering going on during the following week. I learned, while sitting in the chinaberry tree, that Mom had to go to court. She was charged with assault with a deadly weapon: an ice pick. I cried every night before the court date, because I did not want her to go to jail. What would my brothers and I do without her?

Mother did not have to go to jail because Aunt Emery and Aunt Teanie were her witnesses. They told the judge that the lady had fallen against some nails sticking out of the wall. Mom didn’t even have to pay a