Finding Lizzie Jo

By Connie Jo Longamore

Change is not always easy.  Lizzie Jo and her siblings must find a way to adapt to constant change in their lives. 

When her father took his own life, he left behind five children and a young pregnant wife.  Only for their mother to be so grief stricken, she dives to the bottom of a bottle.

She remarries quickly, to a mentally, physically and sexually abusive, younger man.  They move so often, making and keeping friends is almost impossible for any of them.

Lizzie Jo becomes a target for much of the abuse and must find a way to endure and survive it all.  She must find strength, to keep them all alive and to persevere. 

For an adult, wisdom and maturity help with survival skills.  But for an eight- year old girl?

There are moments when Lizzie Jo seriously thinks that death is eminent, and others where death is wished.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diamondback Publishers INT.
• Release date: Jun 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393889687

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

It just can't be true!  My mother and my Aunt Roxie were sobbing uncontrollably.  My mother, after collapsing into a dining room chair, sat crying so hard that she could hardly catch her breath.  My grandmother, who was also crying, tried listening to the words that were coming from the mouths of these two strange men that were now standing in the doorway of my grandmother's trailer.

It was only a day or two prior to today, that my grandmother had brought mom and all five of us children to her home.  Mom and dad must have had another argument or misunderstanding which caused us to be staying at grandmas’ home again.  I'm not real clear on many of the events that led up to why we were there again, but I will never forget many of the events that followed that horrible day of March 27, 1972.

It was only last night, maybe nine or ten o'clock, that I had just seen my father.  He was on his knees, begging my mother to get us children and our stuff together so he could take us all back home with him.  We only lived about seven or eight miles away, but it seemed like a million miles at that time.  I didn't know it at the time, but that would be the last time I would ever see my father.

My mother was sitting on the end of the pea green sofa, her legs crossed, and she was smoking a cigarette.  She avoided looking directly at my father while he was sobbing and pleading with her to come home.  He was on his knees in front of her. He was extremely hurt and very drunk.  My mother held her ground and refused to return with him.  Her hands were shaking as she repeatedly returned the lit cigarette to her mouth and dragged from it.  Between each drag she replaced her arm across her other arm which lay across her pregnant stomach.

I'm not sure what time he finally left, or how, as all of us children were told to go back to bed so we would not see his pleading and sobbing.  I do know that he was not alone.  Someone was in the car waiting for him as I kept hearing the engine being revved.  I'm pretty sure that it was my father's brother Leon in the car.  I fell asleep thinking that tomorrow everything would be back to normal.  That is the way it always went.  Mom and Dad would have had a couple of days to cool off and all would be good again.

But the next morning came and all was not all better and far from back to normal.  Here stood these two strange men telling my mother that my father had been discovered dead in our family car just that morning.  No way!  It just can't be true!  He was just here only hours ago! 

The large white letters displayed across the backs of their jackets were burned into my mind.  Although it took years before I knew what they stood for, I never forgot them. B.C.I. (Bureau of Criminal Investigations).  What those men had to say was burned into my heart.

Suicide!  We never even got to say goodbye, or I love you, or please don't leave us daddy!  I wasn't sure what suicide meant at the time, but I was pretty sure that he wasn't coming back, ever!

Oddly enough, I had just learned what dead meant only a week or so before that awful day.  My grandmother's cat had died, and dead was explained to me at that time.

I was a little ashamed of myself for thinking that it should have been Leon that died rather than our dad.  None of us children, or our mother for that matter would miss Leon.  He was mean and awful and a huge waste of space.  As far as I am concerned, he served absolutely no purpose in life but to torture us children and suck in valuable air.  I hated him with a passion as did my mother and oldest brother.

Only two years before, when I was six, my little sister Macey was three and my oldest brother Bradley was seven and our baby brother Mark was just one.  Mom and Dad had one of their arguments.  Mom left for a while and we kid’s stayed with Dad in Tabarga.  I'm not sure just where Mom went to stay but Dad's brother Leon offered to come and stay with us and help our father out.

So, the creep moved in with us to help dad out with us four children while he worked.  He took care of us alright. 

Leon was a greasy, sleazy guy.  He had dirty blond hair, and I'm it sure was dirty from him just continuing to add more goop to it and never washing it before adding more.  He was about thirty years old and about forty pounds overweight at 5' 9" tall.  He always smelled of cigarettes, body odor and alcohol.

He never looked anyone in the eyes, especially women.  He starred at their breasts the whole time he talked to them.  He was scum through and through.  You would never believe that he and my father were brothers, they were nothing alike.  Leon was nothing like any of his siblings.  I hated him!

On many occasions Leon had been cruel and downright nasty to us kids.  He had fed us canned cat food several times.  He had told us that it was tuna fish when we questioned the smell of it.  But I’d seen the picture of a cat on the labels. 

He wouldn't let us outside to play, nor did he ever let us invite any of our friends in to play.  If our father did not ask for us kid’s he wouldn't let us anywhere near dad either.  I think he was afraid we would tell our father about the things he was doing to us.

He made Bradley wear my pink winter boots to school and then laugh at him when he returned from school, calling my brother ‘fagot’ or ‘sissy girl’.  He was cruel and perverted and made us children his victims.  If he was angry, the sickening words that came out of his mouth towards us make me shudder as an adult now.

To punish us he made us get naked and sit in a row on the sofa.  He then made one of us at a time lay across the other three's laps while he hit us with his belt.  On other occasions he would make my little sister and I lay naked with him on his mattress that was on the floor. 

Several times he had come into our bedroom and put his hands inside our underpants.  He was a rotten, sick piece of shit.  My sister was only three years old at the time. 

He was afraid that we might tell our father about any of this sick shit, so he kept us from dad as much as possible.

He stayed with us for a couple of months. but it seemed like years.  A few days before Thanksgiving my mother and her sister, Aunt Roxie had come to see us.

Mom and Aunt Roxie didn't look anything alike. nor were they anything alike.  My mother was about six inches taller and had strawberry blond hair and green eyes, whereas my aunt had dark brown hair and ice blue eyes.  But Roxie was my favorite relative of all.  She was seven years older than me but throughout life would be my best friend.

I was alone with Aunt Roxie and I told her what Leon was doing to us children.  He had left because he and my mother did not get along at all, so whenever she was around, he disappeared.  He had told us, children, that he wished our mother would never return.  Sure, then he could torture us kids forever.  I spilled my guts to Aunt Roxie.

I'm not sure just how much she repeated to my mother, but Aunt Roxie had told her enough, as my mother decided she was not leaving again.  She asked my dad if she could come home and he happily said yes.  THANK GOD!  Boy was Leon pissed!  Ha-ha!  Within the hour he had returned to find all his stuff packed and in the hall by the door, at the top of the stairs.  We lived upstairs in an apartment building.

Later that night dad announced to us kids that Mom was going to have another baby.  It was a wonderful day.  Leon was gone and would not be hurting us kids anymore.  Mom was home and we were going to have another baby.  Thanksgiving was great!  No cat food! 

Life went back to normal and about eight months later Charlie was born.

I don't know if Mom ever did tell Dad about what Leon was doing to us children, but we did not see much of him after that day.  Again, THANK GOD!  I think Mom may have threatened him with the police to make him stay away.  But I had to wonder if maybe Dad did know and maybe he threatened Leon with the police also.  If that was the case, then maybe Leon did have something to do with our father's death.  Or maybe he did commit suicide from guilt or shame.  Who knows?  I guess no one will ever know the real reason. 

I overheard the strange men tell my mother that when they found my father, he was in our family car.  We children were then removed so as not to hear any more.  Later I overheard other conversations about how he had died.

When my father was discovered, a vacuum cleaner hose had been attached to the end of the muffler pipe and the other end had been put into the back window of the car.  Rosary beads were wrapped around my father's hands in a praying position, placed under his head and lying on the front