Chapter 3 – Life with My Bio
CHAPTER 3 – LIFE WITH MY MOTHER
After only a small amount of time, Debby and I ended up moving into an apartment complex that was only about 5 minutes away from my great-grandparents.
We lived just west of the hospital there in Waterloo. The same hospital where I would end up getting my first stitches and my first Tetanus shot.
This apartment is where Debby began to embrace the fact that I was going to be with her for a little while and started to become somewhat of a mom to me.
I remember my 3rd birthday cake in this apartment. Debby made it using a cake mold of a pumpkin.
I remember I kept telling everyone that the only thing I wanted was a dancing doll. It was something that I had seen on television. A doll that would spin round and round when you held her finger.
What I got was this old vintage doll that used to belong to my great-grandmother. They didn’t know, television wasn’t Life back then like it is now.
I can only really assume that this was when Debby was working as a Security Officer or it may have been a dispatcher, all I really can say for sure is that this is the job where she met and began having an affair with Victor… and also dating Craig #1.
Craig #1 was a typical 70’s cool guy. He had the hair, suede bell bottoms and of course the shirt, unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest. Even as a child I rejected this look. I mean seriously.
Victor on the other hand, was energetically different. From the very moment that I met him, something about him seemed very familiar.
What I am about to explain may defy the beliefs and ideals of some. these memories that I have of times like this is why I believe in past lives, reincarnation, karma, and that we all have lessons to be learned not only in physical life but in our ethereal lives as well.
I am not asking you to believe in me, just understand that when I say i believed this man to be my father, it wasn’t just a fantasy of a young child. with how intense my feeling were towards him, and my recognition of him, it was almost like I couldn’t separate who he was to me in a past life, to who he was to me in this one.
I Knew this man to be my father…
I called Victor dad from the very beginning, which was apparently problematic for the both of them, Debby and him.
Victor was married, but he would steal time away from her and from work to spend with my mother, at the apartment, with me there… we will just say that this added to my sex education.
It hadn’t stopped there either, remember, because Craig #1 would also come spend entire evenings over at our apartment.
There were times however, where Great-grandma and grandpa would come get me and take me into Reinbeck where one of my favorite auntie’s lived. It was also the same place where the demon, Bob Rudd lived.
If memory serves, Grace my auntie, was either a cousin or sister of one of my great-grandparents, and I loved her! My favorite part of going there was because she always had string cheese or a yummy baked treat she was baking or had just baked.
Her house was straight out of the 40’s and 50’s, with the blue-green colors, vintage stove and fridge, wallpaper throughout… it was absolutely amazing. Of course, in those days, it wasn’t necessarily vintage yet.
Our visit would always be amazing, up until Bob would come out of the woodwork. This man was evil right from the start. Great Grandpa never understood why I hated to go anywhere near this man… why had they never questioned why he always wanted to take me to the back shed or anywhere they weren’t.
It always began with the wet gross kiss and then the touching. This was NOT innocent, and I was scared.
Now I wasn’t sure, but I feel like it was his wife that was my cousin 4 times removed from the discussions I overheard, and he was just “family” through marriage. None of it mattered when he came near me though.
I tried saying something, but it could have been that with as young as I was, I didn’t have the words to tell them why I was so scared…
In my head I was screaming my fear and pain. I couldn’t understand why no one else understood “my language”. Again, I was only 3.
It wasn’t too long after this though that they moved to somewhere in Northern California, far, far away from Iowa.
Next, Debby and I moved into a brown Duplex like apartment. I really am not sure how long we spent here. I know that we celebrated my 3rd birthday in the 1st apartment, and my 5th birthday was celebrated in this brown Duplex.
If memory serves, we celebrated my 5th birthday as we were getting ready to move out of this one and into the next, however, it is the story here that plays a huge part in my memory.
From my new friend down the street, who tried to convince Debby that I was not hers, to having my other friend Heather living right around the corner, who’s grandparents lived right across the street from my Great-Grandparents.
The most important part of this story though, was Debby and her boyfriends, as well as the scary situations she put me in.
She was still dating Craig #1 when we first moved in, while also sneaking around with Victor. I don’t think anyone ever really caught Debby and Victor, with the exception of his wife of course.
We had gone to this little café in Cedar Falls, Debby, Victor and I. We were eating when all of a sudden, I was being shoved down under the table and being told to shut up and not say a word…
Next thing I know, there is a pair of women’s legs standing in front of the table, and there was shouting. A whole hell of a lot of shouting coming from this woman, mostly directed at Debby and only some of it directed at the cheating husband.
I still find this to be funny, even today. why is it that when a person cheats, the jilted spouse or significant other ends up attacking the “other” party, rather than the one who cheated?
Not me, I have always had the sense to put the blame on the one who did the cheating, but also, with as low as my self esteem was, would always question what it was about me that made them cheat…
Lessons learned now, and I am much stronger for it!!!
It didn’t stop them really, I believe they still kept seeing each other, for a few more years even. I only was able to actually see him one other time, but that is a story for later in this chapter.
Craig #1 was still coming around, until the day that he found out that mom was dating Craig #2. I didn’t even know about Craig #2 until I came out of my room and found them dry humping each other on her bed.
I thought I heard her say “Stop, we can’t do this” at one point, but the asshole I found out he was, I don’t think it would have mattered really. He was the “take what he wanted without asking” type.
I am not sure how Craig #1 found out, but I do remember getting thrown into the car, racing through the streets to get to his place.
We go into this building that reeked, and I mean REEKED. It was a mixture of the smell of dead skunk and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. From what I can understand right now, it wasn’t anything that was legal.
They screamed at each other for what seemed like forever, just for him to walk into his apartment and slam the door in her face as he told her to never come around him again.
Well, we actually stalked him later that night. We followed him to some house, where I was told I couldn’t go in. It was sketchy and I was scared out of my mind. I was left, all alone outside of a house that had loud music, black light, and smelled a lot like the apartment building of Craig #1.
Some crazy scary dude sitting on the steps of this house offered me whatever it was that he was smoking, obviously now I know it was marijuana, while my mother was in this house trying to get this guy back.
I was ONLY 4 years old, maybe almost 5.
But, that was the end of Craig #1.
I turned 5 as we were packing up to move, but Debby did make it a point to bake me a cake. It may have been the pumpkin cake again.
My aunt Joanie was over that night, helping with the packing.
We ended up moving into this upper/lower duplex that I absolutely loved!!! I was able to get the big room, that had a door that led into a storage area. This is where some of my toys were kept, and it was an awesome hiding spot!
It had a big kitchen and dining room, two bedrooms, a bathroom with one of those tubs that had feet, and a big living room.
The only part of this place I didn’t like was that Craig #2 knew where it was. I didn’t know why I didn’t like him, but here is where I was going to find out why.
See living in the brown duplex, he would send me to my room, a lot. Not because I was being bad, but because he didn’t want me around especially when he was getting sexual with my mother, which was most of the time.
Now, we are in a completely new place, and I really believe that the plan was, he was going to be moving in with us… or he had already moved in with us, and in Debby like style, she fell for another truck driver so he wasn’t around a lot.
Maybe that is why she loved all of the “Every Which Way But Loose” type movies as well as the Cannonball type.
It doesn’t matter, none of it really mattered too much any more, except that he brought along a dog named Chewy… I LOVED Chewy, and a phone. I suppose he wanted to be able to call her whenever he was away.
The first time it happened, it shook me to the core.
He was at the New Duplex this one night and they started to get into a fight. He may have smacked her and I wanted to protect my mommy. This man yelled at me to get to my room, but I didn’t want my mom to cry, so I defied him. That is until he lifted me up by the shoulders, gripping them so tight they burned for days, and threw me like my plastic baseball, into my bedroom.
I hit the floor so hard, I stopped breathing for what seemed like forever. Other than normal kid bumps and bruises, I had never felt pain like I did that night.
From this point on, I could never speak out of turn otherwise I would get backhanded. I was never allowed to leave my room unless I asked permission, this included needing to go potty.
I was so afraid of this man, that I began peeing in the corner of my room just to avoid having to speak up at all.
I hated him to the very core of my being, but mostly because of feared him.
It had to be sometime in March or April of 1981, that the most wonderful of days came for me!!! The END of Craig #2 in our lives…but also the beginning of another Chapter.
You see, this day I am speaking of, started out with mom shoving me into the back seat of our car. We drove to the back of a grocery store and sat. A few minutes later, Victor gets into the car…
I wanted so much to tell him to take me away forever and never let the bad man hurt me again, but he spent a little time making out with Debby and then getting out of the car. This was the last time that I ever saw him, not the last time she did however.
Later that night, Craig was at the house. We were having Macaroni and Cheese that night.
This was the night he asked me how my day was. I smiled so big, as I told him that I got to watch mommy kissing Victor today at the store…
He asked me to repeat what I said, and so I did. “I watched mommy kissing Victor today at the store!”
It was then that all HELL broke loose. I was sent to my room, and I gladly went, happy that I knew that this was going to be the reason he left her!!!
It was a long night of fighting, but in the end, he took the phone and my dog too!
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