Saturday, April 13, 2013

The Hillbilly and the Ogie- men with addictions plus one hippie

      I was camping out on a piece of land being bought for me by a neighbor who appreciated some spiritual guidance I had given her. I was waiting for my husband to bring my daughter to visit, keeping busy living naturally (my big dream), spending the summer blissfully alone and healing until fall when a trailer would be moved down for the winter. The first time someone walked up my hill I was angry to have my peaceful space invaded. Turns out in neighboring hollers down there in Kentucky were speculating many things about why a woman would be alone out there. Someone had to come found me out. Was I a tough commando woman fresh out of the army? Was I hiding from a big, mean abuser? Sure, the world of mankind as I knew it to specific. But, eventually I got to know a few neighbors. I went to a Fourth of July gathering where I met the Hillbilly. Tall, long dark hair, into all natural living like me. He was staying with his father there in Kentucky. They were hunting ginseng and eventually I joined them in gathering ginseng and rattle weed. We went fishing, hiking, four wheeling. Spiritually we shared a lot of similarities of experience. He told me his story and told me it was the first time he had ever been able to cry about it. He asked me to go back to Ohio for a bit with him to help him clean up his mother's place. The woman who was buying me the land had come for a visit and hadn't heard anything from my husband and daughter. They were supposed to get directions from her so they knew for sure where to find me. I figured they wouldn't be coming anytime soon, so I agreed.
     His mother's place was a disaster; mice running right over you in broad daylight, cockroaches covering any food set down immediately, no running water. I was allowed to clean up a smaller trailer on the land that we would stay in. Thankfully free of mice and cockroaches and stayed that way as long as I was in it. I would go to a spring to get water for drinking, washing and flushing the toilet; to the Hillbilly's complaining. What did I need so much water for? He could afford to fix the well pump, but it turns out he had a drug problem while at his mother's. That is why he was told to go spend time at his father's, he couldn't do drugs down there. So, yeah, it got ugly. Especially when I realized I was pregnant. he was into natural, but not that natural! I had called my friend who lived in the hollar where my land was in Kentucky. She said there was a for sale sign back up on the land and a sign I had hung was taken down. I guessed the woman who had been buying it for me simply stopped making payments on it and never told me. I was devastated. There was no going back.
    One day he said we were going to go back down to Kentucky. Just over the bridge from Ohio he stopped at a store and gave me $5 to get us something to drink. It was a very hot day. All I had on was a pair of camouflage pants and tank top, leather slippers. When I came out he was no where to be found. I was dumbfounded. I ended up at a park just to the side of the bridge wondering how I was going to get back over it to get my belongings. I couldn't walk across it. A man was parked by the river so I approached him for a ride over. He drove me but said he was a bit disappointed. Quite a few women had been dumped there similarly by boyfriends lately and most of them were offering blowjobs in exchange for money. I was happy to get out of that van. I began walking northward and was picked up by a couple who happened to be going where I needed to. they dropped me off at the end of the driveway. Hillbilly was sleeping, so I woke him asking where my jewelry bag was. He had already gone through all my stuff and was organizing it for selling. He had a fit. Finally his mom talked him into giving me my jewelry bag, which he had turned into his change purse. I took it anyways, I had no money. I grabbed a change of clothes, my backpack and walked out of there to shouts of him threatening to call police. I got a ride to town but there was nothing there. I started walking down a bigger road and was stopped by some people hanging out around a bonfire. They advised me not to walk down that road because only criminals ever walked down it and police were likely to harass me. One gave me a ride to the nearest truck stop. I stayed there a few days, sleeping in the trucker's lounge. The staff looked after me. One day I took a ride with a man to West Virginia in exchange for food, new clothes and $40 just so he would have someone to talk to. So, I had food money. I knew I couldn't stay there much longer so when a trucker offered to let me stay at his trailer because he was never there anyways, I accepted. He got drunk, I got raped, snuck out while he was passed out, ducking behind trees when I'd hear a vehicle coming.
     Eventually I stopped to rest in a parking lot of a tractor dealership. A man who worked there saw me and pulled in. He offered me a ride to the nearest truck stop and offered to get me a motel room after he dropped his kids off. "Yeah, right, I imagined; you'll just want in." he bought me a piece of pizza and left me at the truck stop. I got a feeling I was headed somewhere. when I looked at a newspaper there was a help wanted ad in exactly the place I had thought of. A place I had never been to. Just so happened there was a trucker headed there. He had just immigrated from South America and was sincerely nice ot me. He left me at the truck stop where help was wanted. there another trucker saw me and asked me if I needed someplace to go. I said yes. He said his grandmother worked in a domestic violence shelter, a place that helped women who had things happen to them as what had happened to me. I had never heard of such a place before, but I got hopeful. There might be some help for me. So, I agreed. Fondling, days and days on the road as he made several more deliveries before he could head back home.
      His grandmother invited me to stay with her. They told me I really wouldn't like it at the shelter. I would be shut in, unable to leave or receive visitors, etc. The whole family was extremely abusive, which is probably what motivated this grandmother to become an advocate. She had been shot by her husband. But one quiet, simple man became interested in. An "Ogie from Misgogie", native of Oklahoma. Not at all pushy or attempting to come on to me. Just respectfully saying "If you want a man I'm interested." He would raise my child as his own. He was non-threatening. everyone spoke well of him. He was not pretentious. Until he got me where he wanted me, that is. Typical story of my life it seemed. He had a gambling habit which cost us our housing. He began making payments on a little trailer we had dropped off behind the house of that grandmother. He didn't want to have to empty a septic, so he let it all fall right out onto the ground under the trailer. I brought my daughter home to a trailer that wreaked of feces. He returned her bassinet to Wal-Mart because "we need the money". he refused to continue to make payment on the trailer. He kept me with him under threat that the grandmother's family would have the baby taken from me because they all believed the trucker was the father, which made relations with his wife uncomfortable. But, the Ogie kept me away from her and everybody with divisive rumors to everyone. They believed bad things about me and I was told bad things about them. eventually we moved to a house out in the country. $200 a month rent, who couldn't make that getting paid $100 day. A gambling addict couldn't. He got increasingly intimidating, including bringing home a gun and hiding it. My daughter found it at the end of the bed wedged between it and the wall. I had enough of the threats. He shoved my daughter over onto her head with his foot while she was bent over playing. I ended up leaving with her , nothing but a bag and a direction to hike in.
     At the first house I came across the man made some calls and found a domestic violence shelter that would take me. They made arrangements to move me to another immediately. I couldn't take it. They had to take my picture, note of any identifying marks on my body in case something ever happened to me, information for backround checks, criminal history, etc. I had nothing on my record, but the invasion was overwhelming and the rules for your day's movement very strict. I was so uncomfortable! What shelters do if they don't have enough funding to get you where you need to be is what they call shelter hopping. they would bring me to the next closest shelter and that one would bring me further, etc. I ended up coming back to Maine, hoping to be "caught", recognized, whatever, anything! Was I wanted for non-payment of child support? Take me to prison! Doesn't ANYBODY care about me? The shelter in Maine wouldn't provide diapers, no organization or church would help, so I accepted help with transportation back to my abuser. What the hell, said me. Nobody else wants me and at least my daughter would have diapers. We arrived back in Arkansas to the Ogie just as her last diaper gave out. he was sorry, had changed, etc. After a few days in a motel room, he told me the grandmother's family wanted to kill me so we had to get out of town fast. I didn't believe him, but wasn't certain I shouldn't. We hopped on a bus to Missouri where one of his friends said we would get help with housing, etc. We did eventually end up receiving help with an apartment and there is where I gave birth to our son. The Ogie became increasingly irritable, whining about his job. He would constantly say they were going to run out of work soon anyways. So, instead of paying rent he bought a car and hustled us out of there. No longer able to keep me intimidated by telling me the grandmother's family would take my daughter, we headed for his sister's where he told me his family would help him take the children away from me, they did it with his oldest daughter. They took custody from his oldest daughter's mother by means of trickery. He was proud of it.
    We stayed with his niece. His first big paycheck: instead of it being used to get us a place ot live or help his family with bills never even made it home. He had stopped at a casino. His sister had been buying us diapers and food. She had enough at that decision of his. We were asked to leave his niece's. We didn't even have gas in the car. But when we got in, his sister must have snuck in because there was a big bag of collectable coins and quarters. The threat then became "I will call the police and tell them lies about you being an unfit mother and by the time they figure out they're lies, I'l be three states away and you'll never find me. That is when we began going from city to city, town to town, crisscrossing the country. He would be referred here or there for the pot of gold over the rainbow. Eventually he agreed to buy a camper so at least I could put the children in the same bed every night. When broken down or stuck outside a casino or while he was on a corner with a sign I could cook meals, bathe the children, etc. It was some sense of stability anyways. And he couldn't sell it because he had messed up getting the title on it. I saw that as a blessing. Usually he'd gamle away all the money, sell the car we were living out of, get help in new town with temporary housing and buy another vehicle, over and over again so he could gamble away any money he could get ahold of. There were nights nearly freezing as we'd run out of propane. He intentionally terrorized my daughter. There were the scams for refills for propane, food stamp scams, scam selling puppies, etc. It was exhausting but quite the education in outlaw living for certain. He knew or quickly learned all the tools of the trade.
     Finally he left me and the children on some land in the camper at the house of a couple who said they would help me and the children. What a relief! Until late one evening, he barged into the camper drunk and tore out of there while I woke from sleep. I told him that he was taking me against my will and that it was kidnaping. "You can't kidnap your own woman and children!", he laughed at me. He passed out at a rest area. I took the kids to the restroom and dialed 911. No reception. I waited until he stopped in civilization, took some diapers, the children into Wal-Mart and dialed 911 again. I ended up in a shelter in Davis, California. The program for that shelter was 14 weeks. I learned a lot, healed a lot, became quite a bit re-empowered though somewhat abused and traumatized there. But I couldn't find help with housing or anything for after the 14 weeks had ended. So, the children and I were out on the street. We camped out by the railroad tracks for the summer. We did well, stayed well fed, clean and healthy.
    Finally a man offered us a place ot stay on a farm were he had taken in several others. It went OK. I kept the place clean and played caretaker when the Hippie went away for weeks at a time. But then came Christmas. He had gone to visit family. Some bad stuff happened to him and when he came back he took it out on me and the children. Shutting off power, heat, water, everything. One night he tried terrorizing the children and it was time to leave. I left. I stayed with an acquaintance who gave me two days to find something else. Time was up and I was on my own again. I did what I had to. I ended up back in the shelter I had left already. They were giving me one week. I found an agency that helped with air travel, but with no ID they could only do a private small plane and a couple of states. So, I ended up in Arizona and another shelter that was just plain crazy. My kids got so malnourished an dehydrated they were peeing dark brown. They wouldn't let me keep any of the food or juice I had brought with me. We weren't allowed ot leave for 72 hours. 
    Once again "Finally", lol, we got bus tickets to Maine and a family member reluctantly agreed to take me in. Thankfully there were observant and generous people along the way because neither the shelter we left from nor the organization that paid for the bus tickets would provide food or the means for it despite knowing we'd be on that bus for 5 days. Our journey through abusive circumstances and people didn't end with our arrival in Maine, however that is a story for another day.

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