Drugs Are Bad, M'kay?

Thursday started out like any other normal night at work. I should've known things were going to get weird when a clearing company showed up and pumped $953.30 of off road diesel. That is a whole lot of fuel.

For those of you who don't know, on road and off road diesel are the exact same thing, except for the fact that off road has a dye in it. Anyway, off road fuel is usually 30 cents cheaper per gallon than on road. I think the most I've ever sold was like $75.00 because whoever it is (DOT?) that checks it will give you a hefty fine if they catch you running it in your regular on road/tagged diesel vehicle.

Anyway, when I came in, they'd already been there 30 minutes and me and my assistant manager were both kinda what the heck about it. The truck had been parked kinda funny, so we couldn't see the name of the company, truck number, nada. So... I get the brilliant idea to go check the trash can out by the pumps. I made conversation with the guys who were pumping and I checked it out. It was a 1000 gallon tank in the back of a box truck. What can I say? I'm a paranoid freak like that. (This becomes evident later that night.)

So anyway, the night rocks on and I'm dusting when one of our regular customers comes in. She and I chat all the time. She'd just finished paying when another regular pulls up to the pump. She automatically backs away from the door and asks me if it was a certain kind of car. I confirmed it and she said, "That's my cousin. He and I have bad blood. Watch this, I'm gonna fix him." I distinctly remember telling her not to start any trouble up there.

About 30 minutes goes by and the guy finally comes into the store, followed by my mom and two police officers. (That time is completely normal. I've had folks stand outside and talk for an hour before coming in to pay.) I've seen the cops before and they ask me if I know who is driving the car on pump 1. I shook my head no and the guy that had walked in pipes up with, "It's mine." (Oh, yeah... I'm thinking. I swear, every single time I see his car, I wonder whose it is because it has TN tags on it.) They ask him to step outside and he said that he would after he paid for his stuff.

My Mom's eyebrows couldn't get any higher on her forehead, at least I don't think so. We were both tripping hard. Another thing you might not know. Anytime there are cops in a gas station parking lot, everyone and their brother shows up. Everybody must know what is going on... Right that moment.

So in between customers, we watched as they talked to him. (The whole time they're conversing, he's eating a Caramello and drinking a Mountain Dew. I kid you not.) Then, we watched as they put him up against the back of the car, frisked and cuffed him. Out of his pockets, they pull bags of pills. Oh Em Gee, I was tripping. One officer stood with him between his car and the police car, while the other started searching the car. Out of the car came more stuff. Several bags of pills and what I'm thinking was marijuana. Needles, rolling papers, and other paraphernalia.

At this point, I was tripping hard. This guy was a regular. Always extremely sweet. Never rude. Total flirt. I always thought he was a stoner. That's his business. I never once thought he was anything else. And then... they pulled three shotguns and two pistols out of his trunk. I dropped the F bomb then. Mom didn't even look at me when I did it either. She was in shock too.

The police put him in the back of one of the cruisers and then came in to talk to me. They said they needed to talk to me. I figured it was just because I was on duty or whatever. WRONG. They said that I was the one who called it in. What The Truck? I remember hearing Mom gasp and her head swiveled a full 90 degrees in a nanosecond. I'm flipping out, oh no I did not call you. I know my voice was rising and I was panicking.

Apparently, his cousin that didn't like him had stepped into the bathroom and called the police. She claimed that he was out here selling drugs to kids while pumping gas. When they asked who she was, she replied, "I'm the lady at the gas station."

Now there is a reason I am panicking. In July of 1991, my Great Uncle Ronald, was kidnapped from Collinsville Trade Day. This happened in plain sight of Ronald's son Christopher (10 at the time) and my brother B. (12 at the time)

Uncle Ronald hauled produce from Florida to Alabama. He had also hauled some other, non legal things between states. Well, he got caught. Then he did the worst thing he could ever do. He turned snitch for the feds. Someone was dirty and leaked it to the people he had told on. (Happy Holler, anybody? Local people will get that.)

My uncle had a partner, Hollywood. (Don't ask, I have no clue where he got that nickname.) Hollywood took B & Chris to get a drink? I'm not sure. On their way back, they saw Uncle Ronald being shoved into a car while being hit in the head with a ball peen hammer. His body was later found in Wills Creek. He had been beaten and severely mutilated before they finally shot him.

What does his story have to do with mine? I learned my lesson from him. You do not snitch. The area in which I live is know for drugs. Sand Mountain Slim Fast - aka Meth. Happy Holler. There are just things you don't run your mouth about and that is one of them.

So when I found out chick had snitched and used me as her cover, I went on the defensive. The video from our store has been pulled and it shows I did not touch a phone at the time the call was made. I also let it be known to his family that I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Then I called a few.. um let's say acquaintances and put the word out on the street that I knew who the real snitch is. Ya'll may find that harsh, wrong, whatever.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a dang. I refuse to die for someone else's stupidity. I will not put my mother through what my family has already been through. Personally, I like my life. I'd kinda like to stick around a few more birthdays. (Today, btw, is my 29th birthday)

The moral of this story? Mr. Mackey said it best. Drugs are bad, m'kay? Bonus points if you said it in his voice.

Love to all,
Allie

Darkness

My mother, during our conversation.

Alright. So what I'm going to be talking about is domestic violence. How it starts, escalates, and how it ultimately ends. I originally started working on this project because of someone who lost her daughter to domestic violence. At this moment, that is put on the back burner. She's just not ready to talk, and I completely understand. So that leaves me with all this work, and nothing to run with. Or does it?

A lot of people sweep this issue under the rug. It doesn't happen because they aren't personally involved. Maybe it does happen to them, but they are too scared, or don't know how to speak up. Some block it out because they don't want to remember it.

Well, this blog is about me, so... I guess this is where I step up to the plate. I grew up in a domestic violence situation. In my mother's own words, they were volatile. I remember hurtful words, broken dishes, busted walls, and shattered windshields. I will say this for my parents, they never hit each other in front of us. It was mostly a verbal thing.

So, I went shopping. I bought a voice recorder. And then... I sat down with Mama, Daddy, and my brother B individually, and recorded our conversations. It dang near killed me. It was so emotionally charged. It was so hard to hear things from Mama about Daddy, and to hear things from Dad about Mom. It was pretty easy to talk to B. He's like me, he remembered the screaming, harsh words, and shattered windshields. Like me, he also remembers that they never hit each other in front of us.

Let me just pause here to clarify my relationships with my family. Mama is my very best friend. She has been since my first breath. I've always been my Daddy's girl. I've had conversations with them that most people don't have with their parents. I know things about their relationship and them that very few do.

I started out with Mama. The first question I asked her was, "How did you meet Dad?" She told me about the fact that she and Dad's sister Pat were best friends, and they had met through her. "How did he ask you to marry him?" She couldn't quite remember the wording, but, she remembers it went to the effect of, "I love you, and I want to marry you and the kid." (My brother B, is technically my half brother. He was born in December of 1978 and my parents were married in February of 1979.)

"Who threw the first punch?" That was one of the hardest questions to ask. We talked about how often they fought. It wasn't a daily thing. It wasn't an all the time thing. Their verbal altercations didn't always turn physical. I remember one point in the conversation, Mama told me, "Your Daddy is not a monster." At that moment, I couldn't agree with her.

How can you sit there and tell me that someone who had locked her in the closet, left bruises on her, and shattered a baby's glass bottle against the wall, is not a monster? I asked her that question. She said, "We were monsters together. We were toxic to each other. Twisted and wrong. I antagonized him so much. I couldn't let him walk away." And that made me look at her in a whole new light.

I walked away from that conversation shaken and sick. Hearing those words about my father... it didn't break me, but it hurt. I had a hard time sleeping last night.

I talked to Daddy today. I had to. If I was going to do this right, I had to include his thoughts and memories. I sat him down and told him that I was planning a piece on domestic violence, and that it was going to be about our family. Dad was a little defensive to start with. I think he was afraid that I put the blame solely on him. After I explained that Mama accepted her share of the blame, that she admitted to antagonizing him, he opened up more.

He admitted to locking Mama in a closet. I'm not telling the story that led up to it, but the gist is, they were fighting, and he was trying to walk away, but she wouldn't let him. He was extremely upset. She stayed in his face, so he put her in the closet. "I couldn't make her leave me alone, so I put her in the closet. I sat down against the door so she couldn't get out, and I cried. I cried because of what she'd done to me." I'm not condoning what he did, and there is absolutely no excuse for hurting someone else, but after hearing what he said, I understand.

I closed the conversations by asking them, "What is your favorite memory from being married to each other?" Strangely enough, both of their memories revolve around me.

Dad's favorite memory was when B was standing up in his crib and was looking at the corner of the ceiling and said, "You're not gonna take my Daddy from me." About a month later, they found out Mama was pregnant with me.

Mama's favorite memory is when she was delivering me, Dad was standing by her side. The doctor looked up and said, "There's the head." Dad looked up and said, "What is it?" Mom says the doctor kinda smirked and said, "It's a head, I'm not sure yet." When I was finally out, the doctor looked up and said, "It's a girl." Mom said that Daddy got this look of wonder on his face and was jumping up and down and yelling, "We did it! We had a girl!"

My parents divorced in 1994. Mom remarried 3 months later to a man named Greg. Along with him, I got my awesome stepbrother D and my best girl Mamy. Greg died in 1996 in a motorcycle accident. Dad remarried in 1999 to a woman named Jeanne. They divorced not even 2 years later due to the fact that they were total opposites. Mom remarried again in2006 to Mike. (We have 18 million Mike's in my family. It's tons of fun during the holidays.) I got 2 more step siblings that are pretty good. Daddy remarried in April of last year to a lady named Rita. And now, 2 more steps. All in all, I have 4 brothers, and 3 sisters. To me, half and step don't really count. Family is all that matters.

Some days I wish my parents were still together. I know that will never happen. That saying... You can't go home, I think it pertains to this. Wanting to be a child again, being tucked in by your parents, kissed and loved, knowing the monsters aren't under the bed. They are happy. They are at least cordial, if not down right friendly at family functions that bring them together.

And now... me. I am emotionally drained. As I wrote this post, I listened to the conversations I had with Mama, Dad, and B over and over again. In some ways, I wish I could figure out how to post them on here, but then again, I'm afraid some people would hear them and think horrible things about my parents.

They were young, kids really, when they got married. They were learning together, how to be the grown ups. There were several stressors in their life. Two children at an early age, very little money, and not really sure what they were doing. They've grown into wonderful people. My mother is my role model, along with my dad. I look at them and see the strongest people in the world. I love them, and I am extremely grateful to them.

Domestic violence isn't something that can be swept under the rug. It will not go away if you ignore it. Mom & Dad were both lucky that it never turned deadly, because it can. This isn't the last I'll be talking about this.

If you or someone you know is in a violent situation, please, please, please. Get help. It is hard to walk away from all you've ever known, but you can. 1-800-799-SAFE(7233) or http://www.thehotline.org/

You may be asking... Allie, why are you posting your details? Well, if all the gory details that come out save 1 life, it's worth it. If one person reads this and gets out, it doesn't matter what I go through.

Love to all,
Allie