SAMPLE ROUGH DRAFT of     

 CHAPTER ONE

(note they may be errors ) this is not the finished work

the book will be out in late o4 or early 05

1978. All kinds of things were happening. The Camp David Peace Treaty ;the great blizzard in Boston; the Jim Jones cult mass-suicide in Guyana. Kids played the Space Invaders video game and listened to “Three Times a Lady” by the Commodores on their radios. Argentina won the World Cup. The New Orleans Saints recorded yet another losing season.    And, in Britain, the first test tube baby was born.

          Another baby was born that year, too. He wasn’t  as newsworthy, but he was important to my mother.   Mary Hellion gave birth to a handsome baby boy she named Darren. She  still tells the story of how she struggled through labor for hours. “It’s like you didn’t want to come out,” she said. . But I finally did, at 3 a.m. on May 10^th. I guess I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to set foot into this crazy world.

          Only after the hard part was over did my father finally show up to see his first- born, and he went into an immediate rage. As he looked at the long, dark red mark from my feet to my buttocks, he began cursing  the doctors and nurses for bruising his baby son, and threatened to sue their pants off. Knowing my dad, I’m sure he never apologized to all those people for his dreadful behavior, even after he found out it was only a birthmark. Whenever she recounts the story, Mom still refers to him as a “complete ass.”

Dad, chest sticking out like a rooster, thinks he can do no wrong. He can—and will—try to justify everything he does.  The day after my birth I guess Dad took his vindictive attitude home with him, because from that day forward my parent’s marriage started going downhill. .My mom and dad would fight over the tiniest things you could image–like   “Who tied a knot in the bread this dammed bread? The bread came with a tie wrap. If the people. wanted a knot they’d  have tied one and not put a dammed tie wrap around it.”

I know my poor sister was traumatized by the arguments my parents had repeatedly, day after day. Mom added  to the problems by letting her family dictate the agenda of her marriage.  One afternoon Daddy came home and found a bag of food sitting by the back door with bread, meat, eggs, cheese, and milk  my mom put out for her sister to come get. However, the food never reached its destination because Dad   put it back in the refrigerator where the food belonged. 

Later that night my aunt called my mom and said “Girl I thought you said you put some food outside in the yard for me.”

My mom said, “I  did. You didn’t see it?”

My aunt replied, “No,  I did not.”

Mom put the phone down and called, “Darren! Oh,  Darren!Did you move a bag in the backyard today?”

“Yeah,you talking about that bag full of dammed food  we work so hard for and you trying to give the shit away?Are you dammed crazy women? I have a son to feed and you have a daughter. Tell them to go work and buy their own food, because nothing’s  leaving this house.”

My aunt would inflame  the situation  by calling my grandmamma. Now Grandmamma is nobody to play – she  was the most feared among the whole family.Even my grandfather feared her, and the last thing anyone wanted  was grandmamma in their r personal life because she got  too deep into your private matters and thought  nothing of it at all.  Now that one particular phone call made matters worse,  because my grandmamma  started pushing her way into my mom’s marriage. My mother didn’t  see it, but my dad did.  From that moment he realized what was going on my grandmamma, and his attitude got worse by the second.  Before long, things  flared up to the point where grandmamma didn’t  even trust my dad. The funniest thing is, she never really liked him anyway.

Nobody on either side of the family came to their wedding it was just a few and I mean a few friends well back to the flare oh yeah I was saying how grandmamma did not trust him so she sent her youngest daughter to live with my mom and my sister because she believed that my dad was going to snap and kill my mom and sister one day this issue only brought fuel to the fire because resentment  grew and became the sprit that dwelled in the hearts of every one . Peace making was not a issue here because things got worse my dad and aunts got into fights often and my mom and dad just continued to drift away. I remember my dad telling me one day that my mom and he took grandmamma out to dinner one night with one of her friends now everything was calm and cool until it was time to order the food grandmamma and her friend order then my mom finally my dad order a small portion of something and grandmamma flipped  I guessed my dad had it coming to him grandmamma was just being cool because the drinks kept coming but when the drinks slowed down and it was time to order I guess the lack on alcohol brought her back when my dad order . Grandmamma replied is that all you going to eat you need to eat something you so small and plus you dress to thin my dad told grandmamma fuck you and he left the table got in the car and went to a truck stop to get something to eat on and went home took a bath and got in the bed. Later on that night when my mom arrived home from catching at taxi cab from the restaurant she came inside and called grandmamma to see if she made it in from dinner out of harm's way . Grandmamma replied oh I got in safe girl where is your husband?? Oh he is here in the bed sleep grandmamma said where did he go when he left did he tell you he probably went by a women house .The next afternoon when my mom came home from work my dad was not there nor was his clothing she ran to the bathroom and all the face and drying towels were gone dad got fed up and went away.