Fifteen

It wasn't too long after we moved into the second sardine can of a two bedroom trailer that I found out I was pregnant. I hadn't planned on having any more kids, but it didn't hit me nearly as hard as the second time I found out I was pregnant. Thankfully, I was still working during the six weeks he was laid up with his broken leg. That's the only way we were able to survive and just barely. We were without a car because of the wreck and I had to have my mama take me everywhere I needed to go. It wasn't until a couple of months later that we bought another vehicle. This time, it was a tiny Mitsubishi truck with barely enough room for my daughter's car seat and the gear shift. This truck also ended up totalled in a wreck, but alcohol was not a factor.

My daughter seemed happy and content. She was about four years old at the time. That's when she still liked The Evil Bastard. At least that part was going as planned because, after all, she was the reason I had married Satan. I never told her to call him 'Daddy', even though we moved in together shortly before she turned three. I wasn't sure it was going to work out and I didn't want her to be attached to him. So I let things take their own course and figured she'd call him whatever she felt like. I didn't realize until years later that the fact that she never did call him 'Daddy' spoke volumes about our home life.

This became another bone of contention between us. He said it's my fault she never called him 'Daddy' because I never told her to. 'Daddy' is a title you earn, it's not given. He still resents her for this, considering all he's done for her. She wouldn't spit on him if he were on fire. This has forced me to be in the middle and the tension is almost unbearable when they are in the same room.

Even though we were still in a 'happier, more bearable' time in our lives as a family, I was still apprehensive about having another baby with things the way they were. I felt like he was going to alienate my daughter and show favoritism toward 'ours'. I was very adamant that that was not going to happen. I absolutely was not going to stand for it. He might have only one child, but I had two. If they couldn't be treated the same, they wouldn't be treated at all. As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about in that aspect. The Evil Bastard never did show favoritism. There was never any 'She's yours' or anything like that in the relationship, even after my second daughter was born. They were treated equally and I was pleased.

We moved into yet another sardine can of a two bedroom trailer in the middle of the Texas sweltering summer. I was 7 months pregnant at the time. This last sardine can was to be home for a lot longer than the others had been. It was very nice compared to the other ones, too. We were moving up in the world- sort of. They say you don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Well, 'they' were right.

Fourteen

Once settled into the second sardine can of a two bedroom trailer, I started working at a convenience store. I would work from two in the afternoon until ten at night. Sometimes I'd have the midnight shift and it would be from midnight until six in the morning, but those shifts were rare.

The Evil Bastard would go drinking when he got off work, while I was working. I can't count the times he came up there, belligerent and intoxicated out of his mind. He'd come and accuse me of things. Mostly of having affairs. Just talking all kinds of nonsense in front of the customers. So, not only was this what I had to look forward to when I got off of work, he was to be my ride home because we still only had the one vehicle. I can't count the times he never showed up after my shift to pick me up. So that would leave me having to either walk or call my mama to come and get me.

Two things stand out in my memory of my tenure on that job. The first is the time I called the police after one of his drunken tirades. He left and I watched the police pull him over in a parking lot across from where I was working. Through the window, I saw them do the sobriety field test. I also saw them walk to their cars. I watched and listened as he squealed his tires and sped off after the police gave him the all clear. I watched them do nothing about it.

The next thing I remember is the night that I saw rescue vehicles and police with sirens blaring, speeding down the service road of the freeway just about the time my shift was ending. I waited. He never never showed up. This wasn't anything new so I wasn't surprised. I was just about to call my mama, again, to come and pick me up when she called me to tell me that The Evil Bastard had been in a terrible wreck. My first thoughts were not ones of worry or fear or anything like that. I wanted to know if he was dead. I wanted to hear that he was dead.

But no - he wasn't dead. I couldn't get that lucky because people have been trying to kill Satan since the beginning of time, but he just won't die. He just had a broken leg that laid him up for six weeks. How unfortunate. The ambulance took him to the hospital and the rescue vehicles I saw earlier were on their way to the scene of his accident. I did go to the hospital straight from work that night - just because I wanted to see the bastard writhing in pain. I remember walking into the room and being overcome by the smell of alcohol. He was that drunk. I didn't speak. I didn't console. I didn't ask the attending doctors for any information. I just turned around and left, hoping I'd get a call during the night that he had died from internal bleeding that they did not find until it was too late - but alas. He lived.