Winter of 1979 and the monster was chasing us.
The monster was my father, a true life Jeckyl and Hyde who could be a loving, nurturing husband and father one moment and a raging ball of fury the next. Mom had finally gotten sick and tired of his mood swings and his physical abuse.
I was seven years old and the entire trip from Fresno to Sparks, Nevada where my aunt and uncle lived I sat quietly on the Trailways bus and wondered if I'd get in trouble for all the school I'd miss and whether or not I'd ever see Fresno or my friends again. I also wondered what would happen if my father caught up to us. I'd seen him put a knife to my mother's throat before and threaten to kill her if she ever ran out on him. I had no doubt he'd do exactly what he said.
And maybe mom didn't either, because I'd seen the little black gun tucked away in her purse. It was the same one my dad had bought her from the pawn shop that time she picked me up at school. When we'd gotten back home these two black teenagers had been inside our house trying to steal our stuff. Mom saw them and slammed the door shut and grabbed my arm and ran back to the car. We'd just made it back and locked the doors before the one with the big hair slid across the hood and started yanking on the handle to mom's door, trying to open it. They'd run away then, rather than risk getting caught when mom started blaring the horn for all the neighbors to hear.
When we got to my aunt and uncle's house they didn't seem all that happy to see us. And I didn't like their house. It smelled bad and it was dirty. My aunt didn't keep her house clean like mom did. There were cups and plates and spoons and dirty clothes all over the place. They didn't have any lights either because they didn't have money to pay the bill. That first night was really cold.
They told mom if she wanted to stay she had to pay their utility bill. Mom didn't have much money, but she took what we did have and went with my aunt and uncle to get their lights and gas turned back on.
There wasn't much food either. So they told mom, if she wanted to stay she'd have to buy some food. Mom asked them how they managed to buy so much grass if they didnt have any money. I wasn't sure what she was talking about. The yard around my aunt and uncle's house was just dirt. My uncle told my mom not to get smart. He was mom's younger brother. He was always saying stuff like don't get smart and cool it and this is my house, these are my rules. I didn't like him very much. I don't think he liked me much either. He always stared at me funny.
So mom pawned her gun and we had some cold cuts and bread. Mom bought some ham especially for me, because she knew I really liked it. But my uncle ate every slice of it on the way home. A whole pound. Then he still made himself several thick baloney sandwiches once they got home. Mom got so mad she sat in the bathroom and cried.
That night while we were laying on the living room floor with our jackets over us as cover and little balls of waded up clothes for pillows, I asked her why we didn't go somewhere else. She said it was because the rest of the family were all pretty far away "back east" and most of them weren't any better than my uncle and aunt.
My dad showed up on day around noon. I was sitting in the living room watching tv and I saw him walk up onto the porch through the dirty lace curtains in front of the picture window and I ran and hid in a closet. Mom and my aunt and uncle weren't home, they were at the casinos. Everyday my aunt and uncle walked through the casinos and stole as many complimentary packets of instant coffee, tea, sugar, saltines or better yet, money as they could. A lot of senior citizens came to Sparks to gamble at the Silver Club and The Nugget and sometimes they were pretty easy to trick out of their winnings.
My dad pounded on the door for a while, then went and sat in his car and waited. It was about dark when I heard my uncle's high pitched whiny voice talking.
"She ran off?? Bummer man...and she took the kid too?? What a bitch. Yeah?? I sure will man, you know I always liked you dude. Let me get your phone number...what is it now?? Two-oh-nine, two-six-four, nine uh huh... uh huh... yeah...ok, got it bro. You bet. The second I see that bitch or hear anything, I'll drop a dime and let you know. Aww, thanks dude...wow, fifty bucks! Out of sight. Absolutely. Ok, have a safe trip back to Fresno man."
A moment later my mom came crawling through the house, looking for me, panic in her eyes. She'd snuck around back and came in through the back porch while my uncle and his wife distracted dad in front.
She found me and scrunched into the closet beside me, shaking and holding me close. She had a huge butcher knife in one hand.
Finally my uncle came in and belched. "You two chicken littles can come out now."
We didn't see my dad again after that.
Things were back to normal for about three weeks. Mom and I were treated like shit. I stayed home and remained indoors everyday, and from nine a.m. til seven or eight at night sometimes, my uncle would take mom and his wife and they'd make the rounds at the hotels and casinos stealing.
Then came the night I woke up and mom wasn't beside me. I thought maybe she was in the bathroom, but after what felt like a really long time she didn't come back. So I pushed my jacket off and got up and quietly walked through the dark house. I looked in the kitchen and nobody was there. I went to the bathroom and it was empty and dark. So I finally walked to my uncle and aun't bedroom. I could hear sounds coming from it. Noises. Moans and groans and my uncle talking. Saying dirty stuff. I peeked around the edge of the partially open door and looked in.
"Keep sucking that cock, sis."
My uncle was sitting in bed with his back upright against the headboard. He only had his dirty socks on and my mom was laying sideways in bed on her tummy, naked like him and my aunt. She had his thing in her mouth and was bobbing her head up and down. My aunt was smiling and watching it through her thick glasses, puffing away on one of her funny smelling cigarettes.
"Oh fuck yeah," my uncle groaned. "Deep throat it just like that. Uhh..." he arched his back slightly and my mom stopped moving her head, and held his thing in her mouth until he finished jerking around and grunting. Then she slipped it out and swallowed.
"You need to teach Val how to do that," he laughed. "Now that was a fucking blowjob."
My aunt made a face and slapped his chest. "I know how to suck a dick, you asshole."
Mom sat up on her knees and I saw her large heavy breasts swing. Like my aunt she was a brunette and had real big boobs and a dark hairy bush.
"Yeah, you do hon," my uncle said. "But you don't deep throat. I thought sis here was gonna swallow my dick for a second."
"Whatever," my aunt replied. She spread her legs. "K, girl you know the deal. Its my turn."
Mom crawled over and got on all fours, she leaned her face down right into my aunt's crotch and started moving her head around. My aunt smiled and went "Mmmm."
My uncle lay there stroking his thing for a while, then he got up and crawled around behind my mom, up on his knees. He put his thing in her and started pumping his hips, while holding her hips. It made a slap slap slap sound everytime he pushed in and the bed started squeaking. Mom moaned a little.
I felt sick.
I creeped back to the living room and lay back down. A while later mom laid down beside me and tried to snuggle up against the cold and wrap her arm around me. I jerked away. I heard her moan a little and say "Omg, you saw us..."
We never spoke of it. But the next day mom told me "We're gonna get out of her honey. Just leave it up to momma ok?? I swear, when we leave we're gonna go someplace beautiful and all this, it's just gonna be a bad dream we're gonna forget about."
"Ok," I said.
True to her word, within a week she had more five hundred dollars and just like we slipped out on dad, we slipped out on my aunt and uncle.
Mom bought us one-way tickets to Idaho. Where we didn't have any relatives and where nobody knew us. She got a job as a waitress in a little cafe and I went back to school. That first year wasn't easy. But eventually mom married a rancher who was a frequent customer of the cafe and he was a good man. He treated her like a queen and me like his own.
As for my father, I heard he died alone in 1995. He had a reputation as the neighborhood "crazy man". And for my uncle and aunt, well she left him not long after mom and I split and he began a series of long incarcerations in the Nevada state correctional system for drugs. Nevada takes that sort of thing seriously. He died in prison in 2004 when he choked on some food. I have no idea what happened to my former aunt once she left Nevada.
And me?? I'm just a common everyday guy in his 40's sharing a true confession online.