Ten years ago this coming August I lay face down in the dirt, covered in bruises while a maniac sped away in his truck with my five year old daughter. I didn’t see her for three months during which time I went through the shelter system in the US, initially as a battered woman then as a homeless person.
I’ve spent a great deal of time reflecting on this past episode, although if I wanted to I could choose any horror in my life to discuss, from sexual and physical abuse and poverty as a kid to the suicide of my mentally ill first husband. So why does this one period in my life seem to have a meaning beyond those that came before? Because it didn’t happen to me, it happened to an innocent child; my child.
I’ve always been clear about the people and circumstances around me and this awareness has contributed to my jaded view of what this world is. There is a deterioration in the social structure on this planet that is hardly surprising given the sham compassion on which we’ve built our communities. I suppose you couuld say that at least the human race has progressed to faking respect for the vulnerable.
Right about now you may be thinking that I am full of shit and that is your right but the bare knuckle facts are that I am in a position of authority to speak about things like corruption, ineffective social programs with their anaemic and feeble attempts to do anything but line their pockets with tax free money and create barriers for those who suffer daily and need help. Oh yes, I have the credibility to say how it really is and not the mass delusion that passes for truth on this planet.
I could wax eloquent for you and make the filth palatable and easy to swallow, but then that would defeat the purpose of this post which is to plant a seed or two that may or may not sprout and eventually flower. At least I will have dug the hole and dropped it in, which as it happens is my entire purpose for breathing.
For those you who know this story, feel free to flee to the more subtly pleasing social environs of twitter, facebook or god forbid, the real world. What follows is the timeline that came to the astounding sum total of ten years, an entire decade of persecution, abuse, terror, poverty, homelessness and yes, writing. I could go back to when I first went to the us and regale you with stories of beatings, intimidation, rape and isolation but overkill is not what I’m aiming for here as you will see.
Time line of my previous ten years:
August 1 2002: My child’s father beats me and kidnaps our five year old daughter. I call the state police who then turn the matter over to the tribal police. The tribal cop comes and the first thing he asks me is if I am drunk, NOT if I am okay although he can see my body is black and blue. The fact that I don’t drink, smoke or do drugs seems to be lost on him. My gut sinks as I take my very first step on the path of degradation, humiliation and persecution courtesy of all sorts of agencies.
August 1 2002: I enter a domestic violence shelter. I meet some other women. I am inconsolable. I am now taking the second step on the path, this one is all about nightmares, PTSD and the daily diet of terror and dread I feel for my missing child. The fear for her safety consumes my every breath and yet this seems to be unimportant to those around me who are supposed to be helping sad little fuckers like me. Early on I am beginning to smell a rat in the social service sewer and boy is that bastard pungent!
August 2 2002: I am informed that only tribal police will handle this case as it occurred on the reservation. This is not an revelation to me as I know the full well the score of all things tribal with regard to my child. The evil monster who took her is related to the chief in a neighboring tribe and is a landowner in this reservation. My goose is cooked and I know it. They take photos of my bruises and say all the lies they have memorized by rote: “we’ll keep an eye out for the vehicle. We’ll call you as soon as we locate them.” I look in the cops face and say “Bullshit.” He looks away. I leave.
August 3 – September 7: I live in the domestic violence shelter. Everyday I file new paperwork with the court and I am told I have only one option for legal representation: An attorney who works for the tribe. Legal aid won’t represent anyone in a tribal court, thus my right to fair representation is another lie I must swallow. Having no choice I see this attorney. He is a fool. I recoil, realizing that my child and I are on a downward spiral with no end in sight. What do I do? I say fuck you! That is my child and I WILL find her and you can all kiss my arse. He shakes his head as if I am mentally ill or at the very least seriously deluded and naive. This entire time is spent in on and off the reservation, waking up in terror with nightmares that are more horrifying than anything Stephen King could conjure. Eventually, a bench warrant is issued, but no one is actually looking for my baby, but they sure are filing lots and lots of paperwork! The sheer volume of court orders, statements and warrants would make lead anyone to conclude that much was being done to save my child. On september 4, my child’s birthday and one day after my 40th birthday, they inform me he has been located and ordered to return my child to me and appear in court. I sit in the tribal court, filled with expectation, arms aching to hold my little girl. I sit some more. In fact, I sit there for four hours until I am newly informed that she won’t be coming after all as it is clear he is ignoring the order of the court. No one seems very perturbed by this new development and it becomes clear to me and the social worker with me that this was all a ruse and not real at all. Something happened to me then and there, a resolve built on the foundation of indignation and anger. They were fucking with me from the get go but I was going to rescue my child if it killed me. Little did I know this would nearly happen in two different ways. Finally, this episode ends and I am sent elsewhere to live.
September 7 – September 28: I live in the YWCA shelter for homeless women. My entire time there is spent trying to stay alive, eating from the food bank, (when I eat at all) getting a crash course in jurisprudence and the mountain of corruption I must climb as well as finding a lovely, rather large lump in my breast. This lump is examined at the free clinic. The physician’s assistant tells me after a mammogram and an ultrasound that the lump is not normal and if I wait to have it removed I could die. Ah, a new horror but oddly one that strengthened my resolve felt previously in the tribal kangaroo court. I am now on a mission and I don’t give a shit who tells me no. I have to find my child and take her home to where we were born and get this thing out. If I don’t I will die and she will be left in the care of an abusive monster. When my time runs out at this shelter I am given two options: a Pentecostal shelter for homeless women or the street. I choose the shelter.
September 28 – September 29: I enter the Pentecostal shelter towing my one posession: a suitcase containing every photo of my child, her toys, some of her clothes and my notebook filled with anguished poetry and letters to my now dead first husband. I have one outfit and I am wearing it. I do however have the luxury of two pairs of underwear and three pairs of socks. I am doing well for a homeless person and I damn well know it too! Although I have been living on Starbucks week old donuts that they donate to the shelters from the bottom of their generous corporate hearts, my 5’7” frame is carrying only 98 pounds and I am feeling it. Anaemia is now my bosom buddy and we black out everywhere together just us two. It is in this state of physical weakness I enter the intake office of this shelter to encounter who I have soon began accurately referring to as Nazi Iris. Her finger jabbing in my face while she asserted in her harsh German accent that I needed to accept that I was NOT going to ever find my child was only enhanced by the room filled with concentration like bunks lining the walls. The irony that I carried a copy of Anne Frank’s diary in my suitcase was not lost on me. After being told I could either 1. Take a shower in the morning or 2. Eat breakfast, that we were not permitted to swear, accept help or share transportation with each other, use a cell phone, miss prayer services three times a day or not be in our bunks by 10 pm, I decided to leave the following morning and take my chances on the street. But before I left I place that copy of Anne Frank’s diary under my pillow, proving that I still maintained a bit of my soul despite efforts but others to destroy it.
September 29- October 2: I live on the street. I eat nothing. I have no coat and it is cold. I learn quickly that you have to choose your spots carefully and that cat napping is all you should ever do lest you find yourself raped, robbed (yeah I know I had nothing of value but nothing of value is something to a junkie) or murdered. After a few days of this, the water from the bus station fountain is all that is keeping me alive physically but mentally, emotionally and spiritually, my little girl is the power inside me. On my morning trek to the water fountain I meet one of the girls from the YWCA shelter and she informs me she now has an apartment. I begin living there, where we sleep on the floor and eat mouldy bread and rotten food from the local food bank. I am happy though because I can now sit on a toilet without fear I will catch something. This way of living goes on for some time and I bond with this beautiful woman and two others from the shelter who also stay with her. They gave me the love and emotional strength I needed to carry on until I finally found my child.
This is of course the condensed version of events because I am concerned about that attention span business we no longer have thanks to twitter and soundbites. Bear in mind though that the people and experiences I’ve left out were life altering to me. Perhaps if I believe it will matter I will attempt once again to find a publisher but until unicorns dance on rainbows I’ll keep it in my word program and marvel at our surival, the power of love and the immense size of my balls when challenged.
Tomorrow I will post part two. Oh I bet you can’t wait for that! Highlights: wiping shit off walls in a care home, being drug through court and having a lump removed from my breast and so much more!
Going Under
I saw the pugnacious little weasel
sliding under floor boards
disturbing the age old dust
and things we left to rust
preserving the art of tunnelling under dark and scary things
the cobwebs are only an issue if the spider is angry and takes a hostile bite
Fourteen Blocks
What was she doing there
Out walking the knife in the back wind
cold hands rammed in a coat too small
plastic bags in boots with holes
living down the outside on the inside
what was her master plan?
to slip through the escape hatch
the ever present crack in the floor
to stay alive
for one more day
feel the weak tea January sun slap her face awake and wide open
attempt to contain all that was ever partly clean and true
to think her poetry into you
and the clearest of perceptions are always distorted by days without discernment
and fourteen blocks to walk that never get her anywhere
but somewhere base and in between
Toot Toot
Clickety Clack
Bubble gum
Ruby lips that smack
Her dark roots and thigh high boots
announcing the arrival of the whore train
she sells it all
every last drop of she
her
vagina
hips
and ovaries
but she keeps her soul in a can on the kitchen shelf
where she stuffs the money for her children’s ticket out
Scrimper
Bottles
Cans
Copper
Aluminum
Dumpster diver
Desperate striver
*With just the right number of beer cans, pop bottles, a bit of copper tubing and a sheet of Aluminum collected while walking the streets for two days, you can get enough money for supper OR the pain pills the free clinic prescribed for the cancer they won’t remove because you don’t have insurance. Which one would choose? Yeah, me too.
Wasp
Watch them zigzag and dart in skirts and pantsuits, chaos sweeping
A yellow jacket looking for rotten apples, sniffing out the origins of the class A fruit
Stinging it’s way to a tree in a pretend garden, its twisted branches, knotted and ingrown
Parasites choral singing a lie into being: that a wasp can turn into a honeybee with a good persona and the right PR.
Auntie A and I
Waiting room stomach cramping
Dry lips and trembling hands hidden
Underneath a hospital green gown
Keeping modesty intact
But letting in the cold draft of the xray room
Mammogram for mama day
Breast sandwiched between icy steel slabs
Indifferent machinery radiation playing eye spy
Hide and seek with your tissue
Is it lurking here
Or there
Days pass
Phone rings
We need a closer look
It’s probably nothing, a handbook soothing phrase
Heart racing, it can’t be…no it’s not. I won’t go there again this time
But you do
You see it again
A day from long ago
Auntie A showing Ma her mastectomy
You are ten and it’s a mystery
You ignore the order to stay in the kitchen with your innocence
Instead you rebel and sneak a peak in the crack in the bedroom and see hell
It’s a black hole where Auntie A’s right breast used to be
And the devils name is Cancer
And it is killing her
You hang up the phone in the present
Don’t say the word, you don’t have to, everyone else is thinking it too
We need to bring in the special forces of the ultrasound
Waiting room stomach cramping
Dry lips and trembling hands hidden
Beneath the plastic garment bag holding
A bra you may not need again
Two cups one breast
You start to panic
This way please you are directed down the narrow walk
The nurse says your name too kindly
Your file is too thick
Cold table, dimly lit room
Romantic lighting for a sterile love/hate affair
Metal paddle sliding, probing
Settling on a black blob the size of a pea
Or a button
Or an aspirin
Or a tumor
Don’t say the word, you don’t have to, everyone is thinking it too
We’ll need to remove this and test it
You can go now
We’ll contact the doctor
You go home and think of that word, but this time you will say it and make it small
Just in case it’s there this time
Cancer
It’s like saying death
If you say it, it will scare it off
And it does
Until you go to bed and it lays there beside you
A hateful appendage like the breast you pretend isn’t there
The breast you have been terrified of for five years
Since they took out the cyst that wasn’t cancer
But wasn’t normal either
The one that put you on this twice yearly rollercoaster from hell
Needles aspirating
Lumps dug out
Biopsy
Safe this time
You leave the office feeling cancer free
You arrive home seeing the gaping hole that used to be your aunt’s breast
And you wait for it to get you too
