When Hope Dies

When hope dies

Small town life is considered to be an idyllic way to grow up.

I disagree.

Small towns are riddled with deep dark secrets that not only damage you when your young but the secrets follow you into adulthood and at some point they come bursting out of the closet you so carefully packed them in.

Throw religion into the mix and you have a recipe for trauma, heartbreak and worst of all, the loss of your innocence when you’re supposed to not have a care in the world.

My story begins in that small town full of lies, secrets and heartbreak.

I loved playing outside and running with my siblings and cousins. We had the whole outdoors as our playground and there wasn’t anything we didn’t try. Jumping off the barn with a sheet or umbrella and thinking we can float softly to the ground like you do in cartoons, was a dare you always took, lest you are a chicken and you never wanted to be a chicken. Skinny dipping in the muddy creek and stealing your cousin’s clothes so they have to walk home with a bunch a leaves to cover the neither regions. Playing bottle rocket wars up and down Main Street, burns be damned! Riding on the hood of a moving car only to get scared and jump off and scrape half your face off and come up laughing because you know you’re a bad ass now. Respect of my fellow dare devils was my idea of popularity.

You don’t question your existence or your place in the world. You are told from birth that you are a Christian, you go to church every Sunday, Sunday night and Wednesday night. You pray before meals and before bed. You don’t ever doubt that the adults know what’s best for you and you never disobey anyone in authority. These were simple truths that every small town child grew up knowing. If you stepped out of line you got your butt spanked. There was no time out, more like lights out if the infraction was really severe. Corporal punishment was the normal way to deal with children that stepped out of line. This was my world and I knew the rules and how to navigate the ups and downs that came with small town life.

We were poor, and food was sometimes hard to come by. At times we would have beans and rice for Breakfast, Lunch and dinner. Mom tried to mix it up, for breakfast it was rice with butter and sugar and raisins if we had them. Dinner would be rice with salt and pepper, beans and if we were lucky homemade cornbread. Once a month we would go downtown to the Indian commodity truck and get cheese, beans, rice. The cheese never lasted long with three children to feed. It was the first thing to go. Which prompted our parents to place a lock on the refrigerator, in hopes of making the food last longer. I just saw it as them denying us food and I didn’t understand why we couldn’t eat when we were hungry. Sometimes we would get hot dogs, they would go on sale for 25 cents a pack and they would buy 2 dollars’ worth. This was the only real meat we had at times. Not that hot dogs are really meat, but again we didn’t know any better. They were a treat and we were to be thankful, that we had food, clothes and a roof over our head. That was what we were told often and we didn’t question this logic. At least you didn’t question it out loud more than once.

We had a small farm as well. The animals belonged to my grandfather, as did the house and the 80 acres it sat on. My mother’s father was a hard man and not very forgiving, but he did allow us to use this little homestead as our own. This was where the milk and eggs would come from. You had to milk the cow and gather the eggs. We could use what was extra. After the first pail of milk was taken, if you got anymore it was ours to use. The first dozen eggs was his and what was left was ours. I loved going to get the eggs. It was a game of guess which chicken has the snake under it. They were harmless snakes but it sure would get your heart pumping when you feel scales instead of smooth shells. For a split second you imagine that your life is over and you’re going to die from a snake bite. I never did and the snakes just wanted the eggs not me. I was an adrenalin junky for someone so small.

It did come with a price, living on this farm, we had to take care of the land, the animals and the crops. This was often left to us children to do as our parents worked. My father was a correctional officer and my mother was a waitress at her mother’s dairy bar in town. I learned to drive a stick shift at age 10. I was too small to shuck the hay onto the trailer so I got to drive the truck. I could milk a cow, ride a horse, chase down the chickens to put them up at night and wrestle the stupid goat into her pen and pick the garden clean of weeds and rotten produce. We were a well-oiled machine of free child labor. We were dirty, tired and hungry, but again this was life and we didn’t know any better. Idealistic small town life at its best.

The autumn I turned 7 the Mayor of our little slice of heaven, Allen Matthews, came into my grandmother’s dairy bar and sat at his usual table. He ordered his usual coffee, no cream, and two sugars. He would swap gossip with the other old men and tell tall tales of the fish that got away. This was an everyday occurrence. Nothing new, except on this day our illustrious leader had a great plan that involved all us children. After school, if we didn’t ride the bus home, we would go to the dairy bar where our mother worked and assist with taking out the trash, cleaning tables and staying out of trouble. This would last for all of a few minutes until the adults got tired of telling us to do things over and over again and send us outside to run off some of our pent up energy. Insert trouble here. We would often find it and concoct ways to not have the adults know it. Well, as I was saying our illustrious leader had a plan to help not only himself but the poor adults that were haggard and tired of dealing with us rowdy, unruly children. He suggested that we come to the town hall and put our energy to good use by helping him clean out the offices, take out the trash and sweep and mop the floors. He of course would pay us a handsome sum of a dime each. If we went above and beyond we would get 25 cents. . The boys were not included in this little arrangement since they were better utilized doing manual labor, since sweeping and mopping was just for us woman folk and boys were needed for more boy things. For the life of me I couldn’t think of anything that I couldn’t do that a boy could, but again this was how things were, you don’t question these simple truths.

I remember the first time I went to the town hall to help clean up. I would go every day after school and meetup with my friend Chloe and we would walk together to the gas station that her father owned in town.

After spending about an hour with Chloe in the gas station’s back room, I was summoned to my job at the town hall. This consisted of Allen coming over the gas station and fetching me. Chloe declined his offer every time, stating that she didn’t need to work for money, her daddy gave her an allowance every week.

I was looking forward to my first day on the job and earning some of my own money. On the walk over to the town hall he would smile at me and tell me how pretty I looked and was I ready to get to work. I was delighted to be getting some money of my own. He’d take me by the hand and together we would walk to the town hall that was one building away from the gas station. Once we arrived he would unlock the front door and in we would go. He told me were the broom closet was and were to take the trash bins to. The back door was wooden and had a rickety screen door attached that would slap and bang shut since there was a spring attached to it. The first time I went out the screen door I about had a heart attack when it slammed shut. It sounded like a gun shot. Back then we didn’t have trash bins, it was a burn barrel. There were three of them in the back, one was filled with broken glass and bottles of liquor, the amber remints sparkling the fading light. The other two barrels were filled with partially burnt trash and boxes. I was instructed to always use the two barrels to empty trash in. I was too small to reach the top so there was a blue plastic egg crate for me to stand on next to the barrels. For a few weeks this was my daily routine. Walk to the station, walk to the town hall, empty trash, get my dime and he would take me to the dairy bar. The other girls would sweep and mop and then he would pay then and they would skip out of the office, excited to spend the money they had worked for. Slowly over the next few weeks, each one of the girls would not show up anymore, and with each one that stopped coming to the town hall I would take over their chores. Empty trash, sweep the lobby, and mop the lobby, wipe down the desks and the little kitchenette they had in the back room.

After one particularly hard day of sweeping and mopping, when all the girls were now gone, I complained to Allen that it was too hard to do all on my own. He patted his lap and asked me to come sit down for a while. I did as he instructed and climbed up on his lap. He put his arm around me and patted my bare leg.

“You sure look pretty today Miss Kellie.” He would say as he patted my leg. I would smile at his praise and it would make me feel better to know that I was pretty even covered in dust and in my old ratty red shorts and tank top. He would pat my leg again and tell me to go ahead and finish up and he will lock up and walk me to the dairy bar. This was the routine. There were days that I didn’t go since I still had chores to do at home. I would just ride the bus home and get started on my chores at home. I didn’t go in the winter months either since my mom and dad needed me more at home. This didn’t seem to bother Allen at all. He just told my parents that the job was more of a fair weather thing. So when spring came the mayor offered me the job again and after getting my parents approval I started back to earning my money. Only things seemed different this time around. When I arrived there was no other girls, just me. I asked him if anyone else was going to help. He told me that I did such a great job on my own that he didn’t need anyone else. I was so proud of myself for earing his praise and for him to recognize that I was a hard worker.

One afternoon I was in his office getting the trash to take out, when he puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me to put the trashcan down he has something he wants to show me. Curious I set the trashcan back down. He sits in his chair behind his desk and motions for me to come sit on his lap. I do, just like I have done so many times before. I smile because this is the part where he tells me how pretty I am and I might get a quarter for a good job. Only this time he picks me up and places me on his desk in front of him. My smile falters some because this is not what normally happens. He scoots me to the edge of the desk and places his hands on either side of my legs, high on my thighs. He rubs my legs with his thumbs and comes in close to my face with his. He kisses my forehead and then my check. He pulls back and smiles. I am frozen and my stomach drops. I feel nausea and dizziness settle over me like a blanket. This is not right but I am powerless to stop him. “You’re a good girl, right Miss Kellie?” I nod because I want to be a good girl. He smiles and kisses me again as he did before. I start to tremble and a little whine escapes me. “Shhhh Miss Kellie, don’t worry Mr. Allen’s got you. I am going to make you feel good ok? We are going to keep this between us right Miss Kellie.” I nod mutely, I am terrified and tears roll down my cheeks. “We don’t want your family to lose everything now do we Miss Kellie?” He licks his lips and I hear his belt buckle jingle and his zipper slide down. “Now you be real quiet and don’t say anything to anyone or your family will suffer, you got me Miss Kellie?”

I don’t make another sound as he places his hand is on my chest and he gently pushes me down onto the desk. I don’t resist, but my mind is screaming at me to kick, run scream, to do something, anything. I don’t make a sound, and I don’t move. All I can think is I am wearing red shorts with a white stripe down the side, and a yellow spaghetti top. It has little red and white flowers embroidered on the front. I have on my yellow flip flops. I remember thinking that morning when I put it on that this was such a cute top. It was a hand me down from my sister and I couldn’t wait to finally wear it. Now I will never be able to wear it again without remembering what he did to me. He took my innocence that day. He robbed my of the childhood I deserved and replaced it with fear, guilt, rejection, hate, self-loathing and a secret that would tear me slowly apart every day. He did this to me three more times before I got so scared and physically sick with just the thought of seeing him again, that I told my mom all the other girls were not helping anymore and I didn’t want to do that anymore, she told me she would tell him that I was needed at home more. I became a shell of the child I once was. I lost my trust in adults and in men and in my mother. No one noticed that I was not the same. No one noticed the once happy little girl was now sullen, withdrawn, sad, fearful and scared to do or say anything for fear of discovery. I never went back to the town hall. When Allen would come into the dairy bar, I would run out the back door terrified he would follow me and drag me back to his desk. That summer we moved away and I was never so happy to leave that small town, I finally had hope. We moved to Seattle Washington, I thought I could finally put this chapter of my life behind me and I could try to rebuild myself. I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Sometimes the monster isn’t the one we think we know, sometimes the monster is in plain sight and has been lurking in the dark corners waiting for the opportunity to steal even more pieces of your soul, and when he strikes you’re not prepared for the devastation that will follow you for the rest of your life. When that monster is someone you love and trust you don’t recover, you just exist and pile your closet full of secrets, lies and heartbreak, until you can’t hold anymore in. Then the real pain begins, because this truth can’t be denied anymore, and hope is first thing that dies as you try to break free.