Witchy Woman – short story 1Mom, forty-three with sags and bags seen through near sheer spandex and miniskirts, her dark straight hair sprouting gray wings from side to side, skin tinted a brown natural tan even in Michigan’s coldest winter months. I never knew a day she wasn’t strong, in charge, and oozing with confidence.
Mom enjoyed hot days spent in our backyard drinking mixes of vodka and grapefruit juice, nights dancing alone in a dark candle lit house blasting Def Leopard or sometimes even Eminem. Her seductive moves spinning remnants of days that once paid her to dance in the nude. Welfare didn’t cover all the cost of having four kids, and minimum wage paying jobs were a joke. Mom, always clever, never failed at finding ways to get us by in life.
Things could have been different, a bit more peaceful, if it weren’t for the drinking and the drugs, but at least the latter kept her at home and cool. The booze always stirred up anger and resentment, the crack, her illegal antidepressant.
Jack Daniels was to blame that night, intoxicating her early on. It was a cool October in ’99, the night before Halloween. She hadn’t had a driver’s license because of her drinking in years, normally cabed it, or had me drop her off at the bar, but she decided to be her own chauffeur this time. Set her face with sparkles and dark eyeliner, a short skirt with a tight knit to wear, no disguise for her tonight. She didn’t hurt no one but herself, cop caught her, didn’t even make it very far.
Now at twenty-one, Mom and me frequented many of the same bars and nightclubs. Our paths may have even crossed that night, Mom leaving Clovers just minutes before my arrival. My attire fit the night. I wore a black sleek polyester dress with long belled out sleeves. I lacked the pointed hat, but topped the outfit off by allowing my naturally witchy hair to run wild, painting in a single dark mole on my cheekbone. The dress flattered my skinny pale bod, but pushed my tiny tits into a more flattened state.
I was still with Brian that night. I had broken up with him months before, just hadn’t clued him in yet. My choices in men, poor to say the least, always dysfunctional in a drug or drunken way, and this one held a commonality with my Mother’s drunk driving history. I never allowed myself to get too attached. Always hurt boys before they could hurt me. Learned that from the one that took my virginity away at just fifteen.
The costume contest began, the stage rough and ready, contestants crammed along the strung lit dark paneled walls, tables shifted to create the catwalk for judging who could be the best in creative costume dress. I didn’t dare try to compete, didn’t have my booze boosting confidence in me that night.
‘Hit me Baby one more time’ played like clockwork down the line. With each turn the Britney Spears impersonators reenacted moves from the video, swinging their plaid miniskirts to the sky, launching howls from the crowd of mostly men. I had my fill. The drinks weren’t going down smooth anyway. Ditched the goodbyes and went on home to take care of my little brother Joe. BillyJoe, or Joe for short, was always there.
I just moved back home for the third time. We lived in an oversized white bungalow on a corner lot in the downriver city of Wyandotte. It wasn’t much.
Kevin took on the duty of watching BillyJoe that night in exchange for a joint, small fee, and a free dinner. He lied sprawled out on the overpriced off-white tweed Art Van living room couch I brought back home with me to replace Mom’s broken down furniture. The left over pizza, brimming ashtray of cigarette butts, and a roach with a few hits left for his morning toke lied out on my wooden coffee table. It was the same recliner, couch, and table set I had when I lived with him.
Kevin, a year younger than me got too stuck on his drugs, tended to turn a bit abusive when he was without them. His six foot four overgrown figure was more than fearsome when in his pissed states, hence the ex, but also silly and dog cuddly, explaining our on again off again three year relationship. BillyJoe loved him anyway, so I let the past of our rocky relationship go and we remained friends.
Mom overtook mine and Carrie’s shared bedroom on the second floor, Joe shifted into her old room at the foot of the stairs. His bed an oversized futon, allowing for me to comfortably crash out with him that night.
Shortly after, I was awoken by the ringing phone at 3:00 a.m., the operator announced “collect call from a Debbie Adams, will you accept the charges?” I sighed, accepting, scolding her for taking the car before she could get out a word on the dollar amount to pay for bail and to pick her up from the Southgate drunk tank.
She had been without a license for nearly six years due to previous charges, and was eligible to get her license back early next year. I hung up on her, then on to calling my Grandpa to go bail her out. She was his fuck up child not mine! Threw the phone and went back on to bed with Joe.
I woke up to sweet morning sounds of BillyJoe’s feet wiggling back and forth against the bed sheets, muffled giggles and words from under the pillow “Sissy, Sissy, Sissy,” one of the few words he often said. I giggled back giving him kisses on his cheek under the pillow.
At seventeen, BillyJoe towered at six feet tall, hair thick brown with waves, but it bothered him to keep long, so we kept it clipper short. He didn’t understand his strength, sometimes he hit me too hard, stubborn, didn’t like to be touched, and incapable of identifying with the world’s demands, he could never be left unattended, we all catered to his needs and wants, wouldn’t listen to many, but always recognized me as one of the few in charge.
For a first we prepared for what was to come. She was facing her third felony. She made a deal pleading guilty to welfare fraud at the age of nineteen. She wasn’t aware of the welfare checks arriving at her parent’s house down on Bruckner Street, and didn’t want to admit who was cashing the checks during her employment at Fisher Bodies in Detroit. The second drunk driving offense came when I was fifteen, we stayed at my grandparent’s house on Detroit’s west side while she spent time in the Wayne County facility.
Without question caring for BillyJoe and keeping up the house was rolled out to me. I never denied my responsibility to care for him. A monthly supply of government money in the name of BillyJoe would keep us afloat until she returned, but Mom’s repeated offenses left me fearing the worst this time around.
I hoped the courts would be lenient, hoped they would understand BillyJoe needed her at home. I hoped, I hoped, I hoped.
That day in court, the female prosecutor unmerciful, Mom had given the ‘feel sorry for me speech’ about Joe one too many times. This being her third time in front of the same judge, the tears didn’t matter. “You would have been there for your son’s needs if you had been so concerned Mrs. Adams” came from the forty something black matriarch on the bench, who then went into her personal experience of caring for her own disabled daughter. She wasn’t hearin’ anymore of Mom’s shit.
When the judge barked out the decree of “four months in the pen,” I felt myself sink further down the wooden bench questioning to myself ‘How could she keep fucking up like this?!’
Grandpa, old, gray, and frail sat beside me squeezing my hand, lowering his Latino head in pain. He had seen too many of his children in and out of prison, or rehab, and even one shot down by the Detroit police a year after I was born. Grandma had passed just a few years back, his life filled now with too much heartache. I held my anger back, leaned my head onto his shoulder, he reached over squeezing me tight. We said nothing.
