The Farm

The Asshole left during my nap and I couldn't have been more content. My mom wasn't going to be a bitch around my Grandma and he was GONE. WOO. I played with Grandpa and cuddled with Grandma. The farm was about 30 acres and Grandma set about teaching me some country living.

The house had a front porch that was closed in with a concrete floor where Grandma kept all of the canning she'd done in small shelves lined along the walls on the left side of the door. The washer and dryer were on right side of the door. The next room was the kitchen. To the left was a round table with a vinyl table cloth, directly ahead was a wood burning stove and to the right was the cooking stove, the refrigerator and the sink and Cabinets. Passing through the table and woodstove was a living room and a bathroom and a set of stairs up to the attic bedrooms. One side of the living room had grandpa's hospital bed and the other side a couch. Grandpa wasn't sick, but he couldn't sleep with Grandma because of his "walking legs". Grandma slept upstairs and her room had the only air conditioner in the house.

I spent a wonderful summer with my Grandparents and often slept in the room that was Grandma's in a pallet on the floor. She would read her Agatha Christie books and I would listen to her breathe and the lull of the air conditioner. On Saturday nights we would run up to my mom and sister's room and watch The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Their window was kept open because of the heat and I'd go to sleep listening to crickets and whippoorwills. We collected eggs from the chickens and traded them for milk at a nearby farm. Grandma taught me to shuck corn and make feed for the chickens and how to snap green beans. Every evening she would take me for a walk and showed me elderberries, beechnut trees and all the wonders of the farm. I did dishes every night after supper which would make my grandma mad. I was eight. Why was I doing dishes? I didn't care. I always did what would make mom happy and it was expected. Over the summer my mom bought a two bedroom trailer and moved it onto the farm. It was old as dirt and the cost of running electricity to the trailer tapped her out. We heated with coal and hauled water from the electric well in five gallon buckets in a wagon. My grandma would fuss when I came to fetch water saying I was too small to be hauling water. She'd make milkshakes and put raw eggs in them to try to fatten me up.

As wonderful as the summer was. It wouldn't last. Once we moved into the trailer, my mom was free to be herself and moved the Asshole right back in. As fall approached I started second grade. I made a few friends and was still pretty quiet unless I was with my grandparents. We spent days in an empty cornfield near the woods cutting trees for firewood. The Asshole was in full form and took every opportunity he had to punish me. This time he was braver than before because he had more opportunity. He was touching me everywhere and making me kiss his nastiness. My mom was often at the farmhouse with Grandma and left us girls with his grossness. One particular night he went out to "get more firewood" while I was playing with my sister who was three. He jumped up at the end of the trailer and mushed his ugly fucking face against the window roaring. He intended to terrify me and he did. I screamed at the monster in the window and began to bawl. He ran in the house saying how sorry he was laughing at his success. What an asshole. Since he had more opportunity, he began messing with my little sister. She was about the age I was when he started with me. What was I going to do? I didn't know.