Grandma's Chapter Two

                   

Chapter two       

     





         It was just little things at first.  I had hung up his T-shirts and pants because there wasn't anywhere else to put them at the time. He came home and I was so proud because I had found someplace for everything we had and all the boxes were gone.  I took him into the bedroom to show him how I had done his clothes.  He blew up, started throwing all his clothes off the hangers into a pile in the middle of the floor. I was begging him not to do that because they were clean and I had no where else to put them. He was screaming at me what a stupid bitch I was, as he screamed spit would hit my face.  I was crying and apologizing and trying to pick up the things he was throwing around.  I told him I would try to do better, that I had no idea he wouldn't like it.



         Later on in the next months little fights like this happened all the time.  We had only been together four months after all, I always heard that there was many adjustments to be made in that first year. Every one fights once in awhile right?



         Slowly these little fights got larger and the more I stood up for myself the more violent they became.



         Paul was also pushing me more for marriage. I really wasn't ready for marriage but all the time, nag, nag, nag.  I was trying to adjust to so many things, a baby, a job, a man, cleaning house, doing laundry, etc.  My day started at 4:30 am. Monday thru Friday.  I got all the things together for my son to go to the sitter, which I seemed to be going through a lot. I would wash a load of diaper's in the tub and hang them out, then off to work. I worked seven to three-thirty.  When I got off work I would pick up my son come home, fold the diapers, do supper, clean the kitchen, give my son a bath, then bed time.  Well at least for my son it was.  Then Paul started wanting me to smoke pot with him.  I had tried it a little right out of school but didn't like it.  Well that didn't fly with him, so I began smoking of a night with Paul after my son went to bed.



         Well if anyone remembers what smoking pot is like when you first begin, you want to eat and sleep, period.  I didn't know Paul was an old hand at it.  We would smoke and then I would fall asleep as soon as we hit the bed.  Well that went over like a lead balloon.  He wanted to fool around and I was so tired I couldn't, just couldn't. So that caused fights.  I felt he wasn't understanding enough and he thought I wasn't trying hard enough.



         Then he convinced me to just go get the blood tests, after all we didn't have to get married right away, we would have a month from the time of the test to get married.



         Paul used my car a lot, to go look for jobs of course.  It was during this time I found a note tucked into the door trim. It was from a girl who was pledging her undying love for Paul.  I knew her, she had been to my house.  The story was that she had been raped and gotten pregnant and Paul helped her and went with her for an abortion. He said nothing went on with her that it was just hero worship.



         So I relented and said no more about this girl.  I was starting to have suspensions about what Paul did while he was not at home.



         Then one day at work I cut my thumb.  I went up to the company Doctor  and had it cleaned out and bandaged.  After several days my thumb got worse.  The cut had healed but my thumb swelled up and was hot and red.  I went back to the company Dr. who told me to soak it three times a day and put on this salve.





         Well I did as the Dr. ordered all the while wondering how soaking three times a day would help.



         I didn't have to wait for long to find out because when I got home and started my evening routine something popped in my thumb and a red streak ran up my arm to my elbow.



         Paul took me to the emergency room where they told me it was a good thing that I had come in because the wound was about to cause me to have blood poisoning and bone infection.  They gave me medicine and said that I had to stay off work the rest of the week.



         We got up a couple of days later and Paul wanted me to call the court house and find out how long it was open so we could go get married.  He then left for the day not saying where he was going.



         I called the courthouse and found out that they would be open until five that day.  So I waited for Paul to come home so I could tell him. It got later and later till it was after four pm.  He finally got home and we took off for the courthouse.  We walked in at four fifty four and walked out married at five o'four.



         The girl who had written the note was one of our witness's.  I asked Paul later why he had chosen her to stand up with us. His reply was that she needed to realize we were together and that she had no hope of being with him.



         Our life became one drama after another, one girl after another, one fight after another.  I was sure that it was all my fault because I didn't know how to be married.  I was sure I loved Paul so much that I was willing to do just about anything for peace and serenity in my life.



         Paul couldn't find a job, if he were even looking for one.  I was doing factory work and trying to pay bills, keep food on the table, pay the babysitter, all the things young couples have to juggle.



         The difference was I was the only one trying and there was never enough money.  I had no idea that Paul was out trying to pick up women all day and sometimes succeeding.



         He used his affections to control me most of the time.  When withholding affections didn't work then the fighting started again.



         I will always remember my first black eye. We had been fighting all week all night long.  I would get up every morning and go to work, come home every evening and work some more.  I was exhausted all the time.  Then I was fed up.  It was no longer a matter of winning or losing the arguments but making it quit.



         We were yelling at each other and I did a roundhouse blow at Paul and missed.  What I did do was step right into the punch he threw in return.  It was a short left jab meant to stop me but not hurt me.



         It was the first and last black eye I ever had.  It cracked my sinus cavity and every time I blew my nose my eye swelled just like a puffer toad.  I told everyone that a softball had hit me while I was carrying in groceries. 



         Paul said he was leaving me that night.  I told him he was a coward, giving me a black eye then leaving.  If he were any kind of a man he would take care of me because I had no idea what to do for myself.



         Once again I believed that I was the one at fault for my injury.  After all I did throw the first punch.  I only got what I deserved.  I would just have to be a better person so that it would not happen again.



         I know better now.  It was not my fault, I was not a bad person.  Years later I learned that Paul was a sociopath.  A person with no concenice.  They are able to pretend that they feel something when actually they feel nothing at all.  Through the years I became his moral compass.  I actually kept him from doing many bad things to many good people.  In the beginning though I was involved with hurting people, mainly women.



         We would live with women who Paul would pick up.  It was his way of taking care of his family and feeding his desires at the same time.  We hurt many women in this manner.  Then one came along who was young, ten years younger than me.  She became pregnant and I told Paul that if his dream were to have two women I would try to learn to live that way.



         She moved in with us and I was no longer supporting one man and one child but one man, one woman, two children.  I felt like a loser once more. I couldn't support my family, with money or emotions.  I did not care for the living arrangements.  I began to feel used, very used.  The depression set in for good.



         We lived with this woman for six years.  During that time she had two children while I wanted a child so badly with my husband.  I look back and wonder where my mind was.  Why did I think I had such an undying love for this man?



         Time and time again he would choose her over me and scold me because I couldn't be forgiving, after all I was the oldest.  He told me that she belonged to both of us, she was my sister.  I needed to take care of her, love her both with my mind and my body.



         I tried to do that.  When I wasn't able to I thought there was something wrong with me.  Paul would tell me that I was bisexual, I would tell him that I wasn't.  That was an on going thing.  I believed that if he were able to have sex with someone other than myself then I must be at fault.



         I strived for years to be a better person, to be what Paul wanted of me.

         I could never pass the point and accept the other woman, or women, in my life.



         Things were getting tough, fighting all the time, either with Paul and myself or Paul and my “sister” or all three of us.  Extreme emotions all the time, despair, depression, anger, sex.  I say sex because what we did was not making love but pure raw sex.



         Our “family” was growing, my child, her child, Paul's daughter.  It all became too much.  Too much moving, too much fighting, too much drugs, to little food, to little money.



         Then she began to dance to bring home money.  Paul lavished all his attention on her.  So if I wanted attention I decided I must dance also.



         I began an eight year stint of stripping, hustling.  I liked it in the beginning, it was new, exciting and people appeared to like me.  I gained more self confidence, believing in myself again.  I knew that I needed to get away but there didn't seem any way of doing that.





         I began flirting at first, then fantasizing about other men.  After all if Paul didn't want me then I would get my own.



         Paul had always told me that as long as I was honest with him that he would have no problem with me being with other men.  I knew that he was lying, just saying that to have his own way.  Every time he found a phone number or if it appeared I was getting too close to another man I would be beaten.  I don't mean a black eye, or even bruises.  Paul prided himself with the fact he never left a mark on me when he hit me.