Equifinality (Bare Bones)

Part 1: In The Dirt

The evenings in the mountains of West Virginia are so beautiful. That time, as the sun is setting right behind the mountains, and the sky is full of the many different colors that seem to race across its vastness, as if it was a painting. The air was cool with a light breeze that slowly moved around leaves that had already started falling from the trees. Fall was my favorite time of the year. It seemed so peaceful. 

I heard someone come out onto my step-Grandmothers old dilapidated porch. It was my step-dads brother, Brent. I always though he looked like a troll, just like the rest of his family. I was only ten, but I was just as tall as Brent. I looked more like a bean pole, but Brent looked like he had no idea how to get up from a dinner table. His long, mangey beard is what really made him look a nasty old troll, but he was not much over thirty. There were 6 brothers in all, and one sister, and together they looked like the seven dwarfs. They all did work in the coal mines. Even Lacey worked there, like the rest of her brothers. Most every night they all came over to Grandma Beth's house for supper. My mother, step-dad, and two half brothers, Calvin and Charlie, and I lived with my Grandma Beth, ever since we had moved back to the Hauler in clay county. Chris, my step-dad, had decided to move us to the big city of Charleston, West Virginia so that he could find a job that was no longer in coal mines. No one would hire him. I don't blame them, he was a hill billy that was about as personable as a dead skunk and smelled about the same. At least a skunk has a reason to smell that bad. Grandma welcomed us back like we had never left. She told Chris that he needed to stop trying to get off the path that was already set for him. 

Chris and my mother married when I was three. At first everything seemed to be great until my mother got pregnant with Calvin. When Calvin was born, I went from being Chris's son to his step-son. He did a very good job letting everyone know that I was the step-son that he had to take on when he married my mother, Rachael. My mother was a tiny lady. Her lack of a back bone was very impressive. Chris's step-dad, Carl, describe my mother as an old mare that had been rode hard and put up wet. I have no idea what that means but I don't think he means it in a nice way. She lets Chris treat me however he felt at the time. Which was very much dependent on how much beer or whiskey he had in his system. I tried to stay out of his way as much as I could. I could still feel the welts on my back and thighs from the last time that I got in his way. 

"Get your dumbass in here!" Chris yelled from the porch. 

 I ran to the house as fast as my legs could carry me. As I ran up the porch, Chris grabbed my arm, pulled me backwards and shoved me against the wall. 

"You need to clean out your damn ears , did you not hear you damn mother callin' you for supper?"

 "No sir" I said, scared that I was about to get another whippin'.

 "Next time youa better come when youa called, you hear me?" I could see Chris's hate for me as he pointed his finger in my face.

 "Yes, sir"

 He pushed me into the house so hard that I stumbled into the couch. Grandma Beth help me off the floor.

 "Baby, the foods not going anywhere slow down a little."

 "Yes, Grandma," I said as i was trying to put my right shoe back on. 

I looked up just in time to watch Grandma grab Chris by the ear and walk him over and sit him down at the table. 

"You better be treatin' that boy better, you. Hear me, Christopher?" Grandma said as she let loose of his ear.

 "Yes, Mama."

 All I could think was I was going to pay for that one later. Boy, was I right. 

Grandma was always really nice to me. She was the only one of the family that did not make me feeling like I was a piece of outcast trash. She was the boss of the family and no one crossed that old lady. I don't think I ever hear Grandpa Carl talk to Grandma the way Chris talked to my mother. I never saw Grandpa get out of his chair except when Grandma dragged him to church on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. I don't how Grandma could be so nice and loving, while Chris was the meanest person I knew. After supper, Grandma handed me a popsicle and I went out to the porch to eat it.