HE LOVED ME IN THE DARK

MEET THE PARENTS

                My father was your typical, hard working, family man in the eighties.  If he had to work 2 to 3 jobs just to take care of us, he did.  Alot of people said that our dad reminded them of James Evans from the TV show Good Times.  He used to ride his ten speed bike everywhere he went.  He would attach a huge black boom box to the back, along with his book bag, and go back and forth to work.  He was the manager at KFC in the morning, and he had a second job at night as a manager at Taco Bell.

        In between jobs, my dad would come home and check on us.  It never fails, every time my dad would walk in the door, the house would be a mess, in shambles.  He would leave KFC, come home, cook for us, clean, and made sure we all had our clothes out for school the next day.  Then he would leave and ride his bike to his midnight job.  Even though we knew we were supposed to be sleeping, we always stayed up pretty late.  Only because my dad worked the midnight shift at Taco Bell, and we would wait up all night until he walked in the door with left over tacos.  After we ate, we went right to sleep.  Where was my mother , you ask?  Well of course I know you didn't really ask, but I know that's what you guys are wondering. I know right!  You would think my dad was a single parent, because my mother would never do shit.

        My mother has been lazy all our life.  It's like, how can you bring ten kids into the world, and just leave us?!  She was never a mom to any of us.  All she did was sat in her favorite spot on the couch, watching television.  She never really cooked for us, that was left to my dad, until Kanitha and I got old enough, about 8 years old, then it was our job to cook.  She never took us anywhere, she never made us feel pretty.  She never hugged or kissed us, or told us she loved us.  She had five daughters, and didn't teach none of us how to be women.  My sisters and I never learned about our menstrual cycle, never was taught the details about sex, or sexually transmitted diseases, never taught us about early pregnancies, NOTHING!  My mother didn't take us shopping for bras or underwear, I remember my sisters and I having to share undergarments.  She didn't teach us how to love ourselves, or respect our bodies.

        I guess you could classify my mother, as a Blob!  Basically she was, because she rarely moved off the couch, she didn't go out much, she barely spoke to us unless she was yelling, or ordering me and Kanitha to do something.  She never had a voice in our household.  I believed she never wanted one, because it would've taken too much energy from her to even care about anything other than my dad.  In our home, my dad's word was law.  Even if my mother felt as though my dad was wrong in certain situations, she never opposed his word.  Even when my dad would beat us with extreme force, my mother never stopped him.  At least Florida Evans used to stop James every once and a while.  She would just sit on the couch in her favorite spot, and look the other way.

        My father always wanted better for his ten kids.  It seemed as though my mother didn't.  I always thought it was because since she really didn't accomplish much in school, so she didn't want any of her daughters to do better, or be better than what she was.

        My mother came from a family who wasn't rich, but they were well off.  They had nice money.  When my mother graduated from high school, she went to college for a brief minute, where she was an inspired modern dancer.  That was until she messed up her knee.  She could no longer dance, so she dropped out and never went back.  This is hard to say, but this is the only thing that me and my siblings actually know about her life.  Just two sentences.  Who doesn't know anything about their parents, even though we lived in the same house all of our lives.

        I've only seen one picture of my mom when she was younger.  She was maybe about 19 years old.  She was beautiful, she and I looked like twins for real.  Everything from our nose, lips, our hands and long fingernails, the length our hair, and our cocoa brown complexion.  But somewhere along the line, my mother's skin disease took over her whole body in her late tewnties.  She has a bad case of Exzema, which caused her skin to look like a snake, which to me, matches her snake-like personality.  She had a bad habit of eating sweets and major candy, everyday, all day.  Sadly, she lost all of her teeth when she was in her twenties as well.  For years she only had two teeth at the bottom, which were black and rotten, making her resemble a reptile even more.  Finally, she got those two little teeth pulled, then she was left with no teeth at all.  She tried wearing dentures so many times, but they were always too painful for her, so she was happy with her gums instead.

        The Exzema caused her to lose all of her hair.  Her scalp stayed so dry, and she itched constantly.  By her scalp always being dry and flakey, she could no longer grow any hair.  She became bald from then on out.  Everyday my mom would make us stand up behind her with a comb, and scratch her hair for hours.  She didn't care if our legs or hands got tired, she would not let us stop.  After her scalp, we had to move down to her legs.  That's what she considered giving us a break, by letting us sit on the floor and scratch her legs for a couple more hours.  I hated it with a passion!  While all of our friends were outside playing, we would be stuck in the house on a nice summer day, scratching my mother's body all over, like she had poison ivy or something.  If any of us got in trouble for anything, that would be my mother's punishment for us.  When she couldn't find a good enough reason to do it, because maybe we didn't get in trouble that day, she would pick one of us, which was mostly myself.  Me and Kanitha would stand behind her fighting over who was going to do it.  Neither one of us ever wanted to.  Sometimes my mom would make both of do it.  One of us would be scratching her scalp, while the other one was scratching her legs, at the same time, for hours.