God Listens ~ Sometimes

One moment I am so sick I can barely breath much less interact with life and I fight everyday to find food and companionship. The next moment I am rescued from my tenuous existence by my mother whom I had been told was dead. My next memory in line finds me standing in a J.C. Penny's store being fitted for a coat then I sleep and then like magic, I am standing in the most beautiful little trailer home I have ever seen. I feel as if I have awakened from a bad dream. My mother is beaming as she looks at me and she is talking so fast that I have trouble following what she is saying. It slowly dawns on me that I am standing, once again, in a place that people are referring to as "home". I am home. I am home in Columbus Mississippi and I have my own bedroom and that bedroom is clean.

(http://mobilehomeliving.org/10-great-manufactured-home-floor-plans/)

God did indeed answer my prayers. While living in Arizona I must have worn God's left ear off with all the prayers I sent him begging him to rescue me and my brothers from hunger and the cruelties of people. One night in Arizona, just a short time before my mom showed up,  I prayed especially hard after my father made me go with him to his most recent girlfriend's house for dinner. I felt like a doll on display the way my dad talked to his friend about me and as she listened to him she fussed with my stringy hair. This woman talked at me, not to me. She went on and on about how she would cut my hair and scrub my face and buy me lacy dresses and nice shoes. I listened intently, not moving, barely breathing, trying to disappear but obeying the commands that I sit still and not get up. As I sat in my assigned seat my father's lady friend decided to stop touching me and began to cook hamburgers for our dinner. I was stiff as I listened to her voice. She had the voice of an agitated goat as she brayed and brayed about her cooking abilities. I was afraid to say anything about the pending meal because I hated hamburger, even in the pains of hunger, it took every ounce of strength in me to chew up and swallow hamburger.  I did not like hamburger because it always had gristle in it and gristle did not feel good in my mouth. The lady eventually placed a piece of cooked, ground beef on a plate in front of me and I got a good smell of her alcohol laced breath. I then realized that this is where my father must have been staying lately. He loved to stay for long periods of time with his drinking buddies and this woman cooking hamburger was most definitely one of his drinking buddies. I felt like a trapped bird. I did not know what to do.

(Image from Google, no credit given)

As I sat almost stock still, looking at the disgusting hamburger in front of me I saw a motion outside the window next to the chair I was sitting in. Outside, I could see the younger of my brothers, waving his hands about wildly! I put my face to the window as he did and he pointed at the hamburger. I knew what he wanted, I knew he was hungry. I turned to my father as my brother ducked below view. I asked if we could take some food home to my brothers and my father snapped at me that I was being ungrateful toward his friend who cooked a burger just for me and that she did not have enough food to feed everyone. My dad then assured me that my brothers could fend for themselves. "After all", my father exclaimed with pride, "I taught you all jungle survival so you can make a meal out of anything."  He spoke the truth.  When my father and his friend began to smooch between their drinks making disgusting noises, I turned to the window again and saw my brother had made a little sign that said, "please, I am hungry".  My heart became heavy and I slipped my burger into a napkin and wearing my invisible cloak, I walked ever so slowly toward the door. As I was about to open the door and leave, a hand reached above me, holding the door shut. I looked up into the face of a a drunk woman whose sneer made her red lipsticked lips look like twisted up carnival taffy. She ripped the meat from my hands as my father produced a pair of panties he claimed were mine and shoved them under my nose carrying me by one arm across the room. I was grilled as to why there was blood in my underwear. I had no idea what was being said or why because I was not aware of blood in my panties! I was dizzy with thinking of why my under ware were at this woman's house, why were my under ware under my nose, why was I being yelled at? I suddenly realized that the reason I was even at this lady's house was solely for the purpose of rubbing my under ware in my face.

(Photo by Maryanne Mesplé)

I had no answer to offer about my clothing. I was grilled by my father and a strange woman over and over. Their slurred words of, "why? why? why?!!" smelled of stale beer and cigarette butts. I wanted to run but I had no energy to do so.  I was accused of messing my pants and then with a slap across my face by the woman, I was shoved out the door. Before the door slammed I could hear my father's smirkish words telling me to go home and bath because I was an embarrassing dirty little girl.
I stood outside the torture chamber in a daze. My brother walked up to me and hugged me and together he and I walked home. Neither of us ate dinner that evening. As I grew older, I could imagine why my under ware were soiled the way they were and the explanation is just too much to think about. That night,  when I crawled into my never made bed, I recall almost yelling at God. I raised my voice to a respectable level of intensity and pleaded with God to please send his angels to rescue us!  Atop of my begging pleas I made a million promises that I believed would seal the deal. I prayed and prayed and prayed. It must have been my prayers from that night that got God's attention and God got my mom's attention, and my mom began a search for me and my brothers until she found us - I imagined that that was how God worked and that was how God helped my mom find me.  I was convinced, that God did indeed listen but only if you were super motivated and you prayed super hard while making a million promises of obedience. Plus God expected 100% sincerity which being scared guarantees.

(Poverty Praying Child, image from Pinterest, link to Flicker did not work)

God answered my prayers by sending my mom plus by making Mississippi our new home. I did not miss my father. I did not let myself think of him. I lived in the moment and the moments in my life were filled with amazing wonderful things and events! I eased into having planned meals without difficulty and loved every savory bite served on my plate. I discovered that the strange tall man that had been with my mom to rescue us in his brand new car was my mom's new husband. My mom was no longer a Hughes, she was now a Finley. My mom went by Ellie Finley, no more Eleanor. James a.k.a. Jim I was told was my new dad, my new step-dad. I have never figured out why we refer to our  replacement parents as "step" parents but back then, in Mississippi, that thought did not keep me awake at night. In fact, my nights were filled with wonder instead of metal buttons on an old smelly mattress. I learned quickly that Jim was a fabulous cook! My new step father ran the cafeteria at Columbus Air Force Base and he always brought home sweet goodies that were left over after all the service people were fed. We ate chicken and roast and goulash and mac and cheese! We feasted on grits and eggs and bacon and hot dogs and cakes too! We even went to restaurants on occasion and right next to where my new trailer home was parked, was a motel/restaurant/gas station where my mom and Aunt T worked. I had not had the privilege of eating a grilled cheese sandwich at a restaurant counter since leaving the 331 Roadhouse. I began to believe that God was going to forgive me after all and I was excited to be alive again.


Heaven. Columbus Mississippi was Heaven.


(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

Arizona Misfits

I never noticed the word dysfunctional ascribed to people until the early 1980s. Before the 1980's, the most derogative word I remember hearing to define people and their families was the word misfits. The expression misfits described people who did not fit into society's neat little wrapper. Societal misfits, like my family, paraded around uncaring of the family being populated with oddballs, eccentrics, weirdos, lost souls, and losers. I was a misfit for certain and a wild one at that! In retrospect I clearly see I exemplified the word misfit blindly as I tried desperately to be invisible. I feel, no, I know, we Hughes'  helped the field of psychology define what a dysfunctional family was for we certainly did not live the life of  Ward and June Cleaver. As a small person, my view of life was, well,  life was just life. Everyone did what was needed to get by day to day, at least I think they did. Some people sustained themselves by having big houses and big cars and wearing clean clothes - color coordinated clothes. Some people simply existed in tiny apartments decorated in filth, scarcely eating, running gauntlets of mockery, and barely breathing out of fear of being noticed - that was me. I simply existed sans any accouterments other than a few pieces of clothing, my body, and my wild imagination that helped me prevail against my environment.

(Image of The Cleaver's enjoy family time at breakfast ~ the perfect family)

My decaying family life fit nicely into a rut christened as poverty and abandonment, two words that hold more meaning than their letters can convey and we Hughes' surfed the bottom of poverty's barrel. I can still hear and still feel judging words voiced by self-righteous souls around me at school, and in town. The spoken knives of people hit hard and penetrated my heart leaving critical emotional wounds, wounds I would not fully recognize nor begin to heal until much later in my adult life. As a child, I learned quickly how to deflect the appearance of emotional emptiness by pretending to not care about what people said. When I felt scared inside by what was happening in my surroundings I could seemingly disappear in an instant knowing it was safer to be undetected - the danger came when I was the center of attention. I had my own special brand of misfit existence and I was motivated by curiosity and hunger.  I was motivated by life into developing my creativity into ways of getting what I felt I needed or wanted. I became a great problem solver quickly, and the fact that I was under the age of ten meant I was a good study of life and of people. I was adept in figuring things out - like how to deal with the lecherous gropings of certain Florence AZ males and how to get invited to dinner and how to ride that forbidden horse and how to get dance lessons and learn to play the piano. All the things I wanted to do were offered for free, or I just invited myself to places where I could experience what I wanted. No money? No problem. No parent? No problem. By the age of 8 I was a very successful manipulator. 

Even with all the entertainment and challenges life provided me with during the day, most of my nights were spent face down in a mattress trying to muffle my deep, heart felt sobs of inconsolable emotional pain. I can still smell the age of the mattress I slept upon as it always was exposed because the sheets never stayed in place. I recall the feel of my finger tip outlining a button holding the mattress ticking down. I would trace the button's surface over and over feeling the button's metal body with thread piercing it and that repetitive act would often put me into a trance of numbed contemplation. I remember my thoughts back then as if they were my thoughts today. I do. I can recall how in the dark of night, imagery zipping across the panoramic screen in my mind. My mental theater reviewed memories of my mom and a life I no longer had. The memories of my mom taunted me with nurturing, motherly hugs cemented into place with bright red lips kissing my cheeks. My intangible ghost of my mother's memory left me feeling empty and emotionally pale as I recalled her leaving me behind in the care of my father - again. Eventually my salty silent heartaches would lubricate my mind enough to allow my heart to slip from a fretful state of scary wakefulness into deep sleep. Slumber gave me peace and I could escape the monsters that populated my little girl life. Sleep was a safe haven. Then, the sun would rise once again brining with it a new day for me up to face, for me to manipulate, and for me to survive. 

( The eyes of Maryanne Hughes Mesple as a child in AZ) 

Each morning I opened my eyes I rediscovered my dysfunctional world was real and sleep would reluctantly dissolve, taking with it dreams of places I could not remember. Eyes open, I'd get out of bed with feet falling uncomfortably into my predictable grooves of life. My routine of surviving my harsh, loveless, exciting, fun filled, hunger pained life, would find me prancing my way into the bathroom like a wild black stallion.  I admired my human horsy form in a foggy mirror while attempting to drag a comb through my unruly feral mane. I announced my wildness to the world with snorts and flips of my hair forward and back, side to side followed by whinnying long neighing sounds! My bathroom antics included hovering over a toilet instead of fully sitting down out of fear that a cockroach would jump on me. Cockroaches were always at the ready to terrorize me when I was alone. My horse entity would often turn into a plane coming in for a landing, a sound I was all too familiar with and a sound I would mimic as I worked hard, grunting red faced, at dismissing my body of used up food stuff. Seems I always was trying to relieve myself and seems everything I ate was was reluctant to leave my frame. The fact that I rarely drank plain water did not help my body's plight. Pretending I was a humongous black stallion or an airplane overshadowed the truth - I was a skinny malnourished ugly duckling girl. I had no clue as to who or what I truly was other than being a scrap of flesh.  Those who may have been outside the bathroom door way back then, would hear the sounds of airplanes and wild horses competing for space and all the while it was my spirit playing in a safe place preparing to take on a new day. I would leave the bathroom imagining I was atop a wild black stallion and I would literally run into my day.

(image from the move The Black Stallion)

While living in Florence Arizona, getting dressed in the mornings for school or play was the same as it had been in Texas. My clothing options were limited. I had an old Brownie dress from the time I believed I could be a Brownie and someone believed in me enough to buy me the uniform. I loved that Brownie dress so much I know I wore it almost everyday. I also had a few other little dresses that were very plain, a pair of shorts, a little blouse and some hand me down socks and a few panties. My socks never stayed up around my ankles, all my socks eventually slipped down off my heels and became crumpled inside my shoes so I chose to go sock free most days. The rubber sole of my shoes was a yellowish colored rubber with bumps for traction and I would often lay on my stomach on the ground, with a sneaker in hand picking out stickers and small pebbles that penetrated the rubber making my shoes not very pleasant to wear. I was laughed at and teased on more than one occasion and eventually I learned to ignore the teasing in the moment and take that pain with me someplace private later in the day. Then, once alone I would announce at the top of my lungs what I was going to do one day when I was bigger and then cry really hard to make sure I did not forget. 

My school classroom was populated with the typical elementary school tables with little chairs that were fun to scoot forward making scraping sounds on the tile flooring. Construction paper cut into shapes of trees and clouds and animals decorated the rooms horizontal space while ABC's trimmed the top of the room's walls. A large chalk board demanded attention as did the maps of the world. The teacher's desk was a beautiful majestic icon of rulership and I felt small and insignificant when called to the teacher's desk for a one on one conversation. During my school days in the small elementary school in Florence, I often lost my attention for what the teacher was teaching and instead would be listening to the outside world filled with birds and clouds and the whispers of desert breezes. The world was always having a conversation right outside the windows where I sat and my  intentional eavesdropping would be abruptly ended by the teacher asking me to repeat what she had just said. I don't remember ever being successful in recounting what the teacher talked about, but I could describe the texture of the clouds and the sounds of birds gossiping about each other. I felt safe at school. I felt useful and needed and protected. I loved school.

Most days, I did not have money to buy a lunch ticket, so I would sit with other kids of my class waiting to be offered the remains of their uneaten lunches, and I was not the only child that would show up without lunch. At least I had fellow peers who knew hunger as I did.  I am positive the school staff noticed, but if anyone did anything about my situation or the situation of other hungry, unkempt children I don't recall anything being done about our plight. I was always thrilled on the days I was successful in discovering change my father had forgotten in his bedroom on his rare visits home. Those days, when I was rich with a quarter or two I would buy school lunch and savor every little bite! After lunch, there was always recess and I would find my special friend as quickly as possible. My one and only friend and I played beneath Pepper and Evergreen trees that were living in dirt so fine it felt like silk to the touch. My friend and I would make pine needle rooms in our houses and pretend life was good and life was good at school and while with my friend. I cherish those memories and I can still feel the fullness of my heart during those moments, those special moments when life was mine to create as I wanted. After school my friend and I attended catechism just like all the other kids who were of the Catholic faith. I was born into Catholicism and Catholicism was my assurance that somewhere up in the big sky above me I was loved.  On the way to catechism we literally would run all the way to a little store that was on the roadway to where our catechism classes were. We would run into the store and speedily buy a Sugar Daddy candy bar or Sugar Babies only to save them for the walk home. My friend would always buy me a candy bar and for that I will always be so grateful. On the way home, after catechism I would always stop at my God Parent's home and visit their old dapple gray mare and share my candy with her, but that is another story for a different time. 

I loved catechism because I learned about God. I learned God did indeed love me and He had rules. School had rules. Home did not have rules. I liked rules. Rules gave me something to think about, something to achieve, rules gave me a certainty that one day all would be okay and rules made me aware that the other parts of my life were missing something. I was absolutely sure all I needed to do was follow the rules, get an A in catechism and in my regular school, and get A's in the school of earth. I had to get A's so I could go to Heaven. Only in Heaven could I have a chance to be saved. I was deathly afraid of the alternative to Heaven!  While in the catechism classroom I felt protected and loved while at the same time I felt wicked and guilty for sins I was born with. I became aware that even my thoughts were sins! My sinful heart plagued me as I tried my best to be the perfect child for God. I loved God. I feared God. At the age of 8 I already knew I had failed God in so many ways. I failed God and therefore must suffer God's punishment -  so said the nuns, so said the priest. I learned I could pray to Jesus's mom, Mother Mary, and that I could ask her to intervene for me by talking to her son and God. With Mary's assistance, maybe I would receive forgiveness for my sins?  I was not sure what all my sins were but apparently God knew and the priest knew. I convinced myself I was living a life solely for the purpose of repenting my sins. I was petrified of wicked black mortal sins and worried about venial sins. If I slipped up and inadvertently committed a mortal sin then there was no saving my soul, it would mean I would go directly to Hell, and not even get a chance to rectify what I had done wrong. If I committed venial sins, as least I could be remorseful and try to be better, try to not be a semi-bad person. I hoped and prayed my prayers would save my sinful soul. Every night I would read my catechism book over and over in an effort to memorize all my prayers. There was always the certainty that I would be called upon in catechism and if I did not know The Act of Contrition or the Hail Mary or the Apostle's Creed, I would suffer the wrath of the nuns and and eventually God! I recited all my prayers over and over burning them into my forever memory. To this day, I can close my eyes and feel the texture of my red catechism book, silky soft from constant use. I can visualize the words telling me about prayer and the importance of confession and penance. I can see the priest, the church, the nuns, my little rosary, my scapula, and I can feel how my heart beat like that of a frightened bird when I thought of God's anger with me. I was taught the meaning of the cross which was a strong visual statement of God's son dying for my sins. I could not understand why Jesus had to be nailed to a cross forever because of people being bad. I constantly dissected my every thought, believing that I was the one person keeping Jesus nailed on that horrid cross and even believed that I somehow was the cause of my mom dying. Seeing Jesus nailed to a cross with blood dripping from wounds creeped me out and scared me so much that I avoided looking at him. I could not stand to see Jesus hanging there, center stage, above the altar - and I swear Jesus was always looking at me instead of looking up toward his father in heaven!

When I could not distract myself with games and school work and memorizing prayers, my misfit, dysfunctional, underdeveloped mind would chew on thoughts of my mom. I would gaze off inside myself trying to imagine my mom in a coffin - dead. There had been no funeral or weeping by my dad or brothers as proof of her demise. The only proof of her passing was my father’s words to me telling me so, and the undeniably painful fact that she had never returned to rescue me as she promised. My father's insistency that my mom was dead convinced me God was a mean loving God, very similar to the people in my life, and I needed to dodge his wrath by being perfect.  I will never forget the last day I saw my mom. Mom and I were standing on the sidewalk in Lubbock Texas at a bus stop waiting for a bus to take us away. My mother was dressed in a gray suit with her black and white heels on. Her finger nails were painted red and white, her trademark, and her lips were fire engine red. My mom always wore her hair up in a french twist and she smelled of fresh hairspray. I was dressed in something obviously but I have no recall of whether I was in a dress or shorts, my only memory of how I looked that day was my hair was cut in a very short pixie and I was missing a front tooth. My father walked toward us, slowly, with a cockiness to his strut. My dad was dressed in his Air Force blues and his shoes were so shiny they were like black mirrors. Upon my dad's reaching the sidewalk where my mom and I stood, he pried my little hand from her hand, and took me away from my mother - again. I cried. My mom stood silent, boarded the bus and I watched her leave through tears of confusion. After that day, I had a hard time remembering my mom's eyes, all I could conjure up was her red lips and her big loving arms. I sobbed to myself a lot but never in front of people because I had no words to express the pain I held inside my little body.  I missed my mother immensely and never spoke of her to anyone. Eventually, my thoughts lessened and my mother's memory only visited me on the edge of time between being awake and falling sleep, as I traced my finger around metal buttons on an old dirty mattress. I would entertain those moments briefly and then I would quickly and reluctantly kill my mom's fading memory again and again so I could sleep and awaken to a new day of survival and play the misfit way.

(Eleanor, my mother)

to be continued ....

(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

Welcome to Arizona

The variation between chapters in my childhood is my age and demographics. The central story line of my adolescence remained pretty much the same - neglect, abuse, hunger, creativity, adventure and fun. When I summon my memories, those memories flood my mind like a tempestuous storm that flips through the pages of my life with magnifying recall. Each memory spins like a tornado in slow motion transporting me from one state to another and from one town to another. My senses grabbed at and recorded everything tangible and non tangible, and the winds of change provided me with important information I used to navigate the unknown. My memory is liken to a steamer trunk, impossible to hide so I unpack it, one item at a time in the hopes one day I will reduce it down to a small carry-on. This new unpacked chapter in my life screamed, "Welcome to Arizona!", and assured me the plot to my life's legend would continue without change. Florence Arizona provided me with more eclectic experiences to recall and more goodies for my steamer trunk. 

My recollection of the drive between Texas and Arizona is filed away in my memory files under the tab BORING.  One moment I am in Lubbock crying about dolls that come alive at night specifically to bite little girls and the next moment I am in Florence Arizona. Florence is a small small town in the Sonoran desert. Although the population of humans living in Florence in the early 60s was sparse, some of those humans were family and I learned that even in Florence the word family did not mean much at times.This new episode in life dropped me in front of an adobe structure that I was told would be my home. A different look to the old standard cockroach motel.  My senses gobbled up the appearance and smells of this new island in life named, The Brown Apartments. The Brown Apartments were literally brown and I could taste and smell the brown dust and sand embracing the front door delivering a new flavor of welcome home.  Within the door's frame was a rickety screen slammer that would soon wham and bounce a thousand times as I ran into and out of the adobe shell. The screen on our door was stretched out from too many faces leaning into the partition trying to get a look left and right without opening the door. In addition to the screen being misshapen and lax, several holes in the wire mesh formed gnarly sharp finger traps for curious kids like myself. The dysfunctional screen matched our family's decor perfectly.

(The Brown Apartments image courtesy Google Maps.)

The Brown Apartment's outer and inner framework in the 60's was neglected and looked nothing like the picture above showing how those same apartments look today. The stiff mud shack was boringly uninviting with its flat roof and several doors offering different holes called homes. Each weather beaten portal opened to a living space revealing differing levels of poverty. The apartment offered a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom and two bedrooms. Two bedrooms for five children and two adults was not uncommon for the era nor for the economic standing called flat broke. I did not care about sleeping with other kids. As long as there was a spot for my body to curl into a ball,I could sleep between pushes and kicks from restless feet and bad breath was escaped by burying one's face into the crook of an elbow. I can still feel the texture of the bed's mattress with its blue stripes, white metal buttons, and lump producing springs. Many nights were spent, trying to pop off buttons that my nose or cheek would find because the bedsheets no longer covered the mattress due to the churning of fidgety, sleeping bodies.

(google image no credit given) 

The kitchen had its place in the back of the apartment showing off empty shelves and cockroach nests. Along the rear wall was a door like an escape hatch that exited into a large fenced yard. Wonderful sandy silken dirt dusted the entire backyard which showcased a communal wringer washer with a saggy clothes line companion. That wringer washer and I had several painful encounters! More than once did I dare and tempt fate by teasingly putting my finger tips into the rolling wringer. Once the rolling cylinders gripped my fingers I belted out screams of agony under the force and pull of the wringer as those turning savages squished the heck and blood out of my hands! Fortunate for my fingers and palms, I was rescued before my skin was ripped form my dainty little hand bones. I eventually lost my fascination for the washer's wringer mechanism and went on to challenge life elsewhere.

The Brown Apartments gifted me with another very flavorful memory of a bathroom. My first bathroom recall was a humiliating experience with clothing that I would rather live through twice over than what unraveled in The Brown Apartment's so called shower. 

(Janet Leigh, shower scene from the movie, Psycho, 1960)

The first day at our residence I was told to "go clean up" which meant getting wet in a shower and actually using a bar of Lifebuoy soap. I go into the bathroom, strip off my clothing and kick it aside like shed skin. I step into the pitted and chipped cement shower stall and twist the crusty water knobs in unison to the on position and - nothing. The pipes burp and groan a bit and I begin twisting the knobs left and right, repeat,  left and right, expecting water to flow and still - nothing. No water. Now the pipe like protuberance has my full attention as my upward gaze is intently riveted on the water spout which is void of a shower head. My curiosity was laced with an expanding imagination and anticipation as I rapidly created a variety of stories about burping, strange, arid water pipes. I stood with my face directly beneath the spout, my eyes wide with expectancy, and mouth gapped open when suddenly  a huge cockroach jumps out of the pipe onto my face!!! My screams failed to reach any hero's ears! There was no rescuing me from the monster cockroach that I know with certainty had huge fangs and piercing claws and most likely wanted to take me home to feed her kids! That hard shelled nasty creature inspired me to dance atop hot coals of being creeped out as I slapped my body violently in unison with the shaking of my hair wildly!  As I beat that carnivourous bug off my naked body I transported my tiny carcass out of the shower stall landing onto my shed skin of inside out clothing!  The heebie-jeebies continued crawling on my skin as I wet my face and hair in the sink so could leave the bug hole with the look of being wet.  I did not venture back into that room until the rest of the family cleared the water pipes of all the cockroaches. I still shudder when thinking of this experience!

Time was always irrelevant to me. My clock had four settings, day and night and hot and cold. Today was today. Tomorrow was a fantasy. Yesterday was filed away and entered into my mental log. One day I am living with a house full of people and the next day three of those people are gone. I can't say when my father's Lubbock Texas wife and her children fled Arizona, but they did so life snapped back to being just four Hughes' again. We were Bill Hughes, Billy Hughes, Moe Hughes, and Mary Hughes. I learned I was a Hughes in Lubbock in a very impressive way, so now in Florence I got a kick out of calling myself a Hughes and spelling it for people.  The elder Hughes worked for the Arizona Department of Corrections also referred to as the state prison. The elder Hughes, my dad, continued to drink away his paychecks; some things in life never change. In Florence my dad spent a lot of his semi conscious time in the local bars and taverns or at another drunk's house. By the grace of the graces my dad seemed to manage getting himself to work, but found it to be a challenge to come home. As in the other episodes of my life while living with my father, the three of us kids were very creative and resourceful in caring for ourselves. We had to be overly creative for our lives were void of any parenting. In looking back I can't say what was more traumatizing: living with my parent's constant bickering and arguing and plate throwing and baseball bat threats and screams and angry tears, or,  living a life void of parental nurturing and demonstrated love. My non attentive father made sure Florence was another class room  and he was a grand teacher.  But I diverge! So, my oldest brother spent most his time with his high school friends and with some of our cousins. My next to oldest brother spent his time hanging with his friends too and seemed to always be in trouble. I spent my time either alone with my imagination or with one friend, Vangie. 

I absolutely worshiped and looked up too Vangie for she was truly my first ever friend. I thought Vangie was super lucky because her parents owned a restaurant on Main Street in Florence, AZ. Once in a while Ms Vangie would invite me into the delicious smelling café that her mother used to delight the senses of hungry townspeople and town visitors.

Mrs. Marisacal, Vangie's mom, fixed authentic Sonoran Desert Mexican foods, and I was ever so appreciative for soft juicy tacos. I would pick up the rolled, soft corn tortilla dripping meaty juices and in one bite, stuff the entire taco into my watering mouth.  I must have looked like a hairless, overgrown chipmunk! 

(http://ncschoolipm.blogspot.com/2011/10/insect-of-week-antlion.html)

My best friend Vangie and I loved playing with Mother Nature's fixins'. We dug up doodlebugs with our bare hands, collecting the bugs in any vessel provided by the desert landscape.  We could entertain ourselves in the light of the Sonoran Desert sun for hours conducting Doodlebug races. Doodlebugs are Antlions and are super ugly, harmless, larva. With our  bugs in hand, we would smooth over the silken sands then on the count of 3 release our racers to do what they do best - creating new pits to capture ants for their meals! The winner was in possession of the bugs that made new pits first instead of doodling away their time going in circles! Fun indeed! Along with capturing and racing our doodlebugs Vangie and I would explore the under layer of the desert that never disappointed our imaginations. Vangi and I would on occasion wander over to the Florence graveyard and scare ourselves, and we would cool our bodies beneath pepper trees, and chew mesquite seed pods, and gladden make believe worlds populated with beautiful flying creatures. Vangie told me that one day she would be a nurse, and I told tell her one day I was going to be a horse! I mean if you are going to become something other than a child you might as well make that something spectacular! When in AZ I had no clue as to what being grown-up meant, much less what I would do as an adult. My focus was on play, and surviving until the next day not on thinking about an uncertain future.

When night crept across the landscape, taking away the light of day, my imagination ran wild toward the scary side of darkness. I did not like dolls anymore and so I did not have any fake human to comfort me anywhere in the apartment or in bed. On one of my adventures with Vangie she told me about the monster demon that hid in the velvet black of night and its favorite place to find its victims was at the Court House, on the lawns. She explained how that demon laid in wait for unsuspecting souls accidentally trespassing into the demon's realm and that demon would gobble them up! The court house demon had gnashing teeth that dripped sticky soul catching drool and that demon howled a howl that could paralyze one's body.  That Court House, where the demon hunted, was conveniently across the street from my home. I recall one evening sitting in the living room staring out the barely screened door and I was convinced I was seeing a hideous creature peering back at me through the gnarly sharp holes in the screen. I froze. I did not move, not even a twitch. I knew in my gut if I so much as took a breath, the demon monster cloaked in the dark of night would suck my body through those little holes in the screen and steal my soul! Obviously I was successful in avoiding that soul sucking goblin of the imagination - I think?  Aside from the fear of ghostly apparitions I began to miss my mother fearing I would never see her again. Both those fearful emotions fed off one another, missing my mother and fearing a monster required rescue. I recall crying myself to sleep as I would talk to the angels asking the angelic keepers of prayer to deliver me to my mom. I wanted to feel her hugs and kisses, even though her abandonment of me hurt, I still loved her and still needed her. One day I asked my dad why mommy was not with us, why did she not come back to us like she did in Texas? My loving, caring father, told me my mom had died. My mom dead? That sealed the deal on my already waning ability to share emotions in a healthy manor; I withdrew into a shell that took me half a lifetime to crack. 

to be continued ….. 

(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé)