The Beginnings (of a circle)

We lived in a nice house, on a large piece of land......no no no let's start at the beginning.

My mother became pregnant with me when she was 17. My father was a drunkard Cherokee, who joined the Marines, and left me and momma. Soon after I was born she met "Greg" who was to be my "first" daddy. Now......

We lived in a nice house, on a large piece of land, on the side of a mountain that I can almost see from my yard now. (You will see later on how odd this really is, the twisted circle that brought me home). Anyway, there was a gate at the end of a long dirt driveway that kept out the cars and people, and kept me and the dogs in. The lot was mostly surrounded by woods, so we had a lot of privacy and I spent the first four years of my life playing naked in the yard, playing cars with the chickens and hopscotch with the foals.

My mom and dad lived there, along with my other mom and my sis. Sis was the daughter of my dad and other mom. (yes, dad had two "wives"). Sis and I shared one room, and dad and the moms shared the other, just like any other family. We had lots of visitors, because daddy gave them some special pink cigarettes that made them feel better, and they all had a safe place to park the motorcycles for a day or two (or three).

There were very rarely fights that broke out among my biker "uncles" but when they did, it was ok, because daddy had taught me how to apply pressure to a gunshot or stab wound until he got there to sew them up. I really learned alot from daddy, how to play chess, how to birth a foal or puppy, how to polish the chrome on a harley, how to roll a joint.........

We had a few cows, and chickens, but mostly we had hogs. Big hogs, MEAN hogs. These hogs were wild boar crosses, they were huge with tusks and brisly hair and a very angry scream that sounded whenever they saw a person. There was a small barn that the hogs stayed in, behind thick boards and stout doors, but sis and I would sneak in from time to time so that we could peer in at the baby pigs. The babies were so small and fuzzy with little spots on their backs, and we could get lost in staring at them. Until the day the biggest, meanest sow caught us peeking thru the bars. She busted thru and chased us around and thru the barn. Fortunately, she was still weak from giving birth and I could out run her, but I screamed and screamed. Momma heard and came running, bringing with her a baseball bat, so I ran and the sow chased me and momma chased the sow, all of us screaming our heads off at one another. It was daddy who saved me though, he grabbed me as I ran by, threw me into an empty stall. Once the sow was caught, he rebuilt the stall correctly. I never went back into that barn again. Sis was fine, she was apparently smarter than I, and beelined it for the house as soon as the sow got out.

We also had horses. They just ran loose in the yard because the whole place was fenced anyway. Momma tells me that the first time I stood, I pulled myself up with a horses tail and walked along behind it, holding that tail as I toddled. I don't really remember that but I do remember watching a horse foal for the first time and being scared when it came out. I saw the fluid sac and thought the foal was deformed. She turned out fine though, and deep red with three white legs and a white slash on her face.

None of the adults had a job: we made our living out of the pigs and the "special plants" that daddy grew in the woods and greenhouse. I never understood what those plants were, but I did get to help harvest them along with some tobacco. We would cut and hang them upside down in bags in the smokehouse so that they could dry. After they were good and dry, we would crumble them, roll some into pretty little pink papers and put some into little plastic bags. Some friends would then take the produce to Georgia to sell off their motorcycles. Of course, daddy would keep some of his produce and him and the momma's would smoke a pink cigarette. When this happened, we were all a VERY happy family.

I love to remember that short time on the mountain. I have so many fond memories of that place. I remember that in the fall, we would slaughter a cow and a couple pigs. Daddy would walk off to select his cow and lead her quietly to the hanging tree and shoot her. He used a truck and wench to raise her into the tree for butchering. The cow would take the whole day, and then the next day came the hogs. I usually hid in the house until the pigs were dead, because sometimes one would scream and I didn't like that at all. But when they were dead, daddy called and I came running to help. We would roll them into a tub of very hot water, then scraped of the hair. After they were clean, they were raised into the hanging tree just like the cow. We kept a plastic swimming pool under the cow and pigs to catch the blood and entrails, and then, when we finished, we drug the pool into the woods for the dogs to feast. We had several dobermans and some redbones. Once a little redbone puppy crawled into the pool and couldn't get out because he was too full and the blood was slippery.

There was one time, shortly after killing time, that I sat at the kitchen table waiting while my other mom fried sausage from one of our hogs. Daddy had just built new pine cabinets in the kitchen and one of them caught fire. I was frightened and unable to move, so once again daddy rushed in to save me. He held me in the yard and rocked me as I coughed and gagged. My throat hurt for days, but daddy was my hero after that.

Daddy used to take me for walks, where he would secretly tell me that I was his favorite. It would make me feel so wonderful, so special, though now I know that he probably did the same thing with Sis. He really was a wonderful and loving daddy, spending lots of time teaching me about the horses and pigs, and playing chess with me. I don't remember much about momma at this point, except that she slept alot and smoked alot of little pink cigarettes.

About every weekend, daddies friends would come. We could hear them coming from miles away and they called themselves the Hell's Angel's. I had lots of fun with these guys! Momma would let me ride the bikes around the yard with them. I developed a close attachment to one named "Mickey Mouse" aka "Mouse" because of the Mickey Mouse tattoo he had. Mouse was at the first birthday party I ever remember having, and his gift to me was a little leather vest that had "Angel" (my name) embroidered on the front and what he called "the colors" on the back. Daddy gave me the young filly that I had watch being born.