Just How Screwed Up Is Your Family: Maurice Broaddus

As always, go here if you’re just joining us, and scroll down to The Beginning of A Nightmare. Then, read and enjoy.

I’m just getting over another bout with Strep Throat. It was a boozy and did its best to knock me out for several days. Luckily the doc shot me up with penicillin and I’m feeling much better. So, with no further ado, I have my first guess post.

This one is from Maurice Broaddus. You may remember him from his thoughtful post about me. And of course, I returned the favor with this bit about him. Well, it seems that great minds…originate from screw balls. His family is delightful…and this is just a taste. This is what he had to say:

me, jon, and another friend are watching tv downstairs. we think my brother is upstairs watching tv. turns out, a girl dumped him and he was drowning his sorrows in alcohol. it also turns out that he underestimated how much he was drinking. he was fresh out the marines and apparently the three empty fifths on the floor were just casualties of war.

anyway, he picks then to have an alcohol fueled flash back to his time in desert storm. me, jon, and our friend run upstairs to see what's wrong. he's raging like mad, tossing furniture around yelling "hector!" (a buddy of his from desert storm).

we vainly try to restrain him.did i mention that he slept nude?picture three guys dangling from one marine trained, naked, black guy.

and then the paramedics show up. we were so proud.


Ah, family. Gotta love ‘em. Even when they’re sad, drunk, naked, and on top of you.

Put Your Hands Together With Me and Pray to God She Won't Be Hopeless

If you're just joining us, start here at the beginning.

The baby cries all the time. Her oldest sister, who’s 13, is constantly holding her, consoling her, mothering her. I had thought I would be taking care of the 5 month old—you know, late night bottle feedings, diaper changes and the like, and in a way I am, but not like I had figured.

Pray-To-Go-She-Won’t-Be-Hopeless is her mother. I mean, she has been mothering this child since day one. She says she sleeps with the baby when they’re at home because the child doesn’t like Fool and would cry anytime she was near him. So she sleeps with the baby every night, even on school nights. I even caught Pray-To-Go-She-Won’t-Be-Hopeless sending the 5 year old up stairs, carrying the baby—hell, the baby was as big as she was. I asked the girl what she was doing with the baby. She looked at me with these eyes that were older than her years and said, “Pray-To-Go-She-Won’t-Be-Hopeless told me to put her to sleep.”

Huh? What in the hell does a 5 year old know about putting a baby to sleep. Hell, a 5 year old IS a baby. I took her from the girl and did it myself.

I tried to take over responsibility of the baby but Pray-To-Go-She-Won’t-Be-Hopeless would not hear of it. When I had fed the child, changed her, and make sure she was ok, I put her down in the kitchen while I cooked. As soon as I sat her down, she started crying. This was nothing new for her, this child cries anytime she’s not being held.

Well, I wasn’t gonna pick her back up. Things had to be done, the other children had to be fed, and the house had to be cleaned. All sorts of things needed to be finished, not to mention I hadn’t written a single word in over a week. So I gave her a toy, and let her cry.

This happens. Sometimes children cry; they need it. And we, as the adults, need the break. Sure it’s annoying sometimes, but you can’t drop everything, including feeding other children, because they’re having a moment.

Well before long Pray-To-Go-She-Won’t-Be-Hopeless rushed to pick up the baby. I tell her not to, that she shouldn’t pick her up every time she makes a noise. She tells my daughter that I’m mean and that I didn’t know how to take care of a baby.

O.K.

At least her mother’s teaching her something.

#

I was with Mrs. Debra the other day, taking her to pay some bills and we were talking. Of course the subject turned to Hopeless, as it always does of late, and her children. It seems that a couple of years back Hopeless and a few of her children were in a car accident. She was paid monies, and they put the rest in an account for the children’s college funds. It was somewhere around five thousand dollars per child—I’m not sure which of the children it was, but I know it was the oldest who was about sixteen at the time, and a few of the others.

Hopeless was not happy with this. I asked my mother in law why she wouldn’t be happy. I mean, I would kill to have money put away for college for my girls. Hell, I’m looking forward to when they are all out of the house and on their own.

Hopeless had said simply, “Those kids ain’t goin’ to college.”

This, I think scares me the most. I’m worried because I think she may be right. But I’m more worried because I think she may be raising another baby making machine in Pray-To-Go-She-Won’t-Be-Hopeless.

#

I have been told that I am not the only person with family drama. Of course I know this, but it's hard to imagine that while I sit here in this house full of children trying to write something that doesn't resemble child abuse. So, help me out here.

Send me your tales of woe. I'll even keep them confidential, if you like. Or you can just post them in the response area of this blog.

Tell me, just how screwed up is YOUR family?

Collect Calling from Prison

Again, if you're just joining us, please go here.

My husband has a nephew in Telfair State Prison. He’s nineteen years old, and is convicted of armed robbery, kidnapping, possession of a fire arm, and other lesser crimes.

He’s been in and out of jail for several years, and every time he’s in there, he calls me collect, and I accept. I can’t help it. I know better, but he’s still just a kid and I thought I could help him.

He had a rocky life—haven’t we all? His mother is a mini celebrity. The state took her baby away and then lost it. I won’t say anymore, but she was on talk shows making the rounds until they paid her a nice lump of money to shut her up.

None of this helped Sorry. Nothing could have, I don’t think.

When Sorry calls, he talks about all kinds of things. Mostly it’s that he shouldn’t be there. Let him tell it, he didn’t do anything—surprise, surprise—and that those “cops, man, set me up.” He claims that even the judge knew it, and so he only sentenced him to seven years instead of twenty. Lucky man.

He calls here about twice a month or so. He tells me about the fights he’s gotten into in there (it seems that there pretty bad people in those prisons), and most recently started taking classes and he will have his GED soon, and start working on a vocation.

I told him that was good, and that I hoped he stuck to it. He said he would.

Frequently he asks me to call his sister three-way so that he can tell her to send him money. Now anyone who has ever received a collect call from jail knows that the first thing the recorded message tells you is that “if you attempt to make a three-way call, or call forwarding it will automatically hang up and you will still be billed for this call.”

Have you heard that message? Oh, come on, I can’t be the only person with family behind bars. OK, I thought so.

But don’t you fret. There is a way around this. As I told you once; if there’s a will, a con will find a way.
It’s strange, but seems that the prison and jailhouse phone listen out for a dial tone, or something making them aware that you have just clicked over. I’m not sure how this works, but I can tell you that I have done it several times.

Once he gives me the number to call, he begins either hitting the receiver rapidly on the wall, or more often (believe it or not) “blowing” into the phone. Hard, as if he’s putting his mouth right up to the holes and trying to blow my ear out right through the phone. Then I click over, and make the call.

It always works. I don’t know why. I don’t know how, but it does. We can continue the phone conversation with the other person, or I can hang up if they’re not at home, and finish talking to him.

The operator, if I remember correctly, also tells you that the “call may be monitored.” I don’t know if this is true, but if it is, then why do they allow it to continue going on. I assume that there is a reason that the phone companies and the state have set it up this way, so I can’t figure out why they don’t do something about it. I mean, word spreads fast in jail: it spreads faster than…shit, I don’t know what, but it spreads pretty fast, I’d guess. So every con in the world must know about this by now. And if the guards have monitored one call where it’s happened, then they must know it too.

I don’t know, maybe they figure that there are other things bigger and more important in a prison than a couple of cons calling their mothers and their girlfriends at the same time. I guess I would too.

#

By the way, I received a call the other night. It was from Idiot, calling collect—from JAIL. I didn’t accept.

Cottage Cheese and Small Countries

Takes a LOT to feed 4 extra mouths. Food, milk and diapers…food, milk and diapers and bottles…food, milk and diapers and bottles and money. Oh, and did I mention milk. And diapers. And MONEY. The baby drinks formula that cost almost 4 bucks a can. One can last for ONE day, maybe. So, she drinks at least 30 cans a month. Just in case there are some math rejects out there, that’s 120 dollars a month.

The first night the children came home with us, I went shopping. I got bottles, nipples, diapers, several changes of clothes for the baby (we left everything at the house with Fool), and food. They would be staying with me during the days (while other children were in school—I didn’t know then how normal it was for them to miss school), so I had to buy breakfast, lunch and snacks for them as well.

I spent over a 100 dollars.

The children eat. A lot. The police officer had told me the oldest girl had said that sometimes they get hungry during the days, but I never considered it was because they were capable of devouring the equivalent of a small country’s rations per day. Now I know.

After a week, Fool called the oldest girl (lets call her Pray-To-God-She-Won’t-Be-Hopeless). He told her that he had gone home to his mother, and that he was damn mad that he couldn’t get to work, and asked if she knew where the “God-damn van was because he was just gonna do something really, really bad if he didn’t find it.” Aren’t ya just trembling in your boots now? Yeah, I was too.

Pray-To-God-She-Won’t-Be-Hopeless handed me the phone.

“I ain’t been to work in days, and I want that damn van right now.”

“I thought you’d quit that job.” I took a gamble. The boys had told me this and I wasn’t quite sure it was true, but then too, I wasn’t dealing with the sharpest knife in the drawer either. In fact, if he had been a knife, he probably would have been equipped to cut cottage cheese. Maybe.

“Oh…I got another one two days ago, I told that damn Pray-To-God-She-Won’t-Be-Hopeless that already, shit. I need that damn van. Jerome gets to work; see that’s what I need to be doing right there. You know what I mean? I take care of my kids. Don’t no body take care of them kids but me, and I got to GET TO WORK TO DO IT.”

Talking to this man was like getting kicked in the head with a steal-bunny-slipper, if ya know what I mean. “Well, since you take care of them. The baby needs some more milk and diapers.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. I take care of my kids. I gotta wait for the next bus. It comes in like 20 minutes and I’ll bring some, ‘cause I take care of them kids. Ya know? Them kids don’t want for nothing. What size diapers does she wear? Ok, ok, yeah, like a medium or something?” I told him no, a size 4. “Yeah, yeah, a 4, I remember. I get them all the time. I’ll be right there.”

Yeah, right. I didn’t hold my breath. I also didn’t care that if he actually managed to show up, he would have seen the van in the driveway.

We’re still waiting.

I went shopping again. I got milk and diapers and food, and more food.

Enough to feed a small country.