My last story, I moved out of the house when I was 20.
You would think that I'd have 20 years of memories stored up, but as my cousin's psychiatrist told her, because of the abuse we suffered, she and I both have huge gaps in our memories.
Some things have stayed with me—other things I've forgotten.
OK, so my grandmother died when I was a senior in high school. I was 18; my cousin was 15.
My uncle had custody of him at this time; his mother was gone—our other cousin moved out of state.
My uncle and my mom worked; I was expected to clean the house, cook supper, and make sure my cousin stayed at home and out of trouble.
My cousin today probably would be diagnosed with ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder—back then he was just labeled a troublemaker.
Now why the heck they thought little old me could control this big teen boy with anger problems? I have no ideal, but they did.
So we come home from school, he disappears to who knows where, and I start cooking supper because it was expected that it had to be on the table when they came home from work.
Cousin comes in the door with what looks like a big Bible; he says it's the Satanic Bible.
He says, “Hey, look at what I can do.”
So he starts pacing up and down the hallway and chanting some gibberish, pace-chant-pace-chant.
All of a sudden, all hell breaks loose.
The windows start opening and shutting, every door in the place starts opening and shutting; it was like a giant wind went roaring through the house.
Chicken shit hauls ass out of the house, but here I am with frying meat on the stove.
The basement doors slam open, and I'm in front of the blooming thing. Heavy footsteps and a rattling chain start coming up those steps, and I said to hell with this, the house can burn down. I took off.
I ran next door and got my great aunt.
We walk in the house; it looks like a tornado had gone through, but it was calm again, so we cleaned up, finished cooking, and not a word was said from either of us.
ignore, ignore, ignore
Surprisingly, after that little wave of activity, the house wasn't any more active than usual—the doors and windows stayed closed, and the thing in the basement stayed in the basement anyway.
