The day after my trailer caught on fire, my cousin Angela and her friend Kelly came to pick me up. We loaded my meager belongings into the trunk of Kelly's car, and I left without telling anyone goodbye. As we drove away, Angela turned and spoke to me.
"I'm so glad you're finally moving out of this shithole and moving in with me."
"Your mom knows I'm coming right? She said it was okay that I'm moving in?" Angela had a history of acting first, and clearing it with her mom later. It usually resulted in a screaming match.
"Dude, she's been telling you that you could move in with us since you were 12. She thinks having you live with us is gonna make me care about school or some stupid shit. Besides, my mom's fucking crazy. I can do whatever I want."
When we got to the house, Aunt Barbara was in her "office", which was actually a room with an ancient computer, and every piece of paper that Aunt Barbara had ever seen. When she died, they threw away forty lawn and leaf bags full of love notes (other people's), recipes, newspaper clippings, yellowed grocery lists, spiral notebooks, old homework and receipts.
"Oh Rebel, I didn't know that you were coming to visit. That's nice."
"Actually, Mom, Rebel is finally moving in like you've always wanted her to."
"What? She can't live here! Where will she sleep? We don't have enough to feed her! Your sister and her baby are already living here! No! No! No!Why can't her momma take care of her?"
"Mom, shut the fuck up. Rebel, you can bring your stuff into my room."
So I moved in with them. Angela's older sister, Belinda, and her toddler lived in the back room. Belinda was a recent convert to the Pentacostal church, on account of her feeling guilty about smoking while she was pregnant, and the baby's daddy bein' a unrepentant dope fiend, and speaking in tongues made her feel better about the affair. Angela had the middle bedroom, and I was crammed into an oversized walk-in closet (with no door). Aunt Barbara had a bedroom, but she used it as a storage room, and slept on the couch to prevent us from sneaking out.
Aunt Barbara was mentally insane. When she cleaned house, she wore underwear on her head, and tried to make us do the same.
"Girls, just try it. It keeps your hair out of your face, and the elastic band keeps it from slipping off your head."
"Mom, I am not putting underwear on my fucking head."
She would wake everyone in the house up at 5 am to tell us there was fresh bread on top of the fridge. One morning, after a party, my friends and I were asleep in her bed. She burst into the room and insisted that we wake up.
"Girls! I've got good news," she sing-songed. "We have toilet paper. It's under the bathroom sink."
Aunt Barbara took advantage of the fact that I was at her mercy as an unwanted tenant (with nowhere else to go), and devised different ways to torture me. She would trap me in the garden for hours, hoeing, while she explained from her lawn chair that it was wonderful to watch me work. She made me scrub the stains out of the ancient carpet with a nylon brush and a bowl of soapy water. The only reason I didn't smother her is that she always shared her pot with us, and she let our friends get drunk at the house.
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