Children in the Closet - Chapter Twelve

 Chapter Twelve

The summer of 1963 was terrible for my sisters and brother. After I left home there was no one to take care of them. Lloydine was the oldest at 11, Lanita was 9 and Lonnie was 8 and they were on their own to fend for themselves. The dynamics changed somewhat after I left. Clayton didn’t hate them with the hatred he felt for me. This wasn’t good for them, though. It meant that they were included in things that were in no way age-appropriate to see.

Mother’s birthday was June 6 and, while I had baked her a cake for past birthdays, now that I wasn’t there, Lanita decided she would do it. She bought a cake mix at a nearby store and set about to make it.  She read the directions and saw that it called for a cup and a half of water. We had no measuring cups or spoons so she used an empty mayonnaise jar. She watched and waited for that cake to rise while it baked but it refused. When Mother got home after work, Lanita showed her the cake and asked her why it hadn’t turned out right. She explained how she had to use a mayonnaise jar for a measuring cup. Mother told her that any idiot would know better than to do that. Lanita thought Mother would be pleased that she had tried to bake a cake, but she wasn’t.

More and more frequently my siblings were told to get in the car and Clayton would take off to the scene of some horrible accident. Mother would make them go even though they didn’t want to. It was that summer a call came across the police scanner of a child drowning in the Trinity River near I-30 and University. They all drove there and Clayton had everyone get out of the car and sit on the grassy knoll. Lloydine remembers them sitting out there in the sunshine on the green grass under a blue sky watching the heart wrenching scene below. They had to witness the dead child being pulled from the water. 

On another day that summer, as they were all in the car together coming back to the house after chasing yet another ambulance, the police scanner in the car began to announce a wreck where someone was decapitated. Clayton threw on the brakes and, with tires screeching and the kids falling all over each other on the back seat, he whirled the car around and headed to the scene. He pulled off to the side of the road once he got there and tried to get close enough to see on foot. The police turned him back and still he persisted in trying to push past the barricade. The kids and Mother stayed in the car and when at last Clayton’s curiosity had been satisfied and they were driving away, Mother told the kids not to look.

They were still devastated and confused as to why they should have to witness and hear about such awful things. Most parents protected their children from the ugliness of death and violence instead of insisting they be an eye witness to it. It’s no wonder that Lloydine was filled with fear and insecurity nearly every minute of her childhood, something that would greatly affect her adult life as well.

Earlier in the summer, Lonnie had stepped on a rusty nail. He told Mother but she didn’t pay any attention to it. Lloydine doctored it with what little she had but it only got worse. It became so infected that by the time Mother finally took him to the doctor, he was in danger of losing his foot. It’s strange that she would so easily have taken me to get an abortion and yet ignore her only son’s swollen and infected foot.

Mother lost interest in Bob that summer and took up with a parking lot attendant named Norman. Norman was already married so they would meet at The Dude Motel in Haltom City. Mother would drop Lloydine, Lanita and Lonnie off at the movies while she went to meet Norman. They remember seeing That Touch of Mink with Cary Grant and Doris Day over and over again. Many times, the movie theater would close and the three of them would be standing out in front in the wee hours of the morning waiting for Mother to pick them up. Lloydine would become so anxious and afraid that Mother would forget and never come for them that she began to hover at the entrance of the theater watching for her long before the movie was even over. To this day, they can all three quote that entire movie!

When Mother would drive over the bridge on the way to Norman’s she would point down and say, “Look! You can see Norman’s house from here.” Then she would start singing Sue Thompson’s 1961 hit song Norman.

Sadly, Norman later committed suicide by throwing himself off a multiple storied parking garage downtown. I don’t know why. Mother seemed to pick men who were not emotionally and mentally healthy. 

Mother continued to cook for her and Clayton late at night and she would leave the kitchen in chaos. When the girls would go in there the next day, every single cupboard door would be open, all the containers and ingredients would be left out on the counter with the dirty dishes all piled up. Lanita began to clean up one morning and as she stretched herself as tall as she could in order to put the black pepper back in the cupboard, she hadn’t noticed that the pour spout was still open and as she lifted it up, black pepper fell straight in her eyes! She started crying and Mother woke up and came stomping into the kitchen yelling at her to shut up.

It was in August of 1963 that Clayton decided to take everyone on a vacation to New Orleans. It was a shock when Mother went in and woke up all three kids at three in the morning and told them to put some clothes in a paper bag. They were going on a trip. They were not excited about being cooped up in a car with Mother and Clayton for days. He drove straight through. They went back to sleep when they got on the road but once it was daylight, Clayton insisted they watch the scenery and look around. Lloydine had trouble staying awake, though, and Clayton would yell at Mother and then Mother would slap Lloydine on the legs. He took God’s name in vain screaming louder and louder. It was a nightmare getting there and Lloydine was a nervous wreck.

When they checked in, Clayton paid for two rooms and thankfully, they were able to get some time away from him and Mother. If it was meant to be a vacation, it was anything but that and my siblings were relieved to finally get back home.

Once again, they moved right before school started. This time to a house on Bewick Street where they stayed for three years making it the longest residence of their childhood.

This house was laid out in a convenient manner of separating the living areas up with three rooms on one side and three on the other. Mother and Clayton took the three rooms on the left side which included the living room, dining room and kitchen plus the master bedroom and bath. That left the middle bedrooms to Lloydine, Lanita and Lonnie. There was a second bathroom off the kitchen. That posed a problem so it was back to the coffee can situation even though they were no longer small children. But at least they now had two rooms instead of one.