My New Home

The time that passed while we were living at Aunt Nell and Uncle Keiths was from day to day a struggle for all of us. My grandmother was at her daughters recovering from her gall bladder surgery. She was heart broken over the loss of her home and time for me was not an issue to her. She had made it very clear that we were to not move back in the new house with them. Daddy was to look for us a place of our own. He did not look. The building of the house was slowing taking place. It was placed on a concrete slab, because this is what Aunt Faye's husband done for a living. He had a business that poured concrete. To me they were rich.
My Aunt Nell was a pretty women that had fell in love with my daddy's brother while married to someone else. She had left her daughter and now was trying to make that mistake up by being a super mom to the two boys she now had with my Uncle Keith. My little brother fought for her attention. He would have fits that were much like a dog with rabies if she did more for her boys that she did for him. His feelings toward Aunt Nell were much the same as mine for my grandmother at this time. He had seen her as his savior in all the disfunction that was surrounding us. She was dark haired, slim and had the most beautiful blue eyes. She in her whole adult life was attractive to men. She was a good person basically, but a few times in her live she made some poor judgements, because of men wanting her. She had thought the man she was married to was a useless drunk. He really was a cousin, not first or second to Daddy and Uncle Keith. My grandmother was ashamed of this because Ruby and Roy, Aunt Nell's ex-in-laws did not speak to Grandmother for years.
All of the talk that was taking place over the new house and that we were not going to live there was cutting me like a knife. I felt so that they were throwing us away. We were going to be put into a house once again where we would not have good food to eat or heat. It was obvious that Daddy was not going to do better. The whole amount of time we stayed with his brother was a constant fight. Uncle Keith constantly made fun of Daddy for not having anywhere to go. Which this was just what he wanted. He loved to make fun and low-rate other people. This made him feel better about what a real nothing asshole he was.
He was always quick with an insult to anyone one. This was his personality even when he was not drinking. Here I am a skinny eight year old in a house of mean Uncle Keith. The boys; my brother and cousins following the adults lead in low rating me. Crying was something that will become something I start and never stop. There was no bathroom in the old rental house. Bathing was not done often, but when I remember taking a bath it was in the big double sink in the kitchen. One day I was in the sink bathing when Uncle Keith came into the kitchen. There were no doors from the back of the house into the kitchen. The front door onto the porch was directly in front of the sink that I was bathing in. Uncle Keith came into the kitchen and told me to be sure to wash my ass. He was never did anything other than mouth off unappropriate remarks. He also thought it was funny if you accidentally saw him naked. The grin he got was one of shear delight in he had made me uncomfortable.
The kitchen of the old house was the setting for many of the crazy things these two drunk brothers did. We ate pinto beans and cornbread every night for supper. Potatoes if there were some still left in the crib at grandmother's barn. They were the men and men were more important no matter how useless they were. They were always first to eat no matter what. We as the four children ate what was left. By time we got to the table the two of them had already talked to one another long enough to be mad at each other. It was Daddy letting Uncle Keith tell him how sorry he was, what a stupid wife he had and what he should be doing to fix his miserable life. Daddy would take it for long as a drunk or hung over man could. I am sure he was not in the best of moods most of the time. Whiskey done that to him.
By time us kids were finishing up eating the physical part of the dinner conversation had almost began. We were always rushed out into the yard by my Aunt Nell. From the front of the house with two front doors the sound of plates breaking, bodies falling and cussing was what the four of us kids and Mama and Aunt Nell would listen to. The fights most of the time did not last long and there was not that much blood. The worst was bloody noses and bruises except for the time Uncle Keith grabbed a butcher knife. Killing Daddy may not have been why he got the knife, but then I wondered many times if either of them would get that mad or crazy drunk. Taking a knife to your brother could have ended worse than it did. He took the knife somehow and slashed Daddy across the forehead, right between his eyes. This was the bloodiest the kitchen ever was after there nightly after dinner fights. The cut on Daddy's head was deep, but he did not get stitches. He let it heal on it's own which took forever. It was so terrible that after a few days it appeared his forehead was rotting. It was bruised and infected.
Eventually he went to Dr. Ledbetter in Rogersville and he gave him something for infection. Going to the doctor was something that Daddy could not afford, since he needed his money for whiskey. He worked for his sisters husband just long enough to get whiskey money. Which probably was good for me, because he was not saving to find us somewhere to live. It would take a fight that was out of control for Grandmother to let us come to the new house.