Living on West Tulsa Time

Fast Search

Eddie and I sat a the kitchen table trying to decide what bills to pay and which ones to skip so we could feed the boys this pay period. Eddie said that we had to pay the electric and when mother arrived we would drive out there. Mother arrived and was very surly for having to babysit for free again. I was crying cause she didn't care to be with the boys unless getting paid for it. Eddie said that she had agreed to do this months before money got so tight and he was holding her to the bargain and we left.

I felt bad leaving the boys but I needed the break. I wasn't eating or sleeping. My IBS was worse and so was the pains that eminated from everywhere. The diet had done wonders for my weight and Eddie's but nothing for my thought patterns. As we drove the 45 miles to the electric compnay office I continued to cry. Eddie was concentrating on the road, listening to a book on tape in the cassette deck. He glances at me every once in a while, laid his hand on my shoulder once. It was so nice to be consoled when he thinks of it. There was a time that I would make this drive twice a day. I loved the view of the lake's halves. I hated driving over the bridge but I loved the hills that formed a natural basin. I felt the tightness in my chest lessen a little bit.

We drove past the old electric company office. It was fire damaged shell with the wreckage of exploded vehicles in the fenced in security area. A sign says that the new management has moved to a location in town. I thought that location address was familiar to me but I hadn't lived in Cleveland in 10 years and with my memory fading like my weight I couldn't be sure. We arrived in the small town to see a lot of changes. The address was exactly where I thought it was. Inside the former library was the new electric company. We went into a reception area packed with people waiting their turn to make payments and payment arrangements while office doors with windows remained closed and empty of clients. Employees kept their heads down while talking on phones are concentrating on their computer screens. I sat to wait as Eddie spoke to the receptionist. He stood at the desk as she left it to consult with someone in the inner sanctum. I needed to go, again. I wandered the halls looking for a bathroom. I came across bedrooms and living areas in the office. I thought times must be hard every where when employees or owners lived where they worked. Eddie was finished making the payment when I returned. We had been in the office for 45 minutes most of that time I was suffering in the bathroom. Stepping out the door and walking past the other cars we found out truck sitting on the ground. The wheels were missing. I was dumfounded. The tires weren't new when we bought the truck 3 years ago. The wheels weren't worth anything but they were missing. We didn't even have the money to replace them or the carseats that were stolen in the last two weeks. The theives hadn't stolen our extra tool box and jack yet but they were worthless in a truck without tires. I thought about calling mother to come get us but she couldn't just strap the boys in her car and we didn't have new car seats yet. I noticed a compressed air hose stretched from the garage next door and point it out to Eddie. He follows it to the door and through the window he sees our tires. They are unmistakable cause Shane had written on them in paint pen the previous day. On a shelf is my tool box which had also been "tagged" by the kids on a seperate occasion with the paint pen. Lying on the floor is my jack and jack case.

Eddie said to call the police as he pounds on every door on the building. I do and get a recording saying that the officers are on a call. I use the 911 service on my next call and I hear a voice echoing through the ally and my phone. Eddie is talking to the same people I am in a room at the back of the electric company. He uses another door in that room to gain entrance to the garage, lifts the door and hands me the lesser two of the four carseats we had for the boys. He also hands me a bill for the last truck repair. The check Eddie had wrote for that repair had bounced been forwarded to the Tulsa County District Attorney and been paid leaving us in financial straits. Settling the debt hadn't satisfied someone. I reinstalled the seats took a picture with my camera phone, stuck it in my breast pocket and went back for tires. After I snapped more pictures in the garage I realized Eddie was missing. I searched the grounds and a van peeled out of the back parking lot. I shook locked doors in a panic. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I knew from heart.

Don answered me quickly, recognizing my caller id he simply said the yard wasn't in need of anymore work until next weekend. I told him I had a bigger problem. Explaining what had happened he said he would send a car for me and 2 more to investigate. Ten minutes later 2 unmarked FBI cars and a hypo pulled into the lot. They led me back into the now nearly deserted offices and started asking questons. A man I thought I had seen before today insisted that we all leave. "After business hours this is private property" The agents weren't going to give in. The Highway Patrol officer pulled me away. We sped down the roads back to my home. I entered the house and discovered my mother tied in her chair crying. Some one had unlocked the door entered taken the boys and left her there with the a/c off. The thermostat read 90 in the house as I turned it back on. More FBI were called and they questioned mother at the house and then escorted her home. Crime scene investigators from the sherrif's office combed the place then packed up, I was left alone in an empty house to canvase the neighorhood. I couldn't leave. I had no money Eddie had carried the last bit of his paycheck in his wallet. The money we had saved for food. I pulled a bowl out of the cabinet and walked out the back door to pick vegetables from the garden. After pulling up a few immature root crops I had enogh to fill my bowl. My allotment of food for the day. Mixing them with water and ketchup from a fast food packet I set them in the microwave to "boil" wishing I could use the stove instead but no natural gas payment equaled no stove.

Another Agent came to my door. They weren't going to leave me alone in the house. Don had called the cleaners to come over fearing I would get ill from the dust and depression. Special Agent Todd took me to Walgreen's to meet my babysitter. Her name was Callie and she and her partner would take me to another location. Her partner had his back to me but I recognized Jeffy's dad immediately. I bristled. He couldn't be an agent. Well he could be but NOOOOOOOO. Callie introduced me to my ex as I nervously giggled. Didn't the FBI know everything about me? Wait, lost in my thoughts I heard boyfriend. Callie as if reading my mind said yes you'll be staying with me and my boyfriend. I was so relieved I hugged her and him. Jeff was taken aback. I collapsed in his arms melting into a puddle of grief. They scooted me outside and into a car down the main road of our hometown to a hotel recently built leading me to a room that overlooked the neighborhood in which I grew up. I could see the school, the two churches and Grandma and Grandpa's house. I cried more leaning my head against the window.

Days went by, Callie and Kate took turns sitting with me giving me updates as to what the officers in my house noticed. They asked for information and memories. Jeff brought Jeffy to see me. Late one night while Kate was out getting some ice Jeff entered the room drunk. Callie had broken up with him that day. He thought I had told her something about his past with me. Something that might contridict his memory of events. I couldn't recall anything about him. Kate listened in the other part of the room as we talked and fought half the night. When exhaustion won it's eternal battle inside Jeff's head he fell asleep at the table. I had gone to bed and was dreaming about Eddie touching me, holding me but I awoke to Jeff man handling me out of my lower clothes. He told me not to worry he wouldn't hurt me bad enoung to need more surgery. I screamed no but he proceded to tie my hands above my head. He commented about my weight loss and the skil folds left behind. He was cruel. Kate moaned helplessly from the other bed she was tied and trussed up where she couldn't see what what going on but her ears and imagination would witness it all. I pleaded with him that no matter what precautions he took I could get pregnant again. I knew he wouldn't kill me becuause his back child support would never get paid if I were dead. He said I couldn't say the baby was his since I was soooo in love with Eddie and had an active sex life with my husband. He froze when I told him Eddie had a vastectomy so we could enjoy ourselve without putting my health in danger again and if I died there wouldnot be anymore money from my back child support. There would be no money for Jeffy's college and car. He would ruin our son's future just like he had his past. He left us then. At daybreak Callie found us. After questioning us she arranged to have Jeff arrested and brought me home. Sitting in the living room holding the boys was Eddie. They had been driven to a remote area in Montana and left there in a forrest. They had walked 2 days til they found the Frontier Valley setting for a PBS reality show. There they had rested until they were discovered by a cattle crew bringing new cows to the herd in the lower part of the valley. They had survived a week on the plants that had gone to seed after the experiment. The ranch hands sent for a chopper and they were air lifted to a Montana hospital then flown to our small airport and brought home to me. Kate and Callie with Don and another Special Agent named Leroy cooked us a meal with food donated by the community. Laying on the kitchen table were checks and money orders to pay bills as well as buy food. The total was $20K. There was a letter from an old friend saying he had our truck and he also had money to fix it up. Another letter gave us the pick of trucks at the local Ford dealership and in the garage were 4 new carseats. When we were alone that evening Eddie and I held each other as the boys lay with their heads in out laps we watched a mystery on PBS. A knock at the door brought fear to our throats and a key in the door sent us running down the hall. A fearful teen voice yelled "mom?" then Kate called down the hall that we had a house guest. Jeffy needed a parent to care for him until he turned 18 and since Jeff was in jail for his actions in the motel as well as for threatening Callie I was the next logical choice. She left us talking at the kitchen table setting ground rules and discussing visits to a lawyer and bank for the morning. Eddie brought in air matresses for Jeffy to use until we could buy him a bed then we all went to sleep.

I awoke this morning to hear the boys playing in the living room Eddie shushing them so I could rest. When I came out Eddie was at the computer and the boys were still in their pj's. They dressed and went outside to play and fight. Eddie gathered food from the garden and I sat down at the computer to put my dream into words.

posted by Debbysewn @ 6:36 AM