You little skinny witch, that is not my name! - Not my name, little witch

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You little Skinny Witch, not my name.
I was born in 1960 the younger of my other two sisters. My dad was married six years to our mother Francine Alsept Walters at the age of fifteen. I never seen my mother until I was eleven years old she had left my dad when I was only eighteen months old.” My dad re-married again to a woman her name was Gay Green who was only fifteen years old and my dad was thirty five years old. I guess back then it never mattered much about age difference like it does now. Daddy gave my older sister and my middle sister away to my grandmother to raise.” Jeanette and Julie were close in age only eighteen months apart in age. I was the one daddy wanted to keep with him and Kay.” I don’t remember a lot of things until the age of four years old.” I knew one thing at four years old I hated living with my dad and step-mom. I was a petite child at the age of four with blond hair and my skin was pale with my big green eyes. I always had short hair because of Gay never wanting me to have long hair; she said It was too hard to take care of. When your only four years old you do as your told and living with a step-mom who I was so scared of mad it worse for me.” I remember my dad never being home and I was always left there with Gay. She was only fifteen nearly sixteen years old but she was mean, she had dark hair and she looked like she had never seen sunlight her skin was so white.” I never paid any attention to the color of her eyes. I hated looking her in the eyes she had a loud mouth always yelling at me.” I endured a life with her that I truly hated but no one really knew how much or what was going on inside that small lime green house.” I remember my fifth birthday and going to kindergarten and wearing shoes with holes in them. One day it was pouring the rain outside and I had to walk over a hill to get to the bus stop.” It was a cool crisp morning and my sleeveless dress which had a rip down the side.” I hurried down the hill to the bus stop when I felt the rain drops hit my skinny little arm” My feet were walking as fast as I could go in hopes the bus would get there when I did,” I clinched my hand over my ripped dress to hold it together and it was hard to do all day at school.”
My shoes were made of plastic and my feet were damp from the rain and I shivered feeling cold at school in mid- October.” Kids in my class would stare at me and talk behind my back and I would hear them laugh.” I knew they were talking about me as they looked at my dress and my shoes.” My teacher who really never paid much attention to poor kids like me and I really never thought about her.” When it came to lunch time I could not wait to eat, I could hear my own stomach growl.” I would eat as fast as I could because I knew we could always get free milk.” I never had friend’s just kids I would speak to and really never thought about it.” I dreaded when school was over and had to go back home never knowing what I would encounter with Gay.” I knew one thing that always happened when I got home and that was to go to my room if you could call it a bedroom.” No supper, for you said Gay as she said go to bed.” My bedroom had no door and my bed was close to the window which had only one. My bed was along the wall with the window above it and the curtains hang down close to my where my head was.” I would lie down and shut my eyes and think about faraway places and making them up as beautiful places with lots of food, it was then I opened up my eyes as I could smell fried chicken.” I slowly got out of the bed and peeked out to see Gay cooking and she had invited my uncle and Aunt over to eat supper.” I had a half sister who was almost four years old. She saw me peeking and watching everyone and suddenly she grabbed a fried chicken leg and sneak it to me,” She hurried away from my bedroom because she was also scared.” I eat that chicken leg and placed the chicken bone in a place I thought it would not ever be found.”

I hurried and got back into my bed and slowly drifted off the sleep. The next morning I was woke up with a shout to get up and the same old words you’re in trouble again.” I would always pick the hem out of the curtains in my sleep with no ideal I had done it. Every morning I would hear the same words your getting a whipping you little witch.” I slowly and turned my head toward the curtains, it was something that confused me how I could do this every night without knowing it.” I should have got used to it by now it was every morning.” I sat in the middle of the half size bed thinking to myself I better hurry and get out of her way.” It was too late I got a good smacking and was told to get dressed and get over the hill before I missed the bus.” I was dressed in minutes and out the door running. The air was cool and I remember when I got to the bus stop we had neighbors’ who had moved in the house above our house, and I even thought to myself they are poor, really poor.” The little old woman who had walked her little girl to the bus stop had walked over the hill too.” They both stood there and looked at me with my short gapped hair and my dress which happen to be the same one I wore before.” I hated that dress it was really to short and if I bent over you could see my panties and that day I had to be extra careful. My panties had a big hole in the back were you see my whole butt if I were to bend over.” I had to be careful all day long and stoop down to pick up anything at school.” It was the worst day of my life with that dress and the big hole in my panties it was such a stressful day on a little girl.” That was one day at school that always stood out in my mind because of the dress with the rip and the hole in my underwear.” It was time to go back home and I noticed the when the bus stopped and me and the little girl got off the bus, the little old woman was waiting on her little girl.” We all three walked up the hill together.” The little old woman who was really skinny and she had long dark hair with dark skin.” Her little girl walked beside her mother and it was that day she said something to me and asked me my name.” I looked up at her and told her my name is Janice and I live in the lime colored house or at least it was the color I called it.” She spoke soft and said she knew where I lived and I could see pity in her eyes for me, and I did not want pity from her.” I felt pity for her she looked sickly and she was poor as I was except her little girl never had holes in her clothes or shoes.” No matter to me I just knew that little old woman was sick the way she coughed.” I was just a child but sometimes you can just sense things.”
I was at my house and she told me good-bye and walked on over the hill toward her house she rented off of a man named Rollie.” Those days were memories to me every day I walked over the hill to the bus stop with the little old lady and her child.” Then one day they both never showed up and I waited at the bus stop and the bus came and they never showed up.” When I got home that day I overheard my dad telling Kay she had passed away.” I walked past them as though they were not there and went straight to my room to cry.” I figured she was in a better place than having to walk over that cold hill everyday with her child.” I sat and thought about so many things about life and death and wonder why people were born and then you die sometimes, I never figured anyone lived forever.” I had heard all this talk from my grandparents when I could go see them and my sister’s.” I loved to see granny and pa and visit and hope one day I could be there with my two sisters who seemed to be happy.” I had a half sister who had not started school yet.” I had noticed Kay’s belly was getting big and I was no dummy she was going to have another baby.” I remember daddy wanted a boy but in the late sixties there was no way of telling what sex the baby was going to be.” My life went on the same as always and it seemed each time she was pregnant she was meaner.” Patty was too young to play with but her life was not going to be a bed of roses and she was Kay’s own child.” I was so happy that school was out for the summer and but hated it because there was nothing to do.” I was made to stay outside all day long and it was then I fell in love with that wonderful apple tree.” The apple tree was my friend and a place for me to go and sit under while its small leaves made a shade.” I would sit there all day long leaning up against the medium size trunk. I would even talk to that apple tree and it had become a part of my life.” I would sit there nearly all day until I was yelled at to come inside.” I remember one time talking to the apple tree and playing like it was real and Kay heard me and shouted out the door, your acting crazy talking to a tree, stop it you little witch, that was her name for me was little witch.” I thought about why she always called me a little witch.” I knew I was little but I was no witch, to my understanding a witch was a scary old woman who flew around on a broom stick in the sky.” Maybe she called me little witch because I was ugly but not old yet just little.” My mind wondered about some things and other things I would just not think about.”
I remember one evening my daddy was home for a couple of days or at least I thought he was. I never seen him much and it seemed he was never around. His life to me was like a dream or a person who really never existed.” I can’t explain that part of my life or the part I was called a witch or why I never had a birthday party or presents like other kids.” It seemed like my own life was a bad dream.” It was summer time and my daddy would always go foxhunting and he was never around.” I had no relationship with my dad and he never cared about me or my other two sisters or I thought so anyway. I did notice he loved kids and he was good to all kids but I wanted him to talk to me and hold me and tell me he loved me, I don’t think he ever told me he loved me until I was married.” My real mother had re-married that was what I heard through the family who talked all the time.” They said she had two kids a boy and a girl.” I remember seeing my own mother for the first time in my life at the age of eleven years old.” I hid behind a small bush at my grandmother’s house and peeked to see what she looked like.” I heard she was a beautiful woman and I longed in my heart to have a family with my mom and dad together a perfect family, but it was not like that.”
I was sitting under the Apple tree and it was hot outside but I still pretended I was in a place where they were lots of food and beautiful clothes, I would day dream a lot under that tree.” I guess I was half asleep when I heard my name being called out—yep if you said little witch then you was right.” I had got used to being called little witch so much that I answered to it quicker than my real name.” I jumped up and ran to the front door of the house were Kay was standing holding Patti.” Here you take her and play with her and don’t let her get hurt or you will get it—I knew what that meant, it meant a whipping or a slap in the face or no supper or go to bed early.” I took Patti by the hand and we went to the apple tree and she sat down beside me.” I told her I would tell her a story and she would sit and listen but she was a few years younger than me so she got restless easy.”She started whining and wanted to go back inside, and I knew she was just a baby.” I took her hand again and took her back to Kay.” She grumbled after I told her she wanted to come back inside and she was getting restless and it was hot outside.” The door flung open and she took Patti by the arm and I turned around to go back to where I was before under the apple tree.” I was getting thirsty and decided to get up and go to the back of the house to get a drink of water.” I would place my back against the wall of the house and scoot my little body until I could get to the back end of the house.” I was at the first window and I could feel eyes upon me and I looked up only to see Kay looking at me and pointing her finger at me to go back to the tree.” I nodded my head at her to let her know I was going back, but I never and I kept my back up against the house and slide across to the second window but it happened again there she was looking at me and shaking her head and pointing her finger and her face with a look of a wicked witch.” I knew this time I better go back to the apple tree and tough it out with thirst.” It was not long until I seen my cousin and her friend walk pass.” There was a road that went by the house right in front of it and I was sitting under the apple tree which was not to far from the dirt road.” They waved and then pitched me a big red apple.” I caught it the first time and I was so excited and I knew it would be juicy.” I was about to take a bite out of the big red apple when I heard—you get up here with that apple.” Yes, she had seen everything and I had to take my nice red apple to Kay.” I walked to the front door and handed it to her with my head down, but to my surprise she handed me a piece back and said go on and get.” I ran back to the tree where I sat and eat the piece of apple that quiche my thirst enough to take the dryness away.” The day was almost over and it was getting late and time to go inside.” I can truly say I never remembered ever taking a bath or brushing my teeth while I lived with my daddy and stepmom.” I know that sounds yucky today when I think about it but it is the truth I have no memory of ever taking a good bath or having my own tooth brush,”
The house had a small kitchen and living room and three small bedrooms with no closets and one small bathroom that never worked. I never remember the bathroom working and I would always have to go to the outhouse—the outside toilet.” I was scared at night to go but I had no choice but to take a flashlight and go.” Being scared nearly all my life and afraid of the dark and so scared when I had to go to sleep it was a fear I battled for many years to come.” No one understands what is like to be afraid of the dark and when you’re a child it is much worse.” I feel sorry for kids today who have that fear of the dark and it is something I can relate to with every child that goes through fear of the dark.”
The house was a lime color and it had a very small porch on the front. I remember the one closet at the end of the hallway.” The closet was full of un-washed clothes that stunk so badly.” I remember going to the closet in the hallway and opening it up and it was piled so high with dirty clothes.” I believe every piece of clothes we had been thrown in that closet.” My dad never had clean socks and he would fuss and get upset about never having clean clothes.” I never knew why she never kept clothes clean nor did she want to wash them.” I stayed there with them in hopes one day it would get better but it never it only got worse with the yelling and name calling.” There were several times I had to stand in a chair to wash dishes, lots of dishes at the age of five.” I remember one day standing and doing dishes and I started to feel faint and sweat poured off my forehead, so I went and sat down to take a break,” I was took to the doctor because of being anemic.” I was a pale face kid with rotten teeth that looked like little snags.” I would clean the house the best I could at my age and I was embarrassed to ever have anyone come over but due to not having friends in grade school I thought why worry,” I would go with my dad to visit my two sisters who were living with my grandparents.” I remember begging grandma to please let me come live with her and my two sisters.” I told her I would clean and do dishes and whatever it took to be able to live with her.” It never happened for another year and so I had to endure the life I hated so bad with my dad and stepmom. I could not have my sisters allowed to come and see me if I acted like I missed them I was in trouble with kay.” She said I was to make them leave and ne mean to them or I would get a whipping and I was to never tell daddy.” I was mean to them like she told me to do and after it was over and they would leave I felt so bad about what I did that I would cry at night.” I never wanted to be like that but what was a young child to do who had no one to turn to at the age of six years old.” I was scared.
I had always wanted to see my real mother and I can remember many times my grandma would not let us see her. My sisters said they remember my mom trying to give us clothes and toys and shoes but it was sad they never wanted us to see her.” As my story goes on it will tell you about my mom and she was not a bad person and who kept her from seeing us.” I will enlighten you on how I feel about my stepmom and how my thoughts have changed for her and why.” Everyone has to remember I was young and so was my step-mom and my mother had reasons to leave and tried several times to keep us but that story will come later. Let me keep telling you how my life un-folded and there is much more to tell you about myself.”
It was tough living with someone who had troubles of their own and my stepmom was only nineteen years old and I was six years old and in the first grade.” I will never forget when I was in the first grade there was a boy who I always felt sorry for and when his mom was killed on a railroad track. I heard the story about his mom and one of his older siblings was in the car with his grandma when the car stalled out and a train was coming. His brother jumped out just in time and his mom and grandmother were both killed.” I remember the day they came and got him out of class and he was gone from school a long time.” I cried over that and thought how sad it was to see his seat empty during the time he was out of school, his desk was in front of mine.” Things like that a kid never forgets when something bad happens to another kid.” First grade was crazy and I will never forget we had one African American kid in our class.” It was time for recess and I had to use the bathroom and we had bathrooms in the room, not like you had to walk up the hallway.” I was sitting on the commode in the bathroom when the door flung open and in stepped Freddie he was that little African American boy. I jumped up and pulled up my panties and yelled out get out of here.” He just laughed and jumped over the commode holding his wee-wee, as I grabbed the door handle to get out of there.” Freddie was different and done silly things and that was something I never forgot.” He eventually moved away.” I did tell the teacher and she just looked at me and thought I was making it up,” My first grade year was crazy when another kid was running out in the big field; it was a girld name was Martha.” Two boys in my class were chasing her and it was just crazy when I just happened to be there and they had her down on the ground.” She was kicking and screaming and the two boys were pulling at her underwear.” I ran as fast as I could to tell the teachers who were standing in the play ground.” The two teachers were talking to each other and I was pulling on her shirt or dress I can’t remember what she was wearing.” She seemed irritated at me for interrupting her.” Finally she stopped talking to the other teacher and said what is wrong with you? I told her what was happening as fast as I could talk.” The teachers ran out into the field to see what was going on and when the boys seen the teachers they both took off and the little girl jumped up and ran too.
After we went back inside the teacher ask me to come outside the door and tell her what I had seen.”
I stood there and told her everything again and then she questioned the rest of the kids, and after we were done the teacher said I was a tattle tale.” That was something I could never figure out when you told something that was bad or happening to another kid, a teacher called me a tattle tale.” I remember she spanked all four of us.” The girl and two boys and after that I was afraid to tell another thing after that, and thought all adults never cared.” I thought about so many reasons why she would not believe me maybe it was because I was so poor and the other kids were from better backgrounds, better clothes.” I never could figure that one out.”
Well it was time to go home and what a day at school and it was a wild first grade all year long.” It seemed that year flew by and I was back every day with stepmom and a dad I barley ever seen.” I was going on seven years old and was getting a little braver.” I would always beg my grandma to please let me live with her and my other two sisters.” My grandma would always say no, not right now maybe later.” I was so disappointed and wondered why she never let me live with them and I would go back with daddy to the lime house on the hill.” I was close to one of my cousins who I would play with whenever I could we would sneak out and play. She knew everything about my life and my step-mom so one day I decided to run away.” So I became brave and we took off down the road where my cousin went with me not because she had to just because she wanted to and thought it was fun.’ We ended up at the old junkyard hiding behind it because we my daddy and stepmom coming in the car.” We both jumped back so they would not see us.” I was a bit scared and did not want to go back so I decided to stay with my cousin that night.” It was not as easy as I thought it would be with stepmom and daddy looking for me.” My Aunt finally drove to my house and told my dad where I was and asked him to let me spend the night.” It never went over to well with step-mom she wanted me home and to stay there with my half-sister.” Step-mom was pregnant and gee’ was she hateful, but daddy said I could spend the night.” It was then my braveness started to begin to really over take me with thinking I will leave there one day and never come back.” I spent the night with my cousin and went to school the next day and the best thing was I got to wear her clothes. She always had nice clothes her mom had a decent job and they had a nice home.” It was the best day to have nice clothes on and eat breakfast before school and not go to school hungry.” The day went by fast and I knew when I got off that bus I had to walk back up that hill and go back to the place I hated so much.” I finally made it up the long hill and dreaded going inside but I went in only to see a mad face and words I was used to hearing.” Well you little witch you’re in deep trouble and your dad is gone and you have a whipping coming to you.” I closed my eyes and thought what if I fall down and pretend I am dying.” I thought not a good idea she would whip me if I were dead at least I thought so anyway,” I kept standing there waiting and it did not take long till I felt a smack and then another and I really did fall to the floor it was because of being knocked down.” I felt a foot on my neck and it was hard to breath and in an instant the foot was gone.” I looked up and there she stood looking at me.” She walked over to the couch and sit down and said go to your room.” I got up and walked into my room to sit down on my bed,” I looked over at my curtains hanging from the window and I noticed the hems were not fixed.” I could not understand why she had not fixed the curtains as she usually did.” I remember the last night I was home before I ran away I had picked the hems out the night before.” Maybe she ran out of thread.”
I finally lay down on the bed and looked around my room with the ugly walls and the one small chest that sat up against the wall. My room had not been painted in years and the paint was peeling and the room was just a plain room.” I never had a mirror in my room but I figured I never needed one I knew I was no beauty to look at with my pitiful teeth that were rotten in the front.” My hair was short and my skinny legs and arms and big feet.” I thought no one needs to look at their self if they are ugly.” My thoughts were running wild after that whipping I thought maybe I was crazy or after she chocked me with her foot I had lost a lot of air and it messed up my normal thinking.” I really did not know but I knew I was very tired, more tried then hungry and I soon fell asleep.” I slept till morning and was woke up like every morning with a loud mouth and my name that I thought might as well be my name or at least with my step-mom.” I never had to worry about the curtains since she never hemmed them from the last time.” I hurried as usual and got dressed fast it was still warm out in late September for school days.” Summer time had gone by so fast but every summer went by with me with all my chores which included washing clothes and hanging them out on the clothes line.” The new baby was small only a few months old and the other little one was growing up fast.” When you’re a child you just do as you’re told and when you get in trouble like I did when I ran away things only can get worse.” I remember being told by my step-mom to never tell daddy about the foot on my neck or I would get it worse.” I never told my dad when he got home.” I was getting older seven years old and It was then I finally knew where my dad stayed all the time he was working in Covington, Kentucky as a construction bridge worker,” I had went that long without knowing about my own dad.” However, when my dad was in he would go fox hunting on weekends and I rarely seen him and there was no close relationship with him.” He was a kind man and he liked to joke around and laugh. He was average height with brownish blonde hair and his eyes were blue.” He loved kids he ended up with a total of eight all together.” He would have more if he lived longer.”
The next day on the bus I wanted to talk to my sisters but was so afraid to take that chance.” Being silly enough as a child I would think maybe she can see me like she peeks out of the windows to watch me while I play outside.” I thought maybe she was some kind of alien that would become invisible and she was everywhere and that made me afraid to talk to my own sisters.” It is amazing of what a kid thinks when you live under conditions like I did or any child who has gone through mental abuse more than physical abuse.” There was not much physical abuse as there was mental abuse such as the yelling and making a child scared to death,” I was even scared of the dark it was one of my big fears that took me years to overcome and still today I struggle with it.”I would usually sit by the window on the bus but that would soon change.” My whole life was about to change when my older sister steps into my life she was only eleven.” I remember that day on the bus when both my sisters sit behind me on the bus and asked me if they could come up and see me.” I wanted to say yes so bad but I remembered what my step-mom had always told me.” She warned me I better not talk to my sisters or tell them they were allowed to come up and I better do it or else.” I dreaded the or else word.” I was a nothing a little sacred skinny nobody who would not stand up for myself against my step-mom.” I will never forget telling them no you cannot come up, and they asked me why I told them I did not want them to come and see me.” I felt so bad telling them they could not come up, but my oldest sister would not buy that story.”
The bus stopped and I hurried and got off with tears in my eyes as I walked slowly up the hill.” I hated myself and what I just told my two sisters.” I felt like I had no one and who cared about a skinny freckled face kid.” I remember looking up to the sky and asking God to help me.” I was never taken to church but always heard about God from my grandma whenever I got to go see her once in a while with daddy and we would never get to stay long. My stepmom always grumbled about being there if it was only ten minutes and I was not allowed to play with my sisters.” My grandma was a talker she never paid attention to how I would sit whenever I came down with my stepmom, but when I was with my daddy only I would play and talk but we would never stay to long at my grandma’s because daddy would always worry about his wife.”
I was half way up the hill when I heard someone behind me it was my older sister.” I walked a little faster being more scared for us both,” We were at the back door and I was scared but my older sister was not scared at all.” She told my stepmom to move over because she was getting my clothes.” No you’re not said my stepmom.” I started to feel braver as I heard my older sister’s voice and she was petite and very pretty with dark hair and dark skin.” She pushed her way into the kitchen through the back door and told me to come on.” I followed her and quickly we packed up my half of bag of clothes in a brown grocery bag.”