QUEENOLA BELL chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE --Queenola Bell

I’m sitting on the front porch in the porch swing when this red convertible mustang comes speeding by the house. There are four girls in it, they began to yell, and give me the finger. I sat there thinking to myself. You stupid bitty’s kiss my hinny, but I didn’t cuss. I walked in the house to see daddy sitting in the living room chair (which he has to wedge himself in now cause he’s so big and getting bigger). I walk through the living room into the kitchen, mama’s standing in front of the sink washing dishes (her every weekend job) she asked me who was blowing the horn, was it some of my friends? ( I think yea right like I have any friends except Lisa who’s a ding bat). I say no I don’t know who it was.

We live in a mill house in Gainesville, Georgia. Mama & daddy used to work at the cotton mill until it closed then they had to find other jobs so they both went to work at the chicken plant. I went down to the chicken plant one day, I saw chickens, whole chickens coming down a conveyer belt as people would pick them up and pack them on ice. That’s when I decided I would somehow have to do better with my life because I don’t want to work in a chicken plant.

Anyway our house is small it has six rooms and that includes the bath room, three bedrooms, kitchen & living room. We hang clothes on the clothes line out behind the house, that is whenever the neighbors are not using it, the mill houses are so close together, you can’t hardly pass gas without the neighbors on all three sides smelling it, at least that’s what daddy always says.

I have two brothers Ken and Alex. I am the youngest by four years, really I’m the oops baby as my mama used to say, what that means is, I wasn’t planned I just happened, but they really love me anyway. I don’t see Alex much he’s six years older then me, and he joined the army last year. Ken he’s in and out we never know about him. He’s always in trouble, not bad trouble but, doing stuff he has no business like getting drunk, driving to fast, picking at me all the time when he’s around. That kind of stuff. He turned eighteen last month we hoped he would join the army or navy, or airforce or something at least I did. Then I’d get a break from his pestering me. I’ll never forget the day I thought I’d killed Ken. It was on a Saturday. Mama had to work at the plant so I got stuck doing the housework, which I helped her do anyway.

I was standing at the sink washing dishes; I was trying to get mama’s big iron skillet clean, when Ken walks up behind me and pops me with a towel. I told Ken to leave me alone or I would put his lights out. He keeps popping the towel at me. When he finally got to close he hit me hard on the butt that’s when I lost it. I turned around and popped Ken with mama’s iron skillet, he hit’s the floor daddy comes wobbling through the house yelling, what’s all the commotion in here. I stood over Ken with frying pan still in my hand, daddy starts to panic he rushed (or acts like he’s rushing, being his size, everything’s in slow motion) to the phone and calls the ambulance, he thought Ken was dead and so did I.

Daddy came back to the kitchen and gives me that look, the one that makes me feel ashamed of what I had done. I was trying to tell daddy what happened when the ambulance came up. The paramedics come running in the house. Daddy says, he’s in here. I’m still standing here stunned when they run in the kitchen. The paramedics asked me what happened? I told them the whole story while they worked on Ken. They began to laugh, but I couldn’t see the humor in it.

The paramedic looks up at daddy and say. He’ll be fine just let him lay around for a couple of days, and they told daddy what to do if Ken started acting funny, but they stayed until Ken woke up, they had put him on the couch. I was scared to death, I know Ken was gonna kill me when he could stand up again.

Mama comes home from work and freaks out because Ken is still on the couch and she finds out he has this big knot on his head. Daddy’s sitting in his chair across from Ken when mama starts to ask Ken questions about what happened. Daddy spoke up and says Ken got in a fight, mama asks with who? Daddy says with his sister, daddy kind of gets a kick out of it.

I was in my bedroom when mama steps in and says “Queenola Bell (which is my full name by the way) what did you do to your brother”? I know mama was mad because she said my full name. Usually she calls me Queenie unless she is really teed off.

I start off with, mama he it me first. I told him if he didn’t stop hitting me I was gonna put his lights out but he kept on anyway.

All mama said then was, don’t ever let me hear of you doing something like this again, and she walks out of my room and slams the door on her way out.

I was relieved, but still afraid to go in the living room around Ken. My bedroom is through the kitchen, it used to be a screened in back porch, but daddy and the boys closed it in for me a bedroom when mama thought I had gotten to old to sleep on the couch. The point is I can go from the bedroom to the kitchen and bathroom, without going near the living room.

Well everything started to calm down after a couple of days. Ken didn’t even try to kill me, he knew I was scared to death, plus daddy told him if he touched me, he’d break both his legs.

I remember one other time when I thought Ken was going to kill me. He had changed the oil in his car; we had a rail built around the front porch. He had set the burnt motor oil on that rail in a plastic hospital pan (you know the square ones the nurses gives you when your gonna throw up). Lisa had come over to spend the weekend with me. We were playing around on the porch. I flopped down in the porch swing and swung a little to far and hit the rail where the motor oil was balanced. (I say balanced because the rail was too narrow to sit anything on really). The motor oil fell off. I jumped up when I heard it fall. Lisa was standing there busting her sides laughing. I turn around to see what a mess I had made when Ken stands up with burnt motor oil all over his head, he had been squatting down at the end of the porch working on something. Ken was furious I could tell, Lisa’s still laughing, I yell at Lisa to shut up, and she tries but she’s still snickering. She said she couldn’t help it because, he really looked so funny with that oil all over his face and in this hair. I hauled butt. I ran through the house, found daddy and told him what happened before Ken had a chance to get his hands on me.

Daddy always protected me from the boys and he was always home, since he became disabled. I was real happy he was home that day, because if he had not have been there. I probably would not have lived to see fifteen. It took Ken a couple of days to finally get his hair back to normal. But I lived.