Look What The Dog Drug In...

I drove up to the mountains. Fortunately, my Mom had my back. When I said I HAVE to go to the mountains to see Connie for some reason, and would she come with?...She took a day off and we went to the mountains, together.



Normally, when the dirt turned red I would get very excited. I remember the first time I went there. We rounded a corner (after driving for what seemed 2,000 days ;) and the dirt had turned RED! I have no clue why it struck me the way it did. But it always did...and I would always get high on life, when I saw the dirt turn red.



So, Mom and I are driving. We're talking about Connie, and what to do with Auntie Kay and Uncle Jim, and my dreams of Roy... and the dirt turns red. I felt a lump in my stomach, and another rise to my throat.... What was going on here??



What WAS going on here?...



We drove to Connie's house. We had to turn at the dirt road where my Grandpa's drive was, in order to get there. Memories indeed. I only slowed for a minute to look, and then we pulled up a little further, and parked at Connie's. I felt weird, a little confused. Connie's house and yard were unfathomable. It had always been no more than a shack, their home, but taken halfway decent care of. Now, the stairs leading to the front door where rotted away. Garbage filled every piece of land, broken up only by two trailers (campers?). I knocked on the front door of the decrepit old house. The sound of many small dogs could be heard. Mildred (Connie's Mom) opened the door. When she saw it was me, she started to cry... "Oh Melody!", she wept. "God bless you! God bless you for coming!" The house smelled putrid. Floor boards were missing. A portion of the roof opened to the sky. No less than eight small dogs running...barking...crapping... It was obviously unfit to live in. Mildred would hug, and hug Mom and I. Mom and I would give each other glances, which spoke volumes between just the two of us. Mildred was very apparently "off". She spoke of losing her beloved husband Larry, and rambled on and on. I found myself almost afraid to ask were Connie was, but I finally would. ..

Mildred told me to go to the trailer (camper?) closest to the house. Mom followed. We knocked, and knocked...and knocked some more, on what there was remaining of a rusted, dented door that appeared to have been kicked in (maybe on more than one or two occasions). Connie finally came to the door. She cried when she answered and saw us, and believe me, so did we...



No, no, we didn't want to go inside, but graciously thanked her for the offer. We went to the watering hole nearby instead. It would be our treat, we insisted. She caught us up on everything... well, almost everything. We drank, and laughed...and she drank, and drank, and drank... and chain smoked. It broke my heart to see her this way. Almost all of her teeth were rotted, with big black holes in what remained. She was so dirty.... just an awful wreck in general. She admitted the meth and alcohol had really taken their toll.

OMG! So this is why I was here, to help an old friend...but more important even, was when she told me about her teen son. She called him her baby...and he was headed in a bad, bad direction, with her in no condition to help. She had already had her two daughters taken away. OMG..What to do....what to do.... let me think... what to do....?

We went back to her "house" eventually. She went inside her trailer briefly, long enough for us to hear a man yell at her and ask her where she had been. Lot's of cussing, and verbal abuse... He would be the first to come out. He eyeballed Mom and I very suspiciously... I moved closer to introduce myself. He was a disgusting, dis-shoveled, smelly, drunken sight. He would hear nothing I said, and oh, he was livid we were there!! "Who are you? What the hell are you doing here?" he'd demand, over and over. Connie would come out and try to come to our defense. Fortunately he told me to move my car so he could leave. I was more than happy to oblige. I backed out to the dirt road, and he tore off in his beat up pick up...kicking up a cloud of red dirt, and shaking his fist at us.

Connie walked down to the car to meet us... I guess Mom and I had stayed there for a while, not driving back up their drive.

Seriously, Mom and I are sitting there in the idling car, trying to gather our senses. We're both trying to absorb everything that's happened. Such an eerie feeling surrounding us...

"You're not leaving yet, are you?", Connie asks. "Please don't leave yet. I want you to meet my son.".... "We're not leaving yet." I assured her, although it was getting dark now. Just then, Connie's sister, Sharon, drove up behind us. She squeezed around my car and stopped in front of us on the little dirt road. She recognized us immediately, and jumped out of her truck to greet us. Hugs all around...and when she smiled, her teeth would resemble Connie's, maybe worse...if that were possible... "Come inside!" she would insist. "Don't go yet!" But it was such a beautiful evening there, under the pine trees... we would convince them to hang out there a little while and talk, before we headed back home. And so we would. We sat on the tail gate of Sharon's truck. They would share cheap whisky from out of a plastic jug. We would laugh and walk down memory lane together. Memories of another time, when we were young together... Memories of a better time, the best Connie said she ever could remember in her whole life.

It would grow dark. Only our headlights lit up the pine trees, each others faces, and the small dirt road... Eventually Connie's son would appear, and we introduced ourselves. I reached to shake his hand and he would hesitantly raise his in return, keeping his eyes on the ground the entire time. Such a handsome young man. Oh, if only I could figure out what to do. I just needed some time....

What to do Dear Lord?? What to do?? I felt increasingly like I was going to be sick. I had a feeling of panic. It was unexplainable. My Mom would hold my hand. I knew I was called there for a reason...But what? What to do?...

"Connie, would you like to come stay with me for a few days? There's plenty of room! I'd like you to come too!" I told her son. "Really, it would be so great! I could come next week and pick you up. Of course I'd bring you back." Her son seemed so excited by this offer. Shocked almost, like it wasn't real. He kept asking "Really, really?" Really, really, I told him. Connie seemed hesitant at first, almost nervous. I decided it was probably because of the creep she was living with.

"Who the hell is he?" I'd asked earlier, after he'd made his threatening departure. Kinda a boyfriend she had told us. "Why are you taking shit off of him, Connie? He's abusive...right?" She would have no good excuse, but something told me it had to do with the drugs...and poverty...and desperation. So sad! And the drifting smell from the garbage kept making it's way to my nostrils.... The panic increased. Such an odd unsettling feeling...

Eventually Connie agreed to come. I would come back in one week and pick them up. If all went well, maybe her son could stay with us for summer vacation, at least a month or two.

"It'll be like old times, Connie! I have a house full of kids, and my son's not much younger than yours. It would be great!" In my mind I'm thinking of what I could do to help while she was there. Perhaps rehab through social services? I could keep her son for a while?? I didn't know for sure what I was doing. I just knew I had to do SOMETHING!

Soon the son left, and Connie would excuse herself to go into the house for a minute. Sharon wasted no time... She came and sat next to me, looking me in the eyes.... "So, did you hear about all the excitement we've had here in the last couple of days?" she asks. Why, no I hadn't. Although I did have a recollection of the bartender at the watering hole discussing something that had gone down...discussing it with locals. "What's that?" I asked.

Sick...sick...I'm feeling sick...

"Well, you know Stepenwolf, right?" she begins. Of course I knew Stepenwolf. Connie had gotten him years ago. Such a devoted dog. A beautiful wolf. I was in awe of him, and his blue eyes... "Well," she continues... "Just the other night Stepenwolf drug a bag home. We didn't know where it came from. He just kept dragging it closer and closer." I'm like, Uh Huh.... So she goes on to tell us that he didn't want them to come near the bag. But finally they got him away. Inside the bag, there would be... a dead baby... A DEAD BABY!!! Umbilical cord still attached...wrapped in a blanket and stuffed into a plastic bag. It was covered with dirt. Obviously he had dug it up before he brought it home. It was buried alive."

O.K.... What are you telling me??? What?? OMG...a baby?? A BABY? I'm dizzy. I'm sick to my stomach. I'm beginning to cry...

"I'm surprised the Sheriffs aren't here now. They've been swarming the place. Come from all over they have...and reporters too. You didn't know?"

NO I didn't know... did I? No! I didn't know this. What?? What are you telling me?... It's too much to absorb. Just too much...

I see Connie making her way back down to the road. Mom and I are just shaking our heads. We're beside ourselves...our brains can't catch up with our emotions. Connie joins us. "I was just telling them about the baby." says Sharon, to bring Connie up to speed. "Oh yeah,", Connie says. "It was really freaky!" ..."Ummm, is that what they were talking about in the bar?" I ask. Connie confirms. "They found where it was buried right there." Sharon points to the pine trees, off the side of the road... not twenty feet in front of us... "They had it taped off but took it down this morning." I had a million questions. I was stricken with sadness. Confused....so confused. I had to go. I was mortified by the news...

We said our good byes. I promised I would be back next week to pick up Connie and her son. I gave them my phone number (although they hadn't had a phone for as long as I had known them). I made them promise to call me if they needed anything before I returned. If they needed anything...ever.

Such a long drive home.... such a long, long drive. Mom trying to sooth me...me freaking out... both of us trying to make sense of something that could not be made sense of...

So, a couple of days later, I get a phone call. I didn't know who it was at first. "It's Sharon.", she said. "Connie's sister, Sharon." Oh, of course! Sharon! "I'm sorry Sharon, I didn't recognize you at first! Is everything alright?"

Panic, panic....I feel panic...

"You know the baby Stepenwolf drug to the house?" Um, yes I did. "Well... it was Connie's baby. They've taken her to jail." What? WHAT? "Can you still come take her son for a while? Social services was here and they want to take him. But I told them about you. Do you have a pen? This lady wants you to call her. You have to call her right away though."

I don't remember the rest of the conversation. Of course I would call the Social Worker. I would end up with Connie's son... at least for a while...

As for me, ... I would be left to wonder...and wonder... If I'd only gone when I'd first been warned... If I'd only answered my calling sooner...If I'd only.... if only...

I still have nightmares from time to time...nightmares of a baby crying..and crying...and of Auntie Kay swinging her crystal...swinging her crystal and saying, "Get the baby"...and of my dreams of Grandpa Roy, saying "Go see Connie now. Now!"... But I went to late...and in my head, there are times, like right now writing this, I can still hear crying...

In prison, still tonight, and for the rest of her life, is Connie... I wonder... does she hear the crying too?...