Somebody get the pacifier!!!

On to the next part of the story. We began our journey to Kansas City. The day we left my father was the first day of my third-grade school year. To be honest, until the leaving part, it was nothing to write home about.I honestly hated school in Florida and was always happy when my dad let me skip. I didn’t really like most of my classmates, it was boring, and a lot of the teachers were mean.

Back in those days they still paddled kids for acting up. That’s right, back in the 90s in a lot of southern schools, they would beat your kids if they acted up. Thankfully I never went through that experience. To be honest, I think that’s a fucked up form of punishment for a school. Nobody should be able to touch somebody else’s kids. There’s been some progress - if that happened today there would be a lot of schools shutting down. But that was then and this is now.

I was halfway through the day and I remember having a class with my cousin Autumn. The usual routine was that I would go to her house after school until my folks got off work. Little did I know, that class would be the last time I would see her for several years. I was called to the office in the middle of class; my mom was there to pick me up. I hurried, packed up my things, and got out of there.

When we got outside, I realized my mom had gotten a rental vehicle and all of our stuff was packed inside. She unlocked the door and I got in. She said, “Anthony, I’m going to be honest with you. I’m leaving your father and we’re moving to Kansas City.” I responded with excitement, “Okay, sounds good.” I didn’t really second-guess it. I know what you’re thinking: aren’t you going to miss your family in Florida? Yeah, I knew I was going to miss them, but the day before I had watched my father beat the hell out of my mom, so I was happy to leave.

I later found out my mother planned this for months. She’d opened a separate bank account to slowly put money away. She had contacted a few friends to help her on her escape. My father knew a lot of people in different places so she had to be stealthy getting out. The first day, after leaving school, we stayed at a friend’s house on the other side of the city. I don’t recall her name, but she was a nice Jamaican woman who had a daughter, and she was somewhere my dad wouldn’t have thought or known to look. After that night we were off to Atlanta, where we were going to stay with Mom’s friend Lisa and her husband (at the time) Cricket.

Let me tell you, even though I slept the majority of the time, I would still wake up here and there to check up on my mom. I could tell she was trying to hold it together and her nervousness was palpable. She was making a great escape from her abuser of ten years, a man who was crazy and had threatened to kill her on multiple occasions. She was fearful that, despite her careful planning, he could show up anywhere. I could see the pins and needles she was on.

When we got go Atlanta, Mom and Miss Lisa went off to run errands a while and I stayed with her husband Cricket. He wasn’t much of a talker and the majority of the day we were just riding around 50 million boring places. I was freaking hungry and when I told him that he ignored me. My young self, not going to lie, decided he was a dick. It turns out my assumption was right; a few years later he cheated on Miss Lisa.

After a quick overnight and some breakfast, we set out on the part of the journey that felt like forever. I say that because, a couple hours into the trip and just into Tennessee, my infant brother lost his pacifier. We still had several hours until we stopped or even until we got to a main city. This was before there was a Dollar General store in every tiny town. My little brother cried to the heavens for two straight hours. Nonstop. He would get the hiccups, we would pat his back, and once he caught his breath he would start up crying again.

Eventually we found a store that was open and got him a pacifier. I don’t remember which store it was, but I do remember the super nice lady who helped us. Wherever she is now, I hope the good karma is still raining down on her. She was the real MVP.

We were finally able to get my brother calmed down and got to Nashville, where we stopped for the night. Even though it was only a few hour’s ride, the dark circles under Mom’s eyes and mine were obvious; we were ready to drop. I turned into an inanimate object as soon as I hit the bed, crashed harder than a Johnny Knoxville stunt on Jackass. I am going to take a rest now like I took then and finish the rest of this story in another part. - Anthem

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