Chapter 3

During the course of the last year my brother Patrick had asked me to help him get his family straight.  Patrick worked for us, he was an over the road truck driver, his take home pay was around one thousand dollars a week, and he couldn't keep up.  They were always two or three months behind in everything. 

     Patrick and his wife Lou had five children. Lou would do anything to get what she wanted, and she was a user of people as well of drugs.   

     They lived up north but he wanted to move them to Florida where he spent most of his down time.  I loaned him $2,000.00 to get his bills caught up and he allowed me to take over his budget.  I gave Lou a weekly allowance and paid all his bills on time.  I found them a trailer to live in and he bought it.  Over a month's time he had saved two grand for the down payment, all his bills were current.  He would never tell me Lou had a drug problem. 

     He brought the family to Florida in June of the same year Mike took mom's apartment.  I was prepared to help in every way I could. 

      I helped them find furniture on a limited budget, such as I had put them; wasn't easy.  I gave them a lot of my old furniture, since mom had moved to a furnished apartment, she gave them beds, tables, chairs, dishes.

     My sister-in-law with five kids preferred to buy paper plates and plastic ware, she didn't like to do dishes, or any cleaning for that matter.

     I had all the utilities and phone turned on when they arrived.  I kept them on a strict budget only allowing for necessities.  I tried to show her how to keep a clean house.  She wouldn't even do the laundry.  Every time I went to her home she was laying on the couch. 

     I even let her baby-sit my daughter for extra money.  I dropped everything and went there whenever she was having a problem with one of the older children.  I tried to teach them how to behave like decent human beings, which wasn't easy considering how they were raised.  I neglected my own family to help my brother get his life back on track. 

    By Christmas of that year I had saved another 2,500 for them to have a nice holiday.  Where all his money went when his wife was managing it was for crack cocaine and pot, I'm sure.  I had heard when cocaine was available she would say the party's on Patrick. 

     My sister, Beth, told me that all I was doing was making things easier for Lou as now she had no responsibility. 

     Patrick saw he was doing much better now and he didn't want to work as much. 

     By March he had paid off his van, but he still owed me the

2,000 I had loaned him last year.  I was going to keep taking care of things until I got my money back, giving his wife a little more responsibility every week.           

     Finally when their income tax came I got my money and they now had two thousand in savings.  I told them I would still help

them, but I wanted them to open a checking account, I would oversee it.  I was really getting sick of having to explain why it was necessary to put money away. 

     I told both of them how much money to put away every week for bills and to put the rest in savings. 

                            *  *  *

     In May my husband Big Mike and I got into a terrible argument and I was not sure what I was going to do.  He was the love of my life, 5' 10" small build, ash blonde curly hair he would blow-dry straight, the bluest eyes you've ever seen under dark eyelashes that curled naturally, high cheek bones, and a muscular body obtained from countless hours of hard work.

     Mike was sleeping in the other room, or trying to, he always got upset when his father and I fought.  He thought it was the end of the world or his world.

      I had $1,700. that belonged to Patrick, and I wasn't sure when I would see him.  I took the money to Lou and told her I was done taking care of everybody.  I might go up north for a while and I didn't want to take their money with me. 

     The following day the money was gone.  Again the party was on Patrick.  Patrick was more upset with me for giving her the money, than he was with her, she told him someone stole it, someone may have stolen it while she was in the bedroom coking it up, on what I heard was her third eight ball.  I told him you married her, you deal with her.  Patrick would believe anything this b***h told him. 

     Mike and Lou had become pretty good buddies.  He was there the night the money came up missing.  As a matter-of-fact, he was the one who told me, although Lou asked him not to.  Mike was her witness, he wanted to leave but she begged him to stay, then the money was gone.  She asked him not to tell me.  I wonder if she was trying to set him up.  If Mike had not told me about the money, I would have thought him guilty.   

     One morning in early August I got a phone call, it was Mike. "Mom I've been car-jacked.  I was in the car at a light and this black guy came up and pulled me out of the car and threw me, I chased him but he got away." 

     I nearly died, "Mike, are you all right, where are you?" I cried.

     When he told me where it happened, in a known drug area, I

asked, "what in the world were you doing there?"

     "I was at the beach."  He responded squeamishly. 

     I quizzed him, "What are you doing at the beach at nine a.m. when I can't even get you to work in the morning." 

     He contended, "I couldn't sleep so I went to the beach." 

     He made the police report, I called the insurance company. 

     I called Patrick and he went to get Mike.  My husband saw Mike before I did and talked to him about what happened, it was all very believable. 

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Reviews

[teddybard]

This continues to be a fascinating insight into what was obviously a terrible period