Mama's Madness

Billy Ray Chitwood

Mama's Madness

First published by Self-Published in 2017

Copyright © Billy Ray Chitwood, 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

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BOOK TITLE

MAMA'S MADNESS

A NOVEL By

BILLY RAY CHITWOOD

The words hurt, scar the soul, but they had to be written…evil on display in its ugliest form…

***

This 5-Star Amazon Review was given to MAMA’S MADNESS by John Dolan, extraordinary author of EVERYONE BURNS – Brilliant Wordsmith from across ‘the Pond’:

By Diogenes on 21 Nov. 2012

Format: Kindle Edition

Billy Ray Chitwood's novel `Mama's Madness' is a real find.

While many Indie authors follow well-trodden paths of `popular genres', Chitwood's work cuts its own route through the underclass wilderness of modern America. Based on real-life events - but fictionalised in the telling - Chitwood's story is by turns compelling and disturbing.

The central character, Tamatha Preen, is a monster for our time. Inhabiting her own self-centred and embittered world she inflicts psychological and physical damage on her daughters while keeping her sons cowed by alternate violence with affection.

Chitwood has an authentic voice articulating the world of the grifter and petty criminal hovering at the margins of society. The writing is gritty, laying bare the animal beneath the thin veneer of civilisation. Child abuse, theft, deception and murder all feature in a heady cocktail of corrupted morality - yet these topics are handled without sensationalism, and at times the novel has an almost journalistic feel to it.

This is a brave book, swimming against the tide of literary popcorn, and it deserves a wide readership.

***

CINC

3200 Lebanon Road

Springfield, KY 40069

Although inspired by some actual events, this novel is purely a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are products of the author's imagination. Any similarities to any actual people living or dead are coincidental.

All rights to this book are reserved, including the right to reproduce portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, as to film/media rights, please contact Cinc at the address above.

Copyright © 2012 by Billy Ray Chitwood

Designed by JAC at Cinc.

Manufactured in the USA.

ISBN-13: 978-1468123814

ISBN-10: 1468123815

***

Other books by Billy Ray Chitwood

*Mama’s Madness – Fiction Inspired by True events

*Stranger Abduction – Fiction from true events

*The Reluctant Savage – Fiction/Mystery/Suspense

*Phoenix Fire – Fiction/Romance/Suspense

*Cloud Dancer – Fiction/Romance/History

The Bailey Crane Mysteries

*An Arizona Tragedy – A Bailey Crane Mystery Bk1

*Satan’s Song – A Bailey Crane Mystery 2

*The Brutus Gate – A Bailey Crane Mystery 3

*Murder in Pueblo del Mar – Bailey Crane 4

*A Soul Defiled – Bailey Crane 5

*A Common Evil – Bailey Crane 6

Memoirs and Politics

*The Cracked Mirror – Reflections of an Appalachian Son – Memoir 90% true

*What Happens Next? A Life’s True Tale (Non-Fic)

*Joe Public’s Political Perspective

Books and 330+ blogs Available at:

Books: Amazon.com – US – UK – Worldwide

Blogs: https://brchitwood.com

https://thefinalcurtain1.wordpress.com

Follow the Author, preview his books, his book reviews, his comments on his Website:

https://billyraychitwood.com

***

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the kids of sorrow who come into this world through love or accident, who are deprived of their youth by abuse, neglect, and/or selfish dads/moms ill-equipped in parenting skills to provide for a safe, healthy, and wholesome environment.

It is a tragedy of the soul to lose a childhood.

***

PROLOGUE

-1985-

Help me! Please help me!

It is a piteous whimper, lost in the black void of the narrow closet. The weak and eerie sound of her own voice chills her more fiercely than the cold. The thought brings an aberrant amusement. Her own small voice frightens her!

A sound! A creaking sound. Far off. A footfall! Is it? No. It is not a footfall. It's just one of the strange noises that comes in the night.

Is it night?

Time is lost. Time is gone from her world like a chunk of youth. The black hole draws her toward an uncertain vortex. She must close her eyes. But, not so tightly. She sees less with her eyes lightly closed. There is better control of her quivering body. With eyes open, the blackness comes alive with trickery.

Some crawling thing moves along her upper arm. That is her perception. She shifts and finds a wooden wall protrusion. A vertical beam. She moves her arm and body in back and forth rushes to accommodate the itch.

Her wrists are painfully numb and raw. The handcuffs seem now natural extensions of her hands.

Her shoulders ache in their sockets. They are taut from the pull of arms bound behind her back.

How long? God! It seems an eternity! A small lifetime she has lived in this palpable darkness. Maybe, it has been two days. The air has no texture or stir. It hangs there, stale and dank.

Her face is flushed with fever. It feels stiff and crusty from the tears running over her abrasive wounds. She squints and contorts. She opens and closes her mouth. There are sharp responses of pain. Her entire body feels leaden and bloated. When she moves, there is a burning chaff between her thighs. A complacent soreness pervades. It no longer matters. Nor does the stench from her body's waste matter.

It is her mind which throttles her. Whisks her off in searing flashes, abates, lingers amid the blackness. A fragile sentry. Both enemy and friend.

It is all happening again! She is next to die. Just like Celia. Was it a year ago? Two? Time, again, is elusive, lost. What does it matter? One year or one month ago! Sarilee knows she is next. Just like Celia...

Mama had beaten Celia, too. Had gotten so mad she shot her. But the bullet didn't kill Celia. The fire killed Celia. The bullet lodged in Celia's back and stayed there for two years. Celia healed with the bullet there in her back. Then, Celia had wanted to leave home.

Was that one year ago?

For some unknown fathoming, Sarilee wants to be precise in her remembering. Somehow, it is important to remember this point.

Yes, it was a year ago. They were living in an apartment near the old trailer court where Mama used to live.

Mama said it was okay for Celia to leave. She was nineteen and old enough to leave. But, first, Mama wanted to remove the bullet from Celia's back. Then, Celia would be carrying no corroborating evidence inside her. In case she ever wanted to cause trouble.

Celia was two years older than me when Mama did the operation. God! It was gory! Fascinating, too, in a sick sort of way.

Mama used the kitchen floor as the operating table. Just flung down an old soiled blanket and sheet. There were dust and hair specks floating on the sun shafts from the dirty kitchen window. Mama forced whiskey down Celia until she was near passed out. Then the cutting started. God! It was a mess! Some of the bright redness even landed on my arm. It was sticky and smelly. Mama used a shiny little knife. Mama called it a scalpel. Me and Thomas and Willard and Tammie Jo all stood and watched. It was a family affair. No shock. Just mute fascination. Thomas was fifteen Willard was sixteen. Tammie Jo was thirteen. We all stood over Mama and Celia with our mouths hanging open.

Mama kept yelling out ugly words and holding Celia down with her knee, yelling at us to get this and to get that. It all took maybe an hour.

Following the crude surgery Celia became delirious. Her back was a big ugly sore. All infected and softly mushy. Bulging, red and all pussy looking. She cried and screamed something awful. Her face was red and gritty with sweat and tears. She flailed her arms and tried to move. But she couldn't. Mama tried to slap her quiet. Everybody was irritable and impatient with Celia's constant fretting. Sleep was elusive. Space cramped.

On the fourth day, Celia's delirium became too much for Mama.

It was late evening when Mama called Willard and Thomas to the kitchen. Me and Tammie Jo listened and yawned at a safe distance.

"Ceel's not going to make it, boys. Done all I can for her. We’ve got to get her out of her misery." Mama's voice was high and tense. Like always. Ran all the words together without pause.

Mama had the boys carry Celia out to the car. Then she did something peculiar. She came back into the apartment and hugged Tammie Jo and slapped me. With her down- turned lips she hissed a high-pitched warning.

"You better start doing more 'round here, girl! Clean this place up by the time I get back."

Then Mama was gone, her short shuffling strides scraping the kitchen linoleum.

It was near noon before Mama and the boys returned to the apartment. Without Celia. They smelled funny. Like gasoline and feces.

After Mama went somewhere in the late afternoon, Tammie Jo and I gathered around Willard and Thomas. The boys looked God awful weary and too grown up for their ages. Their faces were flushed and sandpaper coarse. Eyes were cheerless and vacant. Neither was eager to talk. It was Thomas who finally spoke of the drive. There was an uncommon calm and coolness in his recitation. It brought a chill to Tammie Jo and me.

"Sister Ceel's out of her pain. We burned her up there in the high country. Near where the rich folks do their skiing. Squaw Valley. Never seen eyes get so bulgy as hers. She just laid there, shaking like, sweating and mumbling things. She thrashed and screamed a bit as those flames sparked all over her. But, then, she was quiet and there was only the sound from the fire. The smell was something fearsome and foul. But it was something, I have to tell you."

Thomas finally finished, took a deep breath, and went to the bathroom.

Willard was silent and subdued. He kept looking down at his hands. Brushing them on his pants. He didn't want to talk about it anymore. He went off somewhere in the apartment. I thought he went to bed.

Tammie Jo and I sat still and quiet for a long time. We were half-sisters but there was a close bond between us. I watched young Tammie Jo absently wipe away tears. For me, there was only a terrible emptiness. It was something I could feel. I could not remember how we ended up in each other’s arms. Could only remember the soft feel of Tammie Jo's small head on my shoulder. Her sobs were barely audible, her thoughts unknown...

Oh, Tammie Jo, please help me!

Piteous. Her own small voice shakes her. It is now her time to die.

She has been fighting the awful closet. The breath strapping upon her like a flimsy shroud. Stifling. Bringing great sweeps of anxiety. She hyperventilates in harsh, hooting gasps. She feels she must surely soon faint and pass away in this awful darkness. The physical pain from the cuts, bruises, sprains is now a secondary nuisance. Fighting for cooler sustaining air becomes her priority.

After hours, perhaps only minutes, she thinks that she might control her horrible environment better if she can just slow everything down. She needs to make a conscious and strong effort to slow down her breathing, her thinking, her despair, and her consuming desperation.

Now she takes slow breaths of the heavy, damp and foul-smelling air. The invisible gases. She begins to pattern her thoughts. She will think only of good things.

She will think of her life after this black closet.

What will she do?

She will slip away from Mama and her ugliness. Only fear has held her here all these years. She is twenty years old and must finally break this yoke. Yes, she will slip away. She feels better with this acknowledgment.

Maybe she will go see Harold. Her older brother will help her. Surely. He left Mama's meanness and now has a life. Harold was the smart one. The oldest. He always tried to protect her from Mama's wrath. She is his natural sister, so it should be so. Harold could not always protect her but she knew he wanted to. Harold would help her to a new life.

She begins to gag. Caught short on the frail air. She swallows frantically and almost passes out. She hyperventilates and feels a ponderous wave of anxiety pass over her. A warm wetness flows gently out over her inner thighs. The tears fall over her coarse cheeks. Stinging. Salty. She licks her cracked and bleeding lips. Tastes the odd mixture of blood and tears. Gags again and coughs meekly.

Slowly, so slowly, Sarilee's breathing returns to a mild metered rasping.

Oh, Harold, please come! Please help me. Oh, please come. Please come. Barely audibly, she chants in her deep misery.

Her intoning pleas are audibly weak in the tight enclosure. Again, the weakness of her own voice startles her. It is as if someone else is speaking in the blackness.

She forgets that her eyes are open. Rapid, pulsing, light-like images dance in front of her. She quickly closes her lids. But not too firmly.

Through the anguish and pain comes hunger and thirst. Is Mama not going to feed her? Give her water? Her mouth is so dry. She cannot produce saliva. Her mouth has become a grotesque grimace, fixed and gaping. Closed, her lips stick together and her tongue to the palate.

She forces new thoughts.

School!

She will return to school. Maybe take catch-up courses and get her high school diploma. She remembers the seventh grade. That was her last year of school. Mama wanted her home. Demanded her home. No choice in the matter for Sarilee. But, then, she had not liked school all that much.

Except for the boys. She liked the boys. They made a fuss over her. She knew what they wanted and it was okay. At least they were honest. And she had been willing. But, with Mama's dominion, there had been little time for the boys.

The girls. They were real snobbish. Pretty and snobbish. She envied all of them. Their nice clothes. Their happy smiles. Their freedom.

After she gets her high school diploma, she will get a job.

What will she want to do when she is free from Mama?

Not nursing! That's what Mama does.

Perhaps she will be a secretary. She will sit at a nice clean desk. Answer phones. Take dictation. Type letters. She will need to learn typing. That's okay. She can do it. She knows she can be a good secretary.

Her junior high counselor had told her that she could do anything she set her mind to. Of course, he was a touchy-feely kind of man. Short, squat, sweaty, creepy man with nervous eyes. Showing lots of concern for her education. Showing lots of warmth. Giving hugs. Lingering, roaming hands. Rubbing against her as he pretended to reach for something or closed a door. She knew what he wanted, too. Felt his hardness against her. He probably didn't even know she would have been willing.

More sounds!

Door opening. Door closing. Muted voices. Oh, God! Maybe now! Maybe now she would get some water. Some food. Maybe now Mama would let her out of this black box of hell.

She is too sapped of energy to yell out, to ask for a nebulous forgiveness. She has done that already.

She waits. There is great anticipation.

Her mouth now works, painfully, saliva building. She awaits the sound of the closet door opening, the burst of light that will dispel the black cover. She struggles to position herself for the moment. There is so little room for movement. And she is weak. So weak! She falls back against the rough wall. Breathless. She will wait. The water and the food will revive her.

She must never ever anger Mama again. Whatever she had done, she must never do again.

She finds that she is holding her breath. Not a good idea. She concentrates on a slow rhythmic inhale-exhale pattern.

Her eyes are open now. Expecting the light.

The voices are still there. Indistinct. A monotonic drone.

Then a distant high-pitched peal. It is Mama's voice. Sarilee cannot make out the words for they seem to run together into a long holding note. It is the voice of Mama mad. Sarilee weakly draws herself more tightly together. An adrenaline flush of fear marks the moment.

There is more of Mama's shrill anger, accompanied by dull thuds. Like doors slamming shut. The sound of water running through the pipes.

Water for me! She's pouring water for me!

The voices finally stop. Sarilee longs for water. She strains to hear the sounds of Mama's feet, bringing her water. She reminds herself to breathe. She plays a silly game within her mind: 'The door will open by the time I count slowly to fifteen.' She counts. 'By the time I count slowly to ten.' She counts. 'To seven.' She counts.

Time is persistent in its passing. Hanging, hovering above and around her like blotches of black lava. Closing in, consuming her. In time, a fainting rapture claims her.

Hours, days must pass. She is in and out of fevered sleep. Oblique noises deflect and caress her mind from time to time. But no one comes. No food. No water.

At some uncounted time, when she again becomes aware of her living, she is too limp of body and spirit to make sequential distinctions. Her feverish body no longer quivers, consumed by heat. She no longer guesses at the passage of time. It no longer matters, really. Her weakness has brought a torpid fusion, like a hibernating animal. She has reached a point in quiet delirium where her senses no longer obey the merest of survival impulses. Sarilee no longer smells her own body wastes. No longer feels the tiny insects that crawl about her body. No longer yearns for food or water. No longer cares or understands her uncaring.

The only constant and pellucid reality for Sarilee now is her imminent death. It is a deep, tiny speck of knowledge and it pleases her in some soft, rhapsodic way. She is swaying gently, lifting toward some far-off light. She is no longer of this body or this time. She is a wisp in a noiseless zephyr. Floating onward. The light beckons to her. A moth, out of darkness, precise and true. A final wafting on delicate wings.

To the light.

To peace.

***

CHAPTER ONE

-1985 AND BEYOND-

The smell lingered long after Sarilee's body was taken in a cardboard box to the Sierra high country, there to join her half-sister, Celia.

For Tammie Jo Pierce the smell became part of her body. No matter how many baths she took, how much scouring, the smell remained. She could not feel clean and it occurred to her that she might never be clean again. As she perceived it, the odor not only settled deeply into the pores of her skin but fixed itself inexorably into her mind. It was there in every piece of clothing she donned, in her shoes, and in her hair. Tammie Jo was obsessed with the smell until it became a subliminal reality. Outside and away from the apartment, the knowledge of the stench conveyed itself, superimposed on everything she did. She slept with a pillow over her head and still the smell reached her senses.

Even after Sarilee's final soft moaning passed and the dark closet was quiet, even after the stink of rotting flesh and death began, Mama would not go to the black place. It was a week after Sarilee's sounds stopped before Mama enlisted Tammie Jo's brothers to remove the body and take it to the mountains.

Even then the odor of death was in the apartment, still a persistent and palpable presence.

Then Mama announced that they were moving.

That was the good news.

The bad news was beyond bad for Tammie Jo. Packed and moved, Mama ordered Tammie Jo to go back for a forgotten box and start a fire in the Auburn Boulevard apartment.

But, Mama, what if somebody catches me? It was a soft plea.

Just get it done, girl, and don't go whining about it. You're going to start earning your keep. Just do it!

There was no variance in Mama's voice. Just menace and a piercing run-on nasally screech which demanded obedience. Mama's voice had the quality of a piece of chalk moving too stridently across a classroom slate. It was a voice filled with unnatural venom and vileness, a voice seldom used softly to convey any hint of warmth or placation. It was pure wickedness. The siblings learned long ago not to challenge Mama's terrible earsplitting commands.

So, Tammie Jo gathered old newspapers and started the fire.

Soon the acrid smoke absorbed the awful stench of death. Tammie Jo felt some strange sense of ceremonial purging, like the fire was somehow Mama's denouement.

Tammie Jo watched from the street as the fire engines came, doused the fire, prevented its spread to the other apartments in the building. Unaccountably, she felt better. Maybe the fire would bring a new beginning for her and her brothers. Maybe now Mama's anger would abate. Maybe now she would be a better mother. Standing there curbside on Auburn Boulevard, Tammie Jo muttered a silent prayer for Sarilee and Celia. Unbidden tears flowed from her doleful brown eyes.

A fireman mistook the tears and comforted Tammie Jo over the loss of her home. She gave the gentle man a wistful smile, wiped her tears on the sleeve of her faded flowered dress, and walked away.

At fourteen, Tammie Jo had lived an uncertain lifetime.

No blame was fixed for the fire on Auburn Boulevard. An unfortunate accident. More than likely it was a landlord's inattentiveness to faulty wiring.

At the new place, a rented house, Mama found new ways to taunt and to terrorize. More beatings and screaming. More loud drinking and partying with her men friends. More unspeakable perversions.

Tammie Jo walked an emotional tightrope. When she was home, Mama never let her out of her sight. If the school bus was late getting home she was beaten. She remembered how Celia became hysterical if her school bus was running late, for she knew she would be beaten for the tardiness. It made no difference that it was not at all her fault. Tardiness was tardiness and there was no recourse. Now, Tammie Jo felt the same constrictive fears.

She missed her sisters now more than ever. They had in their turn insulated Tammie Jo from Mama's direct fury. Before, she felt an associative and proximal fear. Now, the only daughter, she got it all. It brought to her a new appreciation for her dead sisters. She could never determine the manner of Mama's mood, could never know when the terror would begin. No matter how Tammie Jo acted or reacted, the beatings would come. They were a part of her world. Were it not for some coveted school acquaintances, some books, and diaphanous glimpses into others' lives, she would have considered her home life normal. All she had known for as long as she could remember was Mama's world of horrors.

Maybe it was the drinking that made Mama mean. Mama surely loved her liquor. Tammie Jo could not remember a day from her life when Mama did not drink.

Mama had lots of drinking partners. Men, mostly. Some of the men Tammie Jo recalled more than others. The foul-smelling ones with a certain gleam in their eyes, particularly when they looked at Celia and Sarilee. On many occasions, when Mama was near out of it, some of the men would play little games with Celia or Sarilee. Tickling games. Wrestling games.

Once, when Mama was taking a nap, Tammie Jo played hide and seek with her sisters and two men Mama had brought home. Tammie Jo was eight at the time and she got to be the seeker. When she looked in an old rusted aluminum shed out back, she found Sarilee with one of the men. They were standing in a corner. Sarilee's dress was pulled up and her panties were below her knees. The man's hand was between Sarilee's legs. The man's zipper was down and Sarilee had her hand on his red hardness. Tammie Jo quickly closed the rickety door and went back inside the old house they rented at the time. She never found, never looked any further for Celia and the other man.

Willard and Thomas had been out back trying to corner a gopher snake and they had asked her to fetch them a butcher knife. She had pretended not to hear them. She thought