When I was a kid, Chapstick -- or lipbalm of any kind -- was a luxury item.
I donāt mean that it actually was. But it did take away from cigarette and gas money, so my mom treated it like an impossible item.
Instead, I stole my grandmotherās chapstick, eventually, but only after going a week without it. Can you imagine having chapped lips that long?
The kids at school used to ask if I was wearing lipstick. None of them offered me any lipbalm.
Itās one of many things I remember about my mom.
The trouble is, you put her in the same situation with more money, I still wouldnāt have chapstick.
My mother was abusive in a hundred ways.
Thatās a fact that can be verified by a good portion of my small town. Back then, everybody saw, but nobody did anything. My mom could bust my nose open, red and bleeding, in the middle of Rite Aid, and none of these well-intentioned liberal fucks would have done a thing. Not in the early 2000s. No sir. Sheās just a single mom doing the best she can. I canāt believe that kid asked for something to drink.
But today the same people will take your kids away for not having enough money, or being in the hospital for a couple of days, and make you spend thousands of dollars getting them home.
The word for my mother isnāt hard to spell: evil.
Thatās all it is after all this time. Seeing her turn away four grandchildren whoāve literally done nothing wrong in their lives, and even treating one of them like he has (no, asshole, children donāt do wrong; they make mistakes), is enough to make me feel confident in the fact that the bitch was pure evil.
I say was because the wages of sin is death, and she has nearly exhausted her earnings. It wonāt be long before I can be sure sheāll never hurt me or my children again. And no, I wonāt shed a tear. Whatever you say, I should have been taken from her and adopted away; probably by John and Adelia Lyford, my grandparents.
So it was Adeliaās chapstick I eventually stole. What do you think she did when it came up missing? She hunted a little harder in her purse, and found another one. She never even noticed. But there I was sitting next her, feeling guilty, because Iām not evil. After she found her other one, I told her I had the first at my house. I told her why, too, when she asked why Iād steal such a silly thing. She believed me without further question, and she hugged me tight.
Because she was good. Thatās the word for her. Good and benign. Unlike that daughter of hers, Penny Jo Lyford, whose other Google result might be her obituary.
There are good and evil. There is right and wrong. People who donāt believe that are suspect.