Voice With No Choice

This begins in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A young man who is known as James Williams and a young woman named Aveline Morano are two people who think they love each other. However, like most first loves, they are never perfect.

Mr. Williams was of the Mormon faith. As part of the Mormon tradition, he left for Utah on a mission for the church. Shortly after he was settled in, he found Aveline standing at the front door of his trailer. She claimed she had come to Utah to visit her mother, who lived in Salt Lake City at the time. Aveline was whining that she had neither a job nor a place to live. Being the Christian that he was, and still is, James took his girlfriend in. This is where Mr. Williams refers to his life as, "downhill," but I feel the way things hit him is very similar to the bombing of Hiroshima. There were warnings, but they were never noticed until it actually happened.

Mr. Williams and Aveline moved back to Pennsylvania. They were married by the Justice of the Peace Court. Aveline was pregnant and Mr. Williams wanted to do the right thing and marry her. On March 10, 1982 the first of two sons, Joseph James Williams, was born.

Meanwhile, James had enlisted in the army. He was finally accepted. The family of three all moved to the Mojave Desert in Nevada. June 21, 1983, a second baby boy, Jay Hunter Williams, had been born. By this time married life began to get extremely complicated.

It all began with the times when James would be away on the base camp for the week and come home for the weekend. He would find Joe and Jay sitting on the counters eating moldy food or feces out of their diapers. Later, he would find out from neighbors Social Services had been called on several times during the week. While the house and the children would be a mess, he would find Aveline lying in bed sleeping or watching television. He was always angry with her for not taking care of the house or the kids when he was away. As always, James would clean the house and Aveline would deliberately mess it up again when she woke up. In fits of rage, she would throw the dishes, breaking them against the wall, throw the clean clothes all over on the floor, and knock over the garbage can.

On top of being a slob and a lousy mother, Aveline was also unfaithful to her husband. Every weekend Aveline would say she was going bowling. After awhile, Mr. Williams grew suspicious. When he suggested going along, Aveline insisted it was a girls’ night out with no husbands or boyfriends. One night, following his suspicion, he drove to the bowling alley. After talking to a few of her friends, he discovered that she hadn’t been bowling in weeks. Sadly, he went back home and shut off all of the lights. He sat up all-night and awaited for her return. He watched an unfamiliar car pull up to the side of the road. There was his wife intimately kissing another man.

When Joe was four years old, Mr. Williams had to leave for France. The plan was set for Aveline, Joe, and Jay to fly out after him. Instead, Aveline called up her cousin to pick them up. They then left for Michigan.

Aveline always called up Mr. Williams and never let him speak to Joe. On one occasion, which was the last time he talked to Joe, he was in the middle of writing down the phone number to the place where Aveline and the boys were staying. Aveline immediately grabbed the phone from Joe. "You are never going to see your kids again!" she shrilled.

By that time it was 1989 and their divorce had been final, and the only thing left to be settled was the custody. Mr. Williams moved to a smaller place. He figured there was no point of staying in a three-bedroom house if nobody else was going to live there.

After a period of time passed, his lawyer told him to quit sending child support checks. That would usually make people settle the custody problems. It was just as well though when the checks came back with "return to sender" written on them. Aveline moved into a small place with her sons, but of course the house was being rented under Aveline’s cousin’s name, Allen Arnold. While living in the house, Joe and Jay weren’t being fed. They always went to the neighbor’s house across the street. She was an older woman with grandchildren their ages.

One day, Aveline went to this woman’s house and beat her sons in front of the woman just because they were getting something to eat. The woman called Social Services on Aveline. Social Services didn’t come out to check the situation and they never bothered helping. At one point, Aveline moved back in with Allen, still not being discovered.

When Joe and Jay first moved in with Allen, they would get into trouble and be forced to sit in the corner. But unlike every other child who had to sit in the corner, they were forced to eat a spoonful of mustard, actually stick their nose in the corner, and hold their leg straight up in the air without letting it touch the wall. This normally went on for an hour, or until Allen was tired of looking at them.

Someone who wishes to be kept anonymous told me that Aveline was a mother who never disciplined her children. Aveline always told the teenagers that hung around her that she didn’t have the heart to spank her children when they did something wrong, so she would prefer it if they would spank them. Aveline happened to be working at an office with one of my neighbors, Rachelle. This is how my mother, Kathy, was introduced to Aveline.

My sister, Tory, short for Victoria, Jay, Joe, and I always played together. One time we decided to play "house." Joe and I were the divorced couple. This was his idea. I didn’t even know what divorce was. We had a daughter, which was really my "Baby Talk" doll named Tabetha Nicole. Then during the play it came time for me to move out of the house. This is where Joe decided he should keep the doll. I refused to leave my favorite doll in the likes of a boy who had cooties, no way! Joe yelled at me and told me I was "just like his mother" not allowing him to see his child. Finally, I brought the doll in the house saying it was time to visit her grandma, being my mother.

Meanwhile, Tory and Jay were married with five kids. Jay tried taking Tory’s cabbage patch doll, named Cory swimming with him. Tory had a fit and my mom said he couldn’t get any of the dolls in the pool because they would ruin.

I also remember that was the day Joe asked me if I ever had sex before. I didn’t know what "sex" was. It was only natural for me to ask all of the adults what it was. My mother was bewildered. She thought that maybe one of the baby-sitters might be doing something to me. She later found out Joe had asked me that question because Joe and Jay were being allowed to watch pornography movies with Allen, and Jay also admitted he was sexually abused by Allen’s sixteen-year-old daughter.