An Angel Watches Over Me

PHASE ONE

Malissa came from a large family which consisted of nine children. Her mother had five children of her own but raised seven children in all. They all had the same father but different mothers. Their father had four children of his own by two other women. Their father had custody over three of his children. Malissa’s mother had five kids; the oldest one was not their fathers’ child so he did not stay with them. The ones that did not live with them were the lucky ones to Malissa.  Malissa didn’t know much about her mother and fathers background. She couldn’t even tell you how they met or where they met because they never talked about it. Her mother was the only one working to provide for them with the little that they had. Malissa was the baby girl out of the family. Malissa’s biological father was a tall, slim light skinned man. He wore his hair in an afro all the time and he had a lot of facial hair, such as the beard and mustache in which her mother kept trimmed. Her father had this arrogant attitude about himself. He walked around with this big, bad tough guy attitude. He was a selfish man who only cared about himself. A control freak was the image that he presented to others. A straight up ass hole was the image that Malissa had of him. Malissa had a father who was not a father to her because he did not work. His main concern was not his children at all. It was himself, his animals, and playing music. He was an alcoholic and a pothead. All he cared about was hunting, cars, animals, pot, and getting drunk. Her father was very abusive mentally and physically. Her mother was a kind of short, dark skinned lady. She was kind of quite but a scary person. Malissa could see the fear and depression in her mother’s eyes. Her mother and father didn’t talk much around her, and Malissa didn’t hang around them long enough to hear them talk. Her family was not close at all. Malissa’s brothers and sisters were the only closeness she had. Her mother and fathers relationship appeared to be very unpleasant based on how he treated her mother.  Her father was an evil spirited man who thought that every body owed him something.

                                      Malissa and her family lived in a quite country town. It was a quite neighbor hood filled with a lot of trees and woods. There were a lot of dirt roads around town. Their nearest neighbor was about a 2 miles up the road from them. Malissa didn’t live in a house or apartment like normal people did. She lived on a broke down automobile, which sat down in the woods off the dirt road. Her parents put it that far away from the road so that nobody could see down in there when riding by. Their living conditions were very short for space. The few clothes that they had to stay packed down in plastic bags. What she slept in was pretty much what she had to wear to school the next day. There was no electricity, no running water, no heat, and no bathroom. There was a spring in which her father had dug out so that they could have water to drink and bath with. Winter times seemed to be the hardest time to Malissa, because every thing would freeze up. Malissa would be so cold all day long with no heat to warm up with. One week during the winter time the spring had frozen up for a couple of days and Malissa didn’t have any thing to drink for a couple of days. She was so thirsty so she went out side and got some of the ice sickles which were frozen rain water that had frozen on a tree and ate them. They were nasty but she was thirsty and that was the closest thing to water that she was going to get. Malissa’s family had a bucket in which they used the bathroom in at night. Some times if she forgot to bring the bucket in before it got dark, she would have to go out in the woods in the dark and use the bathroom. She always tried to find a spot that was sitting under the moon light so that she could see her surroundings. During the daytime she would use the bathroom in the woods. Malissa was always scared that she would be bitten by a snake while using the bathroom in the woods. There were a lot of snakes around and just about every where she turned there was a snake. Malissa also feared she would get shot by some one hunting in the woods, because they hunted all day long where she lived. Malissa had to fill up a bucket of water and sit it