Writing sample....

Three Bags And One Carry On, The Sum Of My Life

Three mismatched duffels, one red, one camouflage that used to carry my parents camping equipment, and one blue that was actually supposed to be a laundry bag. My carry on is a Makita tool bag that I rescued from the back of the closet because it was sturdy and fairly clean and would hopefully keep my meager electronics safe and useable. They were nothing remarkable, much like what they contained, the sum contents of my 41 years of life on this earth, my clothes, my boots, some documents proving achievement of a college degree at a second rate college, pictures of my children and family, memorabilia of my glory days, and a few books and my electronic lifeline and leashes. The rest of what most people consider their identity, had been signed over to my ex-husband just a few hours earlier as part of a deal we had hashed out that was to allow me and my eldest son and youngest daughter to escape the hell that had been life in Flagstaff over the last 10 years.

The arguments had been epic, loud and close to bloody and ashamedly, I tried to incite him to violence because I needed to prove to myself that the monster I knew lurked in him was either dead or hiding in fear of going back to prison. Much to my surprise he hadn’t risen to the bait, though I had seen the familiar signs of his desire to inflict on me the lessons in pain that he had previously taught me for such disobediences. Prison and time had worn him down, and my jibes and challenges to his abilities to manage the demands of running a household, went unanswered. He claims he could do it, and hopefully he can, but doubts remain, he has never, “manned up” in the past, and the thought of my younger sons being left to their own devices while he either naps of stares at personal ads on Craigslist, leaves me sick with fear, but I have to go, and he has, “Rights”.

My oldest son is weary of the entire situation. He has been shuffled between grandparents, aunt, home and now we are moving to Portland in the hope of establishing a foothold in a new land and building a new life while he is still young enough to enjoy it, but all he wants is some stability, a room to himself, some good acne medication, reliable internet and driving lessons, for me to finally get over the anger and the rage. He is a very easy going kid for a former punching bag. He has forgiven him, and hell, he even jokes with him and shares music and jokes with him about girls, but that’s something I cannot do. That day is forever imprinted in my mind and when I look at him, I see that day when he was being beaten and punched in front of me and I did nothing. Though no, “Long Term” physical damage was done, and my ex was arrested and supposedly , “did his time”, there is time still being served, right here, in my mind, and until my sentence is up, and my son has the life he deserves, the sentence will continue to run.

The decision to leave was made a long time ago, but the ability to enact the plan always met one snag or another; lack of funds, no place to go, lack of understanding of the rights that were afforded by the child custody decree, fear of inciting him to violence beyond what he had been capable of before when he realized that it was being considered. As a former law enforcement officer and with a degree in Criminal Justice, I knew the statistics and the risks that came with making the final break, so when the time came, it had to be decisive and sudden, so that he would not have time to contemplate all the implications, there would be no going back, no changing of the mind, no hesitation, it had to be something that was done with finality and with no room for negotiation, but as we all know, the best laid plans of mice and men often fall to ruin.

The fire that started up in the Schultz Pass just before Fathers Day was not something that I was too worried about, after all, there had been no less than five other fires in the previous week and they had all been extinguished pretty quickly with no loss of life or property and the entire region was on alert, so you couldn’t so much as light a cigarette without the Forest Service wanting to know what your intentions were with the butt,(or so we thought), but then we did not take into account the morons that camped and left fires going in mountain passes that get wind gusts of over sixty miles an hour.

By 11:00 on Fathers Day the smoke was covering the entire front of the mountain, and it had rapidly grown out of control and they were calling for evacuations. My ex had come out to see his kids and I was doing my normal lurk in the back bedroom, waiting for him to leave, when he came back and knocked on the door. “You aren’t going to like what I have to say.” he told me looking like he knew an argument was coming, “But before you get upset with me, you need to come out to the front porch and look at the mountain.” The strong sense of foreboding that gripped me got only stronger as I followed him down the hall to the front entryway, due to the realization that though it was only 3pm, it was almost dark outside and the wind was gusting in its typically strong Flagstaff way. He opened the door in front of me and I stepped out into what looked like the anteroom of hell.

The fire had fed on decades of scrub pine and undergrowth that had built up as a result of constant lawsuits and hassles that prevented the thinning of all the trees killed by the bark beetles, and with the explosively dry tinder to fuel its maw, it had raced out of the pass and up the face of the mountain and extended to the top, raging well beyond the control of the crews that were available to fight it on the ground. The wind was still whipping, creating tornados of smoke and ash, and it looked like a scene from every horror movie about fire I had ever seen in my life. The sound was a dull roar that reminded me of the lions we used to hear off in the distance that were kept as pets at a neighbors ranch, a dull roaring that made my stomach roll with dread and a primal fear of what was approaching.

The first words I could think to say was , “They have lost it. it’s a complete and total clusterfuck.” My ex looked at me like I had made the most obvious statement in the world, and he asked me what I wanted to do. I quickly turned back into the house and told the kids to go and get dressed, pick out a few of their most precious, cant live without toys, and bring them to the living room and put them in a pile by the door. I asked my ex to find a lock, and clear out the back of the van, because he needed to take a few valuables down to the safe storage out of the range of the fire line, and he needed to do it quickly, while I gathered up the rest of the papers and small things. For once, realizing the gravity of the situation, and the fact that since I had been both a cop and a firefighter, he let me lead, and he did what I asked without arguing or giving me a hard time, and he moved quickly. Within 20 minutes we had all the art and antiques and valuables loaded and he was headed to a storage unit, closer into town while I kept preparing the kids and the animals in case we had to evacuate, even though the stress of the whole situation was finally starting to get to me and my Tourretts was making its presence known in fine forms with a wonderful array of twitches and grunts when I couldn’t other wise redirect the urge. I went into what my ex always referred to as,’ “cop mode” as I saw the fire line drop down to behind my neighbors houses, and I realized that it was less than an 1/8 of a mile from my front door, a door that was on a 35 year old trailer house that had lapsed insurance. When I saw the sheriffs department officer rolling towards us in the suv, I knew the evacuation order was coming, but I also knew he was powerless to force me to leave, but I listened to him, got information on the options, and told him that I was planning on sending my ex and children out and that I was sitting tight with my dogs until there was no other option. With the warning that once the order was given, I was not going to receive any other chances, I thanked him and sent him on his way, and turned around to find an angry and livid ex standing right behind me. “What the fuck do you mean you are sitting tight with the dogs? Are you out of your fucking mind? Is this how you plan on killing yourself? What the fuck is wrong with you?” I stepped up to him, toe to toe and I said in a very calm and low voice, ‘ You need to bring it down a notch, you are not my keeper, you are not my husband, and you are not my boss, and you do not tell me what to do. I am an adult that has survived the last 2 years making her own Goddamned decisions while you were in prison, and I have enough defensible space around here that I will have plenty of time to get out if I need to, but you need to take my kids and get them to safety in the shelter, and you need to quit raising your voice to me, I am not your bitch anymore, Ed.”

He stepped back and looked at me and humphed!, “ You are just as crazy as you ever were. Fine!, if you wanna die, die. You would be doing me a favor. Its all a win, I get the kids and the house and I don’t have to put up with you anymore, so I will take the kids and the stuff and we are leaving, but once we are gone, you are stuck, because Im going to have to take the van to get all the stuff in it.” That’s fine, I didn’t expect your friend to come back out here to get you with all this going on anyway, just don’t scare my kids anymore than you already have, they are stressed out enough.” He glared at me for a minute, and I knew he wanted to say more in an attempt to get the upper hand, but there wasn’t time. I told him to get loaded up, take snacks and toothbrushes and to make sure he registered with the Red Cross and just go to the shelter and keep my kids safe while I battened down the hatches and waited out what promised to be a life altering event, one way or another.