The 34th Missouri AFG Convention in Osage Beach, MO

And second of all, I'd like to thank a great hostess. I've had a ball this weekend. And I'd like to thank you guys for asking me to come down to share my story. Geneva is quite unique. We had this we had this wonderful lunch, and we just got to sharing and talking.

And Ruth was there, and some of you stood me up. Where are the 2 where are the women that stood me up? Are they here? We won't ask you to stand this time, but we did wait. But I know today god puts everybody where they need to be, and it's just a joke.

I just want you to know I know you stood me up. And then the one thing I can say about I wanna say I say Missouri. Y'all say Missouri. So tomato, tomato. Okay.

So where are you Okay. Gotcha. I would say the I would say the state of M, but that could also mean Mississippi since I'm from Mississippi. So I'm gonna be real nice, and I'm just gonna say thank you, thank you, thank you. And there's a a few special ladies in this room that I had dinner with last night.

And before I end, I'm gonna put this on. I told them getting even was fun. But at any rate, my name is Geneva Brown. I am a very, very grateful member of Al Anon. I have gone through the service route, and I ended up my service when I end up, we'll tell you that I was a delegate for Illinois on panel 34, for which I'm very grateful for the state of Illinois.

And in my quest as delegate, I met a bunch of delegates from down here. And Missouri's got this thing from John Papa bless his heart. I understand he's not feeling well. It was the first delegate from Missouri I met. And just for the record, I wanna tell you how John walked up and and, greeted me.

He came up to me and he said, you're Geneva from Illinois. And I said, where's all the black people? And I said, Don, I don't know what I mean, I'm black, but I can't tell you. And after that, there was a bond between John and I that he was an outgoing delegate, but he was real helpful. And I want you guys to know you you've had some hell of a delegates from Missouri.

And I Now I'm gonna try to make this short because there's a special delegate out there I'm gonna say something about at the very end. We were panel members together. But you brought me down here to tell you how it was, how it is, and how I'd like it to be. My childhood was eventful. I am the last of 10.

Last of 10 children. I'm not the baby. I just happen to be the last. You see, I married the last of 7 of which he is the baby. That's gonna make a difference to you when I tell you this story.

I qualify as an adult child of an alcoholic. My dad is, was, may he rest in peace, an alcoholic. And as far back as I can remember, my dad was an alcoholic. But at that time, I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. All you know is that, you'd had drinks.

That was it. But at the age of 14, my dad walked inside one Friday afternoon and said, I'm not working for anybody. He quit a job after 20 years and decided I was only 14 years old, that he was not working for anybody. And that's what he did. That is kinda devastating.

He was a my dad was not a young man when he made that decision, but he wasn't old enough to retire. He just chose not to work anymore. And what he did was he got a new a new career, and that was to get drunk. And when I tell people my dad got drunk 3 times a day, a lot of people think it's impossible, but it's not. My dad is an early was an early riser.

And I say he is because I recently lost him. So if I say he isn't was, my dad is deceased today. But I still talk about him sometime in the present sense because thanks to Al Anon, I still love I love my dad after I thought I hated him for a lot of years. But Al Anon taught me I love that man. I didn't like the disease that he had, but I love the man.

And thank you, God, I was able to separate the 2. And I was able to say to him before he died that I love my dad. And I told him, daddy, I love you. So to help you get some idea of what happened, my mom, who was a stay at home person, ended up having to find ways to support her children because her husband chose not to work. My mom, who stood 49 and weighed roughly about £300 was probably the meanest woman in the world.

Now I've had some disagreements with other people about this, but I'm sure of it. Mine was it. That woman could cure the common cold. And it was simply because she scared the hell out of it. I'm sorry.

And then with all this power that she had, my request for her was to make my daddy stop drinking. Now I figured if you can cure a cold, you certainly could stop this man from drinking. And it was a little devastating because I lived in a small community, and kids teased other kids like we do like they do today. They teased me because I was old drunk Ernest Coleman's daughter, and that hurt. But being a pre candidate for and, I learned how to deal with that.

I became a bully. I had 2 choices. I'd either outlast them and make them go away or I would attack and they would definitely go away. But, you know, I gotta tell you, be careful what you do to children. Be careful what what the this alcoholism is doing to a child Because they could grow up like me, which is not good.

Children don't always say what they feel. I was vocal. This is why I wear parcels today for being vocal. I always my my I tease my mom as I got older that she's the reason I woke I have to wear parcels because I had a she had a mean backhand, and I always caught it in the lip. So she'd loosened them because I was vocal.

But today, I see teens that are not vocal. They keep it on the inside or they react in other ways. So please, please, please, please be careful what you do to the child today. If there's active drinking in that home, talk to that child. Do something.

Please do not allow them to keep that inside. That. It hurts. And I'm a witness that it hurt. K.

Now that I had that sermon, I'll move on. After my mom went to went to work and my brothers and sisters who I told you, I'm the last, not the baby. I'm just the last. They chipped in with the household expenses and stuff like that because my dad was my dad today, and I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on him. But the other side of this point I wanna tell you about is mom.

My mom. My mom is what they call the matriarch of the family. She ruled the roost. Whatever she said happened. Whatever she did was okay.

So, therefore, all of her children and you know how southern people are. The ones that were married, every morning, you stop by to see how mama was doing. And she still believed in cooking these huge breakfast for her children to stop by on their way to work. The lady has breakfast ready at 5:30 in the morning. The biscuits, the grits, the bacon, the eggs, the sausage for her children up until the day she died because everybody stopped by mom.

Therefore, she kept enough control of her children. And my husband used to say this, that none of my mom's children moved away from her. She could actually walk on a good day to any one of her children's houses, which was not far. So he teased me that I wouldn't let my kids go away because my mom didn't let us go away. I am the last of 10, and I'm the first to leave my mom when I moved to Chicago, which you I'll tell you she sent me, but it wasn't the way you think.

But, anyway, I had a mouth problem. I still got it. Like it or not, if as they say, if it comes up, it comes out. I just today pray to God, you know, give me the right words when you're coming out because I I do. I I say what I feel.

And has taught me it's okay. It's not what I say. It's the way I say it, which makes a difference today. But I talked to her about my dad's drinking, and she knew that it hurt. But she had a saying that said, your father is your father, and you have to obey your father.

That was the strangest thing to me to why do we have to obey alcohol? I couldn't understand that. But that's that southern thing. And I got in a lot of trouble because when she wasn't around, if the alcoholic said, sit down, I automatically stood up. If he told me not to go somewhere, I automatically went because I was just a rebel.

I was a defiant little hard headed kid who enjoyed every minute of it. You faced the consequences when she got back. But right then, just because he was an alcoholic, I didn't I didn't like my dad. If you'd ask me when I was 14, 15, 16, I hated my dad. So what I did is I wanted to get out of that house because my mom would make him stop drinking, and I thought she could.

And he was drinking was just progressing, and you're looking at the other kids who parents get up the the dad get up and take his kids to Sunday school on Sunday morning and mine would be laying there drunk. He would insist that you go, but he wouldn't take you. Now ain't that awkward? He would insist that we go to Sunday school, but he never would take us like the neighbor next door, get up, get dressed, and take the kids to Sunday school and church. And I didn't understand that, and I didn't like it.

When he died, on his obituary, they said that my dad was the deacon of a church. And I couldn't understand it because I never known him to go. But I guess, in the day, he was a deacon of the church. That alcohol that disease of alcoholism took him away from the church. The only thing I can tell you is that he made sure his children went.

He just didn't go. But I wanted out of that household badly. And my mom had this rule, you know, girls girls be in by 11 o'clock at night, which, you know, in Mississippi. Even at that time, thing things had changed. You're gonna be in the 12 regardless.

But I stayed in a lot of trouble, and I just wanted out of that house. And my way of getting out of that house was there was a young man that moved across the street from me, And he's sitting back there in that room right now. And when I saw him, when his parents moved into this house across the street, you know how that spiritual awakening. He was fine. Was he fine?

So after the normal when I first saw him, you know, I you have to pretend you can't stand them, you know, and get their attention, and I went through all of that. But as it would have been after a while, the one thing he did that was the only thing that really got me was he drank. And I just I fell in love, and I thought the love of a good woman will make him stop drinking. So after we dated for a while and got it together, and honesty is what I do today, I told him we were getting married, and he said yes. He never asked me, would you marry me?

I don't know. It was something I guess about this attitude. I said we're getting married, and he said, alright. So on August 14, 1966, Bob and I got married southern style on the front porch with the magnolias and the family out there. But, again, remember I told you that he drink.

And that night after a gorgeous waiting, we went out at the reception, and he got drunk. And the next morning, he woke up. And he looked over at me and he said, what are you doing in my bed? Folks, that didn't tell me nothing. I kinda gently nudged him and said, well, we got married yesterday.

He didn't remember. But that didn't tell me nothing because I'm in love. So after that, and it was okay that I was there. We didn't have a honeymoon right then, so we both worked at the same place. So we went to work that Monday, and everything was fine at Monday until Friday.

When Friday came, it's a ritual where the men get off work. They come in, they get debt, and they go to a hole in the wall. They get all dressed up to go to this hole in the wall, and that's what he did. With the rest, half of Jackson is at this hole in the wall, all dressed up. He got drunk, and he came home, and I was upset because his intent was not to go out, get drunk, and stay out.

It was to go out, have some drinks with the boys, and come on back home to his good wife, his loving wife. And he got drunk. He came when they when he did get home, I was upset. He said he wasn't gonna do it anymore that morning. And that evening, Saturday evening, after they washed the car and mow their grass, they get decked again to go back to this hole in the wall.

And when he came back, he was drunk. He was drunk. I was mad. So I did tell you I moved I lived across the street from him. Right?

Well, I packed up my suitcase, and I moved back across the street. And when he got over that Sunday morning, he came over and with those little puppy dog eyes and that smile, and he said, I'm sorry. I'm not going to do it again. I was just still celebrating our wedding. I bought that.

And I took that blue suitcase back across the street, and we started a new week. Well, everything went well until that Friday afternoon. And I gotta tell you something else in Mississippi. I don't know about Missouri, but men start drinking Friday afternoon, and they stop Sunday at 12. So it was a ritual.

They started at Sunday at 12. They were done for the day to get ready for Monday. I could never understand that, But this ended, and in 2 weeks later, I had that suitcase back across the street. But this time, my mom said something to me that was totally I had never heard this before. She said, listen to me.

That boy works 5 days a week, and he he has a right to get drunk on weekends if he wants to. So she didn't have to send me across the street. I went back because this ain't what I wanna hear. And I see now that you're not gonna help me with it. So I went on this quest of my own to stop him from drinking.

And in Mississippi, it was fairly easy because you have really nothing to do and the devil can give you all these ideas. And I had 2. I had a a halo and and a pitchfork. But the on each one of my shoulders because I can be as sweet as Patty, tell me, but I can also be but this one with the pitchfork had better ideas. You know, on Sunday, this one would work.

You know? Just pray about it and da da da da. But this one would say, okay. Now get him. Get him.

And that's what I did. And I can remember to show you how bad his drinking was. My husband, when he drank he's 55 y'all. Best case. He'll say 56, but I'll tell you best case is 55.

When he started drinking that booze, that stuff told him he was at least 6 6 and weighed £800. And I shared this with you because he would go in a bar, and there was a thing that that booze did. It allowed him to look around the room and pick the biggest guy in the bar, And that's who he's gonna pick a fight with. But I'm gonna tell you, god takes care of babies and alcoholics because in this quest with these big guys that he fought, he picked fight he picked fights with and fought, he won. So I know God takes care of babies and alcoholics.

Because some of them folks was pretty tough. But that little piece of leather over there was tough because he didn't win the fight. I mean, he'd come home. He would go home. He would leave out of this house well dressed and come back, and his shirt was being stretched where people had cut at him with razors or knives.

And he'd coming back he'd come back home looking like raggedy. And because he was notorious for carrying guns, pistol packing little mini man, He got into a lot of trouble, of which being the baby of his family, they bailed him out. Because he was the baby, all he had to do was say, this is what has happened, and the family are automatically figured out how much will it cost because that's what we're gonna do because that's our baby. Just before we left Mississippi, it was a thing where it was a bunch of families, and they were very large families. And I was one of the 4 large families.

So the family heads decided that we could not fight. If it was a problem, the heads had to meet because they we were large, very large. And this it it sounds crazy, but I can understand today why. He married into our family. And what would he wanna do?

He would have want to attack one of the men in the other large family. And, you know, at this point, they're all grown now, and nobody's taken anything. And what he did was he had fought this man, and he told him, if you see my footprints going one way, turn around and go back the other. That's how ugly it was. And this particular night, the the the man was standing there trying to explain to me that he just wanted to make peace with Bob.

He didn't wanna fight Bob. He didn't wanna they didn't wanna get into this. And Bob was in the bathroom, and when he comes out, what does he see? He sees this guy talking to me, and all of a sudden, there's a fight. What he didn't realize is before we had left, his mom and I had taken his pistols out of the car.

This was a going out night, so we took the pistols out. When he went to the car to get his pistol, the guy walked up to him, had his drone shot, and the firing pin jumped out the back. Now you tell me god don't take care of babies and alcoholics. It's frightening. Bob hit the guy with the door, went home to get his to get his pistols.

By the time he got there, his he couldn't get his car out, so he had somebody else's. By the time he got there, we got in the car. We got home. And this is the fight this is the kind of fight we had to do. He couldn't get find the pistol, so he took a shotgun.

He would put the shotgun on one side. I'd have to get it out. He'd come take it from me, push me down, put it back in. His mom would take it out. He'd take it from her, and this went on until he got tired.

Okay? So you see, like like this and it was the other instances like this that happened in Mississippi. We couldn't go on like this. Now Bob and I are fighting regularly because I got this thing where you ain't going out and get drunk. But I even remember trying to teach him how to drink.

Okay? I remember saying to him and I'm gonna move on after I tell you this. I'll show you how to drink so that you don't get drunk. Okay? When I think you've had enough to drink, I'm going to nicely hold up this finger.

That means you've had enough. Right? Well, you know what? The first time I held it up, it worked. He stopped.

He didn't order anymore to drink. And I got this licked. I got this stuff licked. Well, the second time and on another the second occasion I held it up, I think he missed it. So I went a little higher.

He stopped. So well, I mean, he missed it the first time. You know? The 3rd occasion, I held it up. I held it up.

I held it up, and it's meant to, what the hell are you holding your finger for? And he continued to write on the drink. So I knew that didn't work. And then, you know, I I gotta tell you, I've tried a lot of things in Mississippi. But the one thing that kinda helped was he had a brother that lived in in Minnesota, and his brother's wife, I thought, stopped his brother from drinking.

So when it was time for that, what you got caught what I learned today, a geographical change. And he was gonna move to Minneapolis because Mississippi was just not the place for him. It was trouble for him. He stayed in trouble all the time. So when he said that after the last bout with the law, which he had a lot of them, that he was gonna move to Minneapolis, I thought, great.

Now what will happen is we'll we by now oh, by now, we have 2 gorgeous little girls. By now, he moved there. His sister's gonna show me how to stop him from drinking like she stopped her husband from drinking. So I'm all for this. Helped him packing everything, put him on the train.

And in his story, he'll tell you he got on the train with a gallon of corn liquor, but I'm not going there with you. I'll let him tell you that one day when you hear his story. Somehow, when he got to Chicago, his it was a layover and his sisters he had 2 sisters here, got him off the train and convinced them that Minnesota wasn't the place for him to be. When I got a call that said, you now live in Chicago, Illinois, I almost fainted. I was like, no.

I'm not moving to Chicago. Do you know what people in Mississippi think about people in Chicago? It ain't nice. But I knew I wasn't gonna move, and I said, no. I had the 2 kids.

I was willing to go to Minnesota, and I said, no. I'm not moving to Chicago. And, you know, he was well, he said, I've been here for a month. I've got this job with admiral. I you know, getting this apartment, and I said no.

Now remember that little lady I told you, she she who must be obeyed. She came to me and she said, your husband's in Chicago and that's where you should be. A wife a wife and kids should be with their husbands, and you will be on the train Saturday morning to Chicago. So you know where I was Saturday morning on a train on my way to Chicago. My husband had told me he didn't drink.

He had stopped drinking and, you know, he was working, had this job, this apartment, and everything was fine. When he met us at the train station, he was drunk. He told me he got drunk because he was only celebrating that the fact that his family was coming to Chicago. When he picked us up and we got home to 23 South St. Louis, and if everybody knows, it's on the west side of Chicago.

It's at St. Louis and Monroe. There were some people standing on that corner with bags and stuff. And when we got out of that out of that car, they said, hi, Bob. See folks, that didn't tell me nothing.

So at that point, I went on this he I went to work. I had a transfer to this to Chicago to this company. God really took care of us. So I went to work that Monday morning, and that weekend, I had to work weekend. It turns out I got he got drunk, and my sister-in-law told me to work and said that my 3 year old baby daughter cursed her out.

And my first question is where was her dad? Well, I had to get off work. I got home. He was drunk. Passed out, and my kids were in that house.

So I went on this quest. Now I'm angry. So I think if you give an alcoholic a list of things to do, they don't have time to get drunk. So I made him a list. Okay?

Now I have turned into she who must be obeyed. Do everything on this list. And by that time, I should be home. Right? Well, as it turned out, one of the things on this list was cooking dinner.

What he did put start the dinner. He just got drunk and forgot it was doing cooking because I got a call from the fire department to come home. My apartment was on fire, and my kids was in that place was in that apartment. And by the time I got home and they had put the fire out, now I'm angry. I'm angry.

I'm bitter, and I just want out of this. So I packed my clothes, and I moved back took the train back to Mississippi. By the time I got to Mississippi, he was there. The he beat the train there. And I've got this little lady standing there saying, that's your husband.

You should be with your husband, and and he should raise his children. All that boy does is get drunk. So you know what happened. I got off the train, went to her house, got back in the car, and drove that long 10 hours back to Chicago. And that's when I thought nobody can help me.

I'm a Southern Baptist, and I prayed, god help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. If nobody could understand what I was saying.

I tried talking to my sisters. They they didn't understand. Well, you know, he's a good that boy's a good boy. He works 5 days a week. And you wanna say, who cares?

I'm a raving maniac here. The man is driving me crazy. I'm getting stomachaches. I'm getting backaches. And I'm severe.

And I went to the doctor and all he did was give me Valiums, which I didn't take because they made you feel woozy. It was like you couldn't feel your feet. So I knew I didn't want that. And every time I go back, he just changed the colors. Hell, I was rainbow bright for the longest time.

So that wasn't the answer. I tried to explain to the doctor that Bob about Bob's drinking, and you know what he said to Bob. Now you only need to have 1 or 2 martinis. Today, I still keep literature in that doctor's office. I went on this now I'm on this quest to stop my husband from drinking.

And, again, I started praying to god. God, help me. Nobody understands. Please help me. And god just wouldn't help me because every day I'd wake up thinking he'd you know, you've done what I told you to do.

He won't be drinking. He'd come home drunk. That disease progressed. When he used to stop Sunday at 12, he stopped on Sunday evening. Then he started not stopping.

So he drinks. He's a truck driver. He and you know how you guys wear your boots. So he kept a bottle in his boot. He drank every day.

And every day, the man was this this alcoholism was driving me crazy. I'm focused on him. I've got these 2 girls out here in Never Never Land, which I think because you can buy them all the name brand clothes and all this kind of stuff. They should be okay and be great, but now they acting out at school. And me not understanding saying, well, I'm giving you everything y'all want.

Everything but that attention and love that I should have been given them. So I was focused on that alcoholic. So when they would act out at school, I'd send them on this guilt trip about, I'm working, young. You got a roof over your head, making a bad situation worse, which is why I'm telling you. Been there, done that.

That is not the way to do it today. But the kids are acting out. God's not doing it. Every day, I would say, okay, god. Here's what I want you to do.

He never did anything I told him to do. So I did what I do best. I don't want any part of you. You won't do what I tell you to do. I won't go to church anymore.

I'm not doing anything like that. I'll do it myself. Since you can't handle the situation, I can. And I remember when I when I made that final decision is because he called gasoline. And he and some of his buddies were talking about how they came down a mountain in Montana on a sheet of ice, and they couldn't stop until they got to Iowa.

And I told god, I said, see now that was your chance. You didn't do what I told you to do. Perfect opportunity. Now I'll do it myself. And I remember plotting on how to do this.

Okay? I was just sick enough to build a scenario with his family about how when he's in town, he don't come home for a couple of days, and I don't know where he is. Now just just so you know, I was a flat out lack of if he was in Chicago, he came home may whatever time, but the one thing he was gonna do was come home. I built this up quite well. I remember in the snow of 69, blizzard in Chicago.

The one thing they do is when they get drunk, they wanna pass out in our living room. You know those prized possessions we hold in our living room where only company can sit? I know today that was so great, but, you know, just kept that perfect. Nobody in the family could sit in there. The kids couldn't sit in there.

The husband. It was only for company, and y'all know what I'm talking about. As luck would have it, that's the one place you wanna come pass out. And that little man I told you about with that fork over here, he told me when he I go and passed out there, he said, all dogs belong outside. So what I did was there was a mound of snow in the back from having a shovel.

I remember having to pull him in my living room. If you ever come to my house, it's kinda straight like that. I remember pulling him through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen by the feet, opening that back door and actually holding his feet so his head could he hit every step as I dragged him out there and and threw him in that snow. I came back inside and said, oh, lord. Let it snow.

Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. It took me 45 minutes to pull that man out of there. But what I gotta tell you is he stayed out there for, like, 2 hours or so.

He comes inside. He gets up. He comes inside. He gets in the shower, take the bath, goes to bed. Right?

He wake up the next morning, he's fine. I wake up the next morning, I damn not got pneumonia. Head is stumped, achy, cold. God takes care of babies and alcohol. And then I went on the ultimate kick of killing him, and I knew I was gonna kill him.

I knew I was gonna kill my husband. I just didn't know how. I knew I was gonna do it. No doubt about it. In my heart, my soul, my all of me knew I was gonna kill him.

And then god had one more chance at it. Okay? In Chicago, when you come off the damn ride onto the Eisenhower, there's a curve. And I knew I planned this funeral already, white limousine, black limousine. And I had also picked out this black hat at a store downtown on State Street.

And I bought that hat, by the way, for his funeral. I bought this hat, this huge black hat with the veil. And I was going to match this with this black outfit, and I was gonna be the the the jazziest widow on the west side of Chicago when I went to his funeral. I didn't buy the outfit, but I bought that hat. Well, as it turned out, I got and I was oh, I gotta tell you how I used to practice in the mirror crying because he was dead.

I mean, you had to have the right tears. You had to have the right so I would practice on how I was gonna be crying with my hat on. You know? So as it turned out, god had another chance. When he got ready to come off the damn Rhine, he never made it.

He never made it to the Eisenhower. He went off, and he was loaded and that gas that this gasoline went down and crushed him. And when dispatch called and said they were sending somebody to get me, I started my tears. I started you know, I was practicing. Right?

So I'm standing there practicing now. Oh, and I'm just so happy with these tears. You know? And and, typically, they send the 2 in there you know, the 2 guys in there to get you, and they explained that there's been a serious accident, and they needed me to come. They so they took me in their car to the scene of the accident because the fire department was there holding down this gasoline.

And and they're trying to cut him off this truck. And there's no human it's not even possible that the man is not dead. That truck looked like an accordion. And I remember I was standing there crying. Oh, I was practicing.

It was, oh, I'm just I was tickled pink. I was tickled pink because and his insurance policy was a word I learned, double indemnity. And I'm qualified. So I'm I'm sitting there with these peers, and they're trying to comfort me. And in my head, it's like, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if they thought I was just so upset I was shaking, but I was having a ball. It turned out they made one more cut in that truck, and when they cut and did a pull, he jumped out. Now I'm really grand.

I'm pissed. God blew it again. And I didn't hesitate to tell him when I got by myself, you did it again. You did you you blew it. Just don't talk to me, and I won't talk to you.

You don't do nothing I tell you to do. Can't you follow instruction? Well, made it through that one. And, by the way, I kept that black hat for a lot of years after I was in Illinois before I destroyed that hat. And then I gotta tell you about we fought physical fights.

We had a lot of physical fights, And we would have to call the police, and he would call the police on me, and I'd call him on him. It was just a vicious cycle of insanity going. And then I thought, I'm gonna kill him. Those volumes that I told you about. Somebody told me if you if they you put them in beer and they foam up their finger, they'll knock them out.

I knew about that part, had that part, but I didn't know I didn't have any other plans past that. And then as a sideline, my husband does interior decorating. And I remember one day he walked in, and he had this brand new orange and black black and Decker saw. Do you know what a sick man can do with a saw like that? You see, when he went into your homes, he had this huge drop cloth thing and he spread it all over your house.

And then in some areas, he had these rolls of plastic where he put plastic down. Got it. This this this little pitchfork told me, put the Valiums in the beer, knock him out, put him on that board, that sawhorse thing with that board on it, put that plastic down, cut off a head, a arm, a leg, half the torso, down the chest, I had it, put him in garbage bags, and put him all over Illinois. They were never gonna put Humpty Dumpty together. In my first quest so you guys didn't tell me that you have to put the Valiums in and then pour a little beer in till they dissolve.

Because the first time I did it, I put the beer in the bag and stuff went everywhere and you know you wouldn't wanna drink that. So I had to wait. Can't do it that day because I didn't screwed up because you didn't tell me how to do it. But the second time, I did this just right. And I know today what happened.

I had gotten him in the basement. I had the car filled with gas. I had the garbage bags. I had the plastic down. I had everything, but my doorbell rang.

And the friends that ring the doorbell that day are still friends of ours now. That when we talk about this and they said they don't know why they stopped by my house. Well, I didn't know why they stopped by either because there was a ritual with me. Don't come to my house unless you call first. But today, we I know that God sent them by there because I was tired.

So I didn't get to do it that day. And a few weeks after that, and I'm still plotting it because I know I have to kill it. No doubt about it. A few days after that, he came home and he got in my bed and he laid down spread eagle. Now I watch a lot of westerns.

What does the Indians do to the cowboys? They tie them to the state. Right? So I cut up my daughter's jump rope and I tied them to the bed. I didn't know what I was gonna do at the time, but I knew I was gonna do something.

And after I died, and I went in to start fixing dinner, and my 2 kids wanted to go over to his to their auntie's house, which was a few blocks away, and I said yes. So I went in, and that day I was gonna fry chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans. That was my dinner. And I was get getting set to cut this chicken up when he woke up. And he started to scream and howl a lack of food, calling me.

And I went to the bedroom to see what he wanted, but I had this butcher's knife in my hand. And when he told me to untie him, that one over here said, cut his throat. So I told him, when I finished cut cutting my chicken, I'm gonna cut your throat. So I went back and started cutting up chicken, and he started screaming and howling and it was in the summertime so I had to let all the windows down so the neighbors wouldn't hear him howling, But I went back and told him, shut up because when I finish cutting this chicken, I'm gonna cut your throat. That was my intent.

I didn't care about prison at that time. The drinking and the fighting had gotten worse. The kids are acting out. The job is going crazy. Everything around me is sheer madness, and I knew that.

My family didn't understand. Friends don't understand. Nobody understands. You're all alone in this big world. God don't do what you tell him to do, so you're just alone.

And then I hear the alcoholic got this phrase, you get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Well, I was just out. I was drained mentally, physically, emotionally, everything. Financially, because he go out and get drunk, I go out and spend money. I was just bankrupt totally.

So I didn't care about going to jail. I didn't think about those kids that are acting out all the time. None of that. But what happened is when I finished cutting that chicken and went in there to cut his throat, The one daughter that lives in Springfield today came back home to get that same jump rope that I had cut up so they could play rope and our teeth out. And then I got to Herb and cut him loose because I don't want her to see him tied like that.

He is totally soaking wet. And I remember trying to uncut this rope so that she wouldn't see the state of her father being like that. And then I just kinda went into a, like, it's a nerve thing, guys. You go that's why I understand that damn, damn, damn. You know, when Lewis told us sometimes, gosh darn, just don't do it.

Well, that day, darn wouldn't wouldn't have fixed it. I had to do something. I had to get rid of this man. I quickly uncut him, and he called my mom and a whole 9 yards. But what happened is I chose to divorce him.

I said I gotta get a divorce. I gotta get out of this. And in in Mississippi, there's no such thing. You know, you gotta be a trailblazer. It'd be first.

And I remember leaving him, and I did get he has divorce papers today. I did get to see a lawyer. Okay? And they she messed around and told me in Illinois, women at that time wasn't getting their fair shares. I told you hold on.

Because that double indemnity still worked. Just hold tight. But at any rate, I moved away from my house and with a cousin because he wouldn't leave. It's my house. I ain't gonna leave.

You know, that kinda attitude. It turned out I stayed with her for a while, but it was too much of a hassle for me to leave her house. She lived east. I lived west. Take the kids west to school.