Pretty Little Girl

29 Mar 2014

The Power of Understanding

Not long after my mysterious jaunt to California, my mother, recently divorced from my dad, ended up letting me go live with him “temporarily”. She planned a moved to Pensacola, where my dad and his new wife lived. I had spent the summers there. I loved it because it was peaceful. No drunken, bipolar hissy fits. No mind games. No belittling. I was just a kid. I was away from my mother, brother, uncle and grandmother. Each day was me and my dad. He and I had always had this special bond. He loved me more than anything and he was my hero. I knew he wasn’t perfect, but I couldn’t imagine what a better daddy would be like. His flaws made him human and made me feel like I didn’t have to always be perfect. I could be me without hindrance.

During my life, I clung to my Daddy. He could always talk me through things. I would get upset; he & I would sit down and talk about it. Usually, it wasn’t as bad as I perceived. He was a calming, reasoning and enlightening force in my life to rival no other. His death in 1997 broke a portion of me, because at 22, I was not prepared to give up the part of my soul that he occupied. He physically, emotionally, & psychologically was a part of me. Jim Barnett’s influence in my life will resonate forever. When he saved me, he saved my future, my children. I married a man that cherished me who is much like him. He showed me how to live peacefully without drama. He taught me how to think things through. His actions reverberate in every faction of my life.

Then one day, I get a call. It is my brother, who I have not spoken to since my mother’s funeral. I had medical issues I wanted to discuss with him. I had emailed him begging him to talk to me about such issues. It was May 14, 2012. The day after Mother’s Day 9:30 AM. The words he spoke I was not prepared to hear. Jim wasn’t my Daddy.

Posted in dysfunction, family, Jim Barnett, John David Maddox, John Maddox, lies, stories, W.D. Barnett and tagged 2012, Daddy, family, father, Jim Barnett, John Maddox, Mother's Day | Leave a comment

15 Mar 2014

The Stories Begin….

Just as suddenly as we were whisked into chaos, we were returned to our normality with very little fanfare. Everything was the same as it was prior to the California turmoil. The only real explanation I ever got was that my Uncle Mike was running from some really bad people who were liable to lash out at his family and then another story was the FBI was after my uncle. Depending on who told the story, the reasonings were different. When I asked our neighbor, JoAnn what she was told it was a mixture of both stories. Again, yet another version of the same event.

I felt as if my life was “choose your own ending” phenomenon. The only thaing that was for sure was that everything was being covered up. Maybe I was too young to understand. Maybe it was too outlandish for anyone to believe. Maybe it was just a cover for something completely different. I was 8 years old but I was far from naive to the ways of the Maddox family. Deceit, pathological lies, exaggerations & cruelty was par for the course. I became convinced that I would only find out what happened when the dust settled or until I was grown–whichever came first. I asked my dad because he would be straight with me. It became clear that he was just as much out of the loop as I was. After all, we weren’t apart of the Maddox inner circle.

Roughly 30 years later, I finally was given some of the answers. It had all been about me.

Posted in dysfunction, family, FBI, lies, michael maddox, rage, stories, Uncategorized and tagged California, craziness, lies, Michael Maddox, Pine Valley, stories | Leave a comment

08 Mar 2014

Reflections from the Looking Glass

Funny. When I replay this amateur screenplay of chaos, Salvador Dali is the only thing that comes to mind. Surrealism, simply. Nobody has these kinds of things happen. No one has the bizarre juxtaposition of people who make up their lives, like I do, but I digress.

The next “safe house” my mother and I went to was a much better place. It was house on top of a mountain in Pine Valley, California. When Uncle Mike drove up there, he said the house was just like the Ponderosa, which happened to be the name of the road where the house was nestled. In the back of the house was a horse stable with horses.

My Aunt Dee was there with my cousins, David, Curt and Anna. For this brief spell, we were a family. My mother & Dee giggled like school girls and seemed to be always fascinated by each other. I was able to play with my cousins. I could PLAY for the first time since this all started. I felt like things were going to be alright. There were even plans made to talk to my Daddy! I was so excited. I felt less like a prisoner and more like a kid. We played with very little toys but back then you didn’t really need stuff to play. The imagination of a child can take you to so many places.

My little cousin, Anna, was a scamp. She was devious for a 5 year old. I remember her pinching me and then pinching herself. She’d holler for her mother to say I was hurting her. At the age of 5, REALLY?? This was foreshadowing for the future in a very storybook way. She was the only girl. My boy cousins did their own things that I had no interest in.

Curt was a little younger than me–a few months. He and I were the most alike. Tender hearts. We did not meet the Maddox standard of brazen & deceitful. My cousin David was like a kid version of my Uncle Mike. He was a schemer, leading us into trouble, allowing anyone to take the blame for his “brilliant” ideas. Anna was Anna–enough said. But Curt wasn’t wired like them, he was more like me. He was sensitive and I worried about that. My uncle’s rages were so monstrous. I didn’t know how Curt dealt with it. I couldn’t have.

I remember going to Swanson’s for ice cream down in the little town of El Cajon. I remember brushing the horses with Anna. I remember my Mother driving Aunt Dee’s “fire engine red” Camaro over a flooded bridge trying to get to the general store. My cousin David orchestrated that one. My mother couldn’t remember how to go the “back way” off the mountain to the town below. These were the high points of the trip. This was the last time we were a family.

Posted in curt maddox, family, horse, michael maddox, pine valley and tagged Anna Maddox, California, Curtis Maddox, David Maddox, Dee Birdsell, Dee Dixon, El Cajon, family, horses, Pine Valley, Ponderosa, Salvador Dali | Leave a comment

19 Feb 2014

Chasing the White Rabbit

The rest of my California adventure seems to be a blur with highlighted oddities. Early in the morning, Mother woke me up. It was time to go. We left with Bobby Riggs and Uncle Mike in Mike’s car. He drove us to a beautiful marina. Huntington Beach they told me. We went into a townhouse that was immaculate. It was on the marina with the water right out the back sliding glass door. The house was furnished with posh furniture, like I’d seen only on TV. I was told again here to stay away from the windows. The blinds were pulled shut on all the downstairs windows. Upstairs the blinds were tilted so that we could see out but no one could see in. I had a beautiful bedroom which I told would be all mine for the time being. Mother had another room. There were more people besides Bobby Riggs now. A man, whose name I cannot recall owned the property. His sister, Jody, I had met before when my uncle swooped into town. She was his mistress.

She was a shell of a woman. She always seemed happy and talked to me quite a bit. She told me about a son she had that her ex-husband had taken away from her. The sadness in her eyes was all consuming, but she said she felt better just being around me. Besides this was her brother’s house, what could happen to us here? I was informed that Jody’s brother was also a bodyguard in the employ of my uncle. He was there to protect us. We couldn’t go outside or even near the windows. I spent the majority of my days here sleeping and watching TV. I don’t know how long we were here, but one afternoon while everyone was gathered around in the living room laughing and talking, I went to sit down next Bobby Riggs. All of a sudden my mother yelled, “NO” and she grabbed me. I almost sat down on a gun…not just any gun but an uzi. Scared to death, I went upstairs to the bathroom to wash my face and kind of calm myself down.

The bathroom was elegant and had a full size mirrored closet. I opened the closet to find a hand towel or washcloth. To my surprise, this closet held an arsenal of guns that looked as if they were on display. What the hell was I in the middle of??

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged arsenal, California, Huntington Beach, Jody, marina, Michael Maddox, uzi | Leave a comment

13 Feb 2014

Further into the Looking Glass

It is still so surreal to recall this entire “adventure”. Nothing about this Sunday in March of 1983 makes any sense. I woke up to a normal Sunday morning. I ended the day sitting in my Uncle Mike’s house in Long Beach. The black haired cowboy Bobby Riggs brought us to my uncle’s house but the house was pitch black. We waited in the truck in front of the house until my Uncle Mike drove up. When he got out of the car, he came to the truck and carried me inside. Bobby and my mother followed. Ray was nowhere to be found. My uncle had taken him somewhere else. The bizarre events continued throughout the night. Bobby Riggs was our “bodyguard” as I am told. He is there to make sure no one hurts me or my mother. Who is after us? Why? It was just not making sense. Once we entered the house, we were told not to turn on any lights other than the bathroom light which was on the innermost hallway in the house. Why? It’s not safe.

Being absolutely traumatized by all the craziness, I realized there was a missing element in this house. Where were my cousins, my uncle’s 3 kids? Where was my Aunt Dee? We are sitting in the dark with my mother, uncle and Bobby Riggs making small talk in a house in Long Beach. I didn’t change into my pajamas or brush my teeth; I was just taken to my cousin, David’s bedroom. He was 2 years older than me and again, he wasn’t there. His room looked as if he had been there shortly before. The toys were out and things looked as if he was just in another room, but he wasn’t. No one was. My uncle had a housekeeper, a Mexican lady. She wasn’t there. I was sitting on my cousin’s waterbed, thinking how awesome it was to be there because I’d never been on a waterbed. It was an experience, probably the only one that day that didn’t scare the hell out of me.

After I finished making waves in the bed and finally fell asleep, I woke up the next morning to a sort of panic. A realization of the insanity of the prior day. If all of that had happened in just one day, what was to expect of the next 24 hours?

Posted in american dream, Bobby Riggs, death, dysfunction, family, michael maddox and tagged Bobby Riggs, California, craziness, David Maddox, Dee Maddox, Long Beach, Michael Maddox, mother, waterbed | Leave a comment

08 Feb 2014

Inside the Looking Glass

When people recollect about their past, it gives rise to all kinds of emotions. Many of those emotions are thought to have dwindled on the vine, but in reality, they are just dormant, resting and waiting for the sprinkle of acknowledgement that revives them instantaneously. My California experience is no different. It could have been a dream with all the strange happenings and truly surrealist environment.

Our fantastic excursion continues as we arrive in LAX late at night. My mother tells Ray that my uncle will be picking us up in a “MACK” truck. Ray stopped and just looked at my mother. He was just as surprised as I was. I didn’t know what a MACK truck was. We walked outside to the pickup and drop-off outside the airport. When, out of nowhere, my Uncle Mike came running from the passenger side of an 18 wheeler. He ran towards us and grabbed me as he ran. My mother and Ray followed behind. We circled back around to the truck, where he tossed me into the cab as he grabbed my mother and helped her in. He closed the door and we drove off leaving him and Ray on the curb. I scraped my ankle as I got into the truck. It wasn’t bleeding but sure did hurt.

The driver of the truck looked over and introduced himself as Bobby Riggs. He had a black cowboy hat, scraggly long jet black beard and he was wearing dark tinted glasses. His shirt was a black country-western shirt with white pearl buttons. He made small talk with Mother about the plane and the ride. The only thing I remember him saying was “now you are safe, little one.” I suddenly became concerned about my Uncle and Ray. Where they safe? I asked my mother about them. She said something I would always remember. She said ” Don’t you worry about your Uncle Mike. He can handle anything.”

Posted in american dream, Bobby Riggs, California, cowboy, family, LA X, MACK truck, michael maddox, rage and tagged Bobby Riggs, California, family, girl, MACK truck, Michael Maddox, Ray Aaron | Leave a comment

02 Feb 2014

“My Baby”

When I tell people about my family, I have to remember who my family is. People can’t wrap their heads around the reality of my family. Every single relative has a chemical dependency problem. How do you make that normal or coherent for somebody? On our spontaneous jaunt to California, I realized for the first time how unconventional and off the chart my family was as a whole. A stranger skulking our house early on a Sunday morning. I heard my grandmother feverishly making phone calls to what seems like random people. My Uncle Mike in California was screaming through the phone. My mother was recovering from a drunken bender the night before at a friend’s house. This wasn’t the most odd Sunday but it wouldn’t be a typical day in the life of any of my friends.

It was a crisp Sunday morning. What the hell was going on? By the end of the day with virtually no clothes or possessions we were on a plane L.A.X. Before we boarded the plane, an older man with kind face walked up to my mother and hugged her. He said it had been a long time. He was trying to calm my manic mother. They discussed what my uncle wanted us all to do. She finally introduced me to him. “This is Ray. He’s Ernest’s brother.”

Ernest was my Paw Paw. Even the mention of his name, made me smile. He died when I was 3 years old, but I remember him being the source of continuous laughter and him being a clown all the time. It wasn’t until I was older that I was told he was just “a damn old drunk”. He couldn’t hold a job; he sponged off my grandmother who worked midnights at Waffle House-esque diner known as the “Steak and Eggs”. But to me, he was my crazy Paw Paw telling jokes, pulling the chair out from under my mother or taking me to the little general store to buy me whatever kind of candy I wanted.

Ernest wasn’t biologically related to me. He had been my grandmother’s last husband many years after the death of my grandfather, Curt. He was younger than my grandmother by about 8-9 years. He died abruptly in 1977. I remember the night clearly. I was a sleep on the couch in our living room on Cypress drive. It was odd because my mother wasn’t there; it was just me and my Daddy. My mother didn’t drive and I don’t know where she went. My normal routine was to sit down with my Daddy and watch TV after my bath. Daddy would carry me to bed, but this wasn’t what happened this night. Daddy said we had to go see Paw Paw. We drove up to their apartment. There were flashing lights everywhere. People were walking all around. It was the middle of the night or at least it seemed like it to me. I’d never seen people at their apartment before–not even the neighbors. My daddy and I sat down on the stairs amid all the chaos. He had a look on his face. It almost looked like anger. He was a mild man. He didn’t throw fits or anything. He would look at you with this look of disappointment and restrained words. It wasn’t a scary look; it was a look that always made guilt well up in my chest. I remember asking where Paw Paw and Grandma were. He said Paw Paw was sick and Grandma and Mother had gone to see how Paw Paw was doing.

None of those words meant anything to me really. I never realized I’d never see my Paw Paw again. I was “his baby” as he’d always say. He came to our house all the time. I knew my Daddy didn’t like him or my Grandma for that matter. Daddy had never taken me to see them before. It was unusual but I couldn’t comprehend the truth of it all. My Paw Paw had died. Grandma had found him when she came home. Mother was at the hospital with her.

Now 5 years later we sit in an airport terminal with a brother of his, on the spur of the moment. I had school Monday morning. What had happened now?

Posted in american dream, curt maddox, death, dysfunction, family, josephine leonard, michael maddox, rage and tagged "Steak & Eggs", Death, dysfunctional, Ernest Aaron, family, Josephine Leonard, Michael Maddox, plane, Ray Aaron | Leave a comment

30 Jan 2014

So It Begins; A Reflection

The funny thing is I think I look a lot my uncle. As I look through pictures, I want to understand why he was the way he was. I see strength and uniqueness in this “beast” of a man. I don’t know what it is that makes his life so intriguing but I have to keep delving into the unknown abyss.

I just found something I wrote a while back. It’s the beginning of a story that is giant portion of my recollection of my uncle.

“Hey pretty girl, won’t you look my way,

you can bet you’ll make this ol’ boy’s day,

hey pretty girl, won’t you look my way”

—Kip Moore

I heard this song and a flood of memories came over me. The low husky voice, those words..

March 1983

Cahaba Heights

A Sunday morning 8 am, to a 8 year old is THE most boring time. All my friends were in church. My Grandma spent the night with me while Mama was out and there was no way in hell Grandma was going to a church. The closest she ever got was watching Jimmy Swaggart. That was her religion.

I was bored. I went outside and kicked the gravel in the driveway. I was pretty disturbed. I missed my Daddy so much. He worked out of town and came home every other weekend. A old truck rolls down Cypress Drive. This is odd because all the neighbors were in church. Our street was out of the way for somebody to just be passing by. A dark haired man was hanging out the passenger side window. They slowed down at the driveway. So I started to walk towards them. The man asked if my Daddy was home. I said, “No sir, he is working in South Carolina”. He asked me if I was alone. I said, “ No sir, my Grandma was inside the house.” He nodded and the truck drove on. A few minutes later, the truck came back the other way. This time the man was driving. He stopped in front of the house again. Again I walked up to him. He said smiling “Hey pretty girl, you wanna come home with me?”

I said, “No sir, I was just waiting on my Mama. She should be home soon.” I thought maybe he was friend of Daddy’s. He was more interested in knowing about him than anything. Something about the man looked familiar but I didn’t know why.

The old truck drove away. I went back inside. I told Grandma that Daddy’s friends were asking about him. And she asked me if I told them he was out of town and I said “Yes, m’am I told them he’s working out of South Carolina”. She looked out the kitchen window and the truck was driving by again. She told me to go play in my room. I didn’t have anything better to do. She got on the phone and was talking. Then the phone rang and she was yapping some more. It was a little unusual. Grandma wasn’t the social butterfly that talked on the phone very much. I think I fell asleep on my bed. The next thing I remember Grandma was talking to Uncle Mike in California. That was just odd. Then all of a sudden my mother flies in the door. She grabs me and tells me to get a couple of toys that we were going to California……that’s where the weird got even weirder…….

Posted in curt maddox, death, dysfunction, family, josephine leonard, michael maddox, rage and tagged birmingham, California, family, kidnap, Lizabeth Maddox, Long Beach, Michael Maddox, scandal | Leave a comment

29 Jan 2014

The Making of a Man

Michael Maddox was a brute. He was massive and a force to be reckoned with. His size was a tool; his voice thundered. When he entered a room, every person knew it. Even at the age of 15, I am told by my aunt, Sonia who went to high school with my mother and worked with her and Mike after at Lamar’s Drive-In, remembers Mike as a ladies man. “He smelled so good and he was so handsome. I always had him come sit next to me, even though he was younger than us. He didn’t act like it”, Sonia told me. One of his quotes from that time was that he loved Southside Baptist Church. He went there as often as he could. Why? It was the best place to get laid. Enough said.

Along with being a cad, he was a huffer; he would inhale the pressurized chemicals in aerosol cans. Looking for a way to escape his meager life. Mustard and lettuce sandwiches were a commonality for my mother and Mike. Jo was too wrapped up in her personal demons to be an adequate mother. The kids were on there own. My mother Liz tried to step in to look after Mike but she had no role model to know what she should do. Jo’s lifestyle kept them from connecting with people for any length of time. Constant moving, beatings and generalized hell raising kept most away. Surviving the best way they could with an emotional not present mother and her present drunk, was life for them.

Mike was different. He wanted out. He had delusions of grandeur from early on. My mother and many others favored Mike. He had something as a little kid. He was unique but no one really knew why. I can only assume it was the aura of being in the present of something great. I have heard this about many great men. They had something intangible innate that radiates from them. No word to describe it but just a magnetism that was beyond words. Recently in college studying psychology, a found out what that “thing” was. It is, what is erroneously called anti-social behavior. It is not like it sounds. The dynamic, charismatic charmer is truly a well primed facade for the absolute inability to be human. He was in a word– a sociopath. Calculated, cunning, charming, and evil with the inability empathize with anyone beyond his mother and sister.

As a teenager, he was a thief. He evolved into stealing cars. His biggest adventure took him to Florida in a stolen car. He was eventually arrested. This was the early to mid 1960’s. Vietnam was a reality for the youth of the nation. Mike was given the opportunity to go to Vietnam or jail for his interstate mischief. He chose Vietnam. This was truly the end of anything human in Mike’s personality.

Posted in american dream, curt maddox, dysfunction, family, michael maddox, rage and tagged american dream, birmingham, family, Michael Maddox, sociopath, Vietnam | Leave a comment

27 Jan 2014

Man vs Myth

When I say Michael Maddox was a evil, visualize the mythology of the Minotaur. Half man, half beast. When he raged, this is what I saw. His voice boomed. His face contorted. Furniture shook. It was something I had never encountered, but this particular display of animalistic fury, was because my cousin, Curtis, his son, named after his beloved father didn’t finish the food on his plate at dinner. I was 5 years old. Curty was only 4. I was so scared for him. No fictitious villain could ever compete with the ire of my Uncle Mike. Fire was in his eyes. Carnage in his voice over brussel sprouts. My God! I had envied the lifestyle of my cousins but this night, I was scared for them. During my youth, he would sweep into town sometimes unannounced and hold our lives in limbo. By ours, I mean me and my mother. I am sure my brother and grandmother too but all I knew was his presence on us. He would lavishly buy things, dinners, without a care in the world. He was a self-proclaimed millionaire. Just as quickly as he swept in, he was off again.

This was so bizarre to me as a child. My parents scraped by, month to month. Grandma was not wealthy but more comfortable but we struggled. How was he a millionaire? None of this makes sense but I recognized even then that his vitality was the difference in the rest of the family and him. Modesty vs extravagance. He moved to Los Angeles and made himself a fortune. The American Dream, right?

That is what you were supposed to strive to do and he did it fluidly. He was a phoenix rising from the fire of squalor. Again Elvis and the Devil personified. When I would ask my father about Mike’s line of work, he would simply say was a “con man”. He explained that to me. But he’s rich and he’s not in jail, surely he wasn’t just a con man.

Posted in american dream, curt maddox, dysfunction, family, josephine leonard, michael maddox, minotaur, phoenix, rage and tagged american dream, birmingham, los angeles, Michael Maddox, minotaur, phoenix | Leave a comment

Pretty Little Girl

A day in the life….