come back home until after his two days off.
It started being the same old story time and time again, Chris would come home, and the argueing would start. All the bills never got paid, Chris was always tired and cranky from little sleep, and the baby cried, or made other noises when he tried to get sleep. Chris felt like his youth was already lost. Playing daddy was fun at first, but being daddy was to hard to last. So, Chris started to vent his frustrations on Lacey. The arguments between Lacey and Chris starting getting more physical and physical. She complained about his increased drinking, and time away from the apartment. He complained about her bossing him around, and not understanding he was doing the best he could do.
Chris would just slap, or punch Lacey while saying, or doing little much else. He learned this method of control to quiet Lacey. He spent little time with the baby now, and that time was spent yelling at her to be quiet, or to go to sleep.
She felt so trapped, what was she going to do, she needed her daughter to have a roof over her head, and she had no place else to go. So when Chris wanted to have sex she gave in; when Chris hit her and told her to shut up, she did just that. After it became obvious Chris was sleeping around, even with girls in the same tenement, Lacey knew she had to get out, but how was her biggest question now.
She mustered up the strenght to swallow her pride, and call her mother. "Hey Lacey, what's up? We've not spoken in a while, how is the baby?"
"Mom I need your help."
"What, you need some money? OK, but I want it back."
"No, look, Chris has been hitting me. He is hardly ever home. I hate living in that place, but it's even harder being there by myself. He drinks so much now; he's been cheating on me."
"So what do you want me to do, huh? The Mother that tried to warn you about this, the Mother you started to hate."
"Don't say that Mom."
"Oh, now you want to forget, but I haven't. So now you think you're going to come home and bring that grand baby drama in this house, oh no. I'm not going to be put in that position, like I told you before, I raised my kid.
"Things could have been different, you could of tried to work things out our way, but no. You wanted to run off with that burger flipping MF., and the hell with me and Daddy."
"At that point what could I've done Mom?"
"You could have gotten an abortion, told Ronald McDonald to take a hike, and finished your senior year off right.
"An abortion? You wanted me to kill my baby? How can you say that, after looking into her eyes? Fuck you Mom, I'm going to be OK, so forget that I even called you."
The line was dead on the other end, Lacey assumed her mother had disconnected after she dropped the f-bomb on her. An idea popped into Lacey's head, a Shelter. She remembers her grandmother voluntared at one through her church. It was a Shelter for domestic violence victims, she certainly could call herself that now, after going rounds with her drunken baby's father.
She tried to sell everything in the apartment she could from the t.v., to any extra baby clothes. After looting what she could, and packing a small amount of things for her and the baby, she went outside, and asked a Cop for the nearest Women and Children's shelter.
in his Loving Arms
The Cop took her and the baby to, "In his loving arms", a Shelter sponsored by a local City Council Women who Pastors a church. Lacey was scared, but wanted to be around people that cared about her, and would help her. As soon as she went into the shelter, she thought to herself, "wow, this place fells like a prison." She heard kids playing, and felt so sad for any child living in a shelter, then she felt depressed because her little
Nikki would be one of them.
After walking in past tight security, Lacey was taken into an office with other mothers and children. Some of the mothers were crying, others looked dazed and confused, the kids seemed to make the best of it by running and playing. A women was almost screaming in fear about a sighting of her husband; a man that beat her for almost 20 years before she got out.
"Look, I saw him, Jim, my soon to be ex-husband slash gorilla, hanging around here when I went to see my welfare counselor, that mutherfucker is going to kill me, and don't say I didn't warn you. I ran all the way back here. "Relax, if you've seen him hanging around, then he must know your schedule. We'll alert the district and have some one from security shadow you for a while, well at least to the bus. So, relax, were on it now." After hearing this display it hit Lacey how serious this place was. In her wildest dreams, she couldn't believe Chris would ever kill her, but she better not tell him where she is either.
"Hello Miss, and please tell me why you are here today?" A Hispanic women in her mid fifty's, dark complexed with an amazing and elaborate jewry display hanging around her neck, greeted Lacey. The women lead Lacey back to her office as Lacey gave her plea for help. "Well Miss, I needed somewhere to stay. My boyfriend has been hitting me, and my mother won't let me come home. I don't have enough to pay rent by myself, so I am here asking for some help. Lacey said this, sounding like a lost little girl trying to find somebody to help her find her way home. Nikki was to busy playing with a desk ornament of Mrs. Rosa to know what was going on.
"Well, you've come to the right place, because that is what we do, help women like yourself. I'm an intake counselor. I'll be filling out your application, and then I'll submit it to the supervisers, they'll make the determination if you need services. Don't worry, hardly if any are turned away, especially if there are beds avalible.
"How the program works is: first we keep you safe from your abuser; we have a top notch security team in place to protect you in here. Our security team are mostly former Police Officers mainly, and if you have to leave the facility they'll go with you. We offer job training and placement through schools and employers who are trying to help the troubled population of battered women. If you get a job through us, 25% goes to us for your living expensives and child care, 25% goes into savings for when you leave us, and the rest is yours to keep. The job training programs are free to you, the problems are structured to get you started in a career field, but you are going to need additional training and on the job experience.
After being briefed on the program and filling out plenty of paperwork, Lacey was taken to an empty single room, just for tonite. In the morning when she will be given their decision, they will most likely move her to the community area where most of the women and children stay.
The room looked like a prison cell, and the floor the room was located on had plenty of locked doors, security cameras and guards to make it feel like a prison. Lacey just laid on the bed without taking any of her, or Nikki's clothes off. She hugged her baby tight, kissing the top of her head, and sang a song she remembered from the time she was a little girl.
Don't be afraid of the shadows
don't be afraid of the shadows the light chases them away
don't be afraid of the night the sun comes the next day
courage I give to you
just like I made the ocean's blue
I make the darkness and what is bright
so how easy I can turn the darkness into light
trust me, and in the end, I'll make everything alright
"What are you singing about Mommy?" "Oh, just a song my grand mother sang at church." "OK, then teach me, and where is daddy?" "Your father is in the shadows, and we are heading towards the light now." "But, what is th....." "Hush girl, go to sleep, we have a busy day tomorrow."
Lacey was awaken by the sound of someone walking down the hall with a big bundle of key rings full of keys. Whoever it was they were waking the ladies up. "All the sexy girls in the house make some noise, now scream. It's time to get up, you ain't got to go home, but you got to get the hell out of here."
The Big Show, a tall thin man with a voice that sounds like it's coming from a fat man. "The Big show", is what they called him in the force. He had a reputation for making big arrest where the media was involved. A fo
rmer City Police Officer who retired to a position at the Shelter, as security supervisor.
"That's right they call me the Big Show. I get the job done, and I do it so well. Watching me is like seeing a Broadway show; lights, camera, action, now watch out baby cause here I come."
His day starts by waking up some of the women in the Shelther, because they have to go to work, and others have school. Lacey was not ready when it was her time to get up. Bang bang bang, the knocks on the door hurt Lacey, her night of shelter was over. Even though she felt like she was in a prison, she felt safe, No drunken Chris coming home demanding sex, smelling like the sex from another women, and beer and cigarettes. Lacey also didn't have to worry about being hit last night.
She was afraid they would not let her stay in the Shelter, then where would she go? "Alright young ladies, I know you're in there, come out with your hands up." The Big Show opened the door slightly, checking to see if the girls were decent. "OK miss, I'll walk you down to your counselor and they'll give you their decision." Lacey got what things she had and put the baby over her shoulder as Nikki refused to wake up yet.
"Why the worried face? You know what Trench of Naughty by Nature says: everything is going to be alright now, everything is going to be alright." He tried to comfort Lacey, because he knows the range of emotions these girls go through.He knows the worlds they come from, worlds that are hard to escape. These girls may have finally left the abuse, but the abuse rarely ever leaves them.
"Wow sir, you listen to Naughy?" "Sure do, I got to stay young some how." Lacey laughed as thy walked down a staircase that reminded her of being back in school. The Counselor greeted Lacey with a big smile, as she was lead into her office.
"OK, you girls be good and I'll see you in a few." "OK, thanks sir." "Oh wait, that is going to stop. Around here they call me, The Big Show, so no more sir." "OK si..., I mean Mr. Big Show. "Wow, OK it's a start. You must come from a really good home. We'll work on that mister in there later."
Lacey then looked at her still smiling counselor, who had on another extensive display of Jewry this new day. "So what was the decision on me and Nikki?" "Girl I told you, hardly anybody is turned away, between me and you, it's really about money. The Shelter is given aid money from the State, and Feds per head. If you guys get employment through us, the employer gets a tax break, and a portion of your salary goes to the Shelter. Then when you think about all the other donations from mostly religious grougs, girl people in here are getting money. Dysfunction is an American gold mine, especially amongst the poor, so they have to keep the house full just like the prisons.
"Look Lacey they can make money from anything, even a Mutherfucker who beats his wife, It's America." "Well, now you sound like my father, everything is a conspiracy and we're being controlled." "Wow, your father sounds like a smart man." "Oh yeah, he's not smart enough to stand up to his wife, but we can talk about that some other time."
Lacey was taken to her new home, or where she and Nikki would be sleeping. The building has three floors that are referred to as the, "barn", because each of these floors has about 5 big rooms where they house as many women and kids as they can. The top 2 flors are reserved for clients who need special accomadation.
Lacey was taken a room with 4 other battered one, and their children. The first one she noticed walking in was an older White women with a mixed child, not much older than Nikki. The second and third were to African American women sitting together with