To Whom It May Concern: by M.J. Garrett (books to get back into reading .TXT) 📕

/> My mother would cry and say that she would never again let anything happen to us. She would hug us and bring us into her bosom. She would cry salty tears of regret that would wet our faces and shoulders as she buried her face in us. This would always be the case…until she got home. She would then fade off into her own world as her eyes would roll into her skull with the familiar sound of her soft giggle. Then punishment ensued. As if the distraction from our monster’s freedom was our fault…my fault for being abused. To some degree, I guess I believed it was.

To Whom It May Concern:
Thank you mother for sharing in our adventures…I’m sure he appreciates it more than you.

*

After I finally arrive at my job, I would login to the computer and check emails and maybe run through some local sports articles. I would read about the athlete that got arrested at some strip club or arrested for drinking and driving. I would read about their substance abuse and sexual addictions. I would read about their small town upbringing. I often wonder if every small town was like the one I grew up in.

After a couple of hours went by with me sitting in that old office chair at that worthless job, the phone would ring and the voice on the other end would tell me, “Hey, we are done for now. Go and get some food if you want.” The same voice, the same words, the same time, the same routine. My dinner is already cooked and the clear plastic top to the Tupperware is covered with condensation from the microwave.


CHAPTER 3

Carla covered her head with the blanket and then laid there until the last possible moment. The alarm clock had already been turned off and she knew that if she’s late one more day she could be fired. She slept nude all the time and on a cool morning like this, she had to pee like crazy. She quickly throws the blankets back and scurries into the bathroom.
Knowing the toilet seat would be cold, she looks at herself in the mirror and counts out loud, “Okay, girl. Here we go….one….two….three.” She takes a deep breath and sits down fast. The chill of the toilet seat gives her goose bumps. She closes her eyes and as the seat slowly warms up, she slumps down with her eyes still closed, and eases out a long deep sigh. With her knees touching and her feet spread apart, she opens her eyes and blows the tangled morning hair out of her face.

After she finishes her morning ritual, she looks down into the pile of clothes lying on the bathroom floor. She quickly throws on the bra and her uniform shirt that she’s worn for the past 3 days. She slips on the same pair of ripped jeans with no panties, and grabs her ragged toothbrush from the sea shell decorated toothbrush holder on the left side of the sink. Her toothbrush is covered with the white stain of toothpaste that she neglects to clean off completely after every brush and the bristles are so worn that they tend to curl backwards. She neglects perfume, knowing that her beautiful 23 year old, 5’ 3” perfect body will over power any stink that comes from her clothes. Besides, she can always blame Tom while at work; bathing to him is a weekly thing and he couldn’t smell anything anyways…his curse, his blessing.

She walks into the kitchen and grabs a granola bar off the top of the fridge and takes a couple big swigs out of the orange juice carton then darts out the door to her car.

Her car is a grim reflection of her house. There are clothes piled in the seats and empty water bottles piled onto the front passenger floorboard. She has purple and gold beaded necklaces hanging from the rearview mirror and rubber bands and hair clips around the gearshift. She grabs one of the bands and pulls her dark brown hair with lightened streaks back into a pony tail. She pulls a red cloth makeup bag out of her black leather Coach knock-off purse. With her thumb and index finger, pulls out a red shade of lipstick. She reaches down to pick up a dirty lipstick stained napkin from of the floorboard and presses her thin defined lips onto the napkin. She again looks at herself in the mirror and says, “Dear something or someone. There has to be something better. There has to be some purpose.”

She’s worked at Eddie’s Movie Store for 2 years now. It seems that every morning, Monday through Friday, there is just not a lot business. Carla, not motivated by the chance of job advancement, often goes outside to smoke to pass her time. During these smoke breaks she leans against the wall and wonders how things would be if she’d only stayed at home until she graduated high school. She’d left home when she was 16 and moved in with her grandmother.

Her grandmother Amy was completely different than the son she had raised. She was a remnant of the hippie culture. She still wore bellbottom pants and ruffled sleeved flower tops. She still wore platform hemp sandals and she had 3 tattoos. Two of the three tattoos Carla had never seen. The one she did know about was a tear drop with a halo around it. It was on her lower back above her right butt cheek. It has blurred with age, but it is still her most prized possession.

The son Amy raised, Carla’s father, He was a marine. He spent years deployed in places that Carla could never know about. Years spent sucking sand through gas mask and heat that they call the “dog days of winter”. He was strict, but he was absent. He was always absent.

To whom it may concern:
Grant peace to the country that my father fights protect. Just don’t grant it right now, I’m happy.

When he was home, he ran his house like a marine would be expected to. Everyone up at 5am with breakfast served at 5:15. No matter how early she went to bed, getting up was so hard to do. She was always tired.

Carla’s dad, the devout soldier, her devout father, her disciplinarian, always found the time to spread his love of Christ with his daughter. Sometimes, around 2 or 3 in the morning, he would go into her bedroom and bow his head. He would pray and lay hands on her.

To Whom It May Concern:
Please don’t let her scream. Please don’t let her remember.

For as long as she could remember, he would pray for her. Lay his hands on her and slide his hands under her blanket. He would kiss her cheek and then lick her ear. She would squeeze her eyes shut and cry.

After breakfast the house chores were split up between the 3 children. Carla’s chore list consisted of cleaning her room, the hallway bathroom, the wash room. She was also responsible for sweeping and dusting the hallway, the front porch, and making sure the dogs were fed and watered. Usually done by 6:00, she would then go out to her car and light up a cigarette that she stole from her parent’s.

Carla was a good student with excellent potential. She could’ve made the honor roll if she wanted, but she only did enough to get by. She was by no means an over achiever, but she was smart enough to know when she needed to buckle down. She wasn’t one of the most popular kids in school, but she was one of the prettiest if she’d only stop cursing so much.

Once she moved out of her parent’s house and into Amy’s, she started to relax a little. She stopped cursing and she started to blossom into the beautiful young lady that now works at the movie store. She’s grown up now, but every once in a while, she shows the kid inside…and it’s adorable. She has tried to forget her childhood, but it serves as her reminder that she has the freedom to be whom and what she wants.

Carla smiles as she thinks about her child hood and grandmother, but vaguely remembers her grandfather. With smoke coming out of both nostrils, she rolls the finished cigarette butt between her fingers; pushing the tobacco to the ground. She steps on the burning ash and throws the lipstick stained filter into the fire proof can beside the entry door. Then she returns to her lifeless post behind the register.


CHAPTER 4

Every night at 9:00 p.m., I would go on break and sit in my car. I would turn the radio on and quietly listen to the same channel. I could barely hear the songs being played, but it provided enough distraction to not feel alone. I would take two cigarettes out of the newly bought pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights and place them behind my ears. I would then take one and put it into my lips and enjoy the burning sensation and the cool menthol taste in my mouth. As I light the cigarette, the flame from the lighter would light up my face and the inside of my hand, blinding me for a moment until the tip of the cigarette turned bright orange. The sound of the tobacco and rice paper burning on each pull was part of my routine…a part of my life.

Sitting in the car, I listen to commercials about how to get free credit scores, how to score with ladies that are older and single, and drink specials at the local topless bars. I listen to commercials from lawyers and ambulance chasers, restaurants, or pill ads that are supposed to make your fat ass shrink into pants that you wore 10 years ago…in just 3 months!! I flick the filter of a finished cigarette out of the window and take one of the smokes from my ear and light it.

I would periodically glance at the phone sitting in the passenger seat. Nothing. No voice messages, no text, and no email. I would embrace the fact that maybe I am alone. Am I the only one on this planet…maybe the only one in my world? Maybe the songs on the radio are on some sort of repeat, some sort of electronic loop that plays shitty commercials that try to diagnose our problems of social awkwardness and need of normalcy. I hear ads that talk about ways to get newly invented products radio time or cyber ad space so that they can sale and reach out to a wider audience. Ads about new phones that are just minutes away from technology that will allow them to hover and read our minds as they cook breakfast and project the morning newspapers on the wall of our kitchen. I hear even more commercials that try to touch base with our