After I left Alamogordo, I drove to Roswell. I was hoping to see Chez and her son Joad while I was in town. I drove over to the duplex where I last saw them with Road. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. I looked in the window and the apartment was vacant. I figured that I would go to her parents' house next.
Chez wasn't there, but her stepmother was. Also there were her stepmother's daughter and Kiz' three kids. Her stepmother told me that Chez had moved over to a duplex just down the street. What had happened was that Road was constantly violating a restraining order placed against him by the people who ran the low-income housing community where Chez lived. Because Chez never called the cops whenever he showed up, they just kicked her and Joad out. (Note that Road was constantly threatening to just up and take Joad away from her if she didn't let him in the house and he usually came over with friends, so she really didn't have much of a choice.) However, she and Road were living in this duplex together.
Kiz was also living with Chez and Road, but her father and stepmother had temporary custody of her three kids. What happened was that Kiz and her boyfriend were constantly on Child Protective Services' radar. She said that CPS had a file on them that was three inches thick. She added that the children were constantly being neglected and left alone at the house. One day, the children were REALLY hungry, so the oldest (who was four years old at this point) got a chair, opened the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and pulled out some frozen pizzas. The three children ate these pizzas while they were still frozen. When the boyfriend came home and saw that they had eaten the pizzas, he got angry, took off his belt and started beating the boy.
I drove over to the house where Chez had moved to, but no one was home. I drove to Artesia. I spent time with both my parents. The rest of the day was pretty much a blur, except that Loyd came with a different friend. I was going to spend the night at Mom's house. After she went to bed, I went out and drove to Roswell.
I went to Chez' house and knocked on the door. She asked who it was. "It's Fayd!" She opened the door. Road was asleep on the couch in the living room. Chez said Joad was sleeping in the bedroom. She was watching TV. We sat and talked for about an hour and a half. The whole time, Joad remained asleep. One of the things she told me was that she had started a rose tattoo on her shoulder. There was a blank space on the tattoo for someone's name. She said she was going to put Road's name there. At this point, I figured that was pretty much it, that she had decided to stay with him. I didn't like it, but there wasn't anything I could really do.
I went back to Mom's house. Loyd was laying down on the living room sofa. He woke up as I came in. He told me about this dream he was having in which events just kept repeating over and over. Then he asked me what I was up to. I told him I went to see Chez and that it looked like she was going to stay with him. I then went to bed.
We had Thanksgiving the next day. I don't remember too much about the next couple of days, except that this was the time that Dad was hurt because he felt like we weren't spending enough time with him. When it was apparent he was upset on the phone, Loyd and I rushed over to see him. He gave us a lecture on how he had so much to offer us and he didn't like being neglected like that, even though we spent more time with him than Mom when I was last there four months ago. We just couldn't win.
I decided that since I still had plenty of time left on my vacation, I would drive to Las Vegas and spend some time there. This had not been planned ahead of time. I knew that I would just up and leave Saturday morning, spend the night somewhere in Arizona, drive up Sunday morning and check into a hotel there.
Since I wanted to see Chez and Joad one more time before I left, I drove up to Roswell first. Road was awake this time and appeared to tolerate my presence. Kiz got out of bed while I was there. I hung out for a bit and took a few photos. One of Road's friends came by and they went outside to work on his car. It was during this time that I decided to leave. I asked Chez if I could give her a hug goodbye. She said, "Yeah, Road's not around." While I hugged her, I tried to kiss her on the cheek, but my long hair was in my face and kept my lips from making actual contact with her skin. After the attempted kiss, I whispered to her that I wish it could have been longer. I went outside, waved goodbye to Road and drove off.
As I was driving away, I started crying because I thought that I might never see Chez again. I believed it would be best if I just stayed out of their lives for all eternity.
Next, I drove to Alamogordo to see Kird. He was at his house with his girlfriend. We talked for a little bit. Nothing new had happened since I last saw him. While I drove north through Tularosa, I considered stopping to see Abed before going back to San Diego, but I didn't want to be driving too late into the night before I stopped to sleep. Along the way, I think I stopped in Springerville to get some gas. I remember some teenage boys at the gas station while I was there. It made me think back to my teenage years in Artesia and how growing up in this little town would have probably been a lot worse.
I stopped and spent the night in Flagstaff, AZ. This was the same town my family was supposed to stop and stay the night in December of 1978 before going to Vegas to see Uncle Ord and his family. We didn't stop because the reflective surface from all the highway signs had been temporarily removed, so we didn't know when to stop. We kept on driving and had to sleep in the car for a few hours before we decided it wasn't too early to go knock on their door.
I didn't do anything special in Flagstaff. I just found a motel and crashed. I woke up the next morning and drove to Vegas. I would have the time of my life.
More on that tomorrow.
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