After Chez and Joad left San Diego, they weren't completely out of my life. About a month later, I got fired from the Hillcrest Cinemas and decided to take a vacation. I brought the rest of Chez' stuff down with me so that I could give it to her. She had moved in with her mother and boyfriend in Clovis. She gave the address and directions on how to get there.
When I showed up at the mobile home park, there was a car in front of me. It was heading to the same house I was. I looked closely, and I could see Chez, Joad and her mother and boyfriend in the car. The boyfriend saw my vehicle following his in the rear view mirror and I could see him saying something to Chez. Chez looked at me and I could see her lips saying, "Son of a b****!" I don't know why she was upset. She knew I was coming up.
She had cut Joad's hair short. It was the first time she'd cut it since he was born. During the time that they were living with me, strangers thought Joad was a girl. I guess that finally got to Chez, so she decided to make him look more like his gender expectations. It had been more than a month, so he didn't act like he really recognized me. He wouldn't let me hold him.
I brought Chez' stuff in and she put it away in her room. I also had an order of business to attend to. After I'd gotten fired from the theatre, I went out that day and turned in my 30-day notice. I told them that Chez had moved out a month earlier and the deposit return needed to be made out to me. They said I needed her to sign a statement that the funds could be released only to me. I brought the statement for Chez to sign. She didn't give me much guff about it.
The whole time I was there, she was acting like we were still living together. She couldn't be nice and couldn't be appreciative about me bringing the rest of her stuff (months earlier than I originally anticipated). Chez' mother asked me to stay for dinner. The next thing I knew, the boyfriend took the VCR and went out the door. When he came back about an hour later, he had brought food from KFC. He had pawned the VCR to get the money for the chicken. I felt bad. If I'd known they were going to do that, I wouldn't have stuck around. (But there was a chance they were probably going to do that anyway and it looked like pawning the VCR was something they did on a regular basis.)
When I left, Chez didn't want to let me hug her goodbye. I expected as much.
This was not the last I saw of her. I would still see her several times over the next few years. Those will be the subjects of future posts, so she's not completely gone from this blog yet.
I know that for a period of time in the first half of this decade, she and Joad lived in Billings, MT. During this time, she had a MySpace account. There was a photo of her and a teenaged Joad together. He was considerably taller than her. He was probably about as tall as his father. She was wearing an oversized Tasmanian Devil t-shirt. What was most notable about her appearance were the dark circles underneath her eyes. She looked like she hadn't slept in years. Somebody wrote a comment on the photo that these were the two biggest losers on MySpace. Just recently, I found more photos on that MySpace account. There are a couple of Joad graduating from high school, one of them with Chez. the other with a female classmate (and possible girlfriend). There were also two more photos of Chez, one that showed her watching the commencement and one of her with her significant other at the time.
I found that at some point in late 2009 or early 2010 (after he'd turned 18), Joad had gotten into some kind of trouble with the law in Roundup, MT, which is about 50 miles away from Billings. According to the City Court Report, he was charged with criminal mischief and received a deferred prosecution. I don't have any more details.
Since then, Chez has moved to Hibbing, MN. According to her Facebook profile, she went to The Academy of Hair, Skin and Nails. That means she now makes a living performing beauty treatments. Now, I thought Chez was cute, but I never in a million years would have expected her to go into this line of work. I should also note that the background for her profile features a Confederate flag. But I don't have access to any other photos on her account and her profile photo is that of a peacock. She used to have a LGBT symbol there, but changed it a couple of years ago. But she has no other photos of herself that I have access to.
But this is what gets me: I found out that she is Facebook friends with Road. WHAT? I mean, considering the kind of hell he put her through, I figured he'd be the last person she'd want seeing her progress on Family Farm. Now, I could understand it if Joad had a Facebook account and needed that connection with both his parents, but he doesn't have one, so she really doesn't have a reason to be friends with him.
As for Road, he now lives in Loco Hills, NM. I have no idea what he does, but he still looks like a stand-in for "Duck Dynasty." I know his father died a few years ago. I had hoped that the obituary would have listed where Joad was, but it just said he was survived by several grandchildren. I saw that Road had four brothers, so they probably all ran around and became deadbeat dads.
If I ever thought there was someone I could eternally sunshine out of my spotless mind, it would be Chez. However, if I had been able to do that, I wouldn't have had anything to write about for the last month. That's basically all the good that came out of it.
I still have a couple more disastrous relationships ahead of me, including one that sometimes took me to darker places than this one, but I don't regret a moment of it. However, that won't be coming up for awhile.
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