Mickey
By: KK
Copyright @2001

I met Mickey in seventh grade. I was surprised that we were best friends for over sixteen years, because we were such opposites. She was a tall, skinny, brunette. Very shy and zero self-confidence. She was obsessed with her weight and hair. Neither of which she needed to worry about. We didn't like the same music, the same boys and we both grew up in very different homes. She was an only child and was spoiled rotten. I was jealous of the freedom her parents allowed her and the material things they gave her. In return she treated them with no respect. She was selfish and self-centered. But then again, all teenagers are.

Despite the differences, we were glued to each other. She and I suffered through teen angst together. The ups and downs of cute boys, how tight our jeans could be, how high our hair should be sprayed up, who was going to buy us alcohol this weekend, who was a bitch at school this week, crank phone calls, Atari, burning up the telephone lines five minutes after we left each other and what time was I going to sneak out of my window.

She was the one with the car and the freedom to do as she pleased. I depended on her for my freedom. We did everything together. She was the first thing my mother would take away from me when I got into trouble. "You can't see her anymore." I heard that so many times. Each time would just bring Mickey and I closer together. We would do everything in our power to sneak behind my mother's back to see each other. Mickey's mom was even afraid of my mother, but still helped us when we were sneaking around. I always wanted her parents to be my parents. I hated the way Mickey treated them. Her dad was a riot. He would sing Polish songs to us, take us to the lake and come running in her room, fart and run out, locking us in behind him. This things would crack him up, as well as us. Her house was my retreat.

Mickey never made good choices in men. She was dependant and needy. She always chose guys that were overbearing, controlling and made sure that her life revolved around them. Of course this meant that very few of her boyfriends ever liked me. I was too out spoken and made no bones about the fact that I hated them too. I never really cared. In fact, I expected it and relished in the fact that I would torment these jerks as much as possible. The few "nice" guys that fell head over heels for her, she dumped. I never understood her choices. I was also jealous of the fact that every guy we met, liked her. I was always the humorous, sarcastic leader. She was shy, quiet and pretty...which essentially means that she didn't know how to hold a conversation and she wasn't that bright. As a teenager I did not understand why guys would prefer stupidity over intelligence...it didn't occur to me that they just wanted to get laid. She was the one all the guys wanted a relationship with. If she rebuffed them...her hand me downs would then try to hit on me. This never flew with me and I would bury the guys six feet under. I would rather be without, than to have second hand baggage.

As we got older I think our differences really started to affect our relationship. I was kicked out of my house at seventeen and have been on my own ever since. Mickey has always lived with someone. Her parents, me or a boyfriend. She has never been on her own. I moved to California, back to Las Vegas and then to Texas within a year. I lived in Texas for four years and we still remained best friends. She would come out and visit me all the time. Things changed when I moved back to Las Vegas. She had met and moved in with the King of Rednecks.
The minute we laid eyes on each other I started planning his imminent death. He started his plans to remove me and my evil ways from Mickey's life. Redneck's reaction to me was nothing new. All her men thought I was a bad influence. Little did they know that she was usually the one that came up with the ideas that got us in trouble.

Redneck popped the question and she accepted. I was mortified.

Redneck was just that...a redneck. A manipulative, controlling, jealous, abusive cowboy. To say that these two were meant for each other sounds ridiculous...but the fact is, they belong together. No one else could tolerate either of their behavior individually, let alone together. Right after his proposal they sealed a private deal that neither of them were allowed to go to any type of bar or casino without each other. This lead to her sneaking around with her girlfriends to celebrate our birthdays or other events. At her own bachelorette party she had to sneak behind his back to go to a bar and I still hold all the pictures of her party with the stripper and ex-boyfriend present. Redneck's jealousy consumes him. If I sent those photos today...he would divorce her over it.

While she had to sneak around (she was always faithful), he was allowed to do whatever he pleased and she defiantly accepted it. He went on 2-3 day fishing trips "by himself". He went hunting for days with his friends and brothers. She would have no contact with him and had idea where exactly he was. He came and went as he pleased, while she was monitored and restricted. He had to know where she was every minute of the day. Tolerance was not in his vocabulary. If he even thought that she had broken one of his "rules" the fights could be vicious. He would throw things, punch holes in the walls and toss her around. She never actually admitted that he had ever struck her because she knew that I would physically harm the beast.

Some fights would end with him drunk and leaving her in the middle of the night. She would call me, hysterically crying, with a gun under her pillow, terrified that he was coming back. She would call the police and they would come and question both of them. They never arrested him, because she would never admit that he had hit her. Shortly after they had their first child, the Redneck went on a drinking spree, locked himself in the back bedroom with the baby and threatened to kill the child and himself. She finally convinced him to come out. I wished he had just shot himself and saved everyone the anguish of dealing with his sorry ass.

Why those two decided to breed has baffled me to this day. She hated kids, especially babies. Growing up, she was one of the few girls I knew who didn't like to baby sit. She did it, but hated ever minute of it. Redneck came from a violent family and cared less about raising children. Shortly after they were married, she had a little boy. I was living with them for a brief time and it was a good thing for that child that I was there. At first I thought that she was insecure about being a new mom and not sure of how to treat a baby. I was a topless dancer, which to the Redneck, meant I was prostituting. I would come home in the early morning hours and the baby would be screaming in his crib. Mickey and the Redneck would just ignore him. Sometimes she would be up with the baby, but she was so stressed and in tears that I made her go back to bed and I dealt with the baby.

During the day, the child was all but neglected. Mickey and Redneck didn't change any routines in their lives to accommodate this baby. If the child screamed, she would stuff a wash cloth in his mouth and put him in another room until he stopped crying. She always felt that the baby was messing in his diaper on purpose and they would strap him to the diaper table and leave him there for hours. If he was starving, she refused to feed him until the exact hour scheduled to feed him. She would scream and cuss at the baby out of frustration. Redneck never said a word. I would tell her to relax and try to be patient. He was just a baby. She didn't listen.

I got married and left for Alabama to live with my husband while he finished law school. When we returned, I had a baby and she had just had a little girl. If I thought things were bad with her son, I was sadly proven wrong. Being born to those two was the worst thing that could have happened to that little girl. All they wanted were boys. Mickey hated the child the minute she was born. They ignored, neglected and just flat out refused to do anything but the essentials of keeping that baby alive. She had zero physical or verbal love and attention from either one of them. Redneck refused to allow Mickey to divert her attention to the kids and away from him. They lived in a house of conflict.

One day, I received a frantic phone call from Mickey. I could not understand a word she was saying. I sped over to her house to find her three month old daughter, on the floor screaming, with blood all over her face. Mickey was in the kitchen and beyond hysterics. The only words that kept coming from her mouth were, "he's going to divorce me" and "I'm going to get arrested". I was trying to figure out if the blood was coming from the baby's mouth or her nose. I kept screaming at Mickey to shut up and tell me what happened to the baby. I finally got the baby and Mickey to calm down. Mickey told me that she was feeding the baby on the floor (they never, and I cannot stress the word "never" enough, held the baby). The baby started crying during her feeding and Mickey flipped her over and slammed her body on the carpet. The baby started to bleed and Mickey freaked out.

By then, I had cleaned up the baby and I didn't see any external injuries. I kept stressing to her that she needed to take the baby to the hospital to check for internal injuries. Mickey flat out refused and got hysterical again. Not once did she ask if the baby was alright. She was only concerned that she might go to jail and that Redneck would divorce her. I got in Mickey's face and yelled that she was selfish and arrogant, I hoped the mother fucker divorced her and that she had better take the child to the hospital or I would call 911. At that point, Redneck walked in. He went right to Mickey's side and asked what happened. I relayed the story to him and asked if he wanted to check the baby. He came over to me, looked at the baby, said, "she's fine" and walked back over to Mickey to console her. I felt physically ill.

I told both of them that if they weren't going to take her to the hospital then to please give her some Tylenol for pain. I later found out that they didn't do either. The baby's mouth was sore for days and she had trouble sucking her bottles. This made Mickey lash out her verbally. From that day on I started keeping a journal of the abuse in that house. I knew our friendship was over, but I had to continue it for the sake of her children. When I called child protective services, they said that nothing could be done without physical evidence. They couldn't just rely on the story of a "second party" and the fact that the baby had a "sore mouth" didn't prove abuse.

My relationship with that family lasted for another four years. I was waiting for the physical evidence to turn them in. Daily I listened to the verbal abuse thrown at those children. Her daughter, from birth, was called a bitch, a cunt and various four letter words to her face. She went through the same torture her older brother did, but ten times worse, because she was a girl. Redneck and Mickey told the child daily that they hated her and that if they ever had another girl they would put it up for adoption. They were physically rough with both children, but the verbal abuse was non-stop. At the same time, Mickey was being verbally and physically assaulted by Redneck.

The little girl was three now and Redneck was getting her ready for bed. Mickey heard the girl scream, but ignored it, because she always screamed if her dad was taking care of her. When the girl didn't stop screaming Mickey came around the corner to see blood all over her face. Mickey demanded to know what happened and Redneck said that the girl bit her tongue. Mickey rushed the girl to the bathroom and cleaned her up. Mickey found a hole, the circumference of a pencil, through the middle of the girls tongue. She could see right through it. She confronted Redneck and told him that there was no way that a child could bite a hole clean through their tongue. He admitted that the girl would not stop screaming, so he smacked her under her chin to close her mouth and shut her up. This force was hard enough to cause the hole. Mickey called a friend who was a nurse and the nurse told them that a tongue would have to heal on it's own, so it wasn't necessary to take her to the doctor. The nurse thought the child had bitten her tongue, Mickey didn't tell her the truth. While Mickey was crying over her daughter getting hurt (yes, I know it conflicts with how she treats the children, but I didn't make this shit up), Redneck states, "What the hell are you crying over her for? She means nothing". Believe it or not, in Mickey's own little demented mind, this statement upset her.

Once again, I was told by child protective services that I still did not have proof of abuse, "any child can bite their tongue".

I was growing impatient and frustrated with the situation. Redneck and I were at war and were going through Mickey to fight with each other. I couldn't stand the sight of either one of them. They disgusted me and I had lost any respect for her that I had ever had. I truly felt that their relationship with each other was going to end in a violent way.

Almost a year later I got my physical proof. I once again get an incoherent phone call. Mickey's terrified to send her five year old son to school. The night before, Redneck was punishing the boy for something, took the child by his arm and swung him into the wall. The boy hit the entire right side of his head on the wall and his ear instantly turned purple and black. Mickey was afraid that the school would turn them in.

My intuition went nuts. I knew that I had to move now. I had not seen the injury, but I calmly convinced her to send him to school, that everything would be fine. His class was only for a couple of hours in the morning and I knew that I was constrained by time. I knew that if I was going to turn them in, the police had to see the child at school. When she called me, I was on my cell phone running errands with my own two kids. As soon as I convinced her to send him to school, I raced home to get my journal. She lives in another county, so I had to make the 20 minute drive to get to the police station in that county. I had spoken to her again and she verified that she had dropped him off.

I ran into the police station and demanded to talk to a detective. By now I only had about an hour and half before the boy would be picked up from school. It took an hour for the detective to question me and read my journal. I finally convinced him to go see the child. The problem was that I didn't know the name of the school and I only knew the general location of it. At this point I wanted it to look as if the school had turned her in. I wanted to know the outcome of this and still needed contact with her until this was dealt with. If she knew that it was me that turned her in, then she would cut off that contact. After I left the police station I was frantic. I felt that the detective didn't move in time.

Mickey calls me after she picks up her son. I felt defeated. She was scared because there were unmarked police cars all around the school. She thought they were there for her. I still needed contact with her to make sure nothing happened to the kids, so I convinced her that she was wrong or the police would have stopped her at the school. She believed me, but was still nervous. That was the last time I ever talked to her.

I called the detective the next day to find out what happened. He stated that by the time they arrived at the school, classes had already been let out. The police went directly to her house and knocked on the door. They knew she was inside, but she hid and refused to answer the door. The detective saw Mickey's daughter inside and they thought she was left alone. They were about to kick in the door when Mickey finally answered.

They questioned her extensively and she looked them right in the eye and lied. The detective said in all his years of police work he had never had anyone lie to him so boldly and with such coldness in their eyes. He was surprised by how brazen she was. This was her chance to get out of a marriage she claimed she hated. This was her chance to turn Redneck in. She always swore that if the police ever came for any reason, she would turn Redneck over. She never did. Instead she claimed the boy was playing with a hockey stick and hit himself. They took the boy into another room and questioned him. At first, he lied too. Then he told the truth.

I had requested that if they took the children into custody, that they be taken to Mickey's parents house. I did not want them to be in Child Haven. They did not arrest Mickey, but they did take her kids to her parent's house and went to Redneck's work and arrested him. The detective said that at first Redneck lied and then finally admitted that he had a problem. The detective said that Redneck even broke down and cried. Redneck put on a great performance. Since it was his first offense, they released him on the basis that he get counseling. They recommended that Mickey also get counseling. The children stayed with their grandparents for a few days and then were released back to Mickey and Redneck.

When I first filed met with the detective, I warned him that Rednecks mother worked in that county's courthouse and that he needed to keep an eye on these records. He tried to assure me that it wouldn't be an issue because she could lose her job for stealing records. I stressed that he did not know what this family was capable of.

I saw the detective about a year later and questioned him about that case. He said the file and Redneck's mother disappeared. Nothing ever happened to any of them...no counseling, nothing. I was furious.

Mickey quickly figured out that I was the one who reported them. I knew she would and I was prepared for this relationship to end. A friendship of sixteen years was over. It saddened me. But our differences came between us. I grew up and she didn't. I knew Redneck would have a field day with this and would be thrilled that I would no longer be a part of their lives. My only fear was a confrontation with Redneck. I knew he was violent and we feared for our safety for quite awhile. I've only seen Mickey once since that day. I saw her going into a store that I was about to go into. I could have left right then, but I was curious as to how she would react when she saw me. She did exactly as I expected. She took off out of the store.

I think about her kids all the time. I worry for them. I found out that her and Redneck had another baby a little over a year ago. A boy.