Lee Simpson:

I have always hated men.

I have my father to blame for that. That bastard never really liked girls. He wanted had always wanted a son. That son-of-a-bitch was disappointed my sister and I were born. He constantly blamed our mother of cheating on him.

“You slept with another man, didn’t you?!?” he yelled at her. “It’s your fault that we can have sons!” My mother would constantly insist that she had been nothing but faithful to him. Ha! Too bad that he didn’t really genetics in high school. There’s another reason I hate him right there. That pig was a high school dropout. He left school to take care of the farm when he was only fifteen. That one was grandpa’s fault. Yes, I hate him too. I would get into why, but that’s for a whole nother story that you won’t have time for on this project you’re doing. So, I will stick to my father.

Our house was small—too small. My sister and I heard every argument that our parents had in the kitchen. My father wanted more children while my mother was just happy with her two daughters.

“I want a son!” that pig screamed at her every night.

“Then adopt one!” my mother screamed back at me.

“I want my son to have my genes!” he would yell.

“Well, that’s too bad!” she screamed. “You won’t get any more kids! I’m not a baby factory!” My sister and I hid in our beds and listened to them shouting at each night after night. Now, my mother wasn’t a little pansy flower or battered wife like women in those kinds of relationships are stereotyped to be.

My mother was like Ramona if she wasn’t as obsessed with killing, knives, and guns. Momma had her ups and downs. She wasn’t a fully educated woman, but she had a little bit more going on for than that pig ever did in his life. Momma herself dropped out of school, but that didn’t occur until her junior year of college. My mother lived an ideal life in the beginning. She grew up in a family of girls. A mother and four older sisters to be exact. Her father stepped out on her when she was three-years-old. Being the baby of the family, everyone spoiled and protected her around the clock. Her mother and sisters gave her everything she wanted and needed to survive the real world. In return, they all had a good relationship growing up.

I have to admit, I do envy my mother’s childhood growing up. From the many pictures of her in her childhood, I could tell that she was beautiful child back then. She played on the soccer team just like I did in my teen years. She won many talent shows with her amazing dancing skills during her junior high and high school years. Momma had this personality that could relax somebody and draw them in at the same time. Some even said that she would grow up into the ideal modern Southern beauty at the time. And pretty smart too. In fact, she was the eighth girl on that side of the family to go to college. Despite dropping out her junior year, my mother had it pretty made for her life. That all changed when she met that pig.

So why did my mother marry that pig? Even she doesn’t know the answer to that anymore. The relationship was just one wave of mistakes after another. My grandmother and aunts didn’t like my father from the very beginning. They all told her that she could do way better. As a matter of fact, my grandmother blamed him for the reason why my mother dropped out of college. Yet, she knew that wasn’t the case due to the fact that mama dropped out a year and a half before she even met my father. I don’t really know. Maybe my mother just got tired of living in a perfect world and wanted to fall down on her face for a change in order to prove that she could stand up on her own two feet. I can’t really speak for what goes on in her mind. I tried once, but I myself got confused in the process, so I just quit and went along with what she did. Trust me, I found it much easier that way.

Despite pleas from her mother and sisters, my mother still married that pig. If I’m right about my mistake theory, then she really screwed up there. Three months after the wedding, the ugliness saw up to the surface for them both. In fact, my mother began to wish her husband dead. She even wished that she had never met him at all. We couldn’t understand why he seemed to hate my mother so much. Maybe she was far more educated and strong-willed than all of the women that he had encountered in his life. We really have no idea. We just knew that momma and papa just weren’t happy together. Because of that pig, Momma last almost all contact with her mother and sisters. However, her married life didn’t turn out to be a total loss. She loved her daughters more than anything. In fact, if she had it her way, that pig wouldn’t have been in the picture in the first place. Hell, she would erase his whole family if she could. I guess you could say she spouted the seeds of my hatred of men. Which leads me to those three days of fire and blood that always make Ramona nearly wet herself in glee.

When I was seventeen, my mother hatched a plan to end her years of misery with that pig. I was coming home from soccer practice on that day in 2001. I found my mother sitting alone in our dark living room, smoking. Puzzled, I walked over to the flaming ash she held inches from her pale painted cheek.

“Momma?” I asked. “Momma, what’s wrong? Why are you smoking?” I heard her heavily breathing in the dark.

“I’ve got it,” she mumbled. “I’ve got it. I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”

“What are you talking about? Got what?” I asked her.

“Come and sit with me,” she whispered. “Come on sit.” I hesitated at first, but then I took small, slow steps over to the sofa. I held my breath from the cigarette smoke next to me.

“Now what?” I whispered. Momma flicked out her cigarette.

“We wait for Amy to come home,” she whispered. My stomach turned at how she said that. I wanted to say that I hated where they was going.

“I feel sick,” I said instead.

“I’m sorry for that,” momma said. “I’m not really much of a smoker. That dumbass drove me to it today. Go open the window a crack.” I slid off the couch and did so.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I lied. I forced myself to smile to keep her from reading me in the dark. She always said my face was a tell growing up. I looked out at the living room to help ease the feeling in my stomach. Amy, where are you?, I remember thinking over and over again.

Finally, we looked up when we heard the front door unlocking. My wild younger sister wandered inside.

“Helloooo?” she asked. “Anyone here?”

“In here, dear,” our mother croaked.

“What’s going on? Why is it so dark in here? And why does it smell like smoke?” my sister asked as I heard walking over to the couch.

“I’ve got it,” our mother whispered.

“Got what?” my younger sister asked. I will never forget those glowing, yellow cat-like eyes as she looked at us both.

“We’re going to kill your father,” she said. Amy and I looked at her in shock. We hoped that we were hearing things.

“Momma, are you drunk?” Amy asked.

“No, I had an epiphany,” momma said. “We’re better off without him. It can just be us girls together.”

“But why not a divorce?” I asked her.

“Do you really think that he’ll really let me go that easily?” she asked. “I’ll be damned if I let some other woman go through the hell that he put me! No, that asshole needs to die!” She grabbed both of our hands.

“And you both are going to help me!” she finished. My younger sister and I sat there stunned beyond words. This lady wasn’t our mother. She had turned into some insane woman that we didn’t recognize.

“But why?” I asked.

“He’s on to me,” she said in a quick pace. “Everyone will know it was me if I kill him. I can’t go to prison and leave you with his disgusting family! They’ll poison you and make you miserable just like me. No, you have to do it! No one will ever know it was you. I mean, you have so much going for you. You’re both so young and don’t fit the picture of a killer. No one ever hears you complain about him, not once. So, you have to do it. Please! Do it if you love momma!”

I looked at her in a new fear. Who was that lady sitting next to my sister and me that night? This wasn’t the woman who was gentle, but yet expressed how we would be better off without any men in our lives. That woman was gone. So, what could I do? I tried to glance over at Amy in the dark. I couldn’t’ see her, but I knew that she was thinking the same thing I was. Now, I couldn’t get my sister mixed up into momma’s crazy murder scheme. I placed my other hand on top of hers.

“I’ll do it,” I whispered to her. I could feel my younger sister’s eyes directed right on me. I could tell that she was asking me why with her own eyes. But, what choice did I have? It was better for my hands alone to be stained with blood than have hers to be stained with it too. Momma’s hand felt warm under mine as I could see the smile in her glowing eyes.

“Thanks Lee,” she said. “You’re a good daughter.” She then began to go into detail about when that pig would be in and what he would be doing that night. A good daughter. I certainly didn’t feel like it at the time. But, I just wanted to keep my sister out of this and make momma happy after so many years of unhappiness. I convinced myself it would be done and this would be the end of it.

That pig got in close to eleven that night. He had been “working” on the farm all day. We never really believed that. The crops looked just as dead every day that we passed them. We always suspected that he was doing something else besides farming. What exactly, we never really knew. He could have been drinking the day away for all we knew. Maybe it would’ve been better if he was dead. With that resolve I pushed out all guilt and doubt and waited for him to go to bed that night. He got his last drink that night, had dinner, and went into his room to sleep like he usually did. I waited in the hall closet until his light went out. Once he started snoring, I crept across the narrow hall and went into his room. I huddled over him in his bed. As I watched him sleep, I began to understand why Momma hated him so much. Everything about him disgusted me. His face, the way he snorted, the smell of alcohol on him, the unshaven look he had. Thinking about it now just pisses me off. That had me convinced to do it.

I took the wire in my hands and wrapped it around his neck. I never knew it took so much to strangle somebody until that very night. I didn’t count how long it took me. All I know was that gurgling sound that pig made only made me pull tighter. I could feel my heart pounding as I did so. After a couple of minutes, my father went silent. I checked for a pulse. Nothing. My father was dead. But yet, I wasn’t finished with him. I had to be certain that he was truly dead.

I reached under his bed and drew out his hunting knife. I stabbed him once. Twice. Three times. Five times. I stopped counting after a few seconds. Blood gushed everywhere. Now, I knew he was dead. I called my mother into the room. She and I disposed of the body under the porch in the early morning hours. I had never seen her so happy before in my life. It almost crept me out. Overnight, she became a different person. She turned into someone I did not recognize. Someone I didn’t know want to know. I spent the rest of that day trying to get the murder out of my head. This is the last time, I kept trying to tell myself over and over again. But, it didn’t turn out that way.

Friday was the first morning of calls. My sister and I had no idea that she wanted more. Like all of the males on the pig’s side of the family more. The details are all in the papers as you have read. How did we store all of those bodies all over the house? Oh, we managed, believe me. I’m amazed that we lived and ate in that tomb of a house. I did my best to keep Amy innocent of this, but it was too late. She herself knew too much about the murders. But, she never said anything. I could never understand that.

We hid many bodies all over the house. That pig was under the patio. Grandpa was buried in the vegetable garden. We buried Uncle Bud in the flowers. My cousin, Lenny, became a scarecrow. Uncle Dick and three other cousins ended up in the freezer in the backyard shed. Four more cousins were hidden in our ditch at night. Some of the relatives ended up being chopped up and fed to the dogs. One turned into feed for the pigs. It may have been a gory weekend, but that’s what happened.

We got caught when my grandfather’s neighbors began to ask questions. Momma always gave it her all to dodge their questions. She wouldn’t let us talk because like I said before, my face was always a tell growing up. And besides, my sister and I didn’t know what she would do if told anybody. Believe me; we didn’t want to find out.

However, one of the neighbors phoned the police Monday morning and it all fell apart from there. Despite Momma’s best efforts, we got caught when one of the dogs dug up Uncle Bud’s hand in the flower garden. We all were arrested. I plead guilty to manslaughter in exchange for testifying against my mother. She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for first degree murder and conspiracy. My mother still writes me from the prison in another county. My sister was acquitted of all charges.

I’m sorry my story is not as impressing as Ramona made it out to be. But, there was just no real abuse involved. For that kind of story, you’ll have to go to Mya. She has had it worse that I will ever know.