Carmen Mercer

I hate even thinking about my childhood; there was nothing good or wonderful about it. My mother is white and was a prostitute who got pregnant by her pimp (my father) who is black, at 19 years old. I don’t call her my mom I call her by her first name Pam, because she was never a mother to me. I can remember as far back as being about 6 years old when we lived at the palms motel in Portland, Pam was always gone. She left me at that motel with Joseph (my dad) whom I was terrified of, every day. He seemed as tall as the ceiling; his skin was always dark and greasy. He walked around with tiny rollers and a clear plastic shower bag over his head, smoking Newport’s, counting and recounting money all day long. I remember him saying to me, “lil ol Carmen girl, one day you gonna be finer than yo momma, and you see all this money I got ova here? If you use what you got you gonna have it all.” I use to think about him saying that to me all the time and thinking if I had that money now I could find my grandmother Ann, Pam's mom, and live with her. Pam told me back then that my Nana Ann didn’t like black people and that she never wanted to see me so I got rid of that idea of mine real quick. One night Pam, and Joe end up going to jail, the police came to room and kicked down the door and found all Joe’s cocaine and money and arrested them both. I was taken to some sort of home for a few days until they got in contact with my grandmother Ann, she came and picked me up and I lived with her over in Vancouver Washington for 3 years till Pam was released from the Sheridan Federal Correctional Institution, in 1993. When I seen her standing outside those prison gates that day Grandma and I drove to pick her up, I asked grandma, “where is Pam? They didn’t let her out did they; she’s not out there standing with those other women! All I see is two black ladies and some fat white woman sitting on a big bag of trash.” She replied, “that fat one sitting right there is your mother Carmen dear,” I didn’t even recognize her. The once blonde, 5’10…weighing 130 pounds wet Pam, is now a sandy-dirty blonde and about 230 pounds! She grabbed me and hugged me, pushed my curly hair out of my face and kissed my forehead, I didn’t know this woman but she was much better then, the other Pam. After being out for about 6 months Pam found a job and a new apartment. Things went alright for about another half year. She was terminated from parole early for good behavior and complying with the Department of Corrections. It wasn’t but a year later Pam had lost all that weight and started drinking and partying every night. There was nothing I could do, not even go back and live with Grandma again, she had fell sick and was living at the Prestige Senior Rehabilitation Center. I was right back where I had tried for years to forget about being.

Pam went through men like just like she did when she and Joe were together. Only she didn’t get money like she did back then. She let her boyfriends, friends move in, all they did was partied and got high. One night I was in my room laying down, I had just gotten out of the shower and into bed, it was late and I had school in the morning. Pam had left with her boyfriend Bill at that time, to go get more beer. I had fallen halfway asleep when I felt someone climb into my bed. It was dark in there and I couldn’t see… I rolled over, I thought it was Pam; sometimes she’d get really drunk and would climb in bed with me reeking of vodka and start trying to play the loving mother role, but as I turned to see who it was, my mouth and nose were covered by the strong hand of a man. I tried to scream, kick, bite and scratch, but he was just too strong! He kneed me in my crouch and put his forearm in my neck, and told me, “you’d better shut your F’n trap, ya hear or I will cut your F’n head clean off your shoulders!”  he snatched off my pj bottoms and underwear, then jerked my legs apart and rammed himself inside of me, my body couldn’t handle all that force and pain at the same time I don’t  think, because I stiffened up like a board and all the breath went out of me for a moment. I couldn’t scream either, it was like I was paralyzed threw the entire rape. After he finished he told me I had better not tell my mom or anyone about it or he’d kill me. After he grabbed all his belongings and left the house I ran a cool shower and just let the water wash away all the tears and blood. I didn’t tell Pam about it until a couple years later right before grandma past away. She blamed me and said I must have like it because I would have come to her when it happened. I just looked at her and walk away. That’s when my heart was filled with hatred and I stopped caring about life. When I got to high school, I met Sandita, Von and Vega we became like sisters and they were all the family I had. High school became a bore to me after a while, Sandi had already left school because she got pregnant and I didn’t think life was going to get any better for me by staying in school, so I dropped out and started dancing my junior year during summer vacation. My girls Von and Vega however went on and graduated, I’m proud of them two, the four of us have been through some craziness in life but we’ve made it through the rough times because we had each other.

Sandita Thomas

When daddy left momma, his three kids and moved up north to Bellevue, Washington and married some white women who had just given birth to his fourth child, momma just fell into a million little pieces. I guess she never saw it coming. I never seen her so lost. I would watch her sit in daddy’s old recliner and just stare into space for hours on end. One day I saw her slouched over in that old chair her head hung down to her knees sobbing and saying, “I never should’ah trusted him… I-I should-ah listen to momma when she said, “Never give up your dreams for a man.” Now just look at me, left raising three kids alone, no money, how am I going to keep a roof over our heads?” I felt so bad for momma, but wasn’t really nothing I could do as a child except talk to Jesus, she always told us kids that if we ever got into some sort of trouble to call on Him, and that’s what I did but it didn’t bring daddy back home. Momma couldn’t afford to pay the rent and bills in the 4 bedroom house we lived in so we got on welfare and moved into a tiny little 2 bedroom duplex off Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. That’s all momma could afford on the $745.00 she got each month from the Dept. of Social Health and Services. I really didn’t see her crying anymore after she enrolled into Portland Community College, she went to school Monday thru Friday just like we did. I was 10 years old at that time and momma use to tell me that she needed me to be her big helper, and when I get home from school to make my younger sister and brother a snack, put on cartoons, and not to answer the phone or the door for anybody until she got home from class at 4:00pm. I listened to her because I wanted my mom to make it past what daddy did to her, and she did too. Two years later mom graduated from PCC, got off welfare and got a good paying job in Vancouver, Washington at the Southwest Washington Medical Center, as a medical records specialist. She was able to move us into 3 bedroom house located in the Fox croft Community, not even five minutes away from where she worked. I guess God had heard my prayers after all, but felt momma was better off without Daddy. Years rolled on by, and us kids were growing up. Momma put daddy on child support and collected over $10,000 dollars in back pay, and he was ordered by the judge to pay momma, $1500 a month till we were all of age.  I love Dad with all my heart, but I was glad he had to pay mom, after everything he put her through. Things were going so well by the time I got to high school. I was determined to put my past behind me and make something outah myself like my mother did, she is my mentor and I hope I can become half as strong as she is one day.  I met Carmen, Vega and Divon when I attended Fort Van High School, we were all like family, they stuck by my side when I got pregnant in the 10^th grade with my eldest Keisey and I know I can depend on them to be there through anything. I love my girls!

Divon Williams

I was raised in a very stable and structured middle class home right off the camas highway. Lived there all my childhood life, until I went off to college at OSU. My parents have been married since before I was born. My father, the pastor of the Abundant Life Church of Christ, and my mother now a retired RN. Growing up I was very fortunate, daddy use to say that I had the favor of God, being I was the only child my mother was able to conceive so they showered me with love, protection and material things. I was involved in every kind of afterschool, recreational activity and developmental program there was. Church was not an option. I was taught that it was a way of life that people had to live if they were to make it into the eternal kingdom of God. That scared that be-Jesus-outah-me, as a kid. However the church life was hectic for me as a kid. Four days out of the week I had to attend a type of service. There was early morning bible study school followed by the traditional Sunday service. Then Tuesday evening prayer, Wednesday night was, youth crusaders night, and then Saturday was the youths choir rehearsal. Not to mention girl scouts, dance and vocal lessons on Monday, Thursday and Friday. I was a child who had no down time, or personal play time, I was always exhausted from the intense schedule my parents set for me. I always enjoyed the family vacations we took for three days each month to places like Newport Beach, Mt. Hood and Vancouver, BC. They were relaxing and gave me time to run around and be a kid. I felt as if my parents suffocated the life out of me, because I had no freedom at all. I wasn’t allowed to hang out with friends afterschool, stay overnight at girlfriends houses, they were so suspicious of everything and drove me insane with their lack of trust. It wasn’t until high school that I was “finally able to breathe a little bit.” I remember it was 1994 and I attended Fort Vancouver High, “how could I forget them days.” That’s where I met my BF’s and sisters for life. Vega Holland, Carmen Mercer and Sandita Thomas. The four of us ladies “rocked that school to the core.” (Laughter) Vega and I were captains of the Trapper’s cheerleading squad, everybody knows black chicks got rhythm, we showed those white chicks, up in that school how to put-it-down. Sure did! Are squad was best in region too! We all made plans to attend Oregon State University, after graduation… but things didn’t go quite as planned. Vega and I graduated, Sandi-girl got pregnant in her sophomore year, my parents fore bade me to hang out with her anymore and Carmen, she dropped out over the summer after our junior year and never returned. She had played hooky a lot during the 11^th grade, skipping class with a bunch of other girls, going to the Lloyd center mall, to see her boyfriend who had recently graduated from Grant High. I didn’t see much of her either anymore, not until after graduation. My girl V and I however walk across the stage with honors; the feeling was a feeling of knowing

Anything could be accomplished in life with determination. My parents were so proud of me that they surprised me with a brand new 2001 Honda accord. “ooooh that car was my baby!” a shiny, sparkling wine color, fully loaded, pioneer speakers and 17’inch chrome rims, it was fresh for real! I even got my nails painted the same color… man, I loved that car! Yeah those “were the good ol’ days,” now I can’t get my parents to do much of anything after I wound up pregnant in my freshman year at OSU by the Oregon ducks star running back Lonnie Kingsley. They basically disowned me for embarrassing them and disobeying God, by having a child out of wedlock. But through the years they have come around somewhat. My mother adores my son Landen, my father does too; it’s me he still has anger towards. Sometimes its Gods own who can be the worst when it comes to forgiveness.

Vega Holland

I remember things being so great when I was around eight or nine until I hit fifteen years old. Those were the best times of my life. It had to the beginning of 1992, yeah I recall very well, in fact my parents had just gotten married in Reno Nevada, all my aunts and uncles had gone down there with my parents for the ceremony and to celebrate their honey moon in the casinos for three days, so all of the older sisters brothers and cousins had to watch over us younger ones, and they didn’t care what we did as long as we stayed out of their hair and didn’t get into too much trouble. Life was good all we had to worry about was being kids. We all lived in Vancouver Washington back then which is only a ten minute drive at the most from Portland Oregon, were the majority of my family was born and raised. I was a curious child; I had asked my mother once why we moved from Portland if that’s where we all came from? She said, “I was born in Kansas City Missouri, along with all my other thirteen sisters and brothers. Momma and daddy moved us up north to Oregon, when I was about sixteen. Then momma said Portland  was too bad and ungodly so she moved over the green bridge to Washington, and we all followed her and that’s the best thing we could have did, cause now all our kids can live better than we did.” Yep sound just like my grandmother Mildred al-right! My grandma, she was a strong, loving but strict woman of God, a leader too. Everyone followed her. She led all her children and her grandchildren to the Lord, Jesus Christ. She had fourteen children of her own, so you can imagine how large in numbers my family is, I mean, my mother had eight so we had enough family to start a church, and that’s exactly what we did. Serving the Lord was a major part of my childhood and the family was very close knit because of it. After the death of one of my older brothers Deshawn back in December of 1998, some of the family seemed to shift away from one another, especially being that it is said that there was a possibility that his death was set up by certain members from two different sides of the family, it was clear that there was a lot of jealousy and competition spreading between relatives so people pretty much stop trusting each other. My father was especially enraged and withdrawing from both sides of the family, it was his first born and his first son and the fact that it was family related was pure evil. That was fourteen years ago and I know my father hasn’t let the pain of what happened fade with passing time. My aunt Gwen passed along and soon after Grandma Mildred in 2010. Sometimes I think God took the love out this family after Grandma went into resting and cast out what was left and scattered us across the nation for all the sinfulness, hatred and rebellion, and if you ask me I say God the Father, is just in his doings.  I am now 28 years old, and the years 2012 and our once inseparable, caring family has deteriorated down to, “it’s all about me and mine … it’s everyman for himself!” I can’t even stand to be around those of them that behave like that, I seriously get ill. They say that I’m cold and aloof, detached and distant from the family and act as if I’m too good or better than them. Honestly? Who cares what they think anymore, some of them have done some downright …dirty sugar-honey-ice-tea, to each other! Like turning in a member of the family in for the cash reward, just because you’re broke? When things get that bad, yes! It is time to go forth without you!

Nowadays, I’m doing pretty darn well for myself. I’m a department manager of, Sax’s downtown on 5^th ave; I graduate in under a year with my BA in marketing and advertisement, with a guaranteed salary of $108 grand annually. No trifling babies daddy, or abusive, loser boyfriends- I am single-by-choice. I’m living life with no more regrets…… just me and my girls Von, Sandi and Carmen!

~ And loving it!