The Birth Of A Coywolf Part 1

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Who says life is always fair? Ginny knew differently on that front. Her father had run out on her and her mother when she was just eight years old, her mother abandoned her when she turned fourteen years old. She had just come home from school and found a note telling her that she had gone off with her boyfriend and would be home in a few days. The days had gone by and her mother never showed up. She called her aunt out in California and asked her if she heard from her mother and she said no. She told her aunt everything, but there wasn’t anything she could do, except send some money to her. Her aunt had sent the money order she had promise for five hundred dollars. Luckily the cashier down at the Quickie Mart knew her and cashed the money order for her. Ginny used that money to pay the electric bill and last month’s lot rent on the trailer she was living in. She knew she was going to have to find some work to support herself. She knew Barney down at the local junkyard would let her work under the table out in the yard pulling parts and stacking tires that were good. Barney would be willing to let her work 40+ hours a week. He was opened six days a week.

She had to stop going to school to work full time in the junkyard. She needed the hours she was in school to work at the junkyard to make enough money to pay her lot rent and bills. When she wasn’t out in the yard getting parts, she would help the other guys install parts or take parts off the cars they were working on for clients.

She put together her own tool kit from tools she found lying around in the junk cars Barney brought. Barney let her have a 2002 Honda Helix CN 250cc black scooter to ride back and forth to work. It had been rebuilt from parts from other non-working ones that were lying around the yard. The motor was still good in one and so her and a few of the guys transferred parts off the other non-working ones and rebuilt the one Barney told her she could have with them. Now she wouldn’t have to catch the bus to get to the junkyard and home again.

She got a part time job working under the table at a nearby exotic bar. The bartender knew Ginny worked for Barney. He offered her a part time job working on days they got busy, which was mostly the weekends as a dishwasher. The pay she received was below minimum wage for the work. Her duties included, scrubbing the dishes and restocking the liquor bottles. She was also responsible for restocking the beer. She had other duties that included doubling as the bus boy, cleaning up the dirty dishes off the tables. She would fill in some nights as a waitress when one of the regular ones called in sick. When she filled in as a waitress, the owner of the bar made her dress in a skimpy cheerleader outfit. The other waitresses barely wore anything.

Ginny knew that she didn’t have anything to worry about from the men that came in regularly. She wasn’t pretty or anything, if nothing else she was kind of plain looking. Even when she tried to dress up to impress a guy, she would look younger than she was or looked like she was wearing her mother’s clothes. She just didn’t have the figure or looks that the men that came into the bar were looking for. Barney told her that she was what most men consider a homely girl. No attributes that was appealing to the men that frequent his bar. He didn’t mean it in a bad way, but she didn't have her mother's voluptuous curves or build that makes her stand out. Her features came more from the guy her mother became pregnant from. He was half-Hungarian and half-Eastern, maybe Russian or German. No one knew for sure. This was before her mother married her father. He knew she wasn't his, but didn't care.

Most of the men who showed up in the bar, knew her mother was the local prostitute. They all felt sorry for her and left her alone. They knew she was underage and knew her mother had run off with a guy a few weeks ago. The older men that knew her always kept the younger ones away from her when she worked as a waitress. They would protect her if the younger ones tried anything with her, like grabbing her butt or getting fresh with her.

The trailer she lived in wasn’t much. It was an old travel trailer that had been built back in the early 70’s. It was only seventeen feet long and six feet wide. Someone had painted it a pastel green color. During the winter months she had to use a space heater to keep it warm and during the summer months, she had to run the air conditioner to keep it cool. When the wind blew, the trailer shook. The trailer park where she lived was old and most of the people kept to themselves. Not because they didn’t like people, but because most of them conducted some sort of illegal business out of their home. Some sold drugs, while others sold illegal moonshine or conducted prostitution out of their trailers. There was a large variety of things that took place in her trailer park, which she didn’t want to have anything to do with. The deputies in the local sheriff department didn’t care as long as they got their freebies from them. Not all of the deputies were corrupt, but a few of them that patrol her trailer park were.

By the time she got home from working at the bar at night, it would be three or four in the morning. She would only get four hours of sleep, before she had to be at the junkyard in the morning. When Ginny walks in, the first thing to come off was her shoes. She kept them by the front door. The next thing was her clothes, as she slips into her nightshirt. She has a small television set that she could watch the local broadcast on. It had the converter hooked up to it to receive digital signals. She had picked up some Chinese food on the way home from the junkyard.
The people that owned it knew what she liked and made extra for her.

Ginny sits down on her sofa and places a movie from her collection into the DVD player. She was so tired from working today. She props her feet up and watch her movie. By the time the movie ended, she was fast asleep. She had finished her dinner, before falling asleep.

Thunder rumbles right outside her trailer window as rain starts coming down sideways hitting her window hard. It sounded like someone had turned on the water hose and left it on. Ginny wakes-up as a loud crashing sound shakes the trailer and then a loud explosion. The light she normally keeps on in the bathroom goes out. A few minutes later she hears fire trucks approaching her location. The sirens get louder as she slowly gets off her sofa and put her robe on and steps out on her front porch to see what was going on.

Just as she steps out onto her front porch the smell of brunt wood and grease assault her nose. She looks down from where her trailer was and notices at least six trailers were on fire. There were already a few fire trucks there containing the fire. She couldn’t remember if she paid the insurance on the trailer or not. Her landlord always came by on the first and the fifth of the month to collect rent payments. She stands there and watches as the fire trucks contain the fire and the paramedics help the people that had managed to get out. When the fire trucks start leaving, she turns around and head back inside and grabs a flashlight from the kitchen. She walks to her bedroom and lay down because she has work tomorrow.

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Comments

Hard life

reminds me of some of the stories of the great depression my dad used to talk about.

Thrown into the deep end

Jamie Lee's picture

Ginny had every reason to turn bitter because her dad ran off and now her mother.

But instead of being bitter she strives to live by taking jobs off the books. That isn't the best, especially working at the lounge, being underage can get the owner in real trouble, but both pay.

Wonder why the school hasn't sent someone to find out why she isn't in school. If they found out why she quit school they'd have to call CPS and they would find her a place to stay. But what type of place? Group home? Foster parents? Or a place worse than her trailer?

Others have feelings too.