#like how there are definitely midwestern states who definitely wear shorts way to early in spring

[fullyamess]

Now that it’s winter I think we all need to make peace with the fact that at least one of the Northeast states doesn’t own boots and exclusively wears sneakers when it’s snowing

My money is on Pennsylvania

[withthecandlesstilllit]

The Good Times Megapost

Me and my high school sweetheart Vinnie were convinced we were gonna be stars so we dropped out of school and hitchhiked our way to the Broadway… then we ended up slinging hash in Cleveland at Ralph’s Bait Shop and Waffle House. Then Ralph had an affair with Vinnie. I had a set of mixed-race twins. And those were the good times.

All things considered, April had her shit mostly together when she was in Cleveland. After hitchhiking to Cleveland April and Vinnie ran out of money, which wasn’t much to begin with. They wandered into Ralph’s bait and Waffle House, looking for something to eat and came out with a job.

It was supposed to be temporary, or so April thought. Just long enough to save something up and get the hell outta Ohio, but instead April and Vinnie fell into a routine. They were renting a small apartment by the Waffle House and every morning April and Vinnie would get up and get to work, April would earn a large sum of tips with her looks and her charm, they would eat at the diner, and they would go home.

Sometimes April would have a whiff of something lying around the house or more often, something around the diner. She needed to feel something.

On a low day, April didn’t come to work. Ralph didn’t care and called it a day off, taking these opportunities to get to know Vinnie more. On a high day, April tended to accidentally blow their savings, not used to having money before and not caring what she was spending at that moment, ultimately halting any immediate plans to move.

Vinnie didn’t mind. In fact, he was starting to like it there. It wasn’t New York and it wasn’t acting, but he found himself comfortable with the little apartment by the Waffle House. He was settling for Cleveland. At least it wasn’t Lima.

April did mind. As nice as it was not having to worry where she would sleep, when she would eat, what she could pay for, and who she was going to bed beside, she wanted more.

A beautiful voice not being heard may as well not even be there. She wanted to be heard. She didn’t set out from Lima to just be comfortable in Cleveland. She ran away from home to become a star, and they didn’t even make it past the Ohio border.

She was more than a little disappointed. They could’ve at least gone to Pittsburgh or somewhere that wasn’t in their boring little midwestern state. She was 18 years old with the voice of an angel and the looks of a star and had nothing to show for it but a shitty little one bedroom and a boyfriend who had lost interest in her. She wasn’t about to sit around and age into… not her mother. Someone. No one. Age into a no one.

Their routine was eventually broken. April came home after being asked to close the diner one night. Ralph was in their bed. Her bed. Furious, April left.

April kicked Vinnie out of the apartment before storming out herself the night she caught Ralph and Vinnie together. She told him if that was who he really wanted, go live with him, and he’d better be gone by the time she gets back.

Following this April found herself in a bar, indulging in some drinks. She met a guy there and hooked up with him back at her now empty place. This became a new routine. Every night after work April would go down to a bar a short walk down the street, meet someone, and bring him home for a hookup. She didn’t know why, exactly, she was doing this, she just knew she was mad and this was a way to make that anger go away, if only for a while.

She didn’t quit her job at the diner. As absolutely furious as she was with both Ralph and Vinnie, she wasn’t about to give up the one source of income she had because this time there was nowhere for her to go if she didn’t pay the rent and she was pretty sure nobody else would deal with her spontaneous days off.

Ralph never let her go because frankly, he felt kind of sorry for her and more than a little responsible for her current situation. Vinnie had told him to “go easy on her” and explained on days she was gone on a “day off” had told him what a hard time she had back in Lima, how she seemed to have good days and bad days, and how, he wasn’t completely sure, but he was pretty sure she was homeless. (She wasn’t, she just never wanted to go back to her own house.)

April spoke as little as possible to Ralph and Vinnie when she worked. She avoided eye contact and only replied to either of them when it was something work-related, like when she had apparently written in completely illegible handwriting what the order was. Neither of them could really blame her for this lack of contact.

April’s routine of work by day and anonymous bar hookups most nights went on for several weeks until after a point she just felt sort of sick of it. And maybe a little sick, too. She stopped going to work some days or to the bar at all, instead staying home in a shitty little apartment for one she had moved into, unable to afford the rent on the bigger place she shared with Vinnie. One paycheck, even with good tips, could only do so much.

April finally figured out why she was feeling kind of sick. Somehow, by some weird miracle, she was pregnant. It was shocking, she didn’t even think it was possible for her, but, well… here’s a doctor telling her that’s definitely what’s happening here. What’s even more shocking, it’s twins. One minute she didn’t think she could have a baby the next, there’s two.

At first, she wasn’t really sure what to do with this information. What was she, an 18 year old waffle waitress, supposed to do with twins? It was already too late to just not have them, she waited too long to find out, not thinking pregnancy was the problem. She wasn’t sure if that’s what she wanted anyways.

She didn’t have to raise them though. She could sign some papers and it wouldn’t be her responsibility. She could just give them to someone else and never have to think about it again.

But a small part of her was tugging at her, saying if they actually survived (there wasn’t much likelihood of that given her track record), maybe it was because they were meant to be here.

Just like her.

She wasn’t supposed to survive past her first three days of life yet here she was, eighteen years later, worse for the wear but still alive and pregnant with her own children.

They did live. And April decided to take a shot at motherhood.

I don’t know, seems awful shady, even for me. And I once became an Avon lady just so I could rob demented seniors.

April quit her job at Ralph’s Bait and Waffle House a few months into her pregnancy. Ralph wanted her to stay but you can’t force someone to come to their job. April just wanted to avoid the two men as much as possible after their falling out and she didn’t want to have to talk to them or see them anymore, especially considering what a mess her life was crumbling into right i front of them. Needing a job, she saw a flier for Avon and decided that she could do that, she was good with makeup so how hard could it be to sell?

Very, as it turned out. The first week or two were fine. She was cute and funny and very charming and plenty of older women could find an excuse to buy something from the nice young lady at their door. After the first two weeks however, it got a little harder. She seemed to have hit most of the good places in town who might want to buy something nice. One or two didn’t remember her, but nobody else needed anything new.

Needing money, April impulsively decided to take an old looking wristwatch from a nearby table and brought it to a pawn shop. It was worth a couple hundred dollars, so she took something else the next time someone said no.

Eventually that became all the job was, walking in and talking to old people who wouldn’t remember her face or her visit in an hour or two or the gold rings, earrings, and other things she could find that she slipped into her pockets or a bag as she kept them busy. She may have felt a little bad about it at the beginning, but a girl’s gotta eat, especially if she wasn’t just looking out for herself anymore.

Lillian “Lily” and Adelaide “Addie” Rhodes were born in the fall of 1991, several weeks earlier than they were supposed to be yet not surprising at all considering April’s own physical health. Neither of them were particularly healthy either but April couldn’t afford the medical care for them, let alone for herself and all three of them were sent home to her little apartment for one.

April had no idea what she was doing. She was 18 years old with two babies who weren’t particularly healthy, not at the fault of their mother as much as their circumstances. A nice man in his late twenties or early thirties next door could hear what was happening in her apartment through his walls and sometimes offered his help, which April gladly accepted. He began dropping by her apartment, bringing her things she might need and offering his time and assistance to April when he wasn’t at his own job. April never realized that he was being nice because he liked her.

She continued to steal items from the elderly, pawning off them to keep the rent paid. One month she was still short on rent money and she received a proposition. Lacking many other options, she took it and was able to stay in her shitty little home, hating herself a little more but mostly glad she still had a roof over her tiny family’s heads without having to find anywhere smaller or shittier to live. 

Things went on like this for a while until April met the next her next boyfriend, someone she thought would make things better for her but ended up making things way, way worse.

April did her best to support her twins and tried to stay fairly above board (or what she thought was fairly above board) while doing so. She continued to pose as an Avon rep, visiting the elderly and smuggling out their smaller but more precious possessions and, occasionally, actually did manage to sell a product. She tried returning to waitressing but no other diners would keep a waitress, no matter how charming and pretty, who couldn’t show up for work consistently. Sometimes on a bad month she’d be struggling to make ends meet and she’d take a man’s offer for her “service”, though at this point she tried to avoid it when she could afford to. She was still sober then and it felt too humiliating and oddly familiar.

This ended when she met her next boyfriend. He found her when she was short on cash and feeling a little desperate, offering her something for in exchange for some rent money. He told her a pretty girl like her shouldn’t be out there with other, tackier girls. He’d pay for what she needed on the condition of drinks later that week. April accepted, feeling like she may have just sold another part of herself but brushing the feeling off in order to keep living indoors.

April ended up dating this man for several months. He intimidated her and sometimes got a little rough, but it was the price she was paying to stay off the streets. It wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle, she’d tell herself. If he lays a hand on either of her children she’d end it. She didn’t end up having to.

Some police showed up at her door. April let them in, not knowing what was wrong. They ended up searching her apartment, finding hidden drugs scattered and tucked away in parts of her apartment she’d never look in. April assured them she didn’t know how they got there, but they didn’t believe her. She was dating a known dealer. April had always been concerned about where his money came from, but she would always tell herself not to ask too many questions.

April was let off easy by the end of her case. Her drug tests were clean and there was no trace of a lie when she told them she didn’t know what her boyfriend had been doing. There was also evidence of what he had done to her. The judge pitied her and she got several months of probation while he went to jail.

She was not allowed to have her twins back, both of which had been taken upon her arrest and logged into the system. The state believed she was unfit to care for them and cited her questionable judgement that had gotten her into this very situation.

April hasn’t seen Lily or Addie since the day they were separated from her.

She gave up on herself after losing them. They tried to find her several times as they grew up, but the state of Ohio had a great amount of difficulty in tracking down the elusive April Rhodes. Her name turned up plenty of times, but she never stayed in one place long enough to be contacted. Addie gave up, assuming their mother didn’t want to be found. Lily remained hopeful, wondering if she needed them as much as they wanted her.