The Avondales

 

THE AVONDALES

by

Anthonystjoseph

     In case you haven’t noticed; I tend to write about strong women a lot and I am sure it is due to the heavy influence and need of these very same strong women throughout my childhood.  Clearly I had women around me who maintained docile lives and carried themselves in a humbling manner but it is the former that has always fascinated me.  The woman who carries herself like a pure bred Doberman Pincher is the woman that captures my attention.  When my mother moved us to south Phoenix, Arizona, my attention was captured.  The first week of school I witnessed what seemed to be an all-out professional boxing match, as in Sugar Ray Leonard versus Roberto Duran; Only thing is, it was Brenda Ray Leonard versus Dorinda Duran!  I was in shock as I watched two young girls in my middle school fight like grown, professional, savage, men.

     I know where my fascination and need for these women comes from and why it is there.  My mother always presented herself as a frail, fragile, and humble human being to a fault.  I lived in such fear of her weakness and where it could leave us as she raised me alone and often in various parts of the Country with no family…  Although later when I met the family I grew to appreciate a huge distance from their trifling selves.  My family comes from a spiritual apple tree that sprouts from good dirt with a lot of worms.  And we all know how much worm’s love apples so a lot of the apples on that spiritual tree in that good dirt are bad, very bad.  But this story is about strong women; the strong women who have formed me, the strong women who have intrigued me, and the strong women whom I love.

     Now we all know based on common knowledge all over the world how appealing I am to the naked eye; Keep it simple!  I started drawing strong women to me at a young age.  So when we arrived in Phoenix I met JoAnne at the same school where Brenda Ray Leonard and Dorinda Duran went toe to toe for three rounds.  I think I saw a referee in the fight but didn’t really turn my eyes too far from the many landing punches and imagining how devastating the impacts would be to most.  So I met JoAnne in my own class and whenever she looked at me her eyes seemed to glaze over.  I was too young and inexperienced to know that this was some kind of sheer lust that seemed to incapacitate her.  Somehow, the unrequited love had turned to hate one day and she came at me…  My inability to hit a woman, although don’t try and jump a brother, there is such a thing as self-defense; My inability to hit the female member of our species stopped me when she came for me and I lightly touched her breast with a lightly closed fist that was controlled by years of indoctrination of ‘do not hit a girl’.

     I watched my hand in slow motion as it was moving in real time slow motion itself wondering on its own, ‘why won’t he hit her’.  As my hand touched two micro threads on her dress were her breast was she very slowly and almost diabolically lifted her head from looking at the point of impact and looked at me.  I saw the same look that was on Brenda Duran’s face during the fight and then JoAnne’s eyes rally glazed over.  This was new.  The whites of her eyes then turned red and I was in complete need of an exit plan.  She had turned into what I had heard was called Satan, I was sure of it!  I enacted my invisibility cloak and ran as fast as I could.  Lunch was over and we had to go back to class.  I turned off my cloak and went into class.  There she was!  She was sitting in her chair with glazed eyes, red and brown eyeballs, and clearly in a world that only involved me!  I slowly made it too my chair while keeping a steady eye on JoAnne.  Our teacher Ms. Lackey looked at JoAnne and seemed to connect on some estrogenic level.  Clearly, there was no hope for me were Ms. Lackey was concerned.  Apparently Ms. Lackey was more involved than I thought because she ignored the volcano spewing lava that was about to majorly erupt in the form of a teen aged girl named JoAnne and announced she needed to go to her office.  As soon as Ms. Lackey got to the door she turned and looked at my pleading eyes and I was sure I saw a smile as she turned and left!

     I turned my head slowly to look at JoAnne as she looked back at me like the first female ‘Terminator’ ten years before the movie was even made and she lunged!  I spent the next five minutes running around that classroom in such serious fear that JoAnne didn’t have a chance in her current hell of catching me.  Ms. Lackey walked back in and seemed to give JoAnne a secret message as in, ‘I gave you five minutes. I thought you would have finished him off by now’.  Ms. Lackey’s real words actually said, “What’s going on here!?”  My mind screamed as I carefully watched the current incarnation of Satan named JoAnne, ‘Like you didn’t know!’

     We were sent to the principal’s office and I was introduced to another new trick that Arizona had to offer me.  In Phoenix at that time a teacher could physically discipline a student.  I think it was called corporal punishment.  I sat in the Principal’s office noticing several wooden paddles on the wall that were like miniature boat oars with a bunch of inch wide holes drilled in each one.  I awoke from my temporary shock of the events and he was asking me what happened in class.  I didn’t know anything but the fact that I thought Satan had just made a visit to our school and took over a soul named JoAnne.  I then heard him say, “Stand up and bend over and place your hands on the desk.”  This man proceeded to swat me with all his might, again and again.  I got back to class where the other kids told me the holes were to make it hurt more.  The holes made your flesh seep into them upon impact making the pain more severe and lasting.  I sat there in class remembering how one of the things the Principal talked about was how proud he was that the students themselves had made the paddles for him.  There was nothing I could do.  I definitely couldn’t get my weak mother to help…  It was clear to me that I needed more of these strong women in my life and I would grow up as America itself has to learn to make it so!

     I finished junior high and had to thank my stars that Satan’s vessel on Earth named JoAnne had chosen a different high school or maybe she moved.  But now the strong women had multiplied and seemed to have a lot more layers of discovery for this young man who was extremely interested in their breed.  I still feel I was and am fascinated with these women and their protective nature of their own because as a young man with a frail mother who raised me alone, I felt I needed them.  I wanted, wished, and dreamed that I had a mother like these women who I knew would protect me.  The first time I met the mother of my step brother I just stared at the strength that emanated from her.  She was a powerful woman and the power just emanated from her pores.  It was the second time I met her while in a grocery store that my heart fell completely in love.  My step brother randomly asked her if she would kill someone if they killed him.  She said while studying the produce and not even looking up as I studied her for her response, “I don’t know, it depends on why they killed you”.  She had me at ‘I don’t know’.  This really was the woman who could have raised me in a safe home.

     So now in high school I enjoyed these strong girls that would all grow up to be strong women like a normal person would enjoy television shows.  Because these women in their protective behavior would give you a show anytime you wanted one.  I even saw a sixteen year old girl at this school stand up to a female cop at a fight off campus and the cop looked like she was going to pee on herself.  And there were lots of cops there for the female cop to request help from but I watched as she stood and seemed scared to move as the sixteen year old gritted her teeth and told her, “Don’t even think about touching me!”

     Then one day I was two houses down from my own home and its lack of protection hanging out with my good friend Shawn.  We were in his front yard and his mother pulled up in her car.  She was a beautiful tall light skinned woman who clearly had something on her mind.  My strong woman antennae went up.  I watched as she sternly went into the house and then her sister pulled up in her car.  All of a sudden, her and her sister came out of the house and were carrying guns.  Oh my God, I had hit the jackpot in my search.  His mother had a pistol and her sister had a shotgun.  I stood there and probably had my first camping trip with a large tent in my pants.  I stood there drooling and said to Shawn who acted like it was normal everyday behavior as it turned out to be, “What are they doing!?”

     Shawn looked at me with boredom and said, “My mom went to the prison to see my dad and some woman was there visiting him. My mom’s going to get her.”  I drooled.  I sat there with a small smile on my face and a huge smile in my heart.  Unlike my mom who caused me to live in fear due to her weakness, these women were strong.  I despised my mother’s weakness.  It sickened me on the inside; it also made me become very prone to attack if anyone tried to mess with her.  My mother seemed to enjoy watching me get upset and lash out in her honor.  The countless, entertaining, and eventful times of defense are in my memoirs and not necessary to make this point.  Now with a huge smile on my face I said to Shawn, “What are they going to do?!”  He said something like, “Probably just scare her”.  I watched as they drove off into the sunset to handle their business.

     Shawn’s mother and her sister as well as their other three sisters were all from Avondale, Arizona.  They were the rarest breed of this female stallion I sought that I had ever seen.  I loved all five of them.  They could tell the way I looked at them at my age that I was enthralled but they could only half care.  They were too busy running and managing their own lives.  One time I went into Shawn’s house and two of his mother’s sisters were sitting on the couch.  I said, “It smells in here”.  One said, “Well then smell your ass outta’ here!”  Camping trip in my spiritual pants again!

       I loved Shawn’s mom and her sisters.  The way they affected me was so intense I started calling all extremely strong women The Avondales in honor of the rural city that birthed them.  Half of them still lived in Avondale and I always loved when they visited.  I would seek out and continue to be drawn to strong women which is why I write about them.  My stories about Cassandra are about the birth of one.  I would later meet one who would kill for me and she became the first woman I ever truly loved including my mother.  I cared for my mother but the circle of fear in her heart made me detest her weakness.  I despise weakness.  I hate it.

     The problem with these Avondales is when they go bad.  You do not want to meet an Avondale gone bad…  If you want to see a seriously strong Avondale gone bad, check out Anika Noni Rose’s current performance on the show ‘Power’ as Juke Box.  Anika’s character Juke Box is a rabid and highly controlling psychological monster and I want to put her character on Google alerts so I can make sure I’m never in the same town.  Juke Box is an Avondale with rabies; find them an island and leave them there!

     So now the country itself has seen what I saw when you trust your security to weakness. You want strength when you’re looking for someone to guide and guard your family and your home.  Well America is our family and America is our home and we do not want weakness in charge of it.  With the police brutality situation boiling over in our country it is very clear that weakness is in charge.  It is weakness in President Obama that tells him he can’t speak up for Trayvon Martin because ‘they’ might think he is giving us special favors.  It is weakness in his soul that binds his hands.  If he would have gone and just sat in on Trayvon Martin’s trial just one time the jury may have taken the right path.  He could have even sent his wife! 

     I have seen Hillary Clinton in photographs looking at Barack Obama where she seemed to detest him for usurping her bid for the 2008 Election.  She really does not like that man.  How can I tell?  I can tell because I have been around too many of these women and you have to learn to read them and the dangerous ones or you could find yourself in some serious trouble.  Oh yeah, Hillary is a strong woman but one thing you may not know, she’s an Avondale capable of using what it takes to protect her babies and America needs someone to stop the police from killing it’s babies of color so randomly and haphazardly.

     But the main thing that should be important to us about Hillary, she’s an Avondale with control.  And that is what America needs right now!  I guarantee you that Hillary is going to do something about this police brutality situation in America the first time it happens on her watch, if not sooner!  America needs one of its true mother’s to save us from the worm that is eating away at our apple of a country from the inside out.  America needs that woman to be an Avondale and that Avondale is Hillary Clinton!

By

Anthonystjoseph

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