Welcome to Hell: Rediscovering First Love

ing behavior? Why hadn’t I see the pure meanness of the man’s dark soul?

The last five years of my life has been fantasizing about how to get away from him. The prospect of returning to Hell my hometown with my tail between my legs was not the future I had envisioned for myself just yet. I was staying put in this version of hell with James as the gatekeeper.

Hell was where I had first met James. He had walked into the plant where I worked as a secretary to the plant manager. My hometown of Hell, Michigan where a placard painted in crimson with gothic, bold black letters greeted visitors with the words, Welcome to Hell. Hell is where Yancy Dawson, my mother still lives in the same old Victorian home her mother lived as a child.

The stately Victorian rests on two acres of land just on the outskirts of Hell in what is known as Hell Creek where The Creaky Bones Motel is home to many tourists visiting the oddly named town. Winding, country roads lead into and out of town. Blink and you will miss the actual town of five hundred more or less local residents.

Jack Dawson, my Pop mows every inch of every acre on every Thursday of the month, with his old John Deere riding lawnmower. Riding that lawnmower is the only place the man has any peace from my crazy ass mother.

The house built in the late 1800’s is now covered by white vinyl siding with fiberglass black painted shutters adorning the twelve windows that face the front of the house, four windows on each floor of the house. Even the wrought iron fence that had rusted through in sections was now replaced with black, plastic fencing with latticework to look like the original iron one.

The town is a small town, populated with second and third generation residents. My family had lived in Hell since 1895 when my ancestor arrived there by accident so the story goes. Great-Great, Grandpa Yates had gotten lost while traveling with his wife to Mackinaw Island. Mackinaw is due north of Detroit traveling by car for hours, which Great-Great Grandpa Yates didn’t have at that time. He had been traveling by horse. Hell is due west of Detroit. The Yates’ aren’t known for their sense of direction.

He and his wife had liked the charming, modest town with the small country store and the old mill on Hell Creek. They put down roots and decided to raise their family in Hell. Together, they built a small bank in the heart of the town of Hell, which remained in my family until one of the national banks bought it from my grandfather before he retired.

Granddad had stayed on helping them to maintain the relationships he had worked so hard to build. The bank was as important to Granddad as one of his children and the decision to sell had been a difficult one for him.

There are accepted theories about how a town comes to be named Hell and then there is legend as to why the townspeople in 1841 chose the moniker of Hell. The townspeople are known as, Hellions or Hellbillies, which explains why most young Hellions don’t remain in Hell. Who would want to be known as a Hellbilly? I and my sisters had always preferred to be known as Hellions. Wouldn’t you?

The town of Hell is up and coming because of its name, not fast enough for the young forced to work in the parks and recreation areas near the many lakes that surround the town or at previously mentioned The Creaky Bones Motel or one of the other establishments of the town.

When one hundred Harleys ride into Hell to celebrate Halloween or some other satanic themed event the older residents who live near or actually in the town think it too fast. “We’re getting too damned much publicity,” they can be heard to grumble over the roar of hogs screaming on the narrow roads of Hell. I personally had loved the Harleys.

There is a small country family-owned grocery store in town. The store belongs to the husband of my older sister Michaela. The Barber Shop, which my father’s father once owned is next door to the country store. Grandfather Dawson also sold his business when his son decided not to become a barber and there is a supposedly haunted tavern owned by my best friend Izzy’s father called Paddy’s.

Then there is the small manufacturing plant where I had been employed. The plant employs the majority of Hell’s citizens plus many from the surrounding areas, when the height of tourist season is not in full bloom and work isn’t plenty. There is always the plant but it too is struggling, making textiles dumping waste into Hell Creek.

Where better to make Halloween costumes, accessories and decorations than in Hell, Michigan? A Halloween factory fit in with the towns’ ice cream parlor, Ice Screams. All your favorite and unusual flavors. Who better than to take me out of Hell? What the hell had I been thinking?

My name is Gabrielle Dawson Ellerton. Gabby to my friends. Gabrielle to James my husband and to Yancy Dawson my mother the other controlling person in my life but I prefer Gabby. It just suits me better I think. And Kerry McCoy, he always called me Gabby. He’s another story. God, how I missed that man.

Chapter Two

Why exactly had I married James Ellerton when I was still missing one Kerry McCoy? Father of my daughter Keegan.

I had been alone too long and dating had not been at the top of my agenda with a daughter to raise. No adult female should be alone as long as I had been. It wasn’t normal. A woman could almost regrow a hymen in the time that I had been celibate. A sneaky thought snuck into my head. I was still hung up Keegan’s father? Not just hung up on him. Full blown madly in love with him. How do you ever really forget your first love? Really? Where the hell had that come from? True statement but not to be acknowledged by this heart or mind in this lifetime.

James’ attentions had made me feel alive again. His attentions had woken up the part of me-below the waist which I had kept quiet for years hiding behind Keegan. I was far away from the dating pool and relationships were the last thing on my mind. Then this big strong man walked through the door of the plant’s office in an attempt to save the plant and save me from myself.

Sounds clichéd I know but I was wasting away hiding behind my daughter, shriveling into nothingness on the inside. My girlie parts didn’t know what it felt like to be touched by a man anymore. They were lonely too. Going through the motions of life’s daily grind. It had been six years since I had sex with a man. No kidding. Six very long years. Talk about a draught. The only orgasms I had were the ones that I was responsible for and believe you me they are just not the same.

Hell, Michigan had definitely been interested in marketing itself as a Halloween capital. Therefore, when James came to Hell, it was like the town had struck gold. The owner of the manufacturing plant where I had worked owned a great deal of the town. Bobo Gerig actually first name Bob but in Hell everyone called him Bobo and James had many appointments to discuss future opportunities that included a gift shop for tourists where he would sell some of James’s items. Every time James came into the office I was sucked in a little more by his charm as was Bobo who was seeing dollar signs out the ass.

If I were really truthful with myself, I was hiding from more than my past, more specifically I was hiding from Kerry McCoy. Or was I really waiting for Kerry McCoy to return to me and Keegan? Which was it, hiding or waiting? I was never really sure. I wanted that man, the man, the one and only man to come back for me so bad but he never had. In seventeen years, I had been on a few dates resulting in a few very unsatisfying sexual experiences. After seventeen years one would think that I had given up? Not until one James Ellerton walked through the plant’s doors did I finally decide to move on.

James. He had been kind to Keegan those months while I dated him, bringing her gifts to win her over. He had always seemed to know just what to bring her that would be pleasing to a ten-year-old girl. Later, his secretary had sheepishly admitted she also had a daughter Keegan’s age. His secretary had been buying those damned gifts for my daughter. If only I had known. He had fooled us or at least me. He had seemed so charismatic. So loving. He was so false, just a big fake phony baloney. He was also a cold hearted bastard.

After our marriage and living with him for a month or two, I had discovered the real James not the man who had wooed and won me but the real man. James, the anal-r

etentive, perfectionist-asshole reared his ugly head. Every Saturday morning I casually watched as he inspected the house without inspecting it. Him doing what he was doing while thinking that I didn’t know what he was really doing. He so infuriated me that I wanted to scream. In my mind’s eye I could actually saw him with an imaginary white glove running his long, artificially tanned finger across the black marble mantel in the formal living room looking for dust bunnies wherever they might be hiding.

This was our game. I searched thoroughly for cobwebs, dust bunnies and anything that might be construed as dirt but still he found something every single time. The dirt police won every time.

His disapproval is never actually voiced out loud but I can see it clearly on his face and that is enough to ruin me for the remainder of the day. When he arrives at Keegan’s door, my daughter’s territory there is usually a battle. He is not inconspicuous when he makes his way to her room. He comes to me with his list of things that Keegan needs to do including wiping the toothpaste from her sink and picking up some books and clothes from her floor. Why can’t he just leave Keegan the hell alone?

My daughter is messily tidy. Keegan’s room is cluttered but neatly so. Her space looks lived in not like the rest of our home. Her walls painted Shockingly Pink was such a vivid hot pink had knotted James’s panties into a twist then had infuriated him beyond speech. We had done the deed one weekend when he was away on business. There wasn’t much he could say when he returned to find the job complete. God what a rush pissing him the hell off with the nonconforming paint color! An actual color!

Sheer purple sparkling material draped around her windows substituting for curtains. Multicolored heavy beads hung from the frame of the closet door replacing the actual heavy wooden sliding doors that were there and now resided in the barn. Keegan’s hardwood floors are perfectly polished just like in the rest of the house and strategically placed brightly colored shag throw rugs help with the cold bare floors in winter.