Under The High: An Excerpt

 Pauline Gregg-Taylor died in 2023, leaving behind several unfinished letters and memoirs that she wanted seen by those they are addressed to, those it would help and anybody else interested. When me and my dad went down to Tennessee to help her move up to Pennsylvania in the year of 2014, she noticed that I was in the middle of writing my own novel and mentioned having these memoirs that she wanted me to help her type out and get published, which I did...sort of. I'm still in the process of trying to find a publisher that will do this for me for little to no money upfront. 

In the meantime, I invite any and all of those interested in reading what she wrote (and what me and my mother added) to a sliver of it. Enjoy.

 

 

 

"I was staying with Liz most of the time, helping with babysitting and helping around the house. I went home one night to my mom's because my godmother was coming to spend the night with me. Liz had called and wanted me to babysit that night but I told her no, I wanted to see my Fafa, as my little brother would call her, and Liz got really mad. She kept calling over and over until Fafa came and Fafa said if she went with me then would I go because she really wanted to see the baby also. Well, when we got there, we found out Liz was going out with Billy. He called and wanted to reconcile with her. Fafa told Liz she had a bad feeling about this and that she was making a big mistake due to everything the family had been through with him and his family, especially the death threats, but she went anyway. While Fafa and I settled in to watch TV, Fafa said "Do you hear anything strange outside the bathroom window?" I said no, but went in and looked out the window. When I looked down there were around five to six guys standing around smoking and just talking in Spanish, so I didn't know what they were saying and we thought they were friends of the guys that lived down there. Fafa and I decided to fix dinner. So we got it started and when I went back in to check on it I could hear a strange noise at the porch door in the back room. When I went to see what it was, it was those guys trying to get into the house, but thank God Liz had a MasterLock on the door and they couldn't get it open. We turned the light on and screamed at them to get away. They all jumped down off the porch, or at least I thought they did. I went back to the bathroom window and looked out: they were climbing back up onto the porch. So I yelled at them to get out of there, that I had called the cops. So it seemed like they left. Everything got quiet for a while and we thought maybe they were gone but we really didn't call the cops because the phone wouldn't work; they had cut the wires. We thought maybe I could run over to the neighbor's house and use a phone but no one was home. We thought "well, it'd be OK, they were gone". Then we decided we would bang on the wall leading to a family friend's apartment to get his attention and maybe he would come over...but he didn't. All of a sudden we heard a jiggling noise at the window so we both grabbed a knife and we ran over to the window, pulled up the shade and came face to face with one of those guys. He didn't have the window all the way open so I slammed it down and locked it. They jumped down but we couldn't believe it: they were back and climbed up on the shed out back and got over to the window. Right then and there Fafa and I knew it was Little Lee they were here for. They wanted the baby and that's why Billy suddenly called and wanted to take Liz out and have me babysit. So we came up with a plan to hide the baby and take turns running from window to window and door to door. All the while, they were still trying to get in. So we started to take pots and pans and bang them against the walls in the hope that William would hear us when he got home. We did this until around 4 or 4:30am when we heard a light knock at the door. When I asked who it was, they said it was William but we weren't sure if it was those guys trying to trick us. So we asked him to tell us his last name and what his birthday was and who was my mom. He finally said "Open the damn door Fafa," and we knew then it was him, help has come. When we told him what was going on, he said for us to quickly get the baby's thing together and lock the door behind him, he was going outside to have a look around. He came back a little while later and said that he seen them and him and his roommate chased them off. He seen the phone wire to all the apartments had been cut and found a ladder reaching up to the shed, that's how they got to the back windows. He said we have to go quickly, for just in case they come back. He pulled his car around and blew the horn to let us know it was OK to come out. By this time, it was almost 6am when we got to my mom's house. Fafa and I were so upset we kept ringing mom's doorbell and banging on the hall door to get in. We made such a ruckus that when we got in and they opened the house door my mom, Lydia, Bobby and Theresa were standing there, confused to what was going on. As soon as my mom took Little Lee out of my arm, I just broke down crying out of fear. I was crying so hard, I couldn't talk, and Fafa and Billy were telling the family what was going on. Bobby came over to me, kneeling down to tell me to calm down, that everything was OK now, that we were home and nobody was going to come to mom's house to try and get us. Then Bobby rose up and said he was going over there to see if they got into the house after we left and to try and find Liz. When they got there, Liz was at home. She said Billy ditched her so she ended up with her friends but Bobby and her got into an argument about why she didn't call Mom when she got home to find out why the house was left unlocked and the lights were all on and we were gone, but Liz was so drunk Bobby said for her to call mommy later after she got some sleep, but she wanted to ride back to Mom's and get the baby, and Bobby told her no, she needed to sober up and then come to the house so they came home and left her there but it was around an hour or two later when she showed up at mommy's to try and take the baby home with her and a big fight broke out. Mom told her she couldn't take the baby with her but she was so drunk and out of control mom had to call the cops to the house."

If you like what you've read and/or are interested in reading more, you can purchase the paperback and/or hardcover copy here: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVSDX3WJ

Thanks for reading.