The Women of Duck Commander (12 page)

During this time, Phil and I did not go to church. He didn’t want to. He did not have his own faith at that point, and neither did I.
Both of us grew up attending church, but once we were out on our own we were free to choose whether we would continue or not. Part of me wanted to go, but I believed Phil was the head of our household and I needed to do what he wanted, which was to stay home on Sunday mornings. Another part of me did not want to go because I was young and pregnant and unmarried, and I felt embarrassed. I kept thinking we would go to church later, in a year or two when we got married and things settled down. I had no idea how bad our lives would get before we finally did.

After Alan was born, I had my hands full. I was very young, and of course I had never had a baby before. I did not have much help or support, but I was determined to be a good mother and that took a lot of my time and energy. I could not stay out late at night partying with Phil and I certainly was not going to get drunk.

One night, I had a major reality check. Phil and I were at a party and had taken Alan. One of Phil’s good friends from home was also in school at Tech. His wife was a good friend of mine and they lived close to us. We were all together at a party one weekend and my friend suggested I check on Alan. He was throwing up. I wrapped him in a blanket, found Phil, and said, “We have to go home. The baby’s sick.” Phil would not leave the party, so I took Alan home alone. There’s no telling when Phil showed up. That night was the end of my party time. From then on, Phil partied and drank, but I did not go with him. I remember being so torn inside because I really wanted to be with Phil. At the same time, when I thought about those parties and everything that went on during them, all I could say to myself was, “I can’t do this. I just can’t do it.” I didn’t; I quit all of that, but Phil kept on.

T
HINGS
W
ILL
G
ET
B
ETTER

I truly believed Phil would leave his wild ways behind once he finished college, got away from his football buddies, and started working. Even though he didn’t make a priority of his studies and eventually left the football team so he could spend more time hunting and fishing, Phil graduated with both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. He was well prepared to be a teacher and a coach. I was so excited about the next stage of our lives, convinced things would be better and that the happy home life I always dreamed of would finally come true.

Phil got a job soon after graduation. A man named Al Bolen recruited him as a teacher in Junction City, Arkansas. I was so happy when I realized the school was going to provide us with a little house and I could work as the school secretary. Finally, just as I had hoped, everything was shaping up just as I wanted it to. We even lived across the street from a sweet elderly couple, an old preacher and his wife, who was blind. They took an interest in Alan as soon as they met him. They loved him, and he loved them. They took him to church every Sunday, starting when he was five years old. The preacher and Alan really had an amazing relationship, and I was so thankful for that.

After Jase was born, the preacher and his wife took him to church, too, and sometimes I went with them. Phil still was not interested in church at that point, except when his parents, Granny and Pa, came to visit. When his parents were with us, we all went to church, but Phil was miserable. Phil has never been a person to pretend. Everything is black or white, good or bad, with him. If he
likes something, he lets it be known. If he doesn’t like something, he does not keep it to himself. He did not like church, and everyone knew it.

Maybe one reason he did not like church was that he had not left behind his drinking and partying when we moved from Ruston. Al Bolen turned out to be a big fisherman and duck hunter, just like Phil, but he also had a drinking problem, which was the last thing Phil needed to be around. Instead of finally being able to live my dream in Arkansas, I was right back in the same old nightmare.

M
OVING
O
N

By the time Willie was born, people in the community were aware of Phil’s behavior. He did not drink every day; he could go days or even weeks without taking a sip. He was a party guy. When he got around other people and started drinking, he did not stop until he was good and drunk. In a small town, word travels fast when people do things like that, especially when those people are schoolteachers. The school administration and students’ parents finally began to lose their patience with Phil, and he knew he would soon be fired. He decided to get another job and move our family out of town before that happened. With my Pollyanna attitude and my firm belief that everything would get better if I could just be the perfect wife and mother, I hoped a new start would be exactly what we needed. It wasn’t.

Phil’s personal situation, our marriage, and our family life got worse. Phil decided to leave teaching and coaching, and, as he put
it, “make some money.” Without even mentioning to me what he wanted to do, he leased a bar in a rural area of Arkansas! We lived in a trailer next door to it. All I could think was,
Seriously? You are going to run a bar in the middle of nowhere? What am I supposed to do, take my kids to a bar every night?
I knew I would have to help Phil in this new business, but I did not know anything about running a bar. I didn’t even drink!

By this time, I had thought a lot about our marriage and family. It was not turning out the way I dreamed it would, not even close. I was disappointed, of course, but more than that, I was at a total loss about what to do. I knew that if I talked to my sister, she would tell me to leave Phil. One of Phil’s brothers had already said I needed to leave. But I couldn’t get my grandmother’s advice out of my head: “You’re going to have to fight for your marriage.” I was finding out what those words meant, and the fight was a whole lot worse than I ever thought it could be.

Although some people thought I had a good reason to leave Phil when we got ready to move out of town so he could run the bar, I decided to go with him. I knew he could end up in big, big trouble—and I thought I could protect him. If not, at least I could keep an eye on him and at least our three little boys would have both parents in the home with them.

Once Phil started operating the bar, I went to work as a barmaid. It was the only way I knew to keep up with what he was doing. The local people who visited the bar knew immediately that I did not belong there. They kept telling me I needed to be in church, not waiting tables in a bar. I got the feeling they would have fought to the death for me. They thought I was a “nice lady”; they really
respected me and refused to let anybody say anything bad about me. They did not understand why I worked in the bar when it seemed so out of character for me, but they also did not understand it was about much more than serving drinks for tips every night: I was fighting with all my might to save my marriage.

During this time, I found an elderly lady who babysat the boys while Phil and I worked, so thankfully they were not exposed to many of the things I saw and experienced. So many unsafe things happened, and I spent a lot of time frightened and anxious about what we should do. There were times when Phil started drinking and simply disappeared for a few days, leaving me alone with three boys and a run-down bar. When that happened, an elderly man who lived in the area ran the bar, while I kept serving drinks and wondering when Phil would come home.

O
UR
D
ARKEST
D
AYS

Phil became cold and harsh during those days. He was mean and threatening to me, and I was terrified of what would happen to my boys and me. Even though I had not been in church because I was so embarrassed about everything that was happening and about Phil’s behavior, I did make sure the boys got there every Sunday and I never forgot my Christian upbringing. One day, I began to pray with all my heart, “God, just get us out of here.”

Somehow, we made it through the first year of Phil’s lease on the bar, even though it was a terrible time. Three or four months later, the landlords showed up one day and cussed out Phil, saying
they did not like the way he was running the place and were raising his rent. They were rough people, and I think what they
really
didn’t like was that Phil had turned the place into a profitable business and was making good money off it.

Those people were not smart. They had no idea that trying to push Phil Robertson around and cuss him out would lead to disaster. He got so angry with them that he beat them up—both of them. By the time I got to the bar to try to figure out what was happening, all I saw were people being loaded into an ambulance.

During all the confusion, Phil did the only thing he knew to do: run away. He told me quickly that he was leaving and he would be gone for a while, just before he slipped out a back door. I knew he would be in trouble with the law and the only way to avoid that would be for him to hide out. He told me to handle the situation the best I could and then leave. I faced five police cars that night and enough questions to make my head spin. They wanted Phil, and I could honestly tell them I had no idea where they might find him.

So there I was: no source of income, husband on the run, three little boys, in the middle of Arkansas. Phil had made a huge mess of our lives and had left me to clean it up. I felt completely helpless and hopeless.

When the couple who owned the bar got out of the hospital, they put up a barricade around my trailer. The boys and I were trapped! I couldn’t move the trailer and I couldn’t leave. One day they said they wanted to meet with me, and I had no choice but
to talk to them. They offered to drop the charges against Phil if I would pay them a certain amount of money. It was extortion, but I paid them because it was the only way I knew to clear Phil’s name and get the boys and myself away from them. I gave them almost all the money we had except a little bit that was in a lockbox, and they gave me the trailer. I also had some things stored in another building on their property—some keepsakes and things that held special memories for me—and a washer and dryer. They would not let me get near any of those things, so I had to leave them all behind.

F
ROM
B
AD TO
W
ORSE

I hired a moving company to move the trailer from Arkansas to Bayou D’Arbonne Lake, near Farmerville, Louisiana. I had told Phil in a phone call where he could find us, and he soon came out of the swamp and joined us. He was so relieved when I told him he would not be arrested over the incident with the bar owners. While he was on the run, he had found a job in an offshore oil field, but we still needed money, so I went to work at a local chicken place and made just enough to pay our electric bill.

Phil was drinking worse than ever by that time, and I began to get seriously depressed. Not only were my hopes and dreams shattered, I couldn’t even figure out how to make anything in our lives work. Everything was falling apart.

I soon got a new job as an insurance clerk in Monroe, Louisiana, a little less than thirty miles from our new home on the lake. The company that hired me was Howard Brothers Discount Stores, the
family business of my daughter-in-law Korie, though she was only a few years old at the time and I had no idea who she was. It’s a good thing I had a decent job, because not long after I got it, Phil was hurt offshore and had to stay home. I was afraid to leave the boys with him, not knowing what he might do if he drank too much, so I put them in day care.

As the situation continued, I grew more and more depressed. I worked with two Christian men at Howard Brothers, and every day, one of them would give me a Bible verse, just to try to encourage me. Those verses gave me the strength I needed to get through this terrible time in my life.

One rainy night, I had car trouble and was late picking up the boys from day care. When we finally got home, Phil accused me of having an affair! It was ridiculous. When was I going to find time to have an affair—between working full-time and changing diapers? I had always told him I would never cheat, and I would not have. I never believed in being unfaithful; it’s just not in my character.

That cheating accusation was the last straw for me. I hit rock bottom. I have never felt as totally hopeless as I did that night. I simply could not see any way out of a terrible situation for the boys and me. I finally accepted the fact that I could not fix our lives and had no one to help. So I did what a lot of women do when they need to be alone: I went into the bathroom and locked the door. I cried and cried, and finally realized I just wanted to go to sleep for a long time. I did not consciously want to kill myself; I just wanted to take enough Tylenol (because that’s all we had) to have a nice, long rest. And I wanted to scare the daylights out of Phil. I wanted to punish him for everything he had put me through. I told myself I didn’t
care if I slept forever, but deep down I don’t think I really wanted to die.

In the midst of that low place, the darkest place I have ever been emotionally, with thoughts of sleep and rest filling my mind, through my sobs I heard the scurry of little feet headed toward the bathroom door. I could tell all three boys, in their house shoes, were coming to talk to me. Alan spoke first: “Mom, don’t cry. Don’t cry anymore. God will take care of us.” I was silent for a moment. Then I heard Jase ask, “Did she quit crying?” And I could hear Willie doing something he did often, making smacking noises while sucking on two of his fingers.

In an instant, it was like a lightbulb came on for me. “What am I doing?” I asked myself. “I have three little boys. I can’t leave them with a drunk.”

I spoke to my sons through the door: “I’m okay. I love y’all. I’ll be out in a minute.”

I then got on my knees and prayed. “God, help me. Just help me. I don’t want to leave these kids. I don’t know what to do or where to find You. Just lead me to somebody who can help me.”

P
EACE
, H
OPE, AND
L
OVE