I was in a tough place when I wrote this in 2010. My last statement was wanting to get out and leave I did. The consequences of that time never left me, but I learned from them. Some lessons took longer than others. They made me stronger. But they did not give me insight into the struggles of another. Because I do not live another person's life. I can only say what I learned and how I handled it. Their choices will be different. Their perceptions will be different than mine.
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There was no reason to remember how it felt. The darkness descended
and it was years before the knowledge would be brought to light. Yet it
was always there. Like pigment on skin it refused to leave.
It
was sometimes difficult to know when the real world was truly real. I
lived on starships that sang and planets where all beings lived in
peace. Blurring of the lines between the mundane activities of daily
living and that of transporting to new worlds was not uncommon.
But
even fantasy worlds have their drawbacks. The problem with having a
visual thought process is that as the words come, so do the visions that
the words describe. You can say you saw a pansy. I then see
the pansy. My mind conjures up the deep purple and the pale white that
goes to make up the illusion of a face. I see the deep yellows and can
almost smell and touch my vision. There are things that I cannot listen
to because of the vivid imagery of my own thought processes, but I can
watch them and feel little. I can see the reality without truly
experiencing it.
When certain shows are narrated, my
desire to quiet their voice is enormous. If they describe a horrific
murder, I experience it in my mind and it haunts me for days. On the
other hand if I witness something first hand, I know what has happened
and have no desire to mentally embellish it.
My life as a child was, how do I say it, interesting?
Sexual abuse conjures up the image of a child being penetrated by an
adult. I do not recall that particular thing happening to me. But,
there are things that happened that I wish I did not have to forget.
My
father had just returned me to my mother. It was something akin to
returning a defective hair dryer. I was 13 when my mother met and
married Three. I have to admit that I thought he was nice looking and
since I was an aspiring artist, I drew pictures of his face and gave
them to my mother.
I used to scratch his back. He lay
on the floor and I would sit on his lower back and scratch his back. I
did not know what that was doing to him and my mother never should have
allowed it to be done. He was laying there on the floor becoming
aroused while I sat on his rear end and scratched his back.
There
was one time that I was thankful for having gas. Oh, I was not
thankful at the time, but looking back I think it kept me out of trouble
for a while. It happened one day while I was sitting on him and
scratching his back. I farted. It was not one of those girly ones
either. It was a big fat loud one. It was one of those that made a 13
year old hide their head in shame for days! I never sat on his back
again.
There was no HBO or cable or satellite
television in those days. There were maybe 3 channels if your antenna
was pointed in the right direction. Fifty years ago a 13 year old had
not seen sex on TV nor in the movies. I was not living in such advanced
times and had no clue as to what made a man do what men did. I had no
desire to know either. I liked my somewhat sheltered life.
I
would still scratch his back from time to time but never like before.
But, looking back, I can see that he never quit trying. There was never
a time when I was ever considered as being athletic, but my joints were
nimble and I could do contortions that most people could not do. When
he found that out, he asked me to do it often, until I just tired of
being a trained animal.
When we moved out of state to
the mountains, I thought things would be better. He was taking Mom, my
brother and myself to his home in West Virginia. It was there that
fantasy turned to horror.
Mom was pregnant with my
little sister. As mom grew larger in her pregnancy, things between her
and Three got worse. The fights were louder and his lechery started
showing up more. We were living in a 1 bedroom apartment on the 3rd
floor. Joyless slept on the roll away bed. I slept on the sofa. Mom
and Three shared the bedroom. And then it started.
Three, "Joyless, come here! If you look through the keyhole, you can see your sister in the bathtub!"
Mom,
"Three, your perverted son of a bitch!! Stop it!! Leave her alone!
CAN'T YOU SEE I'M BUSY!!" She yelled at him constantly about everything
and her yelling came to mean nothing to him.
I had
just started undressing when I heard the commotion on the other side of
the door. I hung a towel over the keyhole, made sure the door was
locked and continued with my bath. I made sure that I was never alone
with him and then there was little brother to worry about.
The
drama begins. Three comes home from - wherever (work, bar, it does not
matter). They fight and suddenly he is choking Mom yelling at her, "I
WISH YOU'D LOSE THAT DAMN BABY!!!"
Joyless and I run
over to him and start hitting on him yelling and trying to make him
stop. He does stop. The neighbors yell and they scream at each other
and it is over as suddenly as it started. Mom can still breathe and
life goes on.
It was a Saturday. I know because it was
cold outside and brother and I were home. Mom wanted to knock him out
when he came home. He was becoming increasingly erratic in his
behavior. You never knew what would set him off.
Mom was anxious and looking furtively about the kitchen. "I need something to knock him out."
I handed her the iron skillet. She said, "That should do it."
She
held it in her had for a few seconds and handed it back to me saying,
"It might kill him. I don't want to kill him, just knock him out!"
I thought about what she said as I put the skillet away and thought to myself, "So what? What difference would it make?"
She
finally handed me a bottle and asked me to fill it with sand. I took
the bottle and put rocks and sand and some water in it trying to make it
as heavy as possible. By the time I got back upstairs her plan had
changed and she had 2 boards leaning against the wall. I have no idea
where she got them, but there they were. Once she decided what she was
going to do, we settled down, ate dinner and waited.
When
he finally got home, she met him at the door and asked him where he had
been. They started arguing and swearing at each other. As the
argument escalated, she moved backward to where the boards were leaning
against the wall. She picked up one and slammed him hard against the
side of the head. He stood there looking at her, stunned for just a few
seconds. She raised it again and as she was about to connect a second
time, he laughed at her. He took the board from her and broke it in
half across his knee while he laughed.
My heart sank and all I could think was that she should have used the skillet.
"What the Hell's wrong with you, Spet?" was all he said as he walked past her.
It
was just too weird. Nothing phased that man. I was in shock, but
there was no time for wondering what would happen next. He just wanted
to play cards.
I hated playing cards with him
especially when he lost. He just started swearing and throwing things
and it was just a mess. Once he just took the cards and threw them up
in the air. Joyless and I picked up the cards when he left the room and
try as hard as we could, we could not find 5 of the cards. We looked
everywhere. When I lay down on the sofa to sleep, I looked up and they
were hanging on the chandelier.
President Kennedy was
assassinated that year. The baby was born shortly after and we called
her Lost Innocence. Three sent Joyless to the bar with a note that
said, "Give this boy a bottle of beer." and scrawled his name. Three
came home drunk one time. I remember that well. It was close to
Christmas.
Three said he was going to his brother's
house to do something. About 1:30 that morning, someone propped him
against the door and the high heels clicked down the hall as he banged
on the door. Mom got up and went to the door.
"I love
ya, Spet." and he threw up. "Ya know I lub ya." and he threw up again.
She managed to guide him to the bathroom and hollered at me to clean up
the mess and she would give me a dollar.
I managed to
get it cleaned up. I would have done it anyway without the dollar. I
loved my mother and felt sorry for her. I tried to go to sleep, when
Mom asked me to help her get him into the tub. By the time I got to the
door, she had him in the tub. I stood by the door when she turned on
the cold water. The tub was an old tub and the faucet was one that
stood straight out instead of curving down like modern faucets. The ice
cold water hit him full force right in the crotch. He would have
jumped clear out of the tub if he had not been so drunk.
I
went back to bed and listened. She got him out of the tub and led him
into the bedroom. I got up to see the carnage and noticed blood all
over the place. She told me he had come home with his hand cut. It was
quiet for a while. She went into the kitchen and brought out a butcher
knife. I shut my eyes and willed myself to sleep.
Nothing
was stirring the next morning and I went to the bathroom. There was
blood on the walls and all over the tub. I used the toilet quietly and
silently walked the few steps to the bedroom door following the drops of
blood. I looked in and saw Mom lying on the bed awake. Three was
hog-tied and asleep beside her. There were splotches of blood
everywhere. It was not too long after I glanced in that Three started
to stir, choking himself as he tried to straighten up. There was a pile
of clothes at the foot of the bed. They were all either torn or cut
up.
It did not take long to find out what had transpired the night before.
You
could see the fear awaken on his face as he tried to look at himself
and he screamed, "What've you done? You crazy bitch! What'd ya do ta
me?" I had to stifle a laugh as he continued to rant and simultaneously
choke himself.
There was the 6 foot 1, 185 pound crazy
man tied up like the pig he was, screaming like a baby. Yes, I thought
it was funny. My 5 foot 7, 100 pound mom had him in a real bad way and
I was hoping she would leave him that way.
When he
calmed down and she had had enough fun, she brought the knife close to
his face and gave him one of those looks. It was a look that said, "You
are mine and I can do what I want with you. You can't guess what I'm
gonna do next." When he thought he was going to die, she took the knife
and cut the rope setting him free. He was still hung over so he was in
no shape to start any fights. He was too busy checking body parts to
cause any trouble.
Mom had cut up the clothes that she
could not tear in half. The only clothes that he had to wear were the
clothes he wore home that belonged to his brother and a pair of shorts
and old torn T-shirt that was in the laundry basket.
Yes,
we were just one big happy family. All that happened in just 2
months. Intermixed with all of that was Three's hatred of Joyless. He
choked him holding him against the wall all the while watching him turn
purple with me begging him to stop. He berated Joyless calling him
names and telling him how worthless he was. It was heartbreaking. I
was scared and felt hopeless. There was nowhere to turn and no one
seemed to care. It was frustrating and deep inside I knew that there
just had to be a better way. I lived for the day I could leave.
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Shalom! Pray for the PEACE of Jerusalem!
Well written, Pamela. Thank you! I appreciate your time you spend for writing such nice posts for your readers.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment. I enjoy writing and it gives me a release as well as hope that someone will be helped or at the very least get a good laugh. I find it fascinating that people all over the world can read something I wrote. Care should always be taken by myself and others as to what we post and how it may be received.
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