To me, there is not much terror in my story but sometimes… it leaves my friends speechless. Dumbfounded. I’ve been offered to go to therapy more times than I can count. And I have in my child hood but it proved to only exacerbate at home. Maybe it will help if I actually explain things. To give an idea of what seems to honestly caused a friend to be afraid of “who you (me) could become should one more problem falls on your (my) lap.
Of the 27 years of my life, I spent 17 of them in a home of physical, mental and sexual abuse. When I was a child apparently my family life was normal—so says my mother. Or however normal a family of four brothers with all different fathers could be and my father the only one who has ever married my mother. We played board games, we watched television and even had a dog in our apartment in New York City. I remember the layout of the apartment very well. It was quite large…spacious even. 3 rooms, a fine glass table with two windows in the living room.
I recall faintly looking out of those windows after watching Spider-man the animated series on the television—wishing that I could just swing from building to building swing away from this environment that housed no board games. No tv with my family. No love for one another. That is what I remember. What I didn’t remember was that my father was a police officer, a good one but nothing special to be honest. He did his job and he helped as much as he could. Until he and his partner were out on patrol and apparently heard a loud shriek from an apartment they were passing by.
I assumed they did as all good cops would do and investigated. How much I almost wish they weren’t—because that decision would come to haunt my family for 25 years. From what I understand second hand, it was a girl who got into the world of prostitution in a wrong way, by that I mean some scum was beating on a woman who was trying to make a living the only way she knew how. When they made it inside they were eventually outnumbered and outgunned by at least six men or so. I don’t know how many men there really were as I learned this from my mother recently. All I know is that my father’s partner drew his firearm and yelled that they were police and for them to drop their weapons.
Clearly the filth of that city I’ve left years ago did not comply. Bullets and the loud barks of guns carried through the air from both sides. My father apparently killing one man with a shot to his lung which would be a slow an agonizing way to go. Much unlike my father’s partner who had caught a three bullets to his head. In realizing his partner was killed, my father didn’t think, he didn’t grab his partner and try to pull him out. He didn’t hesitate. He fled. Was it the heat of the situation? Was it that he felt his own mortality? He would never answer this question for me. And the reason for this, I will reveal later.
Following this situation, the NYPD gave my father time off to adjust to the situation that had occurred. To deal and be with friends and family that would support him through this hardship. But from what I know now, that support given to him was flung back in a hysteric rage of alcohol. My brother once tried to hug him and tell him that everything was alright, but what he didn’t know was that my father had been through his 9th shot of whiskey at the time. And he caught a punch to the face that was fit for a grown man:
“YOU CAN’T KNOW THAT! NO ONE CAN KNOW THAT! WE CAN DIE AT ANYTIME!” he shouted as my mother scooped up my brother and carried him to his room.
Why can I not remember any of this? Was I really too young at the time? Was 2 too young to recall such things? I don’t know. As time went on and he was finally going to return to the force—my father decided to sabotage himself. Monday came and it was time for his examination… but that Friday, he took heroin. The chief had no choice but to remove my father from duty. When my father returned him, he couldn’t face my mother but she had known due to the chief calling my mother and informing her of what was going on. My mother approached him.
“Why? Why didn’t you just say you weren’t ready? Why didn’t you just tell them you needed more time?” She asked.
And he just turned to her with tears in his eyes. Hysteric and afraid.
“I DON’T WANT TO DIE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE AND LEAVE YOU AND THE KIDS ALONE!”
I can understand that. But what I cannot understand is what followed in the next two years. Beatings that my mother, and brothers received. And not with a belt but rather with his fists. There was one point where my eldest brother and second eldest brother were in their room. The second eldest could hear everything.
“He’s beating mom!” he said.
“Go back to sleep. Stay in your bed and go back to sleep.” Was what the eldest stated while urging him that everything would be alright.
“But he’s hurting her! We have to do something!” the second eldest stated once more.
My oldest brother had sighed and hung his head. I’m certain he remembered what happened to him before when he tried to encourage my father… but this time he will try to stop him? Surely this would only be worse. And it would be.
“Stay here. I’ll take care of it” he said as he left the bed room…only to crash through the hard wood door with splintered wood digging into his arm. The blood dripped from his arm, onto the floor and reflected the light of the living room never left the memory of my second eldest brother. And neither did the visual of him seeing my mother hold her child and tending to his injuries as quickly as she could. In that moment… my brother would never live down his feeling of fear and thoughts of his own cowardice of that night.
Days, weeks and months passed as he only became more aggressive. Until one night where my father, mother and friends were playing poker. My father was a paranoid man… he had always suspected my mother of being unfaithful to him (She wasn’t cheating on him but god I can see why she WOULD have.) He erupted in accusations of her sleeping with one of the friends there… which also conveniently was the time he was losing horrendously.
The friends left and my mother simply denied the accusation. She went to their bedroom to get some rest. Tired of his paranoia, tired of his abuse…. In the morning, she would pack our bags and leave him. Except that opportunity did not come. You see, my father is—was---a lunatic. He decided in his rage that since no one cared about him, he may not live in this world and drunk a cup of bleach. My mother heard a crash from the kitchen and gagging. She saw the bottle of bleach, saw him crawling on the floor and begging for her help. That he didn’t mean to do what he just did! That he didn’t mean to be such a horrible husband! That he would change if only she would help him fix this mistake he just made! If only she would help him…
My mother walked to this man on the floor… bent down in front of him her husband that she loved through all of the abuse and torture, and beatings that her children have suffered due to him… and grabbed the bottle of bleach, setting it on the kitchen counter. “There it is in case you want another drink. Save us the trouble and drink up. Or not… either way, I’ll call the ambulance. They will come. Either way you probably won’t make it through tonight. Let’s leave it for god and your stomach lining to decide.” She said as she walked back to her bedroom, picking up the phone and dialing for the ambulance.
“And guys… you know me. Don’t bring him to the ward I work at.” She stated through all of the groans, moans and pleads for help from my father. A light and delicate hand motion followed as she gently pushed the bedroom door closed, in front of his face.
His life was sparred. God was kind to him and cruel to the rest of us. As he recovered, he claimed my mother had poisoned him. She worked in the hospital that he was in. The ward she asked for him to NOT be in… and just like that. Her career was over. And us? Well… that left us without a father---or a monster if you will and without a constant income from my mother. 3 years passed as I saw less food in the refrigerator, toys vanish, and clothes became warn with no replacements. Well… there were replacements for all of these things. Strange men in our home.
Men who would reek of nail polish remover… Nail polish remover… That smell would follow me until this day as I found out that it wasn’t remover. But meth. My mother began to partake in drugs, but not by her own finances… they came with the territory of selling her body for that she could pay for the rent. At the time of course, I didn’t understand any of this. But over time I would learn what really happened those days. And understand why I may have seriously injured a man for the first time in my life.
One day another man who smelled like nail polish remover came as all others did. I sat in the living room playing with one of my few toys left. It was a plastic crocodile that seemed so real to me for some reason. I used to put him in water and make him “swim” around while making growling and clicking noises. Heh… I miss that toy so but I digress for now.
My head turned sharply when I heard my mother’s door swing open and hit the wall.
“You stupid hoe!” are the only words I recall from that man. He spoke more but from my perspective, his lips moved but nothing came out… auditory shut down for me as I saw him drag my mother out of her room by her hair. Time seemed to change frequently in the following moments. Quickly as I ran towards this man who was hurting my mother and I pounded at his legs yelling at him to stop hurting my mother… Only to feel something hard hit my chest and my auditory came back just briefly enough for me to hear a crack from somewhere in my body.
Things then slowed down as every breath felt like I was inhaling and exhaling fire and my mouth tasted like coins… I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t comprehend my situation or the scope of what really was going on. But two things went through my head.
“He has to go away. Make him go away.”
I clumsily got myself into the kitchen, grabbing a knife from the dish strainer. I didn’t know what I was grabbing when I got it, I just grabbed it. I then came back to where he still had my mother by her hair and she was on the ground and he was bent over her, yelling something at her. What? I don’t know… I couldn’t hear his words. My ears were lost into a world of static sounds and my eyes pounded. He didn’t see me coming at all neither did he see the blade that slid in between his ribs coming.
There is no pride for what I did as a child. The feeling of a knife passing through a person is no different than sliding it into a large steak… and it made the same noise. The look of shock on his face as he turned to me, his chest clenched and his eyes in disbelief.
“You have to go away! Go away! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!” was all I could say, over and over again.
To him it may have seemed like a command as he held his chest, making his way to the front door of our apartment. Opening it and stumbling out and falling over in the street when he left the lobby. I slumped on the wall after I followed him and slowly slid down the wall, grabbing at my ribs and watched as people gathered around him and eventually paramedics came to take him away and save him.
As I sat there, the world slowly started coming back to me… I didn’t understand why anything was happening. I was scared. I was scared that I had did something wrong, that I would be taken away and never see anyone ever again. And then my mother came into the lobby where I was slumped over. She knelt over to me, looked me in the eye.
“What the fuck did you just do….?” She said.
“Mommy…? It hurts…” I said… or I think I did. I’m not entirely sure to be honest. All I am sure of is the sight of her arm turn back as far as she could and a blur towards my face. A broad but heavy pain is what I felt as my head raced for the floor. And then… slowly the color of the world…light began to be lost to world of dark.
Submitted August 11, 2015 at 06:37AM by RamzalTimble http://ift.tt/1guFB2m nosleep
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