The Beating/1978

It was a gorgeous summer afternoon. The willow tree was full of big fat green caterpillars. I was 13 years old, taking care of my cousins Bobby and Jason. Bobby was 6, and Jason was 2. Their mother Tia Rachel, my daddy’s sister worked in the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) and let me take care of them for the summer for $35.00 a week.

It never started with much, momma and daddy just argued over nothing, they were like two predators waiting to eat the other one up. Momma had become like a predator, waiting to bite into daddy with a sarcastic word, she was fed up already, fed up with 15 years of marriage. Daddy was out of work, he was between jobs, between Belmont Printers and the next thing, which could have been anything. But momma wasn’t going to have it anymore they were more distant from each other with each passing year. I used to think momma and daddy were going to make it, momma used to tell me, “You know me and your daddy are going to stay together forever.” I used to think so, but momma either never believed in his dreams or just stopped.

Daddy began bullying momma, screaming at her that afternoon in the kitchen. In front of the bricked wall paper, and the apple clock on the wall that faithfully kept time, in front of the apple clock.

“I hate you!” I screamed in daddy’s face, “I just hate you!” And I did, I hated him, for everything, for the hell he put all of us through. I was tired of being a sentinel with Boi in front of momma’s bedroom door at night, afraid that daddy was going to hit her in the middle of the night. If they had been fighting right before going to bed, neither me or Boi would go to bed, we would just sit outside their bedroom door, posted like toy soldiers. We were the oldest and it was our obligation. With heavy eyelids, we would sit there leaning against the door, sometimes all night, then have to go to school the next morning. Yep, I was tired of that shit.

Once I was sitting on the table with momma and daddy, daddy had just gotten a new camera and momma dropped water next to it. Daddy had a handkerchief he wrapped around his hand and slapped her with it. He didn’t use his fists that time, he whipped her with the handkerchief, and I didn’t know what expression to carry. I was numb a fatigued soldier from battle. Yeah daddy I was tired of this.

I hated you because you did this to all of us, to me. I was supposed to be your princess but I wasn’t. I was a peasant.

One night, when I was about 10 I woke up in the middle of the night, I just woke up, as if God slapped me awake. I took cautious steps through the hallway to the living room, it was dark, but I saw you with your hands around momma’s throat. Momma was on her knees. You looked at me, and told me, “Go to bed.”

But how could I, your strong brown hands were a boa constrictor’s around momma’s skinny neck. How was I just supposed to leave, if I did she would be dead in the morning.

I wanted to love everybody but daddy I even loved my Algebra teacher Mr. Huebschwerlin as awful as he was. He was perfectly horrible to me. He kept me after class because I couldn’t complete the Algebra problem, and I wasn’t about to get up and ask for help, I sat there for an hour I missed the school bus home and had to walk. Yes, I even loved him more than I loved you.

Because this is what you did.

Daddy, I told you I hated you, and I meant it. I was almost “5” tall, I was petite. But you grabbed me and momma instead of help me, ran out of the front door, and so did all of my brothers and sisters, and cousins Jason and Bobby. Jason tripped on the way out because he was only 2 years old, but every one of them ran out screaming. But I was left alone with you, left alone in the arena. I was left at your mercy, and you had none. Daddy you began whipping me with your belt over and over on my legs, until you threw me in front of the refrigerator or until I fell. You began to pull my black hair from its roots, and I could feel the screams inside of me wanting to escape, thousands of screams, I sobbed.

“Daddy, please!”

But you thought I was momma, because you started to call me dirty names, the same names you called momma, you called me. You didn’t stop whipping me with the belt, I don’t remember how many times you hit me with it, but it became your weapon against me, I was a woman, I had my period the year before. You hated women, and I was already a young woman.

My head was throbbing from your hands pulling the hair I wanted to disown I wanted to be bald that very moment. Just shed my hair, just escape my hair. Escape my woman hood even though I was still a girl, my heart was being tortured by the hands of my daddy.

Finally, you left me lying on the floor, my head felt ripped to shreds. You walked away. But I would stay there for a very long time, in that place, longer than daddy knew.

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