Why didn’t my mother do anything? Why was Jeffrey in trouble? He did nothing wrong! I would have preferred my brothers and I to live anywhere else than at home. It was not okay to get a beating from Rocky whenever he felt like it. It was as if my brothers got the worst if he was drunk, and when he would shoot up heroin, I was the one who got the worst of it.
One day, I woke up with a fever and couldn’t go to school, so my mother told me to just stay home. I didn’t want to be alone with Rocky while she was away at work, but I was throwing up and very sick. I locked the door to our room as soon as my brothers and mother left the house.
“Open the door!” he yelled out. I didn’t answer and was pretending to be asleep. He then kicked the door open and started yelling and cussing at me. I then felt his fists hitting me hard all over my back. He turned me around and pulled my shorts off and said, “This is what happens when you don’t listen.” I started screaming, and he put his hand over my mouth. He was so strong I couldn’t move at all. I was being raped by this monster who was so evil. “If you ever say anything, I am going to break your mother’s neck and kill your brothers,” he said.
It was the worst pain I had ever felt at the age of ten. I really thought he was going to kill me. He punched me in the head and was done. He left the room, and I couldn’t move. It hurt so bad I passed out. When I woke up, it felt like I had been asleep for so long. I figured my mom would be home by now. I started calling out, “Mom!” There was no answer.
Rocky came to my room. “She’s not here yet. It’s too early. Get your ass up,” he said, laughing. “Get up and clean all that blood off.” I was trying to sit up and couldn’t. He grabbed me by one arm and dragged me to the bathroom and threw me into the tub and turned on the cold water. I was crying and screaming so hard, hoping someone would come to my rescue, but no one came. How could this monster do this to an innocent ten-year-old? I passed out again.
I woke up and heard voices talking to him in the living room right outside the bathroom, so I started to force myself to get up, grab the rag, and wash all the blood off my body gently. When I was done, I was able to stand up very slowly in the tub and managed to get out of the tub and put a towel around my body. I sat on the toilet for a while; my legs hurt so bad. The voices stopped, and I started to worry he would come in, so I walked out of the bathroom slowly, and he was there on the couch watching TV and drinking beer as if nothing happened. Not a word was said. I walked so slow it seemed like forever to get to my room. As I walk in, I noticed the sheets were gone. I got some clothes together and dressed myself slowly. Every inch of my body was in so much pain that I didn’t even brush my hair and just laid in the bed and passed out.
Chapter Three
Motherly Love?
The door slammed, and I awoke, feeling frightened. I knew my mom was home, and I was certain a fight was going to start, but I didn’t hear yelling. Everyone who knew my mother knew she was just a loud person. She came into my room, and she saw that something wasn’t right. I heard my mother asking him what was in the washer, and he told her he had to put in the sheets because I kept throwing up.
She walked into my room and asked if I was still throwing up. I didn’t respond. As I faced the wall away from the door, she tapped my shoulder as if she thought I were asleep.
“No!” I yelled out in a mean way.
“Why are you mad?” she asked.
“I never want to stay here with him again.”
She never asked me why or anything. “You and your brothers have to stay here with him when I am at work,” she said. “You and your brothers will be here alone when he does work.” My mother walked out, and I heard her in the kitchen, preparing for dinner and finishing the laundry.
I was hoping the blood on the sheets were still there so she could see what that bastard of a man had done to me. But I never heard a word. I stayed in my room the whole time and didn’t come out. My brothers got home from school and went outside to play. We never asked each other questions or talked about the abuse. It was always bottled up. We never knew when something would trigger Rocky, and he would come for one of us.
“Come inside and eat dinner!” Rocky yelled out to my brothers. I heard his footsteps coming my way. “You’re sick, so you won’t eat dinner. You’ll just throw it up,” he said. I just fell asleep until I heard a dish break.
I heard him calling my mother names, and then I heard a slap. I heard my brothers playing outside, so I didn’t worry. As for my mother, I was upset and just told myself, She chose a man like him over us, so maybe it’s what she wanted. If there was ever something wrong that she said, he would hit her right away.
The next morning, my mother came into the room and told us to get up for school. My whole body was still in pain, but I was not about to stay home again with that bastard. I forced myself to get up and walk to the bathroom to brush my teeth as if nothing hurt so I wouldn’t get questioned.
My mother wouldn’t cook us breakfast and would tell us to eat at school, so we would always have to leave earlier to walk and get there on time. When we walked out the door, there was never a “Bye” or “See you guys after school,” not even an “I love you.” But I would hear my mother and Rocky talk sweetly to each other when he was in a good mood. In school, we never got questioned, and if we had black eyes or anything visible, we would miss school. That day in PE, I told the coach I was feeling a little better but was sore, so I sat out and didn’t do anything.
As time passed and all the abuse was still going on, my mother just didn’t ask us anything. It was as if she didn’t care for us. What kind of mother doesn’t protect her own children from monsters? We never had money. We didn’t have great clothes. We didn’t go anywhere but to a family member’s home, and it was always so they could drink. We got to hang out with all our cousins and play on those nights. We sometimes even slept over. My mother didn’t show any love. Maybe because she was never taught how to love. My mother could not comprehend a lot of things, and her education wasn’t great. She couldn’t help us with our homework since she dropped out in the sixth grade. My mother cussed a lot and yelled a lot as well. She was always stressed out and got angry so easily, especially the day we got evicted.
Part Two
Part Two Adolescence
Is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you.
—Sarah Addison Allen
Chapter Four
The Move
Our landlord was a little old lady with ginger hair. She was always well-dressed and drove a fancy car. We only saw her once a month when rent was due and when she would check up on her other house in our lot that was used as her storage. We peeked a few times, and she had lots of antiques. It was so exciting to me, and I wanted to go in. So I did. I saw so many old Coca-Cola things and soda machines. I saw some unique glasses, so I took them. They had the words Betty Davis on the side. I obviously didn’t know who that was at the time. That house was infested with roaches, spiders, opossums, and huge rats. My mother decided to call the city and make a report. The city came and checked on the house and we later saw that a red sticker was placed on the home. I overheard my mother saying that the little house needed to be demolished. Boy, that old lady showed up to the house very upset.
My mother told her that it was very dangerous due to how run-down it was, and the roof could collapse, plus all the rats. The landlord wasn’t having it and told my mother we needed to move out right away. We started packing all our things, and I remember my uncles coming to help us out with a truck. We ended up moving not too far from the elementary school we went to, into a run-down apartment complex. But right before we left, my mother spray-painted “Bitch” on all the walls.
We moved into the Mohawk Apartments; they were yellow with brown trim around the windows. There were two strips of apartments, with caliche in the center of the complex. The apartment strips went from one side of Cheyenne Street to the