I was on the playground one day after school when an angry classmate I had just beaten as term leader at a game of Rounders, a combination of baseball and dodge ball, called my entire family stupid cheaters. She went on, flapping her eyes for effective dramatization, “Your mother is such a stupid retard! She can’t stop blinking!” Flapping her eyes some more.
“You fat liar!” I screamed, shoving her to the ground.
I run all the way home that day and went straight into the kitchen where my mother stood cooking at the coal pit stove. Standing inches from her, I gazed directly and unflinchingly into her face. She continued stirring the pot of chicken she was stewing for dinner, tasting the gravy for flavor. Finally, I noticed what everyone else knew. My mother was indeed a serial blinker!
Gilbert was the first child. We referred to each other as Alpha and Omega—the beginning and the end. In the looks department, our parents blessed Gilbert with all that was fine. The women loved him and he loved them all back.
Everything about Gilbert was black, so he was nicknamed “Black,” which he liked and carried with pride. His perfect white teeth made his blackness even more pronounced, although eventually he lost almost all of them to his many dance hall and street fights. He wore his curly jet-black hair in a huge afro, with an afro comb sticking out of it. Slim and fit, with an easy roaring laugh.
He was my savior and knight, but his armor was far from shiny. He fought and argued everywhere he went - even with the police. Often, we would find out about his arrest the next day from a neighbor or from whomever he had assaulted the night before.
When he was in his early thirties, Gilbert became a Rastafarian and moved to the wilderness. He gave up all communication with the outside world, including us. Occasionally, my brothers would see him when they went out that far into the forest, but he made a point of ignoring them. The rest of the family did not see him for years.
Joseph arrived next. I heard that our parents and his godparents were so drunk at his baptism that they christened him Joseph Joseph. Poor Joseph! It does not take much for kids to tease each other, and my brother just could not avoid being the brunt of their hurtful jokes. “Your parents couldn’t think of a name for you so they gave you the same one twice? That’s so dumb!” They’d say.
As Joseph grew older, his name became more of an inconvenience. Since his name seemed like a typo, the confusion caused delayed or returned paperwork. When he became an adult, he legally had it changed to Alexander.
He was the opposite of Gilbert, and they did not get along. I think they secretly envied each other, admiring the qualities they saw in one another, that they thought they lacked within themselves. While Gilbert did not have a problem taking on our father and actually seemed to relish in it, Joseph was terrified of him. Whenever our father addressed him, Joseph would inexplicably start to stutter. For a while, he took part in trying to defend our mother against our father, but the older he got, the more often he would vanish when the fighting began. He would head into the backfields, and I imagine he slept out there because we would not see him until morning.
Joseph’s inabilities to stand up to our father made him feel small and Gilbert delighted in reminding him, “Where did you run off to last night, little man? Someday you’ll have to get that tail out of your ass or I’ll have to do it for you myself!”
The older he got, the more Joseph withdrew. Exceptionally moody he did not have many friends. Joseph kept his feelings bottled up inside, allowing his anger from past grievances to build and fester. When Gilbert teased or belittled him, or when one of us had any disagreements with him, Joseph would not react but simply walked away. No one would realize how deeply upset he was or had been, until his anger would suddenly explode in shrill regurgitations of incomprehensible words and rumblings. We would have to piece together his words to figure out what he was saying, as he’d replay a previous incident when someone had offended him. Clenched fists, foaming at the mouth, glazed, bulging eyes Joseph reminded me of a crazed caged animal. He would tremble as if he was an erupting volcano about to burst. Usually these episodes ended as quickly and as suddenly as they started. His unpredictability frightened everyone, including our mother. He had this certain stabbing stare—filled with hatred and disgust. I was petrified of him.
Our family practiced a hands-off approach when it came to Joseph. In his teens, he had a psychotic break and taken to a mental institution. My family has never spoken openly about this; however, after his first visit to the institution, the doctor’s instructions were discussed in hushed whispers. The doctors recommended that Joseph keep away from all stress, particularly our chaotic home environment, diagnosed as the cause of his breakdown. The adults were considering sending him away to live with another family, but that never happened. My father, on the other hand, did what he did best: ignored his family needs claiming it was Joseph’s problem not his.
Joseph was one of my mother’s favorites. She felt great grief and guilt at having contributed to his illness and became a passionate defender of his strange behavior and lack of interest or involvement in family affairs.
Joseph later got married and had four children, but sadly went on to treating his family with the same quiet distain he did us. It came as no surprise to me that at the age of fifty-one, Joseph passed away from a variety of different cancers that had eaten him up inside. At the end, I was heartbroken that we had not taken the opportunity to get to know each other.
Elizabeth, the third and oldest daughter, resembles and acts the most like our mother, and the first of my siblings to follow our mother into Pentecostalism. As the oldest daughter, she cared for us when our mother was away selling crops at the city market, or seeking temporary refuge with family or friends when trying to get away from our father. All Elizabeth wanted was to make her big escape; her ticket out was marriage.
She never let us forget how much of a pain taking care of us was and released her frustrations by spanking the hell out of us. The smallest infraction would throw her into a fit of rage. She hated disobedience. Her so-called spankings turned into violent fights between her and the siblings who could stand up to her. I was not one of them.
In those days, children had absolutely no rights and spanking as punishment—at home and school—was acceptable and routine. In schools, paddles and belts were used to hit kids all over the body. Rulers on the knuckle and the ever-popular twists of the ear were effective in keeping students in line. However, what went on at my house went far beyond the spanking category. No matter how harmless the infraction, the level of punishment was an attempt to maim or kill you. At my house, the punishment was always disproportionate to the crime.
Nothing was off limits to Elizabeth, but her weapon of choice was her teeth. When her anger took over, Elizabeth turned into Dracula. When she laid her fangs on her prey, her bite marks on arms, necks, or legs left permanent scars.
One of my most memorable beatings was on the day I stole a nickel from her. Elizabeth, a seamstress, usually kept coins in her sewing machine drawer. One afternoon I wanted some candy, an instant-nasal-passage-clearing minty white sweetie we called oh-so-strong. It was my favorite. Tempted by the change in her drawer, I took a nickel when I thought no one was around. Either she knew exactly how much money she had in there or she saw me take it. But I was busted, literally.
She took her time delivering her punishment. She had me kneel, my knees bare on the uncarpeted, wooden living room floor, waiting for hours. She made a big production by telling everyone that I was a thief, making it seem like I was on my way to becoming a career criminal. She picked her punishing paraphernalia carefully, like a warrior choosing her weapons before stepping onto the battlefield. She made certain that she picked only items that would deliver the most pain—paddles, tree branches, and belts. She proceeded to use them one after another. Of the many beatings in my short lifetime, that was one of the worst.
After such beatings, I would make myself scarce. I would retreat to a neighbor’s home or to a corner and take refuge in my thoughts. I fantasized about being part of another family, one in which parents and siblings treated each other with respect and were