Perfect Storm- A and C and K and Me
Note: Originally, I had scheduled this post to be available only to paid members, due to the level of trauma, and how much it still affects me. As I sit here thinking about it, the night before it should post, I realize that this pain is important to share.
A Tumultuous Week
I felt very completely out of options.
My entire family was seething. My favorite aunt called to tell me how ashamed she was of me, and ask me what the hell had happened to me. She wanted to know what happened to “that little girl who was the light of lives for many years.” (I had just told what happened. Wasn’t that why everything was blowing up?)
My cousin came over, which she rarely did, to threaten me. She told me if I didn’t clear my brother she would beat the shit out of me. She had the temperament of a Tasmanian devil and I believed she could dismember me with her bare hands if she was mad enough. (I still feel so uneasy any time I talk about her. Writing this paragraph I had a distinct urge to cut, which I haven’t felt compelled to do in decades. I’m not in danger, and I’m not going to do it, but I DO think it’s worth noting how my brain and nervous system are handling this.)
Just a Hop to the Cop Shop
Mom said that I had to go make a statement at the police station. She drove me there, where she waited impatiently with my sisters. On the drive there she repeatedly reiterated that I was a liar who was just trying todestroy her family. She continued to make threats about youth programs and psych wards. She also made sure I knew that she couldn’t afford that because we didn’t have insurance and she worked for Grandpa. She told me I was taking food out of the girls’ mouths and clothes off of their backs.
A guy came and got me, and took me to a room with glass windows on all sides, and the blinds pulled down so nobody could see in. He told me I could have a seat, and spoke in hushed gentle tones.
I wanted to find my way through this. I wanted something other than what my teenage years had become. I wanted the trauma and confusion to end. I believed that telling the truth would still get me the help I needed, and that sorting through the truth could maybe heal us all.
I believed I just had to be brave enough. I steeled my resolve.
Another male officer joined us, which didn’t seem at all odd, because women were still barely allowed on police forces back then, and lots of control was still being exercised over what departments and levels of promotion were accessible to women.
Mom always said it was a man’s world.
They both assumed receptive postures, and asked me to recount what I had told my counselor.
I told them about the road trip experimentation when I was 5. I told them about the sexual experimentation later with my brother.
I didn’t blame either of them, or my other cousins, or my brother’s friends. I really didn’t think they had done anything that wrong, I just though I was messed up and needed help. I didn’t want to lie, but I was very clear about not wanting anybody to be in trouble.
I did not tell them how scary my brother could be. I was trying to clear him.
I did not tell them that he would spend hours asking me to blow him until I consented. I did not tell them about all of the times he would pin me down so I couldn’t move. I didn’t tell them how much he liked to shove me. (“What? It’s not like I hit you. Shut up.”) I did not tell them that it continued after he came home from the Navy.
They said if that was true, they were going to have to press charges. They told me how serious those charges were, and how that would affect my brother in very real ways. They told me how it could affect his employment or housing later on. They told me he’d have to register as a sex offender.
Someone came to check on us, because my mom was wondering how much longer it was going to take.
I told them again what had happened, trying this time to somehow be clearer about how it started when he was just a kid too. I told them I was just as culpable, because I had sent messages too. I had asked for it sometimes.
They told me I was just lying to get my brother into trouble.
It took hours. I stood my ground because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. I thought it was the right thing to do.
I regretted deeply that I had said anything to my counselor. I regretted going back to school. I regretted being born. I regretted being a slut. I regretted being filth.
I just wanted it to stop. Everything was spiraling so far out of control.
They told me if I just admitted that I was lying, I could go home. They would not accept any version of the truth, and I had run out of resolve.
The words “I made it up,” came out of my mouth as a whisper. I couldn’t believe I was saying it. I wanted to die. It broke open something inside of me. I felt so betrayed, and I felt betrayed by myself.
How would I ever forgive this?
They made me repeat it, several times, saying they couldn’t hear me.
“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to be louder.”
“I made it all up.” I dissociated. I wanted so badly for this to just be a bad dream. Please, please, please let me wake up. Please.
They feigned disbelief. They asked me why I had put everybody through that. They told me I was making it harder for them to believe real victims. I was not a real victim. I was a monster.
How could I waste their time like that? How could I waste the time of everyone at the school?Did I even know how much paperwork I was causing?
… And to do something like this to my own brother, my own flesh and blood.
Didn’t I know that my mom and my sisters had to put everything on hold to sit there waiting on me?
Who did I think I was?
They were going to have to decide whether or not to charge me with false reporting. False reporting is a serious crime.
They told me to grab my things and I followed them back to the lobby. They took my mom to the side and I couldn’t make out what was being said but I could see her rage and seethe as they filled her in and my sisters told me what they thought of having to spend the whole day there.
Home
Nobody spoke on the way home.
Mom bathed me in her silence, flaring her nostrils, and forcing her breaths.
When we got to the house, Mom took off her glasses.
I wish I had some way of describing how strong my mom was.
She beat me until she couldn’t anymore.It wasn’t just hitting. She favored screamed vitriol punctuated by slaps across the head. Not face- Head. She liked to grab, and shove me around off balance. It terrorizes without leaving any marks. She was smart like that. She’d shove me down, then yell at me to get up. She’d scream a question at me, and if I answered she’d say “Don’t you dare talk to me.”If I didn’t answer she would scream “answer me,” punctuated by more slaps.
“I haven’t even hit you yet. You’ll KNOW if I hit you. I’ve NEVER hit you.”
I needed a cigarette so bad, but I wasn’t even allowed to pee or shower with the door closed anymore.
Going Through Motions
I went to school the next day, but didn’t go to class. It just seemed so ludicrous to sit in a chair and learn anything like it mattered. Nothing mattered.
I went to work after school, and arrived early.
The events of the week had caused a toothache to flair, and as much as my heart and body were hurting, that was hurting more. I was completely broke, so I went to the King Soopers next to the Kmart where I worked and I pocketed a bottle of Aleve, and a pack of cigarettes (a Marlboro 25 pack so it’d be worth it).
I had become quite a kleptomaniac in high school. Working part time at minimum wage doesn’t go very far. When I was at my peak, I could walk out of Kmart with 5 cartons of cigarettes. Of course, that was back before they locked them all up. It was much harder after that.
It was really very inconvenient that they locked them all up like that.
I got busted. The store cop took me upstairs to call the COPcops. She thought it was a curious mix of items, and asked me why. I told her the light version. She said I could go if I promised not to do that in her store again.
I thanked her from the bottom of my heart, and made it to work only 5 minutes late. I told my coworker why I was late, and she bummed me a cigarette and told me to go smoke it.
I was pretty numb as I stood there outside of the store, just trying to calm my nerves. A walked by.
A- A Ray of Hope
Do you remember A? A had been my boyfriend when I had run away from home, back before the truck driver.
Somehow in my dazed stupor I recognized him and hollered at him. He was thrilled to run back into me.
We caught up very quickly and I explained a cliffs notes version of what was going on.
He said “we gotta get you out of there.”
I agreed.
We decided to meet the following morning near the school to make a plan.
When I got home from work that night, Mom was already asleep. I packed what I could into an oversized grey shopping bag- the kind Cloth World used to use for upholstery sales. I think Kmart used to use them during the holidays as well.
I planned and plotted and barely slept.
The next day, which happened to be the day before my 18th birthday, A showed up and C was with him. It was so nice to see friendly faces.
They were accompanied by a smoker friend of mine (K) who hadn’t been around for several weeks. I didn’t even know they knew each other.
K was a tiny little thing in her sophomore year. Her parents had been dead for a long time, but when her Grandmother died there was nobody left to take her so they put her in a group home. (That explains how she knew A).
A explained that it was the roughest group home he knew of. They had placed K on lockdown and taken all of her privileges over malarky. It wasn’t just me anymore, and K and I fell into a very Mammy/Wain type of relationship very quickly.
We decided that we were leaving town. A was living with his dad, but didn’t really want to be there.
C wanted to go with us, but his car needed some part, so he was handling that the same day.
We spent the day just hanging out and planning. It felt so good to have others choosing something with me. It felt so freeing.
I truly believed that if I left town, my family would be ok. I thought I was the problem. I didn’t want them to charge my brother, and I couldn’t bear Mom blaming me for it, and punishing me for it. I really believed that if I left, they would have to drop the charges, and that maybe if I could carry that injustice, I could set right how wrong I’d been.
They’d blame me. They’d hate me. They would weave a narrative of the legend of how horrible I was, but it would end.
I needed it to end.
That evening, when I couldn’t put it off anymore, I had A park at the end of the street that Ts into my mom’s house. There’s a hill, so you can’t see the other side from her place.
Mom was in the kitchen, and my sisters started in on me the second I opened the door. I had to act fast.
I grabbed my things, did a final sweep, kissed them each on the head, and took my key to the kitchen to give to Mom.
She asked where I was going.
I said I didn’t know.
She didn’t say much, and didn’t try to stop me. She just shook her head in disappointment.
I headed for A’s truck as fast as my feet could carry me.
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