Scream-Clutch
August 15, 2006
Broken glass under the see-saw
Turquoise glare and evil smile
Jet black hair
High-rise of twenty-four floors;
looming safe-haven,
hardwood floors and Holly Hobbie;
scurry - pet gerbils - Buster and Lenny
scream
clutch
head against my arms
frail and fragile
little brother
didn’t know any better
Christmas massacre of the soul
ducts dried
tears crusty
no more energy for emotion
out cold Mama
bed post to the brain
scream
clutch
why did the man with the mustache get so mad?
up against the wall with a hairy hand to the throat
wide eyes but no sound
dangling size four running shoes
dropped
into a tiny heap of innocent emotion
scream
clutch
brother grasping for sister
3 and 6 years young
holding hands
hating Christmas
What has Daddy done?
Years later
the man is gone
but the memory is there
and Christmas is scarred.
I wrote this at 17 years old. It was a very real memory of the Christmas I was 6. My brother’s father had gone on an alcoholic rampage on Christmas morning. My mother tried to step in the way of our imminent beating. He knocked her out cold on the metal frame of my bed, and as I held her head in my lap, stroking her hair, and holding my brother under my other wing, I felt as though the world was caving in. I really thought I might die that day.
When my step-father came back into the room, he couldn’t wake up my mother. As an adult, I can only imagine she had been drinking with him all night Christmas Eve. I don’t know for sure. He dragged her out and closed my bedroom door, leaving my brother and I alone. I listened to him cry to her in the livingroom, and her getting angry. I grabbed my brother’s hand and we stole out of the tiny apartment and ran down 22 floors to our babysitter’s apartment.
The police were called, my step-father was arrested and we never saw him again. I later found a letter from jail, in my mother’s desk. It read:
“I’m sorry I couldn’t go through with it. They are just children.”
I never spoke of this to my mother, but I can only imagine she wanted us dead. So many stories in my childhood point right to that notion.
~ Jane
August 16th, 2006 at 7:57 am
That letter must haunt you to this day. Far more than any slap or insult. If you can, in your mind, burn the letter and send the ashes flying. Like any other kind of pollution, ashes in the atmosphere make the most beautiful sunsets.
love - Claire
August 16th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
I feel sick thinking about what could have happened; you made me cry at the loss of innocence.
August 17th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Oh my God, Jane. I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes. I honestly don’t know what to say except I’m sorry for what you had to endure. If you were here, I’d hug you and not let go. But you know that the life you’ve made with your husband and children obliterates all of that ugliness with it’s love and pure goodness, right? Please tell me you do.
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Is it possible that what she was talking about was taking her own life, and not yours? That’s the first thing that occurred to me.
August 29th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
You’ve been in my thoughts since I read this the other day, and likely will be for awhile. This reminds me why I am who I am for my girls. I’m so sorry.