Blood and Honeysuckle
October 26, 2006
So - it seems I have yet another dragon to slay - or so believes my husband. The truth is actually much more complicated than that. My mind doesn’t operate in black and white; though I appreciate the starkness of such simplicity. I’m getting older, you see; and a time will come when I will die. Before I do, certain things need to be said; otherwise they will be lost to the vagaries of other, imperfect memories, or forgotten because no one is left to testify to their realities. I have been dreaming - and my dreams repeat my life in sections. Maybe it’s the pain medication I have been forced to take lately. Whatever the key - I saw an image, and that image triggered a truth I could not force back into the recesses of my mind. After all - there is no escape from the inside of your head. Bottom line - this happened. To me - and it needs to be said aloud. If we confront the monsters, we remove their power over us.
I know that technically, this story is not solely about my mother. It does however chronicle her absence - and what that meant for me as a small child trying to survive. There was no one to wipe away my tears - to wrap their arms around me in love or comfort. In fact - no one bothered to touch me at all - unless it was to slap or shove - or commit other, worse things. I was completely alone - the one human being whom I believe truly loved me was dead by the time I hit 7. So I learned very quickly to view all adults as the enemy. Grown-ups were the source of all my terror - from their hands I knew nothing but pain and fear. One note: In this particular tale, and only this one -I have left out certain identifiers. Due to the nature of the piece - ferreting out who I am, and who the other people are would be a matter of public record. My husband doesn’t want me to leave a bread trail directly to my front door.
I believe in the existence of evil. Pure evil - or perhaps I should say undiluted evil; evil unaffected by nurture and spawned from a soul so dark it becomes its own black hole. How do I know this? Because I have seen it - up close and personal. I have shivered in its presence, tasted its ruthlessness and been chilled to the core by its cruel, heartless abandon. Evil is an absence - of light, color and air. It sucks everything bare, leaving bleached bones in its wake. In know evil because I know my brother. I’ve wallowed in its stench - unable to shake off the lingering aura of decay. You see - I watched him and one of his friends beat a man to death when I was barely five years old.
This was not his first act of violence. When I was two (I think it was two - I was very small - and we still lived in upstate New York) he pointed a gun at my head and asked me to choose between my own death and that of some poor rabbit he had caught and tortured. I was sobbing, my father lay passed out drunk on the ground and we were out in the woods. He and my father used to go shooting together. They’d go to an old dump, throw rocks into the debris then shoot at the rats as they came running out. They’d bring alcohol and get drunk together. They also set traps for rabbits- my father had a taste for rabbit stew. This time they brought me with them - why, I will never know. My brother hated me, you see. My mother fostered that hatred - fed it, nurtured it - making my brother compete for her attention, telling him she didn’t have love for him any more now that I was born - there being only room for one child in her heart (though in truth, that child was always my next oldest sister). So he wanted me dead, and made no bones about it. He was just 17 years old and already a raging alcoholic - drinking himself into a stupor since the age of 10 (according to his own, much later ravings). But my brother had me alone in the woods now; and with my father incapacitated he could do as he pleased. It was horrific - why he didn’t just shoot me outright…but perhaps he was afraid someone would question the truth of what happened.
I was afraid, and didn’t understand anything excepting that poor animal’s agony. I wept and I screamed and I begged - to no avail. I remember saying ‘please don’t'; then it was over. At first, he seemed to let the traumatized animal go, and I watched it try to drag itself to safety, praying it would succeed. Suddenly, my brother lifted his rifle and shot the rabbit to death right before my eyes, quietly laughing to himself as we both waited until my father came out of his alcoholic haze long enough to begin the journey home (my brother always laughed before and after doing something incomprehensibly evil). I remember him walking behind me; poking his gun in my back. It was almost like I was going to my own execution. I’ve hated guns ever since - though as an adult I made sure I knew how to shoot one. My night terrors began when I crawled into bed that night, lasting well into my teen-age years - terrible dreams of suffocation and cataclysmic death. Some of these dreams were prescient; enabling me to escape certain dangers. I would know when something awful was about to happen, and steer myself away from it. Unfortunately - that experience also opened me up empathically. Since that day, I have always been able to sense and experience another creature’s pain - human or not. To a certain extent that uncomfortable ability kept me sane; my personality didn’t fracture, as with so many others who experience trauma as a child. You see - I felt it my responsibility to fix that pain; and that’s not possible if you yourself are drowning. So I always force myself up - make myself do for others. It’s almost an imperative - I simply cannot stand by while others suffer. I am compelled to help. It’s almost physical; this need. I still want to save that rabbit. Interesting, isn’t it - what drives people?
When we arrived home, my father fell into his chair and once again passed out. My brother presented my mother with the rabbit as if it were a bar of gold. She fairly beamed at him; petting his head - she’d always pet his head when she was pleased with him - though it didn’t happen all that often. He’d put his head in her lap, and she’d pet him like he were a favorite cat. He’d usually watch me while she did this - his eyes hooded. I would wonder what he was thinking. Of course I tried to tell my mother the truth about what had happened, but she called me a little liar, locking me away in my room until dinner. Can you say denial? We had rabbit stew that night and she forced me to eat it - even though I vomited up each mouthful. She forced me to eat the vomit as well - something she did any time I’d get sick over some terrible food she presented (like the time she developed a predilection for raw eggs). And I have always hated split pea soup for the same reason. Even the smell today will trigger nausea. I eventually learned to get sick into the toilet and flush immediately when I got older. Food and issues with food run throughout my entire existence, thanks to my mother. But I digress. The first time it happened was with the rabbit stew. You know - I have never been able to abide hunting nor will I eat any ‘game’ animals as a result. In fact - I almost failed high school due to my flat refusal to dissect anything - frog or rabbit - here in the States or when I was living in Ireland. The schools finally relented - but I would have stood expulsion - there was no power on earth that could have forced me to have anything to do with the body of an animal. My brother was a monster from out the depths of hell; and if there is indeed an afterlife - I hope his soul fry’s in ever increasing torment for all eternity and beyond. Were he slated for execution I would gladly pull that lever having no compunctions upon doing so. And I would sleep well that night, being sure he was finally and quite thoroughly dead.
This was not the only time he had made an attempt on my life. Just before we moved to California, his attentions toward me took a turn for the worse (if that were indeed possible). He began trying to get me alone to touch me. I figured it out easily enough. You see - I am blessed with an exceptionally high IQ. In my opinion that, along with my extraordinary ability to sense danger, saved my life as a child. I could think myself out of situations that would have destroyed anyone else. I also have intact, articulated memories of that time-frame. I thought clearly; almost as would an adult. People used to marvel at me - as if I were some side-show freak. Oh look - she talks like she’s all grown up! I can still feel his hands on me - one over my mouth to stifle my screams - the other locked onto my vagina - his fingers squirming in my pants. I bit down - hard. He screamed and let go. I dashed out of the closet - but didn’t quite make it to the stairs. Out he flew, his mouth frozen in a perfect ‘O’- blood on his injured hand. I could taste him, and it almost made me retch. Grabbing me, he went to the open window and bodily threw me out. We were on the second floor. I landed in the honeysuckle bush - not the last time honeysuckle would save either my sanity or my life. Again I tried to make his treatment of me known - to no avail. When I disentangled myself from the bush and ran round the back to where my parents were entertaining my always golden sister’s newest (and exceptionally wealthy) beau; my brother had arrived before me. We had been playing hide and seek, he told them - when I bit him for no reason. My scratches and bruises were dismissed as nothing special. I was disciplined and made apologize to the bastard. His eyes laughed at me. I was even forced to kiss him like a good sister should. I’d have sooner kissed a corpse.
After that it became a game for my life. He would put big, black spiders in my bed. He told me they were black widows and that one sting would kill me. I’ve had a horror of all things crawly ever since. I got in the habit of checking the sheets before going to bed. I still do, actually. Some habits die hard. I had to sleep with the all lights on - so he wouldn’t sneak up on me. The end result was I didn’t sleep hardly at all. Thus began my lifelong problem with insomnia. It just wasn’t safe to close my eyes at night. This carried through to California. We moved just prior to my 5th birthday. My brother was in college then. I thought I was safe. I was wrong. He hooked up with another sadist who shared his predilection for abusing the weak and helpless. Wilmer. Oh - I remember Wilmer. His white/blond hair cropped close to his head. When I saw Paul Bettany in albino make-up for The Da Vinci Code I flashed back to Wilmer and the incident on the tracks. The pervasive smell of honeysuckle; the tracks were lined with it - its scent signaled summer. I remember sucking the nectar from the blossoms. The house we were renting while my parents looked for someplace more permanent bellied up to the railroad tracks. Mostly freight trains - the non-stopping kind. I remember the big, empty box cars. They would barrel through the neighborhood at tremendous speeds, their horns blaring loud enough to wake the dead - very dangerous, but no-one really cared about that sort of thing in 1961. I guess this was the poorer part of town. Drunks and hobos could often be found wandering the tracks - some passed out, empty bottles of Ripple by their sides. My mother denied ever living out there for years. I think that neighborhood eventually got taken over by developers. The last time I was there the tracks had been abandoned - but that was almost 20 years ago - the year of the Loma Prieta quake - 1989. That was the year I remembered. I stood on the remains of those tracks. The honeysuckle was still there; overgrown - pulling down the fence. Only this time there was no body on the tracks.
I don’t remember the month - but it was hot - August hot. Summer in California means lots of pale dust. It lies thick on the ground, swirling up in eddies as you walk through it, especially if you drag your feet. It sifts cool and dry between your toes and is very soft. I always went barefoot as a child. I loved the feel of all that dust. It has its own smell, you know; and you could make angels in it. I missed the snow I had grown up with, you see. There just isn’t any in California. But like the song - man, it pours. My brother was entrusted with watching me while my parents searched for a house. He invariably brought his friend along with. What a pair! They could fool anyone about anything. Especially when it came to me. Wilmer would haul me up on his shoulders when other adults were around - laughing; the perfect friend. Oh how sweet, my mother would say - look how nice he is to your little sister. You should be more like him - and she’d frown at my brother. He’d initially get upset - then he’d look at Wilmer with this smirk; a lot like the one Bush has, actually. It was scary. I knew, you see. By that time I had given up trying to tell any adults what was going on. There was no succor to be had. I was well and truly on my own, and I accepted that. But I hated grown-ups - with a passion. They had done nothing but disappoint me my entire young life. I know that as soon as my parents or sisters were out of sight, the veneer of bonhomie would evaporate. I would once again be at their mercy - not a good position to be in, believe me. Nothing would happen under scrutiny. Oh - the occasional grope or vicious pinch; but for the most part I was safe enough. All that changed the minute my parents were out of sight. My brother and Wilmer would smile, and wave; watching my mother and father get into the car and drive off. Then they would come looking for me. If I was lucky, I managed to hide myself away - and they would seek other amusements - usually drugs; lots and lots of drugs. If I was unlucky - I had to endure whatever games they thought funny. This regularly involved trying to frighten me to death. I ended up with a broken arm, once; but that was after the killing. I was thoroughly frightened by that point - so I would have done anything to get away. The day I broke my arm - getting away involved climbing a fence I promptly fell off of. But again, I digress. It’s the killing that stands alone in my mind; so singular it has taken on an almost Hitchcockian aura. Time and distance always color memory. We gloss over what’s bad; striving to remember only the good. That doesn’t always work, however. Evil is like a tiny worm eating away at your brain. Eventually - no matter how much you self-medicate (my poison of choice has always been carbohydrates) - you’re going to feel it. I don’t remember what led up to it. I know they had been drinking. And I know it was some months before the fall that fractured my arm.
It began in the morning. I remember hearing birds. They were always more active in those hours before the sun made everything too hot to touch. I was hiding in the garden - near the back stoop. There was this extra large pot that I fit behind perfectly. I was watching a daddy long legs crawl towards me. It was fascinating. Initially I was frightened - but he seemed so non-threatening; his segmented legs reaching forward to test the ground before taking tiny, tentative steps. I touched him. He didn’t bite, or jump at me - so I let him walk on one of my fingers. His touch was feathery-soft; light - almost ticklish. He didn’t seem menacing at all. Then Wilmer came into the back yard. He was holding a bottle to his mouth, drinking. I heard him call my brother. I grew very still, figuring if I didn’t make any noise I would escape their attention. I watched the spider crawl off onto the lawn. The dog next door was barking. I have no recollection of the conversation he and my brother shared; but they didn’t seem very interested in where I was. I heard my brother stumbling in the kitchen. I think he swore; I’m not sure. He always swore - it’s one of my permanent memories of the man - his dirty, vicious mouth. There was a gate at the side of our yard that led out onto the tracks. My brother and Wilmer would often go out there. I rarely followed, but I could hear the voices, more than just two - often with heavy accents. I surmise they were drinking with the bums and alkies. My brother would search the house for money. If he couldn’t find any - he couldn’t get any liquor. I think at that point he and Wilmer would either share, or steal from the bums. Nothing up until that point had ever happened; at least I don’t think it did. For some reason, however - this day was different. I think my oldest sister had been by to visit the night before. I’m just not sure. There was always a huge contremps whenever she’d visit. My mother hated her; so did my other sister (neither sister was actually living with us at that time). I adored the woman (she was some 20+ years my senior) because she’d often rescue me - taking me to the park or to a pet store so I could hold the kitties. She used to promise me that someday I could leave with her and never, ever have to go back. I clung to that promise like oxygen. It sustained me - you know - that one light when all other lights go out. She killed herself when I was 7 - poor lost soul just couldn’t take any more of it, I guess. I lost my champion. But back then her visits signaled huge, vocal fights between the entire family. I think she was screaming at my brother that night. I know he got drunk fast the next morning.
While he and Wilmer left to get more booze, I continued playing in the yard. There was no telling how long they’d be gone - so I did my best to make hay while the sun shone, if you catch my drift. As the day wore on with nothing to occupy me, I became bored rather quickly. It was rapidly getting hot - and there was no shade in the tiny patch of yard. I was thirsty, and couldn’t turn the outside spigot with my too small hands. I had learned the hard way not to drink what was in those bottles my father and brother always had - no matter how thirsty I got. It tasted awful and burned my mouth. The kitchen door was locked, preventing my going back into the house, so eventually I wandered over to the gate, listening for voices. It was quiet, so - for the first time ever - I checked to see if it would open. It did.
I had never gone beyond the yard before, but for some reason I decided to that particular day. Things get a bit hazy here. I know I shut myself down after it happened. Hell - I didn’t tell anyone until I was a full-grown adult. I remember it as being later in the day. Maybe I stayed out there for some hours - I don’t know. I remember finding the honeysuckle that lined the tracks - huge bushes with tons of room underneath. I was drawn to it for a number of reasons - not the least of which was the nectar. Sucking sweet juice from the blossoms would help quench my thirst and sate any hunger pangs I had. Also - that particular kind of honeysuckle forms a mound as it grows - and that mound is hollow underneath. The whole thing resembles a protected cage; at least to a child’s eyes. I could crawl underneath, pull the branches in close to hide me, and still have room to sit and play. These particular bushes had chunks of charcoal underneath - kind of like black chalk. There was charcoal under the bush in New York as well (I don’t know - maybe it was a convenient place to dump ashes) so the ones by the tracks reminded me of home. I could draw on my arms, rub it on the fence to make pictures, or break it up and pile it with the smooth pieces of glass that were there also. It was fun, and I felt protected.
I must have been there quite some time, ’cause when I heard the raised voices, the quality of the light had changed. That - and I could really smell the honeysuckle. The scent became more pronounced in the mid-late afternoon. It’s released by the heat, I think. It was the smell of honeysuckle in the summer that brought this memory back, actually. Honeysuckle under my bedroom window. In 1989. I would sleep with the windows open in summer (North Carolina was hot as Hades by late April), and the scent would fill the room. Anytime I smell honeysuckle I am awash with two competing feelings - one of fear, and one of safety. We had a honeysuckle plant in the yard of the house my parents eventually bought. And I would hide under it as well, until I became too big to comfortably fit, and began having to hide in trees and on the roof. When I identified my brother’s voice I became very still. I didn’t want him to find me. No one was calling my name, though; and there were these sounds I couldn’t identify. So cautiously, I twitched aside the branches and looked out. My perspective was somewhat skewed - I was looking up, and down the tracks, so most of what I saw were legs. But there was my brother and Wilmer, and they had a man with them. He looked to be one of the bums that were almost always there. He was very dirty. They were shoving him back and forth, yelling at him. He had a bottle in his hands that shattered on the metal rail of the tracks. It made a tinkling sound as it broke, like a Christmas ornament. He seemed drunk, or injured. He couldn’t stand up, and made no attempt to run away. Then they began beating him, cursing at him; pounding with their fists. When he fell down, they resorted to kicking. I don’t know if any weapons were used. I seem to remember Wilmer picking up a very big stick or board and whacking the guy with it - but I’m not sure. It all seemed to happen in slow motion - right until the very end when it sped up like a cartoon.
I was shocked. I was terrified. I held my hand over my mouth to keep myself quiet. It was worse than the rabbit. I don’t know how long the beating lasted. I know they kept hitting him in a frenzy long after he ceased to move or make any sounds. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to close my eyes - I couldn’t. I had to keep looking. I don’t know why. I was frozen. I didn’t get up and try to get help, I didn’t cry out - I just sat there - peering through the honeysuckle branches, smelling their perfume, scared to death. I thought they would come for me next, you see. I thought when they were finished with him, they would beat me next. So I tried to think like magic; as if my thoughts could make me invisible. That was when I began talking to god. Personally. I was raised Catholic - so the idea of a personal god wasn’t foreign. I promised god I would not squirm in church if he made my brother and Wilmer go away. For years after this incident, I would bargain with god like this - promising the moon in exchange for some kind of rescue. I convinced myself I had a hotline to god - and if he didn’t answer, it was because I had been a bad girl. Screwed up, I know; but children believe in extraordinary things. When they were finished, they looked around; to see if anyone was there, I guess. The man wasn’t moving. I assume he was dead. Wilmer said something. They both picked the man up, and dragged him a ways down the track. I couldn’t really see much through the branches - but the spot they picked was shady, and on a bend. They dumped him onto the tracks, where a train couldn’t help but hit him, and hightailed it towards my hiding place as fast as they could manage; considering how drunk they were. They were breathing hard when they passed me. I still had my hand over my mouth.
Once again, things get really hazy. I have a memory of my brother holding me right up to his face and hissing at me; saying I would be dead too if I told. I have a memory of my parents calling me, my creeping out from under the honeysuckle looking filthy and being taken to task for it. I don’t remember anyone talking about a body, or any police questioning my family - but I’m sure that guy was dead - how could he not be? I know I never saw either my brother or Wilmer ever again in the clothes they were wearing that day. I have a memory of my mother asking my brother what happened to his new shirt - evidently it was missing. I do know I couldn’t even look him in the eyes after that - at least, not till I’d gotten much bigger - I was so frightened. Wilmer I avoided altogether, bursting into tears if he ever was around. I do know that they both got away with it. It emboldened my brother. I remember him strutting around as if he were god. He dropped in and out of college, became a heroin addict. The heroin I found out about when I was working as a filing clerk in the county morgue. It was also the drunk tank. I violated every principal in doing this - but I wanted to know the truth. His file was a mile long and very interesting. It seems he became quite loquacious whilst in his cups. Not only did he admit his heroin addiction (along with a pharmacopeia of other substances) - but that he had purposefully shot himself in the foot during boot camp to avoid Vietnam, that he burned my parents house to the ground a couple of years before I was born, along with the church that used to be on the corner where we lived and most importantly that he was harboring a secret he refused to tell; a secret the county social worker said he had to admit before he could ever be cured. I know what that secret is.
I told on him after he stabbed my father in the shoulder with a knife. He’d been arrested (not the first time), and I was forced to fly back to California to deal with the mess. That was my adult life. Flying back to California to deal with some insanity of my mother’s or to bail my brother out of one mess or another. My parents had already gone through every penny they had dumping him in a series of clinics - not that any of it ever took.
He never stayed more than a few days; but the money was always non-refundable. I had already gone the therapy route the year before; during the aftermath of the quake. There had been damage to my parent’s home, so I scrounged the money together and went out to help. They would not allow me to stay with them, as my brother used their back porch regularly as a flop house - so I booked into a beautiful, candy colored hotel that graced the beach at Capitola. I should say that Capitola California is one of the most beautiful places on gods green earth. Attached to its famous pier are a series of cottages built for wealthy 1930’s beach goers. Deco styled, spun sugar gems - now collectively a somewhat expensive hotel. I could hardly afford it - but my parents lived just up the hill, and I felt I needed to be near them. My one request was that my brother not be told I was there. I knew he was dangerous, and I wanted privacy. Of course my mother told him right off. Sometimes I think she wanted him to kill me. She’d often set me up - invite me over when she knew he’d be there - just to provoke a fight. Well - he came gunning for me at 2 that morning; trying to batter the door in. Thank god he woke everyone up - because I didn’t have a phone in the room, and this was well before cell phones. I was a sitting duck. What happened that night was truly profound. The moment he started screaming he was going to kill me - I flashed back to being a child hiding under the honeysuckle (there were other memories as well - but that one was terrifically clear). Just for a moment. It was as if I’d taken a hallucinogenic (something I’ve never done for fear of what demons I might see). A vision - one that I participated in and watched all at the same time. By the time the cops got there both it and my brother were gone - but I was shaken. I checked out the next day, wrapped up with helping my folks and flew home.
I tried to put it out of my mind - but it just got worse; especially when I smelled honeysuckle. I’d wake up thinking I was seeing Wilmer standing over my bed - threatening me. I thought I was losing my mind - I’d see things, go back in time - it was like a waking dream. One year of intensive therapy followed; because once the flood gates were opened - I was unable to shut them. The memories had to be examined and dealt with. I did it all without psychotropic drugs, too. I saw the doctor several times a week - but it worked. I emerged whole; but with a dilemma. Do I tell about the murder or not? My doctor wisely refused to weight in. My husband suggested I let it go. I needed to think. I realized if he had killed once - he had probably killed again, and might do so in the future as well. The problem seemed moot when I got the call that he had been arrested for assaulting my father. Now, I thought - he will finally end up in jail where he deserves. Imagine my shock when the Asst. D. A. told me my brother wouldn’t be going to jail. He said there was no history of violent behavior in my brother’s jacket. What? I asked to see it. There - in black and white - was evidence of my brother-in-laws ‘fixing’ things every time psycho boy was arrested. Each violent episode - when he tried to shoot my father, when he tried to push me out of a speeding car on the freeway, violent drunken fights - all of it pled down per request of the former D. A. for a neighboring county - my sister’s husband. He’s a judge, now, I hear. And the phone call had already come in about this incident. It was being reduced to drunk and disorderly - no violence at all. And no matter how I tried - I couldn’t get that man to listen. It happened in another county, he said. Talk to the D. A. there. Nothing I can do, he said. But I saw my brother murder a man, I said. Doesn’t matter, I was told. Besides - that was back in 1961. No one cares about what happened way back then. He refused to do a damn thing.
So I went back to my parents. Press charges, I said. Don’t let my sister erase this one. No, I was told. Your brother didn’t mean it, he’s misunderstood. My mother stood there, my father was silent. Keep in mind - dad was 88 years old. My brother had attacked and stabbed an 88 year old man. Mother, I said - if he’s in jail, it will stop him drinking. This could be his salvation. Don’t you want him sober? Then, in a flash I realized the truth. She didn’t want him sober. She wanted to keep him drunk and tied to her for food and money. She looked at me with scorn in her eyes. I’ll never forget what she said. “You are a cold, hard, unforgiving woman.” I burst into tears and left. Still, I didn’t give up. I went to court, trying to get someone to listen. Neither my mother nor my father showed up. The only satisfaction I had that day was seeing the blood drain from my brother’s face when I told him I had his number. Just two rather small words - “I remember!” He was at the table with his lawyer, and he had leaned over to call me more names, all cocky and sure of himself. Well - I was the one who left smiling that day. The bastard was so shocked; he actually forgot to insult the judge. My brother didn’t spend more than two days in jail, though. I went back to those tracks the very next day. The houses were gone. Weeds encroached on the rails. It seemed smaller than I remembered. I thought about going to the current D. A. - but as he was a close friend of my brother-in-law I knew it to be futile. I went to the local library, searching the archives for newspapers during that time frame. Nowhere could I find mention of a dead bum on the tracks. Things like that were never front page news, though. It would have been listed as a man hit by a train, I think. I couldn’t find that either. Nor could I find evidence of one other hazy memory from that time. I’m not sure of it - so I cannot attest to its truth; but there is a single picture in my mind of Wilmer emerging from under the shadow of a tree, carrying a blond little girl wearing her Sunday dress (for some reason I knew it was a go to church dress) and black patent leather shoes. She was silent, limp and her eyes were closed. That’s all - no other memory. I did have a friend back then who was blond - but I don’t remember her name or where she lived. I can’t even be sure this memory is a real one. I was so fucking frightened after the incident on the tracks - I would have screaming nightmares with both of them chasing me with sticks. I could have imagined it. It’s not clear enough for me to be sure. I looked anyway to see if there was a mention of a dead or assaulted little girl - but nothing showed. I hope like hell it isn’t real. But I can still see the sun reflecting off the mirror finish on those shoes in my minds eye.
One other thing. The final straw, as it were to my maintaining contact with my family. In 1995, my father fell ill and eventually died. During his illness, I flew back to California along with my sister to straighten everything out, and move my mother to an apartment in a senior facility. I won’t get into the trouble she made over all of this - but an incident occurred that finally impressed on me just how useless it was to try and maintain anything approaching a sane relationship with any member of my family. My one surviving sister (18 years my senior) is very wealthy, very righteous, and has a 4×4 shoved so far up her ass I’m amazed she doesn’t spit splinters. Any attempts to impress upon her the seriousness of the situation with either my brother, or my parents fell on intentionally deaf ears. Hear no evil; see no evil; but speak evil she did. I have always been treated like a pariah by her - and with no good reason. She even told her children (who are essentially my age) to avoid all contact with me, as I wasn’t holy enough for her satisfaction. Her husband banned me from family occasions upon my divorce; though I noticed he didn’t do that to his oldest daughter when she divorced (those situational ethics the ‘righteous’ love to indulge in); nor to his other two daughters when they married divorced men. Hypocrites - dyed in the wool, bible thumping hypocrites. Well - my sister was around one particular afternoon when my brother showed up drunk off his ass and spoiling for trouble. With her usual condescending manner - she dismissed him out of hand - banishing him from my parent’s living room with a negligent flip of the wrist. He sprang at her, wrapped his thick hands around her throat, and attempted to throttle her to death on the spot. My mother just wrung her hands saying ‘Oh dear’. It was left to me to call 911, and pull him off my sister. I then cold-conked him. My sister was gasping for air, hand marks on her throat. The police arrived with guns drawn. Shoot him! I prayed. Shoot the bastard and be done with it! But no - they cuffed him at about the time he was coming to and hauled him off to jail. As he looked out from the back seat of the patrol car - it wasn’t my sister he was threatening - it was me. “I’ll kill you, you cunt!” he screamed. “Next time I’ll kill you dead!”
My sister was in shock. She refused to go to the hospital, however. I tried to take advantage of the moment. ‘He’s dangerous’, I argued - ‘he needs to be in jail’. ‘But he was such a sweet baby’, she replied. I stared at her. ‘He’s not a baby anymore’, I said. Keep in mind the bastard was then in his 50’s. I decided it was time for some hard truths. I took her to a bench up on a cliff not far from my parents home. It overlooks Capitola’s pier - the view is sublime. I thought it might help her to understand. I remember it was late evening - the sun hung over the horizon, its edge touching the water - turning the sea molten, like red-gold lava. Seagulls suspended themselves over the odd fisherman, searching for treats. Peaceful - so peaceful. Quietly, I told her everything - the attempted molestation, throwing me out of the window, beating that man to death. I will remember her reply until the day I cease to be. “I’m not saying you’re a liar - but as I wasn’t there for any of this, I cannot be sure if what you are saying is true”. And that was that. No more attempts at a relationship, nothing. She would prefer believing in the innocence of a man who had just tried to kill her over a sister whose only sin was not going to church every Sunday and getting a divorce from a man who had abandoned her. My brother spent only 3 weeks in jail, despite a three year sentence. My sister had her husband call in another favor with the D.A.’s office and attempted murder morphed into something non-violent yet once again. I did call and ask her why. Why, when he had tried to strangle her, did she think he should be out and walking around? ‘He didn’t try and strangle me’, she said. ‘You’re over-dramatizing it’ - all he did was get drunk and we argued’. I hung up the phone, told my husband they were all dead to me, and refused to attend either of my parent’s funerals. It was over. As for my brother? I have no idea. I don’t know if he’s still alive. But I do know he will come after me if he knows where I am. And I can promise you one thing. I won’t be the one leaving feet first.
October 27th, 2006 at 9:54 am
I hope you are finding peace now.
October 27th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
That’s some story. I normally don’t follow through with reading long posts but yours kept me riveted. It’s so sad and so wrong that all the adults in your life failed you. I hope there will come a time when all the questions you must have about the unfairness of it all, get answered for you. That you survived says much about you. I wish you well.
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:50 am
Thank you so much for your kindness. As for peace - there is no more to be had than I’ve already managed to create for myself. I still dream about this. And there are times when I fight against blaming myself for not being able to stop it. That’s the problem with looking back at childhood through adult eyes. You tend to forget just how small and ineffectual you really were. So I try and effect change now as best I can. And I write about it; because it s important to know that violence - like hate and fear - are not genetic imperatives. They are choices people make. I choose to live my life differently. So can anyone else exposed to similar circumstances. That s why this blog is so important. It not only gives voice to the usually silent it offers up hope to those similarly afflicted. And hope can move mountains.