After a year, they sent me home. My mother didn’t seem happy to see me. Her drinking had increased again, and it wasn’t long before the middle of the night beatings resumed. I got kicked out of one school for fighting and sent to another. Before long, I just stopped going. I started stealing food since there was never much at home and I became quite good at it, never hitting the same store two days in a row.
I became an almost feral creature, wandering the streets so as to avoid my mother as much as possible in an attempt to lessen the number of opportunities she had to attack me. I existed on what I could steal, staying away from home as much as possible to avoid the resentment, hatred and violence that resided there.
Eventually, I got caught stealing I found myself back in reform school. I had grown since I was last there so after winning a couple of fights I was left alone. I kept to myself and stayed out of trouble. After six months I was sent home again.
My mother’s drinking, anger, and hatred of me was more intense than ever. She would strike without warning; often throwing whatever was at hand in fits of rage. As I came out of my room one morning, she struck me in the head with a bottle, cutting a deep gash in my scalp. I couldn’t take much more. I would turn sixteen soon and on the day of my birthday I planned on taking anything of value in the house, selling it and leaving forever.
I walked by a restaurant one afternoon displaying a sign reading “Dishwasher Needed.” I didn’t have much self-confidence so I was pleasantly surprised when the restaurant owner offered me the job. It was an Italian restaurant and the couple who owned it, the Donati’s, were great people. They were childless, he did the cooking and she waited tables. They had come from Italy and didn’t speak much English but I always sensed they knew I was in trouble, they just didn’t know how to talk to me. Instead, Mrs. Donati made sure I had a big plate of pasta every night and she would always send something home with me as well. I didn’t have to steal anymore and for the first time, I felt a glimmer of hope in my life.
I turned sixteen and my plans changed, I had opened a bank account and tried to save every cent I could. I thought that in a year or so I could lie about my age and join the Army or work for a circus or anything to get me away from my Mom. I had a plan. I would survive. At least that’s what I thought.
After starting work at the restaurant, I had begun putting a chair under the door knob in my room at night. Most of the time, my mother was so out of it that the chair worked as an effective deterrent. She would pound on the door, yelling and cussing me. I ignored her and she would slip back into a stupor.
After an unusually busy night at the restaurant, I forgot to secure the door. My mother burst in screaming. She held a hammer and looked as if she possessed.
“I’m going to kill you,” she yelled. “Everything is your fault. It’s all because of you.”
Spittle flew from her lips; her eyes seemingly on fire. She petrified me. I saw no way to escape her fury. She advanced on me with the hammer, swinging it as she came. It flew out of her grasp, grazing my shoulder. I grabbed her but she tore loose, clawing at my face with her filthy nails. She ripped long gouges in my cheeks. Something inside me finally snapped. I grabbed the hammer and didn’t stop hitting her until long after she stopped moving.
I withdrew my savings and bought a bus ticket, but two days later they caught me in a town in another state. I was charged with my mother’s murder. Under a new law, I would be charged as an adult. They locked me in a cell to await trial. After the public defender listened to my story, he told me not to worry. He seemed confident I would be acquitted.
In his opening remarks, he outlined my story and the years of abuse. He mentioned the state of the apartment, the filth and the evidence of my mother’s alcoholism. He said my fighting and stealing were clearly cries for help but no one listened.
The district attorney painted me as a vile little hoodlum. According to him, had I told a teacher or a policeman what my mother did to me, this wouldn’t have happened.
I took the stand, recounting the verbal abuse, the beatings and the hopelessness I felt, all the way back to when my father began drinking heavily.
Guess none of it mattered. The jury found me guilty of second degree murder and sentenced me to a minimum of twenty–five years.
The public defender appealed. At the second trial, he argued that no one heard my cry for help. The outcome was the same.
Prison was a nightmare. In the beginning, I had to fight almost daily. Just like always, I stayed to myself and soon other inmates left me alone. Somehow, I survived. As I neared forty, I began contemplating the possibility of parole and the promise of a new life. One moment changed everything. I was in the shower one afternoon when a new inmate attacked me, punching me from behind, intent on raping me. I carried a shiv with me and with the same savagery that I went after my mother with, I plunged the blade into his body again and again, not stopping until guards pulled me away. I received a life sentence for doing what I had done to survive.
I wish things had turned out differently, I really do. I wasn’t proud that I had taken two lives. I wish my family had stayed together. Wished my father hadn’t started drinking so much because he couldn’t handle the pressure of a job. I wish he hadn’t hit her and I wished she had tried to be more understanding of the situation.
Most of all, I wish someone had heard my cries. My mother was the only one who did. She should have been the one to protect me, the one to make everything all right. But when I think about it, I guess no one heard her cries either.
# # #
Ending the Nightmares
By Pat Gibbons
When I finally talked my way out of the apartment, hiding far away was all I wanted. I didn’t know where to go so this…person, I couldn’t bear to think of this being as anything other than a humanoid mass of hate…could not come after me. Or worse, send someone after me because the Indiana thugs my partner knew would not hesitate to drive to Minnesota.
My partner gave me permission to go to work twelve hours after the first blow smashed a vein in my forehead that produced a knot the size of a golf ball. I limped to my car—my knees, hands, and forearms bruised from countless whacks with a drum stick. I drove twenty minutes to the school where I taught because I hoped the headmaster, a Benedictine priest, would know a monastery where I could stay for a few nights.
He suggested an abbey just across the state line in South Dakota, where both women and men could stay. He called ahead to let them know I was coming, and I made the four-hour-drive without stopping. I checked the rearview mirror so often my neck ached.
The first call from my oppressor came that afternoon. I had a room in the abbey by then, and I was dozing with two Aleve in my system when the phone vibrated. I had hoped it was my sister, but the number I dreaded came up. I didn’t answer.
The calls came every ten minutes. I didn’t want to hear that husky voice, so I didn’t listen to the long voice mails. The first one would contain two minutes of reassurances that it was safe to come home. The next call, two minutes of begging, and the third, two minutes of threats. I didn’t need to listen to know the pattern.
Once the calls stopped, I expected the emails to start. I turned on my laptop, and five messages waited for me. The subject lines increased in intensity. “I’m worried about you.” “I won’t hit you again.” “You can’t ignore me forever.”
Finally, “I know where you are.”
I opened that message. My nemesis had requested a welfare check on me. The Minnesota cops had already pinged my phone. They’d asked the South Dakota cops to confirm my whereabouts. The South Dakotans had found my car where it was supposed to be, at the monastery. They’d told Minnesota I was safe. And Minnesota had told my nemesis not to worry because I was at a monastery in eastern South Dakota. The email went on to gloat at how easy it was to play the police.
The schedule I received at the abbey told me when it was time for me, battered and bruised, with swollen hands, to leave the s
anctuary of my room and head to the dining hall. I crept in, but welcoming smiles calmed me before I picked up a plate for the buffet line. I was the only one in the room who showed obvious signs of distress, physical or emotional. Three women dined at a table with an open seat, but I sat at a table of monks because I feared the women would be more likely to ask questions and offer empathy, for which I wasn’t ready.
I attended evening prayers out of respect for the monastic community hosting me. I wandered back to my dorm room with a greater sense of calm than I had felt in twenty-four hours, but as soon as I closed the door, I curled up on the twin bed and started to shake.
Lying there, I relived it all that first night. A kitchen knife waved in my face for hours, a drum stick nearly thrust into my eye. Random punches after the initial attack. Yanking on my hair. Somehow, I did sleep.
I awoke early the next morning. My head throbbed, and even if I’d had a painkiller, I didn’t think it would touch that headache. I made my way to breakfast, again comforted by the absence of questions, the acceptance of me without judgment.
Back to bed. But first, I looked in the mirror. Blood from a swollen bruise had oozed, and pooled in my eye socket. My face was purple from forehead to cheek, and no amount of makeup would have concealed the evidence. My left hand was so swollen my knuckles did not protrude. My biggest concern was my headache. I decided to do my own welfare check.
My doctor had an opening, so I drove back to town. She was disturbed by my condition, but I said I was safe from my predator. She ordered a CT scan at the hospital. I asked the front desk to change my contact number from the home number to my mobile phone, so I would know when to show up for my scan. While I waited, I ate lunch at a restaurant we did not frequent. We both disliked the place, and I had no desire for us to cross paths.
My nemesis called again while I was eating. The voice mail left told me I had to be at the hospital at 1 p.m. Then, the doctor’s office called to tell me the same thing. They apologized for first calling the wrong number and releasing the information to someone who clearly was not the patient.
Now I had to watch my back at the only hospital in town.
My scan went without incident and I drove back to South Dakota. In search of tranquility, I participated in the prayer services to the degree I could. Not many monks lived at the monastery at this point, so I think the guests made up a quarter of those attending. The chapel was beautiful, made of light-colored wooden beams and walls. One of the brothers was an excellent organist, and it may have been the music more than anything else that finally gave me some peace.
After three nights there, I realized I wanted my daddy. I ached for simpler times when I felt safe, like when he carried two-year-old me to bed, when he took me shopping for shoes I could use to play softball, or when he approved my looks before my date arrived for my first dance. He would comfort me, even now, and I would be able to figure out how to get on with my life.
I called him to let him know I was coming, and I drove from South Dakota to Indianapolis with just two breaks in the thirteen-hour-drive. Dad greeted me at the door, and while I saw him wince at the bruises on my face, he made no comment, no judgment, about how I looked. I knew I could count on him to love me unconditionally, not criticize me for my choice of partners.
His wife, my stepmother, had nothing negative to say, either. But I saw pain in her face, anger at how I had been treated—or perhaps how I had allowed myself to be treated. After all, there had been warning signs, a slap here, a push there, a need to keep my opposition to a minimum.
I was relieved to be home. Not the house where I grew up, but the one where I had visited Dad for the past eleven years after his retirement. I thanked them for taking me in and went to snuggle in the guest room.
In the morning, I ate an egg and toast and drank Dad’s black coffee. We sat on his deck and watched a squirrel race around, looking for food to store as the red and yellow leaves fell. His cat, a tortoise-shell beauty named Sassy, who liked no one but Dad, somehow decided I did not deserve a steady stream of hisses on this visit. I had never received this much consideration from her.
Dad and I talked about the weather, about getting the yard ready for winter, about my grown sons. After we did the dishes, he took his wife to the grocery store, and I lay down for a nap.
The doorbell rang and startled me. I crept to the front door and peered through the peephole. Two men stood there, dressed professionally and wearing dark glasses. My stomach churned, and I couldn’t reach for the doorknob. Were these men detectives, doing yet another welfare check on me, instigated by my stalker? Were they the thugs from Northern Indiana I had been threatened with? I wanted to pull away from the peephole, but I knew they could see the darkness from my eye covering it. I stood there, transfixed, my throat dry, trying to decide what to do.
An image of my dad, shot by these men, crossed my mind. If I ignored them now, they would return when my parents were home. It was better to deal with them while I was alone. Better for Dad and Annie to find my corpse than to become corpses themselves.
I opened the door, expecting to see badges or guns. What I saw was a Book of Mormon. In my relief, I felt the nausea that adrenaline must have been suppressing. I almost vomited, but a deep breath calmed my stomach. I told the young men I was a guest, no one local was home, and I had a terrible headache. They didn’t push. I locked the door, ran to the bedroom, and slept curled into a ball.
Three peaceful days followed. I called a teaching colleague to tell her I would not be at the monthly meeting in St. Paul. She told me she had been a victim of violence during her first marriage. I cried for her, for me, for everyone who had suffered this way.
My eye faded from purple to yellow, my knuckles regained their definition, and my knee stopped aching all the time. Fewer headaches. And then the phone rang. I took the call from my nemesis in my car.
Tears of anguish I could hear through the phone, shed because I was missed. The only apology I ever received in this relationship. A plea for my return. We were going to be evicted from our apartment.
Every time I got smacked or listened to hours-long-tirades about what a terrible partner I was, I kept in mind I was the only one employed in the household. Walking away would lead to homelessness for my partner. I was above that level of unkindness, even now.
I relented.
I told my dad I would leave the next morning for Minnesota. He swallowed hard but simply nodded.
On my way home, a detective called to confirm I was in a good place. I told him I had gone into hiding because of my partner’s ties with rough people from Indiana and the threats of further violence. He discounted the idea that such people existed outside of TV dramas. He also asked why I didn’t report the violence. I had a very persuasive partner, I said, and it would all come back on me. When I asked why the PD had divulged my whereabouts, he had no answer.
I reached home that evening and found the place a mess. Thousands of dollars of my belongings smashed, including my computer monitor. It wasn’t fresh damage. Many broken items had already been bagged for removal.
Arms that had beaten me wrapped around me now in a protective hold. I didn’t know where I could find housing. I had to stay, I told myself, because I had no money to get a new place.
I really had no idea what I would do for housing. I had one option: to follow this partner to another complex, where guess who had gotten the job as building manager and decided to vouch for me. I jumped at the chance to move into the apartment right below the one my partner took. I knew better than to share a lease with my nemesis again.
I let the relationship go on for four months to keep the peace. After I put an end to it, I spent the next five months listening to heavy footsteps on my ceiling. Staying there was risky, but I was looking for work outside of Minnesota, so I thought I could hang on just a bit longer.
Five months passed before I managed to get a job far away from Minnesota. I started having nightmares about my partner coming for
me once the immediate danger passed. I sought therapy, and my counselor told me to try Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a procedure used to mimic REM sleep and allow one to expunge PTSD from one’s mind. EMDR takes memories too traumatic for the brain to digest overnight and finds a way to lay the traumas to rest.
In session, I listened to a beep travel from my left ear to my right, and I followed a light that moved in the same direction as the sound. Then, I recounted out loud the story of my kidnapping and beating. I talked about how my diminutive girlfriend, six inches and thirty pounds lighter than I was, threatened to bang her head on a doorframe to create a he-said/she-said situation if I left to seek medical attention. I talked about how she beat me with one of my own drum sticks, how, waving a butcher knife, she forced me to secure one of my wrists to the arm of the futon with packing tape. How she taped down the other wrist and then threatened to cut my throat with the knife.
The worst moment was when she stood over me, screaming, so full of rage I thought she had truly become insane, a look on her face most people see only in horror movies. She ripped out some of my hair, and that seemed to calm her down. Then finally, how I begged to be set free to go to school so I would not lose my job. And how I left the apartment with nothing but the clothes on my back.
When I finished the story, my EMDR guide told me to find a place to put the story where it could no longer harm me. I could recall it but not be terrified of it. I took it to the corner of the attic of the house where I grew up. I envisioned a small treasure chest with a golden hasp. I placed the memory in the chest, closed it, and slid a big lock through the loop and locked it.
And there the story remains. But it’s not over. A couple of months ago, seven years after I escaped, one of my friends mentioned me in a blog post and received a message from my old girlfriend, telling my friend just what a horrible person I was. My friend knew better than to believe that message, thank goodness, and removed the comment.
Betrayed: Powerful Stories of Kick-Ass Crime Survivors Page 34