Being Mean

by Patricia Eagle

  I give up and not only slide full force into despair, but inconspicuously start using a diaphragm, afraid that now that I have convinced myself I shouldn’t get pregnant, I will. Nothing makes sense. Bill and I begin to argue more often, about work, Shawn and Billy, their mother’s relentless calls and demands for money, and all the ways Bill and I both experience our relationship as unsupportive.

  I take long walks down Doublehorn Road where we live in rural Spicewood, Texas, and dream of the Colorado mountains, so still and steady—and absolutely sure of themselves.

  THE DAM BREAKS

  1989 (age 37)—Spicewood, Texas

  I flip through journal entries from the past months, the long yellow pages crinkled and stained from tears. I hate this. I hate going to therapy, filling out forms, taking drugs. Fifty minutes is all I’m given, fifty fucking minutes to get to it, figure out what the fuck is filling my pounding head. Crazy thoughts, images, and dreams blur together. I don’t even remember what we talk about when I’m there, since I don’t feel much like talking about anything.

  My new therapist, like the psychiatrist she recommends, asks that I fill out more forms about any family history of depression. I refuse. “They’re all depressed,” I tell them both. Thinking about my family makes me even more miserable. I don’t even want to say their names. Yeah, they’re all fucked up as far as I’m concerned, especially my parents. “This is about me, not them,” I insist, and again refuse to complete the stupid forms.

  The psychiatrist sends me home with some big-punch antidepressants. I wonder if I could take enough to kill me.

  Night dreams, nightmares, inexplicable daze-like daydreams, and scenes from my past flicker uncontrollably across the screens of my mind and body. During these times a mishmash of sounds, scenes, smells, and sensations confound me: the scrape of a shower curtain at the end of Dad’s showers; the smells of his soap and deodorant; the hypnotic sound of ocean waves heard while lying in a camper bed with Dad; playing with my stuffed animals who talked to me until it was safe for me to go to sleep. I see myself trying to jump out of Dad’s semi-truck and him yanking me back in. I picture myself moving up and down on top of a pillow, a car seat, a tub rim, a man’s leg, until a swoosh of energy zips through my body. Sometimes when one of these blurred scenes slips through my mind, my body responds. Why do these things arouse me?

  Nothing makes sense. I fill journal after journal with angst. I weep, pray like I am dying, run too far and too fast, rage and feel increasingly out of control. I find another therapist and go on a different set of meds since I tossed out the others. I make endless lists about what I can do to improve my life: when to meditate, exercise, journal, eat, work, get together with friends, pick a new counselor, read more books, get another degree, sign up for one more self-help seminar—anything that will help me feel better about myself and my life. I really do want to fix what is wrong with me. This is like banging my head on a wall, just like I used to do when I was a little girl. If I could only crack my head open, spill the contents, and see what, if anything, makes sense.

  A fissure is blooming into a crack smack in the middle of my chest, and I feel the searing ache.

  Life rolls on. Mom, Dad, my sisters, and their husbands are coming to our home to celebrate the May and June birthdays of Bill, Mom, and Dad. After our meal, birthday cake, and ice cream, my middle sister and I are sitting on the back porch when she shares that her teenage daughter is in therapy.

  “Her therapist pulled me aside and asked if I was aware of any sexual abuse in our family. Do you remember anything?” Pamela asks me quietly.

  I answer without pause, “No. Nothing.” My ears ring like a chime has been tapped. In response to her query, I have a sense of a barrier going up and a shade snapping down. Nothing to see here. Subject closed.

  I look over at Mom and Dad sitting quietly beside each other. Two people who rarely have anything to say to one another, who go for weeks in a seething silence when angry at each other. During high school, when the three of us lived alone, a doctor diagnosed my frequent and gushing nosebleeds, constant diarrhea, and lean weight as symptoms of high anxiety.

  About eight years ago, I went to see them at their home in Plano. When I arrived, Dad was sitting on the couch crying, holding his head in his hands. He and Mom had just battled about something, and she had left, despite knowing I would soon be there for an overnight visit, and that she would miss me by leaving.

  “I don’t mean to do the things I do,” Dad blathered. “Sometimes it’s like I’m not me.” He looked directly at me with an unfamiliar expression. “I’m so sorry for the things I’ve done.”

  My body quivered. I was uncomfortable sitting this close to Dad. I had never seen him cry, and a part of me wanted to run out of the house. I felt like we were in on something together, but I didn’t have a clue what it was. I wondered what he and Mom had fought about. Dad seemed genuinely remorseful, and all I could figure his apology was for was how mean, mad, and controlling he could get. I could tell he really felt sorry—about something—but I could not grasp the reason for this apology.

  I let Dad wind down, then put my hand on his and told him I was going to head back to Austin. He didn’t question my change of plans. I remembered getting in the car, turning on the radio, and finding a good song. My body was shivering, even though it was a hot Texas summer day. Driving home, I slowly calmed and returned to a familiar, safe numbed state.

  The day after our family gathering, I am seeking that same numbed sense of safety when a close friend calls and shares recently remembering that her grandfather sexually abused her as a child. When we hang up, I notice my hands are trembling. I straighten my desk then sit still, my mind blank, aware of a light sweat spreading across my body. That fissure across my chest vibrates like a tremor forecasting a major quake.

  I stand up and walk into the room where Bill is sitting. He looks up and a concerned expression crosses his face. “What’s wrong, Darlin’?”

  I don’t know anything is wrong until he asks, then I know. I’m wrong. I’m all wrong. Everything about me is wrong. It’s like the Jack-in-the-box song is playing in my head loud and fast and Jack is pressing on the lid. A panic pierces my heart. I can’t breathe. The winding of the box gets to the “pop goes the weasel” and I squeeze my eyes shut and bring my hands to my head repeating, “It was Daddy … it was Daddy … it was Daddy …” and I begin hitting my head on the corner of two walls. Bill jumps up to restrain me, then holds me close as padlocked chambers in my head rattle open. What I have kept pressed down tightly for over two decades has finally popped the lid off the box. Jack, in his joker’s hat, is free of confinement.

  It isn’t until I’m at my therapist’s the next day that I become fully aware of what happened and is happening, that repressed memories are surfacing. Words aren’t adequate for explaining the crush of images or flood of feelings. Everything and nothing makes sense. A block has been removed from the dam, and a rush of memories flows through. I can’t handle it all, but I can’t numb fast enough. I vomit in the therapist’s trashcan. I hate her for sitting there so calmly while my life dissolves. I know I’ll never be the same. I don’t know who I am, or who I have ever been, or if I even want to continue to be.

  At home I call Pamela and ask her if she remembers any sexual abuse by Dad and wonder why I didn’t ask her in the first place. She seems to listen to my story, reluctantly, then responds that she believes something may have happened, but doesn’t want to go there, and doesn’t see how it would help. Maybe she is right. None of this feels like it is helping. I want to kill myself now more than ever. I’m not who I thought I was, except that I’m even more fucked up than I already knew I was.

  Paula appears open to a conversation and expresses empathy. My therapist suggests I invite her to one of our appointments, so I do, and Paula looks for ways to be supportive. Days earlier, on the advice of my therapist, I had written Mom and Dad explaining that I would not be in touch for a while, that I n
eeded time to reflect on and try to understand some things going on with me.

  After the appointment, Paula, who says memories have begun seeping up for her too, writes Dad a letter and accuses him of rape. Mom is furious and calls us both crazy. I feel crazy. I don’t know the right thing to do, but I do know that for now I must let my parents fade into the background. I try to understand the value of staying alive even when life doesn’t make sense. Was Dad with me sexually to spite Mom after their arguments, and then in turn she blamed and shamed me for his ill moods and anger? I scramble to understand. Everything feels so fragile in the thick of this overwhelming complexity, trying to hold myself together individually while crumbling under the weight of who my family is collectively—my sisters and my parents, Bill, and even my stepson.

  Could I slam Jack back down in his box and go on my merry way? Have I ever been on my merry way, or would I be if I let this all go—snapped that window shade right back down and quit looking out, or allowing anyone to see in?

  PART III:

  Not Easier but Better

  DENIAL

  1990 (age 38)—Cleburne, Texas

  A little owl lives somewhere in this brush,” Dad whispers as we walk the trails of his Cleburne property here in central Texas. “He shows himself to me every once in a while.” Dad gently pulls back limbs as we make our way through the thicket. We walk quietly, listening and looking. Although Dad is not knowledgeable or even curious about identifying the subspecies of birds, he knows most of them by their general categories: owls, hawks, sparrows, hummingbirds. I scan my knowledge of small owls and figure he has a screech owl around, an eastern screech owl to be exact. The first time I heard a screech owl I could not believe such a quavering, wailing whinny was coming from an owl. After that, I started listening carefully for them and was delighted to discover a group nesting directly behind my own home in Spicewood.

  Watching and listening to birds has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. Did Dad initiate this interest? I love spending time in nature, often quietly and alone, just like he does.

  But unlike my dad, I also enjoy being around other people, having friends over for dinner, hiking, snowshoeing, and camping with others. Learning to have friends has helped me survive. My parents never had anyone over for any kind of social activity. Even our relatives stayed away. Nor were my parents asked over to other people’s homes. It was too risky with Dad, whose mercurial mood could turn cruel in an instant.

  It mystifies me how someone like my dad, so readily violent with his family, can coax a hummingbird to rest on his open hand, nurse an orchard to grow and bloom, and turn acres of raw land into a natural park-like environment where animals feel safe to nest and roam. That is what he has done on these twenty-five acres where we are now walking.

  Dad and I are hiking the perimeter of his land, something we have done regularly since he purchased it ten years ago. But now we are meeting at his property to talk after being estranged from one another for almost a year, after my oldest sister and I both openly acknowledged our memories of sexual abuse by him. Mom doesn’t know Dad and I have arranged this meeting.

  “I don’t know what you and Paula are talking about,” Dad says while still searching for the owl, interrupting the silence of our stroll. “We had a real happy family life. Don’t you remember?”

  His voice sounds strangely different—monotone, flat, and detached. I remember hearing in a support group how perpetrators are good not only at deception, but at self-deception as well.

  “No, Dad, I don’t remember it that way at all. I do remember how angry you and Mom often were. How you argued and threw things.” I don’t say anything about the sexual abuse. I am not sure how to bring that up at this moment. At the time of the revelations, I was in a precarious emotional situation and needed space and time to process and try to understand what was going on. What had been surfacing for me in that past year had been a baffling mix of sounds, smells, tastes, emotions, and images. I was slowly becoming aware of what had happened to me as a child. I still seem to have no control over how and when memories surface.

  Dad walks ahead of me, not looking my way. “No, no, we never argued. We had it real good and went to church every Sunday.”

  Now I know something is awry. Dad rarely went to church. When he did go it was far from being a happy family outing. Mom finally quit asking him to go; it later got to where she would drop us off and then pick us up to avoid Dad getting angry about her getting all dressed up and going somewhere without him. She said he was suspicious that she was trying to look good for someone else, and his jealous imaginings could become ugly. Happy family life? It’s like Dad is in an altered state. But my doubts have now kicked in. How can he not remember? Why am I surprised that he appears to care more about himself than me?

  When Dad says we had it real good, maybe he is referring to our material life. He either built the houses we lived in or bought them. We had nice cars, new furniture, fashionable clothes, and the latest TV. His wife had beautiful jewelry, a collection that grew after many a big fight when he would purchase something for her rather than apologize. This, to Dad, was taking care of his family. Everything looked right, orderly, and in control. Our family was successful. We had it “good.”

  Dad works hard and buys what he wants: the newest cars from the first VW bug to the first VW camper, a motorcycle, a little green MG convertible, a twenty-five foot sailboat, a Winnebago, furniture of his choice, Texas Hill Country lakeside property, and even this acreage outside of Cleburne. Mom says he doesn’t ask what she would like to have. He says it’s his money and he will spend it the way he wants.

  Unlike Mom, I share Dad’s love of the outdoors and used to spend time with him using his recreational toys. When Dad bought that sailboat in my mid-teens, he taught me to sail. He appreciated how much I loved to swim, so he allowed me to swim behind the boat trailing a long line with a buoy attached. I could grab the buoy whenever the wind picked up. If a really big gust placed the buoy out of reach, I would tread water or float on my back and wait, trusting Dad would sail back and get me.

  Besides manipulating the sails, Dad showed me how to understand which way the wind was blowing by barely turning my head in different directions, how to carefully watch the waves, and how to get from Point A to Point B based on the wind. We never talked other than when he gave instructions, or I asked a question, or to point out a bird to one another. I was on guard at all times, careful to do things Dad’s way. Our time together was tense, but significant. Later in my life I realized that during these years, when we were alone with each other, we could rest assured that earlier intimate times were in the past, done, secret and, perhaps, never even really happened. It was as though we had a tacit understanding: See, things are good now. Back then was a different time. Now, everything is just fine.

  That’s it! That’s what Dad is telling me as we walk his property searching for the little owl as he recounts how “we had it real good,” and “had a real happy family life.” Why go back and remember what, at this point, doesn’t make any sense? Even though I’m currently on meds, seeing a psychiatrist and a counselor, and in a support group with other sexual abuse survivors, I’m still struggling to make sense of things. Does it make a difference? What benefit comes from disrupting a family’s carefully amended history by bringing up the past? I’m certainly not feeling any better for having spoken up.

  I kick a clod of dirt and glance over at my dad, who is looking up a tree. “If we look real close and don’t give up, we just might see that little owl,” he whispers convincingly.

  Yeah, I think. Look close. Don’t give up. Eventually I might be able to see.

  LIFT YOUR EYES

  1993 (age 41)—Houston, Texas

  John called, excited to tell me about his recent near-death experience.

  “It was just like people talk about, Patty,” he said. “I knew I was dying, and was walking across this beautiful bridge, past all these people that have bee
n and still are in my life. You were there too, waving. I felt so happy and peaceful. But then I realized I wanted to tell everyone all about this, so I came back. It was absolutely incredible!” He sounded weak from his long journey with AIDS, but happy and even relieved with the path he believed lay before him.

  A few days later John’s partner, Sidney, called to say that John appeared to be in the final stages of dying, maybe a matter of days, or less. I decided to leave our home in Jackson, Mississippi within hours. If possible, I wanted to see John one more time, even though when Sidney put him on the phone, John told me it wasn’t necessary.

  “I’ll see you on Wednesday nights,” he assured me, “just like when we were in choir practice in junior high and high school. I’m saving Wednesdays for you.”

  I thought of my dear friend, always available during those tumultuous teen years, during college, and after Dave and I married. Whenever I felt down, confused, or rejected from Dave’s constant attractions to someone he had met at a party, worked with, or simply saw walking on the street, John could explain Dave’s erratic behaviors away and make me feel stronger. We lost touch, as I strayed to California then back to Texas, while John completed law school and began practicing. By the time we reconnected, I was driving an old non-air-conditioned Volvo and John had a spiffy red BMW, but it didn’t matter, our hearts recognized each other.

  John had been diagnosed HIV positive at that point but was managing fairly well with meds. I traveled to Houston from Spicewood for a visit, needing a pick-me-up having just lost my young dog, Bebe, after she was hit by a car.

  I woke up my first morning at John and Sidney’s home to discover John leaning over the want ads, circling notices about puppies for sale.