I sang to Marshall all the time and made up silly alternative rhymes to his nursery rhyme and Mother Goose books. “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jumped over the stupid candlestick” was one that made Marshall smile. He loved hearing the hymns in church on Sundays, so I sang those to him at home too. His favorite was “The Old Rugged Cross.” He’d reach up and touch my face. If I attempted to sing something else he’d shake his head and put his hand across my mouth. I tried “Amazing Grace,” but he didn’t like that at all.
The women at church asked me to join the choir, but I was too shy. Anyway, Bruce always wanted me to be home. He got furious when Marshall cried, claiming I spent all my time with him. Sometimes he’d storm in, put Marshall in his playpen, then pin me down on the couch and demand I ask him how his day had gone.
He started drinking heavily and doing drugs. He didn’t bother to hide it from me. He invited friends over, but if I complained, he just turned the music up louder. I was forever finding empty whiskey and Bacardi bottles in the cupboard under the kitchen sink.
The physical violence started within weeks of our arrival in North Dakota. He came screaming into the house one evening and ordered me to put Marshall into his playpen. Then he grabbed me by the hair and slammed my face into the wall.
“Cook me a meal, bitch,” he chanted over and over as he bounced my head off the wall. Then he threw me into the kitchen. Crying, I quickly reheated the dinner I’d made for him earlier and put it on the table in front of him. He threw it on the floor.
“Now clean up the mess, bitch,” he ordered.
As I got down on my hands and knees to pick everything up, he started kicking me. Then he stormed out and went drinking. This became a pattern, although he alternated between slamming my face into walls and pinning me on the sofa to punch me. Every week I had to pretend I’d walked into a door or tripped over something to explain the marks on my face. I must have seemed like the most accident-prone person ever.
John, who ran the grocery store, didn’t buy my excuses. He urged me to leave Bruce and move in with his family. I insisted nothing was wrong, but John said, “If I see you with a black eye or busted lip again, I will hurt Bruce.”
Once, I was actually working at the cash register when Bruce stormed into the store and yanked me by my arm outside. John kept telling me to go to the police, but I was too scared. The Matherses were important people in Williston.
Bruce’s mother didn’t like me. She’d long ago picked her idea of a bride for Bruce, and I wasn’t it. But my father-in-law, Marshall Senior, was wonderful. He’d had open-heart surgery and was becoming frailer by the day, but his eyes always lit up when I arrived with baby Marshall.
One day in the summer he was sitting in the garden in a big old lounge chair, when he asked me to move closer to him. I’d learned to mask my bruises with make-up and thought I hid my injuries well. But Mr. Mathers knew otherwise.
“Bruce is my son,” he said as tears welled up in his eyes. “I love him. But I’m so ashamed of him. I can’t stand the fact that I’ve brought up a son who beats women. I didn’t raise him this way.
“I beg you, on my deathbed, that you please leave my son. Take the baby and go. Get out while you can.”
He held his arms out to me. We hugged and I told my father-in-law that I loved him. He was still tall, like Bruce, but he was skin and bones. He knew he was dying.
He was a hard worker all his life and was not the sort of man to just sit in a chair all day. Even when he’d been told not to do any manual labor, as his heart couldn’t take it, he still tilled the big yard at the back of his house. I truly admired him; he was a lovely man. Bruce and his mom made it very clear I was not welcome at his funeral.
Bruce’s drinking, cheating, and abuse got worse after his father died. When Marshall was released from the hospital after treatment for pneumonia I took him to the hotel to see his daddy. I thought Bruce would be pleased, but I found him with a receptionist called Heather giggling over a copy of Playboy magazine. They were rubbing each other. I cleared my throat and they turned around. Bruce went berserk, ordering me to leave. I drove home crying. He still didn’t care, even when his son was ill.
He returned a couple of hours later after walking home in the rain. He took his shoes off at the door and threw them at me. I tried to make sure Marshall was out of harm’s way, but Bruce grabbed him, dumped him in his playpen and screamed, “That fucking little brat can wait!”
Then he threw another shoe at me, hit me in the face, and used my stomach as a punching bag. On my nineteenth birthday in January 1974, Bruce had to work late. He gave our friend Kenny, whom I worked with, twenty dollars to take me for a meal at the Stateline Club. I didn’t want to go, but Bruce insisted. It was a forty-five minute drive away, and when we arrived the place was packed. I suggested we take our food and return home hoping Bruce would already be there. But Mary, a friend who was babysitting Marshall, said Bruce had gone out looking for me.
He returned home in the early hours of the next morning. When I asked where he’d been, he accused me of having an affair. Then he grabbed me by the hair, dragged me out of our apartment and up the stairs. He pounded my head off the neighbor’s door. Then he smashed my head into the door over and over. Every time I fell forward he hit me again. This continued until he knocked me out.
The next thing I remember was Bruce slapping my face. Not nastily. He was scared.
“I thought I’d really killed you this time,” he said.
There was blood everywhere. My nose was shattered. Bruce had knocked me out cold. As always he was apologetic. He insisted he loved me, he was under pressure at work, and that he didn’t know what had come over him.
I told him, “I hate you. I’m not going through this again. I’m leaving. Just go to your mother’s.”
For once he didn’t argue back. I think even he realized that this time he’d gone too far. He left and a friend drove me to the hospital, where I spent the next two hours trying to convince the staff that it was safe for me to go home to my baby. I had a serious concussion, but I told the nurses that I had someone at home who would wake me every few hours to make sure I was okay.
Long ago I’d made a promise to God that I wouldn’t allow a child of mine to be around violence, drugs, or alcohol. My siblings and I had suffered enough. I didn’t want my son growing up in the same environment. Marshall was fourteen months old, too young to understand what was happening. But even he had started to point at the marks on my face and say, “Boo, boo.” It broke my heart.
I barely slept, and the moment Marshall woke up I gathered a few of his clothes and a bag of diapers. I stuffed everything into a duffel bag. If I’d been thinking straight I’d have cleared out the envelopes where we kept the rent and electricity money. But I just took a twenty-dollar bill to add to the handful of dollars in my pocket. I didn’t even take the car, even though it was in my name and I had almost finished paying off the loan. I went to the grocery store to pick up my check, hand in my uniform, and say goodbye.
John, my boss, begged me to stay, but I just wanted to get as far from Williston as possible. Kenny, drove me to the railway station. There was a train leaving for Kansas City, a day and a half away. From there, it was just sixty miles to Saint Joseph.
I was hysterical, terrified Bruce would come looking for me. He’d threatened to kill me many times if ever I tried to leave him. I’d never been on a train before, and when two policemen boarded, I expected them to drag me off and return me to Bruce. But they just nodded in my direction. I had a fractured nose, two black eyes, and bumps on the back of my head. One woman asked me if I’d been in a car wreck. I just nodded. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
It was freezing cold, and even though we were both bundled up in winter clothes, our hands were like blocks of ice. I couldn’t stop my teeth chattering. But at least we had the carriage to ourselves because everyone else had moved to warmer carriages.
A ticket conductor came through. He
told me the heating had gone out and that I had to move. Eventually, we moved into the buffet car. I gave the steward my twenty-dollar bill for gravy and mashed potatoes and stupidly forgot to pick up the change. The man thought it was a tip. Then Marshall got a stomachache, and even though I rubbed his stomach, he cried off and on for the rest of the journey. By the time I arrived in Kansas City, sometime around two o’clock the next morning, I had just enough money to phone Mom.
Needless to say, she didn’t welcome me back with open arms. She shouted something about being woken up, said there was a big snowstorm in Saint Joe, and no one could drive out to get me. She told me to call back at a more civilized time. I sat in the station for what seemed like hours until a policeman appeared.
“Are you Debbie?” he asked.
I shook my head. Surely Bruce hadn’t tracked me down already?
“It’s okay,” he said. “Your mom called us. She’s going to wire some money to you for a bus ticket. Let me drive you to the terminal.”
I was so tired and hungry—if only I’d been thinking more clearly, I would have cashed my paycheck before I left. The bus station was deserted except for one clerk, who took pity on me when I told him I was waiting for money to get home.
When I asked him where the restroom was, he said, “Come downstairs with me.”
I followed him. Hopefully there’d be a warm office and maybe some food there.
“You’re very pretty,” he said, leering. “We can work something out.”
I ran into the bathroom where a woman overheard me inquiring about prune juice for my son’s tummy ache, and she found me some. I gave her my change—about seventy-two cents. Eventually I got Marshall to stop crying just before we boarded the bus. My baby was making himself sick, and I felt so helpless. I finally got home to Saint Joseph at 4 p.m. Mom didn’t even acknowledge my bruises.
“I really liked Bruce,” she said, as though everything were my fault. “How long are you going to stay?”
“Just a week or two, promise,” I said. I didn’t even last that long. Bruce kept phoning, and there were more deeply unpleasant dramas with Mom, so I moved in with Nan, who by then was also living in Saint Joe.
Nan urged me to take Bruce back too. She didn’t realize he’d changed so much. She said he kept calling, crying on the phone. Eventually I agreed to talk to him.
He told me to get my ass home, adding that I could bring “the kid” with me.
“The kid has a name,” I said.
I asked if he could send some of our clothes. He refused. I’d made Marshall several baby books, full of photos, listing things such as his favorite toy frog and his beloved cherry vanilla pudding. Bruce wouldn’t even mail those back to me. The next time I saw those baby books was when Marshall was famous. They popped up in a German magazine, alongside an interview with Bruce claiming he’d searched high and low for us but we’d disappeared.
I wanted Marshall to have a relationship with his father, because I remembered the pain I went through when my dad left. But Bruce didn’t want to know. After just a few weeks, the phone calls stopped. I set about making a new life. I knew I had to make it alone, for Marshall’s sake.
I filed for divorce, but Bruce held that up by telling the clerk and my mom that I was not a resident of Missouri for the legally required six months. Eventually he was ordered to pay Marshall sixty dollars a month in child support, but he only paid two or three times. Finally he took off to California to avoid having to pay anything at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
I found a tiny apartment, got a job at a restaurant, and signed up to study at beauty school. Bruce’s Aunt Edna helped me care for Marshall. Every night when I came home, there’d be a smiley-face drawing or cardboard model waiting for me from Marshall. He loved to draw. He was also a born showman. At kindergarten, he played an Indian in a Thanksgiving play. His Uncle Ronnie, who was just two months older, was a pilgrim.
Marshall loved hearing stories about America’s history and was intrigued by the Wild West. Living in Saint Joseph, an old frontier staging post for cowboys, provided the perfect setting to learn about those things. It’s known as the town where the Pony Express began and where the outlaw Jesse James met his end.
Until 1860, letters from New York took thirty days via steamship to reach California. A group of ambitious businessmen set out to prove they could provide the same service more quickly by using relays of horses and riders. It took just ten days for post from Saint Joe to reach the gold-rush shantytowns near Sacramento. But, despite capturing the imagination of Americans and proving invaluable at the start of the Civil War, it went bankrupt in just nineteen months, losing its owners a then-spectacular five hundred thousand dollars. Then, in 1882, Jesse James was shot dead by his partners in crime, Bob and Charlie Ford, at his hideout on Lafayette Street. Marshall loved visiting Saint Joe’s downtown historical district to view the bullet hole in the wall at James’s house.
Marshall was a perfect baby who rarely cried. But as a child he developed a temper, just like his father. If he couldn’t get his own way, he’d lie on the floor screaming. I gave in to him all the time. He was all I had. I loved him so much. I wanted to shelter him from the world, and I wouldn’t hear anyone say a word against him. People said I should spank him, but I don’t believe in hitting children.
Tantrums aside, he was shy around strangers. I had to go outside with him to make him play with other children. For several years he preferred the company of his imaginary friend, Casper. He didn’t really watch Casper the Friendly Ghost much on TV, and he was mad about superheroes such as Spider-Man—but I guessed he got the idea for his imaginary friend from the show. He said Casper could walk through walls and would scold me for almost sitting on Casper. Marshall couldn’t understand why I couldn’t see Casper too.
My nickname for him was “Mick”—lots of people called him that rather than Marshall.
I tried to make up for the fact Marshall didn’t have a father by giving him everything he wanted. I never said no to him. At McDonald’s I always let him have two Happy Meals—he wanted the free toys more than the food. He collected figurines—Spider-Man, the Hulk, the He-Men, GI Joe, Batman and Robin. He charged around the apartment in a cape and mask, interchanging between playing Batman and Robin. He loved comic books full of cartoon heroes and copied them into his own coloring books. One Christmas, he asked for an extravagant Caped Crusader costume with all sorts of accessories, including a Batmobile. I forget the exact price, but it was hundreds of dollars. I tried to save up for it because I really wanted him to be happy, but it was just too much money.
I held down numerous jobs, from working in stores and waitressing to driving an ice-cream truck, so that Marshall could have a good life. I got jobs to fit in with Marshall; he often came with me to work.
Even when I briefly joined a group called Daddy Warbucks, singing backup-vocals, Marshall came with us on the road. We were a big band of hippies, and there was always someone to watch over him when we were on stage. We played Ramada Hotels and Holiday Inns, but I never got over my stage fright. The bigger the crowd, the worse I became. I used to stand with my back to the audience, staring at the drummer, whom I had a secret crush on.
I had lots of men friends. I went out with doctors and lawyers because I wanted to better myself. But compared with the sophisticated girls they usually dated, I felt inferior and inadequate. I lacked a fouryear college degree, I didn’t think I was pretty, and I hated being paraded around in gowns at prim and proper functions.
I had my heart broken by always getting too close. I was looking for the perfect soulmate and dad for Marshall. I always mothered my men friends and hoped I could change them to become my idea of perfect. I was also very jealous, which caused me to lose men, especially the ones who were funny, hardworking, and good to my son.
Charlie was my first serious boyfriend after Bruce. He was a great guy. He worked on the railroad in Missouri and would be back on weekends. We had lots of fun togethe
r, making wooden frames for waterbeds. Marshall seemed to care a lot about him, and my brothers Steve and Todd got on with him too. All was well, except we both found it hard to trust each other totally, and eventually our mutual jealousies ruined it.
I met Don, the taxi driver, upon moving to Michigan. We lived together for a year, but he had a fiery Italian temperament and was insanely jealous. Our relationship unraveled when we went to the Florida Keys. Marshall got badly sunburned, and his skin bubbled up so that he looked like an alligator. Don tried to stop me tending to him; he was even envious of the attention I gave my son. I left him the moment we returned home.
A few weeks later I met Curt Werner. He was three years younger than I was and five-foot-nine with coal-black hair and big brown eyes. He was totally wild and loved motorcycles. We became friends.
One night we were driving back from the movies when we noticed Don’s cab had caught fire and burned out. We thought nothing of it until Don blamed me, saying I’d set it on fire. Curt jumped out of the car, ordering Don to get away from me. I couldn’t believe he’d blamed me—I would never have done such a thing, not least as I knew how hard he’d worked to pay for that car.
My sister Tanya, who was thirteen, ran away from home. Mom put up wanted posters all over town and blamed me. She told the police I was hiding her. It’s true: I knew exactly where she was, but I wasn’t going to let Mom find her and beat her half to death.
Mom decided Curt was okay. We’d been dating less than three months when she encouraged us to get married. Big mistake—we barely knew each other. But he was gorgeous, he loved me, and he was great with Marshall. My son was my whole world, so it was important that Marshall liked him too.
My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem: Setting the Record Straight on My Life as Eminem's Mother Page 3