by Ryan Green
She was distracted in that moment. She didn't hear him get up. She just felt the warm presence behind her like a weight on her back. She startled and almost dropped the pot. It would land in the sink and soak her, soak the countertops that she had spent exactly twenty minutes polishing to perfection. The water might even get on Ronald, and that wouldn't do. He caught the pot before it had even left her fingers. His arms wrapped around her. He stepped in close and took hold of her hands, guiding the washcloth over the pot in one smooth movement that lifted all of the last traces of soap away. She felt his voice vibrating in his chest as much as she heard him speaking softly in her ear, ‘Careful there, my clumsy girl. That is the way to do it. You're getting the hang of it. Now do the rest again. Just like that.'
He drew away from her just as suddenly as he had appeared. Returning to his cigarette still burning in the ashtray. The ashtray. She had forgotten to clean out the ashtray. It was one of the first jobs that she usually did in the morning after Ronald left for work. How could she have been so stupid? He must have been sitting there, looking at the ashtray overflowing with muck and holding back a scream. How could she have let him down like that? She dumped the pot onto the clean pile, lifted the rest of them back onto the other side and dried off her hands on the dishtowel. He didn't even look up when she came over to empty it, but when she reached out he caught her wrist in his hand with almost casual ease. He grunted, ‘It will keep until I'm done. Just finish the pots.'
Becky was frozen for a moment, torn between gratitude that he was being so forgiving, dread that his anger was going to fall on her later when she wasn't braced for it, and confusion. She had thought that he would have lost his temper, but he didn't even seem to care today. Had she completely misunderstood why he was angry at her the last time that the ashtray hadn't been emptied? Had she been imagining a foul temper for this sweet and loving man? He drew on his cigarette and smiled up at her, one of those rare glimpses of kindness on his face to match the kindness she knew was in his heart to put up with a girl like her. He let her wrist slip out of his grasp, and if it felt a little sore or a little bruised, that was just because he was a big strong man as well as a kind one. She turned back to her duties.
*
When Ronald was redeployed to New Mexico, Becky followed, and they were married a few days before his twentieth birthday. If Becky thought that he was controlling before they were married, the new commitment only seemed to increase his drive to dominate her. Before the move to New Mexico, he had already begun dictating what clothes she was allowed to wear, how she wore her hair and limiting the time she spent with her friends.
It seemed that Ronald had no real sense of loyalty or love, and couldn't understand those drives in others. He believed that if Becky remained as beautiful as she was when he first met her, then other men would begin courting her and attract her attention. He could not tolerate abandonment. He stripped her of her carefully crafted appearance and broke down her confidence in herself with a steady grind of corrections and complaints until she was convinced that she could do nothing on her own and had to rely on him for everything.
Once they made the move to New Mexico, he severed all ties with her family. Becky no longer received her own mail, and all attempts to contact her through Ronald were stilted at best and ignored at worst. Every moment of her life was scheduled around fulfilling Ronald's needs. With a normal man, this would have been intolerable, but with a man whose needs included complete control over everything around him, it was a living nightmare—one that he successfully convinced Becky she deserved due to her own incompetence. For the following few years, their marriage remained in a state of painful equilibrium. Becky would do everything and anything that was asked of her, up to and including being a verbal punching bag whenever Ronald's foul moods required it.
Only a year into the marriage, Becky gave birth to their first child, Ronald Gene Simmons, Junior, who later went by Gene. Two years after that, just as Ronald's abusive behaviour began to spike following his discharge from the Navy, a second child was born, Sheila Marie Simmons, who rapidly became the apple of his eye.
His controlling behaviour worsened in the years after he left the Navy, but returned to normal levels a couple of years later after he signed up with the Air Force and returned to a life of discipline and order. During those two years, his demands became less like those of a dictator and more like those of a pesky office manager, hovering over Becky as she completed every task in her day, preventing her from going outside unaccompanied and gradually crushing every last moment of freedom out of his carefully planned schedule for her. If Becky realised that her situation was worsening, then she did very little about it, going along with whatever Ronald wanted.
Over the following years, he would father five more children with Becky: William, Loretta, Eddie, Marianne, and Rebecca Lyn. Each child was quickly allotted tasks and a position within the order he was creating in his household. To outsiders, they would appear to be little more than household chores, albeit chores that were more difficult than you might expect children so young to undertake, but the truth was more insidious. Ronald could not tolerate free agents under his roof. If the children could not be trusted to obey him in all things, then they could not stay. The blocks of work that he assigned to them were as much a test of their loyalty as a part of his pathological desire to control others.
Ronald took to spending his free time with Sheila more and more often as the years rolled on. By the time she turned thirteen, his affection had grown to the point that others began to take note. His other children were objects to be manipulated, pieces of the puzzle of chaotic life that he had to slot together in such a way as to give the appearance of order. But in Sheila, he seemed to believe that he had found some sort of kindred spirit. She received all of the favours that the grim-faced man ever dispensed to his children. Of all the people in his life, the only one who you would ever suspect Ronald Gene Simmons ever truly loved was Sheila. On one of the few family occasions that Ronald could not avoid, his whole family went to visit his sister-in-law for Christmas. Sheila would have been about fifteen years old at the time. The behaviour that the rest of his immediate, well-trained family believed was perfectly normal made Becky's sister incredibly uncomfortable. Sheila came over to the seat where Ronald was scowling at the room and draped herself over his lap as though she were a toddler rather than a girl well on her way to womanhood. When even that wasn't enough to break him out of his characteristic foul mood, she leaned in and gave him a kiss, not on the cheek as a daughter would, but on the lips. The rest of Ronald's children and even Becky didn't bat an eye. This was just how the two of them behaved together.
*
For all of his problems with impulse control and manipulative behaviour, you might have expected Ronald to do badly in a career that requires discipline and loyalty, but for the 22 years that he served in the United States Military, it would seem that he was an exemplary officer, finally retiring at the rank of Master Sergeant in 1979. During his service, he had not only earned the respect of his comrades, he had also acquired a Bronze Star, The Republic of Vietnam Cross, and the Air Force Ribbon. During his service, he also received numerous rewards for his marksmanship, in particular with the .22 calibre pistol, his weapon of choice. As a decorated veteran, he retired with all due honours to their rented home in Cloudcroft, New Mexico.
The tension in that house must have been palpable on Ronald's last day of work. While the children would not have been old enough to remember the nightmarish lockdown that followed Ronald's last brief retirement, their mother must have known all too well just how bad things were about to get, even if she would never acknowledge it out loud. Imagine her surprise when Ronald came home and, instead of the furious, controlling monster that she expected, she was greeted by her husband as if it were a normal day. Sheila bounced over to give her father a kiss and his face cracked into a genuine smile. It seemed like things were going to be all right for all of them.
> Grocery shopping was the most exciting part of Becky's week. Ronald hadn't tightened his grip on her quite so firmly this time. She was allowed out into town on her own, but she knew that it irritated him when she was out and about when he needed her for something. Irritating Ronald was a bad idea. When he announced that he would drive her to the store, it was almost a relief. If he was coming into town with her, then she at least knew that he wasn't alone at home, getting riled up over some mistake that she had made. She dashed about the house, finishing up the last of her chores as well as she could, then grabbed her coat and headed out to the car. Ronald was already inside, the engine was already on, and she could faintly make out the sound of music playing on the radio. Ronald had a smile plastered on his face and was nodding along to the music as if he had a single musical bone in his body. Becky couldn't help but smile herself. He hadn't always been like this. She could still remember when they were first courting, how much fun they had together. For a dreadful moment, a spark of hope warmed her chest. If he had been happy with her before, then he could be happy with her again. This retirement could be a chance for them to find that happiness together again. She would stop making so many foolish mistakes and he would learn to smile again.
With a bounce in her step for the first time in two decades, Becky walked around the back of the car, smiling down at her own feet, almost bashful to be getting into the car with this strange man. When she got to the passenger's side door, she saw what he was smiling about. Sheila was sitting there, in her seat, with a big grin on her face. Becky could see the laughter on her face, saw her mouthing the word, ‘Daddy!' as she slapped playfully at his shoulder. Becky's stomach dropped as she pulled the door open. Sheila was already strapped in and ready to go. The smile vanished from Ronald's face the moment he saw her. He nodded to the back seats.
Becky opened her mouth to complain, to argue, to fight back against this latest indignity in a gruelling lifetime of them. She saw Ronald's eyes, just waiting for her to try it. She shut the door and climbed into the back seat without a word. Her cheeks burned with shame as they pulled out of the driveway. Relegated to the back seat like she was the child and Sheila was his wife. She looked at Sheila, still giggling and happy, unaware that she was pushing her mother out with every kind word and smile. Never even realising the knife that she was twisting in her mother's back with every kindness that Ronald bestowed on her. His perfect little girl.
Becky had never been perfect. She tried and she tried to please Ronald, but his standards always seemed to be just out of reach. He looked at her with sympathy more than affection after all of these years. Whatever love he might have felt had been eroded by the daily disappointments of living with her. He used to look at her like that. That was the worst part about it—not the shame or the indignity, but remembering a time when he loved her, when he took the time to guide her hands as she went through her chores. When he took the time to tell her what he needed instead of glowering at her with barely restrained resentment. She knew that she had been letting him down, but she had never suspected that his love would be diverted to a more deserving vessel. Between the front seats, Becky watched their hands clasp together. Father and daughter, bound together in love. She never knew that she could feel jealousy towards her own daughter, that it could burn like this, as deep in her gut as the coil of embarrassment as the neighbours saw them driving by. When they arrived at the grocery store, Ronald gave no indication that he had any intention of getting out. Sheila was so lost in conversation with her father that she didn't even seem to have recognised that they had arrived. Eventually, she caught Ronald's eyes in the rear-view mirror. His brows drew down and he grumbled, ‘Go on then. We'll be waiting for you.'
Like a stranger in her own marriage, Becky climbed out of the car and walked into the grocery store. She felt numb. She hadn't been rejected so much as she had been casually dismissed. She paused in the doorway before the hum of the air conditioner drowned out all of the sound from outside and glanced back at the car with her husband and daughter inside. Sheila was leaning over to kiss her father, missing his cheek entirely and planting her lips firmly on his in the midst of the beard that he had just begun to grow. They still hadn't broken apart by the time that Becky turned away and started her drudge around the shelves.
As with every other discomfort that Ronald's demands and control over her caused, Becky was expected to bear her gradual replacement in his affections with silence. If he had been conducting an affair in private, far from the public eye, then she could have borne it with some dignity. Instead, she was brought into a family meeting where Ronald laid out the facts of his relationship with Sheila in the most brutal way possible. At seventeen-years-old, Sheila was pregnant with his child. He intended for her to have the child, and to raise it as a part of the family. He intended to continue his incestuous relationship with her openly and he wanted the family to support him. This was the breaking point. The moment where any sane person would bring the whole twisted structure that Ronald had been building all of these years crashing down. But it wasn't Becky who broke. Disgusted and ashamed, she was still too thoroughly in Ronald's power to ever go against him. She gave in, rolled over and submitted, just as he had expected her to. Rebellion instead came from an unexpected source.
After a lifetime of watching his mother ground under his father's heel, Ronald Gene Simmons, Junior, had seen enough. Gene had spent every waking moment receiving the same soul crushing treatment as his siblings, so he did not dare to confront his father directly, but he had options. He firmly believed that talking directly with the police would be useless. After all, if the authorities had been too blind to notice the constant abuse all of these years, why would they suddenly change their opinion now. He came at the problem laterally, through one of the only channels where he could expect to find empathy rather than a carbon copy of his father in a different uniform. He reported Sheila's pregnancy anonymously to her school counsellor.
Over the course of many meetings, starting with the first in which Sheila failed to deny that she was pregnant, her guidance counsellor worked on her to get information about the father of the child. While she was 17 years old, and thus over the age of consent in New Mexico, Sheila had never had a boyfriend in all of her high school life, and the anonymous tip had set alarm bells ringing. After almost a month, she finally broke down and admitted that the father of her child was her own father, Ronald.
Criminal charges were filed almost immediately, but Sheila outright refused to testify about the identity of her child's father. The logic that she used to justify this decision will always elude us. Some of it may have been the obvious shame and stigma that was attached to incest. Even as a victim rather than a willing participant, she would have been marked for life as a sexual deviant. We also know that the emotional bombardment from her father was reaching a fever pitch during her days in court. Rather than trying to cajole and calm her, he instead went on the offensive. Blaming her for bringing the family into disrepute, blaming her for trying to ruin his life and destroy the happiness that they had found together. In a surviving letter from this time, there is another chilling turn of phrase. Ronald wrote, ‘You have destroyed me and you have destroyed my trust in you. I will see you in hell.'
It is unclear exactly what was happening within the family at this time, because they closed ranks. The children had previously been allowed friends and visitors, provided they gave Ronald enough notice so that he could withdraw to a dark room and drink until they left, but now all connections to the community in Cloudcroft were severed. It seems fair to assume that Sheila was separated from Ronald during this period and he was prevented from seeing her in person, explaining his letters. Around this time Becky made one of her first serious attempts to leave Ronald, when the public spectacle of his behaviour finally started to outweigh her fear of him and her conviction that she was incapable of life without him.
If Ronald's proclamations of love towards Sheila had been true, then it is unli
kely that fury would have been his first response. She was already actively resisting the investigation to the best of her abilities, but the fact that she had ever admitted to his molestation, even outside of an official setting, was enough to launch him into a terrible rage. As with all other things in his life, it was the loss of control that was at the root of his misery. It is possible that he felt some romantic inclination in his life, but if he did, it had no impact on his behaviour. His relationship with Sheila had nothing to do with love and everything to do with power and domination, like most acts of incest. With the other members of his family, Ronald found some degree of calm merely by controlling their actions, but when it came to his favourite child, Sheila, just controlling her every waking moment was insufficient. He had to own every part of her, including her body. She may have benefitted from the arrangement as he framed his obsession as lavishing extra attention on her, but ultimately her happiness was never relevant to him, and he took far more than he gave. If Sheila had not become the target of his need for control, then any of his other children could have become his victim. If Sheila had not responded to his advances in the way that he desired, then it is likely that he would have moved on to one of the younger girls, as that seemed to be the direction that his sexual proclivities leaned.
Over the course of his life, Ronald seems to have treated all women who he met in a similar manner. To his mind, they existed solely as outlets for his desires, and minor details such as their interest in him and the fact that they were members of his family could be ignored if it meant getting what he wanted.