You say—and you’re the doctor, aren’t you… the psychiatrist—you say talking about this will help. How, I don’t know, since even thinking about it’s so difficult.
But here goes… here goes…
* * *
Lucy. The cat. That’s what I remember. That’s what started it.
Well, she didn’t start it, really. My stepfather was crazy before… mean.
My real dad? He died when I was four. I don’t remember much about him. Quiet guy, always smiling. Why do we remember people who die young as always smiling? From what my mother says, his life was ten pounds of crap in a five-pound box.
Box.
Why does that word bother me so much? It sounds ugly, looks ugly on paper.
Anyway, he died. Cancer of the something or other. Quick, no lingering, no loitering, no passing go, no collecting $200.
He was 24; doesn’t that suck the big one?
Left my mother with me and pretty much nothing else.
My mom could have ditched me, could have moved on with her life. But she didn’t. We were in it together, she told me.
I’m doing this for us.
Goddamn, I love her. I don’t know why she won’t see me anymore, why she feels so much anger, so much grief for those fucking kittens. I mean, Christ. Whatever. I never boxed her around like he did. Never hurt her.
Did I say that again?
Box? Shit…
She was only 21 when my real dad died. She had a job as a waitress at some slop joint: on her feet 12, 16 hours a day for minimum wage, lousy tips and a lot of leers and come-ons. God love her, she hung in there.
For us...
Then she met him. Yeah, my stepfather, who the fuck else?
He was a customer, but kept his smart remarks and his hands to himself—at first, anyway. Left her nice tips, talked to her like she was a real person.
She liked having a man to talk to, one who wasn’t four years old or pawing at her. One who didn’t, you know, expect stuff. One who didn’t cut and run when he learned that she was a 21-year-old widow with a dead man’s kid.
So, she started seeing him, what the hell? She was still young, still pretty. That’s not weird, is it? Saying my mom was pretty? He knew it, my stepfather; even knew she was too pretty… too pretty for him, at least.
He worked at the coke factory, and I don’t mean soda. I mean the ore, the chemical, whatever that shit is. The kind of guy who leaves when it’s dark, wears Dickies, carries a gray lunchbox with a baloney sandwich and a bag of chips, a Thermos of coffee, comes home when it’s dark again. It was a hard job and it usually left him too tired to hit us… usually.
So, yeah, at first it was all ice cream and trips to the toy store and going to grab a burger and playing catch in the yard. Oh, yeah, he was all father. And you know? I was too young, too stupid to even know what he was doing. My own dad had died, and I wanted a father, craved one. I’d have taken anyone at that point, you know? Hitler. Ted Bundy. Anyone.
* * *
Anyway, it started after my sixth birthday.
There was a little party, a few friends from the neighborhood, my parents. That’s pretty much it. No one from his family. I don’t know if he even had any; he never mentioned any.
No friends of mom’s at the party. By then, they’d picked up things about him we hadn’t picked up on yet. And certainly no friends of his. I don’t know about family, but I know the man had no friends; I knew that even at six.
I got a bike, real bike, a Schwinn, not some pansy trike. A real one, with a banana seat and reflectors and a wheelie bar and shit. I think he even picked it out for me.
It was the last purely great day I ever had. I sat outside on a card table on the little patio, sat and blew out my seven candles. One to grow on, remember? Ate cake and ice cream until I felt like I was gonna bust. Then he and my mom watched me ride the bike up and down the street. Hell, the bastard had even bought baseball cards to put in the spokes.
Anyway, the next day was a Saturday, and I woke early, but not to watch cartoons like I usually did. No, I wanted to get some riding done early. I dressed, ate a bowl of cereal. Cap’n Crunch. Have you had that since you’ve been an adult? Tears the fuck out of your mouth. Jesus, I guess we just never cared about that shit as kids. Anyway, I gobbled down a bowl of that, went outside to ride.
I had a blast, you know? Riding the empty streets, making sharp turns, popping wheelies, all the while those damn cards whack-whack-whacking in the spokes like a machine gun.
After an hour or so, I went home. But I wasn’t paying attention. As I steered into the driveway, my front tire caught in a rut or something. The bike stopped cold. I didn’t.
I flew over the handlebars, flew straight into the side of his car parked in the driveway. It was a 1960-something Dodge Challenger, fairly new, midnight blue. Pristine. He spent a lot of time taking care of that car, cleaning it, waxing it, washing the whitewalls, the chrome, vacuuming the inside.
I hit the car hard, headfirst, busted my lip and nose, bled all over the place. My head made a dent, an actual dent in the left rear quarter panel of the car, the midnight metal dimpling slightly near the wheel well. Think I even chipped a tooth. Maybe knocked one out. I can’t remember. There was a christing lot of blood, though.
Sitting on my little ass where I’d landed, I howled until they came out, until he came out. I waited for him to kneel beside me, to wipe away the tears, to comfort me.
Instead, he came out of the house, came out and stopped about halfway to me. He looked at me, looked at the dent, and his face changed. It fell into itself, collapsed. Never saw anyone’s face do that. Taking two steps toward me, he lifted his leg, brought it around and kicked me hard, like he was punting on the 4th down in the Super Bowl.
His foot caught me square in the back, lifted me off the ground. I mean, I was probably all of 50 pounds soaking wet. And threw me into the side of the car… again.
It was so unexpected, so unbelievable, that I had no time to react, no time to say a word before I was slumping down the car, landing with my face against the tire.
“Motherfucker!” Then he kicked me again, and once more, both times his foot digging into my back, into my kidneys. Oh yeah, I wet my pants. Big time. Just let it go.
By the time I heard my mother come out, I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe.
But then, he knelt, took me in his arms.
I was covered in blood and tears and snot, and I was totally out of it, totally confused by what had happened, what he had done.
I actually hugged him, hugged that motherfucker, put my arms around his neck and buried my bloody face into his shoulder and cried.
He held me tight, not letting my mother get to me, in case she’d hear anything I might say. In a suddenly calm voice, he told her to get the car keys so that they could take me to the emergency room.
I got six stitches in my forehead and a metal nose cast from where I hit the car the first time. I got another four stitches in my chin and a cast on two fingers from what he did to me. Plus the doctor told my mother I had bruised my kidneys… deeply. He prescribed some pain medication and advised her not to be too alarmed if I peed blood for a couple of days. I did, and she was.
It was a bike accident, he’d told them; silly kid got a new bike for his birthday yesterday, crashed into the side of the car.
He never said anything about kicking me, and neither did I. Until now, that is.
* * *
So, we got a cat, literally the next day. I think it was his way of making it up to me. Get the kid a pet. I think he thought I’d ask for a dog. I think that’s what he wanted. But I was still unsure of him, unsure of how he’d react if I jumped all the way from no pets at all to a dog. So I figured, a cat, hey, they’re smaller than a dog, so he wouldn’t get that upset, would be less likely to say no.
“A cat?” he asked. “You sure?”
He flipped the cigarette from his lips, ground the butt into the asphalt.
/> “Well, let’s get to the pound and get you a cat.”
* * *
That’s how I got Lucy, the cat that started all this shit.
Yeah, I know what I said. But, you know, it didn’t really get bad until after we got her. After she had the… well… the…
You know… for the life of me, I can’t remember what she looked like. Gray, I think.
I don’t want to talk any more tonight.
* * *
So, back to where I left off… oh, yeah. Lucy.
We took her home, and she was a good cat. No, a great cat.
For a while, at least, I was happy.
Until I began to notice what he was doing to her.
I began noticing how he was with my mom. In fact, looking back on it now, I think he got the fucking cat as much to distract me as to keep my mouth shut.
Was I supposed to be aware of what was going on? Was I supposed to listen to their whispered conversations? Was I supposed to notice the marks on her arms, her legs, the dark circles under her eyes? The way she… Jesus… the way she flinched when he came near… just like me.
I was six fucking years old and my silence could be had for a $25 cat.
* * *
Sure, over the next few years he hurt me. Usually just a quick backhand. Or maybe a vicious kick when she wasn’t looking, or a twist of the arm. Stupid stuff, avoidable stuff if I was paying attention.
Once, though, when I was eight, I came into the house after school, and it was still, quiet. I went into the kitchen to fix myself a peanut butter sandwich before dinner. As I was smoothing the peanut butter onto the white bread, I heard sounds from upstairs; whispered voices, hushed crying.
As I put the bread away, I heard one short, high-pitched screech of pain, almost immediately silenced.
Slowly, cautiously, I crept up the steps, pausing on the landing outside the bathroom door. It was half open, and I could see my own face reflected in the mirror over the sink.
He stood there, my stepfather, his back to me, washing his hands furiously in the sink.
There was blood everywhere, spatters of it on the icy white tile.
Tracking down the sink, dripping from the faucet handles.
Even the soap foaming in his hands looked pink and clotted.
But the toilet… there was something in the toilet… something…
The toilet was near the doorway, lid up.
I couldn’t make out what was inside: a clump, a mass of something, glistening and raw, red with blood that stained the water in the bowl.
It floated there on the surface; a billowing cloud, red and nebulous, spreading from it.
“What the fuck?”
I snapped my eyes from the thing in the water to his face, and it, too, was speckled with blood.
“Don’t you fucking knock?”
Saying this, he stepped toward me, lifted his hand.
I think I willed myself into unconsciousness before it crashed into me, before it sent me reeling backwards, tumbling down the steps.
Before I could feel the pain blossoming like a bright flower within me.
Before I could see him standing over me smiling… smiling.
Dumb as a box of rocks, that’s what he said. What I was… what I am…
* * *
I awoke in bed with a lump the size of a Grade-A large egg on my head. My limbs felt as if they’d been twisted out of shape and held there. My back hurt, my ass hurt, and at least one of my ankles felt sprained.
I counted my injuries, trying to remember what had happened. As I reached seven, I remembered the bloody thing in the toilet, the door pushed open.
It was my mom; the yellow light of the hallway backlighting her so that I couldn’t see her face.
“Are you awake?” Her voice sounded slurred and shaky, as if she were sleepy, or drugged. “Are you okay?”
I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know where he was, what he’d told her. So, I just nodded, nodded to her in the darkness and hoped that she saw it, hoped that she didn’t ask me again.
God, I wanted to… no, not tell her about me… I wanted to ask her what it was that I’d seen. What he’d been doing in the bathroom… the blood… the crying.
But I didn’t. I didn’t.
She told me good night, and drew the door softly closed.
* * *
The cat? You asked about the cat again this afternoon.
I don’t know why you, why everyone in this entire fucking place is so christing concerned with that cat. I loved that damn cat, but fuck! It was just a cat.
When I woke that night, she was there, curled up in bed with me.
I remember the goddamn cat, okay?
Is that really what you’re taking away from this?
* * *
After that, well, it seemed as if I always had a large bruise simmering somewhere on my body—across my arms or sides, along my back, or even across my face. He blacked my eyes a few times, but this was back when hitting your kids wasn’t against the law; it was a God-given right.
No one said anything. Oh, a few teachers looked at me doubtfully. But no one asked me, no one pulled my mom aside or… well, shit… did anything. I was a kid when kids were hit when they mouthed off, hit when they fucked up. Whenever the hitter had a bad day or just wanted to fucking hit a kid.
Life went on, you know. He still worked a lot. I was in school most of the day, so I could avoid him easily—more easily than my mom.
You asked me today about siblings… brothers… sisters…
You know I didn’t have any, so I don’t know the point of the question. To irritate me?
He didn’t want more kids; he told my mom that all the time.
They fought about it; I’ve told you that already. Why do you keep bringing that up? He’d get mad, crazy mad when she asked him.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we gave him a brother, she’d ask. Wouldn’t it be nice to have kids that are part you and part me?
No, he’d answer. I don’t want the part of me that’s already part of me.
I guess she thought he’d treat her differently, nicer if she had his baby. As if she’d be giving him a kind of gift.
As for me, I couldn’t imagine having a brother or a sister that was part of him, even if it were part of my mom, too.
I agreed with him. And I think he knew it.
* * *
So why do you keep asking me about that?
What about the goddamn cat? What is it with the cat again?
You know what happened, what he did to her.
Can you even imagine what he’d have done if… if she’d… if they’d…
I don’t want to think about this anymore.
* * *
My mom got quiet after that. She moped around a lot. She didn’t feel well, tired all the time, couldn’t eat.
I got afraid, you know, like kids do when their parents are sick.
Except I wasn’t just scared of what would happen to her.
I was afraid of her leaving me, leaving me with him.
But she told me she was okay.
I’m doing this for us.
She got so sick that, for a while, anyway, she spent most of her time in bed.
He didn’t seem to care, stupid prick. He’d come home from work, eat the dinner she’d made for him (for us) and they’d argue some in the bedroom with the doors closed.
No, I couldn’t make out what they were saying; it was mostly his voice, strident, angry, and hers, quiet, subdued… pleading.
And I did nothing… nothing.
God, I hate to admit that.
I was eight then, and I had learned my lesson before, when I’d followed those voices up the stairs and into the white, white bathroom, spattered red.
When I’d seen the mysterious thing clouding the water in the toilet bowl.
Dumb as a box of rocks, he’d told me. And I was. I was.
* * *
Yeah, at some point the damn cat got pregnant. She
was outside half the time because the stupid prick tossed her out at night when she was in heat.
So Lucy had kittens one night, under my bed. I heard it all night, the panting, the wet, squelching sounds, the licking, the tiny mews.
He and mom were arguing or something, as usual. Lots of loud noises that night, lots of stomping up and down the steps, lots of screaming and… well… other sounds. It covered the sounds of the cat under my bed, and I was glad. Because I knew how he’d be if he heard. I’d get it and Lucy would, too. And so would they.
The kittens, for chrissakes. The kittens.
Anyway, I fell asleep at some point during the night, just passed from being awake to being asleep with no memory of actually falling asleep.
Early the next morning, he came in and kicked my bed, waking me.
“Get up… now.”
It was still dark, and I was groggy, but he threw clothes at me. “Get dressed and meet me downstairs. And don’t make me come up again.”
He turned, giving the bed a last kick before going down the steps.
It was christing cold in my room, I remember that. He always kept the furnace set low, but that morning it seemed even colder than usual.
As I shrugged into my shirt, I remembered Lucy.
Falling to my knees, I lifted the edge of the bedspread and looked underneath the bed.
I saw the outlines of a shoe, tangles of clothing, some toys, but no Lucy, no kittens.
I clicked my tongue softly to call her, but I heard nothing.
“Get the fuck down here… now!” He was not quite yelling, but not quite whispering, either.
Little Deaths Page 26