I'm Not Nice

I remember the first time a man threatened me with violence because I hurt his ego. I was thirteen or so. One of my aunts, a sweet soul, had divorced her husband and gradually taken a new one. He was nice at first, charming. Most of the family bought it, at first. Gradually the layers of his smile peeled back until we all saw his rotten core. And, us children, we saw it first.

I was twelve the first time his words summoned a bitter taste to my mouth. We spent a lot of time at my aunt’s house since her four children almost perfectly mirrored the ages of my mother’s own four kids. As he often did, he was going on a tangent about how horribly behaved my aunt’s children were and contrasting them to my mother’s. He lamented like a drooling dog about how good it was that our father spanked us and ensured we respected our adults. He was praising my father’s abuse, and by that age, I knew my father’s actions were cruel.

I said something to him, I do not remember the words now, but a protest. I pointed something out about how my father treated us. I told him he was wrong. Then, as if he could make friends with me, he insulted my father. I turned feral at that. No one was allowed to say bad things about my dad except for his children.

My response hurt his feelings severely. To add to insult, I told him, plainly, that I did not like him. It upset my mother so much that she spanked me with a leather strap from a horse saddle in front of him. No spanking has lingered more than that one and his taunting smile and laugh.

That was the day I learned, I did not have to be nice or respectful to adults I did not like. There might be a spanking, but if that was it, who cared. Empowered with that knowledge, I began my war path. I was smart and quippy, and ensured my company was a displeasure for him. After yelling at my aunt, he would go on rants and raves about women, belittling my gender, saying we could not lead. I would argue right back, articulating myself well. He would resort to quoting scripture, to which I told him, “If that’s what your book says, I don’t believe a word of it.”

He loathed that the tool of control he had used effectively on others had no impact on me. It was especially insulting that I was the most religious of my mother's children and still did not give his words any merit. He tried to shift tactics one day and told me, "Then you go against God."

"Then we know a different God." I almost never missed. He had waved the Bible in my face.

"This book is the word of God!"

"Written by men, and I don't trust men." That was enough to ensure he did not attempt a future scripture lecture.

He also liked to insist all men were just like him after I said something about his nasty behavior. All men in his eyes were drunkards, loud, violent, controlling. It was his opinion of the natural order of things. I told him they were not.

"You'll see one day, you'll get married, you'll see," he would prattle on. In his mind, all women were owed the type of tormenting, ego driven, disgusting behavior he offered. Gleefully, he wished it on even children.

"Then I will stay single forever," was my honest answer.

It hurt his feelings that I would reject his gender’s made up authority and company if it did not yield to my expectations of decency. I did not realize then how incredibly predatory it was that he was striving so hard to shape my expectations of men. I just understood that I hated it and him.

Sometimes my mother spanked me for my retorts, sometimes she did not dare. She needed me to not complain to my dad. Allen was many things, but he did not allow any other adults to bully his children, verbally or physically. And, as a kid, I was very close to my father. What my mother did not realize was that I was held at a standstill. I wanted to see my cousins, so I could not tell my father.

Eventually her spankings and pleadings lost meaning to me and to her. She stopped trying. I would, regardless of the size of the family function, glare at my aunt’s husband any time I saw him. If he was in a room, I would leave it. I refused to hold a conversation with him. I was nasty enough he even asked my sister why I did not like him. She had no answer for him, though she disliked him too.

“Ask Laura.” He never did.

Then, one summer, I was at the lake with my cousins and aunt. By that point her relationship had become rocky with him. They fought more often, and a divorce felt like it loomed in the future. He was not supposed to be there that day or I would not have gone, but he showed up, in his boat. I was out in the water with my cousin, sitting on a float.

“You won’t flip him off,” she said as I glared. I do not know what drove her to say it, but it was all I needed to do it. I tossed the bird to the sky.

Shortly after, my mother was calling me from the water to the shore, where he stood, red from the sun or anger, bare chested. He was a very large man, and I suppose he thought himself intimidating. I know he thought himself attractive because he liked to tell my aunts how handsome he was. I obeyed my mother and joined them on the shore.

“She flipped me off,” he pouted.

“Technically, it was the sky,” I offered. "I did this." I demonstrated. My mother said something scolding, and he went redder. Then she ordered me to apologize. He smiled at that, but I refused.

“I’ll break your finger,” he threatened, venom in his voice. He puffed up his chest and hunkered as if to show he meant it.

I had a cockiness to me as a child, a certainty that I could outplay anyone’s hand except for my father’s. And I leaned right into that arrogance and played my cards.

“Do it,” I told him, cold, impassive. My tone went flat when I was angry, as if I had no emotions. And then I would start dismissively laughing as the other person got more riled. “You break my finger and I will go straight to Allen. And if you think he will be okay with it, you are mistaken.” Allen would press charges. Allen would cause a fuss. Allen would get even. My father had always made that plainly clear to me.

My aunt’s husband about near exploded. His frustration turned to my mother. He said something, who knows what it was now. But my mother threatened to spank me herself for flipping him off and insisted I apologize. That is all he wanted, an apology. Submission. My temper shifted to her.

“If you spank me, I will tell dad he threatened me, and dad will never let us be around him again.” It was true, and I meant it. It would bar me from seeing my cousins and my siblings too. But, I would sink the whole ship to stand my ground. Besides, I knew my aunt would be rid of him soon. All of the kids knew. There was nothing more to be said, so I walked away, the victor.

My outbursts only became worse after that. Eventually, my aunt and that horrid man were in a limbo stage. They were quasi separated. I completely stopped going to her house if he was there. My mother, I assume to save face, tried to convince me to go anyway. She lied to me once about it. When I realized he was going to be there, I started shouting in the car. I felt tricked, trapped. And, I behaved so badly that evening that she never lied to me about it again.

It finally came up enough my father became aware, and by then he knew that my elder sister also disliked the man. He asked me why my sister disliked him so much. My answer must have been too vague because then he asked me if my aunt’s soon to be ex had touched my sister inappropriately.

“No,” I answered. And it was true. I found out later, my dad had already asked my big sister. Allen had become very suspicious of the vile man.

“And you? You would tell me?” My dad asked. I laughed.

“No, no, he hasn’t. I would tell you right away.”

“Pedophiles should all be shot.” He had shared that opinion with me before. I thought of the handgun gun sitting in his dresser drawer.

“Why don’t you like him?” he asked.  Somehow, I articulated the disrespect and stupidity of my soon to be ex uncle without sharing enough to alarm Allen. My father made sure I did not have to go over to my aunt’s house again, if I did not want to.

Years later, looking back, that man was incredibly abusive to my aunt and her kids. I will likely never know the full extent. But, I witnessed some of the abuse first hand, I just did not have the words for it at that time. I always felt Allen was bad but that man was worse. Far worse. And, I still feel that way. There was something about my aunt’s ex that warned of evil.

Now that I have the words for it, he was an abuser, cheater, and showed signs of being a groomer. I fear things could have horribly gone wrong if I had been quiet and polite the way I was expected to be. If I had not seen through to his rotten core and started to call it out. A lot of the adults at larger functions had not quite understood it. I wonder if they did later.

On ways to functions that he was going to be at my mother used to say, “Be nice Laura Kate.” It was her plea for me to hold my tongue and refrain from glaring. I never heeded it. And, I am so glad, I understood at that age that men were not owed my kindness. Sometimes when I am about to stand up for myself, I still hear her voice, soft and helpless saying to be nice. Just like when I was a kid, it has the opposite effect.

I say to myself as if I were talking to her, “You know I’m not nice.”