He Can Never Read This

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. His room was dark and frightening. In order for her to get a peak of sunlight, she had to peel back the heavy black garbage bag he had taped over the window. We'll get to that later.

“I’m sorry. He wasn’t like this when I met him.” The look on my mother’s face was enough to make me want to kill him. I didn’t care if he didn’t used to be like this, because for as long as I had known him, he had been like this.

“I know. It’s not your fault”. I brushed her hair away from her tear-drenched, mascara-smeared faced and held her in my arms as if she were my child. I held her so tightly that at one point I thought I would never be able to let go. I was scrunched up next to my mother and my sister on her twin sized mattress, which was clearly too small for the three of us. My mother’s legs barely fit on the bed, and my sister and I were on both sides of my mother, practically smothering her, making it even more uncomfortable.

The bed frame was made of metal, but coated in paint the color of rice pudding. The railing rose up from the base of the bed, twisting and entwining into the shape of a heart. On each corner of the bed, sat shoddy brass balls which had begun to lose their luster. My mother was in the middle, and I was next to her, one leg hanging off the side of the bed, the other interlocked with hers. I kept my sight focused on the doorknob, which did us no good since it didn’t even lock. All I could think of was what I would do if that doorknob began to turn. I stared at it for so long that my mind began to play vicious tricks on me, torturing me, making me believe I saw it slowly turning. My eyes quickly scanned the room for something heavy, something sharp; something I could jump up and grab if that hell of a night got any worse.

Hours passed, but the doorknob never turned. Perhaps he passed out on his way to the refrigerator where he stuffed his face at least ten times a night. He never ate dinner with any of us to ensure that he drank on an empty stomach, so it was in the middle of the night when he would eat. My sister fell asleep, and although my mother’s eyes were shut, her breathing heavy, I knew she was awake. I rearranged myself and attempted the impossible – finding a comfortable position so that I could rest my eyes. My movement startled her, and she clenched my forearm with her bony hand. “It’s okay, ma. Go back to sleep”. I ran my fingers through her hair and tried to pull her head close to my chest. She resisted, sat up, tugged on her nightgown, and then climbed out of the bed. There was something so charming about her in that nightgown. She was beautiful in those pastel colored, ankle length, cotton nightgowns. That night she was wearing one that was baby pink and sleeveless with dark pink flowers all over it. I think I remember her telling me she bought that nightgown when I was two years old, and there she was, still wearing it beautifully many years later. It was soft and it smelled of her when she wasn’t wearing it. I would sometimes make my way into her bedroom when she wasn’t home just to hold her nightgown close to my face, rubbing my cheek against it and breathing her in. She was my sanctuary, my joy; the one place I could go when everything in my life seemed a mess.

I always had trouble understanding why my mother married my father in the first place. She must have seen something good in him to make him the father of her children and stay with him for over thirty years. She always tried to convince me and my sister that he was a better man before we knew him, but what did we care? We would beg her every day to leave him. But she never did. I was angry that she put us in this position and was doing nothing about it. I was angry that she wouldn’t leave him. I was angry that I was just a kid and what I said made little or no difference. But she was my mother and my best friend and I could never stay mad at her for long. Besides, she really did always try to put others before herself. I always felt as if she was my angel. She was always there to watch over me and make sure I was safe. I know many people would think she was a fool to stay with my father, but I guess nobody can truly know how it felt to be in that position. Even now, there are times I wonder why she never left him. I try not to speak to her about it and make her feel guilty. She shouldn’t feel guilty. She was the best mother a child could ask for; especially a child with a drunk for a father. Perhaps she chose to stay with him so she wasn’t the one to ‘break up’ our family. However, in my eyes, our family was already shattered in a million pieces.

Although he tried to overpower and scare her, she somehow always stood up against him, sometimes fighting hard into what seemed like the early morning, and yet always gotten up for her 5AM shower to make sure she would get to work on time. I don’t know how she did it. She was so strong, so brave.

“Where are you going?” I asked in a panic. Was she really going out there? Just because we didn’t hear him didn’t make it safe. “Yeah, I’m gonna try to sleep in my bed.” She kissed me on my forehead and opened the bedroom door, walking out into the hallway as if nothing had happened. The next sound I heard was almost too much to bear. I listened to my mother struggle to get her bedroom door open. I jumped up, not caring how loud the squeaks of the mattress were, and ran out of the room. There, at the end of the hallway, stood my mother; trying to force her bedroom door open, and failing miserably. I didn’t have to ask her what the problem was. I knew what he had done and I hated him for it. It wasn’t the first time he used his strength against her. It had only taken him a few seconds to push my mother’s dresser in front of the door, but much longer that that for her to squeeze between the six inches of space she had made for herself between the door and the back of the dresser.

“What the fuck do you want? I told you…you better stay the fuck away from me”. He was still drunk. I could always tell. He looked, acted, and sounded like a completely different person. “Don’t you threaten me. Shut up and go back to sleep”. Wasn’t she scared to be in there, to lay two feet away from him? Not to mention the room it self was so ominous and uninviting. It was like a cave. He had used duct tape to cover the windows with large, black trash bags so that no light could seep through. It was freezing in there; the air conditioner was always cranked up to high.

There was never a summer day that went by when I didn’t pray for my mother to stay home from work. She was a secretary then, working nine to five. He worked for public schools, so he didn’t work summers. When I was about eight or nine, we were still living in Brooklyn, in a rich little neighborhood by the water that many people don’t even know exists. We were the furthest from being rich.i didn't realize it until I got older just how little we had. Anyway, by that age I was old enough to play outside without an adult, even if it meant not letting a single toe of mine go past the house three doors down with the lamp post on their front lawn. God help me if I did, since he was always watching. You could hear him from two blocks away. He would scream my name in such a way that every kid playing outside would freeze with a dreaded anticipation and stare at me, waiting for me to make my next move. I would drop whatever jump rope or rubber ball I had in my hand and run back to my house as if my next door neighbor’s maniac dog had escaped from their backyard, and was after a rib eye steak in my back pocket. I would swing open the screen door, race up the stairs skipping steps, and take a deep breath before pushing open the heavy brown wooden door, which always managed to give me at least one splinter per week.

He spent his days sitting on the couch watching movies and horse racing all day in his white Fruit of the Looms. His fat, fleshy stomach hung over his waist, looking almost like one of those massive tumors you see those unfortunate people suffering from on television. His skin was a washed out, pale color that didn’t look warm, as most bodies with blood flowing through their veins would, but cold, as if it were being preserved with embalming fluid. If someone looked at him from the neck up, with his barely-there eyebrows, blue eyes, tanned face, and fake smile he often flashed at the neighbors, he didn’t look half bad. But once he stepped through our door, he revealed his true identity. I always knew if he called me upstairs from playing outside, something bad was about to happen. Why else would he want me up there? It had to be because I did something wrong..and then I got punished. Once he locked me in my room all day, with no food and warned me not to come out for any reason. I have never told anyone this, but I was so scared to come out that I urinated in a pink plastic bucket I had in my room, since he made it clear to me that I could not come out.

Our summer vacations were never much to look forward to. Even our trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida when I was 10 years old was ruined because of him. The night before we left, I was laying in my bed thinking of all the new clothes my mother had bought us for our vacation, and how much fun it was going to be to swim in the big pool at our hotel. Although I was excited about those things, there was something keeping me from being truly thrilled and eager to board the plane to Florida; the fear that my father would get piss drunk and completely ruin the entire trip. No matter where we went, whether it was out to dinner, or to one of my sister's dance recitals, he always managed to suck the enjoyment out of everything.

We stayed at two hotels when we went to Florida. One week we stayed at the New Orleans Resort, and another week at the Coronado Springs Resort. Though these hotels were beautiful and enchanting, especially for a little girl, I still dreaded each night. He only drank at night. During the day he wasn’t as bad. He was more like our big brother than our father. He would buy us ice cream and take us on rides, but once the sun began to set, we all knew what we were in for. It was kind of like those scary movies about a ware-wolf. He lived a normal life during the day, with people in his life who he loved, but once the moon was on the rise, he turned into a horrifying monster that attacked anything in his path.

Every night we would go back to the hotel around six, and while my mother was in the shower, he’d walk to the hotel’s shop to buy beer. He’d come back with a white, plastic Disney World bag with Mickey and Goofy on the front. I remember because once I actually believed he went to the gift shop to surprise me and my sister with presents, but when he pulled out what surely wasn’t a gift for either of us, I felt foolish. He drank every night before we went out to dinner. His beer cans were twice the size of an average can, and their alcohol content was almost twice as much as regular beer. He didn’t drink beer like a normal person would either. He poured an entire can into a big glass Pyrex measuring cup, and chugged it all in one great gulp. His upper lip always had residue from the foam left on it and his eyes were bloodshot. He couldn’t have enjoyed drinking it, in fact, he’s even admitted to saying it tasted bad and that he only did it to get it over with. He acted as if he were being forced to drink it, like a child swallowing medicine.

We went back to Disney World every couple of years, and each time it was the same. That sense of excitement mixed with dread. When I had gotten a bit older, around 12 or 13, we went to Downtown Disney, an outdoor shopping, dining, and entertainment complex. We had reservations to eat at Planet Hollywood. My sister and I were so excited to go, since neither of us had ever been to one before. When we walked in, we were surrounded by all of our favorite movies’ memorabilia. I ran from display to display, snapping pictures of the clothes Patrick Swayze wore in “Ghost,” to the leather jacket worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Terminator”. My mother’s eyes were wide with excitement, since she had never been to a Planet Hollywood either. My father, however, was not as amused as the three of us were. His pupils had shrunk to the size of pin heads and his face was so flushed, it looked like he was wearing rouge. The rest of us put on another one of our award worthy performances, smiling and following the hostess to our table as if we were a happy family out to enjoy a meal together. It only took until our waitress poured our ice water for my father to blow up like a volcano. “It’s too fucking loud in here!” he yelled. I shrank in my chair.

“Calm down” my mother whispered. Sitting low in my chair, I heard the music getting louder and the crowds of people in the restaurant screaming across the table to one another, rather than talking. My heart began to race to the speed of the blaring music. Why can’t they just turn it down? I thought. And before I could pick up my menu, he was out of his seat screaming at us to get up and follow him. I remember at that moment I wished I was like Sabrina the teenage witch and could disappear into thin air, escaping the stares from all of the people as we made our way out.

We walked down the street, passed the shops and restaurants with happy families in them. I remember feeling truly sorry for myself, watching them through the windows and wishing I was as happy as them. All of a sudden I realized I was walking alone. I looked back and saw my father on the ground. He seemed lost and vulnerable. He was looking up at the three of us, slurring his words. He was trying to say something about his shoes. “What? Your feet hurt?” my mother asked. She was always trying to help.

“Fuckin’…my shoe…the back…fuckin’ hurts” he mumbled. “Well, get up off the ground and we’ll fix whatever’s hurting you” she continued. But nobody could get through to him. There he was, sprawled out on the ground outside of the Virgin Mega-Store, sloppy as a soup sandwich, not knowing where he was or why he was there.

One specific night still remains fresh in my mind. It was another summer night the same year we went to Disney World, and like usual, he was drunk and went to bed early. My mother, sister, and I were sitting at the dining room table eating French fries and dipping them in cream corn and Cheese Wiz. I was happy. All three of us were. It was just us, eating and talking, and I wished it could have stayed that way. “I love when he’s not out here.” I spoke to soon. It seemed before I could even finish that sentence, his bedroom door creaked open (a sound I had come to fear) and he came storming through the hallway into the dining room. It all happened so quickly, I don’t even remember what could have set him off. My mother was sitting in her chair at the head of the table, and my sister and I were sitting in the two chairs that were placed between the table and the long wall that led to the living room. In one clean sweep, he tossed the table on top of us, held onto the table leg closest to my mother’s seat, and quickly broke it off. Kristin and I pushed the table off of us as best we could, ran around the side of the table, and into the living room to take cover. My mother appeared as if from nowhere, holding us close and assuring us that it would be okay. She didn’t even try to calm him down or stop him, like she usually would; she just stood there with us, trying to keep us safe, and waiting it out, as if he were a tornado that had just come ripping through the town. “What else wants to be broken?” he roared, and then smashed the dining room light with his fist, tearing it out of the ceiling, leaving only a dangling silver chain that once held a yellow straw-like lamp shade. I was shaking so much my teeth were chattering, as if I had stayed out in the cold for too long. He broke a few plates, screamed some more, and eventually made his way back into his "cave".

I went to school every day feeling sad and exhausted from the night before. The only thing I had to look forward to was if I had a play date planned at one of my ‘normal’ friends’ houses. I had come to accept the fact that I could never have friends over, even to work on a school project. Once, a kid on my block walked into my house without asking and saw three enormous garbage bags filled with empty beer cans stacked up against the porch door. He asked me why they were there and I made up a lie that my family had a big party the night before. After that, I was more careful not to let anyone come over.

As time went by, my father would go on his ‘no drinking’ sprees, occasionally taking a break from his alcoholism for a couple of weeks, maybe even a month, trying to fool us all into thinking he was finally going to stop. We never bought into it though. Before we knew it, he was back at it, cursing us out, throwing remote controls, and breaking down doors. In those moments, I felt like I was five years old, even though I was going into my junior year of high school. Talking on the phone with my best friend while making my way around the house, searching high and low for hidden liquor bottles seemed to be a daily routine. They were under the sink, hidden in vases, under his bed. It seemed that everywhere I turned, I found a miniature vodka, run, or whiskey bottle. I have never understood why he attempted to hide them. We all knew he was drinking. It was obvious. If his bloodshot eyes and pink cheeks didn’t give it away, his almost automatic change in speech did. I’d collect my findings and line them up in size order on the counter for everyone to see when they got home. My sister never liked when I did this, but I didn’t care. If he was going to try to sneak around behind all of our backs, I wanted to show him we knew. I wanted so badly for him to take a swig too big even for his fat mouth and choke to death on it. He made me wish horrible things. Things I would normally never wish on anyone.

As I grew older, I learned to deal with his drinking in a different way. Whenever he was full of rage and looking for a fight, I stopped crying my eyes out and letting him suck me in. I would turn my head the other way and keep my mouth shut, even though it seemed near impossible to at times. Recently, my boyfriend told me that when he was in the kitchen, he witnessed my father sneak my mother’s bottle of champagne out of the fridge and chug it. My father then noticed my boyfriend saw him, so he said “Hey, you do what you gotta do and I do what I gotta do.” I guess that was his way of saying, “Hey man, please don’t tell anyone what you just saw.” I was livid. I couldn’t say anything either because then he would come down hard on my boyfriend and we would all be in a war that I was eager to avoid. The anger I felt was so strong that night, I wanted to go out in the kitchen and break that stupid champagne bottle over his head. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t hurt him, or scream at him, or even tell him how I felt, because none of those options took the drink out of his hand. He was set in his ways and was going to do what he wanted when he wanted.

I am now a grown woman. I moved out of my parent’s house last March, and I now live in the East Village in Manhattan with my boyfriend. I am happy. I look back on my childhood and wish I could go back in time and tell that little girl that everything was going to be okay in the end, that she was so young and had her whole life ahead of her. I’d tell her that he was never going to change, no matter how many tears she cried; that it wasn’t her fault. I know all of this now. I believe I’m a stronger person because of everything I’ve been through. Getting through all of those frightening nights made me who I am today.

A part of me wishes my father would read this, and for the first time, understand what it was like to be a little girl growing up with a violent alcoholic for a father. But he can never read this. It would destroy him, and no matter how much pain he has caused me, I would not want to be the one to do the same to him.

I always felt as a child that I was trapped in the darkness, on the inside looking out. I never knew when or if his bedroom windows would not be covered. I yearned to breathe the fresh air, to hear my neighbors talking - anything that represented normalcy. However, as a grown woman with wisdom I did not have as a little girl, I now know his windows were simply that. They were windows. He chose to make them scary. He chose to shut himself out. He chose to cut himself off from reality.

I don’t hate my father, but there will always be a part of my heart that aches because of him.

I also love leaving my windows open now. I see everything, and it is all so beautiful.