Breaking Brooklyn (13 page)

“
Dad, Jack told us about this game
that we were playing. It's called Truth or Dare and he dared me to
run around the house with no clothes on.”

I was dumbfounded. How in the world had I let
this happen to me again?

“
Mr. Howard!” I protested. “That
is not how it happened at all!”

“
I don’t want to hear it!” Mr.
Howard fired back. “I gave you a chance to speak and Alex was the
one that came clean. Go ahead, son.”

“
Well, we were playing this game
and the bottle landed on Lisa. Jack dared her to kiss me. So we
did. Then the bottle landed on me and he dared me to run around the
house with no clothes on. I didn’t want to, Dad. The only reason I
did was because Jack said he was going to tell you about Lisa
kissing me.”

With a clenched jaw Mr. Howard looked at
me.

“
What kind of things go through
your head, Jack? Why in the world would you bring this stuff into
my house?”

Alex cut in. “And there’s something else,
Dad.”

“
There’s more?”

“
Yeah, Jack said the F
word.”

My chest deflated, leaving me breathless. I
couldn’t believe what I was hearing. No one was going to listen to
my side of the story. Things were about to get bad for me very
quickly. Mr. Howard stomped out of the room. He was so upset he
couldn’t speak.

Elise was at the dining room table and heard
everything. She started to cry hysterically.

"You are poison! You brought your sickness
into our home and infecting my boys! I want you out of
here!"

She picked up the phone and started
dialing.

“
Never again! Never, ever again!
No more. I can’t do this anymore!” she cried.

Mr. Howard rushed back into the room with my
toothbrush. He was rubbing soap all over the bristles.

“
You want to cuss in my house? You
want to bring cuss words into my home? I’ll show what we do to kids
who cuss in my home!”

I thought my mother was nuts, but these people
were fucking crazy. Mr. Howard handed me the toothbrush.

“
Brush your teeth with it. Brush
out your dirty mouth!”

I looked at the brush then up at Mr. Howard.
“What?”

“
You heard me! Brush out your
mouth, boy!”

Putting the toothbrush in my mouth I started
brushing. It tasted awful! I kept brushing though. I wasn’t going
to give him the satisfaction of breaking me.

When Elise got off the phone, she started to
lecture me.

“
I will pray for you, Jack. I
will. You’re a troubled little boy. I can’t have you in my home
anymore. I can’t do it. Alex, go outside and play. I have to deal
with this situation.”

Alex quickly left the room, not bothering to
look back. Letting out a gigantic swoosh of air, Elise explained
that she had called Child Protective Services to come get me. She
then walked out of the room. I never saw or heard from her ever
again.

Yet I would hear her hurtful words in my head
for the rest of my life.

Cindy

Chapter
twelve

"These are the stories that we tell
ourselves and only ourselves, and they are better left
unshared."
~
Jim Crace

Cindy Napier’s Diary

September 11, 1989

I am so ashamed of myself. When I woke this
morning I was naked, lying in the shower next to a pile of my own
feces. I turned off the water and wrapped myself in a towel then
went looking for my clothes.

Nothing looked familiar. I was scared. I
walked through the unfamiliar, its walls covered with family
portraits. I knew no one in the pictures.

My head was pounding. I was feeling sick to my
stomach. Stumbling into a bedroom I looked through one of its
dressers. I found a pair of girl sized sweat pants and a tee shirt.
I put them on. They were about three sizes too small, but I worked
my way into them anyway.

I searched and found my purse which had my
keys inside. When I reached for the door to leave, it opened by
itself. In walked a short, fat man with a chest hairs showing
through his half unbuttoned shirt.

“
Hey, Cindy! How you feeling? I
got you some coffee,” he said. I literally had to gulp back my own
vomit. I didn’t say a word. He started to laugh.

“
You don’t remember me, do
you?”

“
I don’t remember much. How did we
meet?”

“We met at the bar last night then we came
back to my place to snort a little coke. The next thing I knew you
were all over me,” he explained, winking at me like I was a little
kid.

I then realized the he was the father in all
the portraits. I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of
there. When he noticed me looking at the portraits he told me there
was nothing to worry about. No one would ever know what happened.
How it would be our little secret.

I didn’t see my car when I walked outside. So,
I asked the stranger where it was. I don't even know his name.
Smirking at me ,he answered, “Where the party began. Don’t worry I
will give you a ride back to your car.”

Every mile was more terrible than the one
before. I was disgusted with myself. I literally wanted to kill
myself.

How had I fallen so far, waking up in a
stranger’s house with his wife and children’s pictures plastered
over all the walls?

I’m hoping that journaling about this will
help me cope with what I did. I need to make a change. Maybe, it’s
time to let God into my life. My father has stopped drinking and is
getting it together. Maybe I need to do the same…..

Chapter
thirteen

“Man is born broken. He lives by
mending. The grace of God is glue.”
~ Eugene O'Neill

Jack Napier- Day 24

I have come to the realization that my family
is gone. That I will never see them again. All I want is to not be
awake. But, sleep is like a cat; it only comes to you if you ignore
it.

DREAM:

I’m at the beach house in Florida that
Brooke and I rented back when our kids were young. It was a
beautiful three-story home with a wraparound porch on each level
except the third, which was just a tiny room that led to a deck
overlooking the ocean. The view was gorgeous. The kind that leaves
a permanent image in your memory bank of beautiful
things.

I am on the deck. I can hear the ocean
mixed with the wheezy sound of the summer wind. The sky is
perfectly blue. I have never felt so calm and relaxed in my entire
life. In the distance I see my boys playing on the beach. They
remind me of how innocent we are as children, unbroken and pure.
Then I hear the gentle sound of wind chimes.

Dylan notices me standing on the porch and
yells, "Daddy, come play with us!" He motions with his hand as he
runs, signaling me to come play.

I stand there admiring my children.
Nothing has ever felt so perfect. The only word I could use to
describe the moment is "complete". I think to myself, If there is a
heaven this would be it.

I wake to the indescribable pain of true loss.
If there is a hell, this would be it.

All I want is to stay forever present in my
dream, to never wake to the nightmare that has become of my
life.

Like my dream, I once saw the world through
hopeful eyes, only to have my heart shattered into a million
pieces.

After my stay at the Legacy farm, Child
Protective Services sent me back with my mother and grandfather. I
never thought I would ever say this but what I thought was hell now
felt like heaven.

While I was gone, Grandpa Bob had hit a low
point in his life. His drinking was so out of control it caused him
to lose the business he worked so hard to build. He was at the
bottom, holding onto the very last rung of the ladder that
descended into ruin. So he did the only thing he thought might save
him.

My grandfather went to his first AA
meeting.

When I got back from the Legacy Farm he was
well on his way to sobriety. I sometimes even went to the AA
meetings with him. I would play in the lobby while everyone told
their crazy stories.

It seemed to work. When my grandfather got his
six-month token - the one with the Unity, Service, and Recovery
triangle on it - he took me go to the meeting with him. My
grandfather was so proud of his accomplishment. Once he accepted
his coin, he stood in front of his metal folding chair. Behind him
were five matching rows that made up a total of fifty chairs. There
was not an empty seat in the large recreation room of the small
church where my grandfather was telling his story to a sober group
of men and women.

“
When I was a kid,” he said to the
group, “my brother, who was two years older than me, became very
ill. I was only five at the time, but I remember all of the doctors
and hospital visits."

My grandfather cleared his throat and
continued.

"He eventually died of leukemia and I lost my
best friend."

Looking down Grandpa Bob closed his eyes as if
he was watching a movie on the back of his eyelids.

“
It was very hard on my mother.
Her response to losing Jimmy was to control every move I made. She
never allowed me to do anything that was even remotely dangerous.
Yes, I sort of understood why, but I loved to play sports. I loved
to take risks!" He said pounding his fist on the podium.

“
I wanted to play football in high
school, so I snuck around my mother’s back and went to tryouts. I
made the team! My mother was furious when she found out. She told
me I was selfish, that I didn’t care about how much I hurt
her."

Grandpa stopped to take a breath and wipe the
sweat that was starting to form along the top of his
forehead.

“
When I was picked to be
quarterback there was a showdown. I’m sure the neighbors heard that
one. I threatened to run away if my mother didn’t let me play. So
she conceded out of fear of losing me.

My father worked a lot. If he was home he took
no part in arguments that centered on me. After all, he had lost
his firstborn, the one with all the potential. He had little
interest in anything I did. I always felt like he resented me
simply because I was alive. I was pretty much invisible to
him."

My grandfather again wiped the sweat from his
forehead that quickly returned. His face was gradually turning red
like he was sun burnt.

"This made me want to show him I was someone.
That I was alive, visible. I worked my way up to starting
quarterback for my high school football team, I wanted more than
anything to get my father’s attention. But he thought football was
a waste of time. Still, I always looked in the stands during the
games in hope of seeing him. It never happened."

Grandpa Bob's eyes fulling with sadness and
his voice started to crack. Quickly recovering he
continued.

“
I lead my team to a state
championship, which was the first in Owen Valley High School
history. You would think my father would be impressed but he
wasn’t. This led me to my first shot of whiskey. I loved how it
made me feel despite its taste. I really began drinking heavily
after the war. I wanted to forget everything; my brother’s death,
my father’s utter dismissal of me, and what I saw in the war. I am
here today to pick up the broken pieces. I want to get my life back
together and stay away from the bottle. I am scared as hell because
now, sober, I have to face the demons that have haunted me since my
brother’s death.”

The 12-step program worked for my grandfather.
After sobering up, he was able to get a job as a used car salesman.
Morris, one of his old drinking buddies, was the sales manager at
Bud Wolf Chevrolet and got him the job. It turned out, my
grandfather was a natural.

While he was attending his AA meetings he met
a very charismatic man named Adam. Adam was a local minster who was
a frequent speaker at my grandfather’s meetings. Grandpa Bob was so
impressed with Adam he thought he was exactly what my mother needed
in her life. So, he brought Adam home to meet her. My mother fell
for him instantly.