Burn Down the Ground (12 page)

The summer I turned eleven started out the same as the previous three. Like most brothers and sisters, David and I bickered
over the basics. Protective over our things, we labeled them with warnings of “DO NOT TOUCH!!!” If Dad brought home a rare treat like Ding Dongs, we divided them evenly. After counting them out, I unwrapped and licked every square inch of cake as a safeguard, then rewrapped them and carved my name in the tin foil.

But somewhere along the way, David seemed to despise the very sight of me. I had no idea of what had changed between us. I was his enemy and I couldn’t figure out why. The easiest explanation was that he was nearly four years older and was outgrowing me. He had woods to explore, animals to slay, girls to conquer. I had always been excited whenever my brother stayed home to keep me company but now dread replaced enthusiasm when he started bullying and knocking me around.

The scene always played out the same way. David woke up in relative peace, the grogginess of sleep coating his fury like frost on a windshield. He’d fix himself a bowl of Lucky Charms, onto which he scooped heaping helpings of sugar from a canister. He’d sit in the living room hunched over his cereal, crunching and slurping away, and we’d watch
The Price Is Right
, shouting out our bids to the host, Bob Barker, and the contestants vying for the prize, a shiny new kitchen appliance, a bedroom set complete with wall-to-wall carpeting, or a brand-new car. “Higher! Higher! Higher! Lower! Lower! Higher! Higher!
Idiot!
I said
higher
!”

By the time the closing credits rolled, David’s rage would begin to emerge. Just as Mr. Barker was reminding us to spay and neuter our pets, my brother bared his tiny teeth like fangs and said, “You’d better run for your life.”

I’d leap off the couch and run in a different direction each time in a weak attempt to outsmart him. If I made it to Mom and
Dad’s room, I had more time because they had installed a heavy-duty metal doorknob that used a real key. A spare was hidden in the living room, in an antique metal pitcher on the top shelf of the bookcase. While David was fishing for it, I could barricade myself in their bathroom, where I would stare at the door waiting for its inevitable betrayal.

David’s voice got closer. “I’m comin’ to get you, Kambri.”

My heart pounded and my ears throbbed. The bathroom door handle was a cheap plastic knob that pushed in to activate the lock. Any slim device, like a bobby pin, could be used to pick it. Though I tried pressing against it with both hands, David always prevailed.

“You think you can outsmart me?” Spit foamed in the corners of his mouth and sprayed as he hissed.

He danced on his tiptoes like Sugar Ray Leonard, and jabbed me with slaps and punches. My arms flailed about in a pathetic attempt to fight him off. The more upset I became, the harder he laughed.

“Leave me alone,” I whined.

“You should see your face! ‘Leave me alone,’ ” he mocked, imitating my pained expression. “You’re so ugly.”

He’d grab the back of my neck or a fistful of my long blond hair and drag me to the floor. The carpet burned my elbows and tailbone as I writhed around and kicked David’s back with the heels of my feet. He pinned my arms down with his knees and snorted and hocked snot until he amassed enough to dangle a long, gooey string. He let it slowly drip down till it nearly touched my face, then slurped it back up.

Not wanting his mucus to land in my mouth, I screamed through closed lips. Unsatisfied with my reaction, he began tapping his index and middle fingers on my forehead. Exhausted, I
pinched my eyes closed and tried turning the torture into the beat of a song.

Thump, thump, thump, thump …

Without warning I lunged to bite his finger. He yanked his hand back in the nick of time as I bit so hard my teeth cracked against each other. A close call, David began striking my sternum instead. Harder and harder he pounded.

After his arm grew tired or he became bored, he jumped off me with one final slap to the face. “You’re such a whiner. Are you gonna run and tell your mommy?”

He knew I wouldn’t. David was a master manipulator. He could convince me to partake in activities that he then lorded over me as blackmail.

“I’ll tell Mom how you skipped school,” he threatened. “You don’t want Mom to find out you beat up Chris King, do you?”

There was an unspoken rule on Bus #9, that in exchange for David’s protection, I had to obey him. Beating up Chris for committing any infraction my brother deemed unacceptable during the bus ride to and from school was a frequent command. Chris’s offenses could be as flagrant as stealing money from Haley’s five-year-old brother or as insignificant as looking over his shoulder at the other kids.

“Get him, Kambri!” David shouted as soon as the bus disappeared around the corner.

Besides the threat of a thumping from David, I also wanted to please him and be part of his growing group of friends. My brother insisted he’d do the job himself if I hesitated.

“You’ll be next!” he warned, shoving me toward Chris, who was being held down by another of David’s minions.

I pounced on Chris, who twisted up into a ball as I pounded away at his back.

Chris cried and howled until his mother appeared on their front porch, sending us scattering as she yelled, “Christopher King, don’t let that girl beat up on you! Kick her ass!”

Sometimes Chris deserved it, but I still felt bad for hurting him. He was my friend. I would pretend to hit him with my full force to convince my brother that I was doing as he commanded.

I knew Mom would never tolerate me being a bully. She always fiercely defended the underdog, perhaps because she was sensitive to any discrimination against the Deaf. But David’s tormenting had become so unbearable that I began calling my mother at her job begging for help. At home, our phones had amplifiers so she was able to hear when the volume was cranked up and her hearing aids were turned to ten. Because her work phones didn’t have loudspeakers, I had to scream louder than usual.

“David is beating me up,” I panted into the receiver.

“Kambri, don’t be a tattletale.”

“But he’s hitting me!”

“Remember the boy who cried wolf?”

Although I didn’t want to be a snitch, I wasn’t lying.

“Kambri, you can’t keep calling me. I have work to do. You don’t want me to lose my job, do you?”

Mom was careful to budget her and Dad’s paychecks, but it was always a struggle to make ends meet. If my bugging her at work got her fired, the consequences would have devastated us. I couldn’t bear that burden, so I hung up and promised not to call again.

My mother chalked up our continued fighting to sibling rivalry, but my instincts—and bruises—told me otherwise. When
I pointed out an injury to my mother as proof that I wasn’t a liar, my brother was able to convince her that I was exaggerating.

My brother loved the wilderness and was always off on treks through the woods, armed with his hatchet, knives, and a canteen. When he was feeling particularly charitable, I would be invited to join him and his neighborhood friends, Allen and the King brothers.

We’d throw on our rattiest T-shirts, cutoff jeans, and spare tennis shoes and head through the woods for the creek, where we dove into the rushing water and swam alongside turtles and water moccasins, trying not to get too close to the snakes. We’d tie a rope to a tree branch and take turns swinging off the edge of the cliff, doing our best Tarzan yells. We had to swim with our shoes on or else the mussels on the creek bed would slice our feet. On those days, David was the best brother a girl could have. I loved and worshipped him almost as much as I did Dad.

But this summer, I woke up every day with a sense of dread. I never knew what I was going to encounter when I took my place next to my brother on the couch each day to watch television. Would it be the cruel, domineering David or the endearing one, who gathered and cleaned dozens of mollusk shells for me during our hikes to Lake Creek because he knew how I liked their shine?

The lack of punishment emboldened David. If my parents did impose a penalty, grounding him or banishing him to his room, they were rarely there to enforce it. When Mom and Dad were home his taunting became no less ruthless.

One day I had reached my acceptable limit, which was averaging
about thirty minutes of escalating torment. “Mama! Help!” I shrieked loud enough that my vocal cords burned. Knowing Mom had probably taken out her hearing aids, and Dad couldn’t hear my screams, I banged my heels on the carpet to make the floor vibrate.

“Stop shaking the trailer,” Mom yelled without investigating. “Your daddy’s trying to watch TV!”

“MUDDAH FUH!” my father would yell if David or I came anywhere near the television when a boxing match or a football game was playing. David and I avoided the TV area when he was engrossed; we were terrified of hearing his screeching curses.

I broke free from my brother and ran to the living room. Mom threatened, “If you two bother me one more time, I’m going to get your daddy to whip you.”

My father was known to dramatically unhinge his brass belt buckle as a gesture of an impending lashing, but there was never any follow-through. Convinced the threat alone would be enough to stop my brother, I returned to my room. David was undeterred, however, and attacked me again.

“MAMA!”

My father’s unmistakable footsteps came toward us. David and I were still tangled together when he burst into my room, his belt already unbuckled.

“STAH!” he screamed as he gave the sign for “Stop!” making a chopping motion with his right hand into his open left palm. The sound of his hands coming together made a loud smack. “Why don’t you listen to your mother?”

He swished his leather belt through the loops in one quick jerk. He then sat on the edge of my bed, bent David over his knees, and began whipping him.

This was the first time I’d seen my father use a belt, and I was next! I panicked. A scene from an episode of
The Little Rascals
flashed through my mind where Spanky shoved a plate in his britches while his brother got a beating. My eyes surveyed my room for something—anything—to stick in my pants. The only item I found was my pocket-sized, hardcover Bible. If ever I needed God, it was now. I pushed the Bible into my underwear. My pants bulged, revealing a clear outline of where the Good Book was lodged.

Dad released David, who ran out of the room choking back tears. He had often been paddled by the principal at school for misbehaving, but I had never been paddled or whipped, besides the one time Dad gave me a single swift smack on my bottom.

I swallowed a big gulp of air as my father beckoned me over. “You better listen to your mama.” I bent over his lap and he came down with two quick strikes of his belt. I was relieved at how well the Bible took the blows, but then Dad stopped at two. I had counted David’s spankings and knew at least eight more licks were coming my way. I held my breath.
Oh no! He can see my Bible
.

Dad abandoned his belt and came down with his bare hand. If by a slim chance he hadn’t seen the book, I knew he would feel it. When he stopped again and shooed me off his lap, I expected him to tell me I was in more trouble. Instead he stood up, retrieved his belt, and signed, “Be quiet. Your mama’s tired.”

As my father left my room, I saw him force back a smile.

Many Friday and Saturday nights, my parents went dancing at Gilley’s, a honky-tonk bar that was featured in the movie
Urban
Cowboy
. The bar was in Pasadena, a ninety-minute drive from Boars Head. My parents usually stayed there until 2
A.M
., closing time, leaving me home alone with David.

My mom loved to dance and my father had better moves than John Travolta. He was better-looking, too, if you asked me. He grooved to the beat of the vibration and wasn’t distracted by all the lyrics. The thrill of a night on the town seemed to reignite the spark in their marriage. They came home sweaty and laughing and were still dancing around the trailer all through the next day.

Evenings that they were going out started the same, with my mother trying to pour herself into skintight jeans.

“Kambri, come here,” she’d holler.

I’d go to her bedroom and find her on the king-sized bed, breathless and flat on her back. Her blue jeans were open and she’d be pulling on a wire hanger she had threaded through the hole of the zipper.

“Help me,” she’d grunt. “I can’t zip up my jeans!”

She’d press down on her belly as I yanked on the zipper with both hands, the way you might zip closed an overstuffed suitcase.

“Finally! Now, help me up.” I’d pull her arms, as she’d rock back and forth a few times to gain momentum to get off the bed. “I used to be so skinny, till I had you.” She’d jiggle the roll of flab that spilled over the top of her jeans and add, “After I had David, I was back to wearing my same old jeans. Now I’m fat and it’s all your fault.”

Clearly, the heaping bowls of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream and plates of fried potatoes she was so fond of had nothing to do with it, nor did the bags of M&M’s she kept hidden in her middle dresser drawer.

She wasn’t fat, if you asked my father. He seemed to like her just the way she was, judging by the look on his face. I got that same expression when I was eyeing the dessert section at Luby’s Cafeteria.

Dad was wearing Wranglers equally as tight as Mom’s, with a shiny brass belt buckle in the shape of a Texas longhorn. He smelled like a mix of Lava soap, Jovan Musk, and freshly applied hairspray. Dad groped her butt and kissed her all over her neck and cheeks.

Mom batted Dad’s hand away and signed, “I’m ready.” She tiptoed around in a circle to show him the 360-degree view of what he couldn’t have just yet. Dad pinched her butt and Mom squealed. As she grabbed her purse and keys, Mom called over her shoulder, “Don’t stay up too late.”

I nodded even though I planned to stay awake through the end of
Saturday Night Live
. No matter how hard I tried, I always fell asleep during the musical act.

The headlights of the Chevy flickered out of sight. As I watched
Diff’rent Strokes
, I heard David menacingly call after me, like we were in a country-and-western version of
The Warriors:
“Kaaammmbriiii, come out and playyy-aayyy!”