The Boots My Mother Gave Me (5 page)

What was he doing?
My tears starting to fall, I watched frightened, heartbroken, and angry. I banged harder, screaming through the window, “Leave her alone!”

The whole scene seemed surreal. Everything happened in slow motion, and I wanted to wake up and find it only a dream. It was no dream.

He dragged Mom to the door by her hair and shoved her out onto the porch. He pushed and kicked at her the entire way across the snow-covered sidewalk. Kat and I followed, trudging through the heavy white powder nearly up to our knees, trying to get him off of her. We pushed and pulled at him but nothing seemed to work. Dad shoved Mom down into a cloud of exhaust behind the idling truck, as if he could order Paul to back over her.
What a stupid bastard!
We tried to help her, but he just kept pushing and shoving her down.

I stepped inside the milk house and grabbed a shovel, nearly as big as I was at the time. Infuriated, I came out swinging that thing and hit him square in the back. He turned around and I pushed the length of the handle against his waist, trying with all my might to back him up, away from Mom.

“Harley, put that shovel down and get in the truck,” Mom said, getting up off the ground and picking up Kat. She held her to her chest, as Kat sobbed so hard she lost her breath in between cries. My father turned and looked at me in disbelief that I would hit him with the shovel, that I would stick up for Mom. Instantly I felt bad, guilty.

“Just leave her alone, Dad, please.” Tears streamed down my face.

He looked at me and started backing away toward the house. “Poor Mom. What about me? Nobody cares about John. Go ahead. Take her side. I’m done with all of ya! Ain’t none of ya worth a shit.”

I couldn’t have known, at the time, but he would repeat those same nasty little remarks, desperately lacking in originality, over much of my adolescence. When he got drunk and mean, he was a broken record. He said the same rotten, repulsive things over and over again. I thought he would have bored himself with the repetition.

By some miracle he left us alone, went back inside the house, and fell into bed. This behavior never ceased to puzzle me. How could he cause such turmoil in the lives of others and rest easily without a thought afterwards?

Mom had bruises up and down her arms and one at the corner of her eye. Clumps of her hair fell out after being jerked around by my father’s hands.

Kat and I shivered, nearly sick to our stomachs from fear and crying so hard. Paul, in shock and disbelief, left our house never to return. And at the end of it all, my father slept as if nothing happened. No consequences, no remorse, just rest.

Mom and I lay quietly, Kat asleep between us on the bed, our bodies too wound from stress to consider sleep. We lay holding hands looking up at the ceiling. My cluttered, busy mind worked overtime as I silently questioned myself.
What in the world just happened? Please tell me I’m in a dream. It’s not real...is it? What did we do to deserve this? Are we so bad? Do other people live this way? Is this normal?

By the weekend after Thanksgiving, I had lived in my apartment over Benny’s for a little over a month. A light dust of snow covered the ground and the treetops that Friday afternoon, resembling little diamonds strewn about. The landscape sparkled. It was quite magical, really. Late into the evening Jeremiah, Kat, and I returned from the town’s Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Charlene the Chevelle. Otis Redding’s
White Christmas
played on the radio.

“Hey Harley, what do you think about Joey Harper?” Kat asked over the music, from the back seat.

“I don’t think about Joey and you shouldn’t, either. He’s four years older than you. Besides I hear he’s into some things he shouldn’t be. Just stay away from him, okay?”

“Someday I’ll be eighteen and he’ll be twenty-two. That’s not bad.”

“Right now you’re fourteen and he’s eighteen. That’s a big difference.” I turned the music down.

“Trust me, Kit-Kat, he’s too
experienced
for you. I’ve heard him talking in the locker room,” Jeremiah said.

“It’s not like I want to have sex with him. Right now, anyway.”

“Maybe you don’t want to, but he’s...um,” Jeremiah searched his vocabulary to avoid words he might use when not in our company, “fully charged.”

“How about you don’t have sex with him ever? That guy has dated the entire cheerleading squad, and I hear he’s dating a college girl now.”

“A college girl?” Jeremiah asked, envious.

“You’re eighteen, Jeremiah. Are you fully charged, too?”

I looked at her through the rearview mirror. “Katrina LeBeau, don’t ask him that. Ya know, I don’t like that crowd you’re hanging out with these days. Those girls are way too big for their britches. You guys should be talking about clothes and hair and makeup. How about you actually talk about school, what you want to do with the rest of your lives? You’ll have all the time in the world to be boy crazy later.”

“Harley, I’m mature for my age. It’s simple biology that makes me
boy crazy.
We learned that last year in sex education. For all I know you’re fully charged, too. You and Jeremiah do spend an awful lot of time together.” She smiled at me in the rearview mirror. Embarrassed, I glanced in Jeremiah’s direction.

He grinned. “How about it, Harley, are you fully charged?”

“Only college girls are fully charged,” I said sarcastically. “I don’t have time to be fully charged. Between work and school and figuring out how to get out of here, I have enough on my plate.” I paused momentarily, pulling into the driveway at Mom’s. After shutting off the engine, as an afterthought, I continued under my breath, “It might be nice to be fully charged sometime.”

Jeremiah slapped the dash. “I knew it!”

“What did she say?” Kat yelled from the back seat.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head over it. Get to the house, it’s near your bedtime.”

“Mom won’t be home from her shift at the restaurant until ten o’clock. Will you come in with me, Harley?” I knew she didn’t want to be alone with Dad.

“How about I take you by the restaurant and see if it’s okay with Mom for you to stay with me tonight? We’ll rent a movie and eat some popcorn.”

Kat wrapped her arms around the back of my driver’s seat, hugging me tightly. “You are the best! Let me run in and get my pajamas.” She impatiently tapped on the back of Jeremiah’s seat. He pulled it forward, letting her out of the car. She sprinted toward the house.

“What’s that?” Jeremiah asked. I looked in the direction he pointed, toward the front porch. Kat stopped dead in her tracks at the end of the sidewalk nearest the road. I jumped out of the car and went to her.

“What are you two doing?” my father’s gruff, deep voice probed, as he held a twelve-gauge shotgun pointed straight at us. I couldn’t even see his face, just his silhouette from the pole light in the front yard. He had the door cracked, the barrel of the gun sticking out of it.
Holy shit! What the hell was he doing now?

I grabbed Kat, wrapping my arms around her as we stood there, frozen in time. Nothing compares to the feeling of staring down the barrel of a shotgun, especially when your father stands on the trigger end.
He has really flipped his lid this time. Will he use that thing on us?

I heard the car door open and Jeremiah’s feet hit the dirt in the driveway.
Miah, get your butt back in the car,
I pleaded in my mind, motioning him away with my hand. As usual he didn’t listen. “Who’s that?” Dad shifted the gun in Jeremiah’s direction.

“We just came to get Kat’s overnight bag. She’s staying with me tonight,” I blurted out, trying to divert his attention.

My father started in with his creepy laugh. “You’re that goddamn Johnson boy.” He engaged the action bar, emitting the familiar sound of a shotgun being loaded and ready to fire. I started backing up with my arms around Kat, pulling her with me until I felt the car against my backside. “Get the hell off my property.”

Gladly!
I thought. Jeremiah helped me get Kat into the back seat. As I started for the driver’s side, catching me in mid-stride, he steadied my shaky body directing me through his door to the passenger seat.

“Get the hell out of here,” my father ordered again, holding the gun on Jeremiah.

“You’re a crazy son-of-a-bitch,” he said, making his way to the driver’s seat.

“Miah, get in the car!” I pulled at him until he got in under the steering wheel. My father’s laughter echoed through the night air as we floored it out of the driveway.

“What the hell was that?”

“We have to go get Ma at the restaurant. She can’t go home.” I ignored Jeremiah’s question because I didn’t know what the hell
that
was.

“She won’t listen to us, Harley. She always takes his side,” Kat said.

“Jeremiah, get out at your house.”

“I’m not leaving you with all of this.”

“It’s not your mess. Please, get out at your house.”

He reluctantly pulled into his father’s drive. “I can handle this, Harley. Let me help you.”

“You never should’ve been involved in the first place. This
shit
isn’t good for anyone. Just let me do this my way.”

Jeremiah threw his hands up in the air. “Fine.” I walked to the driver’s side where he was holding the door open for me. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.”

I knew he was only trying to be helpful but I didn’t want him involved. I didn’t want anyone to be involved in this revolving, embarrassing joke of a life I found myself in. Who the hell in their right mind would want to be involved in something like this?

The next morning, Mom, Kat, and I sat around the kitchen table at my apartment, trying to figure out our next move.

“I should just go home.” Mom looked at me, her eyes bloodshot as sleep had escaped us.

“Mom, I’m telling ya, he’s crazy. He’s not right. Something is seriously wrong with him.”

“How can he be any worse than he’s always been? Besides, if I don’t go home, he’ll come over here bugging you, trying to get to me. He has told me time and again I will never be happy without him. He won’t ever leave us alone.”

“Let him come. I’ll call the cops. This is my apartment and he can’t come over here and harass us.”

“There’s no need to call the cops.”

“Why, because someone might find out the truth? What’s worth more, your dignity or your life, Ma?”

“I should have gone home last night. I don’t have anything here with me, my toothbrush, change of clothes, nothing.”

I paced, instantly aware of my discontent with her response. She had a tendency to focus on the trivial, avoiding the real issues. My father pointed a twelve-gauge shotgun at Kat and me last night. She never once asked if we were okay, she never once asked how any of this affected us. All she could think about was Dad and how it would affect him and her toothbrush and her clothes!
Give me a freaking break, lady!
There are other people involved here, what about us?
They were both so incredibly sick and co-dependent, the abuser and the enabler. A dysfunctional, ill group, that’s what we had become, effortlessly fulfilling our designated roles.

“We can get you a new toothbrush and clothes. Why are you even worried about that stuff?” Kat asked.

“It’s not just stuff, Katrina. It’s my stuff, my things, things that mean something to me. The last time I tried to leave, he broke up the bedroom set your grandfather bought us as an anniversary gift. That set had sentimental value for me. It meant something to me. He’ll destroy my things if I don’t go home, or at least go get them.” Tears filled her eyes. Kat apologetically placed her hand over Mom’s.

I never could stand to see my mother cry. “I’ll go get your stuff. You can’t go or he’ll talk you into staying, again.”

“I’m going with you,” Kat said.

“Do you think I should call the police to see if they can send someone up to the house with me?” I feared what he might do.

“Forget it. I’ll get my things.”

“He’s not just going to let me walk in the house and take your stuff. He kicked me out, Ma. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s not exactly my biggest fan.”

“Depends on what type of mood he’s in this morning.”

“It always depends on what type of mood
he’s
in. I’ll go get it, what he’ll let me have anyway.” Putting on my coat and boots, I continued, “I am so sick of him running the show, always getting his way while the rest of us bow and nod our heads in agreement, no matter how wrong we know it is. Whatever. It’s fine. Everything is just fine.” I mumbled to myself as I walked out the door, “I can’t wait until I’m out of this hell hole.” Kat chased behind me.

She and I rode in silence to our father’s house. I knew her stomach had to feel much like mine, in knots, so nervous I could throw up at any moment. We had no idea what we would walk into.

How did children find themselves in such precarious positions in the world of adults? Why, when people know they’re doing wrong, do they continue to do it anyway? Why do parents have one set of standards for their children and a completely different set for themselves? Why is my father so rotten? Why does my mother accept it? Why do I keep helping her, enabling her, the same way she enables him? What makes us do that? Is it the guilt, the shame, the love, the fear, what?