The Boots My Mother Gave Me (6 page)

It’s apparent neither my mother nor my father gives a shit about what I want. I wanted a nice solid family, like the Cosby’s. That’s not what I got, not even close. My wants, desires, and dreams were secondary to theirs. Why do I care about what they want? Why do I want the best for them? Why do I want their approval, their acceptance, or their love? What’s the point? Why do I even care?

After a fifteen-minute ride, we stood on the front porch of the house looking through the window of the front door. My father passed through the kitchen, cup of coffee in hand, and noticed us. Too late now to turn around and leave; he already saw us. We let ourselves in, wiping off our shoes on the utility rug before coming into the house.

“What are you girls doing here?” he asked flatly.

“We came to pick up Mom’s stuff,” I said.

“What stuff? Everything in this house is mine.” He walked from the kitchen to the living room toward us. The phone rang.

“Katrina, get the phone,” his tone, somewhere between asking and demanding. She obliged, making her way to the kitchen answering the phone, as I stood in the living room with the Big Bad Wolf. I purposely kept my body at an angle to his, making sure I didn’t square off against him. He would only take that as a challenge on my part. All he needed was an inch to push me a foot, always waiting for me to make one wrong move, jumping in at the chance to
put me in my place.

“I’m not here for anything of yours, just Mom’s personal things.”

“If your mother wants her
personal
things, she can come get them herself. You’re not welcome here anyway. You’re not taking a goddamn thing.” He took another step closer to me, smirking that nasty little grin, once again letting me know he was boss.

I felt my temper rising as my cheeks and ears grew flushed. I was so sick of his shit. I turned my body and squared off with him. “Fine, we’ll leave. But I’m coming back for Mom’s things with the police. Come on Kat, let’s go,” I yelled to her to hang up the phone.

I turned to walk away when I felt his hand on the back of my head. He had a handful of my hair. He jerked me backward, pulling hard enough to feel the fibers ripping from my skull. I stumbled back into him, creating a domino effect. As he began to fall he let go of my hair, scrambling to steady himself.

I turned toward him and saw his fist doubled up and aimed at my face. I ducked and ran at him, planting my shoulder in his ribcage as I watched Jeremiah do the night he kicked me out. I couldn’t believe I was in a fistfight with my father! Father’s don’t hit their daughters, right? I felt guilty as I did it, but it was either hit or be hit, fight or flight.

He pounded my back with his fist. I don’t know which hurt worse, my back or my heart. I pushed against him with all I had until he fell to the floor. I came down on top of him knocking the wind from his lungs. I sat upright, drew my own fist back, and aimed at his face as he lay there. I wanted to let my arm follow through so badly, but I couldn’t.

He looked up at me nothing but hate in his eyes, almost daring me, wishing I would release my fist in his face, making me no better than he. My chest heaved as I tried to talk myself into swinging. I couldn’t. I wanted to tell him he wasn’t worth it, like he always told us. I couldn’t even bring myself to say that. I pushed off of him, attempting to stand on what felt like legs made of rubber. Kat’s shaky hand steadied me.

“Let’s go,” she said, pulling me toward the door. I heard my father rustling behind us, picking himself up off the floor. I turned to face him, not trusting him enough to keep my back to him. He lunged at me, grabbing me by the collar of my shirt. My chest burned as his nails and knuckles buried into my flesh, my shirt collar tearing with his force. With every step, he pushed his fists into my chest backing me up, no wall close enough to stop me.

“You want a piece of the old man? You’ve been nothing but trouble from the goddamn day you were born, always causing problems between your mother and me. You’re the goddamn reason we can’t get along.”

“Leave her alone!” Kat stood behind me, her hands against my back providing support.

I felt myself begin to go blank, a sea of black before me like someone flipped a switch. As a child I loved the Incredible Hulk, and that crossed my mind, Bruce Banner pushed so far he turns into the big green guy.

I didn’t care anymore that he was my father. He pushed me and pushed me, and I couldn’t take it any longer. With surprising strength only adrenaline could provide, I doubled up my fists and swung them alternately into his chest, one after another, backing him up as he had done to me. I couldn’t hit him in the face, I just couldn’t. I drove him across the living room in what seemed like milliseconds. As his back hit the wall he slouched down into the corner. He sat there in a slump, looking up at me in pure disbelief as I stood over him. Shame, my all too familiar friend, finally found me.
What had I done?

Kat hurriedly placed herself between us. She wrapped her arms around my waist and backed me up toward the door. “Let’s get out of here,” she urged. We made it to the front porch before I heard his footsteps approaching.

“That’s right, you run off like a goddamn coward. Anytime you want another piece of the old man, you know where to find me.” He leaned against the doorway as Kat guided me across the sidewalk.

I pushed against her, instinctively wanting to meet his challenge. “Coward? You’d know all about that, shoving your wife and daughters around.” I seethed, my body shaking.

“I don’t have any daughters.” His cocky grin predictably turned to harsh laughter.

“Harley, get in the car,” Kat said, pushing against me with all her body weight.

“Keep laughing! We’ll see how funny it is when the police show up to get Mom’s things.”

“Send them up to see the old man. You better tell them to bring a goddamn army because I won’t come out with my hands in the air. They’ll have to bring me out in a body bag. Who are you kidding? You don’t have the guts to call the cops.”

“We’ll see about that. Mom’s not here to protect you today.”

“Harley, get in the car. Please.”

“Your goddamn mother should’ve come home last night!” he yelled as we ducked into the safety and comfort of Charlene, started her up, and drove off.

I
stood naked in my shower, basking in the warmth of the water running over my body. It stung as the tiny beads trickled over my chest, softly falling on my bruised, scathed flesh. I turned my face up to the spout, inviting the drops of moisture to blend in with those that fell from my eyes. In the intimate environment of my shower, my
almond
failed me. I was unable to reign in my tears. I don’t know if it was the symbolism of my nakedness, unclothed and unprotected, allowing me to display my true heart, or if it was the beautiful disguise of the falling water allowing me to lie to myself, convinced I was not crying as my tears hid in the barrage of wetness trickling down my face.

I always took the hottest showers, steamy, scorching. How great it would be if our bad memories could be stored in our skin rather than our brains, and we could lather them up, scrubbing incessantly until they sloughed off the surface, gathering at the drain of the tub, completely washed away.

My thoughts suddenly were interrupted by a heavy knock at the door.
Must be Mom and Kat.
I turned the shower off, threw a towel around my body, and left a trail of dripping water from the bathroom to the front door. The knock became urgent, loud.

“I’m coming,” I said as I neared the door, pulling it open to find Jeremiah’s inquisitive dark browns staring back at me. He stepped inside, throwing his arms around me, holding me much too long for my own comfort.

“Thank God,” he whispered. Pulling himself away, he looked me over limb to limb. The concern in his eyes grew when he saw the bruises on my neck and chest.

“It looks worse than it is. It doesn’t hurt that bad,” I lied, closing the door behind him. “How did you know?”

“I was doing a ride-along today with Officer Ward when he got the call to bring your dad in.”

“Is he okay...Officer Ward?”

“He’s fine. Your dad came out with his hands in the air. No problem.”

“You were there?” I grew embarrassed.

“Yeah. It couldn’t have happened to a better person.” He came to me, lightly tracing the bruises on my chest. “Harley-girl,” he spoke affectionately, his moniker for me since childhood. “Nobody should ever put their hands on you like that.” His hand warm and gentle inspected my flesh. Did he have any idea how intoxicating he was? God, he smelled good.

I moved from him definitively, creating a safe distance. “It’s not that bad. I’m going to go put some clothes on.” I stumbled over the chair behind me, almost losing my towel in my efforts. Jeremiah steadied me as I grabbed at the terry cloth, jerking it back in place. Gathering myself, I quickly made my way to my bedroom.

“I didn’t see anything,” he yelled after me, chuckling.

“Where did they take him, my dad?” I asked through the wall of my room.

“Over to county.”

“What will they do to him? Will he go to jail?” I continued, pulling my jeans on.

“Oh yeah, he’s definitely going to do some time. All I know is, he deserves whatever he gets.”

“My mom doesn’t think so. Did he give you guys a hard time?” I returned to the kitchen fully clothed, joining him at the table.

“He was on his best behavior. I even tried to instigate a few times. I got nothing. A model arrestee.”

My father’s words replayed in my mind, how they should send an army because the only way they would take him out was in a body bag. And he walked out willingly, arms above his head, with no resistance. Was he truly that full of hot air? Were all of his threats, the ones we had been terrified of for years, really that empty? Or did he only hate us?

“What do you mean, your mom doesn’t think so?” Jeremiah asked.

“She’s upset I had him arrested. She wants me to drop the charges.”

“You can’t drop the charges. He should be in jail or worse for what he did to you. What did she say about the bruises and scratches all over you? Did she see those?”

“She saw. She thinks it will only make things worse. She says he’ll sit in jail and become angrier and take it out on us when he gets released. Maybe he will. I didn’t think it through that far.”

“Harley, you did the right thing. What are you supposed to do, pretend it never happened?”

“That’s what we’ve done all our lives.”

“What do you want?”

I paused momentarily, trying to remember the last time someone, anyone, asked me that question. “I want him to get help. Maybe jail isn’t the answer. Maybe he could go to rehab or something. It would have to be mandatory, that’s the only way he would do it.” We tried many times to get him into a rehabilitation program, inpatient, outpatient or whatever. It didn’t matter as long as he would get help. He would not.

“I bet you could get the judge to do that, mandatory rehab. And if it’s an option, your dad would be a fool not to take it.”

“Yeah, because he has such a good history of doing the
right
thing.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing.”

I stood up from my chair, throwing my coat on. “I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight.” I pulled my favorite Pittsburgh Steelers winter hat down over my ears. My hair, long and wavy, peeked out around it. “I just want to get out of here.”

He got up from his chair, car keys in hand. “Where you wanna go?”

“Anywhere but here.”

He put me behind the wheel of his suped-up 1985 CJ-7 Jeep, as Mom and Kat had my Chevelle. We stopped at our local Quick-Mart on our way out of town and grabbed a couple of infamous chilidogs before driving toward the state line. My favorite place to be was running down the highway. God, it was a powerful thing, the wheels on the road obeying my direction, my mind open and free. I rolled the window down and let the cold November air sting my face, while Jeremiah obliged by turning the heater up to keep some semblance of warmth on the inside of the vehicle.

I sang at the top of my lungs, a song I recently made up. I had been writing songs in my head for as long as I could remember. Jeremiah played air guitar and drums, always backing me up:

Marlee and Amanda, two inner city gypsies,

On the wrong side of the tracks.

We’ll get out of this together, Manda said to Marlee,

Girl, we ain’t looking back.

They say you gotta play the hand you’re dealt,

I wanna know who the hell said that?

We’ll make our own hand, the only way I know, man,

You can take it all or give it back.

Anywhere but here, I wanna take you there,

Make hit records, become big movie stars.

Write our names all over the wall,

We’ll have nothing, but we’ll have it all.

As long as we end up, anywhere but here.

As we continued to entertain ourselves, Jeremiah directed me through the desolate Pennsylvania wilderness. We climbed hills and made several tight turns in the road that seemingly headed us in the opposite direction, until we made it to a remote spot at the top of the world. I pulled his Jeep into position and piled out, running to the edge of the cliff, stopping just before I thought I would plummet to the bottom.

It was breathtaking, the moon, the stars, the lights of town below. Huge lightweight snowflakes fell from the sky. This was my first experience with Lookout Point. I assumed every town had a Lookout Point where teenage girls found themselves in the backseat of some teenage boy’s car, giving up their virginity because he told her he loved her, only to feel shame and doubt the next morning.

I had enough shame and doubt in my life. I stayed far away from Lookout Point, until tonight. I always thought how ridiculous to fall into some
sex trap
at Lookout Point with some horny boy. Any girl in her right mind could resist some pubescent, hormonal boy’s ill-tuned attempts to woo her, couldn’t she? Now I began to see what all the fuss was about. No wonder boys brought their dates here. It was euphoric, so high up and so far away from the realities of one’s grounded life below.