No Escape

[Reminder: Some of my posts, including this one, are memoirs of my abusive childhood. Today I'm relating events that happened the day of my fourth birthday, July 9, 1953. The links to the right can be used to follow backward through the memoirs, or to restrict viewing to other kinds of posts.]

I regained consciousness on the porch. My Mother was talking to herself loudly and excitedly. She cursed my Father for driving off with the only car and ditching her with me. She cursed me for bleeding. She cursed me most for waking up. "Why doesn't he ever die?"

She said, "What am I going to do? If I take him inside he'll bleed all over everything! I don't want him bleeding all over everything!" This was the argument that prompted her to get rags from the kitchen and wrap my head with them. It would be nice to think that some mothering instinct was at work but it's very hard to say.

Once I was wrapped up she dragged me in to the kitchen. She complained that my rags were already soaked with blood. I was fading in and out. Sometimes she seemed distant. My vision occasionally blurred and doubled. My head was pounding. She took off the first set of rags, lifted me up and rinsed my head under the faucet, and then wrapped me in fresh rags.

By now, her running monologue was veering into a new subject: what sort of permanent damage might have been done. She started to say things like, "What if he can't speak anymore? What if he can't speak Hawaiian anymore? That was the only chance he had of being useful! What good would he be then?" She interrupted her conversation with herself to demand me to speak.

"Talk to me! Say something! Damn it, say something right now, or I'll take you and bury you in the woods out back right now!"

I managed to say something like, "I can talk, Mommy, I'm OK, don't worry about me."

She laughed and said, "You're the one who'd better be doing the worrying if you can't still speak Hawaiian!"

Then she took me by one arm and half dragged me and half made me walk up the stairs and around to the bathroom next to the master bedroom. She stripped me and made me stand in the tub, and began raping me anally with her fingers. She said, "I want to hear Hawaiian! Now!"

It always worked before. Whenever she raped me, Alaka'i would come to Kona's rescue. Kona never had to bear being raped. Alaka'i was the "older" personality. He was the one there for the first birthday. He was experienced with horror, so he would bear it and shield Kona from it. Then, he would curse my Mother out in Hawaiian, which she would think was beautiful because she didn't know one word he was saying. Maybe I get my xenomania from Mother. Everything is connected to everything else.

It didn't work this time. I was there as Kona. Alaka'i didn't arrive. That rape was my first as Kona. As Kona, I didn't speak Hawaiian.

It went on for a long time. I don't know how long. Maybe an hour. Maybe only half an hour. She raped me until after I lost control of my bladder and bowels. She washed me with water, then raped me some more. I would have spoken Hawaiian to make it stop if I could.

During the raping I became light-headed and felt my consciousness fading, only to be screamed at, "You're not going to faint on me!" and have cold water splashed in my face and up my nose. There was no escape.

Finally she gave up and took me in and laid me out on her bed. I was glad that the raping was over for the moment, but I was in a panic about Alaka'i. It suddenly occurred to me that when I was in the driveway and thought I was dying, it could be that just one of us was dying, and that the other one would have to go on without any help.

But my Mother's monologue was now all about killing me. Her speech was racing. She paced back and forth in front of me at the foot of the bed. She was saying that my Father was probably gone for good, and there was no way she was going to take care of me by herself. She discussed with herself, as if I wasn't in the room, how she could finish me without being charged with murder. The discussion was frantic and chopped, with different refrains mixed together, repeated over and over again.

"John was the one who punched him. He's the one they'll convict," was one refrain. Another was, "I can smash his head with a shovel, and bury him so far in the woods they'd never find where I did it." Another was, "I don't have to smash his head, if I bury him he'll die soon enough anyway. Just so long as the police can't hear him making noise when they come looking for him."

Finally she decided she wanted to "get it [my dying] over with." She said I'd be easier to bury that way. She took the pillow out from under my head and put it over my face. As Kona, I felt relief again that I might be able to join Alaka'i in the ultimate escape. But I struggled anyway, because you can't help it. When someone's smothering you, the panic and fear and struggling just happens.

Boys Bleed

My 4th birthday was uneventful until my Father arrived home from Fort Devens. There were presents. I remember two of the presents.

One was a Fisher-Price educational toy that consisted of a plastic weighing balance with weights in the shapes of digits. The weight of each digit was proportional to its value. So you could learn adding by discovering that 2 and 3, for example, exactly balanced 1 and 4, but not 8 and 9.

One was a Raggedy Ann doll. I really despised that one. It looked like an evil witch to me. I hated her almost as much as "Teddy", the bear my Dad gave me on my first birthday, the birthday that by now was a nightmare best forgotten.

I didn't get long to play with the presents because my parents said that for another present they were taking me out to a nice dinner. The self-serving aspect was obvious to even to me, the 4 year-old. But I shrugged it off, knowing that I was going to be leaving for Hawaii. Or half of me was.

My Mother was slow getting ready. She had to "put on her face." So Dad and I went out alone to the car. He got in the driver's seat. I slid into the back seat from the right side. Alaka'i assumed control, and said, in Hawaiian, a short speech he had composed and memorized. The gist of it was, "Father, though we have had our difficulties, you are an honorable man. So it is right I tell you I leave now for Hawaii. Keiki Kona will stay, so you won't be losing a son. I am sorry to have to leave, but since we can't get along, this is for the best for both of us."

Alaka'i's idea was that he would give the speech first in Hawaiian to give my Father an opportunity to show off his knowledge of that "beautiful language", and then, only if necessary, translate. Translating became urgent when my Father turned red and screamed, "HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO TALK LIKE THAT! YOU SPEAK ENGLISH AND SPEAK IT NOW!" He jumped out of the front seat and ran around to the passenger side of the car.

So Alaka'i said, quickly, in plain English, "I'm going back to Hawaii. Goodbye, Daddy."

As the words left my mouth, Dad was at the passenger-side back door and hauled me out. He shouted, "YOURE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! YOU'RE NOT TALKING TO ME LIKE THAT! NO KID OF MINE IS TALKING TO ME LIKE THAT!"

My Mother walked up, face intact, in time to hear that and see him draw his fist back and give me a roundhouse punch on the left side of my head. The force threw me to the ground, where my right temple struck a large rock jutting up from the earth.

I sprang to my feet immediately and ran from my parents around the front of the carand south along the long driveway in front of the house toward Leominster Road. I would escape yet running that way. I got about 100 feet and felt a wetness and heard my Mother scream "LOOK AT THE BLOOD! HE'S GOING TO DIE!"

I thought she couldn't mean me. I was alright. I stopped and turned around to see who was going to die. When I looked back I noticed out the corner of my right eye that a fountain of blood was striking the dirt to that side. I felt sick to my stomach as I realized it was my fountain of blood, from my temple.

My mother had been bringing the dog Koko out to go with us. She was preparing to put him on a leash. In the excitement he got free and ran toward me. He ran up and found the puddle of blood that I was creating, and he began lapping it up.

My Mother couldn't take the sight of that. She could demand my Father kill me, over and over again, but she couldn't deal with anything as gross as the dog licking up my blood. I can't complain. I'm alive today because of her revulsions.

She started yelling at the dog now. "You horrible, horrible, animal! Get away!"

She ran up to us and chased Koko away from me, just as I dropped to my knees dizzy from the loss of blood. I said, "Please don't hurt him. Let him drink, he's just a dog, he doesn't understand." At the same time I saw the car's tires spin gravel out as my Father drove off by himself, and turned back once more to see him leaving.

The car with my Father driving passed Koko, who was by now twenty feet from my Mother and I. Koko was standing there looking back at me and my Mother, and she yelled at him, "GET AWAY, YOU MONSTER!" and he ran off at top speed in the direction of the receding car as if in obedience.

I was left alone with my Mother. I passed out, relieved at the thought that I was dying, and that Koko had also gotten away.

The Tire Iron Incident

[Old poem of mine from the nineties. I'm re-dedicating it to Timothy "I'll Wail On Your Ass" Harris.]

My bell was to the Blue Moon Tavern,
but my fare wasn't Paul
- the call was usually for Paul -
Paul who once said
"All I can give you for a tip is my Sister."
Paul I could live with.

No instead it was
Mr. "Start the meter & come in & have a beer with me"
to whom I said No thanks I'm driving
to which he said You know what your problem is?
YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO LIVE.

So I said I'm alive as you can see so that can't be.
He said No you're just getting by you don't know anything about living.
I said Do you want a cab or do you just want to waste my time.
He said The meter's running I'm paying for this.
I said No you're paying me to drive somewhere my job isn't to be
A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR FUCKED-UP PHILOSOPHY.

He said If I'm paying you to drive why aren't you driving.
I said BECAUSE, your IDIOT-SHIP, you haven't told me where you're going.

No. I'm lying. I didn't say your Idiot-Ship I didn't say fucked-up
I needed to drive cab to survive
they'd suspend me no matter how much
the jerk deserved it
I DIDN'T SAY THOSE THINGS.

To what I did say he finally gave an address & as I drove that way
He said PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE ME SICK.

My memory gets fuzzy now but I AM CERTAIN it was JUST THEN that I
FIRST recalled the TIRE IRON.


When all else fails there's that tire iron at my left hand.
It was a soothing thought, a sweet gentle reassuring thought,
a thought, which, repeated in my mind
might make my miserable
ordeal manageable.

But NO, though just the thought of the tire iron did enable me
to survive to our destination
just thinking about it
would not continue to suffice.

For he would not pay & get out.

He would instead instruct me on the FULL extant of the inadequacy
of MY nature INTERMINABLY.
When I said yes I see it now you're right I've been wrong
He said Don't tell me that you're so stupid you don't even know
what you're agreeing to
I'LL HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT TO YOU AGAIN
And then he went on,
He said I'm telling you what's wrong with you
I'M DOING YOU A FAVOR,
you want to learn how to live don't you?
And I hear you want to live don't you
And I think you want to live don't you
And I'm feeling the tire iron with my fingers
And I'm thinking he wants to live doesn't he -
And I'm rolling the tire iron in my fingers
And I'm thinking yesss he wants to live he does
And I'm raising the tire iron up slowly
And he says you're a fool not even worth talking to
I'm doing you a FAVOR
And his skull cracks open and there's blood everywhere on the seats on the
windows on the doors in my hair
Oh God what will I do about the blood I think
but I don't stop I keep swinging
I'm drenched in blood HE'S STILL TALKING
I break his nose I break his teeth
I break his jaw HE'S STILL TALKING
I shove it down his throat and twist he's STILL talking
I cram it in his chest I snap his rib cage
I PRY OUT HIS HEART HIS LIVER HIS LUNGS
HE'S STILL TALKING!!

NO. I'M LYING. After he said that last thing he paid & got out.

He DID know how to live, DIDN'T he?