Silent Cry (4 page)

Sometimes, no matter how hard she tried, Mother couldn't find the money for the things
I needed. When times were really desperate, she'd get a faraway look in her eyes,
sigh deeply, and say, “I guess you'll have to ask your daddy.” I'm not sure how he
found the money or even why he did it, but he always seemed to come up with what
I needed so I could continue to play sports and be involved in all my academic and
extracurricular activities.

At softball games, I sometimes saw my stepfather standing off by himself in the distance.
He never came into the stands. He didn't want to be around people, but he was there
watching.
When it was my turn at bat, I would think,
Come on, Dot, hit this one right
over his head!
I wanted to make a ball fly right over his head to get his attention!

I played basketball and volleyball too, but he never came to a single game. Those
sports were played inside a gym, and I think the idea of coming inside and being
around people was just too much for him. I sometimes wondered if he was ashamed of
himself. I hoped he was. More than anything, I wanted him to stop drinking. I knew
he could be a good man — he just refused to give up alcohol.

There were times when the abuse did stop momentarily. Maybe that meant he had a winning
streak at gambling — I never knew for sure. When things were really, really bad,
my Uncle Sam could actually put him in his place and cause him to back down, even
to express remorse. But this lasted only for a day or two, and then the abuse began
all over again. It was like living inside a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. It
seemed normal. I expected it. I got used to it. That's just how it was. There wasn't
anything to do but accept it.

No matter how we begged him to stop or pleaded for his goodness to return, it never
did. The abuse continued and got steadily worse. My mother began to have frequent
seizures and constant, severe headaches. Several times his blows landed her in the
hospital, and I feared my mother would sooner or later die at his hands.

Finally we realized there was nothing left to do but escape — and the only way to
do that was to become self-sufficient. I was in the ninth grade by now, and my brother
Gary and I had begun to chip in, working to help support the family. I worked every
weekend cleaning houses or picking bushels of beans. I even worked at a shrimp factory,
plucking the heads off the tiny creatures and filling buckets with them. How I hated
those
slimy things! They smelled horrible, and the stench lingered long after I got
home and took a bath. It seemed like I could smell them even in my sleep. The outer
shells of the shrimp scraped my fingers, and I worked until they were raw and bleeding.
I wanted to throw those horrid little creatures back into the Gulf, not painstakingly
fill a bucket with them — but filling a bucket meant earning money, so fill the buckets
I did.

During the summer, I participated in a jobs program offered by the Gulf Oil Company.
Just two of us from my school were given the opportunity to work for them, painting
tanks and mowing the lawn — all in the blazing Louisiana summer sun. But the job
paid well, and I was happy to have it. I didn't like the heat, but it was better
than peeling those horrible shrimp! My younger siblings worked too. We all helped
out at the school, waxing and buffing floors or cleaning classrooms. We worked hard,
and we worked together. Everybody gave their money to Mama to buy food or to save.
We all wanted out. We wanted to be free.

When my mother announced to me that she was planning a shopping trip to New Orleans,
I was really excited. It had been a long time since we'd done this. I knew she had
to work really hard to save any money, and I had great anticipation for the new clothes
and shoes we would come home with. The two of us took the long bus ride into the
city, and my excitement grew with each passing mile. But my mood began to change
when we stopped for lunch and she explained how desperate our situation was. She
was afraid my stepfather was going to kill her — and she'd no longer be able to provide
for us or protect us from him. As she talked, the furrows in her brow deepened. Her
shoulders were hunched from the weight of a burden heavier than any woman was meant
to carry.

“Dorothy, I know I promised to buy you some new clothes,”
she began, “but, baby,
we need to use that money to buy a car.” She paused, searching my face to see if
I understood. I blinked hard to hold back tears of disappointment. I felt selfish.
I had bragged to my friends about shopping in the big city, and now I would come
home with nothing — again. How tired I was of not having nice things! But I wanted
to escape the abuse — I hated it. Even more than that, I wanted my mother to be free.
I swallowed hard and shoved my disappointment down deep inside. I looked her in the
eyes, and my selfish thoughts faded away. I loved her more in that moment than I
ever had.

“It's time to escape!” I said. She breathed a long sigh, and her shoulders seemed
to square up a bit.

“Yes, Dorothy,” she smiled, “it is time for us to be free.” She lifted her chin and
closed her eyes, and I knew she was praying.

We came home from New Orleans without any new clothes, but we now had a car. All
the way home, I wondered how my stepfather would react. I wasn't sure it mattered
that much — he was going to be abusive no matter what my mother did, so why not put
a plan in place to get free once and for all? I knew Mama was anxious too. She was
quiet during the whole ride home. At the same time, there was a determined look in
her eyes. She gripped the steering wheel of that car like her life depended on it.
She could taste freedom. I sensed she was making plans, thinking things through.
Every now and then, she wiped away a tear, looked over at me, and smiled.

Buying the car was the right choice. I knew it was. But it was only one step in the
plan, and it had taken all of our savings. We couldn't escape until we had some
money to run with. We needed enough cash to find a place to live and to survive until
my mother could secure a new job.

Throughout this difficult season, one of my teachers was particularly kind to me.
Miss Garlington knew about the violence at home and the emotional roller coaster
I lived on. She often encouraged me, calmed me down, redirected my energy into positive
pursuits, and challenged me to dream of a better future. Her presence in my life
was a bright beacon in a dark sea. So when she accepted a teaching position 350 miles
away in Monroe, I was devastated.
How could she leave? She was the one person in
my life who seemed to really understand how awful it all was.

As the day for her departure approached, I panicked. But Miss Garlington held out
hope to me. On her last day, she pulled me aside and said, “After I get settled,
maybe I can help you all move to Monroe and get away from your stepfather. I could
help your mother find a job.” My heart soared! Of course she would help us. Surely,
this was our answer to prayer. How long had I asked God for an escape — and here
it was! Miss Garlington wouldn't let me down. Now I just needed to convince Mother
that the time was right.

I was convinced the pieces of our plan were falling into place. I had the promise
from Miss Garlington tucked in my pocket, and we had a car. With help from friends,
Mother was even learning to read and write, and her confidence was growing. All we
needed now was enough money to run with. However, even with all these little steps
moving us in the right direction, we were still trapped. The abuse worsened. My stepfather
stopped contributing money to the household altogether, and my mother saved every
possible dime for our great escape. We ate free lunches at school, and in the afternoon
we drank milk from leftover school milk cartons and ate mayonnaise sandwiches. For
the first time in my life, I realized we lived in poverty, and I felt ashamed.

My older brother Gary was now sixteen, and his boyhood anger had developed into full-grown
hate. One night, he jumped on my stepfather, hit him hard, and then ran away. The
next day, my stepfather tried to run over him with his truck. Just in time, my brother
dropped to the ground and rolled beneath our trailer. The brakes grabbed and the
tires locked, throwing a huge cloud of dust as the truck stopped mere inches from
our mobile home. If Gary hadn't rolled under the trailer, I was certain my stepfather
would have killed him.

This marked a turning point in our family dynamics. From that moment on, the abuse
began to filter down to the six children. My stepfather still reserved a special
kind of meanness for just my mother, but his rage was no longer confined only to
her.

CHAPTER 4

Freedom

Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.

Wayne Dyer

M
ama!” I cried. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was both frightened and angry.
“Mama!”
I
said again, louder. I stroked her forehead and cheeks with a cool, damp cloth. She
was so still. After another beating by my stepfather, she'd had a severe seizure
and lost consciousness.

I looked down at her face and thought how beautiful she was, even with the bruises.
I loved her deeply. What if this was her last beating? What if she didn't wake up?
I shook her gently, praying she would open her eyes and look at me.

“Mama,” I said, softly this time. One of my tears splashed on her cheek, and her
eyes fluttered open. She grimaced in pain and looked around in confusion. She felt
so small lying there in my arms.

“We must leave, Mama,” I urged, my mind racing with fear. “Please?” I begged. “Let's
just get in the car and go!”

Her eyes held mine for a moment, and I could see she was seriously considering it.
“Please, Mama!” I said again. “We can go to Monroe. Miss Garlington promised she
would help us. She's been waiting for us to come. Let's just go!”

And go we did.

It was Christmas break. Seven of us packed everything we could fit into the car and
then squeezed ourselves in. Anxiety kept us all quiet at first, each of us lost in
our own thoughts.
Would we ever return? What would my stepfather do when he found
out? Would he follow us? Where were we going? What about our
friends? Would we see
them again? Would Mother be okay? Where would we live? What about school?

The farther away we drove, the more our mood lightened. Freedom! We could taste it.
Someone told a joke, and we all laughed, releasing the tension. We sang a Christmas
carol, and suddenly our anxiety gave way to a sense of adventure. Relief swept over
us, and there was no looking back.
We had done it!
I resisted the urge to let out
a yell, and I secretly wished I could see the look on my stepfather's face when he
came home in the wee hours of the morning screaming for his supper and found us all
gone!

We stayed a few nights in New Orleans, first with my great-grandmother and then with
a great-aunt, but both homes were small — and seven extra people would have been
difficult to accommodate no matter what size the home. My mother didn't want to be
a burden, so after we woke up, we tidied everything up and stayed outside during
the day. We had to find activities to keep all the children busy, and this proved
increasingly difficult to do. Staying with relatives was not the answer.

After a few days, my mother decided the only thing to do was to head for Monroe and
find Miss Garlington. We had no idea where she lived or how she might help us, but
we were determined to find a better life, so we packed up again, piled into our Chevrolet
Impala, and headed for Monroe. On the trip there, my mother began to feel ill. By
the time we arrived, she was very sick. We checked into a motel, but Mother had caught
the flu and was too ill to look for work.