The Ghosts of Varner Creek (13 page)

I can't say exactly when Pap first started hitting Mama. Before I was even born, as Aunt Emma remembered it. It first started with a slap here and there after Sarah was born. She was generally a very quiet baby who hardly ever cried, but as she got older and her differences became more pronounced, she started getting sick a lot. She had trouble sitting up on her own and wouldn't take to solid foods, so Mama spent more and more time with her. That made Pap mad and he started pushing and shoving Mama around to get some attention. Kind words and the occasional flower probably would have worked a lot better, but he wasn't wired that way. He’d been taught you get your way by overpowering the other person, so that’s what he tried to do.

Then I came into the picture just over eleven months later. I was not the quiet baby that Sarah was, I’ve been told. Two babies in one house and my constant crying drove Pap to the bar in town where he hid until late at night. Somewhere in there he climbed into a bottle and never came out again. He was heavy on alcohol before being a family man, but I finished the job, I reckon. Mama tried to keep him happy, but when a person wants to be miserable, there’s nothing that can be done. He had a beautiful and kind wife who did everything around the house and never said a word about his drinking, but Pap treated her like she was the cause of all his ills anyway. I think he did love her in a way, but again, he just didn’t know how to love the way most of us think of it. And as she doted on us, he got resentful towards everybody. Mama did her best to take care of Sarah while having to meet the demands of a very demanding baby, that being me, but it all took its toll. She lost interest in sex all together, not that she had much to begin with for what I imagine to be obvious reasons. More and more she tried to discourage it without setting off Pap’s anger, but the more she pulled away from him the angrier Pap got. I suppose he was feeling abandoned in a sense. So he did the only thing he knew to do and started forcing Mama. Almost always drunk, he would take her when the urge came over him, and if she pulled away from him he’d grab her and pull her back until she’d silently allow him to have his way with her. She simply accepted. Like her father, she learned to live with certain things by just being indifferent about them.

Every now and then Pap would come home drunk and find something Mama had done to upset him. Either his dinner hadn't been put out for him or she was neglecting the house. Whatever it was he'd go and pick a fight with her about it and it would lead to something physical. Mama told Emma about it and Colby intervened on her behalf more than once. He'd pull Pap aside and tell him to quit hitting on Mama. Then Pap would back off for awhile until he had another excuse. It was never as bad as that one night, though.

After some years of their marriage, something happened to Pap that would bring him to cross the line into an all out wife beater. Uncle Colby had heard the story and relayed it to me in those later years. The anger and hate Pap had always felt about his unfair childhood was always buried inside him, and when it finally broke completely out, it brought hell with it. Pap had been drinking beer and cheap whisky steadily for over an hour in the town bar, and had taken to bellowing profane curses at everything and everyone as well as stumbling into everybody. When he fell over into the man drinking next to him, the man rose and pushed Pap back against the bar counter yelling, “Get off of me, you sorry drunk, before I knock you toothless.”

Pap was barely able to pull himself up again, but when he did his face went flush red and he glared like a mad bull, “Push me will, yah?” With that he lunged at the man, who easily dodged the blow. The momentum took Pap right down on top of an empty table, flipping it over and crashing beer to the floor. He looked up again just in time to see the other man’s boot crashing down upon his face. The blood came pouring from his nose, but he was so drunk the pain was numbed for the moment. It was a throbbing that slowly multiplied in his skull. Again he managed to get up and tried to tackle the man, who delivered a fist right to Pap’s cheek.

The bartender, Jack Alders, had seen enough. He didn’t like Pap to begin with, and now he’d gotten a damaged table and some broken glasses because of him. He grabbed Pap roughly by the cuff, “Come on, Abram, I’ve had about enough of you,” and led him to the door.

Pap cursed him and everybody else in the room trying to get free of Jack, but it was all in vain. The few patrons of a weekday’s crowd only laughed and cursed him back. When Jack got Pap out into the street, he pushed him forward and Pap lost his balance, hitting the ground with a thud much to the delight of the onlookers who had come out of the bar to enjoy the spectacle. Unfortunately, Pap had been tossed right towards a mess of horse manure, which ended up smeared on his face and down his shirt. The men in the bar thought it was hilarious and whooped and hollered in laughter. The bartender was laughing, too, but he yelled out, “If you ever come into my place again, I’ll beat you into a bloody pulp and then have you arrested. And I’ll feed you some more horse shit, to boot!”

When Pap came back home that night he had changed a bit. He was a little more broken than when he left and his bitterness consumed him. I think maybe some of his own old memories with his uncle had come back to haunt him, and it was Mama that became the emotional punching bag. And then a physical one.

A few nights later Pap was working on a bottle of white lightning and in a particularly nasty temperament. I reckon it must have been somewhere around 1900 because I think I was four, and just like the great storm that was about to demolish Galveston, a great storm was brewing in our small home. I don’t remember why, of course, being so young and all, but something in a child’s nightmare set me to crying late that night. Sarah was still sleeping in her bed and Mama was in the kitchen quietly cleaning up the few dishes we owned. Pap sloshed the bottle to and from his mouth, sucking like an eager calf at its mother's tit. “Annie. Can’t you shut that damned boy up?”

Mama didn’t say a word, she just put down her dishes and went into the other room where I was crying. She picked me up and held me gently in her arms comforting me, but whatever had frightened me so much in my dreams left me still crying terribly.

Pap yelled from the other room. “Shut up you little shit! Before I give you something to cry about!” Mama began shushing me and trying to quiet me down. She had been watching Pap all evening, and she knew that if he lost his temper while he was this drunk, he'd get physical. Up until this point, he had never hit me and I can’t recall seeing him beat Mama, either. I just have foggy recollections of slaps and shoves. I kept crying and even grew louder, probably sensing the tension in the air. I just remember crying and then the horrible fear that surged through me when Pap came storming into the room. He snatched me from Mama’s arms and began shaking me violently, “I said shut up, dammit! I’ve put up with your hollerin’ fer long enough. Shut up! Shut up!” He half lowered and half dropped me on the ground and then his hand went up, and it seemed to linger up there for bit before it came back down and struck me across the face. It doesn't matter that it was so long ago and I was so young because I tell you truly, I remember the pain from that blow. It stung like a whip across my face, and immediately I thought the left side of my face had just engorged to twice its normal size. My face clenched in a horrible cry that had no sound at first. It’s the type of cry that only babies and little children can make, and when the wail did find its way out, it became loud and deafening, and it angered Pap even more.

Mama was shocked by the horror before her eyes. She couldn’t believe she had just seen such a thing. Her husband had picked up their son, nearly shook his head off, practically slammed him on the ground like a sack of flour, and then slapped the hell out of him. She just couldn't believe Pap had done it. He’d hit her before, but never hurt one of the children so badly. I sat there, stinging and wailing on the floor, and Pap’s hand went up again ready to give me another one. Mama shouted with all her might in terror, “Abram, no! Please, stop it! He’s just a little boy!”

“
Boy or no! I told ‘em to shut up his hollerin’! This young un’s goin’ to learn early that when I say something, I mean it. I’m going to get some respect in my own house!” Pap’s eyes were like fire as he placed them on me, “You understand me, boy? When I tell you to shut up, you bes’ shut up! You’ll do what I’m tellin’ yah or you’ll deal with the punishment. You hear me, boy? Huh!? You best answer me!” He grabbed me off the floor and again and again he shook me, so hard I thought I might break into pieces. It's a wonder my brains aren’t scrambled.

Mother couldn’t take it anymore. She let a shrill scream, “Stop it! Stop it! You’re going to kill him!” She snatched me from his arms and ran back into the front room of the shotgun style house, Pap hot on her heels.

She carried me into the kitchen just as Pap grabbed her elbow, “Where do you think you’re running to, huh? Think you’re so much better than me, don’t yah? I’ve had enough of your high and mighty ways, Annie! Maybe I should be learning you, too.” He pushed her back against the wall and she hit her head sharply as she fell. I fell with her but crawled quickly under the table to get away from him. He stood over Mama slapping down at her again and again with brutal force as she tried to block with her arms. He started ranting at her. “It’s because of you I’s got to live in this shitter! You went and got knocked up on purpose so I’d have to go an’ marry yah! Didn’t yah? Didn’t yah?”

Mother kept putting her hands up and begged him to stop, but he didn’t. He just pulled her hands out of the way and kept slapping her. Then the slaps became fists and right there in front of me he was pummeling her. “Stop! Stop! Please stop!” cried Mama, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She didn’t even know what she was apologizing for. She just hoped he would accept it and stop hitting her. When finally the blows did cease, the room reeled as she sat dazed. If my face felt swollen, Mama’s must have felt like watermelon. Pap stepped back and seemed a bit surprised at what he had done, but he didn’t try to help her up and he didn’t apologize. Mama could feel a warm liquid running down her face, and when it reached her mouth she could taste the salty substance. She didn’t know if it was tears or blood. I could see her from under the table, and I can tell you now that it was a mixture of both. Seeing Mama there, bloodied and nearly unconscious, was one of the worst things that I've ever seen in my life.

Aunt Emma told me later that that night, when Pap left Mama lying there in the kitchen as he went to go pass out in his bed, Mama actually debated about killing him. Her face hurt so bad she couldn't touch it and she could barely see out of her eyes because they were swelled almost shut. Remarkably, Sarah had slept through it all. I had stopped crying out of the sheer shock of Pap wailing on Mama. I forgot all about whatever nightmare I had in my dreams, because the nightmare I’d just seen was far more frightening.

Mama was lying there with her back against the kitchen wall, crying as quietly as a person can cry. She looked over and saw me watching her and she didn't want to be seen by me like that, so she picked herself up and took me back to bed. Then she went out back and got some water to clean herself up, which undoubtedly ran red with blood as it streamed off her face. When she went back into the kitchen she was shaking from the turmoil within her, and when she heard Pap's snores coming from their bedroom she opened the drawer and snatched up a kitchen knife, the one she used when she cleaned catfish or cut up vegetables. She held it in her hand and wondered if she had it in her to cut his throat as he slept. Would he wake up before she could do it and see what she meant to do? Would she be able to keep pressing the knife deep into his flesh when the blood came? She stared at the metal blade and wondered what it would feel like, both to cut him with it or to be cut by it. The idea of it piercing into her own flesh, seeing it slide along like it did when she filleted the fish, unnerved her so much that she dropped the knife with a slight shudder and wiped her hands on her dress. No, she decided, she didn't have the courage, not for that, at least. She could leave, though, and that much she could do and right now.

Mama gathered quickly a few clothes for her, me, and Sarah. We didn't have a wagon then, so she had to pack light. She came in to rouse Sarah and me, but I was still awake. I'd been listening to her walking around, wondering if she was okay. Sarah was so sleepy she didn't take notice of Mama's face by the lamplight. I had an idea of what Mama was doing and tried to help her carry our things as we quietly slipped out of the door with nothing but the dim lamp to light our way. It was November and a cold snap was in the air. We had to walk slowly because of the clothes we carried and because Sarah and I were so little.

It took us twenty minutes to reach Aunt Emma's house on a straight route between the fields. When we did finally get there all their lights were off. Mama started banging on the door loud as she could. At first there was no reaction, but after she banged again someone lit a lamp inside.

Aunt Emma opened the door and when she saw us standing out there she held out the light and said, "Well, what in the world are y’all . . . Oh my God. Annie!" She saw Mama's face, broken and battered. "What in the hell happened?" She pulled us all inside and her eyes were red and wide, "Annie, what’s happened to you?"

Mama couldn't say anything, she just looked at her sister and started crying again. That made Aunt Emma lose her tears but it also seemed to answer her question. "That son of a bitch!" she declared. "I'll kill 'em! I'll kill 'em my damned self." She hugged Mama and then yelled out, "Colby! Colby, get up!" Uncle Colby had slept through the banging on the door but Aunt Emma was raising the whole house now with her hollering.