CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

The painkillers kept me loopy for awhile. But nothing took away that feeling of your hand, in shadows, pushing me down the stairs.

“She was sound asleep. I had to wake her up to go to the ER,” Jacob told me several times.

“That little bitch was faking it. I’m telling you I heard the top step creak when she went back to bed.”

“How could you have heard anything? You were screaming.”

“Because I’m always on high alert. Because I pay attention,” I justified my fears.

“You just want someone to blame. I’m telling you she didn’t do it.”

I knew you were listening, standing completely still in some corner of the upstairs hallway, our voices not even lowered. At this point I didn’t much care if you knew my true feelings for you. I had turned my head at the last second on the stairs that night, your presence a heated darkness that lingered just above me, your fingers pressing between my shoulder blades just before the fated push that shattered both my tibia and fibula. You were there. Wearing your worst face. Shoving me down the steps into your basement Hell.

“Don’t ever leave me alone with her. I’m serious,” I warned Jacob. I couldn’t handle being this weak around you. Not knowing what you would do next. Hurting so badly but not willing to let you know the damage you had done to me.

I couldn’t stand to see you smile. That horrid smirk that you didn’t even try to contain, thinking about how many weeks I would be in a wheelchair. What a fantastic job you had done on my leg. How much we hated each other.

“She’s really trying to help out,” Jacob said, positive as usual.

“You know, she brought me a bowl of soup yesterday and told me she had spit in it. Then she said, ‘just joking’ and handed it to me. She tries to drive my foot into every wall and piece of furniture when you tell her to wheel me somewhere. She laughed about how she could do anything she wanted now that I couldn’t catch her anymore. She’s not trying to help out. She’s enjoying this.”

“I wish you’d lay off her for awhile. She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

Like you didn’t mean anything when you stood at the top of the kitchen steps, hovering over me with black joy in your eyes as I maneuvered my dead leg up the stairs and into the house. Like you didn’t mean anything when you sat on the ottoman, plastering me with your well-developed stare of hatred, as Gertrude jumped up to cuddle and plopped her hundred pounds directly on my broken leg. You wouldn’t even help me get her off. You enjoyed my pain too much.

Like you didn’t mean anything when you laughed, called the dog a good girl, then leaned in to whisper about how funny it was to you.

No. You didn’t mean anything.

To me.

I started to go completely crazy after a week. I could only get to work with the help of Jacob, my new personal chauffeur. I had begged the doctor to let me work half days, knowing I couldn’t handle being away from the action for so long. In my mind’s eye I could see the guys at our weekly meetings, holding them now in the dark corner of their favorite bar. Fred paying for everyone’s drinks. The four of them laughing over my painful situation.

When the snow set in I was trapped. In the house. With you.

I couldn’t run. Couldn’t move much, although each day I got better. A few lifts off the chair and a couple of gymnastic twirls on my left leg and I was able to use the bathroom without help. Day five I showered by myself, although Jacob was close by in case of trouble. After a week I could mobilize enough in the kitchen to cook a basic meal.

But it made me insane not to exercise. To be trapped on the downstairs level with you constantly by my side, tormenting me. Whatever happened to Baby Jane? I adopted her!

The only nice aspect of my injury was the added time with Jacob. My hours on the couch, drenched in boredom, still high on painkillers, offered us some nice conversation time.

“Tell me something about yourself when you were….learning to drive,” I asked, realizing how little I knew of his youth. Jacob never dredged up the past. He only looked forward.

“They tried to kick me out of Driver’s Ed, is that what you want to know?”

“Wow. What for?”

“Three of the fingers on my right hand were broken from baseball practice. They said I couldn’t put my hand correctly on the steering wheel.” He sipped his coffee.

“So what did you do? Did your mom have to pitch a fit at school for you?” While Jacob’s mother was a wonderful woman, we both theorized that she had been a storm trooper in another life.

“No. I stood in front of the instructor and took all the splinting off my hand. I couldn’t move my fingers, but he let me take the class. Let me tell you, it hurt like Hell!”

Late into the night, when I whiled away the midnight hours, unable to sleep, I thought about my own formative years and the questions Jacob never asked.

First drinking experience? I had accompanied my best friend, Katie, to her boyfriend’s house. We were thirteen, he was sixteen. My job was to guard her virginity and not let him get in her pants. He had provided a fifth of whiskey and mixed it with red pop. Unfortunately, I sucked at quarters. By the time we finished drinking I was passed out and he had escorted Katie to his bedroom.

The good news was that he had some respect for her. Katie had long ago told him her limitations. He abided by them.

The bad news was that he was pretty pissed off I had joined them during their alone time. While Katie was having a pleasant make out session on the second floor of the house, Billy Idol blaring, her concern for me buried beneath her lust for the popular older boy who was teaching her a lot more than she learned from schoolbooks, I was no longer by myself in the basement.

He hadn’t wanted me to be alone. Not when I was young, naïve, drunk and passed out.

I awoke to chuckles and a weight upon my chest that was at once terrifying but so familiar my blood was instantly tinged with resignation. This time the face hovering over my own wasn’t my father’s. I recognized him as Sonny, from the football team. A senior. A bully.

When I tried to push him off, his friends announced that I was awake.

“Oh, good. Pussy’s pussy, but you’re one of the worst lays I’ve ever had. It’s about time you liven up,” Sonny said, slapping my butt cheek. “Who’s next?”

Four of them stayed with me for what seemed days. I had consumed so much alcohol I couldn’t even stand, let alone have a logical thought. Even while they devastated me, I couldn’t piece it all together. Why was I naked? Why would I get naked in front of these boys? Why did I have one sock on? What kind of friend was I, letting Katie go off alone with her stupid boyfriend?

The fun and games ended when the red pop exploded from my mouth. The other guys hooted when the one fucking me pulled out, his hair dripping with vomit.

“You bitch!” He hit me in the chest, which triggered another volcanic flow of bile, shooting out my mouth and nose. The couch was covered. One of them yelled about a downstairs bathroom and I ran that way.

I never told Jacob much about my past, either. One of the reasons we got along so well. I often wondered what he was hiding- did his uncle molest him? His priest? Or was Jacob a perpetrator, someone like Sonny who grew up so wracked with guilt he never discussed his childhood?

On my death bed I wouldn’t let Jacob know what I had suffered. My parents. This first episode that defined my high school reputation, earning me the nickname ‘Red Pop’, with the emphasis on Pop, of course. The boys in the hallway clicking their tongues at the end, making an obscene gesture with their hands as they said it, reminding me of the violation that made the football players heroes to the other students.

I had way too much time on my hands. Two o’clock in the morning and I had out my weight set, going to town while sitting in my wheelchair. Even with the six inches of snow that had blanketed our neighborhood, with two good legs I would still be outside, trudging through it, pretending I was running seaside. Pretending, at long last, that I was free.

Two weeks after the fall and I climbed the stairs on my kneecaps. You were at school, Jacob running errands.

I had missed my gun.

The safe now held two of my secrets. Jazz, tucked away and ready for action. My buckle boots, standing tall and ready to protect me.

Inside my footwear I concealed even more. The toe of the left foot held my spiked dog collar, long black satin gloves, nipple clamps. The right one, which I could no longer wear, a sheer black sheath and black thong panties. My power outfit.

I got dolled up. I knew Jacob would be gone for hours and I was utterly alone. With my makeup fierce and my hair gelled to high volume, I settled on our bed with Jazz and took one more item out of the safe.

A camera.

I don’t know what had possessed me to buy it. I never took photos. Your previous foster family videotaped your every move, sent you to live with us with three photo albums accumulated during eight months at their home. Jacob and I didn’t even purchase your school set, had no pictures of friends or family or you hanging anywhere in the house. Only the few we took on our adoption day, which no one had had the heart to even look at after the reception.

But now I had this.

I found it at a pawnshop. I don’t even know why I went there, what I ever thought I’d find in the nastiest part of town, late at night, alone. I had been driving around for hours. Had told Jacob we had a bad plumbing situation in one of the kitchens and I had to stay for the union work crews to arrive. Had cruised the university, the downtown, the bars, and had inhaled some horrible fast food in the outskirts right before I saw the store.

The camera was digital, very small and easy to disguise. I snapped a few photos of my face, my feet (the cast at least a matching black, but the second boot an anguishing absence), the snake ring I had also purchased at the pawnshop. It slithered the entire length of my index finger, the silver matching the celtic ring I wore on my thumb.

When Jazz joined me the pictures became more powerful. The chain from my clamps pulled around the bedpost, my nipples stretched and painful. After the redness took over I grabbed their image from above and below. Held the gun in the same spot, lying on my back, the barrel aimed at my chin from between my breasts, and snapped away. Sheath up, sheath down. Sheath pulled over my face, sheath bunched under my chin.

Just like Daddy.

His image ruined my good time. I quickly removed everything, even the ring, crawled down the hall to the bathroom and cleaned up, wheeled myself back into my sick area in the living room, and was all business again with my stacks of work papers by the time Jacob came home.

“Have a good shower? You really shouldn’t try that when I’m not here,” he warned, kissing the top of my head.

I had such love for my husband and felt so much guilt for the direction I’d been heading. For most of our marriage I’d never even thought about my childhood. I’d hidden my dark girl away. Worked. Slaved. Been the Director, the big boss, the weight bearer. I’d had no time for such indulgence in my past sorrows.

But you brought them out of me like a long thread. You grabbed the very end of it and ran hog wild through the house, pulling it out of me, knotting it up in places, winding it over light fixtures and the newel post and all around your bedroom. I looked at you and wished you could be me, begged the higher powers that you could suck it up and get on with life, but you wouldn’t. The more you agonized and pitched fit after fit over things as trivial as cleaning your room, the more I wanted to stand and scream myself. I had survived. If you only gave life a chance, you would, too.

When Gertrude got sick we all worried. Pulled together as a family and petted her through hours of heavy panting and diarrhea. Her distress was magnificent. Enough for me to allow Jacob to take her on an emergency run to the vet. Leaving me home. Alone.

With you.

I knew it was a bad idea about two seconds after he left. But my thirty-nine years outweighed your thirteen, even if yours was lead lined with brutality. I was in the recliner, legs propped up, watching the television. You were in front of me, on the floor, rolled up in a blanket.

When Jacob shut the door you sat up.

Turned your head to me.

Gave me your best Linda Blair routine.

Curled your lips up. Smiled.

Drooled like a wolf chasing a baby deer.

The truth was instantaneous and clear: you had poisoned the dog. What had you fed her? Rat pellets? Anti-freeze? Your medications?

Was this all to get me alone?

I slid the phone off the table beside me and started to put down my legs. The movement was obvious and apparently threatening to you. Your eyes stayed on my wheelchair, your reflexes fast and unburdened by a bad bone break. Just as I reached to grab it you yanked on the wheel, spinning the chair across the room.

“What’s your problem?” You started.

“I don’t have a problem, Jessie, except that you just pushed my chair out of the way.”

“What’s it matter?” You stood beside my recliner.

“Well, if I have to get up to pee, I’ll never make it to the bathroom without help.”

“You can piss yourself for all I care.”

I let out the coin purse of air I had trapped in my cheeks when you left the room without a physical confrontation. Perhaps I had been too judgmental. Too harsh. Too quick to fight with you.

I listened to you rummage through things in the kitchen. Knowing how much it upset me to have you snoop through all the drawers, you continued unabated. From the sounds of your actions I visualized you taking all of the batteries, warranties and odd pencils out of the junk drawer. Opening every cabinet in search of the hidden cookie or granola bar. Yanking at the locked doors where the medicinal goodies were kept.

You were agitated. Jumping all over the kitchen, shaking the string of cloth chickens I had on the door, letting their bells jangle. Rifling through the silverware drawer, searching for something you would never find. I listened as you opened the door to the deck and stepped outside, then right back in. Outside for three seconds, back in the house for ten. The door letting the air rush in. The door trapping us together.

I silently sent love to Gertrude, hoped I was wrong about you and that she just had a bad virus.

“Do you remember when I fell down the stairs?” You asked when you reentered the room. Your voice was calm but laced with acid.

“I don’t think you were living with me then, Jessie.” I knew you were in flashback mode, but I wanted to keep you rooted in the present.

“You know damn well I was living here, bitch. Where else would I have been?”

My leg throbbed. A constant reminder of where we had been together. A banner waving high in the sky to warn us of where we were going.

“Jessie, I’m not your birth mother. Remember? You might have fallen down the stairs when you lived with her, but that was years ago. I don’t know what happened. Can you sit over there where I can see you and tell me?” I used my sweetest voice. The one reserved for mothers in commercials or black and white television shows. I felt like I should hand you a Hallmark card and tidy up your clothes with a stain remover.

But it worked.

“It was before Libby got hurt.” You started, planting yourself in the loveseat across the room. I was so thankful for the space between us I was almost giddy with relief. “It was my turn. To wait at the door. Just in case you opened it.”

“Jessie, that wasn’t me. It was your other mother.” The one you loved.

“Whatever. You know what I mean.”

“I just don’t want you to confuse me with her.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not that lucky.” You picked at your fingernails, bit the edges. “I was so tired that night. I had stood there for days. But Sarah and Libby were sick and I wanted to help them. So I stayed.”

When Jacob and I had first signed up as foster parents, I had been overwhelmed by my empathy. I wanted to take in every child. Love them. Cherish them. Play with them. Wipe away their tears, their pain.

But you had siphoned most of those feelings right out of me. At this point in my life I could walk past a child in need and almost spit on them as I strolled past. Listening to your story I translated it into Jessie’s truth: you had managed to stay by the door for approximately seven minutes, but it was too much effort for you to handle. You expected your sisters to coddle you, no matter how sick they personally felt. You were pissed off they wanted you to pull your own weight by staying on the basement stairs.

I held my tongue. Although it was very difficult for me not to challenge your recipe of events. I had lived with you way too long.

“One of Mom’s friends opened the door. I couldn’t see, it was so bright. He was yelling at me to get out of the way. But I knew where the sink was. I ran to it to get some water. Just a glass. I couldn’t even reach the sink. I saw the chair and pulled it over.”

I tried to imagine if this were the truth. But as your doctors said, you didn’t even know what reality was. Truth and fear and your immaturity at the time of the abuse globbed together into a giant ball that no one would be able to decipher anymore. I let you go on.

“He started down the stairs and I got the glass out of the sink. It was dirty; I remember it was full of bugs. Roaches. I had to shake it to get them out. But I didn’t care. I filled the glass. Drank it all myself. Refilled it and drank it, too. Someone had left some chips on the counter and I stole them. Got more water.”

I could see you doing this. Your dirty skin dabbed a bit clean right around your mouth, where you had wiped the moisture off your lips after your big guzzle. Your face upon discovering just how filthy your clothes were when you spied them in the harsh light. Your matted hair, your dry skin. How horribly sad your condition was, living in that basement.

My compassion returned. That bitch of a mother made you crazy. Made you so freaking traumatized that years later you still couldn’t find sanity. No one should be made to live like the three of you did.

Or die that way, either.

“I just wanted to stand with my mouth under the faucet and gorge on it. All I ever thought about was water. Food and water. Maybe having a toy. Something to play with. I couldn’t stop drinking. I drank so much I even threw up in the sink.”

I thought of myself, purging on water after I’d exercised. Although I had complete and utter access to the simple beverage, I fantasized about it myself. A cold course down my throat. Feeling the water gather in my belly, cooling my body. Finishing a glass and fetching more. The cold tap from the bathroom sink my favorite, a shot at three a.m. salvation after a sweaty dream or two.

“I would have done the same.” I tried to bolster your confidence. “It’s hard to hold back when you haven’t had anything for so long.”

You nodded at me and I was pretty certain you were pulling back into the here and now. I worried about Gertrude, what you might have given her to get Jacob out of the house. If you even realized you had done something.

“I had the cup and the chips and I was going back down with my sisters. The man was hurting them and I watched the things he did. Usually when someone came down I hid and just listened. But this time I saw everything. I couldn’t do anything to help them.”

You wailed. I wished I could walk over and hold you, but even if I could stand you wouldn’t have let me touch you.

Memories. They ate both of us alive. I wished I could share with you some of the fabulous stories of our summer vacation to Montreal when I was eleven. Meeting Dad’s friends. Some of his buyers. Men who were more inclined to pony up the big bucks for some one on one action with his star model.

“When that man came back upstairs he shoved me down. I fell all the way down the steps. The bag of chips went flying all over the basement. I spilled my water.”

I noted that you never mentioned your physical condition after that fall. Just the status of your bounty.

“Were you hurt, Jessie?”

You lifted your head. Showed me your dark eyes. “Yes. I had bruises for a long time.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Sarah and Libby were so happy. They licked the water off the stairs. I felt so guilty because I had had so much at the sink, and theirs was all dirty. I remember Libby standing on her tippy toes, her tongue on the wall. Getting every drop she could.”

“If you want to come over here, I’ll give you a hug and kiss,” I offered.

You slowly came to me. Let me cradle your dirty head against my shoulder, wanting to kiss it but repelled by your lack of hygiene.

“Your sisters know what you did for them. They were proud of you for getting anything out of the kitchen.” I tried to make you feel better.

But that didn’t work.

“You don’t get it, do you? Why did we have to live like that? Why would my own mother make us stay downstairs while she had water upstairs? “

You screamed. Stood, eyes wide and weepy, and bellowed like you were auditioning for a teen scream flick. I understood it to be your frustration, your sorrow and anger. But you didn’t.

“Why did you kill my sisters?”

You swept your eyes over me, toward the door. Looked for your exit, even though I was the one immobilized by my leg break. I could tell when you decided not to sprint out the front door and wondered if it was because you wanted to seek revenge upon me or because deep inside you were worried how I would fare alone in my present state.

“I’m not the same woman who put you in the basement, Jessie. I’ve never hurt you. Can you remember that?”

You nodded. Tears worked their way down your face.

“I have an idea. While Dad is gone, why don’t you dish us up some ice cream? I could use some chocolate today!”

“Okay. Is there whipped cream?”

I smiled and watched as present day Jessie went to the kitchen. You even touched the top of my head as you walked past.

I listened as you pulled bowls from the cabinet, the spoons clicking when you dropped them in. The freezer door opened. At the refrigerator I heard you pause, then the unmistakable sound of the bottle of whipped cream hitting the counter with a lot of force.

The junk drawer slid quietly. Were you snooping again? Mid-ice cream run? I didn’t follow this pattern.

I had just turned toward the kitchen to yell and ask if you needed help. Not that I could provide much assistance, but I understood the thought to count. When my eyes caught you, you were already standing beside me. Silent. Stealthy. Rope in hand.

You flipped it over my head with practiced ease. Serial killer ease. A hangman’s calloused hands, wrapping me up for death. The sisal was thick and intended for the cats to claw, binding it around their cat condo a weekend project that Jacob never finished. You held tight, your rage fueling this fresh attack.

I struggled. Pulled on the rope. Tried to slip my hands under it, your cries of victory screaming behind me. I could feel my body pull up in the recliner, and actually tried to force myself backward to loosen the hold you had on me. With my left hand I palmed the phone and blindly fingered the speed dial for Jacob. With my right hand I grabbed your hair and yanked as hard as I could.

Jacob answered, but I couldn’t muster a sound. You were chastising me for your birth mother’s issues, asking me how I liked being the one who got hurt this time, flaunting your skills with the rope.

“I bet you never thought I’d get big enough to fight you back,” you hollered. “You’d better die this time, bitch. It’s going to be me and Dad and you won’t ever see him again.”

I got you in the eye. Held your hair like we were on the Jerry Springer show. Pushed my left thumb into your eye socket. Caused you some vivid pain. Enough that you dropped your weapon.

My leg collapsed when I bolted out of the recliner, forgetting in our battle that I had arrived pre-wounded. I was on the floor instantly, barely able to crawl, relying on adrenaline to pull me back up again. The phone rang and I was able to put my cast on it, sliding it back toward me.

“Give me the phone, bitch!” You picked up Jacob’s house cane, hit the woodwork. I couldn’t imagine how little we’d get for the house when we went to sell it. I often pictured Jacob and I fleeing from this beautiful old home of ours, escaping you. When you were old enough to be on your own, how would you earn money? How would you support your drug habit? You’d do as you’ve always done. Destroy us. Rob the house. Bring your druggie friends over to beat us with chains and take our blue ray DVD player.

Once you were in jail or on your own, I knew deep in my bones that we’d have to move. No forwarding address. No exchange of phone numbers. Just a quick trip out of your life to protect our own. Bye-bye Baby Jane.

“Are you okay?” Jacob said faintly from the phone.

I tried to answer, but my throat wasn’t working yet.

You had turned from the woodwork. Swung up with the cane. Came down on my leg, right above the cast.

“Pyscho bitch! You killed my sisters!”

I dropped the phone as I fought for your weapon.

“Jessie! Stop! I’m not her! I didn’t hurt anyone!”

You shut me up with the cane. Beat my back with the handle as I rolled into a ball on the floor, each impact on my skin exploding as white light in my closed eyes.

I listened as you cackled between heavy breaths, your words lost beneath the sound of my screams.

Then I heard myself laugh.

Because I’ve always been just as stubborn and hate filled as you.

Only I’ve spent my life running from it, not embracing the hot fire that stands like a twin beside you.

I grabbed the staff mid-swing. Caught it in my bare hand, pulling you toward me as I quickly yanked on the rubber foot.

My fists found their way to your body. For an instant I didn’t even realize I was hurting you until I had pounded your head on the floor enough times that your eyes were spinning back in your sockets. You wailed. Kicked at me. Bled when I held your arms down, my fingernails stabbing into your wrists as you tried to twist away.

“What the Hell are you doing?” Jacob shouted from behind me.

“Thank God you’re home. Can you control her? Can you get her away from me?” I yelled.

“Control her? Is she even conscious?”

In a show of strength I didn’t know my husband had, he pushed me aside and pulled you off the floor, placing you gently on the couch.

“What did you do to her?” He asked me. “Jess, sweetie, are you okay?”

“Daddy? You came back for me.” You put your arms around his neck. “Mom was trying to kill me.”

The day Gertrude came home, thin and haggard from her near fatal ordeal, was the same day I finally returned upstairs. I donned the left platform boot, let its power fuel me. The bullet was easy to palm, warm from its safe haven in the closet, no longer foreign to me. I actually prayed this time. To God, to Gaia, to anyone who might listen. I told them of my underlying love for you, of how hard Jacob and I had tried to help you heal. The therapy sessions. The enormous amount of bullshit we had endured. The way we had never left you alone, except while you were in school. All of our sacrifices.

And your inability to care. To return our love. To control your never ending rage.

Bullet five slid home. I understood it to be your final chance. My first thought went to Jacob, and what I should do with him. Taking you out would be cake; killing myself, not a problem. I couldn’t decide if my fierce love for Jacob would leave him standing, or ease his suffering by snuffing out his fire as well. Who would want to be left behind to clean up such a mess?

I lay on the bed with my favorite husky, whispering promises of how these years of absolute misery with you would soon end.

She moaned with pleasure.