WITHIN THE FIRST FOUR MONTHS of my relationship with G, I had lost forty pounds and weighed a pitiful ninety-six pounds. The stress of the physical and verbal abuse had taken a toll on my body and spirit. G called me skinny and ugly, and had no problem telling me how unattractive I was to him since the weight loss. Life at our house was torture. It was common to see me with bruises up and down my body. His ex-girlfriend would come by the house, and even though she hated me, she’d sometimes cry at the sight of my emaciated, bruised, and swollen body. Still, I protected him.
On one occasion, we were playing a video game in the living room. He was sitting on one couch and I was on the other. During the game, he began to call me a stupid bitch. G had a way of looking at me with disgust that turned my stomach, and sometimes I would just throw up at the outset of an argument. He gave me the look, and at that moment I tried to be brave and fight back. I wanted to be tough, just as he had been to me. I wanted to let him know that I, too, was a force to be reckoned with, but all I could do was throw the game controller at him. It landed lightly on his lap, but it wouldn’t have mattered if it hadn’t hit him at all. That I showed any kind of mutiny was reason enough for what happened next.
Within seconds, he rose from his seat and punched me in my right side. It must have been a kidney punch, the type that boxers receive, because my body crumpled to the floor. I was unable to stretch out. My organs had shut down and I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating, and if he had hit me one more time, I feared I would die. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.
I was barely able to say the words, “I can’t breathe.”
All of a sudden, as he stood over me with his balled fists, his anger turned to fright. He picked my stiff body up off the floor and tried to administer CPR, then opened the front door and began to yell into the street for help.
I could hear him screaming, “Oh my God, help me!” and in my waning consciousness, I began to feel sorry for him and less concerned about me.
One of our neighbors was a nurse, and she administered CPR. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later. Once I arrived at the hospital, the nurses and doctors asked me how I had cracked my ribs.
G answered for me: “She was running and tripped over the chair.”
When the nurse was alone with me, she inspected my bruised side. I knew she did not believe G’s version of what happened, especially because there was evidence of an imprint of his fist. But I backed up his story. I protected my Daddy. It was as if I suffered from a case of Stockholm syndrome during which the hostage somehow becomes enamored with the captor, and even begins to identify with the captor, as a defense mechanism born out of fear of violence. Even the smallest acts of kindness by the captor are magnified. These symptoms occur under tremendous emotional and often physical duress. This behavior is considered a common survival strategy for victims of interpersonal abuse and has been observed in battered spouses and abused children. Though I needed to get out of this dangerous, extremely unhealthy relationship, I sided with G and returned to that house.
Once we returned home from the hospital, I found it hard to even walk. I turned on the water in our glassed-in shower as he lit the fire in the adjacent double-sided fireplace. Sharp pains ran all through my body, and as I stood under the water, I began to cry as I realized that I could not raise my hands to wash myself. I was broken and couldn’t even get myself clean. G heard my sobs, and in his charming way, he disrobed and joined me in the shower. He hurt me and then made it all better as he washed me gently and showered me with kisses and repeatedly whispered, “I love you.”
Still, the abuse continued. I was not allowed to check the mailbox after a while because he thought I was seeing someone around the corner, where the community mailboxes were located. I was also not allowed to learn how to drive, to hold a job, or to further my education, beyond receiving my GED. On the few occasions when I got employment at the local mall, he called my job constantly, and I frequently called home, feeling guilty for leaving him alone. It wasn’t unusual for him to say, “I need you. Come home.” It was common for me to run back to him rather than moving toward gaining my independence.
One day I woke up and decided I didn’t want to live like this anymore. In fact, I didn’t want to live. I took a full bottle of prescription painkillers and was rushed to the hospital, where they made me drink charcoal to neutralize the effects of the medicine. There were times when I locked myself in a closet with G’s gun, playing with its barrel and trigger, wanting to shoot myself, hesitating only because I was afraid of the pain. I wanted out of my life, one way or the other.
Living with one of hip hop’s pioneers, I started to get lost in the new world of hip hop and the glorious videos accompanying the latest hot singles. I looked enviously at the women in these videos, their bodies perfectly voluptuous while mine was gaunt and disgusting. Their faces were all made up, and mine was plain, with only the shine of lip balm on my lips. Their clothes were tight-fitting, and mine hung loosely from my sticklike frame. I wanted to be there, wherever they were. It was my greatest wish, to be beautiful and strong and free.
G would become very upset with me if I liked someone else’s music too much. He would take another artist’s success as a reminder of his own increasing irrelevance. Kool G Rap began and sustained his career in the eighties and into the early nineties. He has been dubbed one of hip hop’s most revered pioneers, yet he has not been as successful or recognized as many of his counterparts. It is easy for some to remember Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, and Rakim, artists who enjoyed more mainstream success. But G stayed more underground, rarely finding himself on MTV, as his protégé Nas had. When we were together, it appeared that his peers and even his students would surpass him. His most popular singles like “Streets of New York,” “Ill Street Blues,” and “Road to the Riches” are rarely ever heard outside of the East Coast’s tristate area. He was big at a time when there was no SoundScan, the tool that is used to track record sales. He never had the privilege of knowing just how many records he had sold, whereas his younger counterparts were going platinum-plus in the mid- to late nineties. This sense of failure or incompletion, I believe, is what fueled G’s rage at times, and I would find myself watching videos when he wasn’t around so I would not make him angry while I was dreaming of a new life.
For now, I would remain in the nightmare called my life. There were multiple abortions and miscarriages. I’d reached the end of my rope. I staggered to the bathroom and, after locking the door behind me, fell to my knees and continued to cry over the toilet. I prayed to God to save me. I begged Him to give me a child who would be strong enough to live inside me and endure the abuse. I promised Him that if He would answer my prayer, it would be my motivation to leave. My existence alone was not enough. I needed another reason to save my life. I knew that having a child would bring me back to health and give me the strength to live without G. I prayed to God for that chance. Later that night, my son was conceived.
Before too long, G and I were at it again. I can’t remember what the fight was about, but in the middle of him kicking me out of the house yet again, I blurted, “I’m pregnant!” and his response was typical.
“Bitch, I don’t care. Get out!” So I did.
I stayed with friends for the next two weeks until G allowed me to come back home. I was made to sleep in the guest room, on the floor, with just one blanket and one pillow. I was not allowed in the master suite at any time during the day unless I had been summoned to have sex with him. It was mostly oral sex. He called it my “apology.” G would stroke the back of my head and say things like “That’s right, show Daddy how sorry you are. Apologize to your Daddy. Suck Daddy’s dick and Daddy won’t be mad at you no more. That’s what a good girl is supposed to do.”
He made me perform on him for up to two hours at a time. On one occasion, it went on so long, my nose bled. It was supposed to be my way of taking responsibility for whatever I had done to make him so angry. It was always my fault, and I was always made to apologize.
The pregnancy proved to be a difficult one. I was constantly sick and unable to stand even the sight of certain foods, especially meat. I was unable to keep anything down and continued to be underweight at a time when I should have been putting on weight from the baby’s growth inside of me. I was also severely anemic and found it hard to get out of bed to shower, much less to perform the daily household chores. Still, I was made to cook and clean and carry on as if everything were the same. The rule was that G should never have to cook his own meals or do anything else around the house as long as there was a woman living with him.
One day, we were in the midst of yet another battle when he had ordered me to leave the house. He packed up most of my things and had them waiting by the door. I was about three months pregnant at this time, and it was the middle of the night.
I was crying and shaking, screaming out to him, “I have nowhere to go! Where will I go?! It’s two in the morning!”
His answer was for me to go to a shelter. So, at his command, I thumbed through the Yellow Pages and found a shelter with an open bed that would pick me up from the house. I continued to cry and beg for him to just let me sleep there, even offering to go back to the guest room and sleep on the floor. He denied me. Yet, while I was waiting for the shelter to come get me, G had one more order to place and that was for me to make him a steak. So I stood there, making his steak, crying and shaking, still begging to stay. I became nauseous and began cooking and throwing up simultaneously. G’s concern was not for my health, or for the health of his unborn child, but that his steak would not be burned. Just a few moments after I served him his perfectly cooked steak, my ride was at the door. I was then hauled off to the homeless shelter in the seediest section of downtown Phoenix, my designer bags filled with designer clothes and shoes.
There were about ten other women in the room to which I was assigned. There was only one shower, where up to five women could bathe at a time, with no curtain to shield their bodies from anyone walking by. I had only twenty cents in my purse and managed to borrow a nickel from one of the homeless women who was a permanent resident of the shelter. With the twenty-five cents, I called one of my best friends, Cecily, and she took me home with her the morning after I arrived at the shelter. I was lucky. I had somewhere to go. The other women at the shelter had nothing. There was so much despair and hopelessness around me. I could feel the hopelessness.
Eventually, I returned home to G and to all of the awful things that came with living in his house. Throughout the rest of my pregnancy, the abuse continued. During my fourth month, it became almost physically impossible for me to have sex. It was extremely painful and would also make me nauseous. Still, that was of no concern to G, and on many occasions we had sex even when I didn’t want to, and he ignored my tears as I cried through each episode. I can remember him yelling at me after sex because the crying made it difficult for him to reach orgasm. Again I was being a bad girl. As a result, oral sex became more prevalent in our relationship. My mouth and neck were in constant pain. There was no way I could ever refuse him. It got to the point where just the smell of his skin would make me throw up, and I could not serve him anymore without making him feel unloved and unwanted. G would make me pay over and over again.
In my seventh month of pregnancy, G had been called away to New York for work. Not long after his arrival in the city, I was awakened by a call from one of his friends. G had had a grand mal seizure in the limo on the way from the airport. It wasn’t his first seizure; the problem began many years before I met him. G had told me that he had a preexisting condition that required brain surgery. He also mentioned that on another occasion he had been rushed to the hospital after he had been sniffing cocaine with his friend, singer Bobby Brown. From what I’d been told, G had not been doing any drugs at the time of his seizure in the limo. He told me that the last time he did cocaine was actually just a few weeks after we met. The cocaine was given to him by the assistant of one of my NFL friends, a linebacker with whom G had also become friends, not knowing of my past sexual relationship with the athlete.
Several hours after I received the phone call about G’s seizure, I got on a flight and was in upstate New York to check G out of the hospital. His neck was sore and he had bitten his tongue, which was swollen and tender. It softened my heart to see him so fragile. It was the first time I had ever seen him actually need me. I held his hand and helped him out of bed; I helped him get dressed and put on his shoes. We walked out of there together, and anything that had gone wrong in our relationship was no longer a factor.
Over the next two weeks, G and I stayed with his mother, Hanyifah, in the South Ozone Park section of Queens, New York. The house was a disaster. There were roaches everywhere and everything was falling apart. I’d lived in less modern, less desirable places during my life, but I had never seen anyone living in this type of shambles. I was shocked, thinking about how well G and I lived in comparison to his own mother. Still, I loved being there with his mother and the rest of his family. G’s mother and I slept in the same bed. She would place her hands on my stomach and feel my son moving. She would cry and talk to him in her sweet, tiny voice. G was away from the house in the recording studio for most of our days there, so his mother and I lay in bed, watching The Young and the Restless, game shows, and talk shows. She was extremely ill and frequently had to use a wheelchair to get around. She needed help getting out of bed and down the stairs. She had many pains in her life, but her son and our unborn baby brought her renewed joy.
For the most part, things were going well at this time. G and I had not fought in a while and were getting along. But the peace in our lives was only temporary. One day while G and I showered together, he said, “I think we need another woman to take your place, since you can’t fuck properly.” I was appalled. The look on his face was almost innocent, as if he saw no wrong in what he had just told his pregnant wife. I blew up and jumped out of the shower. He followed me around the house as I yelled and he yelled back. I couldn’t understand. He made it seem as if it was all my fault and that because of me, he had to have another woman. The fight continued downstairs, where his mother sat in her wheelchair.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked, in as loud a voice as she could muster.
She worked herself out of her chair and began to confront her son. I had worked myself into hyperventilation and severe stomach cramps. Without much warning, I collapsed, and his poor, sick mother tried her best to hold me up when she herself should have been in her wheelchair. G, again, was not concerned about either of us and stormed out of the house. I could never win with him, and no matter how much wrong he had done, his mother would never completely side against her son. How could she? What’s more, his mother needed G more than I did. He was the only breadwinner in the family and everyone depended on him for support.
G suffered another seizure once we returned to Arizona. He had stopped taking the Tegretol that had been prescribed by his doctor to help control his seizures. He said that taking the medicine made him feel like less of a man. During the first week of January 1998, his seizures returned. I was nine months pregnant at the time. G had been in the hallway bathroom, and while he was sitting on the toilet, the seizure hit. I heard him falling off the toilet and shaking against the tub. I jumped out of bed and ran to his side. His eyes were rolled back in his head and his tongue was hanging out and locked between his teeth. I quickly called 911, grabbed his Tegretol bottle, called his mother, and unlocked the front door. I then ran back to wipe his ass, flush the toilet, and pull up his boxers so he would not be embarrassed when the ambulance arrived. Once they had him on a gurney, I got dressed and grabbed a set of clean clothes for him to wear when he left the hospital to return home. All of this was done in a matter of minutes. No matter the abuse and the trauma I suffered on his watch, I still took care of him.
Over the next two weeks, I nursed G back to health. He had a cocktail of medicines which had to be administered every three hours or so. I made sure he took all of them on time, even in the middle of the night. I would set my alarm clock to wake me up at eleven at night, and at two and five in the morning. I ignored my pregnancy needs at the time to be sure to get him well. I would also rub his neck and shoulders every few hours, for they had been severely injured during his seizure. Soon G fully recovered, and within days of his recovery, we were back in the hospital to welcome our baby boy.
On January 17, 1998, I went into labor. On that day, I stayed home and counted my contractions. By the next morning, the pain was unbelievable, so we checked into the Thunderbird Samaritan Hospital. G stayed with me every second. He supported me fully and was the charming and loving man I knew him to be from time to time. I was just nineteen years old, and for the next twenty-four hours, I continued to be overwhelmed with pain, until finally, fifty-one hours into my labor, my son was born. After almost three full days and the legal limit of five epidurals, I was exhausted. G seemed to be excited and jumped around the room taking pictures. I couldn’t physically feel the moment that my son was born, but as I pushed, I focused on G’s face as he winked at me to check to see if I was all right. I winked back as a signal that everything was just fine. Indeed, the most amazing thing was happening to me. As my son was being delivered from my body, the love I thought I felt for G automatically transferred to the new man in my life. And from that moment at 12:11 on the afternoon of January 19, 1998, I no longer loved Kool G Rap.