Ch 2: I Thought Everyone’s Mom Got Beat Up — Turns Out I Was Wrong

Series: The makings of a divorce. Exploring the parallels of abuse. Chapter 2

[TW: Abuse]

I once thought all mommies got beat up.

After all, it was a normal part of my day-to-day life. I tried staying away from my stepfather, Butch, because I somehow always made him angry. A spoiled only child requiring too much of Mom’s attention.

But once I started kindergarten and made some friends, I began to understand all fathers weren’t the same.

And that’s when everything changed.

Though Butch wasn’t large in demeanor, he had a harsh bulldog presence, his growl as terrifying as his bite.

Asa little girl, I often fell asleep in an apartment full of strange people. They’d pass rolled cigarettes that smelled different from the usual smoke trapped within the nicotine-stained walls.

Days stretched into nights. The cases of Miller dwindled, can after can click-clacking open. They’d clang their bottles of Budweiser for cheers. Competitions began of out-drinking one another.

I’d listen through the hollow walls of my bedroom for poker chips on the Formica-topped table.

The shuffling of cards was somehow soothing — my mind envisioning a game of Go Fish with Mom.

Antes, bluffs, cards folded, someone was always disagreeing. Dares and challenges, along with accusations of cheating.

Fragile friendships formed and built solely on alcohol.

Their jokes became louder with each passing hour. Pink Floyd blasted from the speakers, and they’d yell to hear each other. Whitewashed tales amplified as the night went on.

I wasn’t allowed to bother Mom, but I couldn’t sleep, so I’d listen to her—laughing, dancing, and singing along. Eventually, she started falling over everyone.

After a few hours, I’d drift off.

One of those nights, when I was five, I woke to the thudding vibrations of ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. The bass vibrated, shaking the walls.

Dishes were smashing. I heard a bottomless scream coming from Mom. I lay frozen in my blanket, unwilling to breathe.

I was desperate to hear other voices — Butch acted differently around his friends.

But I heard no one.

Eyes wide open, I sat up. My heart began pounding through the walls of my chest. My stomach cramped and flipped with alternating precision — escalating somersaults settled in.

They were getting closer.

The hall light illuminated the crack under my closed door. I locked in on the door handle; I couldn’t look away. I tried swallowing, but my body wouldn’t cooperate.

My door flew open, slamming against the wall.

“No,” Mom screamed.

Butch grabbed onto her long hair, throwing Mom across the room. Her wire-rimmed glasses crashed to the floor.

“Mommy!”

His open-palmed slaps were solid blows, bashing her head against the wall — each smack louder, more intense. With a vicious yank of her arm, he twisted and swung it freakishly behind her body.

“You’re going to break it,” Mom screamed between sobs.

He let it go and began jabbing his fingers into her ribs. Struggling to wriggle free, she screamed as she scratched his face.

“Stop,” she yelled, spitting in his face.

He pulled his arm back and made a fist, centering the heavy blow on her right eye. Then, stepping back, he raised his leg and kicked her in the stomach.

His eyes were flat and cold.

Mom gasped for air, bending over.

Each blow seemed like the last one her slight frame could handle. He was going to kill her — she was going to die.

“Stop,” I screamed. “Mommy,” I cried.

He shoved her across the room, her body crumpling on top of mine. I didn’t register the pain — I just wanted her alive.

He lunged towards us.

Screaming, I tried hitting him, my small hands bouncing off him like rain on an icy lake. Butch looked at me as he took off his belt. The leather strap lashed across my body, each thrashing a sting of fire.

Mom and I held onto one other. I couldn’t protect her from his wrath.

After a bit, mom stumbled out of my room and passed out somewhere, probably the couch.

Nobody said anything the following day. We carried on like usual. Mom poured me a bowl of Wheaties at the kitchen table. My body limp; I ate the cereal with my head down.

Mom’s eyes were dull as she swept up broken dishes. She dumped the ashtrays and wiped them out. And then she grabbed the garbage, tossing all the empty beer cans and bottles.

Butch was in a robe Mom had surprised him with one Christmas Eve. It was short, barely covering his thighs. He always left it untied — not caring who saw his underwear.

He was lying back, smoking a Winston in his brown recliner, eyes glued to the television screen.

The war movies on TV brought him back to his glory days of flying helicopters in Vietnam.

At some point, we’d head out for food.

Photo from author via Canva

Our rusty old station wagon was often broken down. So, we’d walk the few miles to the grocery store with my worn red wagon in tow. My pants rubbed against my welts with each new step.

Mom never wore makeup. She was naturally beautiful on her own. But on those days, she’d wear Cover Girl cover-up on her purple eyes and a blue turtleneck she hated — even if it were July.

We’d walk through the aisles, sticking to her list. Milk, eggs, bread, hamburger, cigarettes, and beer. I’d beg Mom for things. Soda pop, candy, anything was fine. But Mom always said no, there wasn’t money for that.

I thought everyone’s life was like this.

Attacks like these came often. The partying continued most weekends, either at our apartment or someone else’s house.

Often with Butch’s father, who he called the Old Man. The Old Man was always up for poker with a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and grilled chicken. Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and Patsy Cline filled the long days that turned into nights.

But Butch and the Old Man’s drunken evenings always ended in anger. Accusations and threats of their relationship being over — until the next time.

There was no resting point.

Butch was the predator, Mom and I his prey. Victims of too many alcohol and drug-induced rampages.

I begged Mom to leave him. I bargained with God. I reminded him he’d already taken my real father — it wouldn’t be right to take her too.

I just wanted her to stay here, with me.

No one or nothing could convince her to leave him. Butch had detached her retina and broken her teeth. He’d nearly drowned her in the Mississippi river and put her in the hospital too.

Many tried persuading Mom to reconsider. Advocates from women’s shelters, the police, emergency rooms, her sisters, brothers — and me.

Years later, as an adult, I saw a picture of Butch in his early thirties that gave me pause.

He looked small, almost fragile. His too-large dentures overtook a rare sober smile.

He wore a blue and gold t-shirt with large letters across the chest that read, SPAM. His dirty-brown shaggy hair with long side-swept bangs partially covered his cornflower blue eyes.

His legs were opened wider than normal, magnifying the uneven fringe from his homemade Wrangler cut-offs, faded and too short.

He was sitting alone on the rust-colored hand-me-down couch. His arms were opened wide, as though searching for a hug.

He looked childlike, vulnerable.

Abusers were often victims. Somehow, the picture of Butch helped me contemplate the patterns, and how they were often abused as children.

I remembered something Butch had once told me. When he was a young child, his mother told him she was going out to get them ice cream. She reminded him to be good and keep an eye on his brothers — she wouldn’t be long.

But she never came back.

His alcoholic father had kept their family together by a hair. Butch stopped trying — he refused ever to study anything in school again.

Eventually, in his forties, he started to learn how to read.

Time and slow realizations made the murkiness of his character somewhat understandable — transparent.

A simple picture opened the gate and brought forth forgiveness within me, eventually liberating me from the confining chains of hate.

To be continued…