“I once was lost…”

Chapter Two: “  Muddy Waters”

     Two days after Christmas while I was in either fifth or sixth grade, my father loaded up the personal belongings of my little brother and me into a moving truck and we were taken to a grimy, roach and rat infested apartment on Houston Street, on Providence’s South Side. This would be our new home without our mother. There were a buch of kids in the neighborhood  with whom we would eventually become friends . The landlord lived on the third floor of our three family apartment building. He had a heavy Jamican accent and hardly ever spoke to us, except to yell at us for running in the backyard. Since we weren’t allowed in the backyard, we played in the streets along with the rest of the kids in the neighborhood.

     I didn’t like our apartment nor was I happy living there. I had to sleep with the lights on because I was afraid of the roaches. At night, I would watch them crawl over the wires on the floor of my bedroom and across the top of my bureau. In my brother’s room, the roaches seemed to take comfort in crawling into his bed sheets. My brother would laugh when he’d find one squashed beneath the bedcovers the next morning after he had rolled over on it. The roaches came in all shapes, sizes and colors. I even spotted that I thought was an albino cockroach as it that slipped beneath the door of my brother’s  bedroom closet. These roaches didn’t discriminate in regards to where they chsose to hide out, either. They sought refuge beneath the telephone, beneath the bathtub, in my underwear drawer and even in my schoolbag. The apartment was exterminated every so often and we’d have to empty our drawers and cover up everything in order for that to happen. The roaches always returned, usually within a day or two.

     In addition to having the roach problem in our apartment, we also had a mouse problem and my father took joy in catching them. He would hide glue traps around the apartment and, at night, I would hear a desperate mouse screeching and struggling to get free only to be met with my father’s deadly hammer and nail. Once my father grew tired of setting the glue traps, he graduated to the standard mouse traps. He would lace the trap with fresh peanut butter smeared on a peanut and, each time, the mice would fall for it. In the middle of the night a loud “snap”  would awaken me. Sometimes he’d show off his catch much to my dislike.

    My mother began visiting us usually on Sundays. Since my father forbade my little brother and me to attend church, we were always at home on Sundays. Early on Sunday mornings, my father could be found listening to Gospel music on WBRU on the radio in the kitchen, puffing cigarettes with the window closed. His Gospel radio station was our only exposure to church music for many years since we had stopped attending church with my mother years before my parents were divorced. My father would record the Gospel songs on radio religiously every Sunday and my brother and I began to learn the songs.

     My mother would stop by in the afternoon after she has finished with services at the church she attended. She became a member of a large church in neighboring Massachusetts called Faith Chritisan Center. My sister Chole and my mother's new husband also attended this church with her. My mother would come to our apartment, give me some maxi pads that looked more like Depends, bathe my brother and do my hair. I didn’t really know much about menstrual cycles just that it happened before we were forced out of her house and, in that instance all she told me was “Get a pad and always wear one. You never know when it can come on.” I wore one all the time. She told me to wear these underwear that looked like fish nets and they hurt my thighs. Since I wore the underwear along with the pads all the time, I began to develop broken veins in my legs, something that remains with me until this very day.

     I didn’t really fully understand why my mother and father weren’t living together. I also didn’t understand the consequences of divorce and the impact it can have on families. My mother was quiet when she came over, only speaking when necessary. She would give my father money to take care of us but for some reason, we were still poor and still lack many things. Even our private school tuition was not fully paid which lead to many arguments between the education staff and my father.

     Sometimes, when my mother would leave on those anxiously anticipated Sundays, my parents would argue. My father would demand more money. In fact, my mother was the one who was granted custody of us but, for some reason, she surrendered her rights to my father who became even more of a tyrant. My mother was afraid of my father who threatened to kill her on numerous occasions. She could have gone to the police . Even now, as a wife and mother, I still don’t understand how she could have left us with him. Why didn’t she fight harder for us?

     My mother’s visits became increasingly less. One evening, my mother came to the house with a pie for us. I remember that the pie was very dark colored, almost black. I wasn’t familiar with a pie of that color. Through the living room window, I watched my mother extend her arm out to him with the pie and my father refused to take it. “Get the hell out of here with that voodoo shit!” he screamed at her. He shover her down the concrete steps, continuing to yell at her. He told her to never return and they continued to publicly yell at each other until my mother sped away in her car. Many years would pass  before I saw her again. When she finally did returned, I was in high school and she only came back for my brother, enticing him with gifts and money. She never came back for me. By then, the nightmare that was my life had already been in full swing for some time. I had assumed that I was too far ruined for her to even love or want me.

    

     During the years following my mother’s absence, were the years of my abuse and rape. I had just turned thirteen. It all began one afternoon, when my father told my brother and me to take a nap on his bed. We obeyed because we were afraid of him. I had always been a light sleeper but, for some reason, I drifted quickly into a very deep sleep.

      I was the furthest from my father but when I awakened, I found myself right next him. I felt him rubbing his penis on my butt and he then he stuck his hand into my panties and reached up into my vagina with his index finger. I struggled to get away from him but he would not let go and my brother would not awaken.

     I did not like the way my body tingled and I tried to get away. Finally, crying, I rushed to my bedroom screaming “No!” He followed me. I hunkered down on the other side of my bed on the floor. I felt gross. I tore off the blue sweatshirt he had given me months ago revealing a T-shirt. He bent down in front of me and said, “What?” I  hysterically cried and screamed and pushed him away from me. All throughout this, my broher remained in a deep sleep. “ I was asleep.” my father said. My response was more screaming. How could he do that to me? How could he make me feel disgusting?

     “God will punish you if you don’t forgive me.” I continued to cry and became suddenly afraid of being punished because I would not forgive him. I hated him for what he had done to me.

     For days, I felt awful remembering what he had done to me. I thought about the times when he would grab my brother’s penis in public and say, “I got that hot sausage!” much to my mother’s horror. My brother would defend himself by crossing his arms in front of his private area. I knew something was wrong with my father and I was afraid. I hated myself. Things began to get worse.

     Since my mother left us, my father said that it was his duty to see to it that we bathed propely. He would not allow us to lock the door when we took baths. We were only allowed to take one bath per week.  All other days we had to wash up in the sink. I would bathe first. He would come in while I was still naked in the tub. I was thirteen, for Goodness’ sake! I knew how to wash myself! My brother was just turning ten, he was old enough also. My brother would bathe second , my father would only be there for a few minutes with him. I could hear him yell, “Make sure you wash under your arms!” and then he would leave to rape me in my room.

     I remember the first time he started raping me during baths. He came into the bathroom while I still had on clothes. He filled up the tub and demanded that I strip. I did. He grabbed me by the waiste and pulled me towards him to kiss my stomach. I slapped his hands hard. He slapped me across the face so hard it stung. Tears poured from my eyes. He said that I was "getting too fresh" and  was "acting too grown". I was so very afraid. He said he needed to “open up my hole”. He demanded that I pull down my pants and painties and made me straddle the clothes hamper in the bathroom. He stuck his uncircumcised penis into me and I screamed. He pulled out. I whimpered, “Stop.” He left the bathroom. After I had bathed, I ran into my bedroom with clothes on. When my brother was in the bathroom bathing, he opened the door of my bedroom and announced that he needed to see if I were clean. He ordered me to take off my clothes, panties and all and he made me lie on the bed. He spread my legs and began playing with my vagina with his finger. It tingled and I didn’t like it. This procedure would continue for some time until he decided to progress unto the next level.

     One afternoon while doing his usual intimate checking procedure of me, he bent down and kissed my vagina saying that it “tasted like sugar”. I was afraid when he did it and instantly made a protest but he left my room. I had no idea why he had to do that to me. He later said that he needed to see if I were “fresh”. This was just the beginning of something that was very horrible. I didn’t like the way my body felt and I was too ashamed to tell anyone although there was no one I could tell. I felt so alone and I knew fighting back was just not the answer. 

     My father’s “checking procedures” became ever more uncomfortable. I despised Sundays, the only day we were allowed to bathe. I wondered if my brother knew what was going on as he splashed around in the bathtub waiting for my father to go and check in on him. I wonder if he ever abused my brother like he abused me. My father began to menacingly lick my vaginal area claiming he had to do it in order to “get me clean”. I hated it. I braced myself for the unpleasant tingling my body was enduring, willing myself to not feel it. I hated it so very much and I hated him for what he continued to do to me.

     Not only did my father rob me of future adult sexual pleasure but he also stole my innocence. He would repeatedly stick his uncircumcised penis into me night after night saying he was trying to “widen me for the boys” in the future. Finally, he tore me and I bled. He said that if I got pregnant, he would tell the doctors that I had been messing with some boys but I still had to have his baby! God must have been on my side because it didn’t happen.

     It was also during my years of abuse that a classmate whose mother was friends with mine began spreading rumors about my abuse around school. I didn’t know that my mother knew how my father was since he had a history of trying to mess with young girls. I was in eighth grade when my mother called claiming that I was walking around with see-through clothes on, enticing my father. It was also during this time when all the students in my class somehow found out about my abuse.

    As usual, I was sitting alone in the school cafeteria when a crowd of students assembled in a corner of the cafeteria. I could feel eyes upon me but that was a constant feeling as my classmates were always poking fun at me and ridiculing me for some reason or another. The girl whose mother was friends with mine, called me over to the group and I foolishly went over there. I asked what they wanted.

      “It’s about you and your father” another girl said. I could feel my face turn hot from shame.

       “You’ve been sleeping with your father!” the first girl screamed. My eyes welled up with tears and, although I tried to deny it, I knew that the truth showed on my face. Embarrassed, I ran back to my table and cried. From then on, I was treated like dirt. The girls laughed at me, wrote fake letters to the principal pretending to be my father verbally bashing the school. The boys called me names such as “slut” and “whore”, to name a few. One boy whom I had always been fond of and who later became a big brother to me in high school, said that I was disgusting. I never felt so alone. I hated myself and the fact that I didn’t always smell fresh due to the fact that my father forbade us to bathe more than once a week added to my shame and increased the ridicule from the girls.

     I tried numerous times to kill myself, even attempting to swallow an entire bottle of Bufferin. Needless to say, all of my suicidal attempts failed. I would pray, begging God to take me from this world. I cried a lot, especially when I heard my father entering my room late at night. He didn’t care that I had school the next day, all he cared about was getting off on his own daughter. My sadness turned into rage and I pondered ways to kill him. I thought of slicing his throat one night as he sat on the sofa with the machete that was in the kitchen drawer.

    My father seemed to have an unbridaled sexual desire because I’d hear him bring women into the apartment late at night and have loud sex with them as my brother and I were supposedly asleep in our rooms. He’d also talk dirty and make sexual noises to women on the telephone seemingly uncaring about his children who were in the same building. Sometimes, I would hear him jerking off in the bathroom, making gross panting noises as he did. I hated living there and I wondered why my mother didn’t come to get us.

    In ninth grade, I put a stop to my father’s abuse. We had moved into a section 8 apartment on the city’s West End. I had a lock on my bedroom door. One night, he pushed me on the bed and said he hadn’t “checked me” in a long time. I was so full of rage that I snapped and pounded him in my chest with the heels of my feet, flailing my arms and screaming, “NO!” He seemed afraid and quickly hustled out of my room. He never tried it again. I had become angry and was waiting for the chance to kill him. He would never—NEVER—hurt me again.