Wife Abuse and the Terror that Follows

      As I was preparing myself mentally second half of fifth grade, new events were about to bring dramatic changes to my life. During November of that year, my siblings and I were woken up in the middle of the night. My father was yelling and cursing. It was that and the sounds of furniture and doors being broken that tore us from our slumber.

      Then, we heard a sharp crack of hard knuckles striking bony flesh. My mother cried out in a heart-wrenching yelp of pain. The three of us kids bolted downstairs toward the sounds of violence. It did not occur to us to be fearful for ourselves. We reflexively ran towards our parents to protect and help them, especially our mother against unknown assailant(s).

As we came half way down the stairs overlooking the foyer, we were not prepared for the sight before us. My father was breaking furniture and punching the front door, as he ranted and raved. Up until then, we had never witnessed any violence between them. Up until then, I do not ever recall my father or mother yelling at each other.

I don't think I ever even heard them cuss at each other.

      On occasion, and perversely during extended family get-togethers or when my parents had company my father sometimes made comments to my mother in front of others comparing her unfavorably to another man’s wife or girl friend. Not about her physical appearance since she was very beautiful, but he would compare other women’s non-physical attributes with her, and he often would publicly find her lacking.

      Even though my child’s mind was unsophisticated, I felt uneasy and a little sad that adults, especially my parents would treat each other in this manner. This behavior seemed to be common with most of the adults I observed. With my child’s logic I didn’t see the sense of it.

      Despite my father's previous unfavorable comments towards my mother,

I never saw any evidence of the extremely bad temper that boiled beneath his exuberant exterior.

      My mother was the one who was the disciplinarian, and we were used to her yelling at, even spanking, us when we got out of hand. We rarely did. Except for the belting incident, I can only recall my father hitting or cursing at me on rare occasions, and that was only when he was disappointed at my apparent lack of athletic potential. Normally, he was the fun parent. It took a long time to discover that, beneath the surface, the guy who liked so much to joke and party, had a very short temper, and that once aroused, he would not back down from anyone, for any reason.

      As I already mentioned, I had sensed a growing tension and anxiety from my mother, especially in the company of my father. This tension was uncomfortable, but it was similar to the tension during tax time when I would hear the terse whispering conversations between my father and mother as they stayed up late in the kitchen looking over stacks of papers.

      When any of us kids questioned them about their few weeks of nocturnal activity (which seemed to occur yearly), they would just tell us it was all private adult stuff.

The mysterious adult life to me seemed troubling.

      So, there we were, witnessing the violence that my father was committing. As the three of us stood on the stairs, dumbfounded, my father was moving towards our mother again, and again he was physically menacing her. She was crying and begged him to stop.

      My little brother reacted by leaping over the banister on to my father’s back, holding on with both arms around his neck. My sister and I hesitated longer than my brother.

      We rushed down to surround him. My father went into a berserker's rage, yelling like a mad man. He was spinning his body wildly around, peeling my brother off his back and throwing him into the wall. My brother screamed out in pain, and as he lay on the floor, he was crying piteously.

      My father's realization of what he had just done and my sister and I holding on to his legs, pleading for him to stop, calmed him down a little.

      But, as my mother ran into the kitchen and grabbed the phone, my father amped up once again. He tore the phone off the wall, ripping the wires out.

      There we all were, with my mother and us three kids crying and pleading for my father to stop. Finally, he calmed down, and eventually, we went to bed, but sleep did not come easily. I tossed and turned for hours, tormented from the shame for reacting slower than my younger brother. This feeling of shame would stay with me much of my life.

I was a coward and my younger brother had reacted faster.

      The next morning before school, my father sat us all down. He seemed contrite and said he was very sorry. He begged for our forgiveness. He and my mother said that they had been going through tough times and that they would work it out.

      Yet, as the three of us went off to school, I sensed that our family would never be the same again. On the way towards the bus stop, I realized that I had forgotten my lunch.

      I ran back to the house and opened the door. As I came in, I heard my father saying to my mother, "Listen, you bitch, if you think I won't fight your getting a divorce, you got another thing coming. If you think that I am going to pay you alimony and child support so you can live it up with another man, you’re fucking nuts!"

      As I said, my dad, on rare occasions, did say "goddamn it" or "shit," with a few variations. Never in my life had I heard the words that he spoke that day.

I didn't understand the word, but from the tone, it seemed full of unspoken rancor and potential violence. He got up and went upstairs, and I crept in to see if my mother was okay.

She pushed back the tears and said everything was going to be okay, that her and my dad just had a few things to work out.

      Having heard the way my father had been talking to her when he thought they were alone, her words did not give me the confidence that she was valiantly trying to instill in me. I hugged her, and then I slunk off to school, fearing to leave her alone. Fearing what the future would bring.