Читать книгу My Cries of Yesterday - Angelica Galbraith - Страница 9

Chapter Two

A Monster

The phone rang.

“Hello?” The person on the other line started asking me questions about my mother. I was quickly angered by this disgusting man who was asking me perverted questions about her. I hang up and went about playing with my brothers. Not long before that, we saw a man who started coming into our home, hugging and kissing our mother.

He was touching her in ways that were inappropriate, especially in front of us. It led me to believe he was the one who was calling with all the dirty questions. I despised him so much. The only man who should have been there should be my father. There was a lot after that I don’t remember, until one night, I woke up to my brother Jerry’s crying. It wasn’t the nightmare cry; it was a different cry. I always slept with my brothers in the same bed and was a light sleeper. That night, I turned over, and the man (who had moved in) was hitting my brother in the head, asking him who his father was.

My brother would say “Jerry is my dad,” and he would hit him harder. My brother realized he needed to say this man’s name. They called him Rocky. Our monster was dark with ugly teeth and tattoos all over his body. One tattoo in particular that I would always remember was one on his neck of a skull with a syringe. My brother would yell out his name, and then he would stop and go back to my mother’s room. I cried for my little brother and had so much hate toward this man. My mother came into the room and asked if we were okay, and I yelled out, “No! He hit Jerry really hard!”

My mom went back to their room, and I heard an argument, then it got quiet. Next thing I know, he was walking into our room and came and hit me on the head. My head was throbbing, but I also felt numb. I was so scared of this man that I just took the pain and stayed awake, hoping he wouldn’t come into the room again. After that incident, I don’t remember us getting hit again for a while.

One night, my mother woke us and told us to stay in the room and not go downstairs. She went downstairs for a bit. Now that I am older, I’m assuming she was locking all windows and doors. My mother came back upstairs, looked out our window that was always open, (we never had air-conditioning) and started yelling to someone, saying, “He’s not here! Just go away!” Our bed was always at the window, so I got up to look out, and it looked like my cousin Beto and a gang of guys with bats and pipes. Next thing I know, I heard windows breaking downstairs. We started crying and screaming, and I heard my mom yell that she was going to call the police. Next thing I know, I was waking up my mother’s cousin Connie, who lived across from us, and she took us in for the night.

On the next day, I realized that we were moving out and moving in with my aunt Lydia, but everyone called her Lila. I was actually excited because my cousin Becky and I were close just like my mother and aunt, and we were going to get to spend a lot of time together. I didn’t see Rocky around for a while, but I did see my dad a little more. My mother would walk me to school and pick me up every day. I loved school; I loved reading in class and writing.

Coming home one day, I walked into my aunt’s apartment and saw Rocky there talking to one of my uncles. I felt the anger again, and this time, it was toward my mother as well for having him there after everything he did to me and my little brother. Rocky was a man who, from what I know now, owed people money, shot up heroin, drank every day, worked as a carpenter on occasion, and had been in the service before. He came toward me and said, “Hi, mija.” And I just ran upstairs. I had to make sure my brothers were okay.

My aunt lived in the same projects as we did, just on another street. They were all green with beige trim, and they all looked pretty much the same inside. As I was upstairs, I wondered if my mother was still seeing him, so I went back downstairs slowly and saw them hugging. Both my brothers were safe playing with their toys. I was so upset I threw a tantrum, hoping it would make him leave, but it didn’t work. He tried to be nice, but deep down, I knew it was fake. I noticed that he was coming around a lot more; he was at every barbecue or birthday parties we would have. He was always pretty much drunk at those events.

One morning, I woke up and saw my mom packing all our things. She looked up and said, “We are moving into a house.” Yay! I started waking Jerry up to tell him the good news. “We’re moving in with Rocky” she said.

I was devasted and scared. “I do not want to go,” I said.

She yelled at me and said I had to. So we moved pretty quick into our first house on San Jacinto Street. The house was big and had a huge yard with a fence around it. It was blue and white, had two bedrooms, and was painted all white inside. There was also another very small house in the same lot that the landlord was using for storage. So you can imagine how big the yard was.

We settled in, and things started going okay for a while, until one day, he got home from work and started fighting with my mom and punched her in the face. We sat on the couch. We were so frightened of him that we didn’t make a sound or even move. My mom would just take his hits as if she were used to it.

My mom found a job at this hotel called Christy Estates; it was a very popular place that many people wanted to stay in. A few of them had custom-made Jacuzzis that were very beautiful. At times, she would have me go on the weekends to help her. It made me wonder at times if she took me so he wouldn’t be near me. I liked helping her, but I found myself always worried about my brothers. Rocky didn’t always work and stayed home with us. My brothers and I shared a room, so if we weren’t in there, we were outside. We couldn’t stand being in the living room even to watch TV. We walked around on eggshells every single minute we were around him.

There was a particular day that I remember and wish had never happened. Rocky yelled at my brother Jerry and told him to go inside to take a shower. It was as if he would just get angry for no reason and take it out on us. My brother had that terrifying look on his face going into the bathroom while Rocky was right behind him. Jeffrey and I sat on the couch and turned the TV on. I started hearing Jerry screaming, and it sounded as if he were getting thrown around from wall to wall like a rag doll. I started crying and got up and went outside to look for something, anything that I could use to kill him. I had these thoughts for so long. I had had enough! There was so much hate and pain in my heart. If we had owned a gun in that house, I would have killed him without a doubt. I couldn’t find anything that would hurt him. I walked back into the house and sat on the couch, then they finally came out of the bathroom. My brother’s eye was closed shut with the biggest black eye I had ever seen. I was so mad but was also scared to death.

My mother got home. “What the hell happened?” she asked. Rocky sure did blame it on Jeffrey, who had no part in it. I know she must have known it was Rocky. She knew Jeffrey couldn’t do something like that with his small hands. That black eye looked just like the ones she received from Rocky.

Why didn’t my mother do anything? Why was Jeffrey in trouble? He did nothing wrong! I would have preferred my brothers and I to live anywhere else than at home. It was not okay to get a beating from Rocky whenever he felt like it. It was as if my brothers got the worst if he was drunk, and when he would shoot up heroin, I was the one who got the worst of it.

One day, I woke up with a fever and couldn’t go to school, so my mother told me to just stay home. I didn’t want to be alone with Rocky while she was away at work, but I was throwing up and very sick. I locked the door to our room as soon as my brothers and mother left the house.

“Open the door!” he yelled out. I didn’t answer and was pretending to be asleep. He then kicked the door open and started yelling and cussing at me. I then felt his fists hitting me hard all over my back. He turned me around and pulled my shorts off and said, “This is what happens when you don’t listen.” I started screaming, and he put his hand over my mouth. He was so strong I couldn’t move at all. I was being raped by this monster who was so evil. “If you ever say anything, I am going to break your mother’s neck and kill your brothers,” he said.

It was the worst pain I had ever felt at the age of ten. I really thought he was going to kill me. He punched me in the head and was done. He left the room, and I couldn’t move. It hurt so bad I passed out. When I woke up, it felt like I had been asleep for so long. I figured my mom would be home by now. I started calling out, “Mom!” There was no answer.

Rocky came to my room. “She’s not here yet. It’s too early. Get your ass up,” he said, laughing. “Get up and clean all that blood off.” I was trying to sit up and couldn’t. He grabbed me by one arm and dragged me to the bathroom and threw me into the tub and turned on the cold water. I was crying and screaming so hard, hoping someone would come to my rescue, but no one came. How could this monster do this to an innocent ten-year-old? I passed out again.

I woke up and heard voices talking to him in the living room right outside the bathroom, so I started to force myself to get up, grab the rag, and wash all the blood off my body gently. When I was done, I was able to stand up very slowly in the tub and managed to get out of the tub and put a towel around my body. I sat on the toilet for a while; my legs hurt so bad. The voices stopped, and I started to worry he would come in, so I walked out of the bathroom slowly, and he was there on the couch watching TV and drinking beer as if nothing happened. Not a word was said. I walked so slow it seemed like forever to get to my room. As I walk in, I noticed the sheets were gone. I got some clothes together and dressed myself slowly. Every inch of my body was in so much pain that I didn’t even brush my hair and just laid in the bed and passed out.