Long Day's Night

I pulled into the driveway after a long day at work followed by interviewing another play therapist to work with my nonverbal, low functioning autistic son, who was also hindered by mental retardation. At the age of two and a half, he didn’t play. He just sat there and rocked back and forth, staring at the wall.

I’d tell my friends, “I’m worried. He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t play.”

They would follow up and ask “Well, what does he do?”

And I’d have to confess, “Nothing. He just sits there and stares.”

Even as an infant, he didn’t like to be held. He’d cry and arch his back and stretch to get away from contact with me, and with anyone. The only way to soothe his constant crying was to put him in his stroller and walk him for hours around the dining room table.

Our current play therapist had a bad habit of not showing up. Or showing up at a different day and time and leaving a note stating she’d been by. We had to find someone new. But the entire interview had been marred by the constant interruption of my boyfriend of nine years. The rule was that I had to answer my cell phone. He had broken yet another of my work-issued cell phones for some now unremembered transgression. But my boss needed to be able to reach me when I was on a work-related mission, and my brand new one had arrived just that day. The problem was that it didn’t ring. It wouldn’t vibrate. It wouldn’t indicate that any incoming call was arriving safely to its destination in the plastic case sitting in my palm. It would just show “Missed Call” on its screen. I would immediately call back, but that didn’t impress him. The rule was that I had to answer my cell phone when he called. I started shaking right in the booth at the Burger King because he was getting angrier and angrier as I couldn’t answer an incoming call, only call out. I cut the interview short, hired her on the spot, grabbed my four month old daughter sitting patiently in her car carrier and headed out to my truck, shaking and on the verge of tears.

Boy, did I love my truck. I’d rattle all over the surrounding counties on missions of turning the land into comfy houses and blooming communities with neighbors and laughter and cookouts. Sometimes I’d just pop over to a job site to gawk at the electric transformer box that had been placed in the exact spot the living room was to be built. But usually I went out to a site to break the news that there was a problem and let them know what solutions I could scrounge up for them. But over the years, an overly jealous boyfriend had terrified me to rarely venture out, and I did more and more of my work by phone. As I was zooming down the back roads of Johnston County, I didn’t even notice all the springtime countryside bursting into life. The occasional “Missed Call” would pop up on my cell, and I would finagle speeding down the country curves and calling my boyfriend back, who would simply scream, “No! You have to answer the phone when I call you!” I tried so hard to explain that my brand new phone was flawed.

As I finally pulled into my mud filled driveway, off of a gravel road with lots of trailers stacked down it. Some trailers had landscaping on their tiny plots, taken care of by its residents. Many didn’t have such luck. They were just patches of soil and usually I wondered which ones were burdened with chemicals and supplies for a meth lab. Johnston County certainly did seem to have its share of meth abodes dotting its landscape amongst all the cotton fields, corn fields, tobacco fields and growing plethora of subdivisions. My boyfriend, in those nine years, had moved us all over Johnston County, constantly convinced that the latest find in rental experiences would create the peace that constantly eluded him. Our latest place, a doublewide with five bedrooms and a fireplace in its 2,000 square feet was supposed to provide him with solace. But I could tell in those phone calls that evening that his alcohol-fueled rage was flaring and there would be no peace that night.

I opened up the door of my truck and unlocked my wee-baby out of her carrier and headed for the front door. I entered the foyer and set down the baby carrier. I never even got to say a word. He stormed up and punched me in my left eye so hard that I went down without a sound. Just crumpled as if all my bones were dissolving and unable to provide the support they were designed to do.

As I lay on the floor, unable to think, move, or respond, it became obvious that none of those things were necessary at that moment. My boyfriend grabbed me by my hair, and started dragging me across the dining room. My entire body was simply going along for the ride. My two and a half year old mute child started walking along side my body was I was being dragged by his father across the room. Our son was just laughing and laughing as his father continued to stop and kick me, punch me, sometimes he would switch hands that he was holding my hair as he was dragging me, so that he could punch me with his right hand. As a right-handed ogre, he was able to get more oomph for his punch that way. But “oomph” was the only sound I would give him, and only when his foot would land in my stomach. It was an instinctual oomph that I was forced to provide as the air was forcibly launched from my lungs. I had learned years before that the less crying, screaming, and fighting back I did, the less time the assaults lasted. I would pretend I was a sack of potatoes, and luckily, he didn’t like attacking sacks of potatoes. When he got the chance, he flipped me onto my back and started stomping on my face. I’ll always remember what the bottom of his sneaker looked like as it was bearing down on my face. It was a zigzag pattern with small circles every so often. Finally, he leaned over and waggled his finger at me, and said, “I told you what would happen when you don’t answer your phone.”

He stepped back a few feet, and I lay there not knowing what to do. I slowly rose and realized he was between me and the front door. I shook my head for a second to resettle my brain and veins into their original position. I slowly walked past him, slightly off-balance, as to not startle him for the 50-yard dash I was about to do. I took off once I was clear of his arm reach and bolted out the storm door headed for the only neighbor’s I had met, just across the gravel road.

I knocked on the door, with my black eye, bloody nose, and contusions forming and brooding across my face, just shaking like an autumn leaf, knowing it’s time to leave the tree its known and drawn life from, but feeling the winds blow and draw it away from the branch. The neighbor lady answered her door and ushered me in quickly. As she went to call 911, her husband had her hang up, as he didn’t want to call the police on his friend and neighbor. Of course my boyfriend arrived at their doorstep, and they let him in, as well. A lot of discourse ensued, but no one would help. I finally agreed to return home if the neighbor’s husband went with us. There was no one else I knew in the neighborhood, and I was afraid that if I took off on foot again, the two men would catch up with me and stop me and worse.

Back in the dining room, where just moments before I was being beaten and kicked, the two men sat in conference while I waited anxiously, trying to figure out how to get me and two small children out. Down across the dining room, across the kitchen, was my bedroom that I shared with my daughter. It was a small room that barely fit a bed and dresser with a small t.v. on top. It had rabbit ears, but picked up stations from around the area, and gave me company when my young daughter was asleep next to me. It was a far cry from the master bedroom on the other side of the doublewide. It held the king size bed for my boyfriend to rest in and watch t.v. with all of the amenities that cable had to offer him. The other side of the master bedroom held our son’s crib, play area, changing table, and his own t.v. with cable bringing in the educational kiddie channels that captured our quiet son’s attention. His bookshelves were filled with books, videos, and toys that were unattended by our son who preferred to just sit and watch.

All three adults sat at the table in between these two rooms, as time ticked by. My boyfriend was furious I had dragged the neighbors into this, but he maintained his calm, cool, and collected manner that the outside world always saw. They weren’t allowed to see the pulsating rage that flowed in his blood. They saw his giving and generous nature. He was perfect and my obvious imperfections drew his rage out behind closed doors. The neighbor himself had been charged with assault on his wife before and did some time in jail for it, and he didn’t want to see my boyfriend go through the same thing. Finally, at 11 p.m., the neighbor said he had to leave and get some sleep. He had to go to work the next day. I wasn’t sure I would be so lucky.

After our neighbor had gone back to his home, my boyfriend took me across the kitchen into the breakfast room. Next to it was a large “safe place” for our son. His play therapist, during one of the sessions where she showed up, had suggested that we take a large box, cut open a door and place a floor pillow in it. He would have a quiet place where he could decompress and relax. I looked down, with my son next to me, and the “safe place” had been destroyed. He pointed to the cardboard remnants of quiet and calmness and told our son,

“She made me do this. It’s all her fault. She broke your house.”

I felt my blood drain to my feet, and I don’t know if that was fear or anger that caused the sensation, because I had both feelings instantly flooding my body. I suddenly had a vision of my boyfriend standing over my dead body, explaining to our children, “She made me do this. It’s all her fault.” I don’t remember if I gave any outward reaction or said a word. I probably didn’t. I didn’t want to set off another rage.

That night, my boyfriend was worried I would escape in the middle of the night, or call the police, and had our daughter and me sleep in the master bedroom. When we finally went to bed, I slept on top of the covers, with my jeans and sneakers still on, listening to his breath to see if he was awake or asleep. I was busy calculating whether I was strong enough to kick out a window if I had to, and I wanted my sneakers on in case I needed to shatter a window. I was busy calculating how to get out of this disaster I called my life because the insanity had to stop. I always thought that I would leave when I got brave enough. But the truth is I left when I got afraid enough. To this day, I don’t remember if I slept that night or not. But to this day, I always work hard to make North Carolina a safe place for families to thrive and be alive in.