Stop The Pain

Word Count: 1,728

Animal Cruelty / Domestic Violence/first place winner
Stop the pain!
By Lisa Noe `

In her bedroom, the alarm clock did not go off at 7:30, but Jenna just knew she had set it correctly. She rushed frantically around the room. She dressed herself in record time. However, she would still be late for school. She was so afraid, she just knew, her father would find out. She was terribly afraid and wanted to sneak out before her father awoke. Oh, but there he was, lying across the arm of the recliner, which of course he lived in. He was an alcoholic, who stayed drunk most of the time. Drinking was an everyday thing for him.

“What are you doing”? Said her father, who was hung over from last night.

Daddy, I didn’t mean it, my alarm clock didn’t go off this morning and it made me late.” She said.

What the hell have I told you about pissing away your education!” He said sarcastically.

At that time Jenna’s mom, Della, came into the room to take up for her daughter.

She doesn’t do anything wrong, so once she is late for school, by only a few minutes. Don’t angry with her she takes her education serious, she makes straight A’s in all of her classes, and the teachers all have lovely things to say to her.” Her husband, Michael, abruptly interrupted Della.

You Stupid Bitch shut your damn mouth or I’m going to shut it for you. You never interrupt me while I’m attempting to punish my daughter, I mean she’s my damn daughter, and if I am not tough on her she will grow up to be some dumb bitch like you! Uneducated, working a laundry mat.” He was getting louder and louder as he spoke and seemed to be getting more angry.

“I think she was late on purpose.” Said her father angrily

Jenna knew the look on his face, it was a look she had seen many times before. Right before he’d go crazy and resort to physical abuse. The emotional abuse was a daily way of living she was used to being called a rug rat, and that is precisely how he treated her. He called her him to her. She could tell he was about to blow a fuse, she just knew him and the looks that he would give her, were looks of pure hate. She never knew why her own father showed so much disgust with his family. Her mother worked hard every day at the laundry mat and then came home and worked hard keeping the house just perfect. She knew better than to let any thing ever get out of place. Both Jenna and her mother were afraid of John, he could become enraged over the simplest little thing. Like her being late for school.

You know you are supposed to be at school by 7:45 each day yet here it is 8:13 and your standing in front of me in our living room.” Yelled John, as he slapped her across the face.

She immediately grabbed her face in the palms of her hands and began to cry. Della would not stand for this, She would not let him beat on their daughter.

“Get away from her, don’t you touch her again! She didn’t do anything wrong, it was a simple mistake that anyone could make, she either forgot”----

John interrupted her with a good right hand to her head. Then he pushed her down on the ground.
Jenna was watching in horror as her father was beating her mother. She was holding her precious little kitten, which she dearly loved. She was crying and so was her mother. She put down the kitten and ran to aid her mother. John began yelling again, while the two women huddled in the floor crying. At that time he saw it, the little kitten walking along the floor, and he got angrier. He went to where the kitten was and he yelled at the two cowering women to see what happens if they don’t mind the rules he had set in place.
He raised his leg high, he was wearing his work boots, which he always wore, despite the fact he didn’t work. Down came his foot right on the kitten’s head, he killed it in front of them. Jenna screamed
“No, why did you do that, oh my God!”

She couldn’t bare to watch she had to leave, she ran out of the house and down the street. The only place she knew to go was the old fort house. It was a makeshift house in the trees that she and her friends had built years ago. She was sobbing and knew she couldn’t go on to school today, not after seeking her precious kitten, Pooky being killed in such a violent manner. She lye there crying until she fell to sleep.

Meanwhile back home Della still had a monster to deal with and now that Jenna had ran away that made John even angrier. Jenna got up and walked into the kitchen, John following close behind. He was still yelling at her about her job interfering with their family life and if she would have been on it than Jenna shouldn’t have been late.

“You get your ass in there and clean up that mess you two caused, I’m going out for a while.” Said John
Della had the grotesque job of cleaning up the brains of her daughter’s pet.

Later in the day John left the house, and Della was relieved, she knew she should take her daughter and divorce him, but he would never allow it. He would do the same to them as he had the kitten; she knew she should divorce him but he’d never allow that. He’d kill them before allowing them to leave his home.
John was the type of man who would frequent bars all day and go to some seedy motel with a woman he had met. He didn’t care about his family, but they were people he could vent his anger to. Della cleared everything away in the kitchen and decided perhaps she should at least go and talk to a lawyer about a divorce and what could be done about his brutality towards them in the mean time.

Della walked to where the fort was, she had known about it since Jenna was very young. She got to the bottom of the tree and yelled up.

“Jenna, You up there?, I’m alone, I just want to talk to you baby.”

Jenna awoke at the sound of her mother’s voice.

“Mom., is that you? What are you doing down there?” questioned Jenna

“Why don’t you come down here where we can talk to each other without the yelling,” Said mom.

Jenna climbed down the tree, with swollen, red eyes. Her mother could see how miserable she was.

“I’ve decided to find a lawyer and try to leave your father, you and I would be much better off. I’m afraid of what he may do in retaliation for us leaving. But perhaps there are laws to protect us. Would you like to go to the law office with me? She questioned.

They arrived at an office and spoke with a lawyer about Della’s husband. The lawyer told them to leave him any time they’d get a restraining order against him. Which Della thought meant she was safe. She and
Jenna went home that afternoon, and got a few things together, clothes, a few household items they’d need about cooking. She left him plenty, most everything as a matter of fact. They took their stuff and went to a motel that night.

John did not arrive home until 11:20 at night and he was drunk and looking for a fight. However, as he looked around he noticed the wife and daughter were not present. They had flown the coop and it made him so angry. He began throwing things, breaking them. He went to his wife’s closet and saw all of her clothes missing, he then went to his daughter’s closet and all of her stuff was missing.
He had no idea where they could be, they just disappeared. In the morning he would go to where Della worked, at the laundry mat. He would bring her back home if it’s the last thing he ever does.

Della went to work each morning around 10:00 AM. When she arrived John was already there waiting for her.

”I have a restraining order against you, you are not allowed to come anywhere around me or Jenna until we go to court.” John interrupted her.

“You stupid bitch, do you really think I’m going to let my wife and my daughter leave me? You will come back home or you won’t need a home, ‘cause I’ll kill you both.”

She backed away from him, afraid of him and what he was capable of.

“No, I’m not coming home and if I have anything to do with it, you will never see your daughter again.”

He became enraged at her standing up to him. He punched her in the mouth. At that time there were only two customers at the laundry mat, but they certainly witnessed his brutality. She still said no! She wasn’t ever coming back home. He took a switchblade from his jacket, slid it open, and walked near her, raking the blade against her throat. Blood began squirting from the gaping wound, she had no time to react to the
insanity of his action. His daughter screamed in horror as she witnessed the demise of her mom at the hands of her inebriated father. Witnesses ran to the phone to call 9ll, and they scattered from the scene.

John looked down, seeing what he had done, and then looked shockingly at his daughter; as if he could not believe that he had finally completed his threat. He didn’t know what to do, whether to run or to fall down in a chair and wait for police. Jenna ran to her mother, picking her up by the shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. She was crying and telling her mother I’m the orphan you warned me I’d someday be. As she knelt in her mother’s blood she sobbed over, and over What now? What now?


Word Count 1,728