This was written in 2013, just one year before my divorce journey began, as well as a collapse of sorts, of life, as I knew it. It holds a special place in my heart, as it was the first piece of writing I ever created. Writing this was a turning point for me, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. It barely scratched the surface of the behavioral issues and substance use that needed to be addressed. In fact, I was intoxicated when I wrote it and saved it to my Google Drive.
“Fuck. Two hours until he gets home.” My body ached; the bruises and marks from the night before were still present, but the adrenaline, fueled by fear, was quickly making it fade. My stomach was pulsating, almost as if my heartbeat was coming through my lower abdomen.
“Shit.” I wasn’t even sure what I had done wrong. In fact, most of the time, it wasn’t about my actions but more about what kind of mood he would be in. I fuckin’ hated my mother and my sister; they were usually the culprits. Something they did would have a cascading effect on everyone. Most of the time, he made me feel like I could do no wrong, but that could change quickly, as fast as his temper or mood.
The shitty part was, the entire family was manipulative. Everyone would try to shit on the other to lessen their liability and visibility from the monster. Would I go to bed listening to the beating tonight, or would I be the one on the cold basement floor, knees to my chest, trying to hold back the tears?
I wouldn’t let him see me cry. I would hold it in until the short gasps of air became a pitiful whimper. What was the use of crying? “Fuckin’ asshole neighbors,” they heard it but never did anything. “How the fuck couldn’t they hear it?” We lived in Section 8 housing, and the walls were paper-thin. We could smell the marijuana from the neighbor’s basement or even the Polish food cooking in the apartment next to us.
“How come no one does anything?”
It was different if I had gymnastics tonight; at least if I was in trouble, I could usually make up for it by learning a new trick or winning a competition. I didn’t even have that tonight. “No more miracles, Ali, the inevitable is coming.” Maybe I could snitch on my older sister. I had plenty of tattle cards saved up. It’s what we did best—poker cards of manipulation saved up for the river card. Most of the time, I wouldn’t use them. It depended on how badly it was going to be. Tonight was going to be bad; you could always tell because Mom would be on the phone with her friends, and she would go into the bathroom to talk in a hushed voice. “Fuck.”
I waited patiently upstairs for the click of the key in the door—the slow turning of the lock as his key found its way and the metal sound as he turned it clockwise. Maybe tonight he would eat his dinner first, and then the notorious beating would begin. My ears perked up as I tried to gather information through the thin walls. I could hear my mom picking up her keys and zipping up her purse. Oh, sweet Moses, it’s going to be a bad one tonight… Mom’s leaving. I never actually wondered where she went during the torture sessions. Fuck if I cared. All I knew was she wouldn’t be there tonight to plead for our mercy. “C**t,” I thought. My parents wouldn’t even imagine I knew a word like that, but I did. The older guys at gymnastics had taught me things they wouldn’t fathom. “Fuckin’ c**t.” It’s a phrase I thought to myself frequently, not only as a child but as an adult. It’s the perception I had of most women, but we will get to that later.
“Ali!” I didn’t even respond. I knew the walk I had to take. It was a familiar one. At least I didn’t have to pass by my sister’s room; my room led right to the stairs. “Well, she’s a fuckin’ c**t too,” I thought. “Why couldn’t the beatings be focused on her tonight?” I thought selfishly.
Oh well, here goes. I slowly walked down the stairs. I could tell just by his face and the way his disheveled hair was that tonight he would have no mercy. I looked at him without saying anything. Let him talk; it’s not like I could say anything at this point to get out of this. “I could snitch on my sister,” but it’s too late for that. Even if I did, it would just mean we both got the beating, and why make it a late night? “Where the fuck is my mom?” At this point, I got to hear the judge and jury spit out my verdict and punishment. In my house, we never got to use the word “grounded.” It was always “punishment,” the word he always used, probably because of his lousy English. I listened to my sentence as the spit flew out of his filthy mouth. “Why does he come home so late all the time?” I knew he got out of work at 5:00 pm and often went to Gold’s Gym after. “But four hours of working out?” I wouldn’t think about that until much later in life as I recalled all the visits to the PO Box in the next city over.
Often, I wished I could just bypass the verdict, the spitting, and the lecture. He would often turn the latter part of the sentence into an Aesop’s Fable. I never listened. My only concern tonight was how many belts I would get. I always had a hard time explaining the belt as an adult. When I told my therapist about it for the first time, I sounded like a big p***y. But this wasn’t a normal belt, no siree. This was a weightlifter’s belt—the thick, heavy kind muscle men strap around their lower torso. You add that type of belt to a man who worked out his whole life doing weightlifting, and you had a pretty painful result. “So tonight, for your punishment, Ali, it will be 20 belts, 10 on each hand. If you move your hand, we start over.”
We both made the slow walk down to the basement. My hands were sweating, and I felt like I was going to shit myself. I got into a familiar position, the evangelist, as I like to call it as an adult. Palms up, in a perfect 90-degree angle like I was submitting to God. If I moved, even two degrees, the countdown would start over.
Seven.
My left hand hit my thigh from the force of his blow. He would wind up like a crazed baseball pitcher, all of his strength and anger as his arm went behind his back, gaining momentum as it slammed into my seven-year-old body. “Fuck.” My arm hit my leg. I was waiting for him to start the count over, but not tonight. “I told you not to fuckin move!”
The belt quickly did a 180. Instead of him grasping the metal buckle, it was now aimed at me as the heavy metal buried into my wrists. The metal stung so badly as the meticulously planned beating became a freestyle act. Metal dug into my hands, wrists, and arms until my body collapsed. As my body hit the floor, the kicks and punches into my body started until I was wrapped up in a small human ball on the cold basement floor.
At last, it subsided, and I heard him screaming as he went up the steps. I didn’t hear anything, really; I was still in a tight ball just in case he changed his mind. I waited three minutes. The pain was such that I couldn’t move, but I had to in order to assess the visible damage. I knew I hurt, but would anyone be able to see the marks tomorrow? I guess tomorrow would be a turtleneck day—or the Steve Jobs look. As I stood up and started painfully walking up the basement steps, I whispered “fuckin’ c**t” one last time to myself before crying myself to sleep.
