Let’s be honest, his name isn’t Richard. (Does anyone know a Richard anymore, anyways? I certainly don’t… Then again, I don’t get out much)
I’m calling him Richard ’cause he was a dick.
He used to beat my mom, break her valuables when they argued, and I was “disciplined” for things. It’s an odd sensation, being an 8 year old child and knowing you’re being abused, plain and simple. Knowing and watching your mom fear for her own safety when an argument gets out of hand. I’ve seen her and him dance around a table as he’s trying to get to her, and she knows that if he gets to her, she’ll regret it.
Now, I was a bratty child, I’m not gonna to lie. I needed to be taught how to respect my mom better. But not like that. No child should ever be told they’re being disciplined when they’re being abused and that if they didn’t listen, they should be given mercy. A child shouldn’t have to worry or expect pain if they make mistakes.
So, whoo! This was probably my biggest reason for my lack of respect with my mom when I was 14 before she died. There were other reasons, but Richard took the cake, hands down, give him a trophy.
Let me start from the beginning. I’m an extremely intuitive person. That gut feeling some people just get about things? That was me one night at K-Mart in the jeans section. My mom’s picking out clothes, I don’t even know why, just looking through when she spots a cowboy. He’s practically glowing with whatever she got caught up in thinking about. She loved country boys. She always told me how she wanted a log cabin in the woods and everything. So, she turns to me and asks her 6 year old if she should go talk to him.
I remember being in a bad mood ’cause the pizza section was closed, so I was in arms-folded mode. No way I was going to say yes and stand around while she talks to someone. And then she goes up to him, and talks. I’m bored, having to listen to my mom work her game.
He’s trying to talk to me, and there’s something off about him. I got that gut feeling, and I was smart enough to voice it. My mom and I left the store and she’s asking about my impression of him. My impression? Stay away. I didn’t like him, not just because I had to stand for an hour 20 feet from the closed pizza section of K-Mart.
Of course, she asked for my opinion and ignored it. She tried reasoning ‘oh, you’ll come to like him’ or ‘you’re just a kid, you’ll understand when you’re older’ or ‘well, you need a father figure in your life, maybe he’ll be better than your father’. Let me tell you, having no father was better than that piss poor excuse for a man.
Their first date was alright. We watched Indiana Jones, and that was cool. My mom and him sat on the floor where I normally watched, so it was like a family thing and I briefly wondered if that was what normal parents did with their kids. And then I realized my mom would never sit on the floor with me and just watch a movie. It wasn’t that it was below her to watch a movie with me, it was the fact that I knew the only reason why she was doing it was because of him. And then I was jealous.
That was my mom, and I had no control over where her attention was anymore. (I was raised as an only child in our house, despite me having siblings)
I acted out, stole money from her and stuff. I did that before he showed up in our lives, but after she met him, I did it to spite her instead of doing so out of greed. Hell hath no fury like a child ignored. Until I wasn’t ignored anymore, and then I wished I was.
After a few months, he moved in. The honeymoon phase was fine, he was strict and I cried sometimes because I wasn’t allowed to talk back to him or her. He made it very clear I was no longer going to be allowed to be disrespectful. I stood in the corner in time outs, and was ordered to apologize if my tone was anything short of acceptable to him. But then, the honeymoon phase ended, and he began to lay into me instead of verbally reprimanding me.
I went to school with bruises, I couldn’t sit because it hurt so much, and I started begging him for mercy, doing everything I could, saying everything I could, to get him to not order me to retrieve his belt.
I hated him, but more importantly, I hated my mom. She continued to stand by and let it happen. I used to beg her to get rid of him, reason with her to leave him, and nothing worked. She said he was putting me straight. I suspect she was terrified of him, though.
She did end up kicking him out, though. They had been dating off and on for two years, of course, but the final straw came two years after they first met. Two years too late, I’d say.
It was a summer night, and I was 8. My normal routine at night was to walk around the house in my underwear, because it was summertime in southern California with no air conditioning. Having a disabled mom on welfare wasn’t conductive to luxuries like non-suffocating air. I’m not making a judgement, just stating my reason for walking around with practically nothing on. Anyways, the final straw.
My mom’s in the kitchen doing dishes while I’m sitting on the pulled out futon. He has me scoot over to let him go under the blanket, and I ignore him while I watch T.V. Then, he tells me to get under the covers, and I take my stand. The hell I’d be under the blanket. It was summer, and the last thing I wanted were layers. And then he threatens me. At the time, I had no idea what he was intending. I’m refusing to get under an inch-thick comforter when my mom gains some of the respect she lost.
She had finished dishes, and she had overheard him ordering me to get under the blanket with him. In summer. She knew what I didn’t, and I swear, I had never seen her so upset. In all of my life before then, and before her death, it was the most protective thing she had ever done.
She came into the living room, charging at him, shouting at him, slapping him, insulting him, and she did so with such a fury that he cowered out of the front door. She also called the police, and he made the mistake of leaving his wallet behind. And that was the last we ever saw of Richard. Good riddance.
Hannah-radical 