The taste in her mouth was of dirty nickels. She could still feel the warmth and scratchiness of the hot concrete sidewalk against her right cheek. She was bleeding now; dirt and plasma coagulating together into hundreds of tiny scabs across her face and neck.
What did she do wrong this time?
The prior night, she had told her mother that she was moving out. It was a sad conversation. Commuting to a college only twenty minutes away, she had planned on living at home to save up money. Save up for what? She didn’t know, yet, but she knew that she had to, because that’s what adults do. And soon enough she would be an adult. But she met a friend in college, whose life was more tainted and sad than hers. They were inseparable. She found herself defending Maria’s quirks to the other students at school. “You don’t know what she’s been through. Stop making fun of her!”
Maria’s father was involved in a sketchy Mafia-esque drug deal. He hated his life. He hated putting his family in danger – so much so that he shot and killed himself. Killed himself to get his family away from the life he was leading. Ironically enough, Maria’s mother was killed in a grocery store parking lot a week later. Maria’s life was worse, she kept reminding herself.
The two decided to move in together, as best friends. When she told her mom about her plans, her mom started to cry. “Why? Why don’t you want to live here anymore?” She tried to make her feel guilty….? Or was she being genuinely sad about her daughter’s plunge into the real world? “Because I hate living here,” was all she said. She loved her mom.
The next day was the first day of her junior year in college. She came home, after spending over $500 in books at the bookstore. Carrying in the heavy load, she met her father at the dining room table. She sat the stack down and got a drink of water. Placing the glass in the sink, she eyed her father walking over to the yellow tearing plastic bags of books. “I just got done washing the damn dishes!” he barked. “All I do is pick up after you damn kids all day long. Lazy slobs!”
It was her mistake. She replied back, “If you didn’t wash one dish at a time, you wouldn’t have to do the dishes fifty times a day.”
“Did I ask your opinion!? Don’t talk to me like that!” For a seventy-year-old man, he was still healthy and strong. The years of working as a police officer did it. He leapt at her in four steps and knocked the pile of books off the table. “CLEAN UP YOUR FUCKING MESS YOU FAT WHORE!”
He started calling her a whore when she told her mom about an abnormal female problem. When her mom found out she was no longer a virgin, her father retaliated and forever called her a whore.
She picked up the books, now with bent pages, and headed to her bedroom. Her sanctuary. She spent 90% of her life in the four corners of her bedroom. Physically and emotionally shaken from her father’s crash, she started crying too loudly. He came inside her room and threw the dirty glass she drank out of at her. “Wash your goddam dishes!”
She got up off her bed and started to say something to her father. But she remembered the rule. Do not speak unless asked. She assumed that classical conditioning is what made her so soft-spoken and passive with the rest of her life. She had so much to say about so much in life, but kept everything inside to herself. This forced introversion, she would find, would fuck up a lot of relationships and cause every major communication error she would have for the rest of her life.
She pushed past her father, throwing the glass at his feet in retaliation. Stupidly, she walked out without her car keys, but ran to the door anyway, craving to get out of the house. She tripped out the door, onto the bench on the front porch. He walked calmly outside after her and she got up and tried to run again. But she tripped again, falling onto the gritty sidewalk, scratching all up and down her face and neck, her hands also with abrasions. Trying to regain control, she moved to stand up as he was spitting on her.
Just in time for her mother to come home. “WHAT is going on?” She always said it.
“I HATE LIVING HERE! THIS IS WHY I’M LEAVING!!”
She ran back inside.
At the bathroom sink, now, she dabbed her burning face with a cool washcloth, thinking, “What did I do wrong this time?”
It would be a few days before the excoriations would heal on her face, before she could visit her friends without being questioned and having to fake smiles.
What did she do wrong this time? [October 3, 2008]