May 16, 1995. (Beat)

My mother doesn't like me. Today, it rained. First it wasn't
raining. My brother and I played outside and my mother watched
out through the window. Then, the sky got cloudy, it started to
rumble and my mother told my little brother to come in. I was
coming in too but my mother said no, that I should stay outside.
She said it in a nice way and said it was still nice and that my
brother had to nap. It was morning but Maybe sometimes my
brother naps in the morning. I'm not sure. Soon after, it
started raining very hard. I was wearing shorts and a little pop
top and my white shoes. There was a lot of thunder and
lightning. It cracked all around me and I was scared. I knew
that lightening is dangerous and I went to the door to see if I
could come into the house but it was locked and my mother didn't
answer when I rang. She never lets me get dirty and by now I was
very wet and even muddy. I checked to see if she was watching
from her window; she generally does, but she was nowhere in
sight. I got more adventurous and ran to the fornt yard,
forbidden territory, and once again looked to see if she was
checking on me from her window, but she was not. I stuck my head
under the gutter and let the rain pour through my hair. I
laughed gleefully, partly to try and forget the fear of being hit
by lightening. I stayed outside for a long time, until it
stopped raining. I was cold for a while but even when I knocked
on the door, there was no answer, so I ran around the yard and
eventually, the sun dried me up.

My mother called me in. I thought she would scold me for not
staying in the backyard, but she didn't say a word to me. She
looked disappointed I was still there.

My mother's locked up in her room. My brother and I decide to
play a trick on my father whose office is just down the
livingroom hall. Help me push this armchair, I ask my brother.
He is a fat redheaded kid with a fair amount of strength for a
three year old. We heave and push and finally, the chair is in
place, wedged in the hallway, right in front of my father's
office door. He comes out for lunch and screams: what the hell
have you done? to my mother. I say it's us, my brother and I.
He thinks we are just protecting my mother and is livid. Get
that goddamn chair out of there now! he screams. My mother
doesn't know what's going on and screams in her room, angrier
even than my father at being unjustly accused. My brother and I
are so nervous, we are no longer able to dislodge the chair.

Morning in a darkened room. I am in my crib and I hear birds
singing. I pull the curtain and look outside wishing I could
climb out of my bed but my mother has firmly instructed me to
stay in my crib until she takes me out. She eventually enters
the room and hits me for having pulled the curtain. I told you
not to touch those curtains! Then I wonder why the rod is bent.
Don't you ever touch that curtain again if you know what's good
for you. I cannot understand why anyone would want to endure a
dark house, dark rooms when it's so lovely outside.

Lying in my bed, I watch a fly buzz around the room. I take a
piece of kleenex and the gold initial ring my grandmother gave
me and I make a crown and veil for my ring finger. You are the
queen, I say. You have all the power. You can tell people what
to do. You're very lovely, I say and so is that child standing
next to you. Let's go visit the queen from the other castle so
the children can play together and you can have tea. I doze off
into sleep and am awakened by pain and more pain. Startled, I
open my eyes and see my mother hitting me with a long wooden
stick. You goddamn little hypocrite, she says. Pretending to
sleep, are you. Take that and that and that! and half asleep, I
try and understand what is going on. I was sleeping, I scream,
through tears of pain and humiliation. I was! Well then it's
for the times you weren't, for all the times you play the damn
little hypocrite, she says.

Life is no longer the same from that moment on. There is no
longer any truth, any honesty to life. I must save my skin,
however I can because there are no reasons for the beatings. My
mother hates me, that is all.



Mother chases 10 year old girl around house, through hallways,
living room, kitchen, and round and round. Two children, older
girl and tall boy peer from two different doorways. Woman is
livid, child has intense look in her eyes as she looks back from
time to time.

You goddamn savage, get back here this minute! Stop it you
goddamn mule. Wait till I catch you! Stop now I tell you! You
hear me? Stop now!

The screaming goes on as the mother and child circle the house
several more times.

I can run faster than her. But there's no where to go. I could
run for hours thinks the girl but eventually, I will just have to
stop because there is nowhere to go and I will just have to take
my beating like I normally do. But what if I was to never stop?
What if I was to run out of the house and down the highway and
never come back? Run down the highway and on and on and jump a
train and ride to Disneyworld and maybe some nice people would
take me in as their daughter and I would live happily.

The girl grows weary, opens the basement door and runs
downstairs. This is her downfall she knows because from here,
there is no escape. She runs around the pingpong table a few
times with the mother still screaming the same litanies. The
older girl and boy are now peering from the stairs in awe of
their sister.

The girl is not physically tired however, she is emotionally
drained. She sits under the pingpong table and crouches into a
little ball as her mother reaches under with her stick as if
chasing some rabid animal. Come here you bitch! Listen to me
once and for all. Come out and get what you deserve! The little
girl curls up tighter and tighter, trying to protect her head,
her body at the same time. You won't come out will you? Well
then I'll come and get you, you goddamn savage!

The mother crawls under the table and the little girl has a
second's satisfaction at the thought of her mother looking so
undignified, her plump body in her house dress crawling under
this table, waving her stick and screaming her lungs off.

It comes down, with all the wrath her mother can muster. The
pain on her fingers trying to ward off the blows, the bumps on
her legs, new ones popping up every second. This is worse than
usual but then, I did ask for it the little girl tells herself.
Stop, stop, please stop! I can't take it anymore says the little
girl, but the blows thunder on. A trickle down her leg and she
says I'm peeing, I can't help myself! The mother laughs wickedly
and keeps hitting until the little girl dully lets her body give
in.

Clean up your mess and get to bed! says the mother as she kicks
the little girl to make her move.

Later, in her bed, her soiled panties at the end of her bed, the
girl cries. She tries to break her arm, her legs by twisting
them into unnatural positions but only endures more pain. Maybe
they'll have to put me in the hospital with a broken leg that way
I won't get any beatings while I'm in the hospital, she thinks.
There is the fear though that because her father is a doctor,
they will keep her at home because he can take care of her and
her mother will be even angrier at her for having broken her leg
on purpose so she will get more beatings. Exhaustion sets in and
sleep follows.

In the morning, surprise at still being alive. She prays God
every night, and the Virgin Mary that they take her away that
they take her to heaven, maybe with her real mother whom she
thinks is dead. The soiled panties are hanging on the bedpost
and her mother forces her to wear them to school. She stinks as
her mother does not let her use the sink or any towels in the
washroom. Come here so I can comb your hair, says her mother as
she does every morning. The girl sits on the stool and her
mother separates her hair in ridiculous parts, tying it all up in
a poney tail and adding barettes, pins and a headband. The girl
is ugly, stinks and her face staring at the ground, treks the
mile to school. No one comes near her all day. The children,
though they snicker behind her back to each other do not say
anything to her directly. In any case, she does not look up from
the ground all day, nor does she hear anything. At the end of
the day, she wearily walks back home and her mother asks if she
has learned her lesson.

Morning. Come here, you slut! Hand me that schoolbag. Her
mother goes through every compartment and finds a pharmaceutical
notepad the girl's father has given her. Haven't I told you
enough times you goddamn hypocrite? Haven't I told you, you
don't bring things to school? The stick comes out and the girl
wishes she had been quicker about putting on her skipants and
jacket. She rubs her bruised arms, dresses and walks to school.
The walk to school is delightful. She is late, the streets are
empty of children and she sticks her tongue out to catch a few
snowflakes. At the railroad crossing, she plays chicken with the
train, which comes by every twenty minutes or so. She runs back
and forth across the track until the train is relatively near and
then lies on the crossing, getting up maybe twenty seconds before
the train goes by. The engineer shakes his fist. She waves and
laughs, slides down a hill across the track and walks the last
three hundred yards to school.

Bedtime. A mother's voice, sweet, endearing words. In my
brother's room; across my own room as she tucks in my sister. I
wait. Footsteps, out of the room. I gather my strength. Hear
my words echo: can I have a kiss too? A snicker and the voice
turns harsh. You? You don't deserve one.

A crashing sound. A vase falls off off the coffee table. My
brother and I look down with horror. What will she say? Perhaps
nothing since my brother is the culprit. Stomping steps! My
elbow is twisted up toward her chest as she lashes out her words
of wrath. My brother looks on without a word. She pinches me
until the blood vessels burst. It's not me! It's not me! I
shout. Tell him it's you I beg my brother, but she does not want
to hear. The stick appears and I am once again lost in her fury,
trying to protect my body from these never ending blows. God
will tell you the truth one day, I say. You'll see one day that
I am telling the truth. It only serves to encourage her wrath.
I cannot understand how this god-fearing woman, this church-going,
rosary saying woman can strike a child, an innocent child.
I am not a demon or am I? I go to the bathroom and wipe my
tear-stained face and look in the mirror to see what demon-child I am.
I see an ugly child, bruised, disheveled, bent. Maybe that is
what she hates in me. My ugliness. Perhaps she would have liked
a pretty child like that lovely blond girl in my class who wears
a red velvet dress. Yet my mother always says how ridiculous it
is for a child of that age to be wearing painted nails and party
dresses to school. I myself think Helen is the prettiest girl in
the class.

Today my mother is in a good mood. She teases me and I say she
doesn't love me. You never hug or kiss me I say. That is
because you are always so despicable, she says but don't be
ridiculous she adds. Of course I love you; more so even than
your brother or sister. I have to train you that's all. And she
goes on with her work.

I go into the back yard, in my father's forest, the one he
planted one tree at a time. I am not allowed here because my
mother says it will mess up the yard. I take a bag of alphabet
cereal I have stolen form the pantry and my dog and cat, one
under each arm. I eat my alphabets and share them with the dog
and cat. Then I hit them, one at a time; then I hug them,
squeeze them with all my love and tell them how despicable they
are. They squirm, look puzzled and I hit them again and tell
them how sweet they are and how I adore them. I am frightened
and vomit in the garden. I carefully bury my vomit so the garden
will be clean again.My cat and dog look up at me adoringly. They
are well trained.

It is supper time. My mother is serving beets. Thr sweet smell
makes me nauseous. She knows it and serves me a double helping.
I can't eat this I say. You know you will eat everything on your
plate she says. It is such a lovely color I think, why can I not
eat this? But the smell is so sweet, so perfumed; it is too
overpowering for my senses. I cannot get it down my throat.
Yet, I have no choice and I push the spoon into my mouth and
imagine more pleasant foods. My senses will not cooperate and my
dinner splatters back onto my plate, a sickening fuschia
overflowing on the table. My eyes are watering, my body is
shaking but my mother insists I finish off my plate. I do.


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