A Cry in the Night

A CRY IN THE NIGHT

Darkness. Always the darkness. The only escape of light came from a
split in the curtains, casting a short, vertical shaft on the wall from
which to focus for a moment's distraction, but the inevitable darkness
always ruled the night. My room was a circus of horrors, where stuffed
polka dotted clowns grinned deviously from the walls on which they were
pinned. In my nightmares they climbed down from their spot and sat on
the end of my bed and started at me. If I opened my eyes they would
spring upon me and choke me. There was no mirth or laughter from which
you would expect from these clowns, only absolute terror which froze me
to my bed. To cry out was to alert my tormentors, only to have them
terrorized me beyond what I could endure. I knew subconsciously that I
would escape my persecutors when morning would follow, and with it, the
light. Then later the darkness, and again the clowns.
Though I was only five, the memories are etched in my mind. My nights
were filled with its demon's. The clowns were just like actors in a
role. Some nights they would take the stage, and other nights it was a
dark man standing menacingly the corner. I could hear him breathing
quietly but he would never move. I could never see his face, because he
was dark, always dark.
Then there were the nights of struggle, a struggle for my soul. There
was a spiritual presence, an ungodly pulling and tugging at my
terrified and tortured mind, For hours I laid there, trying to escape a
whirlpool of concentric circles which became hugely dilated at one
point and recoiled diminutively at another. It was the constant
repetitiveness of the expanding and the shrinking of the whirlpool that
I struggled with. When the image narrowed, I would struggle to free
half my body from its gravitational grip, pulling at the sheets on my
bed. When it widened, it would loosen its hold. It was an all night
wrestling match that left me drained and exhausted in the
morning.
As a child growing up in the 50's there were no sanitized expressions
of family nurturing one might imagine from watching "Father Knows
Best," or "Leave it to Beaver" in my home. I'll bet Wally Cleaver never
approached his dad and warned him with dire consequences, "Don't you
ever hit my mommy again, or else!" I remember it vividly-my dad shaving
in the bathroom but taking time out to chuckle at my chivalry. He
shaved with indifference while my mom cried and tended to her wounds. I
was no knight in shining armor. All I had was a Roy Rogers pistol
loaded with caps, with which to ambush my dad when he would exit the
bathroom. He would laugh and I would cry when he didn't fall down
mortally wounded. I don't remember his face, but in my mind he was
dark. Dark eyes, dark hair. Maybe he was the man who stood in the
corner of my room at night.

Mom was twenty-one and I was five. Cathy and Mike were younger than I,
but they might as well have not even existed. I don't have lucid
memories of them at that time. My mother was my world. She was the
planet I orbited. The dark man was trying to destroy my planet and all
I could do was to hang on. My arms would rap around my mother's leg and
she would drag me, as we would make our escape. But the dark man was
gaining on us and to my horror my mother would shake me loose. She
never turned around or came back to help me. When he grabbed my ribs
with his bony fingers I woke up choking and gasping for air.
I remember once sitting in the car with my mom as she frantically
looked for the ignition key. Her hands were shaking wildly and she was
crying. My Dad was pounding on the car window and threatening to break
it. Mom fearfully rolled down the window and my dad demanded the keys.
She pleaded with him to let her go, then he threw the keys at my mother
in anger, missing her and hitting me in the legs. I didn't see him
again until I was seventeen.
In the next scene I was standing, looking straight up at a dark,
smiling man, whom my mother had just introduced. It believed it was the
same dark man who stood in the corner of my old room. He found us. He
soon moved in to our home and he was no longer smiling.
We now lived in small house, identical to three others that sat
adjacent to us in an open, grassless field. I remember sitting on the
porch with my mother while we watched gophers pop their little heads
out of their holes.
My mother married the dark man and then the abuse started. At first it
was gradual. People in those days called it strictness. A wide-open
slap across the face was the norm, even as a young child. Or being
whipped naked with a belt until I begged for him to stop was common.
Being dragged by my hair to my room was frequent. I learned to live
with the physical abuse as one might learn to do. But his name-calling
broke my spirit. His belittling, destructive words took whatever
vestige of self worth I had and crushed it under his tongue. At six
years old, I was almost a defeated human being. I was seeing a child
psychologist because my mother couldn't understand why my schoolwork
was suffering. I don't remember the prognosis, but I do remember all
the fun toys scattered on his office floor.
At the age of eight we moved into a two-story townhouse with a
community pool and park. My mom was happy that we'd finally made it out
of the financial doldrums and were on our way to a better life. But all
the demons of the past found their way into our new home. My new father
became increasingly cruel. His eyes would narrow and with pinched face
would threatened through his teeth, "I'm going to whip your ass!" My
stomach was always in knots. I developed a tremor in my head and it
wouldn't stop shaking. I bit my nails and wet my bed. Then the night
became even more of a terror for me. I was not allowed a light on in
the room at bedtime, and the man who stood in the corner was back. He
used to stay in the corner, but now he would move slowly towards my
bed, breathing heavy and loud. Sometimes he would be so close, daring
me to look at him, but I dared not look at him or he'd touch me. But I
could feel his hot breath against the blankets from which I was
cowering under. My bed was soaked with sweat. My body ached from the
tension of stiffened muscle while wrapped tightly in a fetal position.
My head pounded with ferocity from lack of oxygen as I breathed in
stale air within my cocoon.
I lived this insanity night after night for years, as recurring
nightmares became the normal bedtime occurrence; I was lying in bed and
I was afraid. I got out of bed a walked slowly downstairs to get help
from my mother. I could hear the T.V. on and hoped she would let me
watch some with her. I would be safe next to her. As I approached the
stairway landing I could see a door leading into the garage. I had to
pass it in order to get to the living room. The closer I moved towards
the door, the wider the door would open. When I tried to pass, a hand
would reach out and pull me into the pitch-black garage. It was a man's
hands, dark and hairy. The dark man now hid in the garage. He would
grope me with his long fingers hard into my ribs, acting as if he was
trying to tickle me. There was no laughter, only pain. It was long and
agonizing. At first, all I could do was give a low, visceral groan. I
was in the hands of this man, helpless and horrified. When I was
finally able to open my mouth and cry out, I awoke, wet with sweat,
only to repeat the same nightmare again the next night.
This dream was repeated every night for 5 years. It finally stopped
after my mom divorced my new dad and he moved out of the house.
At seventeen years old I heard a knock on the door. On the other side
of the door stood a mirror image of me. I knew it was my real father.
He located us through the phone book. We all agreed to try and rebuild
our relationship together, minus mom of course. She hated him, but
reluctantly acquiesced to our wishes. My mom always warned me of my
father; how he had beat her, (which I hadn't forgotten) how he refused
to work, how he drank to much and would womanize all night. He had a
repertoire of evils for which I was ready to forgive.
I decided one day that I would leave California and live with my dad
in Oregon. After settling in for a few days I started asking him a lot
of unanswered questions that had plaque me from childhood. There were
the usual questions: Why did you leave us? Did you love us? What things
did we do together? His answers were frank, but seemed to lack any
contrition. Then he suddenly punctuated our serious dialogue with
laughter. "I'll never forget," he said, "how you always wanted me to
scare you. I used to hide in the corner of your room at night and wait
for you to look at me. Then I would move quietly to your bed and give
you a good tickling. You just hid under your blanket and never said a
word. Finally I just gave up."
I was speechless. I just stared at him with disbelief. Was I really
hearing this? I thought about telling him about all the tormented
nights I spent locked in nightmares because of his practical joke. I
wanted to tell him about nausea I suffered from frayed nerves and the
migraine headaches from the lack of peaceful sleep that I endured
constantly. I wanted to cry and let him know how my young life was just
about destroyed because of him. But I knew I could never articulate my
anger into words and make him understand the pain he caused. All I
could do was look at him sadly and say, "Now the darkness has no power
over me."
He looked at me curiously. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean-you're just a man, and a pitiful one at that," I said, giving
over to anger. "You hid in shadows, you cowered in corners. Your life
has always been an attempt to hide from one thing or another. You hid
from your responsibilities, you hid from your family, you hid from
work, and you hid from everything that was a threat to your free will.
You hid from the light and lived in my nightmares! I was afraid for
nothing." As I got up to leave, with every intention of moving back to
California, I turned around one final time and said to my father, "The
dark man is dead."