E: Crazy?...Her or Me?

Parenting and Family > Issues > Abuse

Crazy? Her or me?
by paisleydayze, 4th June 2001.

She thinks I should sign her birthday cards. . .With Love,

She didn't knock or ring the bell. She just came storming through my
front door, waving a receipt in her liver-spotted hand. Her dyed
too-black poodle perm was in direct competition with that god-awful
perfume she wears and the huge red rouge spots on her wrinkled cheeks.
She is screeching something about me having to pay for this.

I take a deep breath and try to remain calm. "What is it?" I ask.

"You know god-damned well what the hell this is!" Her face is a sort of
mottled purple color and she is advancing on me waving the pink slip of
paper under my nose.

I am folding clean towels on my dining room table. I continue to do so,
while taking a couple of sideways steps away from her long knobby
fingers with the jagged yellow nails. "I don't have any money right
now, and even if I did, I'm not sure paying for that is my
responsibility." I am shaking inside and trying to appear nonchalant
about the fact that she scares the hell out of me.

"I am calling someone!" She bellows. A strand of spit flies from her
thin mean lips, and hangs from her chin. All I can do is stare at it.
There are three or four black curly hairs sprouting there, and her
teeth look sort of greyish and extremely sharp. "Are you going to do as
I tell you to, or do I have to take matters into my own hands?" She is
still screaming at me and I am tuned out to the sound of it. I feel
like I am under water. She is wearing lavender polyester pants and a
blouse that is covered in huge pink and purple flowers. There are fuzzy
pink house slippers on her feet. I can see blue wormy looking veins on
the tops of her feet. I wonder what her blood pressure is. I can
vaguely make out something about being thrown out into the street.
Everything she is yelling at me is muffled.

I pick up a pile of perfectly folded towels and start to step around
her. She grabs my upper arm and sinks her talons into the soft flesh.
She exerts force and pushes me back to where I was previously standing.
I can feel anger boiling hot and deep within me. I inhale through my
nose and exhale slowly out of my mouth. If she does not remove her hand
from my arm I am going to . . . I throw a block at my thought process.
She is old and certifiably crazy. I could hurt her badly, with barely
any effort at all. I can see her big mouth opening and closing. She has
no lips, really. I know she is making incredible threats, but all I can
hear are sounds like those of a large crowd in a baseball stadium and
my own voice inside my head trying to convince me to bodily throw her
out of my house.

'Shove her backwards. She will trip and fall, then you can kick her in
the head a couple times, pull her to her feet and wrap your hands
around her throat . . . '

'STOP! You know damn well you aren't going to do any such thing!'

'Yes I am! I will put her out of MY misery once and for all. Her
creepy, cloudy eyes will bulge and her mouth will stop moving. I will
feel little bones crack. I will squeeze as hard as I can until she goes
limp!'

I am still breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. I
feel like I am watching all of this from a far corner of the room. Her
mouth is still moving, her grip on my arm is still strong and her nails
are still cutting into me. I don't hear myself say, "Would you like a
cup of coffee or a glass of ice water?"

The background noise that is protecting me disappears. We are face to
face, nose to nose, eyeball to eyeball. I hear her loud and clear. "You
are such an impudent smart-ass little bitch. Aren't you? You act like
you own the whole goddamned world. Stick your little turned-up freckled
nose in the air and pretend you don't know what the fuck I am talking
about! One of these days you will regret that we ever met. You will
wake up wishing you were dead! I will make you plead and beg for me to
end the agony I plan to impose on you." Her hands are on my chest,
pushing me back, a step at a time. I am close to losing all sense of
control. I am ready to do what my evil twin keeps telling me to
do.

While she is delivering this tirade, I catch a glimpse of my two little
boys cowering in the hallway. Oh my god! She has really gone too far
this time. I grasp both her wrists, feeling the knobby arthritic bones.
I squeeze a little harder than is necessary. She winces a bit as I turn
her toward the front door and walk her to it. With one arm around her
shoulder and my other hand still applying intense pressure to her
wrist, I say in my sweetest, nicest voice, "Thank you for coming over
and sharing that scary story with me. I have to fix lunch for the boys
now, but I will have your son call you when he gets home from work and
you can tell it to him. Boys, say 'bye bye' to Grandma. She has to go
home now."

When I get her on the front porch and out of the kids' line of vision,
I give her a good shove as I release her wrist. She stumbles just a
bit. God I wish she would fall and crack her crazy head open on the
cement steps! I turn and go back inside. My babies run to me and wrap
their chubby arms around my legs. "What do you two renegades want for
lunch?"

I am reading a story to them as they drift off for their afternoon nap.
Thoughts are swirling around in my head a million miles per hour. She
will tell him her version of this afternoon's encounter. He will write
her a check. We will eat macaroni and cheese till next payday and I
will wait in dread for her next 'visit' . . . a couple days . . . a
week . . . a month?

It is always a surprise and it never happened, as far as he and his
mother are concerned.