The Last Time I Moved Out
NOTE: This is a story about domestic violence. It is explicit, and graphic, and children are involved.
My whole head burned when I woke up.
Dirty light bled through the basement curtains. The season selection screen for Bubble Guppies was on the television, Mister Fucking Grouper leading a pack of ambiguously non-white fish people. I was sprawled on our microfiber, stain proof, modular fucking sofa that was absolute murder on my back. Both my sons were asleep on my arms, faces showing none of the blistering hours that had led to me stumbling down to the basement with them screaming in my arms. They’d slept some. I’d slept…maybe three hours. Three was hellish, but if I admitted I was probably closer to one or zero hours I’d collapse.
Or I might collapse anyway. Bright flashes of the previous night hammered my head. I had no idea how the fight started, and knew exactly how it started. And once it started, I knew exactly how it would end. And it might not have ended yet.
Either way, it was get up o’clock. And if she started hitting me again before the kids were gone I wasn’t going to be able to keep it together. I was past slipping; I was gone, out of work, exhausted, and everything left was going to the kids.
I gritted my teeth against a groan as I rolled upright. The kids stayed asleep. The older was twisted in a pretzel after a full night of thrashing and self stimming, his dark hair a tangled mess. He was 3, heavily autistic and nonverbal, which was just as well this morning. The younger was just asleep. His hair was fair and far too long, tangled in a way only an enthusiastic 1 year old could make it.
They didn’t stir as I eased myself up. The kids always stayed down when I put them to sleep. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that every time I did, she screamed at me till they woke up in a panic. I closed my eyes against the ragged bitterness, and bit the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t think that now, or feel it. I was barely hanging on as it was, and she had at least a half night’s sleep on me. I needed to make up with her. It was just how it was.
I slunk up the stairs of our big, expensive house, up to the hardwood floors of the ground level. It ran from wall length front windows to an open stainless steel kitchen in the back, with the sort of enormous island sink yuppies bought to pretend to be chefs. I pressed my hands into my face before getting the boys’ cereal out and starting a tea kettle.
Omelette. It couldn’t be fried eggs, she’d yell at me for that. I put a cast iron skillet on a range the size of a refrigerator and sliced butter into it. Omelette, spinach and feta, cracked pepper, yeah, that should work. Hopefully. I poured white tea into a travel mug, sprinkled more feta over the omelette, set all on a breakfast tray, and brought it upstairs.
The stairs were polished and slick as I carefully climbed to the master floor. I’d slipped on them and fallen more than once. Three bedrooms opened out of the upper hallway, along with another bathroom. The boys’ rooms were both messes, blankets and pillows tossed around while I’d scooped both the kids up sometime before midnight.
The master bedroom door at the end of the hallway was locked. It always was. This was the tricky part: I had to get in, or she’d hit me. But there were precious few ways to get in without enraging her anyway. Knocking was a bad idea; that would lead to a fight about whether I could come in and it would all be for nothing. Texting would be even worse. Ideally she would still be asleep, and I could sneak in and leave it. If I could manage that, she usually stayed in the bedroom till the afternoon. But walking in unannounced when she was awake was the worst of all.
A giggle came from downstairs. 3 had woken up, and I was out of time. I took a deep breath, and slipped a latch pin off of the molding above the door. The lock popped open, I took one step into the bedroom, and froze.
My wife at the time was sitting straight up in bed, glaring at me. Her face was sharp under the skylight, and her brown hair fell over her shoulders onto a yellow USC sweatshirt. Two night stands were beside the king sized bed. Mine was almost bare; I didn’t remember the last time I’d slept the night there. Morning light threw a rectangle across the room as I flinched.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she snapped.
I ducked down, setting the tray just inside. “Sorry,” I muttered. I locked the door again and backed out.
3 was definitely walking around in the basement. I hurried downstairs and found him playing in a ball pit I’d made with sofa segments. 1 stirred at the noise, and the day started. I changed 3 first; hard experience had taught me he had a short timer between waking up and putting his diaper to artistic use. Breakfast was easy to autopilot. Any idiot can feed two small humans, and I was the only idiot who ever fed anyone in the house. I dropped them in toddler seats clamped to the kitchen counter and shoved cereal cups in front of them. The coffee grinder made a red slash through my skull, and I started a pot and slumped down with a cereal bowl of my own.
The boys giggled as I wrestled 3 into his school clothes. Just like every morning, he viewed dressing a personal affront. He drew in his knees to stop me from pulling up his pants. Then he popped open his diaper while I scooped up his shirt. His diaper was wet; a change later, and he squirmed into a ball against the whole process starting over again.
Finally, I got him to kick himself into his pants instead of out of them, and noticed my phone was buzzing. My stomach sank as I saw over a dozen text alerts, with a repeated demand at the end:
Her: Bring my purse upstairs now, or I’m coming down and dumping this tray on your head.
I sighed. The bus was going to arrive in twenty minutes. 3 wasn’t even close to ready, and it sounded like 1 was working on yet another fucking diaper. I had to keep it together and get 3 on that bus.
My thumb shook as I swiped out a reply:
Will: I’m getting 3 ready for school. Get your own fucking purse
I threw my phone into a sofa cushion, and checked 1’s diaper. He was thankfully dry, although he had a look that said that probably wouldn’t last. I stared at the handful of clothes I’d pulled out of both their drawers, or so I’d thought. 3's hand me downs had long since blurred into his current clothes, and the red haze behind my eyes made it really hard to give a fuck which was which.
A door crashed open upstairs. It was probably going to happen. The warning was a distant echo in my head, lost in a knot of exhaustion and concentration and worry.
I shook my head, and tugged a shirt over 1’s head. Either it was fine, or it was slightly big, which was fine. It wasn’t like he was going to school either. 3 threw himself into the ball pit with a cackle.
The footsteps crashing down the stairs sealed it. She had a certain cadence: heavy footfalls on heels, irregular pacing from skipping steps, occasional slipping. There was only one thing that came next when she did that.
I picked up 1, who squealed and touched my beard. He always liked my beard. When I trimmed it he would be perplexed and slightly anxious, and it always made me smile.
She crashed into the bottom of the basement stairs. Her eyes were wild, unfocused. The first time I’d seen that look, the Twin Towers had still been standing. Since then, she’d kicked me in the gut when I had stomach flu, then stomped on me while I tried to crawl the the bathroom to throw up. She’d shattered glass over my head, punched me till I saw white, stabbed me with a seam ripper, and whipped me with an iphone cord.
She’d done it for fourteen years, and I’d last seen that look five hours ago.
“What are you doing?” I sighed, standing up with 1. Hopefully it would be over soon.
She surged forward, ripping the top off the mug. My eyes widened, and I turned, curling over 1 as she dumped it all on the back of my neck.
I clenched my eyes shut as it all splashed down my bare back and onto my sweat pants. It burned. But it wouldn’t leave blisters. It wasn’t boiling, after all. The room was very quiet. Shouts and screams muffled through my head and I needed to get it together, it wasn’t boiling and that was that.
1 was screaming under me. It could be pain. It could be a burn. It wasn’t boiling, but my son was 18 months old and my wife just threw hot tea on me and hit my son and that was not that, that was not fucking that at all.
I leapt to my feet, and ripped the mug out of her hand. It came away instantly. It was sickening, how easy it was to take. I hurled the mug against the wall, denting the dry wall underneath.
My heart pounded in my ears. My son was crying, both my sons were crying. I hadn’t protected them. I’d gone on living for that one reason, and I’d failed.
I shoved her, backwards and down. She crumpled instantly, like collapsing cardboard. A waterfall of memories drowned everything out, every sound. They all bled into each other, all the screaming and crying and laughing.
Laughing.
She was curled into a ball at my feet, shaking with laughter. The laugh wasn’t wild. It was spiteful, and hateful, and triumphant. I had her shirt in one fist, and my other was pulled back to punch her, and she was giggling at my feet like she’d won at Monopoly.
Screaming.
1 was screaming. No, he was terrified, making sounds I’d never heard a child make. I turned to him, and saw his eyes. Tears were streaking down his face, eyes bulging. He flung his arms out as us, both, either, none, and screamed. 3 had his hands over his ears, screaming in confusion and panic.
My sons I’d watched first breathe were sobbing in fear of me.
Bile leapt into my throat, and my voice shook as I rushed to 1. I choked on tears and puke as I held him close, whispering I was so sorry, so so sorry, it’s over, it’s over now, I’m so fucking sorry.
I stumbled upstairs. Up more stairs. She was behind me somewhere, I didn’t know, she could be close. I staggered into 3’s room and shoved backwards against the door. His room was bare, all distractions removed except for his bed. An alphabet of assorted craft letters hung on the wall. She’d screamed at me while I painted and hung up every one.
1 was still howling. I took a step toward the bed to lay him down, then the door crashed open into my back. “Put him down, you abusive shit head!” she shouted, lunging at me. I turned away from her, then gritted my teeth as she raked nails into my arms and back.
I shoved back with my body, pushing both of us into the hallway. I grabbed her arm and pushed her towards the master bedroom as she flailed at me, clawing at my arm. “Stay away,” I shrieked. “Just stay the fuck away!”
The giggling started again as I slammed the door behind her. “Daddy’s an abusive shithead, 1!” she called in a lilting sing-song. I bit my tongue to stop crying, and tasted blood.
As I started back down the stairs with 1, she burst back out. She didn’t say anything this time, just raked my back over and over. I could already feel blood welling out as she stared at me from the top of the stairs, suddenly silent.
I stopped at the kitchen, panting, and slumped against a column while I soothed 1. When I shoved myself upright, blood stains were on the pale aquamarine something something wall. I scrabbled in the pantry and grabbed a fistful of fruit snacks, tearing one open for 1 as I went back downstairs.
“It’s over,” I whispered to him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry you saw that, I can’t change that but it’s over now, it’s over, I’m…”
I turned away and closed my eyes till I could breathe without sobbing. I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t do it at all. I had no plan. I didn’t even have a shirt. And if I left, I didn’t know what she’d do to them.
I’d almost beat the face in of the mother of my children five minutes ago.
1 was munching quietly on fruit snacks. “Nacks,” he mumbled through a mouthful.
I nodded. “Yes, nacks,” I said. I took a deep breath, and walked downstairs with him.
3 was back in the ball pit, shrieking in the not-quite-anger he fell into when he was upset and had no words for it. I set 1 down and offered 3 his own snack bag while I rushed through a diaper change, then his clothes.
When I returned to the kitchen for 3's lunch, blood was running down my arms onto my palms. I sighed, and stumbled back down the stairs to the laundry room. I grabbed a yellow collared shirt out of the hamper, blotted off my back and arms with a dirty towel, and shrugged into it.
Finally, I went back out into the main basement. I snatched 3's empty snack wrapper before he could eat it, and found my phone in the cushions. I dismissed all of the new messages and sent one without looking at the history:
Will: I’m leaving. I’m putting 3 on the bus, packing a bag, then leaving and not coming back.
I dropped the phone, already buzzing with more messages. 3 was finally close to presentable, so I pulled his socks and shoes on and got him into his backpack while 1 lumbered around the basement. As I finished buckling 3’s backpack, she came down the stairs, quickly but not quite there again. Yet.
“Give him here, asshole,” she said. I backed away towards the kitchen, raising my hands in the air. She rolled her eyes and flipped me off before bundling 3 out the door.
As soon as the door closed I hurried up the stairs to the master bedroom, which was locked, because of course it was. I popped it open, grabbed a large duffel bag out of the closet, and stuffed all the clothes from my half of the dresser into it. Then I grabbed more from the closet, till the bag was bursting. I slid all my toiletries into a large side pocket.
She came back into the room as I was finishing up. “What the fuck are you still doing here?” she snarled. “Get out before I call the cops.”
“I am,” I said.
“Fuck you!”
I waited for her to get out of the way, but she remained in front of the doorway, glaring at me. I sighed, and slid around her with my bag.
1 was wandering around the living room as I came to the ground floor. I pulled my shoulder bag down and stuffed my electronics into it. After I found a phone charger, I slumped against the wall again. My phone was vibrating constantly now; she might actually be calling me. I pulled it out and turned it off before pulling open the pantry and stuffing snack food in my duffel bag.
The doorbell rang as I grabbed an apple from the fruit basket. She hurried downstairs, scooping up 1 before rushing to the door and sliding out without opening it all the way.
“Oh, hi!” she said brightly on the other side of the door. “Let’s go around back!” 1 burbled happily on her hip as she bounced down the stairs.
I blinked as I stared at her walking her mom friend and play date out of view of the front windows. Then I glanced down. My shirt was already spotted through with blood, and my arms weren’t scabbed yet. I snorted bitterly. Of course this was her finale, keeping her friend from seeing what she did to me. She was probably telling her friend I’d hit her. I rubbed my eyes again, then shrugged into the bags.
I didn’t look back as I hauled everything out the front door and through the gate. My back was already starting to ache as I walked across the street to the shitty convenience store that sold unstamped cigarettes. That, at least, was easy. The store staff had once chased each other around the entire block screaming about some sort of love triangle, so a white man covered in blood dragging luggage into the store only merited my usual two packs of American Spirit blues.
Rush hour was just starting up on Armitage Avenue. The sun glared in my eyes as I trudged east, lighting a cigarette. I passed a papered over storefront with a sticker about some campaign for head of Puerto Rican parades. My head was hollow except for how much I despised the hipster dickbag capital of the planet I’d bought two homes in. I finished my first smoke just as I passed the Salvation Army on Kimball, which seemed a little on the nose. But it wasn’t like I was done smoking. Another cigarette, and I was at Kedzie, and white Logan Square showed up with trash on the lawns and hybrids with obnoxious magnets.
One more cigarette, and I was at California, and all hope was lost. California and Armitage was everything wrong with Chicago whites rolled into one horrible intersection: strip malls, SUVs, a quirky barber with secondhand furniture, even a Papa fucking John’s. On the other hand, it also had my favorite pie store; after all, I was a hipster dickbag myself. Also, I was technically homeless, bleeding in several places, and had stopped to cry several times along the way. I felt I was owed pie.
It was the least I could do before the gates of hell opened.
Five minutes after I turned my phone back on, she texted me demanding I come back and find her keys.
