SHAME

I was nine years old. I had just gotten home from school. I was sitting in the den eating a banana about to turn the tv on when I heard the front door swing open and my mother stormed into the den. She grabbed me by the hand yanking me off the sofa and without a word dragged me to her car.”  I had seen my mothers anger many times before but this anger was ferocious!  We sped away.

 My mom started drinking her vodka around 4 o’clock each afternoon and we never knew which way her mood would go. When she turned surly and started sucking her teeth you could tell she was once again building her case against my father one resentful brick at a time. The Cold War was going on those days between us and Russia. Neighbors were building bomb shelters in their basements preparing for a possible nuclear war but I was far more frightened by the cold war that had been going on for years between my parents. We never knew if or when she would launch her furious attack on dad or choose to remain quietly seething during dinner lost in her self pity and resentments. Dinners were brief. We kids all wanted out of the kitchen before she began twisting the knife. She knew where dad’s buttons were and once he tried to evade her she’d twist her self righteous knife deeper into his wounds. “Enough Jay,” he’d repeat but once he had taken the bait she was relentless.  It wouldn’t be long before my dad would up and leave the house once again for one of several late night poker games with the boys. This was his get away and the more he avoided her the greater her resentment would grow.

I was 5 or 6 when I discovered my mother sitting in the darkness in the living room with her Viceroy cigarette glowing, ice cubes clinking in her glass of vodka. I would hear her trying to stifle her sobbing and I would go into this private world of hers to try and comfort her.  At 5 years of age I became her confidant. She would cry and I would cry along with her. She would tell me bad things about my father that only confused me because as rare as he was around, when he was around he always seemed like a nice reasonable man to me. And he was fair.  

One particularly morbid night as she held me close to her bosom she spewed “Don’t you ever, ever,,ever…treat a woman the way your father treats me”.  I remember feeling torn between my parents. I wanted to be able to tell who the good guy was-who the bad guy was. I wanted to know the difference between right and wrong and felt I had to decide which of my parents deserved the blame for all the unhappiness in our home.

Other times her targeted victim was me. “Just wait til your father gets home!”, she’d threaten after I became too big and fast for her wild swings of the belt.

My father was an attorney and valued logical arguments and support evidence for accusations. Since my mother was an emotional pinball he tended to doubt the validity of her accusations which resulted in my usually being able to wheedle out of any punishment. Of course this just frustrated her more and added to her fury. Such was the uncertain atmosphere most common in our home.

We weren’t driving for very long but we were out of our newer 2 story brick house neighborhood and parked between less familiar but taller 3 story apartment buildings. My mom parked and pulled me out of the car toward the apartment first floor door where she began violently knocking and shouting simultaneously, “Come on out of there you son of a bitch! I know you’re in there!

I watched my father step shamefully out of the apartment, his eyes cast down as she reveled in continuing her punishing tirade. “How could you do this to me? How could you do this to your family!”. 

Strangers on either side of the street slowed their pace and stared which seemed to fuel my mother’s attack. Her grip on my hand was viselike. Shame rose up and swallowed me whole. I remember clearly wishing I was invisible; I remember wishing I was dead. I had never before felt the pain of humiliation to such a degree. I didn’t know it then but I would never be the same. This event signaled the beginning of many long arduous years of self destructive behavior. From that moment on I lost all trust in both parents and in authority itself. My rebellion began in earnest. At the time I didn’t know I’d begun an unconscious journey of self destruction.  It wasn’t until  years later, that looking back I realized what better way to get back at my parents than by hurting myself. 

THE SWORD

A sword driven deeply into my back

so long ago.

I look to the night sky for a word

from the ancestors

and am answered with silence.

The stars do not recognize me,

nor do I. 

There is broken glass beneath my bare feet,

I dare not move but cannot stand still,

I am afraid and lost.

My new son is crying,

grieving his departure from the womb.

He has joined me in this harsh place called Life

and I have nothing to give him, 

I cannot comfort him,

I cannot comfort myself. 

My shame swallows me. 

I understand finally…

It is my sword.

Somehow I managed to stab myself in the back,

It was me all along.

It is me all along, 

I am the one to fear, 

the one who cannot be trusted. 

My wife cries, “Come to bed!”

But I cannot sleep.

I hear my son’s lament

joined by his brothers wailing

mixed with my wife’s impossible tears

all stirred together by

my terrible sadness.

We are all being born again, 

anew, and it is terrifyingly 

painful.

We are all holding hands

writhing through the birth canal screaming 

blindly. 

It is like this every time, 

the first night home, 

All of us together never

before like this,

This family, this 

snowflake, 

unique.

I am as frightened as Benjamin, 

who is one day old. 

I have always been this frightened,

always been returning, 

my whole life an impossible attempt

to return to the state of perfect safety

in mother’s womb,

to darkness, 

warm fluid, 

the cord that kept me from the terror

of being separate. 

This is the Truth.

This is the Truth!

I drove my sword deep into my own back, 

then blamed you fro crippling me. 

I wanted to drive that sword through you, 

through your heart, 

I thought that would free me

From my rage

but I couldn’t do it,

didn’t have the courage or strength

so I did the next best thing-

I knew that if I hurt myself

It would hurt you mother, 

I’ll show you!

…and I did.

This is the Truth! 

This is the Truth.

It was a man’s sword wielded

by a boy.

The time has come to take it back

from the boy,

from the wound, 

and as a man forgive myself, 

wield the sword truly and finally

cut clean the cord.

The poem seemed associated with the theme of my story which is why I included it.  Perhaps unnecessarily  but when it was written it held an extremely important insight into my own self destructiveness which began in earnest after the event described in the story….