She wore big pink sponge rollers in her hair and a flowered housedress. Her mother had died when she was a girl. Her father was a drunk with one leg. The story of why he had one leg remains unknown. Based on other stories about him, it is probable he deserved to lose a leg. Her father had beaten her mother and when he tired, he turned his aggressions to her and her brother.
Her mother died giving birth to yet another child. She wondered if her mother’s death was the result of a blessing or a curse. Nonetheless, she was angry with her mother for leaving. Her father had broken her mother but the children remained. Beating them seemed not enough to break them. He molested his daughter and dared his son to speak against it. The son did not. He was silent. She was not. Like father like son is how the saying goes.
Her father did not care if she went to school and so she did not. She slept with men because that is what women do. Women sleep with men, cook their food, and do their laundry until another woman does it. Her mother had died and her father was a drunk with one leg.
Perception is reality. She grew up and moved away. She did not move far. Spell bound by her perception of who she ought to be; the product of a woman who abandoned her children and a drunken one-legged child-molester, she moved back. Here or there, she was still the same person. She was a woman who slept with men, cooked their food, and did their laundry until another woman did it. She was expendable and while she knew it and felt it, she could not spell it or articulate it.
Her father died. He was found laying face down in a puddle of urine. She felt comfort in the thought of oxygen and space wasted no longer to sustain his minute existence. Her mother died during childbirth. She is alive and knows not how to live.
She married a man who she believed would be her ticket to another life; a better life. He was not. As he hit her, she remembered how she hated watching her father behave that way. She took the beatings believing they would thrash away the part of her that embodied her father. Then, she got herself pregnant. Her husband tired of her and chose another, as women sleep with men, cook their food, and do their laundry until another woman does it. She hated her father. Her child has no father. Inevitably, the child asks questions to which there are no answers. Another man chose her. She did not marry him. He would not marry her.
Her brother was everything their father was not. He was tall, handsome, with a beautiful smile, and all his limbs. He landed a good job though he too was uneducated. He purchased a house in a nice neighborhood. The female neighbors welcomed the handsome, single man to the neighborhood with teacakes and cornbread made from scratch. He gladly accepted.
Her brother was everything their father had been. In exchange for teacakes and cornbread, he offered the female neighbors a smile and thirty minutes in the master bedroom of his new house. They gladly accepted. He drank too much. Kentucky Deluxe had been his father’s favorite whiskey and so the legacy lives on. He chain-smoked More cigarettes. He believed they made him look like Jimi Hendrix. He did not.
He married a woman who believed she looked like Chaka Khan. She did not. As he hit her, he remembered how he hated watching his father behave that way. Like father like son is how the saying goes. The last punch was always in loving memory of his mother. Then, she got herself pregnant. He tired of her and chose another; however, the other would not cook his food or do his laundry so he kept the first one for chores.
The other woman climbed through the window of the master bedroom for a smile and thirty minutes. She often bruised her knees on the window seal. He told her she could use the front door next time. In exchange for using the front door, she must cook his food and do his laundry. She gladly accepted. His wife slept with him, cooked his food, and did his laundry until the other woman did it. He did not marry the other woman. She would not marry him. As he hit her, he remembered how he hated watching his father behave that way. The last punch was always in loving memory of his mother. Then, she too got herself pregnant.
He did not molest his children. He looked the other way while other men did. He refused to hear the cries of his daughters who begged him to make their pain end. He told them the pain would end itself as women sleep with men, cook their food, and do their laundry until another woman does it.
Irony- she hates her father and loves her brother.
Generational curses…
