She Tried to be Good, but Never Could

~~She sat in her bed, with the pink ruffled quilt half covering her head. The pillow falling off the side of the single bed, trembling at the sign of the front door opening. Who was it, was it him. She could still smell the alcohol- beer and cigarette smoke smell mixed with car grease. She tried to do whatever she could to think happy thoughts. Being at the park, swimming in the pool, the smell of chlorine and how her face feels when the water flows over her when she comes out of the water from a dive into the pool, the cold wetness of the public pool down the street.

Suddenly back to reality the door flung open, the hinges making noise as if to fall off. She is shaking, wondering why is she so bad, and why can’t she just cannot be good, what is wrong with me, she thinks. She can never do what she is supposed to…. She felt a tug on her foot, suddenly she is in the air, she feels the breeze on her face as if it’s in slow motion and it seems to take forever to fall to the floor, before she is being pulled by the arm. She tries to get her balance like she is diving in the pool. But her feet won’t do what her mind wants them to do.
Her head hits the hard wooden floors, the dust from the wood flies into her mouth and she can smell the grease and cigarette smoke clearly, not like in her thoughts, but really smelling it. She is trembling wondering what I did this time… her mind is racing thinking about her day in school… 2nd grade is hard for her… she doesn't fit in with the other kids. Did her teacher call home? What did she do? Her mind won’t stop racing… all she can do is think about what she did wrong… did she forgot to make her bed…. The ruffles from the pink and white quilt are now on the floor because when her little body was grabbed she was partly inside the covers… is that why she is being pulled down the hallway with her face eating dust on the floor? Did she forget to wash the dishes properly? If she didn’t do the dishes properly…. He would take every dish they owned in the house and piled them on the counter for her to wash again. The sink would be full of wet cigarette butts and empty beer bottles… The stale beer watered down dripping into the dirty ashtray full of cigarette butts would make the clean dishes dirty... but it was her fault. Did she miss a spot? Did she take too long to walk home from school?

In fear trying to figure out what she did…. She was only 7 and it was really hard to remember... she had a good memory and she remembered everything… it was just not clear what she did this time. It’s was her fault… she should have learned from the last time… three days ago… the bruise on her leg has turned purple and blue and only hurts when she touched it… she would still touch it anyways because if she made it hurt, the next time it’s was not so bad because she gets used to the pain. Her mind is racing with thoughts from the night before… the men making loud noises, the beer bottles smashing and the broken glass from the fighting.

Her uncle was perfect and she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t listen to daddy either… he got a cut like hers on his leg. She told him before to not fight with daddy, daddy is always right. He's right. You have to listen. Listen.  She didn’t eat all her breakfast. She left some of the milk in the cereal bowl and forgot to put it on the counter this morning. Milk is expensive, she should have drank it all before she left to walk to school in the cool snowy morning.

It was snowing hard from the storm and she was rushing so she wouldn’t be late for school. It takes a long time to get all the outdoor clothes on for school…. She forgot her mitts today. Her hands are numb still from the cold; they felt tingly and warm… She could not find them because of the mess of beer bottles and tools left by the front door entrance. There were rusty tools, dad’s old toolbox… an old greasy car battery and beer bottles… she knew her mitts were somewhere in the mess, but didn’t want to be late for school. So she left, without her mitts and it’s ok because it was her hands that would be cold. Her head hit the stairs, one by one, there were twenty stairs all wood with steel tracks on the edges… dad put them there so no one would slip when walking down the slippery wood stairs. He cared about us, if we would only be good.

As her head hit the stairs, she was still trying to think of what she did wrong... if she could only remember before she got downstairs… she could say she was sorry and remember to never ever do it again….  Her leg hit the stairs as her dad dragged her down the last few steps… it didn’t hurt as bad and she knew it was because she had messed with the bruise to toughen it up. She was finally lying on the floor, when dad let her go. Her beautiful long brown hair that matched her pretty green eyes was matted up and she could feel the lump starting on the top of my head. It’s ok because she wears a pony tail because it takes away the pain and you can’t see the bumps as much. She has bangs now and they cover the bruises on her head and her sad green glossy eyes.  As she started to stand up, still trying to remember what she did because she knew she was bad and deserve this… why couldn’t she change and stop doing bad things… what’s wrong with her.

Her dad yells, where is your sister. Her sister who’s 11 months younger than her went to the movies with a neighbor. She didn’t answer her daddy fast enough... he reached into his rusty tool box and pulled out a screwdriver… the handle bright red and the stem long. This was dads car tools… he was always fixing the car and drank beer almost every day. 

She stood there trembling wondering what was going to happen next… the constant wondering left her with anxiety most of the time… She does not recall being at peace except when she swam. She would often daydream about diving… the coldness and freshness of the water always helped her soul heal. She would go to the pool as much as she could and stay there until the sun went down and it was cold outside… she would suffer thru hunger pains just to stay swimming… it was a block from her house and she would walk there. It didn’t matter if she was home since dad was fixing the car and drinking beer… she was just in the way. Dad yelled at her again where is your sister. She couldn’t help but to feel relief since she didn’t do anything wrong this time. He was mad at her sister. Her mom had told her sister she could go to the movies with the neighbor… so she did.

Feeling very sick to her stomach, she tried to forget. She felt herself being pushed up against the wall. She could smell the grease on the screwdriver that was now on her neck, where is your sister. She quickly told him her mother said she could go to the movies. Big Mistake. She felt sick. Her legs went numb, her hands still hurt from not wearing mitts today and she did not eat lunch. She felt all these emotions at the same time. Focus. She needed to handle this issue first.

She wanted desperately to crawl back into her pink and white quit and put her head under the pillow and wish the day would end. Tomorrow would be a better day... She would be good. She would not make any mistakes. She would tell her sister, not to make mistakes, but when she did... She would take the blame. Her sister was too young to go thru any of this. Why did he do this to her sister, she was only 6. She was innocent and didn't do anything wrong ever. She wished she could take it all away for her sister and she always tried.  She quickly answered him again… she went to the movies. She could feel the tears dripping down her face. It kind of tickled. It kind of felt funny and she was used to the salty taste of her own tears.

When she wiped her neck because she felt a lot of wetness her tears were red. Red Tears dripping down her neck…. It was not tears; her neck was bleeding from the screwdriver that punctured her in the neck… She couldn’t breathe. Daddy I can’t breathe, Daddy I can’t breathe... she repeated herself… it seemed like an eternity before he finally let her go. She fell to the wood floor. This time the floor was covered in water from the snow that had melted, mixed with grease and dirt and now her blood. She slipped on the floor and fell as she tried to stand up and take her punishment like she should. She was bad.

She tried to be strong. She would be the one he was mad at... not her sister… He was yelling at her and she could feel his spit, mixed with the smell of cigarette smoke and beer. Mostly she heard him yelling, the people down the street heard him, but she didn’t really hear his words. It was her fault, she was the bad one. She needed to learn to focus and listen better to him. She just wanted it to be over. She would be good. She promised she would be good. Finally he told her to go upstairs. She walked away from him as quickly as she could back up the twenty stairs, down the wood floored hallway and to the bathroom. She closed the old door, locking it, turned on the sink and wetting a rag to wash her face. She tried to breathe…. She tried to relax... it was over until tomorrow.