Divulgence

DIVULGENCE

“Now boarding for Boston Massachusetts, please go to gate 10. For Boston Massachusetts, go to gate 10”. My twin brother Malcolm, and I look at each other expectantly. This is our first time on a plane, and it fills me with excitement, nervousness, and reservations.
“Here you go. Don’t forget to call your mother when you get there, and when you plan on leaving the United States to come back here. I don’t want to see your mother hurt, so the rumors better not be true, you will be coming back right?” Tony, my mother’s alcoholic abusive boyfriend glares at us, in a threatening manner. His power has no hold on us anymore.
“Yeah, sure” I respond. Tony gives me a hug, and I cringe at his despicable touch. It isn’t until we board the plane that we feel free of his overbearing presence. Once the plane takes off, we feel a newfound freedom, indescribable presence of calm joins our hearts.
“Malcolm, I can’t believe we did it! I can’t believe we are heading to the United States to live with Dad.”
“I know!” he responds with a grin. We feel our moment at this point of our journey to Maine. We start to swap stories and reminisce about the path our life has given us…
We first remember the time when our mom first met Tony. It was a great, he was so nice to us. He gave me a record, my brother a popsicle stick thrower, we thought life was great. Once he moved in with us life became a topsy-turvy nightmare of physical and mental abuse, neglect and terror. As we talk one memory surfaces to me that I share with Malcolm.
It had been a typical day, where we try and play outside to avoid being near Tony, but unfortunately it was hair cutting day. Hair cutting day consisted of Mom cutting our hair and giving us the three stooges bowl cut look. Not really the best choice when you are a teenager trying to impress the girls, but we certainly didn’t have any choices. I was always able to sit still for my haircuts, and my hair always came out fine. Malcolm, however, was not so fortunate. He could not keep his head still so my mom had to ask Tony to cut Malcolm’s hair. Malcolm had proceeded to be his same wiggly self but Tony would have none of it. This completely brought out the psychotic side of Tony. Tony grabbed one of our big cutting knives out of the drawer and placed it in Malcolm’s hand. It was pointing straight up; tip to Malcolm’s throat and Tony “the tyrant” as we called him, gave Malcolm his instructions.
“You will keep the knife right there, while I cut your hair. If you so much as move your head, you will be cutting your own throat. It won’t be my fault if that happens.” I watched in utter fear for my twin, and suppressed some tears. “This guy is a maniac!” I said to myself. Malcolm successfully got his hair cut without a scratch and we high-tailed it to our friends.
Another scene surfaces and I remember how Tony used to throw our cat and our dog against the wall if they didn’t come to him when he called. He managed to get in some kicks too as well. I had felt so bad for the pets but thee was nothing I could do about it. The cat eventually, just didn’t come home again. It had the guts to walk away from the situation. Perhaps, this is what had inspired us to do what we did.
There was a lot of bitterness on my part towards my older brother. He never had to get hit, or deal with Tony’s maniac attitude. He was four years older and as he started to get muscle and learn karate Tony didn’t want to push his luck. He had no curfew and could go where he liked. This memory is not the fondest memory of myself but it took a lot time to deal with the bitterness. My all time favorite memory that Malcolm likes to tell people and revisited it on our plane ride involves the one time any of us stood toe to toe against Tony and it was me. I guess I did what Malcolm always wanted to do, and being the least physical of us brothers it impressed him because I stood up for myself.
This incident happened on a cold winter day in St. John New Brunswick Canada. There had been some snowfall and “the tyrant” wanted us to shovel the snow. As far as I can recollect I must’ve been tired of his shit and had reached my stopping point. It played out like this.
“Get your boots on and go shovel the porch and driveway.” Tony commanded. Malcolm immediately went and put his boots on, while I stood as still as the Statue of Liberty.
“What are you waiting for, plunger lips?”
“CHRISTMAS!” I responded. My hate filled, defiant eyes pierced into his. Being the tyrant he is Tony refused to notice the warning sign and moved into his aggression mode. With quick purposeful strides he was over to me and delivered a hard shot with his knuckle to the soft spot on the top of my head. I shook my head, indicating that it didn’t hurt, and resumed my glare. Malcolm’s jaw had dropped, and Tony got even more furious. This time he administered two quick powerful blows, and again I shook my head. The standoff was on. I remember nothing of Tony’s facial expressions, but Malcolm in his many flashes implied that Tony’s face was so full of rage it was almost purple. He administered what should have been the final say in the standoff. He rocked me as hard as could, with all his rage, and I still I stared. At this point Malcolm could see that I was going to act once Tony started pummeling me, and based on my current status figured either Tony or myself would go out in a body bag so he jumped in between Tony and me, and steered me in the direction of my boots.
“Come on Mark let’s get this over with.” To this day I believe that Tony knew he held no fear over me any longer. The mighty Tony had been felled by a twelve year old malnourished and dirty boy.
Malcolm and I carry on with the memories, like a purging, a release of all things bad into the promise of a better future. I start laughing, (even now at 35 years old it is hard for me to laugh out loud, the only tell all to my lost innocence of childhood) and Malcolm asks me what is so funny.
“Remember the time you and Danny and got caught…” the memory comes flooding back.
All three of us arrived home from school and find that Tony is not home this is a rarity; but also a pleasure. Since food was rarely given to us and the opportunity to get some struck us, we started rummaging through the cupboard. I guess the mystery reader in me thought that him not being there was odd, so with the alarms going off in my head I had looked around more. Sure enough, I had found the jerk he had been hiding under the sofa, he had waited to catch us in the act of eating. I had been on the spot because I did not want to tell them where he was because if he all of sudden knew I had told them, I would be in trouble, so instead I pretended to know nothing. I did give my brothers a slight clue but they had not caught it in their hungry hands.
“MMMM these cookies are good.” Danny says.
“Yeah, they are, are you going to eat anything?”
“No1” was all I had said. I was an eating machine and so for me to say no should have set off alarms in their heads. Instead, they kept eating, Tony had decided to come out of hiding, and grounded the two of them for eating some cookies. Many years after the fact I told them what I knew about the story, and they called me a jerk in brother fashion. It became a big running joke.
We had talked about a lot of things on that plane ride, how Tony would count and measure everything in the house before he left so he would know if we had ate or drank anything; how Tony would beat mom, and how we would someday kill him. It felt like a cleansing of our soul; a rebirth.
We almost didn’t get away. When things reached rock bottom for us we were living in Newfoundland Canada, because that is where “the tyrant” was from. After four years there and at the Christmas season of our 16th year of life, we had enough. Malcolm and I had written a letter to our dad, telling him how we wanted to live with him. Then we would make secret phone calls to Dad at our best friend’s house, to plot, and strategize. The plan had been set; Mom just had to agree to it. If mom agreed, then Dad would send round trip tickets down for us to leave Newfoundland via plane, and land in Massachusetts where Dad would pick us up and we would go to Maine, where he lived. My dad had made numerous calls, and to our dismay she had agreed. Dad always used to get us for the summer, until mom took us to Newfoundland. This would be our first Christmas at my dad’s. Then some friends of ours opened their mouths and Mom asked us the question that would make me guilty for a long time.
“I heard you guys aren’t planning on coming back here. Is that true? I would die of a broken heart?”
With a straight face I lied to my mom. “No Mom, we are coming back. That is why we have roundtrip tickets. We are just going down for Christmas.” At this point we were worried that everything was going to be cancelled. Mom had let us leave based on her belief that I, (her most innocent, most honest boy) was telling her the truth.
We pulled it off, and after five long years of sent cards with no response Mom had finally forgiven me, and started communicating back.
That plane trip had symbolized freedom, rebirth, promise, a life, and rewards for our future. My life journey has had many bumps and potholes, but I just fill them with love, and know that I am good human being.