Silence Protect Me

Most people would be shocked by the fact my mother had almost knocked me out at the dinner table. Most people would have snatched me out of her harpy nest, hurrying me away from my earthquake of domestic violence.

Most people wouldn’t leave me in the midst of the mess.

But, as I’ve implied numerous times, my situation isn’t the norm. I can’t flap my stubby wings and flee from the drunken tigress, nor find myself a comfy spot away in another bird’s nest. No, no, the best I can hope for is that my mother will go out on one of her famous medicinal three-day-shopping-sprees with her loathsome fembot buddies and give me some time to steel my head for another attack. Hopefully a verbal attack. My head won’t stand many blows.

I can’t escape. It’s that simple. Dad’s fame traps everyone in this family, surrounding them with bars made of hasty lies and sugar-sprinkled cover-ups. All the time I’m covered in stage make-up, directed to act the part of a normal eldest son in the perfect magazine family. Of course, I don’t play along. I refuse to speak my lines, preferring to hide in the wings and look on in dismay at the hopelessly deluded audience. It doesn’t matter if I don’t play along, anyway. I’m still bound by my irrepressible silence. I’m not going to stand up in the middle of our performance and scream the truth at the crowd. It will only put me in a worse situation to say anything.

That, at least, I know.

Billie, Mike, Adie, Elise- None of them could say anything either. The situation is like one of those children’s toys, where you stack up the wooden bricks and take turns to pull them out one by one. If the players said anything, the whole structure would come tumbling down and ruin everything. My Dad’s band would become a sham, due to none of them facing up to his wife’s obvious violence. The pressure from the collapse would send a tidal wave of attention over their families, ruining the precious lives they strived to sculpt. Basically it’s the law of unintended consequences. Except… They have the sense to realise one ruined family is better then a mountain of ruined lives.

I may not understand their feelings too well, but I understand the blockage of motives.

Anyway, enough is enough. I don’t want to focus on what can’t happen and won’t happen. It always ends up the same way, no matter what I think. I’m still trapped. My family won’t get magically better. And I’m never going to speak up about it.

It took me awhile to wake up the morning after my mother hit me across the face. I suspect she could’ve given me a mild concussion- I’m not sure. I’m not a medical expert. The sun seemed a lot brighter between the chinks of my metallic blinds, almost painful to my sleep-strewn eyes. I reached for my fire engine red alarm; the one I’d had since I was six. Nine years and it hadn’t ever told the wrong time. I like my clock. It’s a good source of reliability. Plus, clocks don’t force you to talk. They just sit there, providing comfort with their soft, soothing ticks. No mind tricks. No violence. A clock’s function is purely to help, nothing more.

I squinted blearily at the time. It took me a moment to realise that the time was about 11:30 AM; due to the fact my vision was still recovering from my mother’s cruel blow. The little black numbers kept twirling in and out of each other like demented dance partners, eventually taking pity on me and landing in a recognisable order. I shook my head groggily, trying to dislodge the after effects of last night. I don’t usually sleep in so late. My mind is usually programmed to a strict time for waking, always jolting me out of my bed around the premature time of 5:40 AM.

I resolved to try and not get hit across the face again, least my schedule be interrupted.

I swung one leg out of the confining space of my starched pale blue sheets; carefully removing my body so I wouldn’t crease the fruits of Deedee’s hard labour (my mother is a neat freak that never does any housework. Deedee has been ironing since she was just tall enough to peek over the board). My comfortable but dully decorated room showed no sign of the violence from the night before. That’s what I love about my room, and hate at the same time. It’s a calm ocean away from everything else in the house, the room’s blue theme corresponding correctly with my watery description. My beautiful blonde wooden desk is fitted just under my windowsill, my little white Apple Mac laptop situated in the centre like a shrine statue. A matching chair is place neatly before the desk, my regulation school bag tucked secretly underneath. The floor is also wooden, covered with an oceanic rug that is so new that it still gives off a unique odour. The walls are covered with a pastel shade of blue with off-white kick moulding, a small simple print of a famous painting of lilies just above my headboard.
It doesn’t fit the stereotypical teenage male’s room, I am aware of that. But I am comfortable with the lack of personality and personal effects. Every time I try and add a personal touch I just feel like a great pretender.

And nothing is more pathetic then you faking with only yourself as an audience.

I walked across the rug to my simplistic wardrobe, my bare toes recoiling at the carpet fluff tickling their delicate soles. I don’t go bare-foot often. Even when sleeping I usually keep my socks on. But last night- I think I just stripped off without thinking about it and wriggled under the covers. I don’t usually sleep in my underwear. It makes me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable to attack. Plus, I detest the feel of sheets on my bare skin.

I must have picked my clothes up before going to sleep, because they were folded neatly in a pile on the lid of my laundry basket. I scratched my head sleepily. I didn’t remember folding anything before I blacked out in my bed. Perhaps I had sleep-folded or something.

I dragged on a pair of new jeans from my wardrobe, the denim material slipping easily over my narrow legs. They felt too stiff, just like Deedee’s perfectionist bed sheets. Even though they weren’t that tight around my legs, I still felt rebellion from the fabric every time I tried to bend my knees. Oh well. At least they didn’t look mucky or scuffed. I quickly chose a plain grey shirt from one of the compartments, carefully buttoning it up over my hatefully skinny chest. I debated for a moment whether to tuck it in and decided against. I may be a bit of a geek, but I wasn’t about to make an obvious fashion error.

I looked into the small mirror affixed onto a door of the wardrobe, looking critically at my mismatched face in the modern teardrop shard of glass. Hmm. The purpled puncture marks in my cheek soared out of my reflection and hit my retinas straight off. The wounds were actually surrounded by hideous bruising, the like that would probably turn a sickly yellow in days to come, perhaps a startling red. Against my unhealthy greyish skin tone the marks looked particularly undeniable. From my lips burst a sigh of suppressed annoyance. Great. There was no way I could go out and face the public with those marks on my face. I might as well just walk the streets with a huge sandwich board that proclaims “MY MOTHER HITS ME”!

Even if I could make up a perfectly plausible story the media wouldn’t take it. They’re sneaky people- very adept at making a mountain out of a molehill. One look at me and before I know it I’ll be buried in dirt. It doesn’t matter that I’m not technically that famous. The press would just love to get their hands on something against my family.

Maybe they’d assume it was my father who did the damage. I know I would. I don’t mean to sound sexist, but generally the ones that dole out domestic violence happen to be of the male gender. That’s just how the stereotype swings. I know my Dad would never lay a finger on any of us. But I doubt the public would see it my way.

The public like interesting lies better then the plain truth, anyway.

I checked my hair quickly in the mirror, running my skinny fingers through the silky mass before even debating heading out of my room. My hair is at the length where I have to bother about it, even if I wish not to. If I don’t, it looks like something a small animal would consider home. Sometimes I even find random twigs in amongst the strands, which is surprising simply for the fact that I don’t venture outside unless I have to.

The door creaked ominously as I pushed it open; sounding like the painted wood was trying to warn me of some unforeseen danger. It groaned like an old man on his deathbed: “Ivvvvvvvvvy… Ivvvvvvvvy… Watch out for the-“

SQUELCH!

I felt something slimy kiss my foot sloppily and my eyes flickered downwards. What strange bedevilment was this? Was a slug pining for me outside my room until my foot had crushed it into a foul puddle of goo?

The answer was simpler and less gross then that, thank God! Beneath my foot a china plate clearly lay, the remains of a cold, congealed breakfast now smothered under my toes in an unrecognisable smear of yellow, white and red.

Red? Had the plate cracked and cut me without my body realising? My foot leapt up from the plate, attentively presenting the sole to my worried stare. A sighed escaped from my lips; one of relief, which was good. It wasn’t blood I had seen in the red. No, from what remained on my foot I could safely deduct it was a piece of bacon, drowning in an ocean of tomato sauce. My lip curled as the offending stench of over-refined tomatoes wafted up from my foot. I hate ketchup. My opinion is that it is the worst condiment ever created. A real tomato sauce should be carefully made from real vine-ripened tomatoes, and no sugar should be allowed anywhere near the hallowed mixture. I will not take any cheap and disgusting substitute, especially on my breakfast.

There is only one person who has no idea of my dislike of ketchup (apart from Tyler, but he just worships food and doesn’t care to actually make it). Deedee knows. My mother, when she isn’t drunk, knows too. With these careful deductions, I knew immediately who had placed the plate of breakfast so carelessly next to my door.

My Dad.

I observed my foot more closely, my eyes sure they had spied a piece of white sticking bravely out of the saucy mess. I frowned at the white, my fingers automatically reaching down to pluck it from my skin. It was a piece of paper- and I mean was. The tomato sauce had almost turned it into a disgusting mass of red paper gloop. If I squinted I could just see some legible writing.

“Ivy,” the note began bluntly, written in an offending scrawl,
“Taken kids to see Uncle Billie. Didn’t want to wake you. Your Mom has gone shopping with other clones- KEEP OUT OF HER WAY!”

That last fragment of the sentence was viciously underlined in thick black, small holes in it from where the pen had actually gone through the paper. I nodded at the redundant advice, my eyes already scanning through the rest.

“Going to be back around two o’clock. Join us if you want. Dad.”

Short and to the point. That’s my Dad, right to the bone.

It wasn’t that late in the day. I could still walk over to Billie’s- maybe stop over at Beth’s place on the way and invite her along. She likes to get out of the house as much as possible- her mother is quite demanding and strict. Sometimes we joke about who has got the worst mother, just for fun. Now she knows I’ll always win hands down.

With the plan in my head, I wiped off my food-covered sole on the carpet, leaving a disgusting red eggy smear. I didn’t really care, though. Someone else could clean it- a housekeeper (my mother hires and fires so many that I gave up on trying to remember their names long ago. Besides, I never see them anyway) or Deedee. There was no chance my mother would tiptoe off her pedestal for once and clean it! With that thought, a small idea crept into my ear, settling comfortably in my brain with the grace of a swallow.

Why not use some of her bountiful supplies of make up to cover my wounds? It made sense. She had inflicted the bruises- thus; I was more then allowed to delve into her stash of beautifiers and erase her handiwork. Besides, it’s not like she would notice. Her focus is marred on the best of days- plus she has more make-up then the average circus. All I needed was some concealer anyway. It wasn’t like I was going to give myself a transvestite makeover.

Walking steadily down the hall to her “forbidden” lair, I smiled at my bruised face in the long hallway mirrors.

Forget “eye for an eye”. I had found a much more ingenious solution.