Crave (14 page)

“I was hanging with some of the guys, just drinking and playing cards.”

“Which guys and why are your eyes looking like that?”

“You know, all of the guys. And my eyes look like what? I'm just tired after a long day at work.”

“Where's your paycheck? We need to buy food.”

“I lent it to my friend and why are you hassling me?

“You know what I'm talking about and I know what you're doing.”

That comment earned Momma a bout of snickers. As I heard their voices draw closer together, I imagined Mr. Todd giggling his way toward Momma, nuzzling his nose in the crook of her neck, kissing away the fear in her voice. Maybe she smelled the liquor that he spoke of when he got closer to her. Maybe the way he mounted her, entered her, helped her envision him playing Spades, Gin Rummy, or Tonk with his friends. Maybe it was just she wanted to believe he was what we needed him to be. I did not know, but what I did know was his late nights, early mornings, empty pockets, and even redder eyes began to inform my definition of “the stuff.” And even as I listened to Momma's fast, gentle pants commingling with Mr. Todd's heavy, spasmodic moans, I worried “the stuff” would eventually drown out those soft moments between Momma and Mr. Todd. I wondered what would be left between the two of them then.

On one such night, Momma and Mr. Todd were going through the routine payday script. The only difference was he came home earlier and he was visibly altered. His eyes were fixated on the floor, and the curve in his back resembled a question mark. His leathery skin looked dusty, with an almost yellowish haze similar to pollen bathing a blade of grass. His peppered hair was knottier than normal and each line of sweat that ran from his hairline seemed to be vying for a spot on his chin. Momma stared glassily at him as he entered the house. She'd just gotten off work and there wasn't much food in the refrigerator. That meant she still had a long night of shopping and cooking before she'd be able to go to bed.

Momma's “Where have you been?” swooshed out of her mouth, absent the weight of anger I knew she had intended. Mr. Todd continued to stare at the floor, responding only with the rise and fall of his back. I darted my eyes from Momma to Mr. Todd, waiting
for a giggle or an angry word to move the dialogue along. Momma screamed, “I'm tired of this mess” and walked toward him.

In one blink, one inhalation, one swallow, Mr. Todd was on top of Momma, with his hands wrapped around her neck and his face, vicious, snarling inches away from Momma's. Champ, Dathan, and I jumped from our seats and clamored over Mr. Todd's back. When I grabbed the top of his arm, I was disturbed by how large it was and how hard it felt.

Mary screamed, “Momma, Momma” while she pulled Mr. Todd by his leg. Tom-Tom, in his five-year-old voice, splattered words I couldn't understand. Still, I knew he was saying what my mind was screaming, “Get off of my momma.”

I watched as Mr. Todd's hands tightened around Momma's neck and as her eyes cycled from resentment, to alarm, to terror. I watched as the veins in his arms pulsed underneath his skin each time he whispered in Momma's face, “I will kill you.” I watched all those things until I saw Champ's twelve-year-old fist connect with Mr. Todd's jaw.

It was as if time were running in reverse; Champ's arm recoiled so swiftly from Mr. Todd's face, it looked as if he were elbowing the air behind him. Momma wriggled from Mr. Todd's grasp and backtracked, retracing the path that had gotten her within his reach. She grabbed Champ, pushed him into the kitchen and out of the back door. The house shook with our screams as if it were continuing the fight Momma and Mr. Todd had begun. I stood in front of him, holding Tom-Tom and Mary's hands. Dathan stood close to me, with tears covering his cheeks. I feared speaking, moving, breathing. Even at eleven, I understood why Momma had left. He would have hurt Champ. I saw that in the eyes filled with fury that followed Champ's fist, but as I stood in front of him, his chest heaving, with balled fists and sweat-soaked skin, I wished Momma hadn't left us alone.

Mr. Todd wiped his face with a swipe of his hand and searched on the floor, for what I did not know. He then adjusted the chairs and
pushed each one neatly under the table. He never made eye contact with me, but my eyes never left him. Finally, with a sluggishness that petrified me, he walked past us into the bedroom. As soon as I heard the door close, I hurried Mary, Dathan, and Tom-Tom into the boys' room and locked the door behind us. One after the other, I hoisted my younger brothers and sister onto the top bunk. After all three of them were on the bed, I climbed up and held my body close to theirs. Mary and Tom-Tom were still crying while Dathan sucked his thumb and looked out of the window. I looked out of the window too and contemplated lowering the four of us out to safety, but the windows were too small. What had once made me feel safe now held us captive.

“Why did Momma leave us?” Mary asked

“I know,” Dathan echoed.

“He gonna kill us?” Tom-Tom asked.

“No,” I scoffed. “Momma'll be back,” was all I could say as I silently prayed I was telling the truth.

I had no watch, no clock to track time, so I counted Mary's breaths in order to tell how much time had passed. I was on the eighteenth set of Mary's sixty when I heard a loud knock at the front door. Momma's bedroom door creaked open as I listened. From the window, I saw Momma and Champ running to the back door. I vaulted from the bunk bed and ran out of the room as my siblings followed.

We all congregated in the dining room, where the brawl had begun. I ran straight to Momma and wrapped my hands around her waist. She wasn't as physically brittle as she had been before she married Mr. Todd, but she wore the same anxiety I'd often seen in Academy Park when she stared into our empty refrigerator, trying to find something to cook on our hungriest nights.

Momma looked down at me as I clung to her. She kept Champ tucked safely behind her as the policeman walked to the dining room with Mr. Todd. The officer was a young white man, with brown hair that sat bunched on the top of his head. His face was clean-shaven and looked pale compared to Mr. Todd's hardened
mug. Even though he stood a foot taller than Mr. Todd, he looked weak next to the bulging muscles twitching under Mr. Todd's tank top. “We got a call about a disturbance at this address. You know anything about that?” the policeman asked. Momma looked to Mr. Todd as if he held the answer to that question, as if he had called the cops instead of her. The officer looked from Momma to Mr. Todd, waiting for one of them to respond. Mr. Todd spoke first.

“Nothing's wrong. We were just arguing,” he said. The officer looked into Momma's eyes and I'm certain he saw what I saw, red clouds surrounding her pupils, broken veins swimming in what should have been the whites of her eyes, and dry tears staining her face.

“Ma'am, is this what happened?” he asked.

Momma spoke softly, but quickly,

“We were arguing, and he put his hands on me.” She wrapped her fragile fingers around her neck as she spoke.

“But did he hit you, ma'am?” the officer asked.

“She hit me too,” Mr. Todd interrupted. “And her son hit me in my face,” he continued.

“Is that true, ma'am?” the officer asked.

“Well,” I felt Momma's weight shifting from one leg to the other as she attempted to respond.

“Did you or your son hit him, ma'am?” Momma replied with silence.

“See,” Mr. Todd said. “He hit me right here.” He pointed at a nonexistent mark on his cheek.

“Ma'am, if I arrest him, I have to arrest you and take your son too.” Momma glared at the officer while he explained the dilemma. “If you or your son hit him, then the court has to decide which one of you is at fault.” This time Momma did reply, but not with softness or silence.

“Are you saying you'd arrest me and my son?” she hissed.

“Ma'am, I'm saying if you press charges and he presses charges, I'd have to arrest everyone who is charged and let the courts figure it out.” He looked sheepishly at Mr. Todd as he said this.

Momma raised her hand quickly, a gesture that meant it was time for him to be quiet. Surprisingly, the officer obeyed as if he were one of us children. “I just want you to take him from here. I'll deal with the rest later.” The officer shook his head from side-to-side, waiting to speak until Momma gave him permission. Momma raised her eyes, a signal he could explain himself.

“Ma'am, if he's your husband, I can't make him leave. Sir, are you willing to leave?” he asked Mr. Todd.

“I ain't going nowhere,” Mr. Todd said.

“Then I can't make him leave. This is marital property. What's his is yours and vice versa. If he's your husband, I can't make him leave.”

We all trained our eyes on the officer, not understanding his words, allowing Momma's sighs to translate for us.

“Ma'am, the only thing that I can offer you is a ride somewhere so you won't have to sleep here tonight.” Momma stared hard at the policeman. Tears began to crowd the corners of her eyes. “Do you have anywhere to go?” he asked.

“Where can I go?” Momma asked. “I have five kids and it's almost ten o'clock at night.”

“Ma'am, I can take you to a shelter if you want,” he said. As Momma became the one with the shaking head, I grew weary of the policeman's “Ma'ams.” He wasn't saying it like Momma had taught us to, quickly and with respect. He was saying it like I said “girl” to Thomasina when she wouldn't taste our dirt cakes, so I could see if they were done. Now, he wasn't even looking at Momma or us as he rushed Momma to a decision. “What would you like to do, ma'am?”

Momma told us to get our coats and some clothes for the next day while she went into her bedroom and gathered her things. We quickly jumped at her command and began searching for our clothes. I had just grabbed my pajamas from my bedroom when I heard Momma rush back into the dining room, “I'm not going anywhere,” she said. “This is my house too.”

I stood in my bedroom, afraid what I was hearing was true. I didn't know what a shelter was and I had no idea of where one would be, but I wanted to get out of that house and as far from Mr. Todd as I could. I thought Momma wanted the same. I walked into the boys' bedroom where we all exchanged worried glances. We sat on the bottom bunk together and listened as Momma and Mr. Todd talked to the officer.

“I'm not leaving,” Momma said.

“Me either,” replied Mr. Todd, with a hint of laughter in his voice.

I heard the policeman clear his throat as he said, “Well, I guess you don't need me anymore. I think you two can handle this together.” His snickering followed him out of the front door. Momma stuck her head into the bedroom and told us we didn't need to pack our clothes.

“We're staying here?” Champ asked.

“Yeah,” Momma responded. “Don't worry. It'll be all right.”

I wanted Momma to be speaking the truth, but all I could see were Mr. Todd's hands wrapped around her neck. All I could feel was her struggle to gasp air into the lungs that he had almost silenced. It couldn't be all right because of what I was seeing and feeling. It just couldn't.

“Momma, can me and Mary sleep in here with Champ and them?” I asked

“Yeah,” she said. “Y'all can sleep together if you want.”

I did want that. I feared Mr. Todd would find his way into Mary's and my den-bedroom and his hands would wrap themselves around my neck just as they had Momma's. I feared I couldn't hear as much as I needed in the middle of the house. If he hurt Momma again, if Champ or I needed to save her, the boys' bedroom would make for a quick rescue. And, as I drifted off to sleep, listening as intently as I could to every creak in their bedroom, to every squeak of the bedspring, I prayed he wouldn't kill her, that he wouldn't hurt my momma again.

Later that night, I heard Momma say, “Don't touch me.”

“Don't you touch me,” Mr. Todd replied.

“Get on your side of the bed,” Momma said.

“You get on your side,” he said so softly I could barely hear. With that, only creaks and squeals of the bed followed. Through the quiet, I heard all I needed to hear. Momma was in his arms. The same hands that had held her neck were touching her back and her breasts. Her lips were kissing the same ones that had been snarling in her face hours earlier. Momma's hands were caressing the chin Champ had struck. What had once been pain was now ecstasy between the two, but it was still pain for me. The danger still loomed over Momma just as it had in the dining room. The bedroom, the dining room, it was all the same to me. He was the same to me. I had seen what Mr. Todd had gone to prison for, what damage he could do, and from that point there was no undoing that image of him for me.

Guard Duty
Guard Duty

That night of passionate healing between Momma and Mr. Todd did not last long. Their marriage was collapsing like the center of a cake in a tepid oven. I watched as they continued mixing, adding parts of themselves to their battered relationship, only to find they would always be the wrong ingredients for each other. As all of the joy of marriage and the possibility of having someone help raise us began to flatten in Momma, I mourned what I knew had already been lost.

Mr. Todd was staying out later or he was not coming home at all. When he did make his way through the door, he was slow, disoriented, and the world seemed to be moving too quickly for him. He and Momma began to fight longer and harder, and oftentimes we weren't there to shield her from him. Her tears and her bruises on arms and legs told of those missing episodes. It wasn't long before “the stuff” had robbed him of his job at the construction company, too. No job meant less money, an extra mouth to feed when he was there, and a heap of dysfunction in the many altercations he and Momma had. Even we children grew tired of the rising and falling, the mixing and mashing as we were pulled like eggs blended into flour. The whole house was stressed, filled with tension that couldn't be released even if we had opened all the windows, all the doors, and shot a fire hose through our home.

However, my angst and anger were not only reserved for Mr. Todd. I feared and, at times, even hated him, but I felt something different for Momma that I couldn't quite name. She had married this man and she kept taking him back. He no longer had a job; he no longer even had a temperament, so I couldn't understand why Momma still wanted him. It wasn't until years later, when I duplicated those same actions, I understood the hold
nothing
can have on one's heart.

One night during one of our many slumber parties, I heard Momma talking to someone on the phone. I wasn't too concerned with her conversation because Mary and I had invaded the boys' bedroom and we were knee deep in a kick-fight for the ages. We joked and took turns kick-fighting long after the moon had traveled out of view from Champ, Tom-Tom, and Dathan's window. In the midst of one of our most heated fights, we heard the doorbell ring. Our legs froze midair as we wondered who would be at our door in the middle of the night. Mr. Todd would never ring the doorbell because he had his own key. No one else, not even Aunt Vonne or Uncle Bruce, would have been visiting our house so late. Champ and I scooted to the window and looked onto the back porch. There was a tall man there, leaning his bike against the back of the house. I strained to see the man through the cover of night, but all that I could make out was his height—he was taller than Mr. Todd. What I could see clearly were the wheels of his bike and the way the moon, even though it was no longer in my line of vision, reflected off of the silver spokes.

Momma's house shoes flapped to the door and then there were two sets of footsteps, one flighty and one heavy, in the kitchen, then the dining room, then the hallway, then the bedroom. Champ and I looked at each other, the bike, and the door, waiting to hear what we knew would come next. I heard talking, then laughing, then kissing, then bed springs creaking.

“What is she doing?” I asked. “Who is that man?”

Champ shook his head, with clenched teeth and squinted eyes. “I don't know.”

“But what's he doing here?” I asked.

“You know,” Champ said.

Mary asked, “What y'all talking about? What man?”

Champ hissed, “Momma got a man in there with her.”

“Oh no.” I said, “Mr. Todd's gonna see his bike and come and kill her.” Tom-Tom and Dathan sat up straight in the bed,

“Mr. Todd's gonna kill Momma?” Dathan asked.

“Nooooo,” Tom-Tom's long whine evolved into a stifled cry.

“Why is she doing this?” I asked.

“She knows he's crazy,” Mary added. “Why?”

Then one of us said it. Still today, I don't know which one of us it was.

“I hate her. I hate her so much.”

“Me too.”

“Me three.”

“Me four.”

“Me five.”

“She's stupid.”

“She deserves what she gets.”

“Mr. Todd has a right to be mad at her for bringing some man here.”

“She got this man here and now Mr. Todd's gonna kill us all.”

This banter went on for hours, interrupted only by one or more of our cries, our pleas for Momma to get that man out of the house before Mr. Todd came home. We sat up all night and when sleep was calling one of us to silence, someone else jarred the culprit awake. This was our vigil to keep, our post to guard, and we five lay in the top bunk until we heard the feet again, until only Momma's returned to her bedroom door, until the moonlit spokes rode off into the dark night.