Crave (29 page)

In between the fights, I got a job at Rally's and Sanford decided to get a car. We walked from Prentis Park to the Charlie Falk dealership to discuss possible financing options. Rows of new cars lined the parking lot, and I became as excited as Sanford about getting a car. Not having to walk back and forth from Lincoln to Prentis Park and from Lincoln to Rally's would have been a welcomed relief. We walked to the dealership, me in shorts and a T-shirt, with my blue Filas, and Sanford in his usual Jordan attire.

A tall, older, white man, clenching a cigar between his lips came out to meet us. He spoke slowly, like he had a mouth full of spit. The way he inspected us with his eyes, I could tell he wasn't keen on serving us. He walked us from the front of the store, where all of the new cars were, to the back where the dealership kept the clunkers. Sanford found a car he liked and they began discussing finance options. The man surmised Sanford didn't make enough with his income alone, so he asked if I had a job. Eager to help, I recounted the many overtime hours I worked at my Rally's job. Even though I was only fifteen, the man said he could use my income in order to finance the car for Sanford. The dealer asked me to bring my paystub the next day. Since Sanford had to work, I went alone.

The salesman appeared happier to see me than he had been the day before. He kept me in the front of the dealership, asking which cars I'd like if I could have any of them. I pointed out a red car that really appealed to me. As he entreated me to inspect the car, he moved closer, put his hand on my back, smiled with stained teeth, and said, “We can work something out if you like. You know, you do something for me and I'll do something for you.”
I felt immediate disgust for that man, old enough to be my grandfather, propositioning me for a car, one I was certain I would still pay for even if I slept with him. I thought about the men who'd propositioned Momma in the same way for food, for money, for rent, and she, with five hungry children, had been unable to decline. I felt the need to shower and wash away his nasty thoughts and the generations of exploitation that had plagued my family.

I wanted to tell Sanford, but I feared he'd think I'd flirted with the man. While I wanted him to defend my honor, I might have needed to be defended against him. I finally decided to tell. My disgust, I believed, would shine through and he'd know I hadn't welcomed that man's advances.

Sanford said his question, “Would you do it if we could get the car?” was meant to be a joke, but there had been a pause usually attributed to questions that required answers. My wide eyes and agape mouth gave my response.

We eventually went to another dealership, a mom and pop dealer on High Street. I wasn't propositioned for sex, but my pay stubs were still required. At fifteen, I'd cosigned a contract for a car loan. While I'd hoped the car would be a source of relief for me and Sanford, it became an additional source of frustration. It was a space where Sanford could scream, punch, bite me, and pull my hair. He'd collect my paycheck on weekends, in order to pay the car note, and I wouldn't see him again until all of the money had been spent. Many nights, when I closed at work, he left me waiting, sometimes until one or two o'clock in the morning. Those were good nights. On bad nights, he didn't come at all and I'd hitch a ride with a coworker or wait until Momma and Mary walked Frederick Boulevard to pick me up.

As if the physical abuse weren't enough, the mental abuse amped higher. He cursed my mother, called her a bitch, and claimed she didn't care about me the way he did. “She doesn't even feed you,” he'd scream. His proclamations became my own. If Momma weren't feeding me, that meant I wasn't worthy of being fed. At least, if Sanford hit me, he fed me too.

He moved beyond insulting Momma to threatening to kill me, Momma, and my brothers and sister if I didn't do what he wanted. He then began dating other girls, driving them in the car I helped pay for. I not only had to battle Sanford, but the girls who felt they had a right to him as well. There were many confrontations with those young ladies, where threats were hurled back and forth. Part of me wanted to thank them for occupying Sanford's time and to tell them how to make him as happy as I once had so he would be with them forever, but they were my rivals. I had a responsibility to battle them in order to reclaim what had been mine.

Even that was impossible. If I spoke to one of the girls, Sanford would assault me later that night. I couldn't fight them and Sanford, so I ignored the lipsticks in the car, the clothes in the back seat, the many days I saw him flirting with girls in school. He could be with whomever he wanted, but I couldn't look at a guy. Even spending time with my cousins, Lil Barry, Kevin, and Shawn, was forbidden. To Sanford, they were men who might want me, even though they were family.

When the punching, biting, pulling, and mental abuse became too much to bear, I went, in my mind, to my safe place, Virginia Beach. Sanford had never taken me there, so it was a place in which he did not reside. There, I floated on proclamations of love and was then pushed under by bites on my wrists and shoulders. I could be sun-kissed under the deliveries of food and gifts of money and then burned by the midnight hours I spent standing outside of Rally's waiting for him to take me home. The mental trips I'd taken as a girl, working to escape Pee Wee's panting and sweating, differed from the ones I took to escape Sanford. In my most recent excursions, I did not have Momma and my brothers and sister to keep me afloat. I floated alone, catching glimpses of my family on the horizon, navigating their own waters. I wanted to flail my arms, to scream for help, but I did not, out of fear they'd witness my drowning.

In between the fights, he'd cry, beating his chest, his hands cradling his head, exclaiming how much hurting me hurt him. He
loved me so much and if I could stop making him angry, things would be okay. One of my many offenses included my work on the high school literary magazine, the
Presidential Pen
. Several of my poems with titles like, “Defeat,” “Why Don't You Love Me?” and “The End of Love,” had been published that year. For a moment, I felt like my normal self as classmates congratulated me in the halls for having so many poems in the magazine. Sanford quashed that normalcy when he cornered me in the hallway and ordered, “Stop writing shit like that. You have everybody thinking I'm dogging you.” I didn't publish another poem that year.

The abuse had gotten so suffocating, I searched for relief. I decided, as Sanford had diagnosed, I was the problem, so I must have the cure. I stopped arguing. I stopped complaining about the other girls, the car, and the money. I stopped living for me and totally lived for him. One afternoon, I went to Sanford's home, intent on mending what I believed I had fractured. He led me to bed and gently placed me at the head. As we kissed, as he draped his leg over my legs and pressed his body into mine, I sobbed, burrowing my face into his neck, pulling him close, so he could feel the broken beats of my heart. As he kissed my tears, I pleaded, “Please stop the hurting. I love you so much.”

“I've always loved you, Laurie.” His words came slowly, broken by his own tears. “I don't understand why things have gone the way they have. I just don't understand.”

By then, both our bodies shook with sobs. We held each other so tightly, my sweat became his sweat, my tears his tears. He moved my fingers to his eyes, “See, my eyes are crying. I don't want us hurting anymore.”

We appeared to be suffering the same pain, and I wanted an end for us both, so I proposed my best offer, an agreement that could free us. I pried myself from his embrace, and leaned on one arm as I placed my hand on his chest.

“We can start over, baby,” I begged. “We can leave everybody behind, all of the other girls, my family, everybody. We can go away and you can have me all to yourself. You can do to me what you
want as long as you become the Sanford you used to be and I can be the Laurie you used to know. Can we please start over?”

He pulled me to him and we continued to cry in each other's arms. We then kissed. Our lips pressed so hard, I tasted blood. We pulled at each other's skin, wrapped our arms so violently around necks and waists, I believed we could sex our way back to our former selves.

Sanford rolled back on top of me, our joint tears streamed down his face.

“Can we start again?” I asked, filled with the hope of what a new start would mean, knowing we knew better, so we wouldn't make the same mistakes.

He looked in my eyes, and shook his head, “No, I can't,” he said. “I can't stop.”

“Then let me go,” I pleaded.

“I can't do that either,” he replied.

No tears fell, no embracing, no apologies, just acceptance. He, at eighteen, had full control of something, and he could not let go. It didn't matter that something was me. It didn't matter I was suffocating under his belonging. His love was such that it would hold on until the end, whenever that would be.

During my junior year, I devised a plan to escape Sanford and Portsmouth; I would join the military. If anyone could protect me, it would be the soldiers of the U.S. Army. Even though our country was in the middle of the first Gulf War, I preferred that war to the one I fought at home. I kept my plan a secret from Sanford and my classmates. Momma, my brothers, and sister were the only ones to know. I secretly met with Sergeant Williams, my recruiter. It was a covert operation I relished. Everything had gone as planned until the day I was practicing drills with Sergeant Williams, when Sanford called my house. Momma did not know I was hiding my plans to enlist from Sanford. When he asked where I was, she told him.

Sanford called the recruiter's office, asking to speak with me. Because of privacy laws, they didn't give him any information. That didn't matter to Sanford. He told the recruiter I'd been sick and had had pneumonia when I was younger. He assured my recruiter I would die if I went into the Army. He threatened to sue the recruiter because he had informed him of my previous illness.

I feared the Army wouldn't accept me because of Sanford's claims. Sergeant Williams asked about the situation with Sanford and I had no choice but to tell him about the abuse I had been suffering. I shared with him what I couldn't even share with Momma. He wanted me to press charges, but I refused. Sanford had always told me he would kill my family and me if I went to the cops. Sergeant Williams vowed to help me get into the Army, no matter what it took. I leaned against his desk and cried. I had an ally in my battle against Sanford.

Because of the urgency of my situation, the Sergeant scheduled a MEPS visit for me. MEPS was the first step in enlistment. I would have to wait until I graduated to enter basic training, but MEPS would be the start I needed in order to escape Sanford. I had to travel to Richmond, Virginia, for a physical and to be sworn into the military. I couldn't let Sanford know I was going to Richmond, so I told him I was spending the weekend with my cousin, Rose. That Friday, Sergeant Williams picked me up and took me to the bus station. I was on my way, one step farther from Sanford.

During my days at MEPS, I felt safe. Miles separated Sanford and me. When I raised my right hand and pledged my allegiance to the Constitution, I knew the Army was also pledging its allegiance to me, to protect me, to serve me. I looked at the American flag hanging on the wall and felt cloaked in it. I had an Army standing behind me, and I hoped it would be enough to release me from Sanford's bondage.

Before I left MEPS, I called Sergeant Williams to let him know what time I would be getting in.

“You okay?” he asked with a voice of concern.

“I'm great,” I responded, but my stomach began to get queasy, as the normal enthusiasm disappeared from his voice.

“Your boyfriend must have found out about your trip to Richmond. He's been calling me and my commanders all day, trying to stop us from enlisting you.”

I called home to see what Momma knew. She met me with questions. “Why didn't you tell me Sanford was trying to stop you from going in the Army?” By her tone, I could tell she was angry with me too. I had nowhere to go.

Since Sanford had repeatedly threatened murder when I didn't do what he ordered, I worried death was near. I, so far away in Richmond, could see the foam collecting at the corners of his lips, could feel my hair breaking away as he yanked, could see the bite marks, perfect indentations of his teeth, forming on my arms and legs. I feared he would meet me at the Greyhound bus station and bludgeon me there. Or he would wait until my recruiter took me home and then he would shoot me in front of my family, as he'd often threatened. I had the whole of the two-hour bus ride from Richmond to Portsmouth to contemplate my demise.

When I arrived at the Portsmouth bus station, I saw a cop standing at the front entrance with his thumbs tucked in his belt. I surveyed the open area between myself and the cop, praying I would see Sanford before he pounced. I ran toward the cop. My haste startled him.

“Can I speak with you?” I asked. “It's an important matter.” I attempted to sound as adult as I could.

“Yes,” he said.

“I have a bit of a problem,” I stammered.

“Okay.”

“If someone is threatening to hurt me, would a restraining order protect me?” I'd heard about restraining orders from Momma when I eavesdropped on her conversations about Mr. Todd. Maybe one could work better for me than it had for Momma.

“That depends,” the officer replied.

“On what?” I asked.

“Well, it could make the guy even angrier. He could come after you and then you'd be in more danger.”

“But, if I did file for a restraining order, would the cops be looking for him around my house or something like that?”

“No, you'd have to call us if he comes near you. We would arrest him then, but he'd eventually be able to get out.” He paused. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”