Raised A Hand To Her

Raised A Hand To Her

It was 1978, maybe 79

I was 6.
We lived in Kittery, on Dennett Road,

in a rental house that still stands.

I had just, that day, decided to

Incorporate

The word ‘Fiend’

Into my vocabulary,

Having heard it on some cartoon.

We were in the car,

And my father was detailing

Some dishonesty

Of his employer.

Not fully understanding,

But knowing he felt betrayed,

I broke in with

“Well, I guess that makes

General Dynamics

A fiend.”

My parents laughed,

And agreed with my precociousness.

It was a quiet day, and night.

Until I was woken up by mom

Climbing into my bed, demanding

That I move to the edge to make room.

I slept again.

Her hand smacked my face,

Bouncing my head off my pillow.

From REM to terror in painful confusion.

Spanking wasn’t allowed in our house,

so I had little experience

With violence,

Thus was transfixed with a bonedeep

Thought of “WHY?”,

in conflict with animal fear.

My wide eyes fixed on hers,

And she said something

I didn’t quite understand

That I later thought was:
“That’s what you get for calling

General Dynamics a fiend.”

Fright dominated, and I fled.

I woke dad, and told him that

Something

Was wrong with mom.

He rose in an all too familiar

Anger,

A similar look on his face

As when he would fix our

Fourth-hand car yet again,

Saying to me, as gently as he could

“Stay here.”

Moments later they both 

returned to their room.

Mom was enraged, 

and saying things I didn’t grasp,

But with such venom 

I felt the world freeze, and

My cold body falling away,

Leaving just my eyes and ears.

Dad replied with something about bed,

Maybe about hospital,

And about scaring the boy.

She lunged at him,

Arms outstretched,

And shoved as hard as her

Unexercised muscles allowed.

He barely moved but to grab her shoulders

And return her to her distance.

She tried again, and he slapped her.
It was an action from old movies,

And TV,

The rational man applying an open hand

To a hysterical woman’s face, all noise,

and no follow-through.

She stopped her violence.

She remained standing,

And returned to words,

“How dare you!?”
and more.

Dad reminded her of how many

Years

It had been since there’d been

Physicality

Between them,

How many years since she had

Attacked him.

And she didn’t dispute it,

Just denied he had a right

To touch her.

But, with words,

he eventually

Sent her back

To my room

And let me stay with him.

There followed avoided questions

About what was wrong with mom,

Answered only with vague statements about

Her being sick.

I accepted there were forms of sick

That didn’t look like the flu.

Terror faded to safe comfort,

And faded further to sleep.

Years later I considered that

At that age, his late 30s,

His physical strength was barely less

Than in the USMC.

He had seen combat, been shot at, 

and shot back.

He could have knocked her down. 

He could have hurt her severely.

He did not.

That was not the only time

She was ever sick.

But it was the only time he ever

Raised a hand to her.

Chris Walters

February 25, 2014

Misandrist: The Implications of a Dead Kitten

Misandrist: The Implications of a Dead Kitten

I was 13-14, wearing my Chuck Taylors.

We had a kitten, a tiny little black ball of freak out and fuzz.

And as I was running from my room (we were late for something)

The kitten freaked out and ran to meet my step.

Though I checked my step, there was just enough compression to break vital things, and cause a violent death throe.

Kitten was dead, I was crushed.

But ever after, when self-medicated, my mother would recount the story shrieking “You were stomping around in your big black boots!”

She hated combat boots, or engineer boots, because, in her mind, they were male. They existed because of Y Chromosomes, therefore were signs of stupidity and needless evil.

And, in her mind, all her problems were because of men. Including the death of a kitten.

Knowing, after trial and sickening error, she could not hear or understand truth through her madness and liquor, I stopped trying to tell her she was cruelly false.

Years later she had been forced to dry out, the state of Maine not allowing her to drink and receive their hospitality. She recounted the story again, still insisting on her anti-man version.

This time, though, as she was not chemically altered and could form memories again, I borrowed my father’s Marine Corps voice to briefly drown out every sound in the apartment building to say “I was wearing sneakers, god damn it! No matter how much you want it to be some blatantly male symbol of evil, it was not! Don’t ever tell that story again unless you’re gonna tell the truth!”

And she never told the story again.

Where I could hear.

Chris Walters,

February 10, 2014

Chess

I was 9

When my mother

Taught me

Chess;

Her disguise was still intact then,

The mask of a rational woman,

With a job,

And justified anger;

She’d smoke,

And exhale memories

Of being

The Barmaid Who

Could Beat Anyone,

And tell me to think

Moves ahead;

I tried, but

My sense of the future was seconds,

Tiny increments of feeling

Safe from others’ sickness,

Hers most of all;

It was her game,

And in learning it I thought I could

Follow the eel-twists of her mind,

Predict the explosions and melt-downs,

Learn how she put on the disguise;

But, as a boy,

I couldn’t become good at the game,

And the frustration enraged me;

She tried to throw a game once,

And I told her to stop it,

That I actually had to beat her

Or it wouldn’t feel like victory;

She was happily merciless after that,

Beating me time and again on the board.

When I was 17 her mask became

too heavy

to wear;

No longer playing chess,

She spent her time drinking,

Weeping,

Threatening,

Blaming,

And hating men.

I escaped into girls, and drugs,

Putting on a mask of stability and wisdom

That I, at least, was fooled by,

And left her to her shrieking;

When I was 21

My mask became too heavy

And I dropped it;

Seeing in the mirror

The reflection of terror long

Ignored

I slipped into depression,

A chaos of self-hatred

And disorganized, irrational thoughts;

Some days my only solace

Was that I could end myself if I felt worse;

I started playing chess again,

Fervently using it to force order

Onto my mind,

Teaching myself to think instead of feel;

And I surprised myself by becoming good,

finally understanding the game,

thinking ahead, and planning;

I went to see her,

And challenged her to a game;

There was no disguise left for her then,

No clothes, only bathrobes, and cat-piss stench,

the house a maze of baubles,

1,000s of buttons arranged by color

On every horizontal surface that she termed

“A Map of My Mind”;

She accepted with a meek shrug,

And played ineptly,

Looking at the pieces in a way that said

She remembered remembering 

how they worked together,

But couldn’t make them do now;

And, more resigned with every move,

She finally admitted defeat;

I had won, but it didn’t feel like victory.

Chris Walters

February 20, 2014