As I wailed and trembled, Nett helped me to my feet and into the ladies’ room. Once there, I dropped to my knees and crawled into a corner. Nett crawled with me. She sat with me and rocked me. Several women who came in and saw us offered us tissues. Other women came in, saw us, stared, and left. We sat and rocked for a long time.
The next day Nett sent me back to Uncle Lee’s, told me to pack, promising that she would be there to get me before nightfall.
She kept her promise. After a brief conversation with Uncle Lee and Bunny, we packed all of my belongings into the trunk of a taxicab and left my temporary home forever. Ray joined us two weeks later.
You don’t throw away a whole life just because it’s banged up a little.
— Jeff Bridges’ character
in Seabiscuit
CHAPTER 5
TERRITORIAL INVASION
Many of the families in my neighborhood had television sets in their living rooms or kitchens that did not work. One family I knew sat the working television on top of the broken one. Others used the broken set like an end table to hold knick-knacks or framed pictures. I always thought it was bit odd to hold on to something that was broken rather than throw it out and get a new one. Then I thought about my family. When you inherit a broken family, you can’t throw it away and get a new one. What you can do is find people and situations that provide for you what your family cannot. Or if, like me, you are convinced that you are worthless and unimportant, you can seek out people and situations that strengthen the pathology and the patterns that your family set in the first place.
Being back at home with Nett seemed almost normal. My father was still writing numbers and struggling to survive on the streets of New York. Off Track Betting had been established in New York State, which meant that people could now bet on the horse races legally. This cut the street numbers game almost in half, and my father’s income along with it. He was home during the day and gone most nights. Grandma had found her way back into my father’s good graces, although no one explained how. Now she was in our home several days a week preparing dinner and doing laundry while Nett was at work. Although she was still abrupt and abrasive, she never put her hands on me, or perhaps I never gave her the opportunity; I stayed at least two feet away from her at all times. When she did raise her voice, I braced myself, ready to make an Aunt Nancy or Uncle Lee Friday-night move against her if the need should arise.
I was busy with school, dance classes, and trying to find my sense of self as a budding teenager. In the summer, I had already met, fallen in love with, and become obsessed with the man who would eventually become my third husband. When the summer ended, we went our separate ways, and I met another young man, a grown man. Teddy was 19, almost 20. He lived on the top floor of our apartment building. I was so awestruck when he told me that I was attractive, I let him take me into his bedroom while both of our mothers were at work. At the age of 13 and a half, I discovered that I was pregnant. Of course, by the time I made the discovery, Teddy had disappeared. I lied about who the baby’s father was. Didn’t matter. I was still a disgrace to the family and fodder for neighborhood gossip mongers. Grandma said she knew it was going to happen sooner or later. My father never said a single word.
Nett was devastated, but she didn’t yell or call me names. Instead, she told me that I needed to finish school and that she could not afford to take care of a baby. She told me how hard it was just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. She reminded me how small the apartment was and how expensive babysitters were. She asked me why I hadn’t talked to her about having sex. I had never talked to any adult in my life about anything. Why should now be any different? I just listened and cried. Nett talked and cried. That was as close as I had ever felt to any member of my family—and we weren’t even related by blood.
Nett found a foster home for unwed mothers in Jamaica, Queens. She came to visit almost every Saturday during the six months I lived there. I gave birth to Tracy three weeks after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King and immediately turned her over to the foster-care system. Six months later, Tracy died and a piece of my soul died with her. SIDS. The foster-care agency tried to explain it to me so that I would know that no one had harmed her. Back then, they had no real explanation. Like so many other times in my life, I had to suck it up and move on with very little information and virtually no support.
It took almost three years, but I managed to get myself involved with another transient young man, Gary, a 19-year-old athlete. Gary was another forbidden fruit— something I wanted and could not have. He was handsome and aloof and only paid attention to me when no one else was around. It took me a while to figure why he didn’t speak to me when he was with his friends. By the time I discovered that he had another girlfriend, I was two months pregnant and just completing the eleventh grade.
Gary saw our son three times: once when Damon was born, again when the child was three months old, and the last time the day before he married another woman. In fact, I only discovered that he was getting married when his soon-to-be-wife called to inform me that my son would always be welcomed in her home. She wanted her Gary to be a good father to his children so that he would be a good father to their children. I wasn’t sure if she was being kind or sarcastic. Didn’t matter. Another fantasy destroyed! I had allowed myself to believe that once I had the baby, Gary would want me, he would choose me, and we would live happily ever after. Instead, it was like waiting for my father all over again. It was the same lesson I’d learned throughout my childhood: Men will hurt you, and when they do, you must make excuses for them. Men will abandon you, but you mustn’t say a word about it to anyone. If you do everything that men want, need, and ask of you, and if you submit yourself to them for their pleasure and just act like everything is okay, maybe they will stay—maybe.
As a young child, I knew nothing about the law of karma; living with Grandma, however, taught me a lot about the law of cause and effect. I learned that there was something about me that caused Grandma to be either upset or angry. The effect of her emotional turmoil was usually some act of violence against me. All the while she was disciplining me as she called it—giving me a beat-down as I called it—she would be asking God to fix me, change me or, take the devil out of me. She would tell God how hard she was trying, and how disobedient and hard-headed I was. The beating was one thing; but the mental conditioning about the person I was created a lasting impression. The principle of cause and effect meant, if it was happening to me, I somehow caused it. When people treated me badly, somehow I deserved it.
Over time, I decided that I had to take my verbal or physical punishment without question or complaint, because there was something in me that just made people mad. This, I decided, was the explanation for my disastrous relationships with men. There was something wrong with me that made them all leave. The missing piece of the puzzle was that I didn’t know what was so wrong about me or how to fix it.
In today’s world, there is a great deal of controversy over the use of the N-word. There is a split decision over whether it is a term of endearment or an overt sign of disrespect. In our families there is another N-word that is rarely discussed, although its effect devastates parents and children alike. Neglect. Physical, emotional, and psychological neglect cripples more children than any hip-hop liner notes ever written. It is a form of passive abuse when a person responsible for a child’s care and upbringing fails to safeguard the child’s emotional and physical well-being. And whether caused by poverty, carelessness, or a chaotic home life, child neglect tends to be more common and more chronic than other forms of abuse. Often, because it is so subtle or because there appear to be logical explanations for caregivers’ behavior, it goes unrecognized. Often, because harm to the child is not the intended consequence, those who do notice are hesitant to interfere.
My early life was a series of emergencies that, under the strict guidelines of child welfare today, would have landed someone in jail and me in a foste
r home. Back then, it was considered nobody’s business outside of the family. It didn’t happen all at once; there was no single trauma that broke my heart, ripped holes in my spirit, or shattered my sense of self. But the repeated instances of neglect, violence, rejection, and deception left a gaping wound in my soul that everyone knew about and no one acknowledged.
The wounds inflicted on children by adults, passively or actively, are so much more than just devastating—they are debilitating. They sap the strength and vitality of the innocent child’s heart and mind. They weaken the child’s will to live and grow. They distort and deplete the child’s God-given right to explore the possibilities of life and experience the joy of living out his or her own divinity. Unable to negotiate the behaviors and hypocrisies of the unavailable and unaccountable adults entrusted with their care, children feel inadequate, ineffective, and victimized as they move through adolescence and into adulthood. I cannot speak to the effect on male children other than what I saw in my brother. Ray died at the age of 49 from a heroin overdose. He was addicted to drugs and alcohol from the age of 16 until he took his last breath. As a female who endured abuse and neglect at the hands of unconscious adults for most of my childhood, I can say without one shred of doubt that it was only the grace of God that saved my sanity.
I can also say that I was almost 30 years old before I realized that I was insane, and 50 years old when I actually became sane. I spent 20 years discovering patterns and solving the puzzles that I inherited. Today, I understand that each of my family members contributed to my soul’s purpose. It didn’t feel good back then, nor did I know it until much later, but who I am is a function of who they were in my life. I realize that my story, my history, was a divine setup to usher me into who I would become.
I was a neglected child. There was a persistent and consistent ignoring of my need for nurturing, encouragement, education, and protection. Other than to correct or punish me for some act of childhood innocence, I was categorically rejected by my father, my grandmother, and even my brother. I’m still not sure if it was active, meaning they meant to do it, or passive, meaning they didn’t know how not to do it. I can honestly say that when I was 30 years old and my father took his life, he had never kissed me. I was always fed and clothed, but I was also physically abused and terrorized. For Grandma, I was a problem that needed to be fixed; for Aunt Nancy and Uncle Lee, I was a burden to be endured; and for my father, I was a responsibility that could be ignored, set aside, and ultimately cast off on someone else.
Back then, adults, particularly adults with little economic means and great financial responsibilities, accepted poverty and family discord as normal. Unlike today, children were not expected to tell anyone what went on behind closed doors. You didn’t tell, because you were warned not to tell. You didn’t tell, because you were ashamed—of yourself and of your family. I was ashamed of not having parents with the same last name, and I was ashamed about whatever it was that was wrong with me that made people treat me so badly. I was ashamed of what I had become and what I was becoming: an ugly, abandoned girl/woman who so desperately wanted to feel loved that I slept with boys and men who treated me badly, who would ultimately leave me for someone prettier, better, more lovable, or for no good reason at all.
One puzzle piece I discovered early on in my spiritual journey was that unconditional love was never a part of my childhood. This absence made me desperate to prove to myself that I was loveable. I did not want to be like the teenage girls from the projects, had been knocked up and abandoned by some teenage projects boy. Oh, no! I was different. Yes, I had been knocked up and abandoned by my first child’s father, but it was different. His parents didn’t want him to be with me. I was, they said, too dark. It wasn’t his fault. Didn’t matter. I was desperate to prove that there was somebody, a male somebody, who wanted me and would stay with me. He was a gorgeous black man with a potentially brilliant future and a stable income. His name was Carl. After meeting only once, we had a love-by-mail relationship for two years during his tour in Vietnam.
I hadn’t received a letter from him in four months when he suddenly showed up on my doorstep, engagement ring in hand. We courted for the next three months. He seemed to get along well with my son. He was a gentle soul like my brother, and he seemed to genuinely like me as a person. Didn’t matter. I simply wanted to know and feel that I was acceptable in someone’s eyes. As long as he could spell his name, tie his shoes, and didn’t drool in public, he probably would have seemed normal to me. I thought that marrying a military man would propel me into a truly enviable position of respectability.
Three days after my lovely little church-house wedding, I packed up and moved to Georgia with a husband I hardly knew. He had reenlisted for two more years as an Army engineer and was even thinking about becoming a career military man. By the time I discovered that he was addicted to heroin, I was pregnant and he was in jail. So much for happily-ever-after. We had been married for a brief four months when my new husband was arrested, convicted of burglary, and sentenced to three years in prison. I was evicted from our Army-base housing, and the monthly allotment checks stopped coming. Within six weeks, I found myself alone in Fort Benning, Georgia, with my two-year-old son, racing to get out before the marshal came to sit my furniture on the curb. I had $37 in cash. Nett sent me a bus ticket back to the extra bedroom in her home in the Brooklyn projects. When I stepped off the Greyhound bus, she reached for Damon, taking him from my arms to hug and kiss him. Then she took one look at me and announced, “You’re pregnant”. I hadn’t had a clue.
On my second day back in Brooklyn, I headed straight to the abortion clinic at Kings County Hospital, the free hospital for poor people. I had no job, no money, and no more militarysponsored medical insurance. Terminating the pregnancy seemed like the economically responsible thing to do. I remember being proud when I checked the box for “married” under marital status. Yeah, that’s right! I’m married! There was no need to mention that my husband was an incarcerated substance abuser. I was happy just to be beyond the judgment and speculation of whichever clerk would process my paperwork. I knew what those people thought about the likes of me: poor, black, teenaged, with one baby and another one on the way. They probably thought I didn’t even know who the baby’s daddy was. In my case, however, a little “x” in the married box would surely raise an eyebrow or two. And it did.
“Where’s your husband?”
No “what is your name?” No “what is your address?” Just: “Where is your husband?”
“He’s in the army.” I was lost in my own fantasy.
“Oh, so you have medical insurance. Why didn’t you go to the base hospital?”
“Well, it’s been discontinued.”
“Why is that? Is he out?”
“He’s been arrested and falsely accused of something he didn’t do.” I really thought that last part would give me a leg up. It did not.
“Have you applied for welfare? You need to apply before you have the procedure, and you may not have time.”
Suddenly, that “x” in the married box had no meaning whatsoever. The clerk asked and answered most of her own questions as if I weren’t even there. She reached into a bin next to her desk, handed me a hospital gown, and pointed to where I needed to change before my examination. In one fell swoop, my greatest fears had fallen into my lap. I wasn’t any different than the others. I told myself that somehow I was worse.
When a woman contemplates an abortion, all of the traumas in her life ricochet inside of the life growing inside her body. Abort her. This is what I planned to do to my precious jewel, my Gemmia. Though you couldn’t tell it from looking at me, my emotional framework was twisted and disjointed from a lack of stability, security, and safety. I went through great pains, and even more spray starch, to make sure I looked crisp and clean and to give the appearance that my head was screwed on right. The truth is, despite the fact that I was a mother and a wife, my spine was weak and my head was haunted with d
ark thoughts and beliefs. All of the distortions and dysfunctions possible in a human’s life had come crashing in on me, and I was ready to impose my devastation on her. This was not a decision that I carefully contemplated. I thought I had to do it to save myself and my son. I had a husband who had thrown away our future for a dime bag of dope. I thought it was my job to find a way to take care of myself and build a home for our family. I wanted to go to nursing school. I wanted to buy a house. I wanted to be different, damn it! I wanted to move beyond the pain I had known all of my life. Another child simply did not fit into the picture.
On my first visit, my blood pressure was too low for the procedure. The doctor sent me home with three prescriptions and instructions to eat breakfast every day. Two weeks later, after ingesting nine different pills a day and eating grits and bacon or Cheerios every single morning, I marched myself right back to the free abortion clinic. This time I wasn’t desperate. I was determined.
“You’ve been here before?”
“Yes, two weeks ago. I had to take medication to stabilize my blood pressure.”
“Too high for the procedure, huh? It’s good that you caught it in time. Most of us have high blood pressure, but you are so young.”
“It wasn’t high. It was too low.” My God! She was still answering all her own questions.
“No, I have not applied for public assistance. Once I get this taken care of, I am going back to work.”
“Well, you should be about 22 weeks now. You may have to wait.”
Wait for what? I wasn’t waiting for anything except to get out of there as quickly as I could.
Then the next blow landed. The doctor explained that I could not have the simple procedure, the D and C, or dilation and curettage, the surgical abortion procedure used to terminate a pregnancy between 13 and 15 weeks’ gestation. I was too far along. I would need to have an induction abortion, in which salt water or potassium chloride is injected into the amniotic sac, causing the fetus to expire. Once this occurred, I would deliver the dead child by a natural vaginal birth. This procedure could not be performed until I was 24 weeks along, since the fetus had to be fully formed. They also told me that I might feel the first flutter or movement before that. Damn!
Peace From Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You're Going Through Page 8
