No, Daddy, Don't!

by Irene Pence

  Michelle was horrified. John was becoming more violent. She tried to tell herself that he didn’t know what he was doing. When her mind flashed back over the last few months, she realized that she had been explaining away Battaglia’s sudden, angry outbursts. Months ago she’d rationalized that he was too busy with his increased CPA responsibilities. Other times, she’d blamed herself for saying something that irritated him. Ultimately, she had brushed off episodes of hostility as unimportant because they were only verbal, and her husband frequently apologized and became very remorseful.

  She had adopted those excuses to keep the peace, but striking her was going too far.

  Grasping her chest, she screamed, “Get out of here this minute! Get out!”

  Thus began a scenario that would play out over and over. He left that night, but he was back the next morning, very sorry. Once the honeymoon phase was in place, he explained that when he was under so much stress at work, he “got like that” and didn’t know what he was doing or who he was doing it to. If only she’d take him back he’d seek anger counseling to rein in his violent behavior. He’d never hurt her again, he promised.

  Each time, the Battaglia charm worked, and each time, with the compassion of a saint, Michelle let him move back in. But her submissive manner simply increased his power and tightened his control over her. Unbeknownst to her, she was teaching him what he could get away with.

  One night Laurie cried out, and Michelle went to the nursery to comfort her. She changed her diaper, then sat down with her in the padded, comfortable rocking chair. As Michelle rocked her, Laurie snuggled her little face into her mother’s neck. Everything was so quiet. Michelle started thinking about her life. She had a wonderful son and a beautiful, sweet daughter. She also had an incredible job and was making great money. She looked around the room. Even if they didn’t own it, they had a beautiful home. She had her health, and, at times, she had a good husband. She had everything to be happy about. Then reality set in; in her soul, she knew that things were frightening and terribly wrong.

  On a Monday morning in June of 1986, Michelle lay in bed, trying to get ten more minutes of rest before starting her busy day.

  Battaglia walked into the bedroom, fresh from taking a shower, and announced, “I’m thinking of quitting my job and going to art school.”

  Michelle opened one eye. “You’re kidding, of course.” She could not imagine he was serious because she hadn’t seen anything artistic about him. He would draw little pumpkins—flat, one-dimensional, juvenile sketches that showed little talent.

  “No, I’m not kidding,” he said angrily. “I’m just not fulfilled doing accounting and I always wanted to be an artist,” he told her as he shoved his arms into a starched white shirt.

  Michelle couldn’t believe he was serious. “There’s no way you can do that,” she told him. “You’re in your thirties; you’re married with two children to support. I think that’s just a ridiculous idea!”

  Her words infuriated him and started his motor churning. How dare she tell him he couldn’t go to art school? He was losing control at that moment, and to him, control was everything. He raised his bare fist, and she quickly turned her back to him. He hit her again and again as she tried to get away, all the while screaming at him to stop. She was in so much pain that she thought if he didn’t stop, he’d seriously injure her. She scooted to the other side of the bed and dropped to the floor. Terrified, she shouted for him to get out of the house, and stayed hidden under the bed until he left.

  When everything became quiet, Michelle pulled herself up and managed to stand. She stumbled into her son’s room to see if he had heard the commotion. Unbelievably, he lay quietly; apparently oblivious to his mother’s beating. It would be many years until he admitted lying in his bed in shock, unable to move as he listened to Michelle scream.

  Michelle didn’t report the abuse to police or seek medical help because she knew that would only anger John all the more. She was so afraid of him. But she did want someone to know what kind of punishment he had inflicted. When she walked into work, she took her secretary into the ladies’ room and raised her blouse to let the woman view the purple bruises on her back. Her secretary was horrified.

  When a managing partner of the firm walked by and saw the two women frowning and talking, he asked, “Is everything okay?”

  Michelle, by now the typical abused wife, looked up at the man and smiled. “Sure,” she said. “Everything’s just fine!”

  And when she talked to her family, she forced herself to sound lighthearted. She was too ashamed to tell them about the man she had married.

  Three days after he beat her, Battaglia begged, charmed, and bargained his way back into Michelle’s life. He promised to seek counseling. Although he had promised that before, he seemed more sincere this time, and actually began seeing a counselor. When he moved back home, he was wonderful again.

  John’s periods of being kind made Michelle’s situation all the more frustrating. She was trying to keep her marriage together for her children, herself, and John, but she knew her husband could change in a heartbeat.

  That positive phase lasted for three months. At times during that summer John Battaglia took his violence out on inanimate objects. Still, it was terrifying to see him assault the bathroom wall, knocking a hole in the plasterboard.

  Late one night toward the end of August, they both sat propped up in bed reading. John was reading a book on Buddhism, while Michelle was studying a legal brief.

  The phone rang. Michelle answered and listened in disbelief to the voice on the other end. She had heard John talk about his grandfather, saying at one time he was a Mafia chief in Chicago, but, like many things, she thought it was something he had invented and that the grandfather lived only in John’s mind. Many times he had told her things that weren’t exactly lies, but rather what he believed to be true.

  However, the voice she heard asking to speak to John was the voice of the Godfather. He had a thick, old-world Italian accent, all raspy like he had a mouthful of marbles. In disbelief she handed the phone to John, then left the room so he could talk in private. After she returned, John never offered to discuss the call.

  On September 5, 1986, the children were tucked in bed when Battaglia went to take a shower. Michelle hoped it would freshen his ugly mood, which had permeated the house all day. She heard a crash and the sound of glass shattering on the floor. She rushed from the bedroom into the bathroom and saw that John had put his fist through the glass shower door. Blood was everywhere. She offered to take him to the emergency room, but he was still angry and insisted on going by himself. She let him. He returned with his hand in a cast, having severed a tendon.

  In the days that followed, his anger continued. She felt like she was always walking on eggshells as his mood plunged deeper into an abyss. The tension in the house was thick, so she kept quiet, not wanting to anger him further.

  Two days later, Michelle was in Laurie’s room getting her ready for bed when John walked past the door.

  “You’re ignoring me,” he accused.

  “No, I’m not,” she said as she picked up their ten-month-old daughter. “Guess I’m just in a quiet mood.”

  “You’re ignoring me because you think you’re better than I am. You and your highfalutin’ lawyer friends.”

  All of a sudden John flew across the room and raised his cast-enclosed fist. Michelle was petrified. She screamed and turned her head just in time to save her face; his blow landed behind her ear. The pain was incredible. His punch shoved her backwards so that she fell with the baby in her arms. The child Battaglia professed to love was no deterrent to his rage. The room seemed to turn upside down as Michelle fell, and the bedroom’s pink-and-white plaid wallpaper spun around her. She clung to her daughter, trying to protect her, but as they both fell, Michelle heard the thud of her daughter’s little head bumping against the wall. Then, Michelle’s head smacked on the floor and she lost her grip on the child. Michelle could d
o little about her daughter’s screams as she herself lay on the floor, dizzy and disoriented. Her head pounded and she saw everything around her in double vision. Finally, she collected her thoughts and crawled to Laura and picked her up. As she tried to soothe her screaming daughter, she looked up and saw that Billy had come running to the bedroom door. His frightened face mirrored her thoughts. She was now convinced that if John attacked her again, he would kill her.

  The assault erased any care she once had felt for John. It was the final alarm bell that she needed to force her out of this sick relationship. He was leaving today, this minute, and forever.

  She grabbed both children and rushed to her next door neighbor’s, the Dicksons. For the first time, she told them about John’s beatings. They insisted on calling the police to make a report.

  Even though Michelle was miserable, she still went to work that day. Once in the office, her secretary insisted on driving her to a Prima Health Care facility for treatment.

  A week later, when she felt stronger, she would file for divorce.

  SIX

  John Battaglia kept Michelle under close scrutiny by renting a one-bedroom, lonesome-looking garage apartment only two blocks from where she lived on Bellewood. His apartment sat behind a house that was similar to Michelle’s, only now he was the boarder living in guest quarters that had been built over a detached garage. Its dismal appearance only added to his sour mood.

  He paced the floor, thinking how furious he was that his wife had threatened to divorce him. But he’d shown her. As soon as he moved out, he’d hired an attorney, James Newth, and filed for divorce. He’d also followed his attorney’s suggestion and quit his job as a CPA so Michelle would have to pay him child support. Michelle only thought she was getting away.

  Michelle finally sought counseling, which was her first step in gaining strength. She spent months at The Family Place, a privately supported community organization that dealt mainly with victims of domestic abuse. Her counselor, Susan Bragg, soon learned that Michelle had little control over her life with John Battaglia, and that she would cave in to him just to avoid mistreatment. The counselor urged her to stand strong against any of Battaglia’s demands, regardless of how difficult he became.

  The court ordered Battaglia into counseling to curb his anger. At times, Michelle met with John’s counselor, Randy Severson, at Hope Cottage, an organization dating back to the 1800s. Severson also encouraged her to stand up to John.

  In mid-September, a distraught Michelle LaBorde took Billy and Laurie and flew home to Baton Rouge to talk with her parents. Her parents’ marriage was one filled with love; she had never seen one second of abuse.

  Michelle finally had to tell her parents the truth about her volatile relationship. She was embarrassed that not only had she married such a man, but she hadn’t left him earlier. Like most abused wives, she had always believed that somehow she could change him.

  Sitting on a down-filled sofa in her parents’ living room, she tearfully began describing her life over the past year. Her parents shook their heads in dismay. Then her father, who was also an attorney, decided to act.

  While Michelle wiped her puffy eyes, her father began calling lawyers he knew in Dallas. One suggested Josh Taylor, a specialist in family law. Her father hired Taylor, who promised to immediately file a protective order against Battaglia. Taylor assured her father that Michelle would finally be safe.

  As soon as Michelle returned to Dallas, her baby-sitter, Odice Cooper, a large black woman who was warm and loving to her children, came running to her. Odice was anxious to show Michelle something in the master bedroom. Michelle hesitantly walked into the room and found hundreds of wire coat hangers clustered in a semicircle on the floor surrounding her bed. A wooden bat lay on the bed alongside an imprint the size of a man. Battaglia had obviously been waiting for her. If he had fallen asleep, anyone stepping on the hangers would have woken him.

  Michelle was shaking as they searched the house for Battaglia, but he had apparently left. During the search, Michelle checked the closet shelf where John kept his gun. It was gone, and that terrified her.

  Michelle could always feel John’s presence. Even if she couldn’t see him, she knew he was near, following her, watching her.

  On several occasions, he hid in the tall bushes behind her house, waiting for her to drive home. When she pulled into the garage, and before the door closed, he’d scoot inside like a man hyped on amphetamines. Then he’d crawl behind her car and suddenly pop up at her driver’s-side window. Michelle’s hands would involuntarily fly up from the steering wheel and she’d gasp with fright.

  Hearing her counselor’s voice in her mind, she fought to appear unruffled. She’d raise her garage door and point to the opening for Battaglia to leave. Sometimes he did. But sometimes he’d rush past her and push his way into her house.

  On Monday, September 30, 1986, Michelle and John were with their lawyers in the family courthouse discussing their pending divorce. John had asked for child custody in addition to child support from Michelle.

  Over the hum of the air conditioner, Michelle sat at the witness stand outlining Battaglia’s assaults, including the latest where he had apparently planned to beat her with a bat.

  Suddenly, he became angry and screamed that she was lying. He ran to her like a wild animal, and tried to strike her with his cast-covered hand. The bailiffs grabbed and restrained him.

  The following week, Judge Gibbs of the 256th Family District Court surprised no one by issuing a restraining order against John Battaglia for clobbering Michelle’s head as she held baby Laura. The order spelled out that John Battaglia was prohibited from directly communicating with Michelle or her son. The only contact he could have was when he picked up their daughter for visitations. He was forbidden to enter her house. Even so, Michelle panicked, for, given the rage Battaglia had vented on her and her son, what might he do to a defenseless little baby when he had her to himself?

  If Battaglia violated the order, he could be fined as much as $2,000 or confined in jail for one year, or both. In order to collect evidence of future violations, Michelle began keeping a log detailing Battaglia’s harassment. When he phoned screaming curses and threatening her, she would automatically hit the “record” button and capture his calls on tape.

  On October 26, 1986, Michelle was sleeping too soundly to hear the footsteps approaching her bedroom door that led to an outside patio. But the sound of a key in her lock and the door being pushed open woke her. Slowly, she fluttered her sleep-filled eyes and glanced over at her digital clock on the nightstand: 12:20 A.M. She looked up to see John Battaglia standing over her. Anxiety flooded through her. Unconsciously, she grabbed a wad of the sheet, twisting it with nervous hands.

  John placed a hand on her shoulder to hold her down. Trapped, with no way to escape, she started crying, dreading what he might do. With his other hand, John stroked her hair and cooed, “What’s the matter, Michelle? Something wrong? I could make it better. We could make love.”

  Filled with nightmarish fear, Michelle shook her head. Perspiration moistened her nylon gown until it stuck to her like a second skin.

  Her refusal angered him. “I could snuff you out right now,” Battaglia said. “Should I beat you until you’re covered with bruises, or maybe put this pillow over your head until you’re begging me to stop?”

  Michelle’s teeth were chattering so hard she couldn’t talk.

  “Just wait,” Battaglia threatened. “I’m going to get you. I will come after you in more ways than you can imagine.”

  Then he left.

  Shortly afterward, he phoned. “I’ve stolen your protective order,” he boasted. “Guess what, Michelle, you have no more protection,” he said with a sick, sinister laugh. “You’re just a whore and a liar. Just wait. I’ll show you.”

  Michelle was so scared that she bundled up Billy and Laurie and ran to her next-door neighbor’s, where she phoned the police.

  Fifteen minutes la
ter the police knocked on her neighbor’s door and asked Michelle to show them a copy of her protective order. Believing it was still in her briefcase in her car, she led police to her home. Her briefcase contained all of the documents and evidence she had against John. She opened the door to her garage and found that the order was not the only thing Battaglia had taken. Her car was gone. He had apparently grabbed the car keys that she kept on a wooden hook by the kitchen door.

  When police called their headquarters to check on the protective order, they found none. Her attorney, Josh Taylor, had apparently not bothered to file it with them. The police refused to do anything without that order.

  The police left, and Michelle collapsed on the small gray velvet chair in her darkened living room. She was sobbing, and furious at how law enforcement refused to help.

  When her car was found the next day, Michelle went to see Josh Taylor to tell him what had happened and to get another copy of the protective order. She told him how upset she was that he had not filed the order with the police.

  Taylor frowned and his face turned scarlet as he glared at her. Then he stood up and forcefully slammed a book down on his desk. “Don’t tell me how to practice law, young lady!” he yelled.

  Michelle had heard from other attorneys that Taylor had a terrible temper. She was literally shaking when she left his office to seek a new lawyer.

  All through November and December, John Battaglia continually broke into Michelle’s house at night. She had already changed her locks twice, but, each time, John had called a locksmith and convinced him that it was his house and he had misplaced his key. In no time, Battaglia had a set of keys for the new locks. She called the locksmith to add more dead bolts. She had to find a way to stop him.