Heart of a Tiger: Growing Up With My Grandfather, Ty Cobb

by Herschel Cobb

  One night he made me get my plastic tomahawk and a flashlight and took me out to the backyard. He had me stand next to a large tree and told me to stay there until I was sure that nothing out in the dark would get me. He then left me alone, shaking and scared. After a few minutes, something grabbed me from behind. I was scared out of my mind. It was the bogeyman. I felt its huge, strong claws grip my arms and side and hold me so I couldn’t move. I yelled and kicked, but it picked me up. I could not turn around, but I could hear it growl and breathe on me. I was doomed. I knew it was going to take me away to its awful cave. I twisted and kicked for dear life, but it held me so tight I couldn’t breathe. It started to carry me away, and I felt sick and everything went dark.

  The next thing I saw was my father next to me, telling me to go inside the house. I looked around in surprise and relief; the bogeyman was gone. My father headed toward the back door, breathing hard. I backed a step away before he yelled at me to hurry up or else. I rushed into the house and ran upstairs to my room, the only place I felt safe.

  The most crushing, both physically and mentally, of the “games” my father played with me took place during several winters. In the evenings he would pluck me up to wrestle with him on the big bed in his bedroom. At first I didn’t know what wrestling meant and was just excited to play with my dad. He put me on the bed, sat next to me, and we pushed back and forth. I pushed as hard as I could and Daddy fell backward, lying on the bed. I felt very strong and kept pushing on his hands. Suddenly, he picked me up under the shoulders and held me in the air. I swung my arms, trying to reach him, but it was no use. My arms would not reach him. He then tossed me up in the air and caught me when I came down. It was fun. I laughed and laughed and wanted more. So he tossed me up and down a few more times.

  Then the game changed. He caught me, brought me down and put me between his legs. He locked his ankles together and started to squeeze. His legs were locked around my middle, and I struggled to get loose. The harder I struggled, the tighter he squeezed. His legs were big, and I could sense their immense power. At the same time he squeezed, he wiggled both legs really fast, tossing me like I was in a mixer, being wiggled faster and faster back and forth. My head flopped around at one end and my legs flopped below me. The squeezing became tighter and the shaking faster. He called this his “scissors lock.”

  I was pushing as hard as I could on his knee to make him stop when Mom came into the room. I called out to her for help. She said, “Will you two please stop it? I want to use the bathroom.” She walked past us and Dad let go of me. I scrambled off the bed as fast as I could and shot out the door. Dad closed the door behind me, and I heard them yelling at each other as I searched for Susan.

  Daddy wrestled with me many times that winter. I couldn’t say no because he had already picked me up and had me on his bed, holding my arms so I couldn’t move them, or my head so I couldn’t reach him, or my legs so I couldn’t get away. Most times he put me in that scissors lock, squeezed hard, and only let go when I cried “uncle.” I fought as hard as I could and got hot and sweaty. I tried to hide at night before I had to go to bed. I would find a place I thought was safe and remain still, afraid to move. Sometimes he ignored me. Yet if he wanted, sooner or later he found me. There was no place that was safe. I tried to become invisible, but even stopping breathing didn’t make me invisible. One night he found me buried under all my stuffed animals on my bed. I thought I looked like part of my pile of animals.

  He slung me over his shoulder and carried me into his room. “So, are you going to cry and say ‘uncle’?” I said no. I meant it. I promised myself I would never say “uncle” again. He laughed and poked at me and, putting his huge hand on my head, held me at a distance while he pinched my legs and stomach with his other hand. I swung and pushed at him, but it was no use. My arms were too short to reach him. He shifted higher up on his bed and swung his legs up next to me.

  I knew what was coming and fought with all my might to get loose. His grip on my head tightened and he grabbed both of my wrists in his left hand. I couldn’t pull loose. Laughing, he said, “I got you, don’t I?” My head was pushed downward until I could only see his shirt and belt. I started to kick at his stomach as hard as I could. He told me not to do that and grabbed my leg and twisted me until I was between his legs. They locked together and I was caught.

  He squeezed tight and told me to cry “uncle.” I said, “No.” He squeezed tighter and tighter, and each time told me to say “uncle.” I refused to give in. He started to shimmy his legs, making me bob more and more rapidly, telling me to say “uncle.” I cried no. He squeezed and shimmied tighter and faster. My body vibrated from my head to my feet. I began to beat on his legs with my fists. I knew that made him mad because the pressure from his legs increased until it was hard to breathe. He demanded that I say “uncle.” By this time I was gasping. “No.” His face was turning red and he was panting. Almost with each breath, he said, “Now say ‘uncle.’” I didn’t say anything. I fought to get air and pushed as hard as I could. I felt his legs come together like giant pincers around my middle. They were crushing me. I saw two of him, then three or four of him, all blurring together and rolling around. I gasped for air, but couldn’t breathe. The room swirled, and then everything went black.

  I woke up lying on my own bed, with a damp washcloth over my forehead. I was alone in my room. My middle hurt, and my hands hurt, and I felt awful, like I was going to throw up, only I knew I wasn’t. I pressed the washcloth against my forehead and looked around the room without moving my head. I took short breaths because my stomach hurt so badly. After a while, my dad walked into my room and sat next to me. He said, “I guess we got carried away, didn’t we, Hersch? Well, that’s okay, you’ll be just fine.” He turned the washcloth over so the cool side was against my forehead, got up, and left.

  I lay there, feeling perfectly empty. It was like all my feelings had gone somewhere to hide. My world, the one where I lived, was too full of danger to let them loose. I was warm and comfortable, but in bed I noticed how tense my body was. My muscles in my legs had tightened up, my hands were clenched into fists, and my neck and shoulders were rigid. I had a slight headache but didn’t connect it to how rigidly I was holding my body. I tensed my muscles so I couldn’t feel waves of terror and fear flow through my body. This became my habit. I wanted to be numb to all these feelings. My responses to other people did not come from how I felt; they came from carefully watching what others said and did, and quickly acting in an acceptable manner. I had to figure out what was going on and how to talk or act.

  After that time my dad would say, “Let’s play, Hersch. You can trust me. I won’t do anything this time. Come on.” Then he would start. First, holding my head away from him and poking me in the ribs, then eventually getting me into the scissors lock. Sometimes, he would merely toss me on his big bed and let me alone. He wouldn’t grab me or squeeze me. Yet I remained on guard. I lost all trust in him. I didn’t know when he was going to hurt me.

  These mean-spirited games were only part of a larger pattern, the full extent of which I didn’t comprehend until much later. My father was bitter, seething with resentment against the world, perhaps because his own father was so famous and successful. His relationship with my mother was caustic. Rancor and animosity ruled. I learned why many years later, at age thirteen, when Susan told me, “Mom turned frigid on Dad. She wouldn’t let him touch her. I think she liked someone else.” I immediately remembered the summer I was six years old, clearing a vacant lot two doors down from our house for a playing field. A car parked in front of our house, and a man got out and went inside. Shortly after that, Ayako left. A while later, I was thirsty and went to the side door to get a glass of water. It was locked; so was the front. I got water from the garden hose and didn’t think about it. But the same thing happened a week later, and then a week after that. Ayako left both times the man went inside. Susan’s revelation to me struck a chord.

  In Twin Fa
lls, all I knew was that at home my father was always erupting. His anger would explode for almost any reason. Many times spankings occurred when the reasons were impossible to fathom. When his anger raged, he grabbed whoever was near, my sister or me. He yanked his belt from around his waist, pulled our pants and underwear down, and beat our bare bottom until it was red. I watched my sister get beaten. She watched me. Watching was terrifying because whoever watched was next.

  One time, when I had just turned five years old, I opened the box where he kept his cigars, took one out, and asked him what it was. He told me he’d show me. He clipped the end off one, walked over to a closet, and pulled out all the clothes from the rack. At this point I was still curious about what he was going to show me. Then he lit and put the cigar in my mouth, pushed me into the empty closet, and told me he’d let me out when I sucked on the thing until it was gone. After a few minutes, I became sick and threw up.

  When he smelled my vomit, he opened the closet and whipped me with his belt for the mess I’d made. I was sickened by the awful taste of vomit, but he liked the fact that I was so helpless. That added to the control he felt. When he had whipped me to his satisfaction, he stopped yelling at me. In a calm voice he commanded me to get ready for dinner. It was as if, to him, nothing had happened. He left me still sick to my stomach, my bladder about to burst, and quivering in fear. I managed to splash water in my mouth, removing some of the taste, and stumble to the dining table. Ayako took one look at me and said that I looked green. I quickly told everybody I felt sick and wanted to go straight to bed. My father released his hand from the back of my neck, and I walked away as fast as I could. I couldn’t have eaten anything anyway.

  Another time he erupted while Susan and I were in the middle of a game we had started so we could be like him. We had watched my dad at his desk many times. When we asked him what he was doing he always said, “Important papers.” So we invented a game we called “important papers.” One evening we carefully moved his papers from one side of the desk to the other, pretending we had “important papers.”

  I was in the process of moving a stack when he spotted me. His rage burst like the fire department releasing the water from a hydrant on the hottest day of the summer. The burst was uncontrollable and savage. Within a few seconds he had his belt out, my pants pulled down, and he whipped me until I cried, begging him to stop. My bottom had red welts, and for days Ayako applied a cream on it to heal them.

  After I was spanked, he ordered me to the corner of the room and grabbed my sister. She was already crying, pleading with him. She couldn’t get the words out because her lips were quivering so hard. Her right hand was in her mouth, biting down, and her other hand on her fanny, trying to cover it. Dad put her over his knees, pulled down her panties, and beat her with his belt. He loudly counted as he struck, from one to ten. Then he paused and suddenly hit her again. She was crying and begging him, “Please stop! I promise I will never to do it again!” When another blow fell, she couldn’t help herself. Her bladder emptied from fear and she peed on his pants. He sprang to his feet in rage, dumping her on the floor. He looked at his pants and started cursing and stormed out of the room. Susan crawled over to me, hiding her face, trying to pull her underpants up, sobbing uncontrollably. My body twitched as well. Yet I could not console her. She didn’t want to be touched or held, even by me.

  The evenings were the worst, though. That’s because my parents liked to drink. With my father, he might as well have been pouring gasoline on a fire.

  When my father came home and my mother was around, Susan and I exchanged glances and slowly retreated upstairs. They liked to start with drinks before dinner. I didn’t really know what “drinks” meant, only that they poured a lot of brown, smelly liquid into a glass with ice. I did know that after they had a few drinks, the tenor of the evening would change. The noise level increased, and we did not want to be in sight when the shouting began. We could become a target for anger. Our retreats up the stairs became a game, only in deadly earnest. Reaching the top of the stairs without being noticed was winning. We closed the door to a small crack, then stayed quiet so as not to be heard. They argued, yelled, walked around waving their arms. We easily heard them from our rooms because their voices were filled with meanness and rage. Susan and I did not dare go downstairs until we were called for dinner.

  When we sat at the table, the air sparked with menace. I felt like a huge electric storm was about to sweep everything off the table and blow everybody into another room. Words weren’t spoken; they crackled out of mouths. The cap keeping the dinner discussion civil was loose and wobbling, about to blow off at any time. Susan and I stuffed the food into our mouths, hoping to finish our dinners, excuse ourselves, and escape before any explosions happened. If we didn’t get away fast enough, we would have to witness the eruption of wrath and be ready to duck to the nearest corner of the room to keep from getting hurt. One time my father yanked the tablecloth so hard, he pulled all the plates and glasses off the table, right in the middle of our meal. On another occasion he stood up, raised his hands over his head in frustration, and pulled the hanging light out of the ceiling. As the light and ceiling plaster came cascading down, I pushed back my chair so fast, it fell backward with me falling over it. I rolled to the wall and remained frozen, wondering what else he was going to grab and destroy, like me. But he stomped out of the room instead. My mother had her glass of whisky in her hand, and she gulped it down in fear. Once he left the room, I grabbed my sister, ran out toward the kitchen, around the hallway, and up the stairs to my room.

  I never talked about this with my sister, but both of us knew that the longer the evening went on without erupting into terror, the closer we were to the explosion. We learned to walk carefully, not making any noise. Our hope was to make it to bedtime without them noticing us. If they did, I could be certain that something scary and painful would happen. This formed such a pattern that I cannot recall an evening inside our house, or outside in the summer time, when my dad wasn’t threatening or my parents weren’t drinking and yelling at each other.

  The terror of those evenings set our family apart, though I wasn’t aware of it. I didn’t get my first sense of normalcy until I went to visit my friend, Freddy Otto, who lived next door. His garage door was open and Freddy’s dad was inside. He told me that Freddy was not home, but I stood and watched him. He was standing in front of a large slanted rack, putting comic books on it in some specific order. He had hundreds of comic books in his garage, some in boxes, some tied together, some in loose stacks. He was taking some out of a box and placing them onto the rack while I stood, grinning at this wonderful sight, wishing they all were mine.

  Mr. Otto glanced up at me and asked, “Do you like comic books, Hersch?” I answered yes, that I liked comic books very much.

  He said, “There’s a box of last month’s over there; do you want to take a look?” I nodded my head up and down, excited as could be. At the rear of the garage I saw the box, overflowing with comic books. Mr. Otto said, “Those are going to go back. You can look them over. You can even have two of them.”

  I inched into the garage, never taking my eyes off Mr. Otto. I was convinced he was setting a trap and that something terrible was going to happen. But I could not resist the lure of the box with the comic books overflowing. Mr. Otto said, “Go ahead, it’s okay.” I still proceeded carefully, ready to run for the door as soon as the trap was sprung.

  Nothing that was happening in Mr. Otto’s garage was what I was used to. He paid little attention to me but just kept placing comic books at various places on his rack. He looked over once in a while and asked me what I liked, and I told him what I was reading. He nodded and went back to what he was doing. I remained on alert. I sat cross-legged reading a comic, expecting something terrifying to happen at any second. I kept reading and finally asked Mr. Otto where he got all the comic books. He answered me that his job was filling stores with comic books. He put the full rack in his van and dr
ove around and replaced the empty racks at the drug store, the market, and some other places. I thought, “Wow, lucky Freddy. He has all the comic books in the world.”

  I finally got up to leave. I walked carefully by Mr. Otto, half expecting him to grab me and shake me or something. He just kept on what he was doing, on a new rack. “So long, Hersch. Sure you don’t want to take some? They’re last month’s, just going to throw them out.” I was so stunned I just walked blankly out of the garage and across the Ottos’ lawn.

  When I came into view of my house, I stopped cold in my steps. I felt light headed and a tug in my throat said, “Go no further.” The abrupt return of fear made me realize that not all homes, not all families, were like mine. No wonder I didn’t know how to act at the Ottos’. I felt totally out of balance. I realized that I could not tell the difference as to when somebody was going to hurt me or not. I was sure my father would try to destroy me, but I had to watch other people very carefully too. Normal to me was what happened with my mom and dad. My body had learned to keep constant vigil, to be as invisible as possible. That was how I survived.

  Just how different we were became all too clear one Saturday morning. All the evil forces surrounding me seemed to converge on the same day. My father’s abuse, my mother’s lack of caring, came at me in a one-two punch that would leave me scarred for the rest of my childhood.

  I was outside after breakfast, playing on the front lawn, when my father came out and said, “Hersch, I’m going flying. Want to come along? You’re going to be seven pretty soon. It’s time you learned.”