Breaking Brooklyn

by Scott Leopold

  There were times when Sy’s mood turned so sour that he was truly evil. It normally came after he started drinking, or when he had a fight with my mother. In her usual manipulative pattern, she would frustrate him then storm out of the house, leaving me to deal with the aftermath.

  My mother was a master manipulator. She knew how to work people, and Sy was one of her favorite victims. If she wanted the house to herself she would pick a fight, then kick Sy out. If he refused to leave she would threaten to call the police. While he was gone, she would throw all of his stuff on the front lawn. My mother would go on a rampage destroying Sy’s things, throwing dishes and glasses, shattering them on the walls. It was a mess.

  During one of her fits of rage I joined her. she was drunk and I was on an adrenaline high. My mother was throwing dishes at the wall and tuning over furniture. At first I was discussed because my brother and sister we in their cribs crying at the top of their lungs. They were scared and that really pissed me off. But there was nothing I could do about it. My mother was like a tornado destroying everything in her path. If got in the way I would just become part of her destruction.

  So, I let go. When I say let go I mean I lost it. I started hammered holes into my bedroom walls. It felt so good! Every whack of the hammer made me feel better. Before I knew it the room was filled with a fog of drywall dust.

  When my mother saw the damage the next morning, she nearly flipped her lid. She knew if Sy saw this he would go crazy. She was afraid he would hurt me badly. Not knowing how to fix drywall, she went to K-Mart and bought as many posters as she could find. Before Sy returned home she had the walls of my room completely covered. Not one hole could be seen.

  Cindy

  Chapter sixteen

  "The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken."

  ~Samuel Johnson

  Cindy Napier’s Diary

  November 13, 1993

  Here I am again two years after Fairbanks reinventing myself. I have moved in with my father, who now lives in Bloomington in an effort to get away from Sy. It wasn’t long after Sy and I were out of rehab that we started living together. Within a few months on the outside, I realized I needed Sy's income to survive. So, I gave him subtle hints. Eventually, he asked me to marry him.

  We went to the local Justice of the Peace where we tied the knot. Then it was straight to a place where neither of us should have gone, the Not Here Bar and Lounge to celebrate. After a few stiff drinks, a niggling bit of dread invaded my mind. I stopped myself and concentrated on all of the benefits of being married to Sy.

  We moved to Beech Grove which is very similar to Broad Ripple and its era of architecture. Amtrak is the main employer. The mostly Irish population loves to drink their native whiskey after a hard day of work. Never the less there’s never a dull moment! The gossip lines are like telepathic vibes from person to person where no one is left out.

  A few months after we were married I got really sick. When I went to the doctor he said I was pregnant! How could this have happened? I was on birth control! I considered having an abortion, but I decided that maybe a baby would be good for me. It would secure my financial future by tying me to Sy. Nine months later, Danielle was born.

  A month after that I was pregnant again! When the neighbors found out they would joke, saying, "Welcome to the Irish twins club." This time I was determined to have an abortion, but Sy found my pregnancy test in the trashcan. When he questioned me about it I was forced to confirm what he already knew. There was no way Sy would agree to an abortion and I was afraid to do it behind his back. So, I gave birth to my second son Michael. I was now trapped in another loveless marriage. I turned to my old friends, sex, drugs, and partying for relief.

  While I was drowning in self-destruction, Sy was in freefall of his own. He was drinking every day and his mental condition was getting worse. Sy’s paranoia had grown to the point where he was hearing voices. He actually thought Russian spies were watching him through video cameras that were planted in our house and at work. He was talking to himself and seeing things that weren’t there. He tried to convince me he was seeing patterns in his work orders, in the numbers themselves, which gave the Russians the location of U.S. nuclear missiles.

  Sy had become extremely violent. I was afraid he was going to hurt me. His mood swings were happening every day now and when he drank they were even worse.

  When I noticed bruises all over Jack’s body, I had a bad feeling that Sy was responsible. When I asked Jack about it he got really anxious. He told me he had gotten into a really bad bike wreck. I could see in his eyes he was lying to me.

  I decided to take him to the park for a picnic to try and get some answers. I could see that he was in a lot of pain. When I tried to touch him he would flinch. Pushing for answers got me nowhere. So I just rubbed his back as he slept on my lap. I have not been a good mother to him, but I love him very much.

  Despite my feelings for my mother the best thing I can do for Jack at this point is let him go. I need to let my mother keep him 100% of the time. I am trying hard not to mess up his brother and sister’s life like I did his. He needs so much more than I can ever give him. My mother absolutely adores him and will care for him like I never could. It breaks my heart, but I need to let him go…

  Sy started talking about his conspiracy theories at work and important people were noticing. They tolerated it for a while but when it started distracting other workers Sy's manager finally confronted him. He immediately got defensive, yelling that everyone was conspiring against him.

  His boss had to call security. By the time they arrived Sy was completely out of control. He fought them while they tried to get him to calm down. So, they called the Beech Grove police who took Sy into custody.

  At his bail hearing Sy stepped clear over the line into crazy world. He didn’t understand the legal procedures and wanted to represent himself. When he spoke to the judge he started babbling about conspiracies, making absolutely no sense. So, the judge remanded Sy to the local mental institution for an evaluation. What was only supposed to be a few days turned into a few weeks. Eventually the commitment was for an indefinite period of time.

  Sy was diagnosed as “schizophrenic” and deemed a danger to society. I divorced him as quickly as I could say his two-letter name.

  While all this was going on with Sy, my father had found a way to get himself clean again. This time, he took his Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and his sobriety seriously. He moved from Broad Ripple to Bloomington in an effort to separate himself from his old drinking buddies, favorite haunts, and bad habits. Plus, Bloomington is only thirty minutes from his hometown of Spencer.

  My father found a job working as a maintenance man for the Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington. In only a few months he worked his way up to the head of maintenance.

  Life for my father was easy and simple, just like the hotel room he lived in. The Gaslight Inn was a dive on the south side of Bloomington. It was a place where people who had hit rock bottom came to make a new start. It was a pay by the day, week, or month hotel. The majority of the people that lived there were long-term residents. Most were recovering alcoholics like my father.

  Each room had a small kitchen just off the sleeping area. The bathroom was tiny, with just a standup shower and small sink. But that’s all my father needed. He went to work during the day then to his AA meetings at night. When he was done, it was back to the Gas Light to sleep, and do it all over again.

  It’s the perfect place for me and the kids to make a new start. I know it will be hard on my father but I can’t help it, I’m in financial trouble with nowhere else to go.

  Chapter seventeen

  “Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. But the personality formed in the environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the task
of early adulthood establishing independence and intimacy burdened by major impairments in self-care, in cognition and in memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships. She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she reencounters the trauma.”

  ~ Judith Lewis Herman

  Jack Napier - Day 34

  Unfortunately for me, it wasn't long before Sy discovered the holes in my bedroom walls. What followed would kill any self-esteem I ever had, leaving in its place a terminal fear of the night.

  It all started one Sunday morning when I was visiting my mother in Beech Grove. My mom had done a good job of keeping Sy out of my room and the holes in my walls a secret. But I made a careless mistake. My friend Tim was waiting for me to go dirt bike riding at the park and I was in such a hurry to have a good time I left one of the wrenches in the driveway. It rained that night, and by Sunday morning it was rusty. When Sy found it, he confronted me immediately.

  Before he had a chance to interrogate me my mother started in on him about not helping enough with the babies. He tried his best not to argue, but he let loose when she picked his last nerve. All their screaming and fighting roared throughout the house like thunder, making Danielle and Michael afraid. Crying kids soon accompanied the adult screaming. I quickly retreated to my room, hoping to become invisible.

  That set the tone for the whole day. I took quiet steps everywhere I went in the house, avoiding both my mother and Sy. After hours of arguing with Sy, my mother took my brother and sister and left the house for the night. I’m not sure why she didn’t take me. I was so elusive that day she must have forgotten that I was there. Nonetheless, I was left alone with a ticking time bomb.

  When my mother frustrated Sy past his breaking point, he went straight to the kitchen, plopped down at the table, and crawled into a bottle of booze. Then he erupted into a rage. Things that he might have overlook on another day became a personal crime against him. I was always the first outlet for his madness.

  Suddenly, Sy remembered finding the rusty wrench. Hiding in my room I could hear his rage building.

  “G-GOD DAAAAMN IT! Every f-f-fucking time….”

  Then I heard his heavy footsteps approaching my room. My light was off. I had made sure of that. Hopefully he would think I was asleep and just go away. The sound of his movements paused, then I heard then move closer, becoming louder. I could feel my gut wrench as each of Sy’s footsteps pounded like a bass drum in my chest. While I lay still, squeezing my eyes shut, I willed him to leave. Then the door flew open! Sy blinded me with a click of the light. I opened my eyes, just a slit, enough to track his movements. He staggered around. Then I felt his stare burn a hole into me as I lay on the dirty mattress on the floor.

  “Whaaat the f-f-fucks’s your prooooblem boy?”

  I pretended I was asleep and didn't hear him.

  “How maaany times have I tooold you to t-t-take care of m-my tools?"

  I was breathing so heavy I couldn’t answer.

  "I k-know you caaaan hear m-m-me! You beeeeetter anssswer me or I will give yoooou an ass whipping you’ll n-never fooorget!”

  Catching my breath, I begged him for forgiveness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to forget the wrench. I will never do it again!”

  “Yeah, yooou saaay that e-e-every time. Yooou’re sorry. Do yooou think I’m f-f-fucking stupid?! Yooou need to take b-b-better care of m-my tools. I shouldn’t let yooou use them at a-all!”

  “I'm sorry, Sy! It was an accident!”

  All of a sudden the posters in the room caught his attention.

  “Whaaat’s this s-s-shit? Why the h-hell wooould yooou bring this s-shit into my hoooouse?”

  Sy squinted his eyes at one of the posters that was starting to peel off the wall. I saw it at the same time.

  “Whaaat the f-f-fuck is this!” Sy yelled as he walked toward the poster and pulled it off the wall.

  He was stunned when he saw the holes that it covered. He exploded into a fury of craziness, real craziness. Moving like a bull moose, he crossed the room, jerking me off the mattress by my hair and dragged me to the wall.

  He smashed my head in and out of the drywall over and over again. A cloud of dust filled the room. I choked on the debris. Dropping me to the floor, he stomped on my face, then pulled down more of the posters. Seeing more holes, he went right over the edge of sanity.

  “Whaaat the f-f-fuck is your problem? What maaakes yoooou think yoooou have the right p-p-put holes in my waaaalls? Yooou doooon’t live h-here. This isn’t yoooour f-f-fucking hoooouse!”

  He then picked me up by my shirt collar and threw me across the room. I was in a daze, my ears ringing from the blow to my head. He continued to pull down posters until the bare, broken walls were totally revealed.

  He grabbed me again by the hair and smashed my face into the wall. The drywall dust mingled with the blood that was running down my face. I gasped for air, fighting to get away. I think this excited him.

  Turning me toward him, he punched me in the face with his huge fist. My nose exploded, blood flying in all directions. He hit me again in the mouth, splitting both corners wide open. Suddenly, with tornado-like force, Sy threw me on the mattress. There was a look of satisfaction on his face as he flipped off the light and walked out.

  He hadn’t knocked me out, but I couldn’t think. My whole body was numb. I relived everything in slow motion. Gradually, I regained my senses and started shaking uncontrollably. I tried to push myself up, but my arms were too weak.

  It wasn’t long before Sy was back. This time, he didn’t even bother to turn on the light. Walking slowly to the end of the dirty mattress where I lay, he stood in silence. I could smell the stench of distilled spirits oozing from his pores. I closed my eyes tightly, expecting another beating. When it didn’t come, I opened them with trepidation. That’s when I saw him doing the unthinkable: he started to unzip his pants like he was going to take a piss.

  “Yooou’re a-a worthless p-p-piece of shittt!”

  Grabbing me by the back of my head he pulled me up on my knees. Shaking me violently, he yelled, “Y-You pieeece of s-shit!”

  He smacked my face with his other hand. Looking up at him in a daze I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He reached into his pocket and removed a quarter-moon welding knife and held it to my throat.

  “I s-should fuucking k-kill you!”

  Sy’s eyes were as dark as coal cinders. I remember thinking to myself this was the end. I didn’t care, I was ready to leave this fucking hell.

  “Kill me!” I screamed.

  I was no longer afraid. I didn't give a fuck. A part of me wanted to die. I think my sudden confidence startled Sy as common sense caught the best of him. He put his knife away and let me go. I fell to the floor.

  I could feel his sweat drip on my leg. Breathing heavily, he paused to catch his breath. He then pulled off his belt. Creating a loop with the worn leather he pulled it together with force, making a loud popping sound.

  "SMACK, SMACK!"

  He did this several times, I think in an effort to intensify the moment. Picking me up from the floor he throw me face down on the bed. Then he pulled down my pajama pants and beat me with his belt. I could feel him losing control.

  Then Sy did the worst thing I could ever imagine. He unbuttoned his pants and removed his penis. I had no idea what was about to happen. I begged God to take make it stop, but He wasn’t listening. I was too weak to fight. Looking at the wall in front of me I saw Sy’s silhouette from the light of the moon. I heard him spit into his hand. Then I blacked out.

  When I woke, I felt a warm liquid zigzagging all over my body. It randomly made its way from my toes to my head. The smell was sour and made me want to gag.

  When I looked up, I saw Sy pissing on me. Finishing he stumbled back, wiping the sweat off his face. The hair that outlined his head like a horseshoe was disheveled. I lay motionless on the mattress, now covered in dried blood and drywall dust. My body seemed to
float above me. I couldn’t move. I felt nothing, nothing but shame. I eventually fell asleep.

  DREAM:

  I am walking down the hall to Sy’s room. Every step, my hatred for him building. When I enter the kitchen I find him hunched over, his head in his hands, sitting at the table.

  I make myself sit down across from him, drywall dust and blood cover my face. With no expression or emotion whatsoever, I stare at him.

  Sick from the night before, he doesn’t notice me. When he does, he notices my unwavering stare. He grows restless, twitching in his chair. Looking at my distorted face, I can tell he feels uncomfortable.

  “What the fuck are you looking at boy?” he mumbles.

  I don't say a word. I can tell he doesn’t know what to think.

  I start to speak very slowly, very deliberately.

  “One day when I grow up…”

  I stop and hold my breath for a moment. Sy doesn’t say a word during this awkward moment, his eyes anxiously lock on me.

  “One night, you are going to wake in a cold sweat and when you look up, you are going to see me standing over you holding this rusty hook blade knife.”

  As I say these words, I hold the knife in front of me.

  “When you wake, you will realize what feels like sweat is actually a puddle of your own blood.”

  Sy looks at me, his bloodshot eyes flashing with memories of what he had done to me. Finally, I see fear. Exactly what I wanted. He now knows he will have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of his miserable life.

  Cindy

  Chapter eightteen

  "For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."

  T.S. Eliot

  Cindy Napier’s Diary

  March 29th 1994

  When I arrived in Bloomington with Michael and Danielle, my father welcomed us with open arms. All I wanted was get the hell out of Indianapolis and far away from Sy. With no job and no money, I had no choice but to show up at my father’s doorstep.