I remember running down those stairs barefeet two at a time. I was twelve
and only clad in my pajamas. Barreling down after me was the 45-year-old,
drunk of a man my mother married. I was terrified. I had just witnessed him
slamming her about the front room of our apartment. Somehow I had gained
enough courage to open my bedroom door after sitting in the dark and
hearing the yells and screams, the crashing and the banging for what seemed
like hours on end. I walked down the hallway careful not to make a sound
and peered around the corner into that shambles of a room. He had my mother
on the floor and his hands were around her throat. He must of heard me
because he turned around and stared at me like a child who had been caught
rifling through his mother's purse for spare change to swipe. As he made a
move to get to his feet, I sprinted past them, opened the front door, ran
down the hallway and through a door to the stairwell with one thought on my
mind...I had to get help from someone.
Plastered out of his mind, he couldn't catch me with the lead that I had.
Halfway down the first flight he slipped in his heavy construction boots
and fell sliding to the bottom in a heap. I remember stopping and safely
staring up from a landing two flights below and seeing my mother getting
him to his feet and helping him back up the stairs. Moments later, I heard
the apartment door slam shut. I stood there for a long time wondering what
had just happened. Why she'd care about a man who had treated her like
that? Why she came to his aid instead of mine? I sat outside our apartment
door for an hour or two listening, thinking and quietly sobbing. I felt
betrayed and abandoned by what my mother had done. When all was quiet
inside, I crept back in, locked the door and went to bed. I didn't sleep
much that night. I made myself stay awake just in case he woke up and
realized that he wasn't finished with me. The next day I got off lucky. I
was grounded for a week by my mother presumably for embarrassing him like I
did.
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