This chapter is part of the Jean case narrative series. Use the series navigation below to move through the account in order.
Early Memories
Most of my earliest childhood memories, those with the most emotional impact, involve being beaten by my mother. Like most abused children, I didn't realize until years later that these beatings were not the norm -- they weren't the "spankings" other kids got when they acted like --well,they acted like children. The beatings she dished out involved pinning me on the floor, holding me down with her knees, and flailing at me with her hands or whatever instrument was in reach. They would last a quarter of an hour or longer (sometimes much longer), and were not meant to administer discipline, they were meant to vent her anger and frustration. I wasn't the only target of her rages.
By the time I was seven, I was often afraid to go to sleep because it seemed every night I would be woken by the sound of my mother screaming at my father. I would go downstairs, my four year old brother beside me, and stand helpless and crying in the doorway to our den while she screamed at my father. One particular evening stands out more than any other, as clearly as a movie in my mind, because of the turn of events.
My mother was standing in the kitchen, in the narrow area between the stove area and the sink, with my father backed up to the door that led into the garage. As she screamed at him incoherently, she continually charged at him, hands swinging like claws, going for his face with every swing. All my father was doing was trying to keep her away from him. He would raise his arms to protect himself as she swung at him, and she would reach up and under, trying for his eyes or his face. Finally, as she grappled with him and clawed at his face, he reached behind her head and grabbed her hair, pulling her away from him. When he released her, there was a feral look in her eyes, a look that said "how dare you touch me", and she reached for the stove and picked up a frying pan that was there, swung as hard as she could and connected solidly with his head. There was no regard for what harm she might do. She could easily have killed him, and I know from experience, would not have cared.
She would later proudly show off the pan to friends and family and talk about the time she hit my father in the head with it. That same evening, the police agian arrived at the house. Two officers came to the door.
The officers separated my parents. My mother took me with her into the living room with one of the officers, and said "My son was standing there watching everything." Then to me she demanded, "Tell the officers how you saw your father beating me up."
Even at seven, or perhaps because I was only seven, I was upset and confused. Here was my mother, one of my two parental role models, telling me to lie about what I'd seen. Not only to lie, but to lie and get my father in trouble with the police. Instead, I went with what my father had taught me, and at least my mother had pretended to adhere to: tell the truth. So I told the officer I saw my mother trying to scratch my Dad's face, that he pulled her hair, and then she hit him with the frying pan.
I don't recall the officers response, the moments of high emotional content that tend to etch a memory as though in stone were all past. But the officer's must not have been convinced, or there was some professional courtesy because my father worked part time for the community firedepartment, but there was no arrest. They left.
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