The living room picture window disappeared as my father pulled down the blackout shade and closed the heavy red drapes. Darkness enveloped us. The stove light was turned on, and all other lights were turned off. This signaled that 4:30 PM had come, and it was time to take our places.
Mother and I finished whatever we were doing, and at 5, we took our assigned seats in the living room. Mother in her chair, and I at my father’s feet as he lay on the couch in his usual wife beater, boxer shorts, and black socks. Silence was required, and little movement was allowed. The news came on, and another long night began.
I hated sitting at his feet; he kept touching me, or when he slept, he kept kicking me. He would sleep on the couch most of the night, every night.
He would call out my mother’s name every few minutes. When I was little, I woke my mother to tell her my father was calling for her. She told me that was just something he did and that I should ignore it.
It drove me crazy. Our house was not much over 800 sq. ft., so it didn’t matter where I was; I could hear everything—the snoring, the calling out my mother’s name, all the body noises you would expect. I liken it to Chinese water torture.
Before I turned 13, I could not shut my bedroom door. As I became a teenager, we had several knocked-down drag-out fights over that door. Finally, he quit fighting with me, and I could close my door. He would open the door quickly to catch me doing something or maybe to scare me—hard to say. Most likely, it was just part of his controlling behavior. I was trying to get some sleep.
Their age made it possible to wear him down. They had me in their 40s, and as I got older, so did they, and sometimes, he didn’t feel like getting off the couch.
If he was angry with me, he would hurl his work shoes at me as I entered the living room. He kept his shoes in a line under the coffee table: three pairs of work shoes and two pairs of dress shoes. The dress shoes weren’t bad, but the work shoes were heavier, and I felt them connect.
I got very good at ducking and weaving. It sounds horrible to people when I tell it, but anything that stopped him from getting off the couch and coming after me in full of rage was good for me.
So I learned that sometimes in life, you must be willing to take the beating, fall to the floor, and, once there, get back up and go at it again as soon as you recover. Sometimes, it’s the only way to the other side.
I also learned to sit quietly and wait. One punishment was to sit in the green upholstered chair in the living room. Black thread embroidered the pattern on the chair. I would trace a thread with my finger and pretend I was on a boat going across the ocean to faraway places. If I lost myself in it and started standing on the chair to finish my trip, I would cut short my voyage. I preferred the beatings rather than sitting still and quiet without a book.
Due to my voyages being cut short, I focused my gaze on the painting in the living room and began counting the colors. Once I went clockwise around the painting, I repeated it to see if I missed any. Then, I separated the shades of blue and counted them. Once released from the chair, I would hurry to my room, grab a reader’s digest, and tuck myself into my closet. I had provisioned it with a flashlight, the world almanac, and the farmer’s almanac. A little blanket, and I was set. I would read the Reader’s Digest front to back and back again. I would flip through the World Almanac, study the maps, and trace my fingers on more voyages; once I landed in a country, I would turn to that page and read all about it.
The Farmers Almanac was always an interesting read. My parents were not readers; they did not buy me books, but I was an avid reader from a very early age. I read everything I could, including the newspaper, whether or not I understood it. Armed with my dictionary, I would devour the written word. Even if I didn’t understand the story, I would still know one more thing I did before reading it.
The lessons learned here served me well when I joined the Navy.
I could hold still.
I could wait for hours.
I could follow an order without question.
So there’s some lemonade from that lemon.