Daily Excerpt: It Only Hurts When I Can't Run (Parker) - Belt in the Face

 

Exceprt from It Only Hurts When I Can't Run

23. Belt in te Face

By the time I was twelve, in the seventh grade, and still under Miss Taylor’s thumb, our relationship had slowly deteriorated. It wasn’t completely my fault. It began with Miss Taylor being preoccupied with her friendship with one of her church sisters, Mrs. Manor, forcing me into give-and-take with the two Manor girls my age; fortunately, I could ignore the Manor boys.

      The Manor family lived in Sebring’s country outskirts. Miss Taylor would take me, Jon, and any other kids in her temporary care to the country. The county scents that changed from sweet to foul, depending on where you stood in the yard, surprised and invigorated me. Dodging snorting pigs and running after chickens (or from them, in my case, because I thought they were crazed beasts) put a lot of glee into the day. Playing in a smelly trailer hidden in the woods made it seem like we had our own personal house. Eating fried sweet potatoes, rather than our usual potato chips, expanded our palate in an unexpected way. We’d play outside for hours until Mr. Manor came home from work or right before it was time for him to come home. Sometimes, we spent the weekend nights, mostly the girls, or we would switch places with my little cousin Jeffrey, who was also Miss Taylor’s nephew (I don’t know how), whom she was now raising, and the older boys, my older cousin Jon and his older brother, Wayne. Miss Taylor and Mrs. Manor would opt to keep either the younger boys or the girls. The younger boys were a handful; they were unruly and spoiled, screaming if their ice cream melted before they could gobble it up or throwing their clothing on the floor with their plates and glasses and anything else they were finished with. During the year, we girls developed a gospel trio, singing the same song over and over, never even trying to master another one, while the boys did whatever boys do on their own in a country setting.

      Miss Taylor and Mrs. Manor always pretended as if music, music, and more music were the reason for them spending so much time together. Mrs. Manor said she needed Miss Taylor’s feedback on the first solo she planned to sing in church someday soon. I noticed that Miss Taylor was on edge, almost morose, until Mrs. Manor walked through the door or we made a trip to the country. We girls started out as friends because they were friends. Over time, though, we grew apart, and it all soured. We sang that one song together, which made us look like we were connected, but forces were driving a wedge of frustration, anger, and hatred between us.

      Just like the coming of spring, the closeness between the Manor girls and me began to melt like snow, especially when they’d follow Miss Taylor, my cousins, and me home to Miss Taylor’s house (my house). I didn’t like them always getting into my things, fiddling with my boom box, trying on my jewelry without asking, and hanging onto me like leeches when I wanted to be with my other friends.

      At first, Miss Taylor did not notice my frustration. She was just into her friend and thought we girls were simpatico. When she finally saw flashes of my anger, “Leave my stuff alone, give it here, get out,” I’d shout at them, she’d label me as a mean girl with evil intentions. She said it so much it became my title and soon gave credence to me as the troublemaker in the group.

      As my resentment festered, my survival instincts surfaced. I’d ignore one or both of them, and our friendship would turn into a test of who’d be friends with whom each day. Eventually, we just sat around, staring at each other or huffing and puffing mean words under our breath. The situation between the Manor girls and me soon become unbearable. I hated them more with each passing day, and the feeling was mutual among the three of us. There was no way we could pretend to still like each other, no matter what the adoring-each-other-adult-friends said. We were at our max on the get-along.

      To make it even worse, Miss Taylor wouldn’t allow me to go anywhere when they came over because “I had company,” she would say. If by some rare occurrence one of my friends was allowed to visit me, then the Manor girls would tell her that while my other friends were there “I was acting funny” and leaving them out, and then Miss Taylor would chastise me in front of everyone, “Oma, get your behind in here and play with all your guests; don’t you have any manners? I didn’t train you to act like this, did I?”

      I felt like I was between a rock and a hard place. I started thinking that I needed to escape this foolishness. I was soon given that opportunity, but it didn’t come without a price.

      It happened during the school winter break. I’d snatched up the ringing phone before Miss Taylor heard it, which was against house rules, but I did it anyway, and to my surprise, it was Binta calling to tell me she was coming to get me for a visit. I was jubilant. I was ready for a break and started day dreaming that the move would be a permanent arrangement, but quickly came to when I couldn’t imagine a circumstance that would allow that to happen. Funny how your mind can run from one bad situation to the next, looking for relief and somehow the memory of the past mess you were in dissipates in the present opportunity. I was just happy for a chance to get a break from the negative energy around me and see Binta and my siblings.

      Earlier on the day Binta was coming, all hell broke out between Miss Taylor, the Manor girls, and me. It happened over some kind of disagreement between us girls, surprise, surprise. It was so silly I can’t remember the specifics. I just know that I refused to let it go. I was on my way out the door, so what did I have to lose? One of the girl’s went tripping over herself to report the details to her mother and Miss Taylor. I was blamed without discussions. Their words were just enough evidence to charge, convict, find me guilty, and sentence me to punishment.

      Miss Taylor stormed out the house into the yard where we were, in a full force rage, never once stopping to assess the situation or the reasons for our disagreement. She stood on the top step like some monster, holding a large brown belt in the air. I was on the bottom step, with one leg on the ground. Faced with the belt, I’d dare not run because I thought that would have made it worst, and I really didn’t have time before she swung the belt at me. The belt buckle hit me in the face, just below my right eye. She swung again as I began screaming, holding my face, and feeling the growing pain sensation. Before I could run out of its reach, there was another belt swing, and “pop,” another hit. I was more shocked than in real pain, but the words slipped out, “You hit me in the face, you are hitting me in my face.” This was followed by my voicing disbelief and sobs, “How could you do this?” It must have been words half in my head and coming out my mouth because I was now leaning on the second step, humiliated, ashamed, holding my face with both hands, and thinking not about the face but about how she could or anyone could do this to me. I can’t say it was totally an accident because in the midst of my rumblings, her reply was, “I should have broken it, not just hit it.” Then she reached and grabbed the front of my shirt and hit me a few more times until Miss Manor shouted, “Stop it Lola; that’s enough.” She grabbed her arm and made her let my shirt go.

      After that beat down, I went back in and finished packing my clothes. This time, I took out what I didn’t absolutely need to have and put in all my keepsakes. That was the fruition of the plan to leave and not return because I knew this wasn’t where I needed to be. Either she’d kill me or the hatred growing in me would one day retaliate and I would hurt her or others around her.

      That buckle beating episode was worse than a year earlier when Miss Taylor banged me in the chest in front of church members inside the kitchen of the church. One of the women told her that I’d said that I didn’t want anything to eat. I did say that because I wasn’t hungry at the time. My foster mom went ballistic and stormed over to me saying, “You’d better eat because I’m not cooking when we got home.”

      I replied, “But I’m not hungry.”

      Immediately, she hit my chest with all her strength. The women in the kitchen stopped what they were doing and turned in shock. All the kids and adults ran to the serving window to see what happened. The hard hit to my chest knocked the wind out of me, and my body immediately doubled over. I could only hold my chest and watch Ms. Taylor yelling at me—in a blur. One woman said, “Lola, don’t make her eat if she doesn’t want to; just don’t cook anything for her later.”

      Miss Taylor shoved me out of the dining hall with her hands roughly on my back, telling me to go sit in the car. The car was locked, and I was too shaken to go back and ask for the car key and too embarrassed to show my face, anyway, so I sat on the step outside for the duration of the gathering. Attending church members ate and left while new people came and went. I was a crying spectacle, sitting on the steps as people passed by. By the time it was over, my eyes and face were puffy and red. I could hear faint passing conversations, “It’s a shame how Lola treated that girl,” “Can you believe she beat-down that girl over nothing,” “She a crazy fool.”

      It was a shame, and the worst was that those hits were intentional. I think it was more than about my not wanting to eat. It was just something inside her that made her react that way and take her frustration out on me.

      To this day, I don’t believe she intentionally meant to hit me in the face with the belt buckle. I really think it was the positioning of where I was standing and where she was standing. I call this one of the worst hits because my face was bruised by the buckle, my cheekbone was tender and it came so close to my eye. None of that could escape my mind. The scene, the discomfort, the hurt and disbelief played in my head repeatedly over the years to come that she had actually hit me in the face with a buckle.

      Later in life, I had a chance to talk to Miss Taylor about things that happened when I was in her care, including the belt buckle incident. Of course, she felt heartbroken and in disbelief that she actually did it, but she did admit the level of personal frustration she was experiencing at the time, something about her relationships with a close friend not going well. This helped me understand that each of us influence the behavior of everyone around us for good or for bad.

      I did leave Miss Taylor’s house later that evening at about seven. Binta was late, which made me think for a while that she wasn’t coming, but she did make it, and we left. I brushed past Miss Manor and the girls, sitting on the living room couch, looking at TV. I said nothing to them, just got my bags and went to the car. Miss Taylor later told me she knew my plan was to leave for good because I’d packed my baton.

      Those were the conditions under which I left Miss Taylor’s house. The move wasn’t permanent, though, because I returned two years later when I was in the ninth grade.

For more posts about Gewanda and her book, click HERE.

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