American Dreamer

Excerpt # 1

“You know better than that Danielle! I’mma tear yo ass up when we get home,” my mom screamed from the driver’s seat.

“But Unique told me to do it!” I said hoping to get out of a whooping.

My sister, Unique didn’t say a word. She just sat there, knowing the punishment that was to follow for her convincing me to steal from the store.

“Alright yall go in that room and take off your clothes!” my mom said sounding like a slave master from one of those racists slave movies.

We did as our mom told us to do. Well, we didn’t have a choice. She would always say, “Either you sit here and let me beat you for what you’ve done or you go down there and let them crackas deal with you. Because if the white man get a hold of you, his ass gonna beat you worse than I beat you….he’s gonna put his foot in ya neck and spit on ya.”

Thinking about that type of punishment always put the worst fear in my heart. Even though I dreaded my mom’s beatings, I didn’t think for a chance of calling Child Protective Services on my mom (It was called HRS at the time). I feared that what she said about them beating me worse than she did was actually true. And I definitely didn’t want to take that option.

So, my sister and I just obediently lay on the bed in her room with only our underwear on. My mom came into the room with the extension cord. It was long and brown and she never used it for anything technological. My mom had an array of choice weapons to choose from. Some days it was the brown extension cord; other days we would get the black leather belt; and yet others we were beaten with a cable cord --either of the three was just as painful as the other.

“Wack!” sounded the belt as it hit our bear flesh. I felt like I was going to die. We never knew when my mom would end the beating. It always seemed like eternity. My mom would continue beating us, hitting us as hard as she could with the belt. I would think that my mom hated us, because it seemed like we got a beating for the slightest thing. I would always wonder did the other kids in school have to go through this type of punishment? Probably not!

My mom continued beating us until she grew tired. The more we cried and hollered, the more she continued to beat us.

“Shut up!” she yelled. “It hurts me worse than it hurts you.”

Then, why do you continue to beat us, I questioned myself in private.

The whooping finally came to an end. I felt so humiliated, afraid, and unloved. These feelings consumed me for a while – as long as my mom would continue to beat me. I didn’t know which pain was worse – the pain on the outside or the pain that grew from the inside. I wanted my mom to die. I always prayed (to God knows who) that my mother would never come home from work. I prayed that somehow she’d get into a car accident or die in her sleep. That’s how bad the beatings were. She would make sure that the beatings were a long-lasting memory, hoping to imprint a memory on us that we should not do anything wrong behind her back, or we would definitely await her punishment.

I remembered my sister and I having to wear turtlenecks to school one day in the summer after getting beat so bad. We had whelps all alongside our backs, arms, and necks. To keep the teachers and administrators from knowing about the beatings, my mom made us wear turtlenecks to school. I hated turtlenecks – but for her sake, I complied.

Excerpt # 2

I thought that after my mom left my dad when I was twelve back in 1996 that the beatings would end. But ohh, how wrong I was! My sister and I would get beat for everything! I remember my last beating before I ran away from my mom’s. I was 16 - a sophomore at St. Augustine High. It was maybe mid afternoon with a few more classes left for me to go. I was headed to class, walking down the hall when some guy, an upperclassmen came and pushed me. Being the girl I was, I wasn’t taking any mess, so I pushed him back. Before I knew it, the Dean for the sophomore class was standing right there in the hall, watching the whole thing.

“You come here,” the dean shouted at me. “And you, Mr. Jones, you need to head to class!”

How unfair! I thought to myself. I was being called to the Dean’s office when this guy, the same guy who started with me first was only sent to class. The Dean and I walked to his office and I was given a referral. Standard procedure was for the Dean to call the parent, so that’s exactly what happened. Oh shucks! Why did he have to call my mom?! Did he know the danger I’d be in if he called my mom?...especially while she was at work! Oh no! I was going to be in big trouble! I just sat there, patiently waiting for her to pick up the phone. The call was on speaker phone.

“Hello?” I heard my mother say on the other end.

“Yes, this is Dean Matthis calling from St. Augustine High School in regards to your daughter, Danielle Leach. She is being sent home on a referral for horseplaying in the hall between classes,” the Dean said without hesitation to my mother.

“Ok, I’ll be there in a minute. I’m leaving my job now,” I heard my mother say before hanging up the phone.

Oh no! I thought. Here we go again. Another whooping – and it was for something I didn’t even do! I was ready for this one though. My mother arrived to the school in no time – just as I had imagined.

“C’mon let’s go. You gonna learn this time. I’m so sick and tired of y’all. I’mma show you though,” my mom rambled. She would go on like this every time she became upset with me and my sister. I had gotten used to it for a while, but this time – this time I made sure I had an escape plan. I made it my business that I would never let her hit me again. So the whole ride home, she was just going on and on, yelling at me and cursing. She acted as if I wasn’t a normal kid – as if it wasn’t a normal reaction to defend yourself if someone bothered or messed with you. I thought to myself – so, I’m getting in trouble just for defending myself? Oh heck no! This was just too much.

I was beginning to realize that I had a choice – a right to defend myself – a right to express myself – and be an individual – apart from who my mom forced me to be. I wasn’t going to be her little puppet – her little punching bag. I couldn’t stand her beating me for every little thing. I had to get up the nerves to rebel. And I did.

We pulled up into the yard of my mom’s house. I kept thinking to myself – oh no, not this time. I was sure I wasn’t going to let her beat me this time. I was getting old. I had reached an age where I knew that I was too old for whoopings. And it seemed that the whoopings didn’t serve a purpose - they only made me more rebellious.

We got out of the car and went into the house. I put my bookbag down. While my mother went to the back of the house to her room to look for a belt, I immediately walked outside of the house. With no set destination in mind, I was determined to get away from the physical, emotional, and mental abuse given to me by my mother. I had to go.

I could hear my mom calling me all the way from down the street, “Danielle! Where are you going?! Come back down here!” – she said as she stormed out of the house.

I kept in the direction I was headed. Not even at the end of the road, my mom had caught up with me. Damnit, I thought. I wish she hadn’t caught me. I really wanted to get away from her.

“Where are you going?” my mom asked – puzzled by my confidence to just get up and leave the house without her permission.

“I’m going to dad’s house. To stay with my daddy,” I said, trying to hold back my tears.

“Why?” she asked, as if she didn’t already know the answer.

“Because I’m tired of you beating me. I don’t think I should get a beating for what happened in school. He started with me first.”

“Well, ok. I’ll just hit you a couple of times and I’ll let you go. You can’t be walking down this street like this. You don’t even know where you are going and you gonna get killed out here like this.”

My mom did her best to convince me to return back to the house. And it worked.

So following her requests, I walked back to the house with her.

“Ok, hold out your hand,” my mother yelled.

“Smack!” went the belt as it hit the palm of my hand.

I jerked my hand back in reflex.

“Hold your hand out! I’m not done!” shouted my mother.

I reached my hand out reluctantly so she could hit me with the belt.

“Ouch” I responded. I began to cry. Although the whooping didn’t last long, it was the thought that hurt the most. It made me sick to my stomach to know that I was being treated like this – I felt like an old slave. But I was sure that this wouldn’t last long. I promised myself.

********

The strokes on the keypad were coming quicker and quicker by the seconds. I was determined to get my point across. Sitting at the computer in the dining room at my mom’s house, I typed a letter to my dad. The letter was nearly 6-8 pages in length. I had to let my dad know the truth and I made sure I expressed myself clearly and elaborately. I had to make the letter sound convincing – convincing enough for him to come and rescue me from the hell I was living in.

In the letter, I explained to him the difficulty I had staying with my mom and the rest of the family in St. Augustine. I told him about the harsh and unsafe living conditions – the rats, my cousins’ aggravation and my aunt’s resentment towards me; my unending love for him; and my desire to move back home. I hated living in St. Augustine with my mom. She was way too strict – I felt like I had no freedom.

When my dad received the letter I mailed to him, he didn’t hesitate on giving me a call. The conversation was weird because his first reaction was different than what I expected.

“Oh, you write very well! I didn’t know you could write so well!” my dad said in admiration.

I thought to myself, this letter is not about my writing ability, it’s about my need to get the hell away from St. Augustine!’ Then I realized that he didn’t get to see me go through grades 7 -10. Those years, my dad was left out of.

My dad and I talked on the phone for about an hour, discussing the letter and its contents. He began to express to me how deeply sorrowful he felt about my living situation and agreed that he would allow me to come back home and stay with him. The agreement was for the remainder of my time in high school – this meant two years staying with my dad which consisted of my junior and senior years in high school. Woooopiiee! (was how I felt)

“So, when would you like for me to pick you up?” my dad asked.

“Well, I would like to do this when mom isn’t here. She would have a fit if she knew that I was planning to move in with you,” I suggested to my dad as we worked up a scheme to get me out my mom’s house.

“How about this weekend – when she goes to work?”

“Well, I guess I can do that. Will you be ready?” questioned my dad.

“Yes, I’m ready to go now,” I responded. “Just call me when you’re on your way and I’ll be sitting at the house waiting on you.”

“Ok…will do,” said my dad.

The deal had been sealed. I was finally getting the heck out of the dungeon and moving to a place where I could actually call home.

It was Saturday. Bright and early – my dad kept his promise. He pulled up in his off white 1996 two-door Infiniti. He stepped out of the car and I met him at the front door of the house. No one was home – just me, my grandmother, and my younger cousin, Marlon.