A few weeks ago, the following letter was delivered to us with the
returnaddress of the Orange County jail, in Sanford, Florida, where the
writer is awaiting sentencing for armed bank robbery. We present it here
virtually unedited. It is, as its author described, "a story of victory."
-The Editors
The bar of light that glances off the barren wall in my prison cell
is from the setting sun. There's not much difference between morning and
evening in this ugly place where society hides its errors, but it would
be nice to see the morning sun, because this is a morning story.
In the second decade of this century, two young girls - one Irish,
one Russian - became sisters by adoption. in the summer of 1944 Irene
became my birth mother. In the summer of 1946, Beulah became my adopted
mother. Life had become difficult for Irene, and she gave up her three
children, including her only son, for adoption to her sister Beulah. When
Beulah met and married Harold a few years earlier, she was a 98-pound,
raven-haired Russian beauty. He was a successful car salesman. A few
years after their marriage, Harold got a Chrysler dealership and Beulah
got three kids.
What exactly happened in those intervening years that changed an
apparently normal, five-foot-four beauty into the 220-pound nightmare of
abuse that I knew remains a mystery known only to God.
The debates over the effect of heredity or environment no longer
interest me. I am where I am today because I made bad choices, and I
learned long ago to face life as it is, not as I wish it to be. Blame is
for others. This is a story of victory - a victory that will outlive all
my failures.
I wish I could chronicle Beulah's journey to adulthood. I do recall
that the top drawer of the dining room china cabinet was filled with
scores of snapshots - black-and-white clips of seemingly happy moments
from her early married years: of smiles, strange hats, and old
Chryslers.
There were hints of abuse in her childhood. Seeing her baby brother
thrown through a window into a snow bank. Abuse in foster homes. These
suggest to me that she, too, was caught in that cycle of violence, the
cycle of child abuse.
Many things served as the crucible for Beulah's anger. A slow
response to a question or order, a harmless spill on the kitchen floor
could end in an earringing whack or trigger a brutal beating. "I'll beat
you till the blood runs!" she'd scream, and she would. In fact, it
happened often as Beulah, relentless in her dominance, pressured us to
perform. And as we rushed to escape her wrath, we brought it upon
ourselves.
My sisters suffered their share of Beulah's abuse, but something in
me and something from her past triggered a special hatred for me. Because
I was small for my age, Beulah, with her thick, powerful arms, could hold
me up, my toes barely touching the floor, and beat me with a stiff
leather strap until she tired or I fainted.
By the age of 10 I discovered I could strike back at her by denying
her the sound of my anguish. I would stare expressionless at her as she
flailed away, enraged at my stubbornness. The blank, tear-stained mask on
my face became my weapon of revenge, and as she stumbled to her bed to
recover, screaming epithets of my worthlessness at my back, I went to my
secret place to enjoy my revenge.
I don't want you to think Beulah was without feelings or morals.
She was a fanatic about cleanliness, flowers, and work. Her belief in God
was a sincere flame, and she taught me that God made all that is
beautiful in the world. She also taught me that this same God would
destroy me in the fires of bell for one single sin. I recall thinking how
unfair that seemed, with so many to choose from.
I owe my love of nature to Beulah, who drove me to those secret
places in the woods. The hills, rocks, and trees absorbed my cries of
loneliness and pain.
Occasionally someone would mention how well-behaved I was, and
Beulah couldn't resist taking a little credit. "Yes," she'd say, a
pleasant smile on her face, "he's a pretty good boy. But I have to give
him a good lickin' about once a day." Everyone would chuckle, and I would
wonder if I wasn't making too big a deal out of a "good lickin'." One of
the effects of child terrorism is a shift in reality.
The truth is, I really didn't get a "lickin' " every day. just to
clarify that point, I have estimated the number of beatings over the
years, using different formulas. Leaving room for childish exaggeration,
and with the benefit of hindsight, I'm convinced that the number didn't
exceed 800, and was most likely around 600 or so from the age of five to
15. 1 would never presume to know the number of eye-rattling, ear-ringing
whacks that marked the hours in Beulah's presence, but I've been knocked
unconscious by a stainless-steel pot, a birch log, and the metal end of a
vacuum hose. And if you're re curious about how many times you have to
hit a nine-year-old with the handle of a garden hose to knock him out, I
can tell you.
Looking back through the corrected lens that time affords us, I see
in Beulah a tortured soul who, for reasons known only to God, struck out
in her secret pain, hitting the people she desperately wanted to love
her. Some vengeful demon fired a rage in her that distorted her thoughts
and fueled the vicious cycle of violence.
Tags:
bank robbery,
beulah,
birth mother,
car salesman,
child abuse,
china cabinet,
chrysler dealership,
family,
happy moments,
journey to adulthood,
morning and evening,
morning sun,
mother life,
orange county jail,
prison,
prison cell,
recover,
russian beauty,
sanford florida,
setting sun,
Survivor,
three kids,
top drawer,
ugly place
