Guilt Is An Ugly Card to Play, but Effective Most Times

I was collecting unemployment.  Killer suggested I take the summer off and spend it with Worm but things were no different.  He still ruled his Kingdom.  I don’t recall doing anything spectacular as there were still rules that applied and needed to be adhered to.

Worm was going on twelve. She was your typical preteen child.  She tested the waters like any other child would, but somehow she always got snagged for wrong doing.  Perhaps it was because she was under such a watchful eye at all times.

Shortly after Shelby closed the doors, I asked Killer if I could have my family out to the house for a “reunion.” He actually agreed to this which was a bit shocking.  My parents, my brother and his wife, my paternal grandmother, her husband and my paternal grandfather came over for a cook out.

It was May 23, 1982.  How was I to know that this was the 50^th wedding anniversary of my paternal grandparents?  They were only married for twelve years and they had been divorced for close to forty years.  My paternal Grandmother’s name was Gertrude, but she went by Lucille or Lucy.  We referred to her as Grandma Joe as she had married her third husband while my father was in the service and his name was Joe.

Grandma Joe worked on the line at Fisher Body.  She took great strides in looking her best at all times regardless of being a shop rat.  She always got her hair done on Fridays. Back in the day she wore the infamous bee hive that most women supported who worked on the assembly line and she died it jet black until after she retired  and then she let it go naturally gray. Years later, my Grandmother would tell me to never dye my hair black as it made you look old. 

It didn’t matter how much time had passed or how many husbands she had had, she loved my grandfather who went by the name Kayo, more than life itself.  I recently read the diary of my great-grandmother, the woman who raised my father most of those twelve years my Grandma Joe was married to Kayo.

She wrote of the difficult times Lou (her name for her daughter) struggled through when Kayo strayed from the marriage. I guess time never healed those wounds cause I could see the torch burning in this woman’s eyes whenever he was around, which wasn’t much, but he did come around often in the summers on his motorcycle.  I adored this man for years, but I was the only one who could look beyond his flaws. Perhaps because I was a Beadle, like he was.

Grandma Joe took me aside to inform me this was the 50^th wedding anniversary of her and Kayo.  I thought I was going to die.  Her current husband, Joe, knew of the intense love she still felt for this man and handled it the best he could. Grandma approached Kayo like a school girl who had a crush on him and asked him if he remembered what today was.  He shrugged his shoulders, he had no clue but she went ahead and reminded him.  He ignored her commentary like only a man could do to a woman. You could see that she was hurt that he did not remember the day they were married 50 years ago.

Joe on the other hand was accepted by Killer.  He liked Joe who was Italian; I guess Killer didn’t hold grudges against Italians in his book of prejudices. But they shared a common bond for the love of cars, guns and paranoia.

Killer taught me how to shoot and often in those early years when we traveled up to the cottage, we would go out to the gravel pit and practice.  This stopped rather suddenly.  He may have realized he didn’t want me to be a sharp shooter with a gun or two in the house.

He set up a shooting range in the basement. I had cleared the basement out and it resembled a clean organized storage space, laundry room.  He constructed this target of a sort and the most I remember of it was he used a lot of thick phone books.  The target was up against the basement wall just under the kitchen and right of Worm’s room upstairs.

He was hard of hearing in one ear from his time served. He would put on his ear protection and go to the basement to target practice.  Worm and I would be upstairs, no ear protection and oblivious to the dangers of him shooting in the basement. He marched to the beat of his own drum and we were expected to follow suit.

I continued to wither, my spirit broken a little more each day. I could not grasp spending eternity in this hell hole.  I saw my Mother, a bitter woman who found pleasure in nothing and liked no one. 

Killer and I were standing in the kitchen one evening sometime after we’d been married for less than two years; it was probably around the time I was not working as I felt much trapped. We were discussing his methods of child rearing and his forms of punishment.  I felt that some of the punishment he applied was too harsh for an eleven year old.  He informed me that she was not mine and to stay out of it.  I crossed a line that I knew I should not, but I stood up for once and I spoke back in anger. I told him he could go fuck himself and I prepared to take battle as I knew I had just stepped in to my coffin. 

Killer came into my personal space and got right up in my face.  Just as calm and collected as he could be, not raising his voice above a whisper, he stared at me with those glassy eyes and told me to remember who I was speaking to and when I could talk in a civil tone and like a lady, he would be waiting for me in the library. I sensed in that moment the horror Worm felt as you really had no idea what he might do or was capable of.  

He turned and walked out of the kitchen and into the library to watch television.  I stood in the kitchen in utter shock that he would walk away from me in the midst of a discussion, but I knew not to pursue it or I would pay the piper.

Killer had many quotes that he pounded into our heads over the years; one in particular was “If you do the crime, you pay the time.” I was not about to crawl in to the library and apologize to that man.  I was an adult and I had gone through this control issue with my Mother, but my Mother was a saint when compared to Killer.

I pulled out the classifieds and went to our bedroom.  It was time for me to get the hell out of Dodge before I lost my sanity.  I was trying to figure out how I was going to swing the costs of living on my own from the meager unemployment I received.  Killer came in to the bedroom; I guess he had been expecting me to grace his royal presence and was alarmed when I did not crawl in to beg for his forgiveness.

He saw that I was reading the classifieds and I was not looking for a job.  He grabbed the paper from me and noticed I had circled several apartments that I was interested in. It was a Sunday as I recall as my plans were to start my search the next day when he went to work. I was making preparations to be more efficient with my time as I would only be able to seek this refuge when he was working.

He was quick to point out that HE would tell me when I could leave. Again pointing out that no one loved me more than Killer and I had promised him I would never leave him. Damn, pulled the old guilt card on me. He continued to berate me.  I was never going to find someone who would love me the way he did. He brought up my track record and how men always left me.  He was the only one that would stand by my side. He continued to tell me that I was not worthy of all he had given to me and this was the way I was going to treat him by walking out and breaking my vows? He brought up Worm and how I was going to break her heart as well, she had already lost a Mother and now I was going to walk out on her as well?  He told me she’d be left to pay for my stupidity.  That was my wake up call.

Inside, this brave little girl who stood up for herself so many times and never backed down, saw herself rear up and get right back in his face, but I had been broken and I did not want to challenge Killer at this moment.  I thought of Worm.  How was this poor little girl going to survive six more years of this torment? He would blame her for my leaving. She would be the one to suffer for my strength to walk out when I was long gone.  He had made it very clear, she was not mine and so the thought of taking her with me was not an option. I knew that I would not be able to support two of us and I really had no clue as to what options were out there for me, so I threw the classifieds in the trash, stood a little taller and my skin thickened a little more, I would have to tolerate this behavior if for no one else, Worm.

Secretly, I started my game plan for leaving Killer as soon as Worm was free of this hell we shared.