Inner Strength is Invisible

In 1982 along with everything else that was happening, Worm was entering high school that fall. She would be a freshman at East Lansing High School.  Life at the Homestead was not getting better, if anything, it was getting worse.  Worm had entered puberty and it had not gone unnoticed by Killer.

Worm was not allowed to shower.  She had to bathe and in less than two inches of water.  Killer felt it was too expensive for her to shower.  Yes, makes no sense. He showered, I showered and he watered his lawn so that it resembled the lawn seen on Tru-Green brochures. He washed his cars with this water that he thought was too expensive for Worm to bathe in. In East Lansing you paid for water.  It wasn’t that we could not afford this water it was just another way for him to control or maybe punish her.  I never could figure it out and to this day, I have no idea what his thought process was, except that it gave him the ability to walk into the bathroom when she was bathing.

He would tell her that she had to get used to men gawking at her as all they wanted was to stare at her “titties.” He did not mix his words.  He was very bold and descriptive when he would share with her what men wanted from women. I felt so sorry for this little girl who hunkered down in the tub trying to cover her budding parts.

I spoke to Killer one day about this.  She was entering puberty and he needed to give her privacy.  She was no longer a toddler and he needed to respect her and show her that men should respect her.  We were at breakfast at Coral Gables, a place that we frequented often for breakfast. He told me that he would not discuss this in public.  I thought it was the best place to present it as he could not raise his voice or walk out on me.  How very wrong of me to think this man would consider my pleas.

He waited until we were in the car and he unloaded on me. Who was I to question his parenting skills? Worm needed to learn that men were pigs and that all they wanted was to fuck her and the sooner she learned this, the better off she’d be.  Wow! Is this what he thought of women? Again, he reminded me that I was treading on thin ice, I was his wife and I was to support his decisions. And he reminded me with one of his famous quotes that he shared with Worm and me so often, “Do or die.”

Killer was never physically abusive with me.  He never hit me, but verbally he could shrink me to the point I had to look up to see the knees of a gnat. I had to stay strong inside.  I would not let him see me cry nor would I allow him to see me shiver when he spoke these hateful words.

He continued to “toughen” up Worm for the day that she had to face some pompous ass that reminded her of him. He would wait until her hands were full with a dish she was drying and flick her bra up with his forefinger and smirk while he was doing it. I did not dare to stand up for her with him present when he did this as she would have suffered more.  If I would have spoken up when he did this, he would have continued only more intense proving a point that I did not control him.  He was the King in this Kingdom.

When she was in middle school and she did not live up to his expectations or she did not follow the rules to his satisfaction, he would take her into her bedroom with belt in hand and close the door. She would bare her bottom.  He would not allow her clothing to soften the blow, not that it would have, but he would take that belt to her and dare her to cry for he’d raise the belt again. He would tell her how many times he was going to take the belt to her and he would have her count off her beatings ending each count with the title of respect that he did not deserve, One, Sir, Two, Sir, Three, Sir. How this child survived this is beyond me.

This child learned to take a beating and not let it show the pain that she was in. It didn’t keep her from stepping over the boundaries that had been placed before her.  How she reminded me of myself on so many occasions. She just had to follow the rules.

She was not allowed in the house after school.  Killer did not trust her to have free rein of the house.  I don’t know that he ever did.  I always remember her in the garage waiting for one of us to come home after work. It didn’t matter whether it was 100 degrees outside or 20 below, she was to stay in the garage and stay low so the neighbors did not spot her sitting on the step that entered the house.

She had minutes to walk home from school.  There was no second that she could take for herself.  She had better be in that garage at 2:37 every day regardless. He had a job that he could come and go so he might be home or he might not.  He had the idea of calling the house.  The phone was just inside the garage door and she was to keep track of the time the phone rang and the number of times it rang from 2:37 until one of us opened that garage door after work. Upon our arrival, her log would be checked against the log one of us kept depending on our schedules. Again, she pushed the envelope and would challenge the authority by not being home on time and her punishment was always a beating.

As she entered high school, Killer realized that the bruising left by the belt would be seen by the authorities at school.  He had learned that the feet do not bruise. From the day she entered high school, her beatings went from her bare bottom to her bare feet.  She would lay on her bed, with her feet raised to him as he took that belt to her feet and again, she was not allowed to shed a tear.

I witnessed this one time and I could not let it go. The hatred in her eyes as she glared at him and the glassy look in his eyes as he took that belt to her feet was a vision that I still cannot get out of my eyes.

I spoke to him afterwards and suggested that perhaps this needed to end. He would not budge, but he did suggest that if I wanted to I could take over the punishment.  I had given Worm spankings but I had not taken them to this level.  The first time I spanked her, I felt so guilty.  It brought back memories of my childhood. Shortly after I  administered this spanking, I was in the basement doing laundry.  I called her down to the basement. Her eyes were still filled with crocodile tears.  I told her that I was angry and again I emphasized the reason she had been given this punishment, she understood why.  I told her I loved her and I gave her a hug.  I needed her to know that I still cared but that she had to learn her lesson.  

Over the years, I was not able to convey this message for at the top of the stair stood the Devil and he witnessed this exchange between us as he walked into the kitchen.  I was informed that this was not a form of parenting that he approved of and it was to end. Worm did not know he was behind her at the top of the stairs.  She never witnessed these exchanges between us as I did not dare question him in front of her.  I had been warned to support him and any action that he suspected did not support him, would result in my own meeting with the Devil. These conversations took place behind the closed doors within the closed doors of the Henshaw Homestead. Some days I was successful but most days, I failed.