No Where to Hide, The Devil is Always Watching

I was suffocating in this marriage, but I had taken a vow, for better or worse, not knowing the worse was secretly hidden within the walls of the Homestead and would magically appear after I closed the door. I had promised Killer I would never leave him. He needed that reassurance so often and wanted to hear me promise him again and again, that I would never leave him.   But I was going to break if I did not free myself of the constraints that bound me to this prison that Worm and I endured each day.

I had to be creative to find ways to leave for just short periods of time.  To breathe normal and not be critiqued at every turn became a challenge. I was allowed to grocery shop by myself.  I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it was an hour of peace.  No one was watching me.  I was not responsible for caring whether Worm followed the rules in those sixty minutes I might be gone. I could walk the aisle of the supermarket and roam aimlessly as I gathered groceries for the week.

I couldn’t even get my hair cut without Killer in the beginning.  He would drive me to Grand Ledge to the woman who cut Mollie Belle’s hair. Was I a replacement? Sometimes he and Worm would drive me out, but most times it was just him.  Worm would stay at home, secretly locked in her room until we returned like a prisoner.

He had been doing this even when her Mother was alive.  They would go out for the evening and instead of hiring a babysitter, they would “card” her in her bedroom.  My first experience with this was while we were dating.  I had a hard time imagining someone would confine a child to a room and leave the house, but he did.

He would take a playing card and as he closed the door, he would place it in a particular fashion on the door, in a different place so that if she were to open the door, the card would fall out and he’d know that she had violated his rule. I have no idea how this child figured out where this card was placed or whether it was face up or face down, but there were times that we would return and he could tell the card had been moved even if it were millimeters, he knew. He started replacing the cards with smaller objects, tiny scraps of papers, hair, and dental floss, things that were difficult to grasp or find if the seal was broken on this door.

She had it worse than I did as she had no voice, children were to be seen and not heard. She had made the mistake shortly after we married of writing in her journal that her Mother had died and she had to take on the responsibility of being the housewife, the maid and caretaker.  The school called Killer as they were concerned about the well-being of this little girl who had lost her mother.  She failed to mention that he had remarried and I was living under this roof as well.

He was livid that she breeched the unspoken vow that anything that happened within the confines of that home was to stay behind locked doors and locked mouths. I witnessed this child taking in the wrath of Killer.  His words stung and his threats were all too vivid for this small child to comprehend.  He would share tales of his time in Vietnam and how he would cut the ears off the enemy and string them around his neck like badges of courage.  He threatened her on more than one occasion of removing her ears with a machete and the look in his glazed eyes would scare any child. I don’t know if the stories he told her were true, he was crazy. I don’t believe most of what he shared about the war with us.  He claims he was in a group of men that were on secret missions and had something happened to them, there would be no identifying the body as they did not wear dog tags. I have never experienced war but I would find it hard to believe that a man who was afraid of heights and could not swim was chosen to participate in a special task force. But I was not going to question his stories of his time overseas. What did I know, when he was serving our country, I was in diapers! I was not aware a war was even being fought let alone he was in it.

I talked Killer into letting me take Worm roller skating.  She could not go unattended, but he considered it if we went together.  It was our release.  We could wear jeans; we could skate and be free from this prison for up to five hours. When I returned to the rink, most did not know I had married and here I am showing up with this little girl that I introduced as my daughter.  I still cannot believe he allowed this but he did and every chance we had, we took it.

I was able to let my hair down and not be so guarded about my movement or my words.  I could swear, I could laugh, and I could talk to people who perhaps did not meet the standard of Killer Henshaw. Killer was prejudice on so many levels it was difficult to know who you were able to acknowledge, speak to or look at.  He hated Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, Arabs, poor white trash, fat people; he hated anyone that did not resemble him. He disliked children. He rarely liked anyone.  He did not believe in friends, he believed you had acquaintances and damn few that you could count on. He didn’t call groups of people by the names I mentioned above, he used the most derogatory names known to man and he didn’t care who heard him when you were in public.

I, on the other hand did not see differences.  I had learned from high school that just because the package was presented in a particular fashion, the inside might be worth getting to know.  I had friends of all colors.  My Mother always asked me why I would “favor” someone over another who she may have not approved of and it was most often from appearances.  She would always tell me I could do better than “that.”  I was not dating these people or moving in with them, I was an acquaintance, a person who reached out to them knowing others would not, based on appearance alone.

One such friend, I met when I was seventeen at the roller skating rink.  He was from Webberville and he and his brother showed up one night at the rink.  Neither had ever skated before and they struggled to stay upright on these boots with wheels. He was a year or two older than I was and his brother was a year or two younger than I.  His name was Steve and he was everything most would turn and ignore.  He was tall and slender. He wore glasses and his detail to dental hygiene had failed him as he had many teeth that were missing or not in the best condition. He smoked. He got high. He drank once in a while and he was a bit of a bully but he had to be to protect himself from the teasing that others showered him with so heavily. His brother was nothing like him, but they stuck together like glue when one or the other needed their back covered.

Steve asked me to teach him to skate. I was at the rink on a Monday night when few others came out as it was reserved for adults.  Since I worked there, I was there most nights whether I was wearing my jumpsuit or just rolling for fun. He started to show up every night to practice and he was bound and determined to master this new found hobby.

We skated together often. He always asked me to skate at first when they had a couples skate but over the years, it was just a given that we were skate partners. He protected me similar to what I would expect an older brother to, but I knew that it was much more for Steve.

We met at the East Lansing rink when I worked there.  When I transferred to the South side, he came there.  He would stand at the counter where I was checking people in and he was my watch dog.  No one dared to give me a hard time.  No one dared to try and step around the barrier to see if someone they were looking for was skating.  Steve was just always there next to me or had an eye on me and was there within seconds if he saw I was in need.  He was truly my friend, but again, I knew in his heart, he wanted to be more.

When I got married, he didn’t know.  I just showed back up at the rink with this child in tow and I told him I had gotten married.  I could tell he was devastated, but it did not ruin our bond.  He still protected me and he still kept his eye open if anyone even dared get close to me.

I introduced Worm to him and I explained our relationship to her. She needed to understand that this was a bond that I held with a person that would not change the relationship I had with her Daddy, but it was not a relationship that I would turn my back on just because I was married. I think she understood this as we spent a considerable amount of time for us at the rink.  I introduced her to Hockey Joe.  He was also an acquaintance of mine from the days I worked at the rink. He was a nice kid, but he was a bit overweight. He and Worm were close in age.  He and Steve had become rink rats and were familiar with one another for the mere fact that they were there most of the time.

Prior to getting married, Steve and I would meet at rinks close by.  We’d drive to Brighton and meet up to skate for just a change in scenery or on nights that nothing was happening at our home base.  Again, just buddies.  By now though Steve could literally skate circles around me. He was not afraid to try anything and he did not fear falling.  I used to remind him often who taught him to skate, but he often commented on my fears of falling that held me back more times than not.  My Mother had fallen as a young girl at the rink and knocked all of her front teeth out.  I had spent five years in braces and I was not going to destroy these pearly whites that I now displayed often with a wide smile and a memorable laugh.

I had fallen as a floor guard and injured my knee to the point of being on crutches for several weeks.  My co-worker was to be monitoring traffic when we had a young girl fall and hurt herself. I was bent over attempting to raise her off the floor when this Sexton High School football player who was built like a brick wall ran square into me and sent me flying.  He had been skating backwards at a high rate of speed and not watching where he was going when the collision occurred.  I loved to skate, but I was not one to take calculated risks.

As time went on, Hockey Joe would call the house and Killer would tease Worm to the bitter end about a boy calling her, especially one called Hockey Joe.  He had not met Hockey Joe, but he sensed that there had to be something wrong with him to like this “fat little girl” that he called his daughter.

In the summers as Worm got a little older, not much, we would meet Steve and Hockey Joe at Lake Lansing and have a picnic.  I don’t really remember swimming, but Hockey Joe and Worm may have as I recall a picture of the three of them sprawled out on our blanket and Worm was in her Speedo.

She didn’t have opportunities to be normal like other kids and so I tried to find opportunities to let her see that there was life outside of this homestead we lived in but at the same time I breathed a little freedom myself from the watchful eye of the Devil.