The Punishment Must Fit the Crime

Worm had gained fifty pounds in that short time that she was away.  She looked like a completely different person as she had grown a few inches as well and her hair was a little longer. I dreaded the drive back home.  I knew the minute the door closed on the car, the lecturing would begin and not end until we drove into the driveway some 900 miles away.

She had picked up a southern accent in the short time she’d been there.  It is quite easy when you are exposed to it day in and day out.  Killer was quick to point out that she had to lose that. She had picked up what he referred to as lazy southern language and she had to nip that in the bud as well.  She was not going to talk like that! Now mind you, Killer was born in the United States, Lansing, Michigan but he’d pull this fake British accent out and lay it on you in a nano second when he was first introduced to you. It slowly would subside to his normal voice but it did not go unnoticed by anyone that he spoke to.  They were curious as to where he was from.  I didn’t want to tell them this was not a British accent but an alien accent from another universe that they did not want to encounter, but these little stories only played in my head as I did not dare to speak.

Worm would be entering her senior year when she returned to East Lansing.  She was sixteen years old, just shy of seventeen and once again, her life would change dramatically as the clamps of constraint were tightened even more.

She had not taken drivers education yet.  This is such an important time in a child’s life, but I had to keep her on the straight and narrow. I figured if I held off on driver’s education until the last half of her senior year, it would keep her motivated to stay in school.  I had just ten months until she graduated and I was on my path to freedom.

After her first day as a senior she returned home to prove again to me that she thought she was smarter than I was. I guess every parent faces this challenge at one time or another.  Youth feels that they are writing a new book on their experiences, they don’t realize the book had been written generations ago and very little changes. History repeats itself, the only thing that changes are the faces and the names.

She presented me with a change in her schedule. Could you believe that somehow there was a mix up in classes and “they” put her in driver’s education. Well if I didn’t slap myself in the forehead and wipe the word stupid off of it! She was fresh back from freedom, sentenced to ten more months of hell and the first thing she attempts is what had landed her in a world of hurt in the first place, lying. This promise I had made to the juvenile court was going to land me in prison. I didn’t bring Worm into this world, but I was capable of taking her out. How could I get her to understand that she just had months until she was free, white and eighteen!

Killer had resigned from disciplining her, but someone who controls everything cannot step back and watch the world go by.  He was livid that she was so disgustingly fat! Who would love that?  No man would find her attractive!  She was sixteen year old; she shouldn’t be trying to be attractive to a man!

He tightened the reins on the scales. She had to weigh herself in front of Killer every morning before she left for school. She was not allowed breakfast, she was not allowed lunch.  When she came home at night, she was to step back on those scales in front of Killer.  If she weighed more, no dinner. For anyone who knows anything about weight and scales, you will always weigh less in the morning and if you drink anything, let’s say water from the fountain at school, chances are you might weigh more at night. He wasn’t buying it, she didn’t weigh less after school, she was eating and she wouldn’t be getting dinner.

One particular night as I entered her bedroom, the stench of spoiled food hit me in the face again.  Time to tear the room apart looking for the hairy monster that lurked somewhere from within her not so private domain. Sure enough, under her mattress I found the culprit and it was in full bloom.

Killer had another pet peeve.  Not taking care of what you were given or respecting what others owned.  He owned that mattress in his book and she apparently did not respect the fact that he had given her a mattress to sleep in, so he beat her feet again and banished her to the closet.

This house was built who knows when, but the closets were small and her closet was the smallest. If I had to guess, her closet was probably smaller than three feet by three feet.  These closets were built when families had one suit or dress for Sunday and a few work clothes for the week.

Since she disrespected the mattress he had provided to her, she could sleep in the closet.  I stood in the hallway outside of her room.  My eyes and ears deceiving me.  The closet? He warned her, if her legs and feet so much as stretched beyond the door frame, he would deal with her again. She crawled in the closet and curled up so that her entire body was in the closet.  He partially closed the door so she’d not be able to stretch out and he left the room.

I still was standing there in shock. He expected her to sleep in this closet all night long and not stretch her legs outside of the door frame? He headed off to bed.  I finished what I was doing and still trying to comprehend what had just happened. I looked in on Worm and she was sleeping, all tucked up in that closet.  I walked down to our bedroom and faced the Devil again.

Was this really necessary?  He was expecting her to sleep like this all night, in the closet?  Yes, was his reply, no explanation, no discussion. I turned and walked out of the bedroom and went back to the kitchen.  I just couldn’t imagine this was going to go on all night.  I returned to our bedroom much later.  He was feeling a bit frisky.  I guess being an ass does that to you but I showed no interest and he knew that I was upset.  He rolled over but I didn’t have to wait too long, he got up and went down to Worm’s room.  He told her she could get into bed and came back to our bedroom.

Silently, I felt another victory, but I was not going to gloat.  Something had to break and it couldn’t be Worm or I.