By Izzey
I cannot look at one sometimes, without the memories of a year in my childhood. A tool used for flipping burgers or turning an omelet; a weapon of choice for discipline by a woman our mother entrusted her children to.
Our house had an unfortunate fire.
I was seven years old.
“Mommy, wake up, wake up! The house is on fire!”
I will never forget those words or the look of disbelief on our mother’s face, as she sprung into wide-awake action within seconds of my little brother and I announcing this fateful news. My sister Cheryl was downstairs in the living room crying with her long curly locks singed off. It was five a.m. and our mother who worked two jobs to support the four of us, was asleep for only three hours before we exploded into her bedroom.
The fire started in the kitchen. It would turn out to be an electrical fire surging through walls within minutes. The house was an old one. A house my father walked away from, for a different life. We were on our own here, with a mother that not only did not hate our father; loved her children more than her own life.
The smell of smoke was overwhelming.
“Where’s Debbie?” she asked, not waiting for an answer. She could hear Cheryl crying at the bottom of the stairs so she knew where she was, yelling for her to stay put. She had Charlie in her arms, me by the hand, and was already running down the hall to Debbie’s bedroom door.
“Debbie, get up, we have to get out of the house” my mother said calmly- while aggressively pulling her out of bed. She had no time to react with my mother leading us down the stairs. We got to the bottom of the stairs, and she grabbed Cheryl by the hand, not able to address her screams or the sight of her hair that had been singed off. She shoved us out the door scooping up the car keys by the entrance, and then literally threw us all in the car. The car was on the side of the house that was burning. She would tell us later the reason she put all of us in the car and drove the car away from the house was because the car was what took her to work. (Save the children and the means to feed them) My mother was the rock of our lives, and the smartest woman on the planet.
One half of our house burned to the ground. The fireman came and saved my puppy in the kitchen before it was completely engulfed in flames. We found out my sister Cheryl was awoken by my brother, who had smelled the smoke. The kitchen had a door that was pulled closed by the vacuum of the fire, but was not a tightly sealed door. The back-draft that occurred when my sister opened it blew a flash-fire that singed her hair and eyebrows off, miraculously sparing her of a severely burned face and body.
We were alive but now homeless, with nothing but our pajamas on. My sister Cheryl was checked for injuries and burns…but not before the neighbors pointed and made fun, from the safety of their front stoops. My beautiful mother’s newly separated status; not popular with the ever-so-insecure dowdy housewives, that thought she might be ‘after’ any one of their husbands.
We stayed in a motel for a few weeks, with friends and family helping with clothing and food. Our mother went to work every day and night that she could arrange a babysitter, but it was too expensive to keep us in the motel and pay for a babysitter. She had to come up with another idea soon or we would be homeless and broke. A co-worker/friend suggested that she could care for us for a minimal amount of money, as long as my mother provided the food for us. She couldn’t work anymore because of some health issues; which her obesity complicated.
She lived in a huge house with her two children that were close to our ages. She was widowed just two years prior to our dilemma, and my mother considered her to be a friend. Marianne was always overweight, but after her husband died her weight soared at an alarming rate, and we would find out later what an issue that was… her entire life.
My mother saw this as a temporary solution for all. She did not want us split up, and since Marianne lived near one of her jobs she could check on us often. She would sleep at my Nana’s house, because she would be sleeping there only. My older sister Debbie would have the watchful eye of Nana, and all would be well until our house was rebuilt.
Or so she thought.
Our first day at Marianne’s house was wonderful. It was filled with excitement and laughter. We reveled in our newfound sleeping space and yard to play in. Marianne had enough rooms for us to sleep comfortably, and she even had bunk beds. We settled into our new digs happier than we’d been in weeks. The first night in a bed by myself, I slept like a rock.
The rapid clattering of a spoon inside of a metal pot; woke us up.
“Everyone out of bed NOW!” she yelled while rapidly banging that pot, which reminded me of a homemade New Year’s Eve noisemaker; only much louder and accompanied by an angry voice. We all ran towards the noise not knowing what was going on. “Who went into the freezer last night, and ate ice-cream sandwiches?” she demanded. I had never seen her look like this. Her housedress was unkempt from the night before, sporting spills of food or drink on the front of it. Her dark short wavy hair, looked like she was pulling it out or something. She was wild looking, as were her eyes; fixed in an angry stare at each of us, one by one.
I almost peed my pants. I looked over to her children, and they were practically standing at attention. I didn’t know what to do, so I said, “I didn’t have any ice-cream last night.” As soon as I said it, I had a feeling I should not have spoken. What came next would confirm that…”Who told you to talk? Did I give you permission to speak?” she said, in-my-face yelling. “I thought you wanted someone to answer you” I said, ready for tears I was so scared.
She did it so fast; I felt it before I saw it.
The stinging burn on the side of my left thigh made me fall back into my brother Charlie, who was hiding behind me this whole time…scared to death. Charlie was only four years old. He was the last one born after three sisters came first. He was the baby, and we tried to watch out for him. I wasn’t doing a great job at the moment; as I had fallen right on top of him screaming. “What did I do, why did you do that?” I asked crying, while rubbing the side of my stinging leg. “I did not give you permission to speak, and if you speak again, I will give you more of this” and pulled it back out from behind her back; a metal spatula. The kind of spatula they made in those days; a heavy-metal square one that had a thick handle just as lethal as the flat-end that swatted me. It was the sixties, when kitchen tools were made so solid they doubled as gardening tools…
This one could have plowed the back forty…without a blemish to its finish.
“Now get up.” She said. And I did that quickly, pulling my brother up with me; both of us crying. “I want to know who ate two ice-cream sandwiches out of my freezer, and until the child that did it tells me, you will all stand here at attention…without food, water, or bathroom. That’s the way it is done around here.”
We were all quiet now. Standing at attention in the living room looking at each other with pleading eyes…hoping someone ‘fessed up, so we could end this nightmare. I really had to go to the bathroom, and couldn’t imagine the penalty for peeing your pants.
My sister Cheryl was holding my arm; pinching it almost. I was not paying attention to her at all. I knew she was right next to me but I never really looked at her. She was now pinching my arm for real, trying to get me to notice that she had indeed, wet her pants. I noticed it too late; the wild woman saw it first, and just before I was able to jump in front of my sister, the spatula whizzed right by me hitting my sister on the back as she was trying to turn around and run. A loud squeal came from my sister who was trying to stay behind me, holding on for dear life. We were less than a year apart, but she was so much frailer than I. Plus she had her hair burned off… and I wanted to protect her with everything in my power.
“You can’t hit us, we aren’t your children” I said, as grown up as I could at the time. “Oh no? Who’s going to take you in, while your mother works to get your house back…do you want to go to a home for poor people? Do you want your mother to go away and leave you here with me forever because you are bad children? You will do what I say and live by my rules, or you can live in the street…do you want that?” she asked, but no one answered her; we just nodded “no” shaking our heads back and forth.
Back to the ice-cream we were; with no answers in sight. Marianne left us to use the bathroom herself leaving an opportunity for us to talk to each other. “Did you eat her ice cream?” I asked my brother, who probably couldn‘t even reach the freezer to begin with. “No, I didn’t…. not me, uh-uh.” He said, shaking his head. “What about you, Ann-Marie, Michael… did you?” I asked them like I was much older than my seven years. “Nope, neither one of us did…we know better.” She said, also shaking her head. I believed her, because of that woman. She would scare me into being the perfect child. That left only one of us; poor Cheryl Ann. She knew I was about to ask her and told me in a whisper-like voice, “I did it. I was so hungry when I went to bed. I got back up and ate them…am I gonna’ get hit again? Please don’t let her hit me, please Lisa.” She looked ready to cry again, and I hushed her telling her not to worry. She hadn’t eaten any of her dinner last night. She was a fussy nervous eater. The only one in the family. She hated vegetables, all of them. She would eat corn, but there was none of that. We had liver, mash potatoes, peas and carrots. Everything Cheryl hated.
Marianne came back from the bathroom and we were all hushed-quiet. She looked at every one of us, one-by-one again, and asked;” Okay, who ate my ice-cream?” She had a smirk on her face, like she knew she’d already won this round. “I did” I said, and braced myself for that cast-iron fly swatter to come at me again. It didn’t, and we were told to go to our rooms; she would call us when breakfast was ready–telling me to stay behind.
“Lisa, I knew it wasn’t you. Your love for your sister is to be admired. But that doesn’t mean you got away with anything, it just means I will watch more closely from now on. Your mother and I had a long conversation before you came here. She gave me free reign on the discipline. Maybe you’re not old enough to see it yet, but you are all really bad children. I will make you all good children again, you’ll see.”
I could not believe our mother said she could hit us.
She sent me to the room with the others and proceeded to make pancakes, like nothing happened. I was scared for us now. I was wondering how our mother who never hit us, could let this woman do it. I hated it here already…and we would be here for a couple of months, at least. She also warned me if I told our mother anything about her method of discipline, it would just get worse. There would be nothing to say anyway, if we behaved at all times.
Tell that to three children under the age of seven whose house had just burned down, and now had the devil incarnate as their full-time babysitter.
I will fast-forward to the “spatula game”
This game took place, when the beatings did not. We had managed to be good enough to get away with only a few beatings for things we didn’t think were so bad, like accidentally throwing a dodge ball into a rose bush; breaking off two roses. Two of us took a spatula for that… myself, one of them. She hit us in places not visible to our mother, because our mother didn’t see us undressed at night at that time. The rest of the world didn’t either, so she would not be found out by “accident.” She held emotional blackmail over our heads, like we knew better than to ruin our own lives by telling on her. She played a love/hate mind game…especially with food. The spatula game was a simple idea: beat her to the candy without getting hit…you get to keep the candy.
We would be in a bedroom kneeled around a bed. She would put candy in the middle of the bed. We had to have our hands flat in front of us on the bed at all times. We were kind of in a circle all spaced out around a square bed. She was at the head of the bed, with us spread out on both sides. The idea must have come to her when we were being too good, because she seemed to really enjoy this game. It took us a while to get good at it, but one of us inevitably got swatted on the hands really hard before the night was over.
We had to try to quickly grab the candy from the center of the bed, one person at a time. She swatted that bed so hard sometimes, just missing our hands…surely taking a finger or two had she made contact. We got to keep the candy we grabbed…our reward for being faster than she.
One day, she was in really bad shape. She would binge-eat like an alcoholic on a bender. She hated herself the most when she did this. We got the spatula the most, when she did this. This one day, was the worst I had ever seen. She was crying a lot and yelling at everyone. We tried to stay out of her way; unsuccessfully.
My brother was running through the house, coming in from outside. She just lost it, right then and there. She picked up the spatula and whipped him hard with it. He was screaming, and she just kept whipping him on his legs and ass. I couldn’t get there fast enough….he really got hurt. I was outside running in, as fast as my feet would carry me. I got in there, and just lunged at this obese creature that was hurting my brother. I took the spatula from her, and hit her with it….I couldn’t stop hitting her…and her weight kept her from running.
That would be the last day she’d ever hit any of us. I told her I would kill her the next time she raised her spatula again.” Just try me” I said…all of seven years old; and shaking from my newfound strength. She called our mother and told her she couldn’t watch us too much longer; her health was failing and she had to make fast arrangements to settle us elsewhere.
Our house was almost ready. We moved back home within the week. Life was good again. We had our mother and our home back. We shared a united front for our mother’s sake for a very long time.
Marianne beat her children until they took them away from her.
They were raised by her brother, who gave them college educations.
Marianne died alone.
