Horrible Things.
After that first punch, the abuse happened all the time and we never knew what was going to trigger it.
They liked to drink at home, which meant that most of the really bad stuff was front and centre for us to see. They’d start drinking with some friends at our place, and then one case of beer would turn to two, and soon a third would follow, until the music was loud, their voices were raised, and violence wasn’t too far behind. Dale would drink to the point that I couldn’t understand what he was saying - it would just be a diarrhea of verbal slurs, telling me that my Mom was a slut and a bitch, and that she deserved everything she got. Those words meant nothing to me; I was 4 or 5 years old at the time, and I had no idea what a “bitch” or “slut” was - I just knew that Dale thought they were bad, and I didn’t want to make him any madder than he already was. Inevitably, as they would drink more, Dale would flip out, whoever was hanging out with them would leave because they didn’t want any part of what he was getting mad about, and then it would just be me, my sister, my Mom, and Dale left at home. And that’s when the punches started flying. Sometimes he’d smack her in the face and drag my Mom around by the hair as she screamed, while me and my sister hid in our rooms or under a table somewhere. Other times, Dale would beat her into a bloody pulp, and she’d have to go to the hospital. My Mom’s eyes would be swollen shut, her nose broken, and her teeth chipped. I remember her always calling for me.
“JOEY! JOEY! JOEY! HE’S TRYING TO KILL ME!”
Sometimes I’d call the police, but other times I just stayed where I was and cried. I never knew what she wanted me to do. I was trying to hide so that he wouldn’t try to kill me, too.
When I was going through these things, I knew that they were horrible, but after a while, “horrible” became my normal. I became numb to the assaults because they happened so often. Still, though, there are some things that I can’t get out of my mind, and even today, over 40 years later, they still haunt me.
It wasn’t just my Mom that Dale went after - he enjoyed tormenting anything or anyone weaker than him, which I learned early on when Dale killed my kitten in an especially brutal way.
Dale hated that cat. I think we got it when Dale was working out in a camp somewhere, and someone offered my Mom a kitten. All I can remember is that there was no litter box, so the cat would go to the bathroom all over our tiny apartment. We were on the ground floor, so the cat would come and go as it pleased, but when Dale came home, it was clear that the cat’s days were numbered. Dale was usually gone for weeks at a time, and then he’d come home and make up for his lost drinking time by getting absolutely hammered. With every beer, he kept eyeing up that cat more and more. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I remember the cat walking by him and Dale grabbing it by the skin at the back of its neck. I told him he was hurting the kitty and he wasn’t having any of it.
“Stop being a wuss. This is how their Mom’s pick them up.”
Then he got up with the cat in his hand and told me to come with him. As we walked outside Dale kept complaining about all of the shit all over the house.
“This fucking cat is disgusting.”
Then, in his drunken stupor, Dale started talking to the cat.
“YOU HEAR ME, YOU FUCKING CUNT, CAT?! YOU’RE GROSS! YOU WANT TO SHIT EVERYWHERE?! I’LL MAKE YOU FUCKING SHIT!”
It’s an image that I have never been able to get out of my mind. Dale took that cat’s head and started twisting it. As he did, the cat growled and meowed until Dale pulled its head right off its body. Urine and feces came out of the cat as it was decapitated, and Dale just laughed. I remember sitting there stunned, and I started crying. Dale smacked me in the face.
“JOE, YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP! STOP YOUR FUCKING CRYING. AND DON’T YOU TELL YOUR MOM ABOUT THIS OR I’LL BEAT YOU AND HER AND YOUR SISTER, YOU LITTLE FUCKING WIMP!”
Dale took what was left of the cat and threw it in the garbage outside, and left me there as a crying, slobbering mess. I was five years old, and I’d already seen my Mom repeatedly beaten, and my cat killed in such a brutal way, I didn’t know what to do.
I also didn’t know that things were only going to get worse.
