Day 86 The Tub of Death

The following story is historical fiction at its best.  My older sister told me this happened but I was too young and traumatized to remember.  My family at the time was all gathered which included my two half-sisters, Do Ra Me and Fo So La, who came out each summer for several weeks.  They were my mom’s daughters whom she had lost custody of in her divorce with their father.

I was running from Mom, not unusual, but today she had that red eye look and I knew disaster was on my butt this time.  I can’t tell you what heinous thing I did today.  Pasted S&H stamps all over the refrigerator door, stopped up the toilet again washing diapers, spilling cereal all over the floor, you name it, I’ve done it and paid a pearly price for each endeavor.  Today’s undertaking was of an elevated crime reserved for crazy lady time.  And she was screaming and snorting and I ran for my little fair life to escape.  I ran in and out of rooms thinking I could hide but she was too close to lose her.  I just had to wear her out.  Not thinking that but more just running because I knew the inevitable when she caught up with me.

I ran into the bathroom just because the door was open.  Bad mistake.  The room was too small for any maneuvering.  A hand grabbed me from behind.  Caught!  No, no, what was I thinking coming in here.  She spun me around and I fell against the back of the bathtub and with her shaking and screaming at me I kept pushing myself back.  I went so far that I accidentally rolled into the bottom of the tub, crying and pleading for her to stop screaming.  Of course we attracted an audience and all my brothers and sisters ran into the bathroom to witness the punishment and the crime.  It’s one thing to have crazy lady foaming at the mouth at you but to have your brothers and sisters all watching, either with glee or horror, it makes the unreal even more so.  My sister Do Ra Me was not taking the drama unfolding well. “What is she doing to Chris, what is she doing to Chris.” Was starting to become her mantra.

My mom’s hands found themselves around my neck in her heartless, relentless “lesson” that she somehow felt necessary to teach me.   “What is she doing to Chris, what is she doing to Chris.”

I’ll tell you what she is doing, she is choking me and her eyes are bulging in dire straits, her lips are spitting spittle with the unformed words she is shrieking at me.  I’m in the tub with my arms fighting her, grabbing her hair, kicking with my feet, anything to get this nightmare off of my body.  “What is she doing to Chris, what is she doing to Chris” Do Ra Me’s continued prattle echoing off the soulless walls of the bathroom making this scene even more surreal than it could possibly be.  I was crying and scraping the side of the tub.  My struggles were getting less mobile and I could feel tingly little tendrils of sawdust creeping into my head.  My vision was filled with an insane delusion and not my mom.  How bad can I have been?  What did I do that was this wrong?  Surely I’m innocent to a degree, I didn’t do anything on purpose to drive someone this mad.  All thoughts draining hastily through my head.  “What is she doing to Chris, what is she doing to Chris”.  The sound of Do Ra Me’s voice was getting lighter.

She stopped suddenly and looked at me one more time with a menacing vengeance and stood up slowly like Godzilla after razing half of Tokyo.  She turned sluggishly towards the audience and walked over and slapped my sister, Do Ra Me across the face, “Shut up you stupid bitch!”  No one moved or made a sound as Godzilla turned and crushed her way out of the bathroom without another word.  My sister’s mantra saved me. 

I laid in the bottom of the tub for seconds, minutes, days, I don’t know how long.  I wasn’t moving which was very unusual for my temperament.  I gasped for breaths and with swollen eyes just tried to breathe.  I started rolling back and forth with my hands held together under my chin trying to stop the tears of confusion.  “I’m such a bad boy, I’m such a bad boy” was all I could think or feel.  No one would do that to a good boy.  My clan walked slowly out of the bathroom looking at me in the bottom of the tub.  My sister Fa So La gave me her hand to offer help.  I took it and slowly inched my way out of the tub.  I rolled out like I was one big bruise and crawled, walked to the hallway and sat down against the wall.  We were all sitting there in silence.  There was no silliness or glee over the power we just witnessed.  A family shock treatment.  My neck was raw with bruises and I could feel them with my hands.  I lowered my hands and looked at them in however much contemplation a 5 year old boy could do.  What power I thought that hands can have.  I laid both of my hands by my side and just sat with my head against the wall and breathed slowly in and out.  I could not fathom what “she” was doing with Chris any more than my sister could figure out.  I strangely knew that I was the cause of her anger and hostility and that nothing more than my absence would clear all these misunderstandings up.  Yup I was growing up and learning my value in the “family”.

 

1.       I’m grateful that I’m learning to meditate daily and have stuck with it for several months now.

2.       I’m grateful that I raised my son with completely differing family values.

3.       I’m grateful that my mom is dead and doesn’t have to deal with healing of any kind that she was not able to do alive.