Black Eye

My mother has always been passionate about being a theatrical actress, and back then, she hadn’t entirely given up on it. So she got a little part in a local production playing some loud obnoxious character who gesticulated a lot. The moment she closed the front door of the house to go to rehearsals, Tom picked me up by the ankles, a hulking form of man with dark hair and eyes and beard, a deranged lumberjack reeking of marijuana. He would swing me by my 4 year old legs in a circle around the living room, sometimes my arm or head smacking into furniture and chachki’s. I screamed and cried for him to stop, and he just laughed. “We’re gonna have fun tonight kiddo.”

I woke up one night to their arguing, and things crashing in the kitchen. I walked in on Tom pushing my mom into the corner of the room, her crying and yelling sounded like murder. He was choking her and she was pushing him away with her leg. And just like that, he punched her in the eye. She was furious he’d done it in front of me this time, her pink satin nighty falling off of her narrow shoulders, light red hair down to her ass rolled into a tussled bun. I had seen her black eyes before, but she always told me it was just makeup for a part she was playing. They didn’t see me at first standing there trembling, until he socked her in the face and I started crying and peeing myself there on the linoleum floor, holding a yellow plastic happy-face cup with two handles and a lid.

Mom and I moved a lot after that, feels like we were always on the run. I was born in San Francisco where we spent days in Golden Gate Park, me having to stop every three feet to say my favorite sentence, “Oh wow, far out!” with the greatest reverence to every blade of grass and every brown bagged glass bottle left about. We moved to Los Angeles in 1982, I was six.

Mom came into my room early one morning after Tom left for work. And I could tell something was wrong. She told me to choose a toy to take with me because we were going on a trip. I scanned the room two feet deep in toys not realizing the implication of my choice. An older woman showed up at the front door looking like Mrs. Roper from Three’s Company, small blond afro and trail of hippie dress coming into the room a second after she did. “Hurry sweetie, we gotta go!” she said snapping her gum loudly in my direction.

I’d never seen my mom so scared and sad and angry. Tom had threatened to kill her and take me away if she left him. She cried when the plane took off, her delicate features flushing deep rose, her hand squeezing mine. She was right there holding me. But she was soo far away.