Prologue

Birmingham, AL June 1989

The howling of the wind and the crack of lightening that followed could not mask the sounds of pure pain and misery that my father’s beating was placing on my mother.
“Carolyn, you stupid whore I know you are messing around on me!” he screamed.
“Earl I would never do such a thing. I promise,” she stuttered while spitting out blood from her freshly split lip.
“Please he was just saying hello baby I’m sorry.”
“You will be you dirty cunt of a woman,” he slurred.
Alcohol was his demon of choice and it constantly flowed through his veins just as pure as water. The slap that followed or her heinous scream thereafter should have cut right through the thunder and woke the neighbors but my aunt’s pleading was the only sign of mercy that god was showing my mother on that stormy summer’s night.
“Earl please don’t do this! The children are asleep!” Aunt Vivian pleaded.
Aunt Vivi is what we called her. She was my mother’s identical twin. Like my mother, she had smooth caramel skin with long jet black hair. Unlike my mother who pulled hers back in a tight bun except when washing it, and often let me brush it with her big wooden paddle brush for hours, she relaxed hers and let its length hang over her shoulders. She was always a frail petite woman standing 4’11” at best but overflowing with life.
She gave us allot of candy. Boston Baked Beans were my favorite. My brother, on the other hand, loved him some lemon heads from the bebop lady who sold everything from chips, to pickles, to shaved ice loaded with cherry/blue raspberry flavoring on top. From this special frozen treat that the neighborhood kids called “bebops,” for reasons that remain a mystery, is where she got her name “bebop lady.” My mother never let us eat candy so having Aunt Vivi come visit was always a joy.
While referring to herself as a city gal who happened to be born in Bama, she loved to tell us stories about life in our nation’s capital Washington, DC. With nothing but go karts and dirt roads to entertain us when we visited extended family in Tarrant, we listened eagerly to her tales of shopping sprees and city living with Aunt Jennifer, the oldest of three girls and one boy. Our Uncle Eugene was the youngest and ran off to the army as soon as he was of age to escape the south. Eventually he married and settled in Washington DC where he made a military career.
They constantly pleaded with my mother to move us there. Everyone knew our family’s dark secret but it was not discussed as far as I knew. My mother would always say “I’m a southern gal and the south is where I’m staying.” I never had the heart to tell her that technically Washington, DC is the south. At least that’s what my social studies teacher Ms. Greene told me.
Aunt Vivi was fun to have around. Besides, he never beat us when there was company so her presence was double the treat. Tonight I listened as Aunt Vivi pleaded with daddy to stop as if death were knocking and she were my mother’s guardian angel sent from above.
I shivered as my little six year old brother reached out to me and climbed into my bed. I held him close.
“Don’t worry it will be over soon lil one,” I said. “Don’t you worry your big head,” I continued with certainty. It was my duty to protect him. After all I am and will always be my brother’s keeper.
With each roll of thunder another blow to my mother’s frail body competed for its attention. I wonder what she will look like this time I couldn’t help but wonder. What continent would her blackened eye be shaped after? Africa? North America? South America? Asia? All are beautiful in their own right, I thought as I watched the tears roll down my brother’s face as smooth as the raindrops that slid from my window pane. Not a tear dropped from my eyes. I must be strong for him. The beating is coming to an end. It always does.
Crack!
The storm was intensifying outside and so were the screams inside the country four room shack we called home.
“Please Earl. Put the gun down you are drunk. Please don’t do this. I’m calling the police!” That was my Aunt Vivi then BOOM!
The thunder in these parts beat down on the earth with fists of fury and was loud enough to command the same respect but that was no ordinary sound. That was the sound of eminent death cutting through the storm. Eminent is such a big word for such a young girl I remembered my teacher telling me.
My mother always told me “learn as much as you can gal and get out of here. It is home for me but the bottom is no place for such a smart girl as my baby.”
“When I grow up I just want to be as beautiful as you are mama,” I always replied.
To that she would say “Hush up and don’t you back talk your mammy. Beauty gets you nowhere in this world. Now brains, hunny that is your key out of this hole.”
I would smile and say “I know mama but I promise I will get us all out of here and away from him.”
Slap!
“Don’t say bad things about your daddy gal he loves us and works very hard to provide for us. He is just going through allot with the devil’s juice but through the glory of god he will be healed.”
The slap never stopped me from saying the same thing. Like her constant bruises, the sting would heal but the pain I felt for her never would let me give in.
BOOM!
The second sound suddenly interrupted my thoughts and sent a pain through my soul that I never felt before and for a moment I thought my heart stopped.
I felt the urine ooze from my brother’s super hero drawers and down his tiny legs. He always wets himself but this time was different. I couldn’t even muster up the strength to yell at him. It was as if he were slowly releasing her pain through this steady flow.
The sharp smell of piss filled the room but somehow I didn’t care this time. Mama would kill me if she knew I used that word. My granddaddy always said piss. I wanted to be just like him carefree. My mother said I got my sailor mouth from him and she would wash it out with soap every chance she got if I didn’t learn to control my potty mouth. Somehow I knew none of that would matter anymore as I took in the stench and the blank stare on my baby brother’s face.
The elders say that when someone close to you dies you feel it deep down in your soul. Meanwhile, like a southern thunderstorm true to form, just like that the rain stopped.
However, this time the clouds remained, at least in my heart. I sat in the dark clutching my brother in my tiny bed with nothing but silence all around us.
The beating came to an end. It always does. Like the swift clearing of the rain, I knew she was gone.