Джойс Оутс - Prison Noir

I hate him for not killing me. Odd that this is my reason for hating him, after all the other reasons he’s given me, but it’s true. He is resting in peace and I am separated from my sons, which is exactly what he wanted. Either way, he won. I am still as trapped as I was with him; I’m just here at Death Valley. I am so exhausted lately, the same way I was at the most intense time of his abuse. I believe the Monster realized at some point that his torture was just not working anymore, that I was too tired and it didn’t have the same effect. He needed to harm those I loved to get a reaction from me.

I recall him telling me that lions will sniff out the cubs that were sired by another and then eat them if they are not their own. My two oldest sons were from a previous marriage, and he acted as if I should have known he was out in the world, waiting for me to find him. Somehow he believed I was a possession that he owned, and that I had wandered off before I’d even met him. I was perfect and damaged all at the same time. He convinced himself that if I were to get rid of my two sons, we could somehow live happily ever after with our own child. Twisted realities filled my world. They still do.

My current bunkie is also mentally ill, a time bomb. She has extreme highs and lows. Unlike my previous bunkie, she never gets tickets for her behavior. Since crazy is the norm for her, all of the officers tolerate her outbursts. It seems unfair and unreasonable to the rest of us, but there is no logic applied here in hell. This lady sings nonstop all day long, which is why I call her American Idol. It’s the nicest name I can come up with.

Her greed drives everything she does, and she hides behind some false sense of Christianity where she truly believes Jesus has saved her and only her. He will someday heal her from all her medical and mental issues; the rest of us are confused dykes or lying crackheads. She refers to people as “humanoids,” as if she isn’t human herself.

One of American Idol’s favorite testimonies is when she was on crack and the Holy Spirit came down and raised Big Mike up, levitating him as she preached. She said it didn’t matter that she was on crack. She is a “head cracker” and a servant of God, even with the drugs. I couldn’t care less about her religion or her past — I am not judgmental — but living with her makes me question if I am becoming the killer I am accused of being.

This bitch won’t stop singing. She wakes up from her sleep to make noise, and I contemplate crushing up her blood pressure pills to quiet her. American Idol is enough to drive a sane person crazy, and I’m pretty sure I should be there already, considering my past.

Looking back, I see the progression of it all. Having our son is when the most significant change took place. Still, there were early signs I had missed. Apparently, if you’re an educated person, this can be held against you, as if there is some Abuse 101 course in college that prepares you to recognize the warning signs. There isn’t. By the time you are in an abusive relationship, it is harder to escape than most people realize. I tried many times.

Once I attempted to get away, but he threatened to kill my parents. I remember him saying, as sweet as can be, “I know I’ll at least see you at their funeral, baby. You might as well come home now.”

I did. I naively longed for a happy, blended family, and I did everything I could think of to fix him and us. I begged for us to attend counseling, for him to seek help with his depression, for us to work through things together. We took vacations without the children, and I never burdened him by leaving him to take care of them. They were never alone with him at the end, ever. I followed all his rules. I was faithful and obedient, and eventually feared him to the point where I lost all reason.

The year after we had our child, he needed to travel home to Georgia. He’d passed the bar exam and was being sworn in. Did I mention he was a licensed attorney in three states and had a master’s degree in medical anthropology? Still, he’d never had a job — he died at the age of thirty-two and had never worked a day in his life.

Right before he left, he explained to me how we should get married. He told me that I needed to give my two oldest sons away, that I should just forget they were ever born and start a new life with him in Georgia. He wanted to go back to his home and “rule the country.” He believed he could be somebody there and I could have a big Southern home and everything would be perfect. The part I never understood was the fact that he was so kind and patient with my boys when we first started dating — it was one of the most attractive qualities he had. How did he become this beast? When it came to the children, I never bit my tongue, and the very idea of abandoning them was insane. This, of course, provoked his rage even more. I told him he was being absurd. He said, “Those fucking cum-crunchers you call sons are going to go one way or another!”

I thought he had walked out to calm down. I heard the sound of liquid pouring, so I assumed he was making himself a Jack and Coke. He snatched me into the kitchen and I realized he wasn’t calming down at all. When I yanked back my arm, he kicked me into a wall and I fell on the floor. Next thing I remember, he was explaining to me how easy it would be to remove my skin when I was dead.

The Monster was lying on top of me with my elbow in a bowl of boric acid. My teeth were clenched, my eyes watering uncontrollably. This was new — not the pain, not the torture, not the reason, but the method. He was creative. I lifted my head toward him, groaned from the pain, and began kissing his neck, slowly twisting my tongue around his bulging vein. Then I bit.

“You bitch!” He released my arm.

I ran into the bathroom, not knowing what to do with the acid eating my flesh. I rinsed it in cold water and the sink filled with blood. He came in and said, “Baby, let me take care of you.” He placed ointment on gauze, wrapped the wound, and gently tended to it with seemingly genuine concern. I didn’t say a word. Tears continued to stream down my face. He made popcorn with extra butter — my favorite — and we watched a movie as if nothing had happened. Today, that elbow has the softest skin on my body.

Of course, these days I can’t even see my body. At Death Valley, there are no mirrors. American Idol never leaves the room; therefore, there is no alone time to care for or tend to myself. Every day, I drag my clean clothes into the shower area since there’s no privacy in my cell. Naked in the shower, I’m surrounded by women. Four other showers are running at the same time, women are coming in and out and in and out, calling for a spot, humming, arguing, complaining. Fuck!

If she would just leave the room, just for a while, maybe — just maybe — I could regroup. Maybe I wouldn’t be so tense when that spine-chilling noise comes out of her mouth, that noise she calls singing to the Lord.

My neck pain is beyond chronic from all of this tension. I keep telling myself: She is ill, it’s not her fault, this is temporary . The problem is, “temporary” can mean years in prison. The reality is she’s not moving, I’m not moving, staff is not empathetic or accommodating, and neither of us is going home anytime soon. I am trapped in this cell with American Idol at Death Valley, and I cannot take it.

The Monster couldn’t take my rejection of him. He lay there quietly — too quietly — as I wrapped my robe around my naked body. One day I chose to be a mother first, not his sex slave. I got up and didn’t get him off. It felt amazing.