Keeping Safe on the Slide

by Lloyd B. Abrams

Summertime. A dry, hot day. An idyllic Texas blue sky day.

“Hey Danny! Get offa there. You’re gonna fall!

It was Danny’s mother Julie, who looked up from her cellphone just as Danny was pulling himself up to the top of the slide.

“But Ma …”

“Don’t ‘Ma’ me,” she rang out. “Do what I tell ya, or else.”

The “or else” is what Danny didn’t want to hear. The “or else” meant her telling his father. The “or else” meant getting a slap, a spanking, or much worse, depending.

Danny turned around and slid down the slide. He ambled over to his mother, who’d continued talking on the phone. “Why, Ma? All the kids climb up that way. I’m not gonna get hurt. I promise.”

“Don’t give me any lip. I don’t want you taking chances. The last thing I need is another trip to the ER.”

Danny had been in the back seat when his father had raced his mom to the hospital while she was holding an ice pack over her eye, sobbing, blabbering “I can’t believe you did this to me. What the hell’s wrong with you?” He noticed when his father glanced back towards him in the jump seat, with Danny trying to stop his own tears. And when she sat back at once and moaned more quietly.

Danny knew what happened. What always happened when his father came home from the chicken processing plant after a fuckin’ bad day. Danny learned early on to be wary when his father skidded the old Ford pickup onto the driveway and slammed on the brakes and kicked up all that gravel and slammed that creaking rusted-out door. Danny knew enough to run to the back room and shut his door – but ever so quietly – so as not to bring any attention to himself. The last thing he needed was to have his father notice he was there, and worse, get angry at him.

But his mother never seemed to have learned all this. How could she be a grownup and still be so stupid? Somehow, she always seemed to make things worse. And then he’d hear the yelling and cursing. The dishes breaking. The slaps. The punches. The thuds. The screaming and moaning. The crying. And then the slurred, “I’m so sorry baby”s, the “You know it’s the booze that’s doing it”s, the “I swear I’ll stop”s, the “I promise it’ll never happen again”s. He could hear all of it through the paper-thin walls of the single-wide. The lies and pleading and the promises that would never be kept. Lying and keeping promises were things he learned about in Sunday school. Important things like “Thou shalt honor” and “Thou shalt love.” And of course the happy smiling families he’d seen on TV. Families where Daddies didn’t come home in a fury and beat the hell out of Mommy.

Sometimes the police were called by neighbors who couldn’t help hearing the commotion. When they finally pulled up, lights flashing, he’d feel safe. Sometimes they even dragged his father away in handcuffs, telling him, “We gotta run you in, Eddie. This time you really did her wrong” while his mother stood there, bloodied, whimpering “But I love him. He didn’t mean it … Please don’t take him away.”

But charges never got filed. He’d be back soon enough.

What about all the other times, Danny wondered. The other times when they raced to the ER or to the urgent care office in the mall, where his mother would lie about what had happened – telling them it was some kind of accident: “I slipped” “or I fell” or “I hit my face against ...” – though even he could see that nobody actually believed her. And there was no way Danny could open his mouth.

And Big Eddie would again get away with what he had done to Danny’s mom.

There on the playground, Danny waited until his mother finished her call. Julie spoke to her mother every day. Sometimes twice, three times. And Danny knew she was lying, telling Grandma how great they were doing. “Everything’s peachy keen, Mama.” Ed’s doing swell at the plant. He might be gettin’ a raise.” “Ed’s such a good husband and a great father.” “Don’t y’all worry about us.”

If only she’d once tell the truth. It might take them all day, but his uncles would race down the interstate from Minnesota and put an end to the beatings. They’d never stand for it if they knew. Only once when she’d put Danny on the line did he try to tell his grandma what was really going on with his parents, but Julie cut him off with a slap across his face. Boy did that sting. He wasn’t going to try that again.

Julie was wearing a turtleneck even though it was so hot. Danny knew why. He’d noticed the red-brown bruises on her throat. His father was getting worse. He was acting crazier. More violent. Danny took to hiding under the bed or in the closet when his father came home. Or, better, to be over at Jeb’s double-wide around the time his father was getting home.

One time, Jeb’s mother started asking him about what was going on with his parents. How they were doing. If everything was okay. If there was anything she could do. She had that sad look on her face. That concerned look. The look that said you poor, poor thing. And then he knew she had to know more than she let on. And so everyone in the park also had to know. But he knew better than to say anything, though he couldn’t stop from tearing up.

And Danny wondered how they could all let it go on. That nobody – not the neighbors – not the police – not the doctors in the ER – not even that woman at the urgent care place who swore she was going to call protective services – nobody at all was going to do anything to stop it.

His father was going to kill his mother.

And he would be next.

Rev 3 / August 8, 2015

-- Appeared in Grassroot Reflections Number 37, February 2016

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August 2015…Copyright © 2015, Lloyd B. Abrams