I begged and pleaded for a little sister for about a year and I was finally going to get her. Mom was pregnant by Mr Joseph Woods. Mom worked with Mr Woods at the post office. He was one of the best dressed, bald headed, pieces of shit you could ever hope to meet. He carried a decorated cane like a pimp, and wore flowery silk, long-sleeve shirts and snazzy leather shoes all the time. He was shit color brown and short, and always looked like he was ready to hit someone or mad at something.
I don’t know what my mother saw in him, but I knew I didn’t like him and I knew he meant my mother no good. He never said much to me. I think he knew I didn’t like him. All I knew was that anytime he came around my mother was sobbing, crying, or screaming.
He usually came over in the evening. My mother would send me upstairs to my bedroom whenever he arrived.
I would listen to their conversations through the register upstairs. They would always start out arguing and then I would hear him yelling and then slapping or punching or kicking my mother. Then she would start pleading with him to “Please Stop”. Or she would beg him to just go ahead and finish her off. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to make him go away and never come back, but I didn’t know how. I wanted to kill him, but I was afraid, and I didn’t understand why she kept letting him come around.
I could never tear myself away from that register even though it hurt to listen. I think I listened because I was so scared that he might try to kill her and if I stopped listening and he did try to kill her, I would miss the opportunity to try to save her or to call someone who could save her after he left.
One time he pistol-whipped her with his gun and I listened to it all. She kept pleading for him to just go ahead and blow her brains out! I was so scared he would. I didn’t want to lose my mother. I loved her so much and she was all I had. I sat there listening and feeling helpless, while big crocodile tears fell through the register and my heart broke in pieces.