Refugee

"Somewhere, somehow somebody
Must have kicked you around some
Tell me why you want to lay there
And revel in your abandon
Listen it don't make no difference to me baby
Everybody's had to fight to be free
You see you don't have to live like a refugee
Now baby you don't have to live like a refugee." - Tom Petty, Refugee


It was Mama who dragged it out of me. I lay on my pastel green checked cotton and polyester bedspread, under my canopy of the same fabric. My feet were hanging over the side of the bed, almost touching the floor. Wranglers, bare feet, bony ankles, green carpet.

Mama was standing at the end of my knees, waving her arms, close to gnashing her teeth and wailing.

She had known something was wrong. She knew it was more than that stupid boy I had a stupid crush on. I hadn't said a word except asking Momma to come get me early from my aunt's house that summer. I hadn't realized it, but according to Mom I had been "moping around" since then for the past few days.

"Did George hurt you?" she finally let her fear punch the words out. I sat and waited, unsure of the answer but knowing the truth. That's when I flopped back onto my bed, put my hand to my frowning forehead and nodded. That moment forever changed the course of my life.

"I knew it! I knew it!" She was in obvious pain. Grimacing, starting to cry, taking a step, then taking it back.

"How did you know, Mama?"

"Because he used to hurt me."

"What?!?"

As my story unfolded, so did hers. And what my mother had convinced herself of, in order to cope and to limp somehow along in this life, was that George - her sister's husband - and she, Mama - a three year old girl (age when the abuse started that she could remember) had "had an affair." She convinced herself that it was just between them.

But the pain I was in broke through her denial. She was my champion, my hero, my savior.

My Granny had raised five kids on her own. She lost one of them in a drunk driving accident when he was 14. She lost her husband when she was in her thirties. So when George wanted to marry my aunt who was only thirteen, she agreed.

On one hand I guess their family situation could look kind of normal. George and my aunt had a regular house on a good bit of land. His daughter and her family lived in a trailer on one portion of the land, his son and family lived in another trailer on another portion of that land. There was a garden. My aunt had a small beauty shop just outside the back door which made it convenient for her to work there. It looked good.

Another way it could be seen, once some of the gritty truth started to emerge, is more like a compound. During those summer visits when I played with other kids in the area - which I wasn't allowed to do much - they would tell me that everyone knew George beat my aunt. There was always a lot of drinking. Two cases a night for George was not out of the norm. Add the sons in to that and any of George's "friends." The dark and off limits bedroom where George would "get you" if you entered. A dozen cars torn apart and rusting around the property. Then to find out that my aunt was not actually "allowed" to go to work outside the home, that even a niece who came to visit occasionally didn't escape the abuse, and you can see how the fact that my mom ever escaped is nothing short of a miracle.

That she ever spent time behaving like anything other than a refugee is miraculous, as well. There is no doubt in my mind that that's exactly what she was.