September 5th, 2010
I remember his face.
He would come home from work at six o?clock sharp, pulling up in an old clunker of a car that made terrible noises. He would tell me that there were little gremlins living in the engine and that when they growled and wheezed it was because they were tired. The sound of that car was always something I couldn?t wait to hear. He would come out from it?s dirty pit, looking worse for wear. It always changed as soon as I came running out of the flat.
I would meet him half way, running as only a little girl can; bubbly, happy, excited to see daddy. He would scoop me up, twirl me around, and put his nose to mine and recite the same thing every day:
Have I told you lately how much I love you?
I would of course say no, because then he would tickle my sides and say it over and over again. I love you, I love you, I love you, my little Lizzard.
I remember the day I was told he was dead.
It?s funny because I remember very random, insignificent things. Jodie asking me if I would like to trade my peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her ham sandwich. Mrs. Griffin telling me what a lovely job I did on my drawing of me and a unicorn. How I scabbed up my knee on the playground while chasing Jimmy Olson around for pulling my hair.
My father had gone home early from work, they told me. When he arrived there were two masked blokes robbing our rundown flat. I find it funny, now, considering all that they could have taken that was worth much was possibly the piggy bank my father had set up for me, and maybe a couple of old Rolling Stones records he had that he would play for me on the weekends.
When he entered and they saw him, they shot him. Three times. Left him to die slowly as he bled out and they took what they could. Our neighbors did little to nothing but ring the bobbies. That is Brixton for you; shoddy area that I don?t wish on my closest enemy.
My mother would normally be the one to pick me up from school and walk me home. I recall her never being enthused by it. Even before he died, I know my father knew something was wrong with her. Something terrible. He rarely liked to leave me home alone with her, but he would always say that she loved me, even if she never did. He would say my mother used to be the most beautiful girl on the block, and if he couldn?t have her, no one could.
That day she never showed up.
I walked home, alone, six years old and avoiding certain alleys that I knew were no good. The sight of my fathers car in the street made me smile and pick up my pace. I barely noticed the blues that were outside until they blocked me from going any further.
What is your name?
Elizabeth Jean Haggarty.
Where is your mother?
She never came to pick me up from school.
I saw them carting a body out, zipped up in a black bag and no telling who it was, till I heard my mother screaming bloody murder and running towards the body. They wouldn?t let me go any closer, so I stood, curiously watching as I had never seen my mother so frantic. With the bag partially unzipped, I saw the side of his face.
My father was a wonderful man. He was intelligent, passionate, kind hearted. He loved me more than anyone ever has. For the whole six years I knew him, he was my best friend, and the one person that I would forever miss.
After that, I was practically on my own. My mother became vile. She was poisoned in the head. I never realized it until my father was gone, but I know now that he protected me from her. With him there, she couldn?t touch me. With him gone, it was a different story.
We never did move out from the flat that he was murdered in. She liked to say that it would be a good reminder to me that I was the reason he was dead. That he had come home early, to surprise me, and had he not then he would have never been shot. She liked to grab me by my hair and hold my down, putting my nose to the blood stains that were never completely cleaned out of the carpet.
My life with my mother was strangely surreal. I?ve read some books on psychology that say when a child is under extreme stress and goes through a traumatic experience, they sometimes block out the reality of it all. Make up invisible friends to talk to, go to a whole other mental state when in pain. Maybe that is what I did, but I haven?t the foggiest clue how I survived.
She began dating strange, creepy men when I was about eight. They would come over extremely late in the evenings and I would hear them stumbling around, each one of them drunk as shit and sloppy. I could hear them going at it in the other room until one of them passed out. I would have to sit and pray that it was the man that fell asleep first, and not my mother. They would shove into my room, sometimes, and try to be my new daddy. Once, I screamed ? I screamed for her. She came into the door way and just sneered, watching as this dirty man put his hands all over me.
Those weren?t the worst of the things that she did, though. It was established when I was about nine that I would be her meal ticket for attention. As much as I hate her, loathe her to be exact, my mother is sick. She was diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy a few years before I left home.
I?ve had more broken bones than I care to remember. I?ve had internal bleeding. I?ve been fed bleach in my water to make me sick. I?ve had head trauma from ?falling? off the roof.
No one seemed to notice, and no one seemed to care. Brixton isn?t a place for fallen angels. Turning a blind eye on a problem that is not your own is the common law there.
At the age of sixteen, when my mother was diagnosed with MSBP a long with sociopathetic behavior, she was prescribed an assortment of drugs to which I helped myself to when she would be half dead on the couch, an opened bottle of scotch next to a spilt bottle of blue, yellow, or white pills. I began helping myself to them, offered me a way to lay there with out really being there ? if that makes sense?
I would think about my father. About what he would look like now. About what he would think about me. If he would be proud of me, or maybe protected me. If he would have taught me how to play the guitar like he did, or maybe give me his secret recipe to the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. I wanted him to know that I was okay, that I was still alive, and that there was no way I was going to disappoint him by giving up.
I left London when I turned eighteen. Fled to the states to become an actress like Audrey Hepburn or Sophia Loren. I told my mother that I loved her, in some sick and twisted way, because she gave birth to me ? but that I hoped she rotted in hell for everything she allowed to happen to me.
Tonight, I was faced with my mother again. I was pleading, and crying, and I didn?t know where to go. The face was different, though. It wasn?t her face. It was someone who I trusted, someone who I thought would be nothing like everyone else, someone who I thought I could maybe love be with if things ever changed.
I almost called Hector to come help me, but that would just end in another body bag for me to remember.
I?m tired. I?m confused. I?m so over this. Whatever this is.
I told him to get the fuck out, and I meant it. I only went downstairs once I knew he was gone, once I had cleaned up the scratches and threw away the torn camisole. I took a sponge and some hot water to clean up the thrown Chinese food on the floor ? at least he was decent enough to put the dishes away, yeah?
I took three Klonopins earlier. I want to take three Klonopins now.
If I end up back in the hospital and you?re reading this, Roxy: I am not suicidal. I just want some peace and quiet in my head.
