Tragic's Wake

NOTE: Details of certain events as well as some locations have been altered or redacted and names have been changed to protect the rights of the innocent and to save my ass from the wrath of the guilty, I thank you in advance for your respect and understanding.

I’m writing this because it needs to be written again, especially now. More and more people are suffering abuse at the hands of violent damaged individuals who most often profess the utmost of love yet continually hurt their partners, lovers, children time and again. In light of recent circumstances near and dear to my own heart, I’m once again opening up and sharing this experience with the world. Please be warned that this post may be considered graphic in nature to some and most certainly contains triggers. This post is exceptionally long also. Proceed at your own risk.

I guess the story really goes back to 1990 in its way because that was when I met the guy we’re going to talk about here. By the end of this post you’ll hate one of us and I hope it isn’t me but anyhow…

In 1990 my sister was up in SJ to have her first baby. It was an exciting time for the whole family but obviously since I was a bad-ass I had to act nonchalant and carefree, big deal, everyone has babies! Oh but I couldn’t wait to get up to that hospital and see my brand new baby niece as well as my older sister who had been like my best friend while we were growing up. I was fourteen turning fifteen and I was pretty much the average offspring of a Jerry Springer poster family, I won’t deny it. I was dressed in my favourite beat to crap spandex rocker jeans, a pair of Peter Pan Getaway boots and some kind of ratty ’80s leftover jean jacket. My hair was a bleached blonde halo of frizz sorta hovering over my scalp, my makeup would have made Debbie Harry proud, and my accessories were cheap-ass dime store pimp. Average SJ teen, all the way.

*EDIT: There are folks who are just cruel enough to try and twist this story and use it against me, they’re extremely damaged individuals and they have no idea what it’s like to be abused. To those people who may be reading this: Go fuck yourselves, you hateful assholes. If pasting pieces of my experience and using it to mock me and other survivors is what makes you feel good then I’m truly sorry, there is no help for you. You’re twisted and you need to seek professional help immediately. In cases like this, I am an avid supporter of the Darwin Awards and Darwin’s Law and I hope you have a serious mishap sometime really soon.

So my mom and I were having an odd week in that we weren’t at eachother’s throats and we had actually shopped together to fill a new diaper bag with gifts and oddities for our special new mommy. My mom wasn’t her mom, she was from my dad’s first marriage and we only really got to see each other on holidays and the odd super special weekend, this was huge for me. I was actually one of the first people she told when she discovered she was pregnant.

Yes, I digress but I must set the mood to explain fully how I was able to fall victim to my circumstances even though I was one of the most street smart people in my crew. Forgive me but this also helps me to be more comfortable as I tell you my tale.

My mother and I went to a few last shops to “top off” our gift bag and we headed for the bus stop so we could make our way, finally, out to the hospital to visit my big sis. That is pretty much where the entire thing started, long years before anything happened directly.

So we get on the bus and two stops further down the line these two super dorky hyped up teenage guys get on. One was about my height, blonde and kinda scruffy and the other was a lot taller, skinny as hell and had bright flaming long red hair. Both of these boys were jostling one another and swearing and laughing and after a bit of appraisal they even seemed to be intentionally putting on a show, whenever my mom or I looked toward them one or the other would ham it up a bit, grin, make some kinda gesture and shove the other. The redhead was the worst and they were SO loud! Totally NOT my scene, these clowns were really annoying.

We had to suffer these fools for most of the trip but a few stops before the hospital they both got off the bus with just as much idiocy as they’d gotten on. There was an audible sigh from the driver as well as the other passengers when they disembarked. Lord I hoped I wouldn’t ever see those two again, so bloody obnoxious!

So we get into the hospital and I asked mom if I could grab some coffee to take up to the room with us and she said fine, she went to the main desk to get the details, room number, etc. while I went on ahead to the canteen upstairs. Guess who was already there? Yeah, those damn boys only this time one was shoving the other around in a freakin’ wheelchair! They saw me and started laughing like idiots and I just shook it off with a loud sigh, eye rolls and I flipped my hair and turned away.

I got my coffee and met my mom back at the elevator downstairs where I quickly told her those two fools from the bus were in the damn hospital and she actually cracked up. She laughed and said to me “Oh well then, maybe its your destiny!” but she abruptly stopped snickering when the elevator stopped on the next floor and there was the wheelchair, and the giggling idiots…

We all ended up getting off on the same floor but they went the opposite direction from us and again, I heaved a sigh of relief, ugh that was nasty. Mom and I headed to my sister’s room and when we got there she was somewhere else. A nurse came in and said she’d gone for some test or examination so she’d be a little while but we were welcome to wait in her room since we were family. It wasn’t long though and my sister strolled through the door with that awkward walk that most brand new moms have. Hugs all around, chattering all at once, rapid-fire updates as is the norm in a family as loud as ours.

And then it happened. The noisy obnoxious sound I’d come to dread, that damn redhead’s heinous laugh. Oh dear god NO!!! Here the wheelchair squeak and… yeah. They’re in my sister’s room. I’m shocked into complete silence, my mom too, and both boys lose it laughing and fall over one another gasping for breath and overall being ass clowns.

My poor sister looks confused. She says “OH hey, I’d like you both to meet my boyfriend X***** and his cousin B****!” X***** gaped foolishly at his name and gave an exaggerated “How DO you DO?” B**** kinda sobered a bit and nodded “Ma’am” which was basically a notice of what both were to become in later years…

I’m going to cut out a lot here, you don’t need to read it and it holds no real relevance to my story anyhow. I’ll just say that my sister and X***** eventually split up but somewhere in there, when he would come up to SJ, he’d stumble into my hangouts and we had somehow began a grudging communication that eventually became a deep and seemingly unbreakable friendship, we ended up closer than siblings and just as defencive of one another. X***** was a troublemaker, a thief, a drug user/abuser and an overall criminal. He always respected me and he always stood up for me. He was my greatest champion and my biggest defender at a time when I was a full blown alley-cat in a city where the gossip could turn on you in a heartbeat. We were street, bonded by adversity, thicker than blood.

Fast forward through a helluva pile of life, good, bad and ugly. I’d taken a two year hiatus from men, women, intimate relationships of any type. I wasn’t sexually active, I didn’t date, make out or otherwise commit. Drunkenly I may have necked with a few drag queens or tiny lesbians while out in the club scene but my sex life was absolutely PG and I was proud of the fact. Two years was a long time though and I was pretty young still. By now I was twenty five and my celibacy had started to wear thin, I had thoughts of looking for roots, a place to settle my ass and just “be” ya know?

One night I went out with my grrl Tina and we went to this nasty little dive where we used to trip for shits and giggles. I used to joke that the place was “Teeth and hair optional, pit stick is a real treat and showers are reserved for welfare day” because the place really was that sleazy. Hey, it had a karaoke show and after three pitchers anything is tolerable! So here is where the real story begins.

Out of the blue I turned around and saw him coming through the door. That flaming red hair, the bowlegged popping strut, I would know it anywhere. He didn’t see me yet so I casually walked over and placed myself beside him. “Hello there stranger, what brings you ’round these parts?” he turned, blinked, recognized and he lit up like a kid at Christmas. Beaming, he threw his arms around me and started yelling to anyone who’d listen “Hey there! My baby sister, what’s shakin’ little girl? Man you’re a sight for sore eyes!” and so it begun…

We danced, we sang, we drank and reminisced. We started hanging out whenever we could over the next few weeks which amounted to at least four or five hours every day for a bit over a month. He told me about how he’d been hooked on crack for a while and that’s why I didn’t ever see him, he was in recovery and he’d been clean pretty much a year at that point. He preached about how he was a changed man, etc. and whatever. I swallowed it whole. I was so proud of him for manning up, oh but little did I know…

One night, I don’t know how or why, we were dancing and it just happened. Our eyes met and then our lips and we were fully off and running. The whole night was dreamlike through the haze of alcohol and adrenaline. I won’t get into the gory details so I’ll just say that the next day he informed me that we were an item, fully and completely. I wasn’t sure about it, I had a strange apprehension but I trusted him, more than anyone knew, far more than I ever should have.

It all came out in a few weeks that he was awaiting a court date for some pretty serious charges, credit card fraud, theft, it sucked. He told me that he had to go to Fredericton for the sentencing because he couldn’t get the venue changed and he already knew it would mean jail time and he wouldn’t be coming home for at least a few months when he left me that upcoming morning. We discussed how we’d stay in touch. We swore to stay together, together we could move mountains, at least that’s what I thought… Turns out that I was just really fucking dumb.

He went away to jail, he was sentenced to four months but he didn’t even do two, Canadian criminal justice for ya, anyhow… I saw it all begin shortly after his release, while he was still in the halfway house, just little odd expressions when we’d talk and he worried what I was doing at home, all alone, without him. He was fully released on Christmas Eve and he came home to me, he had nowhere else. His attitude was just unbelievable. You’d think that after some time in jail and being away from his “great love” and finally being in a soft bed with a warm body he’d be in a great mood. Not so, he was cranky and picky and just impossible to please. The next morning he was himself again, maybe it really was just adjustment? I’ll never fully know.

New years eve we had plans. We were going to our sleazy hangout dive, it was his favourite place god only knows why. He got falling down hammered and got thrown out of all three taverns on the block. At one point he screamed at me that it was all my fault, I’d stolen all his friends while he was “away” and what the fuck did I say to them to make them hate him that way? Chasing after him in the pouring rain I was near tears. I was trying to explain that maybe he’d just had a few too many and we should just go home and sleep it off.

He flipped. “I don’t know what the fuck you did but they all hate me, go back the fuck inside with all YOUR friends CUNT!” He shoved me into a plate glass storefront with enough force to rattle the windows on the upper floors. I’m really surprised that the window didn’t break when I made full body contact. Shocked I just crumpled to the ground, in shock, disbelief, beyond even tears. He ran. He fucking ran. I picked myself up and ran up to the alley he’d disappeared into and he was sitting in a puddle crying. I reached for him … and he slapped out at me. Then I actually started to cry, to howl even; “Why X*****? What did I do? Why did you shove me into that window and why did you just try to HIT me?” and he just stared at me and then realization seemed to flood him and he cried some more.

“Oh my god baby, I’m sorry, oh my god I’m soo sorry, I was so stressed, I didn’t even realize what I was doing, you’ve got to believe me, oh my god baby, please forgive me…” and I did, right there, I fell to my knees and held him and we sat in that muddy puddle and cried together.

I got him up off the ground and we went looking for the girl who was crashing at our house that night. After we found her we made our way home but he started grumbling, complaining, excusing what he’d done as though I had somehow caused it after all. I didn’t, I knew that then and I should have left then but I didn’t. Of course the next day he had absolutely NO memory of any of it and I don’t think he would have even believed me if others hadn’t witnessed the whole bloody thing, they told him, he acted ultra sweet for a few months afterwards.

Over the next two and a half years things became worse, much worse. It got to a point where he’d complain about my clothes, hair, makeup. I couldn’t go out without him and he didn’t like guests coming over unless he’d approved them and he was home. Phone calls, coffee dates with old friends, shopping without permission, all deal breakers. He was steadily getting deeper and deeper into the pot culture and steadily making more and more excuses. I hated the weed most, it was while he was high that he was at his most paranoid and irrational. Weed was his trigger, just like my mom. Weed meant someone was getting beat, often and most always–me.

There was a short breakup during that time because I’d thought I’d finally had enough. I’d been engaged to him and then he went to his brother’s house and cheated on me with some druggie chick that he didn’t even know, not just a standard druggie either, this girl was hardcore, mainlining even. Scary scary shit. That wasn’t the catalyst but it was real damn close.

We’d had a squabble and he openly smoked dope in my face.  I do NOT do recreational drugs, I never have, I never will. He’d admitted to doing coke in a bar bathroom with his older sister, that was enough for me, or so I thought. I snapped and jumped on him and screamed at him, I lost my ever-loving mind. Sean stepped in that time and saved either X***** or me or both, I don’t know nor do I really want to.

The short split was even scarier though. I got death threats when I ventured outside, his friends, our local thugs, would scream at me when they saw me. I got phone calls in the night. I got shit thrown at my windows, I found garbage in my outer hall… One night while I was out, he confronted me and a bartender locked down the tavern because he was acting so scary and cracked out. A friend offered to sneak me out the back while the bartender and two other huge guys I knew stood guard at the front to distract him so I could escape. More calls, more threats, X*****’s psycho ex girlfriend moved in to protect me, she was one of the few people in the world he wouldn’t ever sass back, she’d have killed him, seriously.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. The split didn’t last. Partly because I was conditioned by then and partly because I really thought someone was going to kill me if I didn’t take him back. It started out kinda nice but was back to the bad old days within a few weeks. The old rules crept back in, the old accusations, he went through my wallet and purse regularly looking for shit to ding me with.

Another New year’s celebration, we go out together. I didn’t even want to really but there was no option. X***** was brazen and disrespectful, he even rolled dope, openly on the dinner table, in a dope free home after he’d been explicitly asked not to. Earlier in the night he’d ditched me at my friend’s house for hours while he went off to “say goodbye” one last time to his dealer and his precious dope. At this point he was up to a half an ounce a day easily not counting the other shit I only found out about later. I was going to suffer through the night and wait until he was less doped up to tell him it really was finally and truly over, I was actually at the end of my rope, I really was. I was a dope, swinging in the wind on my own damn rope. This wasn’t going to be easy, not by a long shot.

We went to the tavern after all of that and some guy dumped a drink in my lap for no reason. X***** got up in his face about it and the whole place broke into a brawl. Five big guys jumped on him, it was a mess. The bar staff broke it up, threw out the other guys and tried to get X***** to sit the hell down. He wouldn’t though, he went out after them and the place got locked down. You could have heard a pin drop inside so we all heard every bit of what was happening outside. The five guys got him, hard. We heard thumps and blood curdling screams, X*****’s. We heard lots of hollering and then silence. It was like apocalypse outside for blocks, the most silence I have ever heard on any night in this city ever. After the bartender deemed it safe, I got out and went looking for X*****. All I found was a pool of blood and broken glass and the obvious remains of one helluva fight.

I was near hysteria and couldn’t find him anywhere, I honestly believed they’d killed him, later I’d learn that the only reason he wasn’t actually dead is that they thought they had killed him and they all ran off. A friend convinced me to go home and wait, if he was going anywhere, that was where he’d head. I found him there, in the bathroom with his jaw sitting on his chest, literally. I woke my neighbour and begged a drive to the hospital where we discovered that he had a torn esophagus, blood in the lungs, severely bruised ribs, massive fluid on the skull, multiple concussions, a few small skull fractures, jaw broken in three places, busted nose and his front teeth were totally gone. I couldn’t leave him now, not like this.

I spent the next six weeks waking him for meds, spoon feeding him, cleaning the wires in his mouth that held his face together, I bathed him, shampooed his hair, made him liquefied pureed meals and slept on average, maybe three and a half hours a night. I bought him a Nintendo console and some games, I ground his pills between spoons so he could take them without choking to death. I was a full time nurse and still raising my young daughter throughout. Yes, she was there the whole time and thankfully she never ever saw a single sign, he was careful because he knew she’d tell her father and Sean would have killed him on the spot.

But then the day the wires came out of his face it all started again. All of it. Sometimes worse. He’d get drunk and high, he’d hold a knife to his own throat and pin me in my chair and he’d make like he was going to slash his throat over me and he said it was all my fault, that I’d ruined him, made him hate life, made him crazy. My abuse made him feel worthless, why couldn’t I just fucking learn… Yeah, really though, why couldn’t I? I ask myself that every fucking day.

There was a night in there where I was mourning the anniversary of my father’s death. I decided to hell with X***** and I went out for drinks and chat with a dear old friend I’d recently reconnected with, we’d also recently gone back to our old jobs so we really did have much to talk about and so it wasn’t entirely a recreational date. The job revolved around the club scene, that’s what we did, what can ya do? It was a reasonable place to go considering we may have had a contract coming up at that very place…

We went to a clean and somewhat classy club, classier than X*****’s haunts anyhow. So that night X***** starts in on my friend saying I was only using the excuse of my father’s death to get out on the town and whore around. Yeah, that didn’t end well, he took a sucker swing at Tommy and Tommy could have killed him. He caught X*****’s arm, spun him around, had him in a choke hold and told him to settle the fuck down. When X***** did, Tommy let him go. Diffused, for the time being.

And seven months after the big beat-down that nearly killed him, it all finally did come to a head for me.

We are now entering End Game:

We were out yet again, some girl I knew started a bitch fight with me in the bathroom for a stupid reason. Her boyfriend used to work in the same roadshow I did and was currently working in. He told her that I’d tried to put the make on him and I hadn’t, he had actually hit on me and I shot him down in front of everyone and I had about fifteen witnesses who could have sworn by it. She wouldn’t take that though and she sucker punched me, my nose pretty much shattered and I became a Greek fountain of damn red. I was so stunned that all I could do was look down and the blood in my lap and say “well fuck.” that shocked her enough that she just kinda froze in place and another chick grabbed her and hauled her out. I was still in shock when they pulled me out and up front, behind the bar, where four people started doing some kinda first aid shit on me while I was still dazed and damn lost.

I heard the chicks guy, my former crew-mate, start yelling at X***** and stuff. I couldn’t do shit with a pile of bar staff buzzing around me and a giant ice pack on my face so I shoved them all away and I went to at least see what was going on. Another scuffle in the lot. X***** took a swing at Al and Al swung back, Al knocked X***** on his ass in front of the whole crew which sent up a wave of raucous cheers and jeers through the yard and nearby alleys. X***** got back up and Al took one last swing and his ring cut X*****’s cheek. Al and his posse took off shortly thereafter because there were rumblings that someone had called the cops.

We head for home but not before the mama bartender took a swipe at X*****’s face with a paper towel soaked in whiskey, trying to sanitize the little cut I guess. We jumped in a cab finally and I thought the whole mess was over. On the ride home we were overcome with nervous laughter and “Why I oughta” kinda bravado but it was really just nothing. We were laughing even!

As soon as I got in I undressed down to my black hot-pants and a camisole, barefoot and I took off my jewellery. I saw the phone blink and reached for it to check the messages. I listened to some drunk guy saying “Oh baby, you looked real hot tonight, glad I got to see ya, wish we’d had more time, damn baby you looked fine” and it wasn’t a voice I knew so I just laughed and when he asked, I passed him the phone. I told him some drunk had dialled wrong but his face went stony grey. He listened then he flung the phone and turned to me. He said I was fucking around and asked if that was my boyfriend. I was stunned, what the holy fuck? And I said no, I told him I had NO idea who that was but that wasn’t good enough. He shoved me backward into the fridge, I made almost the biggest mistake of my life, it very nearly cost me my life. I slapped him.

He roared and cleared the entire table with one swipe of his arm then stared screaming accusations. I was crying, trying to catch my breath and he was blindly swinging, knocking things off the counters, the walls, everywhere. He was shoving me around, one way then another and telling me he was through with me. He said I was going to die. One final shove had me on my back on the floor in front of the kitchen cupboard by the sink. Next thing I know he was straddling my chest with my arms pinned at my sides and his hands were around my throat. He was screaming at me “You’re gonna die bitch, I’m gonna fucking kill you, tonight you fucking die.” and I felt myself shutting down. Things were going dark, it was all in slow motion. He was smashing my head off the floor and cupboard while he was choking me and screaming. Somehow, I don’t know why, I remembered to play dead. I’d read stories of people going limp to frighten their attackers into letting go or something and I did it. I just went totally limp and held my eyes closed. It worked. He let go.

I laid there for a few more minutes and then through a fringe of bloody eyelashes I saw him grab a large solid office chair. In a split second that felt like a whole lifetime I took a chance, I rolled out of the way. Somehow I was on my feet. I just started to run. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him realize that I’d moved, he roared again and aimed the chair for the window and I fucking ran. Out the door, down the stairs, up the street, covered in blood, broken glass, snot and tears. I got to my best friend’s house, Neath and TWysted were home but it was the middle of the night. I beat on that door until my hands were almost bloody(ier?) and TWysted jumped out of bed and opened the door. I collapsed into his arms screaming and crying. I didn’t leave my daughter in the line of fire–she was already at Neath and TWysted’s house, it was a weekend. As I said before–he never ever did anything in front of her…

Apparently seven neighbours and the landlord had called the police, they thought there was some kinda gang fight happening and they all heard him screaming “tonight you fucking die” so within minutes there were three cop cars and a paddy wagon at my house. I was not, I refused to go anywhere near there and it was fucking near another month before I could. They made him leave and finally, he didn’t come back.

Three weeks to get my voice back fully, I had a severely bruised larynx. About a week and a half before I could get out of bed without help, I was that badly bruised all over. My nose which had already been broken earlier that night, was now a ball of inflamed swollen mush, somehow it mostly healed though I’ll see him every time I look in the mirror. My front teeth were all cracked and a few back teeth chipped. I had cuts that took nearly two months to fully heal and today I still wear the scars from that night on other places of my body.

I did not press charges. I should have, for myself, for other victims. The police who came to take my statement begged me to file and yet I refused. The lady cop teared up when she saw the welts on my throat from nearly twelve feet away. They asked me why I couldn’t/wouldn’t and I only laughed through my tears. Did they want to see me again but the next time in the goddamn morgue? No, I know what he is now and I know who he hangs with. No thank you, I’m fortunate to have gotten out with my life, that is enough, that and my word. These words.

I did get some serious shit from Victim Services, they threatened to take my daughter if I even spoke to him again, the representative acted like I was at fault and said as much. They told me they’d pretty much take away everything if they even got wind that I’d been civil to him on the street. No worries there, I assured them. I didn’t want to even look at him again let alone chill for a beer, right? And he’s still making threats, at time of this edit (December 2011) he’s still telling my friends that I’m a rat and I’ll get mine, etc. Whatever. I have a great life now and he isn’t part of it and never again will be. But such as it is:

I promised to tell everyone I knew what really happened and I promised to never ever hide from it myself. I promised that my story would get out, that I would always be there for anyone, man, woman or child, who faced needless tragedy like this. I promised that and I promised that it would never fucking happen again. Not to me and hopefully not to anyone that I love. Today I am going that extra length to keep those promises and I beg you to do the same. Did you see the badge on the top of this post? I have taken the pledge, if you or someone you know is ready then maybe YOU should take the pledge too. Thank you and stay safe, remember there are places out there to help you and you do not need to go through it alone. Tell someone, have the courage that I didn’t and lock the asshole up, but please, whatever you do–do not carry this alone. You are never ever fucking alone.

And to her, the young woman who inspired me to share this today–you know who you are–don’t make these mistakes, don’t follow in my footsteps, I know you love me and look up to me but I am not a role model for some things and this is one of them. Don’t let him do it to you again, do not let it turn into this. I love you, now and forever, I love you.

You and only you are the sum of your parts and no partner or friend or lover or spouse has the right to take that away from you. Not now, and not ever.