The Subtle Art of Brutality, page 23
“Look at me now. Who will want me?” she says.
She is done now. Her gritty eyes search the table for a hidden meaning in the fake wood grain of the surface. Before the group can console her or whatever she abruptly stands up and goes to the drink table. The half-full coffee pot is ancient and long-stained brown. Split patterns of sugar and non-dairy creamer decorates the table.
I look back to Delilah and she is staring at me. I think might she might smell something foul with me showing up, maybe she’ll confront me. But she doesn’t. Instead it just looks like she is waiting. So is everyone else.
“What?” I ask.
“I think Jennifer will need a minute,” the brunette who has seen better days says. “Why don’t you go ahead.”
“Oh I—”
“First time?” a rotund, cruel-looking woman asks. She has the air of a lifer in these kinds of things; she’s probably been to enough court-mandated AA and NA groups to have the procedures and habits down.
“I was nervous my first time,” a cherubic woman says. She looks like she should be crocheting and bragging about her son’s high school football achievements, not talking about being in a mutual sexual relationship with relatives. “Just start and it will share itself. You’ll feel so much better.”
Heads nod in agreement. The rotund lifer smiles. She’s missing a tooth. If she keeps goading me I’ll take care of the rest here shortly.
I shrug and light a Rum Coast. What the hell. Derne said ninety minutes, right?
63
“My name is Joe Tiller and I am an Incest Survivor.”
“You don’t have to share last names,” the seen-better-days brunette group leader says to me.
“I guess I was around puberty when I began having sex with both my twin older brothers,” I say. Over at the table I see Jennifer take a flask out of her jacket and spike her coffee. A lot.
“And we just never stopped. I knew people would look down on us but it felt special. It felt loving. Maybe it felt natural because we were brothers...I don’t know. It’s not like they would hang out with me when they were around their friends, so the sex was really all I had if I wanted attention from my older brothers. And what little brother didn’t?
“Eventually after Ben graduated high school he married a girl. Had kids. Bill and I never cared; neither did Ben. We kept it up, but Ben—a couple of years ago—he killed himself Hemmingway-style.”
I’m sure this crowd is used to this stuff. I hope.
“Dropped his wife off at work, took his kids to school, went back home and got out the double-barreled shotgun. Loaded it with lead slugs, put the barrels in his mouth and put a toe on both triggers. Might have named one Joe and the other Bill. Who knows. I’d be flattered if he did, but...”
Stares. Crickets chirping. Mouths open just enough. Off in the distance a dog barks.
“He got both barrels both off. I would have thought as he toed them down the first one would have been all. But no. The slugs went right through the damn roof two floors up. Bill and I told him he paid too much for that house.” I’m having fun now. I might start doing this on my off time.
“And another thing if you all will indulge me: Ben inherited that shotgun from Dad. The bitch of it was, Dad had promised it to me. I guess that’s neither here nor there, but still.”
Delilah stirs and I keep my peripheral vision on her. It would be my luck that I’m bullshitting my way through an incest confession and she slips away.
“Anyway, Bill and I, uhhh...we kept going but it was strange without Ben’s help. Bill and I could pull it off, but we were a trio. I have no idea why Ben would kill himself; he had a good job and his kids were too young to be fuck-ups. Maybe it was because he thought his wife was banging the neighbor. She probably was, but then again he was banging us.”
I stop and look at my hands. Delilah in my peripheral. Everyone else is staring at me. They want more. Call it the train wreck syndrome. I like the stopping point I’ve found.
“You’re right,” I say to the cherubic woman. “I do feel better.”
The group stirs for just a moment, looks to the woman next to me. She shakes her head no. She’ll share next time, I guess. Probably doesn’t want to follow up the Joe Tiller story. C’mon Derne. Fifteen more minutes or so if he’s on the money.
Heads turn. Someone clears her throat. Someone else runs her fingers through her hair to add some bounce.
Delilah takes a deep breath. Begins to speak.
64
“I don’t remember the first time I had sex with Dad,” she begins.
The thing about sitting at a group therapy table is this: people will either look one another in the eye as they spill their horror show secrets, or they find every last thing in the room to be more interesting. They’ll be twiddling thumbs, shoes, cracks in the ceiling, counting twinkles on stainless steel fixtures and appliances. Whatever. Someone will be telling everybody how when they were drunk they got into a fight with their grown kid and shot the motherfucker and one other guy in the group will be counting dirt speckles on the tiled floor.
On the other hand when someone relates to what you are saying, well, they stare right at you. Nod. Agree. Been there, done that. You’re not alone.
Most of the group: nodding, been-there-done-that-ing.
Me: twiddling and counting.
“My parents had a horrible relationship. This was when they were together...when my sister and I were young. Ben—I call my father by his first name now—he was in and out of our lives before he was finally just out. Mom was a good mom, but she had to work constantly. She kind of became that loving but sad woman who was around as much as she could be...which became less and less for some reason. The next door neighbors became Belinda and I’s new folks.
“I don’t remember when I started making bad decisions either.”
She lights a smoke and I wonder if she knows that’s bad for her baby. On a side note the walls need re-papering. Several of the seams are starting to droop and curl.
“When I graduated high school I had had two pregnancy scares but I made it through them. I dodged two bullets, I guess you could say. The first one I told Dad about. The second one I didn’t. He freaked enough with the first one. Is it mine? Is it mine? He’d grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me while saying that, always looking over his shoulder for someone else to see him. He was always so paranoid.
“Belinda was career driven. That’s how she got out. The Navy took her. Even in high school she was a star. Whenever Belinda wasn’t around, Mom would say that God gave Belinda her smarts to get by on and I got the personality.
“Friends were never a problem. I just made the wrong ones. I liked thrills and that’s a road I should have stayed off. But Dad was always there. I knew it was wrong. I just—it didn’t seem wrong. Maybe it wasn’t. There’s two ways to look at it, I guess.”
I rub my eyes.
“It seemed like love at first. The attention. I needed it. Ben was never—he touched me a few times but we never—it was just...clinical, like he was making up his mind on whether he should do it or not. And only when he was drunk or high. Mom said Ben was a hound...but he only came after his daughters when he was intoxicated.
“I made most of my terrible sex decisions when I was intoxicated. I guess I got that from him. I wonder if I’m worse than he is. About those kinds of things.”
What?
“But anyways. Sometime in my teens it stopped feeling like love and started feeling like I was auditioning to be a new wife. I had big shoes to fill, that’s for sure. Then it felt like obligation. Or a bad habit. Then it was just dirty. So I freaked out and left. Ran around the country for a few years. I made a lot more mistakes. I always do with men.”
Wait a second. Now I’m looking at Delilah.
“The next door neighbors were like our parents, so that’s why I feel like it was incestuous to sleep with Dad.”
She holds her hands up to pause the scene and clarify. “Not Ben, my real father. Ben the sperm donor. No, no, no...Elam is Dad’s name. I guess I should call him that.”
Oh shit.
“After I returned home I decided I was going to take control of my life. I felt scummy for sleeping with Dad—Elam—and what we were doing to his wife, who was always in frail health. So I told him he was paying for my school. I’d earned it. In return I’d keep quiet about our affair.
“Losing your virginity at nine to a man in his forties gets you decent tuition.”
Less than five minutes. I’ll go meet him outside. Shoot him. She doesn’t have to know.
“He shut his trap and paid. I don’t know what he said to his wife but they did it. And four years later I had a degree. Then I told him he was buying me a house. We’d had two pregnancy scares, after all. He argued and didn’t call for a week, but in the end he did it. I knew he would. I know him. And the house...I loved it.”
She smiles fondly, the way a lost soul will smile when there is an honest moment of recollection which brings them back to the days when there was a path to follow. Peaceful contentment gracing a sad person.
“As soon as I got into my new job and living in the new house, well, I made another mistake. I fell for a man I knew deep down was just using me. I wanted it to be something more so bad, but thanks to Elam, I look at love in the wrong way. It’s my fault too. I need to take responsibility but it seems preprogrammed in me. I know this and I still do it. It’s like a drug addict loading up a shot, I guess. The addict knows and is joyous as he pushes the plunger.”
Delilah has her mother’s sad face. Her hair is shorter than the latest pictures Darla showed me. She looks thinner as well. Her hands are elegant. She pulls a tuft of hair behind an ear and swallows hard.
“So, my new job. Pierce was married but we dated anyways. He used me and eventually I confessed to the wrong co-worker. Ellen something. She ratted us out. We were fired. Broke up. Ellen...I heard from another friend that Ellen actually put down what she had done in her employee review. To help her out I guess. A raise or promotion or something. Whatever.
“Bitch.” Her teeth clenched, Delilah hating this woman for capitalizing on her sin.
“About this time Elam came back around and thought that Pierce was the worst man in the world. I told Elam that Pierce and I broke up but it was like it never sunk in. He never got off of it. Elam hated Pierce immensely. He just didn’t let it go. I wonder even to this day if Elam hated Pierce for breaking my heart the way a father would, or if it was jealousy. Probably both.”
Delilah wrings her hands together and she looks away for a moment. This bittersweet catharsis seems to heal, but her price to pay is to expose the wounds she hid in the first place.
“Elam started acting very strangely. Even for a secret monster he just got weird. He approached Pierce, introduced himself as my father and told him he didn’t want Pierce seeing his little girl anymore. They got into a shouting match. That was a long time ago now.”
Three minutes.
“I went back to my old job but I was dead inside. And of course I started seeing a bad boy there. I had no idea he was fresh out of rehab. I had no idea he was estranged from his wife. We were caught having sex in the building. Fired. My life was over.
“We did drugs recreationally. Nothing new for me. I clung onto this dirtball even though I knew I shouldn’t have, and before I knew it he turned ‘recreational’ into ‘daily habit.’ You know how some folks can tie one on and wake up the next day and just go about life like they never did? And others get bowled over and ugly right off the bat? James, the guy I was seeing, he got ugly. He couldn’t moderate himself. He dove headfirst into the deep end and held his breath. And that was it.
“I’m sure he blames me for where he’s at now. He stopped going to his group meetings to go out with me.”
She smiles the way someone does when they know the truth and don’t want to say it. So they put up a face and hope the moment melts away. My guess is she would not have been cool with a boyfriend who didn’t party. She knows it. But she puts on her face anyways.
Her eyes shimmer beautifully. Tears glaze over them and I hate how the glistening makes her so pretty. It’s not that I enjoy her turmoil, but I agree with her mother that not even pain can spoil her allure.
“I don’t remember when my downward spiral began, but I remember when Elam told me I could get out if I wasn’t going to pay him the mortgage. Now he had me, I guess. I knew how to earn my keep.”
She bursts out crying. I look away. Hearing it is enough.
Delilah continues: “So I started sleeping with him again. Elam. I didn’t know what else to do. He held my leash and he tugged at it. He knew just when and where and how. Maybe that was when the spiral began. No, it began before that...but it got much faster then.”
She calms down some to cry softly. Two minutes.
“I kept it going for a while. Elam wrote me letters—terrible things. He insinuated his wife could die in her sleep and he and I could relocate. He’d sell his company. We’d live happily ever after. He made odd statements. Creepy, veiled things. He started coming by again, not calling, not announcing himself. I woke one night and his car was idling outside. It was like three in the morning.
“I’m sure he did it more than once. I’m sure he was inside the house. But I never told anybody. I never called the cops or anything. Like I said, I make bad decisions. Looking back on it, maybe I should have. But anyone who knows me and who knows Elam...they would side with him. I’m not much of a...oh, I don’t know.
“I’m just not much. How’s that?”
No one says anything different. I don’t know why. I don’t either. But I don’t know the girl. She might be dead on.
“By this time I was drowning my sorrows in booze. I got back into recreational drugs. I think it got the better of me. I don’t remember a lot of my life. I remember waking up a lot and knowing I’d had sex the night before. I’d be nauseous from over doing it. I’d have strangers in the house. Even my parties were getting out of my control. Friends of friends of friends would show up. People so far removed from the guest list I might as well have broadcast the party’s time and date on the radio. I’d spend most the night meeting the folks who were inside my house, touching my things.
“At one of those parties a guy stayed over with me. I don’t remember his name now. All I remember was the guy had a Bugs Bunny tattoo and at some point Elam came in the room shouting. Who knows where he came from. He woke us up. Called me a whore and a jezebel. He threw things. He ran the guy off. We were screaming. I felt like such a raging bitch. Like a harpie or something. I never burned with hatred so much before that moment. Elam told me he was going to sell the house and I just freaked.
“I don’t remember what I said or did...but I think he started to ask himself if I was going to be good enough to be his new wife. I might have put some big dents in those golden happy dreams of us. Looking back on it I imagine he was buried further in some la-la land than I thought. I think he invented an entire world around us. Whatever it was, I needed him to not be mad anymore. I needed to do something. I had no job, I had no money.
“A few days later he came over and we made up. More sex. Big surprise, huh? Then we were kind of on-again off-again and I just started treating myself poorly. I even tried getting back with Pierce but that was so foolish. I was drunk so much during those few months. I think I got old to Elam. I put on weight. I quit bathing regularly. I think I changed something in him...I think he could smell the end on me. Maybe he couldn’t put his finger on it...but instinct told him I was rotting.
“I have no respect for myself anymore.”
Time’s up.
“So I left. Moved in with my mom. Elam would call and my mom didn’t know any better. They were old friends. When he told me he sold my house I was so desperate and depressed and on edge and hateful and sick of myself I tried to earn the house back. He used me. I think he got me pregnant. I mean, I am pregnant, I assume it is his. I’ve had sex with other guys since him. But he still sold the house.
“I was so unearthly mad. The word ‘fury’ cannot contain how angry I was. I think God was upset with me for poisoning my body with such hate and malice. Elam...I was so—unclean. I have felt like trash, but never like this. I had to hurt him back.
“I told Elam I was going to give his letters to the police. I wanted to make him pay for how bad he destroyed me with that house and how he made me act and how gross and used up and no-good-for-anyone he made me. I just wanted him to go away for good.
“He had a sweet wife, children who loved him. Those kids are my age. Hell, they’re a few years older, really. No one else knew about this second face of his. If he and I just agreed to part ways, we could keep our mouths shut. I would. It’d be easy. It’d be over. I keep secrets, Lord only knows. I have so many, what’s one more?”
Delilah scratches at her hands in some kind of biblical gnashing of teeth outburst. She grabs her hair and screeches. She almost jumps in her seat and looks so uncomfortable, so ready to uncork we all get uneasy. Meltdown.
“I mean, seriously? Right? Look at me. Jesus Christ, I let a guy do anal with me and then I gave him a blowjob! He was supposed to recognize the devotion in that act! What the fuck good am I? That’s something rapists do to women they are trying to degrade and I do it just because it might have kept the sonofabitch around! I did that for attention! I don’t share that little juicy tidbit! I can sure keep quiet about fucking my surrogate father for half my life!
“I just wanted him to go away for good. Is that so bad?” The woman sitting next to her reaches out and offers her hand. Delilah snatches it up like it were a lifeline and white-knuckles her grip.
“In all reality I threw the letters away as soon as I’d read each one. I couldn’t produce them if the cops wanted me to. But I threatened him anyways. It only seemed right that I held a little power over his head. But, Elam...he freaked like I’d never seen before. I didn’t really think about it before the words came out of my mouth—I do that, but most times I catch myself, thank God—so I just said it. To me they were pretty much just words. To him it threatened everything his entire life was built on. Cut and dry. I was the worst thing he could ever face in this life. The worst.
