Satire Of The Subsidized

Charlotte grew up in an assisted living townhouse in Sudbury, Ontario. Her father wasn’t around all that much so it was just her mother, brother and herself. Charlotte is still unsure who to believe, mom said dad cheated and was a deadbeat however dad said mom was controlling and constantly picking fights. Perhaps both sides of the story are correct but each one shone a better light on themselves. Charlotte’s mother, Kelly most certainly is the strongest woman Charlotte has ever met, she raised two of the worst children, maintained the household with the help of no man, kept everything clean and tidy, worked at a gas station and attended college all at the same time over several years. Pondering how she survived even a day overwhelms Charlotte. Obviously she lost her patience more than once a day and Charlotte doesn’t blame her however it definitely did make for a toxic home. Self care isn’t just important for one self but also does favours to those around. Every day was constant yelling and screaming and crying. Of course, monkey see, monkey do so Charlotte’s brother, Max and herself were hellish monsters. The shit they put her through, the shit she put them through.

Once when Charlotte was around 5 years old and Max was only 18 months older, the two of them had locked Kelly out the front door while she was checking the mail, with no shoes on. The two kids ran upstairs, filled cups full of water and started dumping it out the top floor window over Kelly’s head. Screaming and yelling intensified. The two kids then started throwing Charlotte’s clothes out the window in which Kelly make-shifted into shoes, mittens and scarves. One pair of Pajama bottoms got stuck in the eavesdrop where it made it’s new home for the next couple years before an intense wind storm finally released it. Kelly finally broke in through the dining room window, without a concern for warming up she went straight to the children and beat them black and blue.

Getting the children to do any task was more daunting than simply doing the task herself. Going to bed, clipping their grubby nails, cleaning up after themselves, stop playing the Nintendo, you name it, it always broke into a screaming match. When Charlotte was around 7 years old, Kelly had given her permission to go play with an old neighbour who had moved a block away. Charlotte called however there was no answer so Kelly instructed Charlotte to help out with cleaning the house. Charlotte could not understand why she had to clean when she was just given permission to play and simply because there was no answer, now she had to work. All hell broke loose with the fighting, both physical and verbal. Charlotte never did end up cleaning that day but instead wound up crying herself to sleep while nursing her bruises. Fast forward a few weeks to a phone call from children’s aid society, somebody forgot to end the telephone call and the whole fight was recorded on voicemail. Kelly was furious; yes she smacked her children, the same way her parents did to her, however this happened in 2002, not back in the 70’s. A nice lady showed up however Charlotte refused to speak with her at first, thinking how Kelly had told her that if she answered honestly, the lady would steal her away and make her homeless and starve to death. Little did Charlotte know, that something similar to that would happen at the age of 13.

Charlotte and Max were close yet distant. Of course there was the typical sibling rivalry. Constant fighting over who’s turn it is for the Nintendo or computer, full blown fist fights would happen over this. All of their cousins were boys so at every family gathering, Charlotte would be bullied by them all and Max would turn into a completely different person and influence the bullying. To go as far as them all sneaking colas from the basement fridge then Max urinating in Charlotte’s can, pressuring her to drink it and threatening her if she told the adults, of course Charlotte needed something to expel that awful taste but the adults would ignore her. The boys would tell her to get out, boy zone only and the adults would say the same. This could explain why Charlotte wound up a Tom boy and thought to be a lesbian when in reality, she just wanted to fit in somewhere within her family. She couldn’t grow up quick enough so she’d try her best to have similar interests as the boys.

As the two grew up, their relationship did improve. Even during the younger ages did they have sweet moments. On Max’s first day of school, Charlotte cried bloody murder for hours on end, she was inconsolable. Stickers, stuffies, dolls, attention from mama, nothing soothed her until Max returned home that afternoon. First time being separated for more than 5 minutes since birth would do that no matter how rocky the relationship was. When Charlotte was in grade 3, the school would throw different types of dress up days and declare a winner. They had all sorts of events, pajama day, whacky hair day, you name it. One day Charlotte asked Max to borrow some of his clothes, he never asked why but agreed without any hesitation which was rare. Kelly would already be at work but for a few years, her best friend Megan had lived with the family and would help round up the kids in the morning and babysit as needed. Megan noticed Charlotte wearing Max’s clothes one morning and questioned her. Charlotte then explained that at the school, it was dress up as your favourite superhero day.

There were sweet moments with Kelly as well. Charlotte really needs to think hard to recall them these days though. Charlotte had quite the imagination, fantasizing of a normal household and all the spooky monsters that would lurk underneath her bed and in her closet at night. When Charlotte was maybe 6, she called out for her mother around midnight. Max had been fast asleep and surprisingly, Kelly ran up to see what was wrong. Charlotte explained through her tears that she saw a shadow run by her bedroom door. Alarmed, Kelly ran to the closet to fetch the holy water to spray around all of upstairs. Kelly explained that the water is from the church and that it would repel all demons and monsters. Charlotte still doesn’t know if Kelly is genuinely this religious to believe such a thing or if it was all an act to console her. The family had never been to church together aside from Christmas pageants, christenings, baptisms and those major sorts of events but the family had also never been good at consoling each other either.

Up until her 20s, Charlotte suffered from night terrors. Perhaps it finally ended once she came to terms with her abusive past. At least once a week she would wake up mid scream. Kelly consoled her the first few times then decided to ignore it completely, sometimes even continue to have sex with her partner while Charlotte calmed herself, unable to tune out the loud moans of her own mother. Perhaps this also contributed to those night terrors.

Charlotte always considered herself unlucky to grow up in such a violent home however she was in for a rude awakening the day Kelly brought over Dante, who would wound up becoming Charlotte and Max’ step father. The first meeting was neutral, in their living room all gathered on the couches chatting. It was the second meeting where Kelly got Dante to babysit them while she was working. Dante asked Charlotte to do the dishes, of course Charlotte rebutted and Dante smacked Charlotte across the cheek and yelled, demanding her to do her chores. Weeping, Charlotte obeyed as quickly as she could and ran to her room where she phoned her mother and described the story that happened. Even after Max confirmed this story to be true, Kelly decided to deny it and accuse the children of lying.

For the next upcoming years, this was a common scenario. Dante would drag Charlotte up the stairs by her hair, punch her in the jaw, knock her out cold, throw things at her, one time picking her up and body slamming her on the ground, breaking a kitchen tile. All this happened to Max as well however not as often as he did what he was told quietly then ran off to hide. However one afternoon he was feeling mischievous and started lipping back about child labour, Dante walked over, snatched the pan that Max was washing and he smacked him upside the head so hard Max fell to the ground and the pan had a large dent in it. When Dante found out he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, he went straight home to the basement where the kids were playing video games and he up and lifted the TV out of nowhere and told the children to scram. They got up and ran as fast as they could while he threw the TV in their direction, missing Charlotte by mere millimeters. These incidents always occurred while Kelly was out of the house and for years she heard each story and would continue to brush it off as the children trying to gang up against him.

Finally the day where Charlotte was kicked out of the house at 13 years old, to this day Charlotte or anybody for that matter still don’t know the cause of eviction. It was already set up that Charlotte would go into foster care, for being “too out of control”. Kelly mentioned this to their father, who had been living in Fort McMurray for many years. His pride would not allow any of his children to enter the foster care system so he agreed to bring Charlotte into his home. Just needed to finish the school year. However a couple weeks before she’d refuge to Alberta, Dante had randomly approached her and started beating her senseless, punching her in the face and head endlessly while Charlotte begged him to stop as she begun to see stars before she fell unconscious. This time Kelly had witnessed the tail end of the fight and broke it up. Kelly said to Charlotte’s face directly after that she must have done something to deserve the beating then denied everything thereafter.

Directly after the incident Charlotte was kicked to the street with no shoes, no food, no water, no cell phone, no nothing. For her first night she slept at the park, second night was under a bridge. She thankfully ran into one of her friends that following afternoon and he welcomed her into his home, fed her, gave her water and let her shower. The two then went to the hub where all the local kids would hang out. There she ran into her cousin who had brought her to his home and the aunt went over to grab all of Charlotte’s belongings which were already packed up and ready to go in suitcases. Charlotte stayed with her aunt until the end of the school year and finally travelled to her new life in Fort McMurray where she’d suffer much more up until she finally gets some peace at 25 years old.

Children act out, have no filter, talk back and throw temper tantrums. It’s completely natural however it ends as the child grows and learns from their elders how to behave in a society. No child or adult for that matter, ever deserves any form of abuse, no matter how badly they are behaving. They need a mentor of a patient, calm parent who will teach them right from wrong