Thirteen And Learning

My mother and stepmother argued on a lot of occasions, but this time it felt like something was different. In the recent days I started to hear the anger and the frustration in their voices every time that they spoke. It felt like two lionesses who were apart of a pride, who loved each other, but started to become annoyed with each other. You started to see the dislike, hear the animosity, you felt the tension like cold frozen water. Sometimes I didn’t know if I was the cause of their tension.

This whole lifestyle was brand new to me. This was a far cry from the the suburbia life I was living in New Jersey. In September of 1998 My mom: Nye, came and got me. I was living in Pleasantville, New Jersey about 8 miles from Atlantic City. I'd lived with my grandmother for about 8 years. In the Summer of 1996 she bought a brand new house so everything: the school, neighborhood, and my friends were still relatively new. My grandmother didn't want to keep me any more because I was becoming a teenager, and over the course of the time that we moved in the new house, I started becoming unappreciative. I started not listening and acting out. To avoid going through a foster home again my mother came and got me.

Fast forward to the end of October of 1998 my mom, Tisha (My mothers girlfriend) and I are living in a Hotel called The Dawn in Harlem, NY. It had two cot beds, a radio, and a bathroom that barely ran water. Things just felt different. I was angry a lot, but I wasn’t trying to cause any harm, hurt, or drama, or get in the way. I was just trying to exist like a regular human being. I was still trying to process everything that was happening. I meant no harm or disrespect I was just acting the only way I knew how. Somehow I felt responsible for this tension between these two, but I had no idea how to express it, and little did I know one night would change how I looked at things forever.

Although I was a pre teenager my mom still made me go to bed at 8:30. I was still a child and I was still bound by rules and regulations. I also had school in the morning, and she wanted to make sure that I was up in a timely fashion. I remember the radio station was tuned into the WBLS station, and that station played all of the old school and current R&B songs. As I kissed my mom and Tisha good night I turned over in my bed and began to drift off to sleep to the sounds of Deborah Cox’s song “Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here”

As I’m drifting I partially hear casual conversation, and the next thing I heard was a loud “POPPPPP!!” I woke up fast, confused, scared, and wishing I had a weapon because the slap sounded like a loud gunshot. When I woke up it was pitched black and the only light that was in the room was the street -light that peered in through the window from across the street, but it wasn’t strong enough to light up the whole room. The light was just bright enough for me to somewhat see what was going on. The street light seemed to have a poetic vibe to it because it peered through the room right where the action was and no where else. The room was 90% dark and 10% light.

When I looked around the room a little of the light was on Tisha as she held her face. Without warning My mom then jumped from out the shadows of the room and started choking Tisha. Tisha landed on her back on the bed grasping for air as my mom choked her. It reminded me of the portion of a suspenseful horror movie, when everything stops, you hear the horror music and out of no where the murderer strikes. It was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. I jumped out of the bed out of instinct to pull my mom off of Tisha so that she wouldn’t choke her to death."Please get off of me!!!” Tisha screamed. “I swear it will be your last day in here, if you don't leave me alone!!!” Tisha screamed. "Stop mom! Chill!!" I screamed. When I finally got my mom off Tisha, she sat up on the side of the bed and then massaged her neck while breathing heavy.

As she breathed, the stench of beer evaporated in to the air like cold breath on a winter day. Just as I thought things were calming down “I heard my mom say “You're trying to play with me huh!!! you're trying to play with me son?!!!!” My mom then swung and connected again. Tisha swung this time connecting as well “Get out my face!, Don’t touch me!” She yelled as I separated them for a second time. “Stop y’all chill!!” I yelled in a second effort to get them to stop. They finally stopped, but in a rage my mom threw the shopping cart across the room, a hand full of clothes, and a suitcase that sat over in the corner by the window and yelled at Tisha to get out.

My mom then ran in the bathroom and slammed the door, and just like that a eerie silence fell upon the room. Tisha then lit a cigarette while shaking her leg and began blowing smoke out of her mouth nervously. The silence was almost terrifying. It was the feeling that you get when someone close to dies, and the reason they died is because you killed them. In this case it was similar. The only difference was that the death was the love of these two people, and they murdered that love with a butcher knife. It was one of the most uncomfortable feelings that I’d ever experienced.

Finally after about 5 minutes of the most awkward, uncomfortable, and terrifying silence that I have ever experienced in my life Tisha finished her cigarette, turned on the light, and began to pack her clothes. Some of which my mom tossed across the room. She had so many tears in her eyes that she had to wipe her face with her shirt. It looked as if she spilled a cup that was half full of water on her shirt. That’s how soaked her shirt was. I sat on the edge of my bed with a blank stare on my face shocked that this even happened.

As I’m sitting there I’m thinking to myself how normal domestic violence must be in New York because no cops were called. The commotion was very loud and nobody bothered to called the police. If I hadn’t been there God knows what would happened between my mom and Tisha. Nobody else probably would have known anything else either, until my mom, or Tisha walked out of that hotel room with blood on their hands. After about 20 minutes of the most uncomfortable silence I have ever experienced, Tisha finally packed her clothes, kissed me on the cheek, and walked out of the door.

A few minutes later my mom then walked out of the bathroom, wiped tears from her face, and then apologized to me, and then hugged me "Im sorry you had to see that son, I lost my temper in front of you and I didn't even realize it. Adult relationships aren't perfect and that was a bad example I set. Going forward I will try to do better." My mom said with a shaky voice. I didn’t understand why they were fighting or what caused it, but at the end of the day she was my mom.

Whether she was right or wrong I was going to stick by her and her decision. “Alright son you have seen enough for one night, go back to bed, because you have school in the morning. We’ll talk tomorrow. Love you.” She said as she continued to wipe tears from her face and began to clean up the room. “Love you too” I replied still confused, heartbroken, trying to put together the pieces of what I saw. I faced the opposite way of my mom and stared at the wall until I became to tired to think. Twenty minutes later I was sound asleep, snoring, to the sounds of WBLS.