Toxic

It was Wednesday night and Kate was in bed with her book. The following day Kate and her son, Dino, would be going to the hospital because Dino is scheduled to have his adenoids and tonsils removed. It was still early but Mike was well on his way through a bottle of rum. He wanted Kate to stay up drinking with him and listening to music and she had said no. She wanted to sleep.

Mike sauntered into the bedroom and announced “It’s not going to work. It’s not going to be very convenient for me but I would rather have my dignity then have you living under my fucking roof, you disrespectful bitch. So, what’s it going to be?”

Kate looked up from her book. After enduring nearly two years with Mike she was not at all taken aback by the way he was speaking to her. It was completely unacceptable yet standing up for herself had consequences. “Are you giving me an ultimatum”

“Yeah, what are you gonna do? You going to be a bitch for the rest of your fucking life or are you going to treat me with some respect? ‘Cause I don’t beat you like the victim that you think you are.” His last sentence came out in the high pitched, whiny tone that he uses when he imitates Kate. “And, if you keep carrying on the way you do and keep telling people like your mum or whoever, telling them that I do the things that you say I do to you then you can fuck off! I don’t need you.”

Kate put her book aside. She sighed. She felt deflated.

Mike sneered, “you could have a clean slate. But you can’t expect me as a man to fucking stand by and let you do whatever the fuck you want!”

“OK, what do you mean by that?”

“I can’t admit to doing things wrong that I didn’t do wrong!” Mike said, “So what, you got a smack around the fucking head a couple of years ago? You bloody well deserved it!”

“It was more than a smack around the head.” Kate stared at him as he paced back and forth a the foot of their bed.

“Yeah, because you’re a stupid bitch!” Mike stopped pacing and glared at her.

“You gave me black eye”

Mike stood, swaying, red faced. Angry.

Kate calmly spoke, she was tired, this was exhausting, “And then after that night you kept hitting me in the side of the head.”

Mike screamed “Yeah, because you just kept being a bitch.”

Kate didn’t move. She has already said too much but she keeps going, hoping that part of him would see the truth. She had never touched him, never raised a hand to him. All she wanted was peace.

She points out to him “You can’t just hit someone in the side of the head just because they are being a bitch. It’s wrong.”

Mike raised his voice again “I can if you are living under my fucking roof.”

“You gave me a black eye because I am living under your roof?”

“Kate, I just fucking went bang. It was like within fucking three seconds. Do you think it was like a planned thing?” his voice dripped with sarcasm. “You just come up with all these excuses that basically it was my fault.”

“It’s not an excuse.”

“That it was everyone else’s fault except for you.”

Kate is nearly broken. Rehashing all of this. She and Dino should not have moved back in after they left the first time. She has made a huge mistake.

“Is it too much to ask to want for you to behave in a proper fucking manner instead of behaving like a total fucking scumbag?”

“I am not behaving like a scumbag, Mike. I work really hard, I take care of my kids, and I am trying to do the right thing.”

“In certain aspects towards me you act like a scumbag.” he says.

“Ok, you are sitting around the house unemployed, you play your games, you can’t hold down a job…”

Mike fires up again and starts screaming “Oh fucking bullshit! You see? You are not on board with what I am trying to do! You don’t have the intelligence or the fucking wisdom to understand what is going on”

“I am on board with you getting a full time legitimate job!” Kate is frustrated.

“I am tired of you disagreeing with me.” Mike is looking at her with pity. “You either get on board with what I think and what I do or you get the fuck out of here because basically I have had enough.”

“Noted! Alright! You have made your point.”

Mike starts shouting and pacing again “Because I am not a criminal, I am not a bad guy, in my eyes you’re a fucking criminal, you’re a fucking disgusting person, you’re a kiss-arse, and you’re a fucking corporate shill! You should be more like me. If you’re not more like me then you don’t deserve to live here. It’s not that hard to emulate me. I’m not a bad person. I’m a good guy. And if you don’t think so then you don’t deserve to live here. It’s really not that hard. I’m pretty cool. And I’ve got a good family that stick by me and I stick by them. Sure, we have our disagreements. I got a lot of family back home in Ireland and they all stick by me too. And you say you’ve got this strong family here in Perth? No, you don’t. You got nothing. Nothing! You’ve got nothing Kate. Your family is fucked. Fucked! Your family is nothing.”

Kate hasn’t moved from where she is, hasn’t raised her voice. Her hand is still resting on her book. She wants to sleep.

“I’ve got to go to sleep, I’ve got a big day tomorrow. I’ve really got to go to sleep. Just go and play your game, or listen to your music or whatever,”

Mike screams, “It just gets to a stage where it’s either my way or the highway, because you know I have got my way and your way is just fucking weird. And stupid. Your fucking not educated. You are fucking retarded. You know what, you fucking bitch,” he continues “You can get the fuck out now. Go on, pack your bags and fuck off!”

“I am not going anywhere.”

“Go and sleep in your fucking car then. I don’t want you in the house”

“I am not going anywhere.”

After that Mike left the room and called someone on his mobile. Kate locked the front door with the dead bolt and hid the keys so he couldn’t lock her out of the house again.

She went back to the bedroom, crouched down and reached under the bed. She pulled out her small black notebook computer, opened it up and turned the power on.

She had been documenting everything, following advice from her father. In the beginning she had kept everything to herself, tucked away deep inside, ashamed and embarrassed that she had let herself get into this situation. She felt helpless. Things were getting worse, escalating. It was not safe to keep her notes in the house. If he found them there would be trouble. She logged on to the blogging forum that she frequented and signed into her account. This is where she kept her notes. Online, hidden away as a draft on her blogger account.

She could still here Mike’s voice, distant, he was outside the back door of the house still on his mobile phone.

She tapped out a few paragraphs outlining what had transpired that night, then she signed out of the blogging forum, cleared her browser history and shut down her small black notebook computer and tucked it back under the bed.

“I am not going anywhere,” she had said to Mike. That was a lie. Kate and her father had met briefly earlier in the week. He was worried about her and had been since Kate had moved back into Mike’s house with Dino.

“Everyone deserves a second chance,” he had said, in an attempt to be supportive.

Now they both knew that Kate needed to move on from Mike. She had to, the alternative was grim. Kate’s father had handed her an envelope. In it was a bank cheque made out to Kate for twenty thousand dollars.

“Use this. I don’t want you to pay me back, I just want you to be able to set yourself up. When you’re ready come and stay with me, I’ll help you and Dino.”

Tomorrow Kate will pack a couple of bags, after all she and Dino had their overnight hospital stay.

Kate was ready.