Excerpts

And You Wonder Why I Don’t Love Myself

Author – Shannon Shanà

 

“So after the 783rd  bitch, I guess she don’t want to be a bitch no more.”

“Enough eventually becomes enough,” I tell him (my father). But I don’t believe it. It was just the applicable response and because that is what the typical fed-up person says, I knew it would register. He would get it. Does he believe it? This is still to be determined.

It’s been three hours going on four since being called a bitch. Understandably, this might seem to you as wounding as it feels to return back to your assembly line or cubicle space without a view after a lunch break. But to my family three hours going on four without being called a bitch is inspiring. Could there actually be a great enough break in the tension that floats above and below us to welcome in Love who always brings along His plus one – happiness?

Breakfast is ready on the stove. My aunt Jackie is passed out on the floor. My father’s body is stretched across the staircase. My boyfriend is knocking at the front door. My brother is applying his makeup in the mirror right next to the front door-he won’t bother to answer it. My son’s pet hamster is dead-oxy overdose. The three of them-my father, aunt Jackie and my mother, thought it would be funny. My mother, from the basement, is chanting shrilly, repeatedly, unbelievably, “I’m no man’s bitch!” All I want to do is eat, but the passage from my bedroom to the kitchen will be a dark one. Should I bother?

There will be more trouble for me if I don’t. Yes, the bacon smell is changing and I don’t take a liking to burnt bacon, but if I can make it to the kitchen uninterrupted by the woes of their world, tasting burnt bacon will twin the emotion of, of, of…I don’t know what happiness truly feels like; I’ll just put it like this-it will taste good. I just know I need to make it there.

I surveil the battlefield from my bedroom door. It looks like an easy exit. Let’s go. Heels in hand. I’m ready.

‘Float Shannon. Don’t step down on the floorboards with too much pressure.’ The floors squeak like a dying toy. It takes skill to avoid detonating the landmines. I got this.

Aunt Jackie is twitching. ‘Watch her.’ Her body movements are the most unpredictable. She seizes, she laughs in her sleep, she sleep walks, she’ll even fight you. If she tags me, I’m it. Her shrill voice is like the other’s alarm. If they wake, they will all fight me like cats in a back, wet alley taking from me all I got including my sweat and tears, sometimes blood too.

I made it, unsurprisingly. This is how I make it under God’s beautiful sky every day. You become a master at fighting for freedom until freedom rings if you are a prisoner fighting for your life every second of your life.

One down.

When I was a child, my father would be the hardest hurdle to pass by, over or through. The first four times, I wouldn’t try. My brother challenged himself to convince me we would make it past him, but as a 5 year old girl who knew too much, yet knew too little, I couldn’t be swayed and no one could be trusted. My eyes were the only things in this world that I believed in. So when I saw my daddy positioned with his eyes wide and a blank stare, I wouldn’t-no, I couldn’t believe he was asleep. I thought he was a dead man snoring. A ghost. He’ll get me.

Nothing’s changed over the last 31 years. Except, I am not afraid. Except, I wish he would die. Back then, I wished he’d close his fucking eyes. Like normal people. But who am I-wishing for normalcy when normally women want their fathers to live.

Getting past him was the easy part. He never picked up my scent as I dodged his compacted figure. It was always after. Right after my foot hit the ground. Right after the first second my foot took rest and my heart eased and my breaths hushed, he’d arouse and like clockwork-it’s on.

Man down.

That would be me who is now lying at the bottom of the 12 steps I was just forcibly kicked down by my father. The knocking at the front door grows louder or at least that’s how it seems. A couple factors could validly explain the louder, non-rhythmic beats at the door. After all, I am lying now, face down, just feet away from it, with a headache.

“There you go…that nigga…fuckin’” My ears are ringing, which is why I am only picking up pieces of his potty mouth.

Here he comes ya’ll. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

“Get the fuck up!”

I usually fight back, but I’m positive my arm is out of its socket if not broken. My number one concern is getting to the hospital if I can’t pop it back in. My son gets out of school at 3:45. It’s only 8. I have plenty of time.

I can take these kicks. It’ll just bruise my abs. I’ve been working out a lot lately. I have abs of steel.

Quick, irritated footsteps approach.

My brother. He pushed our father.

Just know the push is not an attempt to stop him from kicking my cervix out of me. My father is blocking the steps and my brother forgot his angle brush used for perfecting his cat eye.

The brief intermission between kicks and whatever is next grabbed my attention. The pan wasn’t sizzling anymore, my mother was quiet and the knocking at the front door stopped.

My boyfriend.

He made it in.

 

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