Unatoned

I was in bed and was awakened by a madman pounding at our door. It was not a long run for me to see what was going on. I saw and heard my mother from across the small kitchen/living room tell this man that she would not let him in. I could also hear the madman on the other side of the door pleading to be let in. The man on the other side of the door was my father.

My mother was terrified.

We all were.

We knew what he was capable of—we had seen it.

Five young children and one young mother, trapped in a basement apartment, with no telephone and no means of escape.

He was loud. Probably drunk. Yet somehow he convinced my mother to open the door a crack so he could talk to her.

She did.

The chain lock was on so he could not get in.

Or so we thought.

Once my Mother opened the door a sliver he shoved his right arm through, reaching, trying to get a hold of her. She jumped back yet he continued to grab at thin air. This arm was just flailing around through this tiny opening, grasping for anything he could get his powerful hand on, all the while yelling what he was going to do to my Mother when he got through.

He got through.

The image of him grabbing my Mother by her hair and spinning her around that small apartment will never leave me. I do not remember what he said but I know what he did. He beat this woman brutally in front of his five children. This was not the first time, but for me, it remains the most brutal and vivid. He did not come home from work, as he had done in the past, angry about supper; no, he broke into what was supposed to be our home and tore down our last line of defense, right before our eyes.

She did nothing to deserve this.

All she did was remove her children from an abusive situation and the result was the beating of a lifetime.

During my time as a police officer I saw many disturbing things. Nothing I’ve seen has ever affected me the way that this event has.

Thankfully another single mother in the building had a telephone and called the police. It took six cops to take my dad off of my Mother and out of that cramped apartment to the street where their cars were parked. I know this because I watched them take my dad out in hand cuffs. I stood on one our beds and pleaded through the window with the officers to leave my father alone as they did their job and dragged him to a waiting police car.

It was awful. Watching my mother get beat by my father and watching my father get beat by the police.

I’ve never been the same.