My parents were constantly fighting when I was a child. So much so that it became background noise. I remember so much of it occurring peripherally. I remember the sounds of fists hitting flesh and the screams of pain. The curses and the breaking of furniture. I can vividly remember these things happening but just out of my line of sight. It was so normal I couldn’t be bothered to have my attention drawn away from whatever task I was working on be it drawing, reading, or playing computer games.
When I was younger, the violence drew my attention only when it affected me directly. Now, we can get into the weeds of how witnessing violence against other people is terrible and I’m not disagreeing. When you’re a kid though and you grow up in it, it’s normalized. So until you are getting your ass beat or something of yours is broken, you don’t give much of a fuck...at least that was how I was...for awhile.
This particular instance occurred in the car. It was an ice blue cougar with huge bench seats. The seat buckles were a shiny metal. I was around five or six years old. We were in the the drive thru at Taco Bell. I had a delicious Mexican pizza coming to me. All I was focused on was the fact that I would be eating a Mexican pizza that night.
My parents had been bickering back and forth and I remember feeling quite tense. This was because when my parents fought in the car and food was present, the food was used as a weapon. The food utilized as a weapon always seemed to be the food ordered for my sister and I.
We pull away from the drive-thru and the bickering increases, as does my anxiety because I really want that Mexican pizza and now I can fucking taste it.
I am looking outside the car window when outside my periphery, my mother’s hand digs into the plastic bag and catapults the only Mexican pizza (my Mexican pizza!) straight into the side of my father’s face.
”NOT THE MEXICAN PIZZA!!!” I screamed as my dad launched what seemed like a hundred punches at my mother’s body. Nevermind that my dad was beating my mom in front of me and the car was swerving with ever punch he swung, I was losing my shit over the Mexican pizza
“why is it always my food!?” I yelled at them. Suffice to say they were not paying attention to me.
Eventually we were stopped at the side of the road and there was a police officer standing outside the passenger side of the vehicle. This was the side my mother was sitting on, and I directly behind her.
The window was rolled down and my parents immediately started to talk over each other to answer the officer’s questions. “Nothing is wrong here!” They told him. Of course, I wasn’t really paying attention to what was being said because I had been completely struck by this officer. You see, I had a very important question to ask of him.
The thing is a few weeks ago my sister and I were being babysat by my grandmother (my father’s mother). Our dad had come to pick us up and my grandma had become very upset. Now I was a five year old child so a lot of what was being said went over my head however I retained the phrase “suspended license” and understood (kinda) my grandmother’s assertions that one could not drive while said license was suspended.
This caused a kerfuffle because I heard “could not drive” and imagined my dad had forgotten how to drive and that if we got in the car with him, we would die on account of his sudden inability to operate a motor vehicle. After much argument, tears, and finally a pinch on the back of the neck, my dad explained to me that having a suspended license did not mean that he did not know how to drive. He knows how to drive and in fact, it meant that he could not be arrested. So it was actually a good thing that he had a suspended license.
I nodded my head that I understood and got in the car to avoid anymore pinches, however what he said did not make sense. Especially since my grandma was so upset. I told myself that I would remember what he told me and when I got the chance, would ask an adult who I felt would know the answer to this kind of question.
So luck (or I suppose, my parent’s volatility) would just so happen to bring an expert on this sort of thing face to face with me! How lucky!
Unfortunately, everyone was talking during my moment of realization and after. I knew I could not let this opportunity pass me by though! My sister was screaming, my mom and dad were explaining, the officer was telling them they both needed to calm down and stop talking over one another and himself, and now here was I adding my own voice to the mix.
”Hey, can you arrest someone with a suspended license?!" I yelled at the officer through my family’s voices. It was clear he was not paying me any attention. He asked my mom to quiet us kids down. He put his hand up to me in the classic, “not now” way that drove me crazy.
I started to become so frustrated! I just want to know whether my dad was right or not about the license situation! “Hey!, Hey!” I yelled at the officer. No dice. I sat down on the seat and waited. Staring intently at this officer. Waiting for the opening to get my question through.
Eventually things quieted down. My mom and dad shut up, my sister stopped crying. Perfect! I squeezed my face in between the seat and side of the vehicle.
“Hey,” I whispered at the officer. Now I’m pretty sure he was deliberately ignoring me at this point. I wasn’t going to give up through. “Heeeeeeeeey!” I whispered more loudly. He looked down at me. “My dad’s license is SUS-PEN-DED. Can he drive?” He cocked his head to the side and his forehead furrowed.”
“Sir?” He asked my dad, “Are you driving with a suspended license?” My dad tried to sputter some sort of explanation. That is when I realized that there was a second officer outside the driver’s side of our car. They asked him to step outside and took him behind the car and had him sit on the curb.
As I watched him through the rear view window, one of the officers was speaking with my mother. That is when I noticed she slid to the driver’s side of the car.
“Is dad walking home then?” I asked. She ignored me. When we got home I realized she was speaking with my grandmother on the phone asking about bail I knew bail was associated with jail because of the bail bondsman jingles I would sometimes hear on the radio. She never verified to me that he had been arrested but I remember hoping that if he was, that he would stay there overnight. Just so he had time to cool off. I worried that he would blame me entirely for his arrest and punish me for it.
I do not remember anything after that night. I can’t remember when he came home, whether he was angry, whether he blamed me. Did grandma pay his bail?
What I do remember is that my parents instilled in me shortly thereafter the belief that jail for them meant bad things for me and my sister. Not bad as in punishment from them (though there would be some of that) but that the system that existed to punish parents for certain activities would harm kids as well in the process. This in turn cultivated the belief early on that protecting them meant I was also protecting myself. These false beliefs would take decades to shake.
Ultimately my father was arrested that day for his own actions however, I like to think that I expedited the process just a little.
P.S.
R.I.P. Mexican pizza.
FEBRUARY 2021