See No Evil

Using a blind girl for protection, I unleash the Beast.

New York looms. When I want to say good-bye to my nine year-old sister Betsy, Adam makes his big play, decreeing that I can only see her if I agree to have this serious talk with him about my life. He has been going on and on about having it for the last year or so, and now, forever using his kids as bargaining chips, is determined to give me what for. For what I don't know. (My grandmother, Beelzebubbe, tells me he sometimes threatens her that she can't see the kids if she doesn't give him money.)

I say okay to the talk but plan a double cross. I have this friend, Shelly Brisbin, also a writer now, who is legally blind. She can see a bit actually, but when wearing dark glasses she looks like she can't see anything at all - which gives her a little bit of a stealthy quality when it comes to observing the people around her. Mismatched debate partners at McCallum, my first school, she and stay friends even when I leave. I decide to take her along with me when I drive up to my father's house. Not just a friend as a buffer, but a BLIND friend! How nasty can things get if I have a blind girl with me when I wiggle out of having the Naked Dad's dreaded talk?

Pretty nasty.

I arrive, my car stocked with food, and pick up Betsy for a picnic at the river. This is in the Texas Hill Country. All roads lead back to that fucking countryside. The father, Adam, doesn't expect me to arrive with a friend, and he is exceedingly nonplused when I take off with Betsy, after staying in his house for no longer than two minutes. We are happily picnicking when I hear the ominous sound of tires on gravel behind me.

The Beast drives up in his station wagon. He wants a word. (Just the one? I doubt it.) In the kind of stage whisper that anyone within five miles can hear he rips into my character, my "fucking" friend, how gutless I am, and how if I don't have "the talk" I'll never see my sister again. Surprising even myself, I start to laugh. I don't know why. I'm still kind of shocked about it to this day. It's just that we've all given him so much power over us, for such a long time, and suddenly his whole control trip just seems sort of funny to me. I calmly tell him I will NEVER talk to him about anything in my life, that his opinions don't matter to me, that I lied about letting him talk to me so I could see Betsy. Then I walk away. I can practically hear his face turning purple behind me, he is that enraged. "Don't you walk away from me, or it's the last time you'll walk away from anything!" God. Not just a ridiculous threat, but a hoary cliche. Can't he do better than that?

I turn back around. "What are you going to do?" I ask, "Shoot me?" And that's it really. What CAN he do? Even though I'm half-convinced he will pull his gun from the glove compartment in the car and do it, I know listening to him tell me about his perceptions of my life would kill me anyway, since it would make my head explode to submit to him. I'd rather chance it here and now, by the river, with my blind pal as witness.

I'm not sure if Shelly ever really forgives me for this day. Warning someone beforehand, as I do, can't really prepare a person for my father. For his bitterness, his violence, and his righteous certainty - the closest thing to religion I know in my childhood.

Betsy and I carry on a surreptitious relationship for the rest of her childhood. For a minute and a half once, when I am nineteen, I attempt a reconciliation of sorts with Adam so I can have more regular access to her. I am visiting Mom and my step-father David in Texas, and I drive out to Adam's. I want peace. He wants influence in my life. And obedience. I decline. That part of my life is over for good. On the way back from my father's I stop at Sonic for a large chili-burger, large fries, lime slush, and chocolate shake. Then I throw it all up.