This is a section out of my current project
Transformation - pt 1
I ran across the courtyard to see if Dagon was home.....
He answered the door “So now you need me....”
He let me in and I sat down in a corner.
“What got you in a tantrum?” he nodded in the direction of the storm happening outside...
“ Very impressive, I didn’t know you could go that far...”
“I can do LOTS of things” I hissed.
“So I see.....what did Merc do now ?”
“It’s over!”
He nodded “ So you are done ‘playing house’ ?”
I looked away.
He taunted me “Are you ready to play with the big kids now? Done with the illusion of the ‘happy home’, the ‘charming knight’ for a husband, bearing his children, playing ‘the little wife’ while he conquers new territory?”
“That is NOT happening!”
“What now little girl, what can I do for you? Why seek me out?”
I stared into the fireplace….. I watched the flames…it helped me think. “Damn it to Hell!!” I thought. I took a deep breath. I turned around to look at him. We stared at each other for what seemed forever.
“Take me” I said quietly. “I want to be like you”
He sat down by the fire. He lit his pipe, inhaled and blew out smoke. “You do know what you are crossing into? ……you can never go back….”
I looked down at the floor…… “Will I still be me?…. Will I still be able to do ‘things’?”
“Like I told you before…yes…and more…”
I looked back up at him… “Do it”
He took another drag on the pipe, exhaled.
“Come here”
I walked to him.
He pointed to the floor “Kneel there”
I did.
He handed me the pipe and I smoked, then handed it back. I looked into his eyes and held onto his knees. I had no idea of what was going to happen next.
He took a deep breath. “You will see things…. light, fire, colors…it is different for each person…..while that is happening, you have to refocus on my eyes….just keep focusing on my eyes…you will have to be strong…..or you will go… you will die…. Do you understand?”
I nodded. My heart was racing so hard I couldn’t utter a sound.
He put down the pipe, took another deep breath, and grasped my shoulders….
I ran across the courtyard to see if Dagon was home.....
He answered the door “So now you need me....”
He let me in and I sat down in a corner.
“What got you in a tantrum?” he nodded in the direction of the storm happening outside...
“ Very impressive, I didn’t know you could go that far...”
“I can do LOTS of things” I hissed.
“So I see.....what did Merc do now ?”
“It’s over!”
He nodded “ So you are done ‘playing house’ ?”
I looked away.
He taunted me “Are you ready to play with the big kids now? Done with the illusion of the ‘happy home’, the ‘charming knight’ for a husband, bearing his children, playing ‘the little wife’ while he conquers new territory?”
“That is NOT happening!”
“What now little girl, what can I do for you? Why seek me out?”
I stared into the fireplace….. I watched the flames…it helped me think. “Damn it to Hell!!” I thought. I took a deep breath. I turned around to look at him. We stared at each other for what seemed forever.
“Take me” I said quietly. “I want to be like you”
He sat down by the fire. He lit his pipe, inhaled and blew out smoke. “You do know what you are crossing into? ……you can never go back….”
I looked down at the floor…… “Will I still be me?…. Will I still be able to do ‘things’?”
“Like I told you before…yes…and more…”
I looked back up at him… “Do it”
He took another drag on the pipe, exhaled.
“Come here”
I walked to him.
He pointed to the floor “Kneel there”
I did.
He handed me the pipe and I smoked, then handed it back. I looked into his eyes and held onto his knees. I had no idea of what was going to happen next.
He took a deep breath. “You will see things…. light, fire, colors…it is different for each person…..while that is happening, you have to refocus on my eyes….just keep focusing on my eyes…you will have to be strong…..or you will go… you will die…. Do you understand?”
I nodded. My heart was racing so hard I couldn’t utter a sound.
He put down the pipe, took another deep breath, and grasped my shoulders….
Copyright ©2008 Elisabeth Mari Coppola
Short Stories
The Night I Swore At My Mother
(A Glimpse at 1983 Connecticut Suburbia)
It was years ago, in the early/mid 1980's. I was involved for some time with a colored boy, a black boy, an African-American. I give you these terms as a progression of what was the terminology of the times. In my mother’s vernacular, it was “colored”, when I was a teen it was “Black”, then sometime in my 20's or later “African-American”.
Ron was Black. I was Italian. I don’t know how it happened, there was an attraction, and then we talked, and talked for hours, our relationship consisted of many hours on the phone, it was apparent we liked each other, had things in common, and so it went.
Roughly about 3 - 4 years earlier; before I even knew Ron, when I was 13, I remember a particular day. We had just moved to Hamden, my father just bought a house. It was the first house I have ever lived in my life. My father was a homeowner earlier, when I was a baby, but then “things” happened and all my memories consisted of rented apartments.
Now we were in a house. Big plans, big wonderful plans. It was all going to be “different” now! I wanted a garden very badly. We moved there in the fall, so the first phase was to cut down the grass. It was a long narrow property and the grass was as tall as me. It was lot of work, and to my knowledge, my father did most of it.
My father wanted to get me out of New Haven so bad, funny thing was, we moved just over the border, New Haven was like 100 yards away, we “just made it”. Apparently, for reasons I will explain later, it just wasn’t “far enough”.
So on this particular Fall day, in this new neighborhood, my mother and I took a walk to the A&P to get a couple of things. On our way back home, walking towards us was a couple in their late 20's. “Don’t look at them!” my mother whispered to me. So we walked toward them, they walked towards us. I wondered why I shouldn’t look at them, so I looked at them out of the corner of my eye to figure out why I shouldn’t be looking at them.
He was black, had dark glasses on, jacket with a hood up on his head...well, it was November. She was white with long straight brown hair. They were walking together. They were talking, so they obviously knew each other. They looked poor; well, in this neighborhood, what else would they be? We were poor too. Always have been. We got a little bit of a leg up for actually being able to afford a house again, but it wasn’t like gold was raining from the sky, now we were homeowner poor. A step above renting poor, a few steps above welfare poor and a staircase above project poor.
Were they “hippies”? This was 1979... was there anymore “hippies” anyway?
I remember way back to 1970, adults criticizing the hippies. Any guy with long hair and a beard was a hippy. My cousin Nicky came over once. He had long hair and a beard, I asked him if he was a hippy. He laughed. It made me wonder about Jesus. Was he a hippy too?
So they passed us and some form of acknowledgment was mumbled.
A quick glance, then the look-away thing, the type of thing you do when you pass a stranger on the street. An acknowledgment, then continue on your way. Nothing “too friendly”, you know the whole “don’t talk to strangers” type of thing. I gave a quick shy smile at the girl, they seemed okay. She was long-legged thin and I liked her hair. Not short, dumpy with a frizzy mop of hair like me. She was “cool-looking.”
I asked my mother after they passed and beyond earshot why I wasn’t supposed to look at them. I don’t remember her answer. It could’ve been a “never mind”, or a “you just shouldn’t”. I think I did get out of her the fact that they were “mixed”. Okay, yes they were “mixed”... so what? My mother didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Plus how do you know what they “were”? Maybe they were just friends? All they were doing was walking.
The only exposure I had to the idea of a racially mixed couple was “The Willises”on the TV show “The Jeffersons.” A lot of jokes were made like “zebra” and “chocolate and vanilla”, stupid stuff like that, but that was TV, it’s supposed to be stupid. Was there anything wrong with them? Well, they were goofy, but they seemed “normal” and they were way nicer than George Jefferson or Archie Bunker for that matter.
My mother told me while I was young “there’s good and bad in everybody.”
That made sense and that’s what I believed.
My father on the other hand was different. He didn’t like anybody.
He didn’t trust anybody. Even if you were white. He had something to say about everybody. When I became friends with Katie, he made a comment about her family; “Irish, huh?”
Like they just lost some points. I didn’t get it. Polish, same thing. Always negative, if it wasn’t exact words, it was the way he said it, like he had just been let down.
He never had friends over the house. Everyone he knew was at “the diner” or at “the bar.” Relatives came over the house, my mother had some friends, they came over, but that was it.
So back to where I started. The whole Ron-thing. I liked him, he was okay, he was nice to me, he never suggested or had me “do things” like I was repeatedly warned time and time again by my parents.....who never trusted anybody.
My mother didn’t have a good thing to say about men...look who she married, look what happened to her. As far as my father was concerned all boys wanted was “one-thing” then they would “not know” me anymore. This he drummed into my head repeatedly and didn’t think twice about putting it in disgusting terms and language.
Such a bleak outlook, how can I believe them and still want to live life? I was an optimist, I wanted to believe there were “good people” “nice people.” I wanted to believe I would have friends, good friends who would like me for who I was (making friends was a real struggle early on, not until I was in 6th grade did I make any real connection and have somewhat of a normal social thing.)
So I wanted to believe in the good, that I could have friends who would like me, do things, go to parties...you know....be a teenager. As for boys....there had to be someone out there who was “cool” and like me for who I was, not just want me for that “one thing.”
I found that with Ron; it was intellectual, and emotional, way before it became physical. The pace I wanted to go. Like I said before, I had little exposure to the interracial thing, and the way my parents were, it wasn’t like I can go to them and say anything about my “boyfriend.”
I knew only one other interracial couple in school, they were seniors (which in those days, sometimes made you worlds apart.)
Denise and Marcus. She was a big-hipped, blue-eyed blonde, he was some kind of jock; basketball or football, or both. She was a cheerleader. Our crowd didn’t hang with cheerleaders or jocks. She was in my home-ec class. I don’t know where she lived, what neighborhood she was from. She talked “black” as much as Ron talked “white.”
She was into “dance-music” (which was “black”) as opposed to “Rock” (which was “white”).
I got all the Donna Summer and Bee-Gees knocked out of me within 2 years of moving from New Haven to Hamden. I now listened to Styx, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Queen and the like.
Looking back, it was weird, the classism that existed in high school. The rich kids, the poor kids, the jocks, the brains, the burn-outs, the weirdos. As for music, anything danceable was “black”, anything hard rock was “white.” If you were a white girl there was some lee-way; you could like dance music for simply the fact that girls were expected to like to dance. If you didn’t want to have that girly image and wanted to be “cool” or “tough”; you did what the guys did, and got into the Rock (this is where I was at).
Punk Rock was New York City...far away, and New Wave was starting to crawl into suburbia, danceable music for the white kids, but of course if you were a guy it was “Gay.”
It is occurring to me right now how mainstream conservative my town was. I just wanted to illustrate how it was broken down, and how our interests divided us, classified us, defined us.
Back to Denise “Luscious Dee” and Marcus (ultra cool and smooth), they were 18, which meant they were in another world; a world of having a car, a job, being able to drink, and ...sex ( I wasn’t “there” yet, obviously). She seemed so “grown-up” and above me for all these reasons.
I wanted to ask her things, emotional things, like “Do your parents know you’re with Marcus?” “Can he come over your house?” “What does your mother say?” “What does your father say?” “Do they like him?” “What do his parents think?” “Do you like his mom? Is she nice?” “Does he come over for dinner?”
Of course I didn’t ask anything because it would just make me look like the inexperienced know-nothing fool I was (and you can't be THAT when you are a teenager!). So I was silent, and found out nothing. It is amazing how a 2 year difference in age can seem worlds apart when you are that young.
So my relationship was Ron was a secret one. Not out of thrill, like it might have been to some people, but out of fear. He came over once with a few of his friends (they were white) nothing was said.
He came over by himself another time, my father got violent with me the next day.
He was pissed, and I think what made it worse was some of my relatives were over that day. My father was always too concerned about his image, what other people thought of him.
I had “shamed” him in front of the relatives. It was all about him, nothing about me. I wanted to know about Serafina, whatever her name was, the black girlfriend my mother sometimes teased him about. The girl who gave him her high-school photo, the photo he still had (it was an 50’s professional photo – sepia with color applied, her lips had a tint of red lipstick. People were so much formal back then, she had her hair up and pearls about her neck). He must have had some kind of friendship with that girl, he still had her picture, after all these years. So what was wrong with me being with Ron? I really didn’t think he’d get this mad, considering the Serafina girl. But he screamed at me, he grabbed me and shook me, his fingers leaving bruises on my arm, he pushed me hard against the wall and screamed about the disgrace I brought to his name. I was too scared to bring up my questions about that girl.
I’m still not sure if he heard Ron say that he “loved me” before he kissed me goodbye at the basement door in the back of the house. (My father might have been in the bathroom which had a window right above ), but it was clear he knew what was going on and it was “NOT going to happen in HIS house!!!” and THIS was the reason we “left New Haven in the first place!!”
It was too late. The words have been said, the feelings were being had. There was no turning back, it had happened. I suggested to Ron we break up after the incident with my father, but he didn’t want to. He thought we could be together and not “get caught”. We would “find a way.”
Oh so much like Romeo and Juliet! Oh, the romantic I was at 16!! I was so delirious and so craving affection, I went along with that idea.
Maybe I was stupid in endangering myself in continuing the relationship despite the punishment I already received; but as I said before, I was an optimist. I wanted to believe in a good thing.
I didn’t want to deprive myself of a good thing for a stupid reason such as skin color, and the stupidity of people who think that means what a person is like. I didn’t care “what people thought” I knew what I knew. My parents were miserable, they weren’t happy, why should I listen to them? Ron made me laugh, I felt good about myself, why should I give that up to do what they say and become like them?
So the relationship continued. A year or two later my mother found out. A relative or friend might have seen us at the Hamden Plaza or at the movies and told my mother.
My mother wouldn’t have “talks” with me in my room or in the living room or kitchen like families did on TV. She would get me in the car, start driving to go “to the store”, then she would start in on me.
Why in the car? Why while driving? Was it because I would be least likely to jump out of a moving vehicle to get away? Anyway that was how she did it, she’d get me in the car and start in on me.
One particular night we drove to “Stop and Shop”, I’m not sure exactly if it was a silent drive on the way there, or if it was silent, save for small talk. Then she started in on me. She confronted me about Ron, how “she knew.” I wanted to know how “she knew.” She wouldn’t tell me.
I think she then made a remark “don’t you think people will see you?”
After going back and forth like this, I was tired.
We were parked. In the dark, it was quiet, cars surrounded us.
I was close to 18 at this point. I felt I was old enough to make up my own mind. Old enough to have my opinions respected, my feelings, my values, the way I wanted to see life and see people. Tired of this stupid sneaking around, tired of not having a normal relationship, tired of not being able to have my boyfriend over my own house, tired of not admitting to even having a boyfriend, tired of living a lie.
So I admitted it. Yes, we are together, yes I do have a boyfriend, yes it was him.
My mother’s response “Why does it HAVE to be HIM?”
I didn’t know...why is the sky blue? Why is anything, anything? It just was, it just happened.... I think out of all these thoughts I might have just mumbled “I don’t know”. What did I know other than: WHY would I do this other than the fact that we really liked each other, and we got along really well, and I felt good. Why else would anyone have a boyfriend? Why else would I risk “getting in trouble”? It must be for a good reason, wouldn’t it?
My mother prodded on, “What can a BLACK boy do, that a white boy can’t?”
I interpreted this as a gross sexual connotation. The way she said it, the insinuation, as if that is what it all came down to.
I had these things said to me before, but it was from the white asshole trouble makers that hung out behind the bowling alley. Disgusting remarks and jokes about sex and penis size coming out of jerks are to be expected, but from my mother? My mother?
This woman who goes to church every week? The woman who talks about God and sins and prays the rosary? Who is afraid to eat meat on Fridays during Lent, like a bolt of lightning will come out of the sky? I couldn’t believe it. For her to sum up my first real relationship, something that was a big deal to me, in a disgusting comment, I couldn’t believe it. She’s being as gross and disgusting like those punks…like my father. How could she?? She wasn’t any different, she is just like them...I couldn’t believe it.
“Fuck you” came out automatically, hatefully, I was just so disgusted. Then came slap in the face, in my mouth.
I just said “fuck you” to my mother.... I couldn’t believe this was all happening......I started crying and apologizing profusely at this point. She left the car and went into the store. I was left there. In the car.
Dark, in the car. By myself. She was gone. I was alone. I could leave. Really, I can go. I can just start running. I know this area. Ron’s house is like a mile away, no big deal. I can go the back way, up the side streets. His mother likes me. So all I have to do is to open the door, and take off. Well, if I’m going do it, hurry and do it now before my mother leaves the store and starts back for the car. C’mon, just open the door and get out and keep going. NOW!!
My mother will come back, and the car will be empty. Then what? Will she drive home? Will she call the cops? She’d have to go home sometime. Of course my father will ask where I’m at, she’ll tell him everything. Or would she? Obviously something is wrong, I’m not there. Then the cops will surely be called. They would look for me. Would they find me? And if they did, Ron and his family would get in trouble. Then they would hate me. They can’t get in trouble because of me. I can’t do that.
What do I do? Everything is out. I just said “F” to my mother. She hit me. It all changed now.
No going back. I have no place to go. I don’t want anyone else to get in trouble. It’s no one else’s fault. It’s my fault ... I have to face it. If she tells my father and he beats me....I have to face it. Like I said before, if I feel old enough to be heard and respected, I’m also old enough to face it. Who’s going to want to take me in? Who is going to want my father screaming at them for taking me in? Where am I to go?
I sat there. I had my hand on the door handle, I looked up, my mother walking to the car.
Too late.
Copyright ©2009 Elisa Mari Coppola
(A Glimpse at 1983 Connecticut Suburbia)
It was years ago, in the early/mid 1980's. I was involved for some time with a colored boy, a black boy, an African-American. I give you these terms as a progression of what was the terminology of the times. In my mother’s vernacular, it was “colored”, when I was a teen it was “Black”, then sometime in my 20's or later “African-American”.
Ron was Black. I was Italian. I don’t know how it happened, there was an attraction, and then we talked, and talked for hours, our relationship consisted of many hours on the phone, it was apparent we liked each other, had things in common, and so it went.
Roughly about 3 - 4 years earlier; before I even knew Ron, when I was 13, I remember a particular day. We had just moved to Hamden, my father just bought a house. It was the first house I have ever lived in my life. My father was a homeowner earlier, when I was a baby, but then “things” happened and all my memories consisted of rented apartments.
Now we were in a house. Big plans, big wonderful plans. It was all going to be “different” now! I wanted a garden very badly. We moved there in the fall, so the first phase was to cut down the grass. It was a long narrow property and the grass was as tall as me. It was lot of work, and to my knowledge, my father did most of it.
My father wanted to get me out of New Haven so bad, funny thing was, we moved just over the border, New Haven was like 100 yards away, we “just made it”. Apparently, for reasons I will explain later, it just wasn’t “far enough”.
So on this particular Fall day, in this new neighborhood, my mother and I took a walk to the A&P to get a couple of things. On our way back home, walking towards us was a couple in their late 20's. “Don’t look at them!” my mother whispered to me. So we walked toward them, they walked towards us. I wondered why I shouldn’t look at them, so I looked at them out of the corner of my eye to figure out why I shouldn’t be looking at them.
He was black, had dark glasses on, jacket with a hood up on his head...well, it was November. She was white with long straight brown hair. They were walking together. They were talking, so they obviously knew each other. They looked poor; well, in this neighborhood, what else would they be? We were poor too. Always have been. We got a little bit of a leg up for actually being able to afford a house again, but it wasn’t like gold was raining from the sky, now we were homeowner poor. A step above renting poor, a few steps above welfare poor and a staircase above project poor.
Were they “hippies”? This was 1979... was there anymore “hippies” anyway?
I remember way back to 1970, adults criticizing the hippies. Any guy with long hair and a beard was a hippy. My cousin Nicky came over once. He had long hair and a beard, I asked him if he was a hippy. He laughed. It made me wonder about Jesus. Was he a hippy too?
So they passed us and some form of acknowledgment was mumbled.
A quick glance, then the look-away thing, the type of thing you do when you pass a stranger on the street. An acknowledgment, then continue on your way. Nothing “too friendly”, you know the whole “don’t talk to strangers” type of thing. I gave a quick shy smile at the girl, they seemed okay. She was long-legged thin and I liked her hair. Not short, dumpy with a frizzy mop of hair like me. She was “cool-looking.”
I asked my mother after they passed and beyond earshot why I wasn’t supposed to look at them. I don’t remember her answer. It could’ve been a “never mind”, or a “you just shouldn’t”. I think I did get out of her the fact that they were “mixed”. Okay, yes they were “mixed”... so what? My mother didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Plus how do you know what they “were”? Maybe they were just friends? All they were doing was walking.
The only exposure I had to the idea of a racially mixed couple was “The Willises”on the TV show “The Jeffersons.” A lot of jokes were made like “zebra” and “chocolate and vanilla”, stupid stuff like that, but that was TV, it’s supposed to be stupid. Was there anything wrong with them? Well, they were goofy, but they seemed “normal” and they were way nicer than George Jefferson or Archie Bunker for that matter.
My mother told me while I was young “there’s good and bad in everybody.”
That made sense and that’s what I believed.
My father on the other hand was different. He didn’t like anybody.
He didn’t trust anybody. Even if you were white. He had something to say about everybody. When I became friends with Katie, he made a comment about her family; “Irish, huh?”
Like they just lost some points. I didn’t get it. Polish, same thing. Always negative, if it wasn’t exact words, it was the way he said it, like he had just been let down.
He never had friends over the house. Everyone he knew was at “the diner” or at “the bar.” Relatives came over the house, my mother had some friends, they came over, but that was it.
So back to where I started. The whole Ron-thing. I liked him, he was okay, he was nice to me, he never suggested or had me “do things” like I was repeatedly warned time and time again by my parents.....who never trusted anybody.
My mother didn’t have a good thing to say about men...look who she married, look what happened to her. As far as my father was concerned all boys wanted was “one-thing” then they would “not know” me anymore. This he drummed into my head repeatedly and didn’t think twice about putting it in disgusting terms and language.
Such a bleak outlook, how can I believe them and still want to live life? I was an optimist, I wanted to believe there were “good people” “nice people.” I wanted to believe I would have friends, good friends who would like me for who I was (making friends was a real struggle early on, not until I was in 6th grade did I make any real connection and have somewhat of a normal social thing.)
So I wanted to believe in the good, that I could have friends who would like me, do things, go to parties...you know....be a teenager. As for boys....there had to be someone out there who was “cool” and like me for who I was, not just want me for that “one thing.”
I found that with Ron; it was intellectual, and emotional, way before it became physical. The pace I wanted to go. Like I said before, I had little exposure to the interracial thing, and the way my parents were, it wasn’t like I can go to them and say anything about my “boyfriend.”
I knew only one other interracial couple in school, they were seniors (which in those days, sometimes made you worlds apart.)
Denise and Marcus. She was a big-hipped, blue-eyed blonde, he was some kind of jock; basketball or football, or both. She was a cheerleader. Our crowd didn’t hang with cheerleaders or jocks. She was in my home-ec class. I don’t know where she lived, what neighborhood she was from. She talked “black” as much as Ron talked “white.”
She was into “dance-music” (which was “black”) as opposed to “Rock” (which was “white”).
I got all the Donna Summer and Bee-Gees knocked out of me within 2 years of moving from New Haven to Hamden. I now listened to Styx, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Queen and the like.
Looking back, it was weird, the classism that existed in high school. The rich kids, the poor kids, the jocks, the brains, the burn-outs, the weirdos. As for music, anything danceable was “black”, anything hard rock was “white.” If you were a white girl there was some lee-way; you could like dance music for simply the fact that girls were expected to like to dance. If you didn’t want to have that girly image and wanted to be “cool” or “tough”; you did what the guys did, and got into the Rock (this is where I was at).
Punk Rock was New York City...far away, and New Wave was starting to crawl into suburbia, danceable music for the white kids, but of course if you were a guy it was “Gay.”
It is occurring to me right now how mainstream conservative my town was. I just wanted to illustrate how it was broken down, and how our interests divided us, classified us, defined us.
Back to Denise “Luscious Dee” and Marcus (ultra cool and smooth), they were 18, which meant they were in another world; a world of having a car, a job, being able to drink, and ...sex ( I wasn’t “there” yet, obviously). She seemed so “grown-up” and above me for all these reasons.
I wanted to ask her things, emotional things, like “Do your parents know you’re with Marcus?” “Can he come over your house?” “What does your mother say?” “What does your father say?” “Do they like him?” “What do his parents think?” “Do you like his mom? Is she nice?” “Does he come over for dinner?”
Of course I didn’t ask anything because it would just make me look like the inexperienced know-nothing fool I was (and you can't be THAT when you are a teenager!). So I was silent, and found out nothing. It is amazing how a 2 year difference in age can seem worlds apart when you are that young.
So my relationship was Ron was a secret one. Not out of thrill, like it might have been to some people, but out of fear. He came over once with a few of his friends (they were white) nothing was said.
He came over by himself another time, my father got violent with me the next day.
He was pissed, and I think what made it worse was some of my relatives were over that day. My father was always too concerned about his image, what other people thought of him.
I had “shamed” him in front of the relatives. It was all about him, nothing about me. I wanted to know about Serafina, whatever her name was, the black girlfriend my mother sometimes teased him about. The girl who gave him her high-school photo, the photo he still had (it was an 50’s professional photo – sepia with color applied, her lips had a tint of red lipstick. People were so much formal back then, she had her hair up and pearls about her neck). He must have had some kind of friendship with that girl, he still had her picture, after all these years. So what was wrong with me being with Ron? I really didn’t think he’d get this mad, considering the Serafina girl. But he screamed at me, he grabbed me and shook me, his fingers leaving bruises on my arm, he pushed me hard against the wall and screamed about the disgrace I brought to his name. I was too scared to bring up my questions about that girl.
I’m still not sure if he heard Ron say that he “loved me” before he kissed me goodbye at the basement door in the back of the house. (My father might have been in the bathroom which had a window right above ), but it was clear he knew what was going on and it was “NOT going to happen in HIS house!!!” and THIS was the reason we “left New Haven in the first place!!”
It was too late. The words have been said, the feelings were being had. There was no turning back, it had happened. I suggested to Ron we break up after the incident with my father, but he didn’t want to. He thought we could be together and not “get caught”. We would “find a way.”
Oh so much like Romeo and Juliet! Oh, the romantic I was at 16!! I was so delirious and so craving affection, I went along with that idea.
Maybe I was stupid in endangering myself in continuing the relationship despite the punishment I already received; but as I said before, I was an optimist. I wanted to believe in a good thing.
I didn’t want to deprive myself of a good thing for a stupid reason such as skin color, and the stupidity of people who think that means what a person is like. I didn’t care “what people thought” I knew what I knew. My parents were miserable, they weren’t happy, why should I listen to them? Ron made me laugh, I felt good about myself, why should I give that up to do what they say and become like them?
So the relationship continued. A year or two later my mother found out. A relative or friend might have seen us at the Hamden Plaza or at the movies and told my mother.
My mother wouldn’t have “talks” with me in my room or in the living room or kitchen like families did on TV. She would get me in the car, start driving to go “to the store”, then she would start in on me.
Why in the car? Why while driving? Was it because I would be least likely to jump out of a moving vehicle to get away? Anyway that was how she did it, she’d get me in the car and start in on me.
One particular night we drove to “Stop and Shop”, I’m not sure exactly if it was a silent drive on the way there, or if it was silent, save for small talk. Then she started in on me. She confronted me about Ron, how “she knew.” I wanted to know how “she knew.” She wouldn’t tell me.
I think she then made a remark “don’t you think people will see you?”
After going back and forth like this, I was tired.
We were parked. In the dark, it was quiet, cars surrounded us.
I was close to 18 at this point. I felt I was old enough to make up my own mind. Old enough to have my opinions respected, my feelings, my values, the way I wanted to see life and see people. Tired of this stupid sneaking around, tired of not having a normal relationship, tired of not being able to have my boyfriend over my own house, tired of not admitting to even having a boyfriend, tired of living a lie.
So I admitted it. Yes, we are together, yes I do have a boyfriend, yes it was him.
My mother’s response “Why does it HAVE to be HIM?”
I didn’t know...why is the sky blue? Why is anything, anything? It just was, it just happened.... I think out of all these thoughts I might have just mumbled “I don’t know”. What did I know other than: WHY would I do this other than the fact that we really liked each other, and we got along really well, and I felt good. Why else would anyone have a boyfriend? Why else would I risk “getting in trouble”? It must be for a good reason, wouldn’t it?
My mother prodded on, “What can a BLACK boy do, that a white boy can’t?”
I interpreted this as a gross sexual connotation. The way she said it, the insinuation, as if that is what it all came down to.
I had these things said to me before, but it was from the white asshole trouble makers that hung out behind the bowling alley. Disgusting remarks and jokes about sex and penis size coming out of jerks are to be expected, but from my mother? My mother?
This woman who goes to church every week? The woman who talks about God and sins and prays the rosary? Who is afraid to eat meat on Fridays during Lent, like a bolt of lightning will come out of the sky? I couldn’t believe it. For her to sum up my first real relationship, something that was a big deal to me, in a disgusting comment, I couldn’t believe it. She’s being as gross and disgusting like those punks…like my father. How could she?? She wasn’t any different, she is just like them...I couldn’t believe it.
“Fuck you” came out automatically, hatefully, I was just so disgusted. Then came slap in the face, in my mouth.
I just said “fuck you” to my mother.... I couldn’t believe this was all happening......I started crying and apologizing profusely at this point. She left the car and went into the store. I was left there. In the car.
Dark, in the car. By myself. She was gone. I was alone. I could leave. Really, I can go. I can just start running. I know this area. Ron’s house is like a mile away, no big deal. I can go the back way, up the side streets. His mother likes me. So all I have to do is to open the door, and take off. Well, if I’m going do it, hurry and do it now before my mother leaves the store and starts back for the car. C’mon, just open the door and get out and keep going. NOW!!
My mother will come back, and the car will be empty. Then what? Will she drive home? Will she call the cops? She’d have to go home sometime. Of course my father will ask where I’m at, she’ll tell him everything. Or would she? Obviously something is wrong, I’m not there. Then the cops will surely be called. They would look for me. Would they find me? And if they did, Ron and his family would get in trouble. Then they would hate me. They can’t get in trouble because of me. I can’t do that.
What do I do? Everything is out. I just said “F” to my mother. She hit me. It all changed now.
No going back. I have no place to go. I don’t want anyone else to get in trouble. It’s no one else’s fault. It’s my fault ... I have to face it. If she tells my father and he beats me....I have to face it. Like I said before, if I feel old enough to be heard and respected, I’m also old enough to face it. Who’s going to want to take me in? Who is going to want my father screaming at them for taking me in? Where am I to go?
I sat there. I had my hand on the door handle, I looked up, my mother walking to the car.
Too late.
Copyright ©2009 Elisa Mari Coppola