Friday Story 13

Disposal

A dysfunctional family meets its logical end.

Here’s a question. If a person lives with another all their life — a son with his mother, a wife with her husband, for example, how well do they know each other, really? It is true that people living together in the same house or space will develop various kinds of routines, and by that standard one supposes that they can predict what each of them will do every day. 

But suppose that the relationship is abusive, by some count, what then? Perhaps the abuse also becomes routine, so may even not be noticed for what it is?

On his forty-fifth birthday, Frederick Baskin broke with routine, but this was not at all easy. He was born of a mother whose marriage lasted just short of two years, and by that time she had been beaten so much about the face and chest that she had aged some twenty years, or more. She had descended into a state of despair, her clothes turned to rags, the pain of her beatings assuaged by brandy, when she could get it. Her only solace was her son whom she tried hopelessly to care for, and to love, who, from the moment he was born cried and screamed pretty much nonstop. Her husband blamed her for this unholy noise, accusing her of not feeding him, and to add to her distress chose to beat her breasts mercilessly, which made it impossible for her to feed little Frederick. 

Phyllis was her name, and she was well known locally by the police who answered her frantic calls almost on a weekly basis. They came, they arrested her husband, referred her and her screaming child to the social welfare department, kept her husband in lockup until he faced the family court judge who upbraided him and sentenced him sometimes to a few weeks in lockup. The social worker who came to the house had come to know Phyllis well, and had on many occasions advised her to leave her husband and go to a refuge. But she refused this solution, because, she said, her son needed a father. Yet on some occasions, through the fog of alcohol, she had thought of killing her beast of a husband, but was too frightened to try, as she did not know really, how she could do it. And besides, she did not want her son to grow up with a murderer for a mother.

Then came the one stroke of luck that changed the course of Frederick’s life, or to put it in her words, her husband got what was coming to him. Late one night, it was when Frederick was all of three years old, her drunken husband met his end, staggered on to a busy road and was run over. Phyllis celebrated the event by telling Frederick it was his third birthday, and made him a chocolate cake with candles and sang happy birthday to him. It was virtually the only time that Frederick had stopped crying.

 Imagine living in a small house, on welfare, scrounging for a living, depending on the good will of others to make ends meet, and with a screaming three year old who seemed never to be happy. In truth she was tempted every day to beat the child until he stopped crying. But she knew that this would be self-defeating. She learned, instead, to ignore the screaming, and managed to last it out until the child was exhausted, his screams dying down to a whimper.

The social worker had proclaimed that little Frederick screamed because he wanted attention. So Phyllis had tried giving him lots of attention, playing with him, even taking him out shopping with her, but this turned out to be a disaster when people in the stores gave her disapproving looks, of course, blaming the mother for the child’s behavior.

One might say that Phyllis was caught in a situation of her own making, caused by her abusive husband, thank God, now gone. Maybe time would heal. And so she wore ear plugs to dampen the screams and grew to ignore the wails and whimpers. So it was after a year or two, hard to measure time under such uncomfortable circumstances, that Phyllis managed to slowly make headway with her child, and send him even to school, where, needless to say, Frederick did not do well. He was constantly in the principal’s office on account of his rowdy screaming and violent tantrums. It was not long until the school informed Phyllis that her child needed special placement because of his behavior problems. The school psychologist recommended him for a special school for disruptive children, but it was located way across town, and Phyllis could not afford to send him there. So instead, she did what any caring mother under those circumstances would do. She decided to home school him.

And so began the long, endless process of Frederick’s education and growing up. Unfortunately, though completely understandable, Phyllis had turned to alcohol to help her manage the day, a deep irony that she only occasionally recognized. Much of the time she was in a kind of alcoholic stupor. This took the form of her nagging Frederick to do his lessons, brush his teeth, wash himself, etc., etc. The list of things to nag a growing child is endless.

The morning routine had never changed for some forty years. Phyllis got up and cooked bacon and eggs for Frederick, who sat morosely at the table and pushed them away when served. Instead he looked in the cupboard for his favorite Cheerios breakfast cereal. One would have thought that Phyllis would simply give up on the bacon and eggs, but not at all. Every morning she nagged Frederick to eat a proper breakfast, that it was the most important meal of the day. For his part, Frederick had developed a routine in which he went to the cupboard, complained that they were nearly out of Cheerios, sat down and slurped spoonfuls into his mouth. At which, Phyllis nagged him to eat quietly, didn’t he have any manners at all?

And over the years, Phyllis had developed prickly ways of getting at Frederick. He never, after all, went out of the house, or if he did, not for long. So she harped at him to go out and get a job; a lazy slob, that’s what he was.

Then there was the TV. He complained that it was old and they needed a new one. She pointed out to him that, if he went out and got a job, maybe they could afford a new TV. Frederick, now a mature adult, never flew into a rage, which would be understandable given the circumstances. After all, it was she who had home-schooled him, so it was her fault if he couldn’t get a job. Never mind that he had simply no inkling to go out of the house. He was happy enough in his bedroom, playing video games, reading comic books, and, well, what else can a lonely male do on his own? 

But Phyllis would not let him alone. She nagged him day and night. Removed the lock from his bedroom door so it could not be locked shut. She went into his bedroom constantly without knocking, always asking him when he was going to fix the toilet that wouldn’t stop running. Surely he could make himself useful? He ought to think himself lucky that she provided him with a roof over his head. And besides, she had told him a thousand times, that she had saved him from his violent drunkard of a father.

One cold morning, Phyllis sat at the kitchen table, eating her toast. Frederick slouched in and went immediately to the cupboard to retrieve his Cheerios. He opened the refrigerator and looked for the milk. There was none.

“Eat your breakfast,” said Phyllis, her raspy voice now riddled with the smoke of an intake of one or two packets of Craven A’s a day.

“Eat your own fucking toast,” answered Frederick. He leaned over the table and pushed the eggs and bacon away from his place. He then proceeded to pour out his Cheerios into his bowl, and sat down staring at them. His eyes were narrowed. He was really annoyed. His mom of course noticed, and with some satisfaction. He drummed his fingers on the table, then dipped them into the bowl and started to eat the Cheerios by hand. Phyllis took a bite of her toast and munched it loudly.

“Want milk?” she said with what could only be interpreted as a sneer.

Frederick had had enough. He grabbed her hand across the table and growled, the noise coming from deep inside him, “I’ve fucking had enough of you.”

Phyllis tried to pull her hand away, but his grip was too tight. She was suddenly frightened. It reminded her of her husband — Frederick’s rotten abusive father— in the early days, when Frederick screamed incessantly.

“You’re just like your pig of a father, you are. You’re no good, trash. You can’t do anything. You’re a useless bag of shit!”

Frederick’s grip tightened.

“Go on then,” she taunted, “hit me, just like your stinking father did. Hit me! Go on! I’m used to it. I’ve put up with you for long enough. Get out of the house and don’t come back!”

Frederick pulled her across the table, his meaty hands tightening around both her wrists. Now she lay on top of the table, belly down. She kicked her legs but they were well off the floor and went nowhere. He stood back from the table and pulled her up to face him. She found her footing and tried to knee him in the crotch. And she did, but not hard enough. It only served to enrage him even further. Now he let go of her arms and went for her throat, thumbs pressing hard against her voice box. 

“You’ll never nag me again, you fucking chain-smoking piece of crap.” His meaty hands tightened, her eyes bulged, there was no stopping him now. No turning back. No wish to turn back, in fact. 

The rest followed logically. She flopped to the floor and lay dead. But just to make sure she could never nag him again, Frederick went to the cutlery draw and drew out a steak knife. And with it he thrust it into her throat and cut out her voice box. “You’ll never nag me again,” he said with great satisfaction. And with that, he went to the sink and put the voice-box down the garbage disposer. The loud hum of the disposer was music to his ears.

He went to the refrigerator and searched some more for the milk, and sure enough, there it was in a different place, in the back. The bitch had hidden it from him. Well, she had learned her lesson now not to mess with him!

He went to the sink and washed his hands. Then he poured the milk over his Cheerios and sat quietly eating his breakfast. 

After he was done, he called the police.

 Moral: A matching punishment is driven by revenge.