Breaking the Cycle

I look back now at the detritus of my life, at the mess that was my misspent youth and I can only feel wondrous justification. My existence is a fractional cycle, ending and beginning in shattered bouts of hopelessness. My memories are like that also; violent images that push themselves to the forefront of my consciousness in staccato rhythms of madness. Images of blood and guts, fists and knives, pain and agony, flash across my mind and cause me to, temporarily, push against the restraints that bind my mental state.

My agony sometimes comes in the terrifying form of questions: Did I let my mother die? Did I really bring about my stepfather’s bloody demise? Was my childhood pain only a youthful nightmare? I don’t really know the difference between illusion and reality anymore. They keep me locked up most of the time but the pills and medication are my real captors. I’ve been a functional zombie for so long that I’ve lost touch with the warmth of humanity, the sound of the human heart, and the joy of laughter. Through the haze of my insanity only one light shines for me to hold onto; sometimes violence is the only answer to violence, and blood is the only detergent that has washed my soul clean. Forever.

Nane Quartay was born in upstate New York and attended Augusta College in Augusta, Georgia. After a tour in the United States Navy he traveled extensively before returning to New York to begin writing his first novel Feenin. His next novel, The Badness, is due out this spring. He now resides in the Washington, D.C. area.

SILENT SUFFERING

SHONDA CHEEKES

CHAPTER ONE

I don’t condone violence of any kind. But I think it’s really embarrassing when it happens to a man. I’m basically treated like a helpless, punk ass bitch in my own house.

Candace, or Candy as she’s known, is the inflictor of my pain. I’ve suffered unthinkable pain at her hands for more than a year. I bet the question in your mind is why do I stay and take it. I guess because I feel a connection to her in some sort of sick and twisted way. Let me elaborate a bit to give you a better understanding.

Candy and I are both products of what happens when you’re raised in an abusive environment. Her abuse was experienced secondhand. Her father would beat her mother unmercifully on any given day. A persona

l punching bag for the old man. Candy promised herself that would never be her lot in life. She’d always be able to take care of herself. Never have to put all of her dependence in a man in order to make it. But in her effort to protect herself from becoming a victim, she learned to victimize.

The abuse in my house stemmed from a woman scorned. When I was four, my old man left one evening for the corner store. I guess he never found it. Since I was a near replica of her source of pain, Mama took it out on me whenever the feeling struck her. A slap across the face; a punch to the head. After a while, she started tying me to the bed. Dared me to make a sound or piss. As hard as I tried, by the second day, I would lose my bladder control and she would lose control on me.

One episode that has stayed prevalent in my memory happened around my fourteenth birthday. I don’t remember exactly what it was that set her off. It didn’t take much anyway. I just remember the situation almost landed me in the hospital after being horrendously beaten. Tired and breathless from beating me with a belt and being that I hadn’t given her the desired reaction of crying, she searched around for something that would surely get those tears out of me. That night it happened to be a hammer. I remember the feel of the metal making contact with a piece of my skull with a frightening thud. I ran as fast as I could out of the house in search of a safe haven. Ms. Johnson opened her door as soon as she heard the lock click. I ended up at her house for the next week, until she couldn’t afford another mouth to feed.

Soon the prospect of going off to college became my escape plan. Tessa would laugh and tell me there was no way I was going to make it at a four-year school.

“Yo’ dumb ass might as well go on down to the nearest trade school and call it a day.” She’d laugh that wicked bone-chilling laugh I’d grown to hate as she lay up on the sofa watching her favorite soaps.

In spite of her, I made it further than the four-year college and attended dental school where I trained to become an oral surgeon. See, I learned to take that negativity she fed me on a regular basis and turn it into fuel. More than anyone in this world, I was going to show her.

But there was that side of me that couldn’t completely cut her off. She was my mother and had given me life. I’d sit around and wonder if he hadn’t walked out and left us, would my relationship with her had been different. Would she have been the loving and nurturing mother I’d seen growing up watching the Cosbys and other television shows?

Candy once asked me if I had any desires to find my father; just to let him know the hell I had been put through because of his shortcomings. My answer was a simple “no.” I’d long given up that fantasy. And at this point in my life, I don’t know if I would be able to control my anger.

I used to worry that the abuse I endured at the small hands of my mother would eventually turn me into an abuser myself. But it was the opposite. I had grown into a weak man where women were concerned. Went out of my way to please a woman; especially my woman.

Candy blew into my life after a breakup with a married woman. After I wined and dined her and uplifted her from the depressive state she was in when we first met, she decided to go back to her husband. “Glad I could be of service,” was the best response I had. Instead of telling her how used and betrayed I felt, I helped her move her things back to his house. Yeah, stupid me.

There’s no truer statement than the one about how we attract certain types of people at certain times in our lives. Candy happened to be another stop on the train of destruction I was riding. I remember the first time the monster that lived hidden under the big brown eyes and not quite perfect, but beautiful, smile showed its head.

“Eddie, what the fuck is this?” she asked about the piece of paper in her hand.

I walked closer and she handed the paper to me for a closer inspection. As I read the letter, the contents of it became clear—it was a thank you note from one of my patients. The woman had been petrified about having her wisdom teeth pulled. I assured her that I would be extremely gentle during the procedure, making sure the discomfort she experienced was minimal. While the content of the letter was nothing more than a thank you, Candy seemed to be reading something that was supposedly between the lines.

“Are you fucking her?”

“Candy, you’ve got to be kidding? This woman is—”

Before I could get the rest of my statement out, she smashed her fist into the side of my head; hitting me hard enough to make me stumble and my teeth rattle.

“Don’t think you’re going to stand up here and tell me a blatant lie. I told you when we got together, cheating is the one thing that I won’t tolerate in any shape, form, or fashion!” Her hand quickly found its way to my family jewels and grabbed a handful. “This is my dick! Don’t you ever forget that, you hear? Before another bitch gets it, I’ll Lorena Bobbitt your ass!”

Her eyes glazed over with anger. My fear paralyzed me momentarily. All I could see was Tessa. Tessa with the unfeeling eyes that bore through to my soul. Tessa with hatred for the hurt one man had placed on her; hurt she tried to take out on the one person in the world who loved her more than breathing.

Once Candy loosened her grip, she methodically undid my belt and zipped my pants down. Fear of not knowing what was going to happen next kept me from getting the instant arousal most men experience when a woman strokes their dicks the way she was stroking mine. Knowing that if I didn’t reach that erection she was in search of, I would surely be accused of the cheating she was insinuating, I put a mind trick in place to help the process along.

Candy fell to her knees and kissed the head, all the while praising how much he meant to her. She loved him and didn’t want him near some foreign pussy. Being inside her mouth and pussy was the only place on earth for him. When she finally inserted me fully into her mouth, I relaxed enough to enjoy the oral pleasure. She sucked and slurped until I reached the climax she desired.

She regained her standing position and wiped the remnants of the short escapade from her mouth as I stood there helpless with my pants around my ankles. I stumbled toward the nearest couch and collapsed onto it. She walked away and returned with a warm rag and threw it at me.