25. Time to Start Packing. Again

It was time to start packing again.

I’d only been back for two weeks before I gave my job two weeks notice and told my landlord I’d be leaving. Every evening after work, I began quietly packing my things away after the baby was asleep. I kept the shades drawn at all times, I walked quietly and purposefully across the wooden floor, I inspected blemishes in the wall ... I felt like BD was always watching me. I slept in hour, maybe two-hour increments, I just kept waking up, so I’d schlep through the living room and check and double check the bolt on the door, peering motionless out the peephole into the hallway, each time expecting to see him staring back. I talked in a little more than an enunciated whisper on the phone, afraid that somehow he would hear me, learn of my plan to run away and God knows what he’d do. The walls were thin. I no longer put anything past this man.

This evening, I’d started early and I’d gotten a lot done. The place had already looked bare with BD’s stuff cleared out. But I’d successfully filled four large U-Haul boxes with my own things, wall hangings, summer clothes, shoes, clothes that were too small for the baby and I had a couple of big trash bags brimming with stuff I should have been gotten rid of. I felt accomplished, competent and for the first time since I’d decided I needed to go for good, I felt like the daunting task ahead of me was doable. It was a lot, but I’d made some major headway in only a few days.

The TV was on, some reality show rerun. Lights in each room lit up the entire apartment as I was back and forth pulling things from here and there to fold, wrap or otherwise pack away. The baby giggled gleefully in his walker, racing around noisily across the creaky floor, from one wall to another like bumper cars.

It was way past his bedtime and I needed to turn in too. I had work the next day. Then the phone rang. I picked it up and glanced at the ID. BD. What does he want? I let it go to voicemail. Two minutes later, it rings again. What could he want? He hadn’t left a message. A few seconds and he’s calling again. I’d think it were some kind of emergency, only, the only person who’s health I’d be worried about was right there with me. So whatever it was, it could wait.

Ten minutes past after the succession of phone calls and my Treo hadn’t rung. Strange. He usually doesn’t give up so easily. Then I remembered, my car was parked right outside. And as soon as the recollection clicked, there was a knock at the door.

I think my heart stopped for a second. Wait. If it was my landlord, he’d announce himself in a second. Another knock and my mind took off running.

I have no idea how BD got past the front door. I’m stiff. I have to move all the boxes to the back room quietly before the baby makes a sound and gives our location away. I don’t have time and they’re too heavy to move quickly and noiselessly. Too late to turn the lights off. My heart is pounding out of my chest. I can’t not answer. It’s obvious I’m home and if I refuse to answer the door it will spark suspicion. But I can’t answer the door, either. He’ll want to step in and see the baby. Maybe if I keep the chain on the door he’ll assume I have a man here and go away. No, then he’ll really demand to see his son and make his presence known. I can’t let him in. Shyt.

I grabbed the flaps of one half full box and began moving it into the bedroom just as the baby let out a squeal, stomped his feet beneath him and took off rolling across the floor again and into the TV cabinet.

And he knocked again.

“Who is it?” I yelled over my shoulder, grabbing a second box and shuffling it into the bedroom with the first.

“BD,” he responded.

“Gimme a second,” hauling a third, then the fourth and finally the last box and closing the bedroom door behind me.

I pulled a robe over my tank top and shorts like I was coming out of the shower.

And finally, “What’s wrong?” I asked almost breathlessly, as I cracked the door.

“Oh, here,” he said, smiling. He’d been positioned like he was just about to turn and walk away. I should’ve waited. He bent down and picked up a brown paper bag sitting on the floor at his feet. “I was gonna leave this for you. It’s for our son.”

Now he’s our son. He seemed half pleasant. But I’d come to expect the highs and lows. I never knew what I was gonna get with him. Like a box of chocolates. (Molded, bitter, nasty ones).

He’d picked up baby wipes, baby shampoo, diapers and a couple of other things from the organic market. I hated that shyt. It didn’t smell like a baby, the diapers were ugly and brown, made of recycled material and they didn’t feel all that comfortable either. When we were together he’d been insistent about these products.

I took them, “Thanks,” but my baby wasn’t gonna see any of that crap.

“Is he awake?” BD asked.

As if on cue, the little guy rolled up in his walker, toys swinging, beaming up at his dad. Perfect. He wouldn’t have to come all the way in to see the baby. He stepped over the threshold to pick him up, but was obviously concentrating more on what he might be able to glean by the rearranged wall hangings and furniture … about what might be going on or what might have gone on, in my apartment.

“Well, I’m gonna put him to bed,” I said, after BD had thrown the baby in the air a couple of times, riling him up nicely before I’d attempt to wind him down.

He gave the room a quick scan again, took inventory of each corner in his strange little mind and left easily.

“I want to pick him up tomorrow and take him to my parents’ house,” he said.

“Okay, just pick him up form daycare tomorrow,” I said. I never denied him access to our child. That’s one thing amid a slew of other accusations that he’d try to say when this whole thing went to court.

I closed the door behind him and peered through the peephole to watch BD descend down the stairs. I stood quietly waiting to hear the heavy front door creak open and slam shut with the wind. And then, I exhaled. I locked the door, clicked the bolt, pulled the knob and went through both motions again before turning, leaning against the wood and sliding down to the floor. I caught my breath.

Even without BD in the apartment, this was crazy. This was no way to live. And though he could’ve caught somebody downstairs, going out when he was coming in, he probably also had a key to the front door.

He’s watching for my comings and goings, calling me at all hours and now, showing up unannounced. I don’t know what time I went to bed that night. I dragged those filled boxes back out along with several more broken down boxes and began building them and filling them in short order in the living room.

I didn’t have two weeks to wait.

Originally posted on March 20, 2008

24. I Always Feel Like Somebody's Waatchin Me-e

I could’ve sworn that clock was there on the wall one day and a couple days later I look up and it’s not there. It was BD’s and I didn’t miss it. But I could have sworn it was there. Maybe I was remembering it being there from before I left. Maybe not.

BD had assured me he’d returned his key to our landlord and the Shafik’s had confirmed this. Still, there were little, subtle things. We had this snow globe with a picture of the three of us, me and BD holding the baby on one side, and the baby laughing by himself on the other.

I didn’t like the “family” picture. We looked so happy, smiling, loving, in that picture and I felt like such a fraud. That’s not at all how we were. The snow globe sat on the dresser in the bedroom. I'd turned it around, so that the baby’s picture was facing out. The next day, I’d find it turned back around, the family picture facing out. I turned it around again.

“I knew it! You’re turning our picture around on purpose. I left it like this,” BD said illustrating the way he’d positioned the photo. “I wasn’t sure, but now I know you’re doing it on purpose.”

I had pretended like I didn’t know what he was talking about. But this night, when I returned home from work with the baby, to my now empty apartment, the snow globe was not the way I left it. I wouldn’t have left it like that, I don’t even like looking at that picture.

I got the locks changed the next day, a whole week in and I was just now doing something that shoulda been done from day one.

I was so terribly naive. I thought this could work with us living apart and co-parenting together. BD seeing the baby whenever he wants, picking him up, dropping him off, cooperating like reasonable adults, all that. Even after all the drama, that’s really what I wanted. It was not to be.

The harassment began almost immediately. Angry phone calls and voice mails throughout the day, texts in the middle of the night demanding in capital letters, “WHERE IS MY SON!?”

Sometimes if I couldn’t get a parking space out front, I’d have to walk a block to my building. 

Each night I had to do this, I expected to receive nonstop demands of my and the baby's whereabouts. It never failed.

I kept the drapes closed tight, but on occasion, during one of his call-call-and-call-again blackouts, I’d peer out of them, to see him standing across the street, looking up at the window for lights or movement.

His behavior had become more and more erratic. The day after a night of calls and crazy voice mails, I’d get apologetic ones.

“Where did we go wrong, Mel?” He’d ask in this pitiful, sorrowful voice. Almost sincere. “I just want my family back,” he’d say. “Why does it have to be like this?”

He even suggested counseling. I was outdone. Counseling? That’s for people who want to work on their relationship. What I wanted was out.

On days when his temper was more even, he'd call and ask to pick up the baby. (He hated to have to ask me). And I'd pack our son's things and get him ready to go with his father. After taking him, BD would wait with the baby for a good 15 minutes in the foyer of the building, pretending that he was waiting on the bus. The bus stop was right outside and he didn't know that I knew that he lived right next door. I didn't correct him.

I thought getting him out of the apartment would solve our problems, but I was realizing that if I was to have any peace at all, I needed to get as far away from BD as possible. The mounting bills I was now footing alone were just an extra push.

Whatever I was gonna do, it had to be done quickly and quietly, keeping an ear out for footsteps in the hallway and intermittently stealing peaks through the peephole of the front door.

I just knew it was only a matter of time before I’d catch him standing outside the door in the hallway or something.

And one night, he was.

Originally posted on March 19, 2008 

23.Walking Back into a Well-Laid Trap

Against all wise counsel, I flew back to New Jersey that Sunday night. I did not want to go home and stay forever. I’d needed to get away, but I didn't want to retreat, to come back after leaving for the bright lights and big city, head hung low, with child, alone. I did not want to leave my job and I wanted to make a life for myself. That's why I'd moved out here in the first place. Besides, women did this every day, right? Why couldn't I live in New Jersey and raise my child with the assistance of his father with some kind of reasonable visitation plan? What was wrong with that? And as long as BD had vacated the apartment, we shouldn't have a problem.

BD had assured me that he'd moved out and I believed him. He knew I wasn’t bringing our son back unless he had gone and I trusted that he wouldn’t chance it. Meanwhile, I was leaving all too much to chance.

As soon as I stepped into the apartment, I began scanning the room quickly for anything that might have been broken or missing. I looked for doors kicked off hinges, holes punched into the wall. I think I expected to see my bed consumed with fire damage or my clothes water logged.

Nothing.

The place was immaculate. Clean, neat, though empty looking without most of BD’s stuff. He even left a few things I didn’t help pay for. I guess they were too heavy for him to haul out with such short notice.

Nothing.

There was a vase of flowers on the table in the kitchen along with a type written note from BD saying that he’d moved out upon my request on such-and-such date, yadda yadda, and it was signed.

Perfect. Everything was going to be fine. I told everyone everything was going to be fine. BD was gone and I had my baby. Tomorrow I’d call him and let him know we’d made it back safely and he could pick the baby up form daycare and give him dinner if he wanted.

Sidebar: This is exactly how far in denial I still was. Even after seemingly escaping, I was still trying to deal with this man like he was a reasonable person. Like he was really gonna be ok with picking up his son from daycare, spending a couple of hours with him and meeting me somewhere to give him back. I think I might have been going a little crazy at this point myself, because in hindsight that whole idea was just damned. And not only that, but he had done nothing that should have lead me to believe our co-parenting would ever work. I'm still kicking myself about this.

That night, I lay in bed with the light on. It was my apartment first and it felt good to be back in it, but there was something eerie about it now.

The memories. Every corner reminded me of something. But one look at my baby boy pushed all thoughts of darkness out of my head. I must have looked over at him sleeping next to me a million times and just kissed his cheeks and thanked God over and over and over again. With a wide smile on my face I made a mental grocery list, whispering the items I’d fill my cart with like I was counting sheep. (Yes, it was that big a deal). Ground beef, catfish and fish fry, chicken wings, ooh, I’ll pick up some fresh Parmesan and some cream (I make a mean from-scratch Alfredo sauce), shrimp, -- I was super excited about the sausage I was gonna pick up -- steaks --

The phone rang and broke my train of thought.

I reached over to pick it up before it woke the baby.

“Hello,” I said sleepily. I didn’t wanna talk to anybody. I just wanted to bask in the freedom of my own bed in my own apartment.

“Oh. Melyssa, you’re home,” said an excited, heavily accented voice on the other end.

It was Mrs. Shafik. She and her husband were my landlords. They were an old Egyptian couple.

The night I’d come to look at the place, I ended up having tea with them and chatting in their living room for close to an hour. I told them I wanted the apartment and they handed over the keys. No credit check, nothing. Even accepted a personal, out of state check and agreed to charge me an extra $100 a month on the rent toward the security deposit rather than making me pay the whole thing up front. No one else anywhere would have done that. Grocery stores don’t even take out of state checks. The Shafiks said I had a sweet spirit. Beautiful people. During my tenancy, they’d invite me up to their place for dinner or call me and check on me because they knew I wasn’t from the area. They’d sort of adopted me. They had a daughter my age who was in school overseas and they’d always tell me how much I reminded them of her.

“We got in just a few hours ago,” I said.

“Oh wonderful, I’m glad you made it back safely. I saw your car out front.”

“Yeah I had to park it at the airport for the week.”

“Oh, did you have to walk far?”

“We were running so late, I just put it in short term. $45 a day,” I said painfully.

“Oh my, you left too late,” she said.

It wasn’t that I’d been late, I’d just been scared. Didn’t feel like explaining that tho.

“Yeah,” I said, rounding out the small talk.

“Well, how are things?” Mrs. Shafik asked nervously.

I hadn’t talked to them directly about my fall out with BD. I’d only told them that he was moving out. My name was the only one on the lease though, so even that information hadn’t been necessary. I’d just felt the need to say something. The whole building knew 12 uniformed officers had shown up at our door a week before. One of my landlords’ sons was in the hallway when the cops arrived and it didn’t take long for several other tenants to gather. The trouble that had been was no longer a secret.

“Well, I just wanted you to know, I mean,” she stammered,” Do you know where BD is living now?”

“I have no idea, Mrs. Shafik,” I said. Nor did I care. “I imagine he’s staying in Irving with his cousins. The closest family he has outside of them is in New York.”

“Oh dear,” she said. “He didn’t tell you.”

“I told you she didn’t know,” Mr. Shafik said in a gruff voice form the background.

They always called me in tandem.

“He took a studio over in the next building. 8402,” she said finally.

My address was 8404. When I say the man had moved in right next door, I mean that literally. This really happened. Unbelievable.

“Unbelievable,” I said. I didn’t have any other words.

“Melyssa, you know we love you, and we’d hate to lose you as a tenant, but we understand if you can’t stay. Just let us know as soon as possible if you feel like you need to find another place.”

I don’t even remember how I ended the conversation. I was in such shock. The illuminated lamp on the dresser that had made me feel safe was now casting shadows. I flipped the switch and the room darkened. Not dark enough. I drew the curtains tighter to block out the moonlight. I did the same in the living room and the computer room.

The first thing I’d loved about this apartment was the huge windows, the southern exposure and the light that pours in at the first strike of day. The kind of light that makes you want to get up on a Saturday morning and clean. (Or is that just me? That’s what we used to do at my house when we were kids. Saturday mornings were for vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, laundry, cleaning our week-long neglected rooms and yard work. Saturday nights were pizza and movie nights. Good times).

Anyway, I’d learn to love the dimness of 60 watt bulbs soon enough.

Originally posted on March 18, 2008

22. He Calls the Cops, I Catch a Flight

I hid out at the hotel with Laryssa and Kya all day the next day and night. That Monday morning after dropping them off at the airport I raced to put in motion the steps we’d gone over for the last 32 hours. First, I called BD’s school and made sure he was at work, then I went back to the apartment and packed a couple of suitcases for me and the baby, picked up his stroller, made some bottles and grabbed some personal papers. Then, I hit the bank and withdrew some money for our trip and on the way to the airport, I called my job to explain why I wouldn’t be coming in that day or the rest of the week. I was vague, but it was a humbling phone call. I absolutely hate drama and respect that other people don’t necessarily have a sincere interest in mine, especially if it means you can’t come to work. But my boss was understanding and chalked it up to vacation time.

No sooner than I’d hung up with my employer was BD calling me. He’d already called the daycare and our son had not yet been dropped off.

“Where’s my son?” He demanded without greeting.

“He’s with me,” I said.

I was caught off guard. I shouldn’t have been. Of course he would be calling. He knew my sister had checked out this morning.

“Where is my son?” He demanded again.

My mind was a million places and I couldn’t even get it together enough to lie. So I didn’t.

“I’m going home,” I said. And as he immediately interjected enraged, I added “It’s only for a week. I need to get away. I can’t keep doing this with you BD.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I’ll be back in a week,” I said.

“You can’t take my son,” he said yelling again. “I’ll report you for kidnapping! You’ll be arrested.” And he hung up the phone.

I was entering the airport and hadn’t been paying attention to the signs. I missed the exit for long-term parking and headed into short-term. It would cost a mint, but I had no doubt that BD was on the phone with the police at that very moment. I had to get out of there.

Anything that could have gone wrong did. The baby awoke squealing and flailing his arms in the back seat. He was hungry. There were no parking spaces anywhere. I felt like I was driving in circles, in a maze. It was cold, the suitcases were heavy, the baby in his car seat was heavy, the stroller was odd shaped and difficult to carry and “Shyt, did I put the money in my purse? Where is my purse?” I leaned back in the care to rummage through the back seat and found my bag under the passenger seat, buzzing as my phone rang inside it. BD.

“The police are coming for you,” he screamed into the phone as soon as I picked up. “You won’t get on the plane. You are breaking the law and you can’t leave the state with my son --“

I hung up, shaken, but undeterred.

Running my hand through my purse, I found the wad of hundreds stuffed into the side pocket. I’d been on auto-pilot. I had no recollection of even putting the cash there.

Nor can I tell you how me, the baby in his car seat, the stroller, two suitcases (one on wheels, and my purse walked that half mile trek to the airport entrance.

A security car drove by as we were struggling through the parking lot and slowed just a few feet past us in front of my Camry. My heart quickened as I imagined he was matching my plates up with some Amber alert or something. And my feet moved faster below me.

I’d called the night before to check flight times and arrived with two hours to spare, but I was wishing I’d waited. Once I checked in, two hours would be plenty of time for my name and social security number to pass through the powers that be, before an officer dispatched to find a 5’4 black woman, shoulder length hair and her infant son at such-and-such gate would appear standing over me, summoning me to come with him. I was petrified with a fear that under any other circumstances would have rendered me immobile. I am convinced I was moving through a power outside of me.

The line at the ticket counter was long and winding. I waited, tapped my feet and moved slowly through it as each person before me was waited on before jetting off to their respective destinations. I didn’t even have a ticket. I did not know if there would be room on the flight. I did not know how long it would be before the next flight if there was not room. I was not unconvinced that BD would show up within an hour’s time to retrieve me himself.

I shelled out a little over $500 for a seat on that flight, fumbling with my wallet as the lady behind the counter held my ID for what I thought to be an unusually long amount of time, wrinkling her face and typing into her computer with one finger. She put the ID down and as I reached clumsily for it, she picked it up again.

“What’s the baby’s name?” She asked.

I am a horrible liar on my feet. I just can’t do it. I told her the truth.

“And his last name?” And again.

She put my ID down on the counter again and went to pecking at her keypad. I imagined there was a little red button under the counter that silently summons security, like bank tellers have in case of a robbery.

“How many bags?”

I checked my bags and stroller, grabbed the handle of my baby’s car seat and set off for security.

We were "special selected" for a more extensive search. A man pulled us out of line and took us to the side where my baby was wanded and I was patted down, both barefoot. My son had taken his father's Muslim last name and for all BD's crazy paranoia, security checks at the airport is one thing he did not lie about. We get "special selected" every flight, never fails. I've flown with my baby many times since this and when I say every time, I mean without exception.

This time though, my heart was pounding out of my chest. It was hard for me to believe I was the only one who could hear it. My palms were sweaty and the more I tried to act normal, the more I was convinced these people were gonna think I had a bomb. It seemed like hours before I was finally released to gather up my things again, put the baby's coat and shoes back on, strap him back into his seat, slide into my sneakers and take off for our gate.

I approached the gate slowly, ducking behind a large display case and scanning the seating area for anybody who might look like they were looking for me.

A lone stewardess stood at the door, right there where you give up your ticket to enter the ramp leading to the plane. I don’t know what made me approach her, but I came out from behind the display case and went right for her.

“Are you on the flight to Michigan?” she asked when I came within a few feet of her.

“Yes,” I said, out of breath. “The 2:45 flight.”

“Lemme see your ticket.”

I handed it to her.

“Dyou wanna go early? The 12:15 is leaving right now.”

Divine intervention. I wanted to cry.

And when we landed, I did. Buckets. It was so good to be home. It was so good to be safe. It was soooo good to be sane. (It is possible to say something to other people so many times that you begin to believe it yourself. It’s not a clinical definition, but I believe this is the beginning of insanity). 

I was feeling like myself again, like I had it all together. I called BD to face the inevitable and told him that I would be back in a week, as promised. But I would only return if he moved out of the apartment. I was not coming back to him. He was eerily calm. That should have been a red flag.

My family, my friends, even a lawyer tried to convince me to stay home.

“If you are going to move back (home), now is the time. File a restraining order and don’t go back to New Jersey,” the attorney had said. Free advice. He was a friend of the fam. I wasn’t hearing it. I’d snagged a dream job a few months prior writing for a music magazine and I didn’t want to give it up. And with BD gone, I just wanted to live my life, raise my son and share him with his dad like more than half the parents in this country. I’d finally given up on the whole “I must be with my child’s father at all costs” madness and now I just wanted to live. But my false confidence, just that quickly, caused me to forget the lunacy that I’d left. I was underestimating the enemy already.

I’d been on an emotional high. Being home, having my family with me, finally being able to be honest (or at least more honest with them) and leaving BD at long last made me feel stronger than I’d felt in a long time. I had no idea how quickly I’d be deflated.

Originally posted on March 17, 2008 

21. Locked In, Wanting Out

Looking back, some of the biggest arguments with BD were centered around my family. He’d always said he found my mother to be nosy, my older sister to be too protective and my younger sister too needy. I talked on the phone with the little one at least twice a day, sometimes several.

I know now though, that what really worried him was being found out. And that after finding out the person he really was, he knew my support system would swiftly whisk me away. His fear wasn’t far-fetched. My mother had read him the first day she met him and he knew it. My older sister Ayana's opinion was formed shortly after, and Laryssa, my younger sister, even before she’d seen elements of BD’s obsessive need for control with her own eyes, told my mother: 

“Something’s not right about him.” She wouldn’t share this thought with me though, until the night I’d finally leave.

That night, Laryssa had come to town with her college roommate Kya. Seniors at a state school, the two had planned to split their four-day weekend between partying in New York City and down time with me and the baby.

I was not going to have a repeat of last time’s events -- as if an out of control person can be controlled. This time, I put them up in a hotel from the first night.

On Saturday, we were going to spend the day in the city. It was a little chilly to have the baby out for that amount of time, so BD came by the hotel to pick him up. He pulled up in front. As I was strapping the little man into his car seat, he offered to drop us off at the train station.

“It’s right around the corner, why don’t I just drive you to the PATH?” He said.

Sounded good.

I slid in the backseat and called Laryssa’s cell telling them to come down and to bring my purse.

She and Kya walked out of the front entrance a few minutes later when I noticed Kya approaching the car with a bottle in her hand. She stopped and placed it on the curb before getting in the back seat. I shot her a silent look of alarm and she shrugged her shoulders as if to say she didn’t know what I was talking about. I just hoped BD didn’t see it. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize it as beer anyway. It’s not like he’s ever around the stuff. I knew the green bottle was a Rolling Rock as soon as I saw it but it could have been a soda or an energy drink - right?

We pulled up at the train station. Everybody thanked BD for the ride. I kissed the baby and we got out.

“We’ll probably be out until evening I said. Maybe 8ish,” I told BD through the window before taking off.

We spent the day browsing through knock-off bags, looking up like tourists as we walked down the bustling streets (New Yorkers never look up), and taking impromptu prison pose pictures in front of anything even loosely deemed to be a marker of our local. The Empire State Building, a street sign, anything.

We were tired and hungry when we finally got back to the hotel. It was Saturday night, so this would really be our last time together. Sunday night I’d put the baby to bed on time and turn in myself, getting ready for work Monday morning. The girls also flew out Monday morning, so this was it. Larissa had asked me earlier to stay the night and I told her I would. We’d order pizza and watch cable and play with the baby in the room all night.

I called BD and asked him to pick me up from the hotel. I wanted to get an overnight bag for the baby and to stay the night at the hotel. He flat out refused and I knew why.

“I don’t want my son around evil spirits,” he said.

Oh my God.

“BD, are you serious? She had one beer, way earlier this afternoon. Nobody’s drinking over here. Nobody’s drunk over here, there’s not even any alcohol in the room,” I said.

“What kind of person drinks beer in the middle of the afternoon anyway? I don’t want my son around people like that,” he said.

“It’s Saturday, first of all, they’re on vacation and they’re college kids. So what? I’m here. I’m not gonna let anything happen to our baby.”

“It doesn’t matter if no one is drinking right now or how long ago it was. It’s a spiritual thing. It’s about the evil spirits that alcohol brings. I don’t want my son in that environment.”

For close to an hour on the phone while holed up in the second bedroom of their suite, I tried to argue logic against insanity - an insane prospect in itself.

I did not want my sister or her friend to hear the ridiculousness of the issue at hand.

When I finally came out of the room, off the phone, they could read it on my face. Not to mention the walls were thin.

“Melyssa, is it all my fault? I’m so sorry. I knew I should’ve left that beer in the room,” Kya began.

“Whatever,” Laryssa interjected insolently. “You are a grown woman and if you wanna have a fucking beer on the sidewalk it ought not be his concern. Ugh!”

She looked at me now.

“What’re you gonna do?”

What was I gonna do?

Laryssa and I had been so close. She was so disappointed with me, not when I announced my pregnancy at Thanksgiving, but when I told the family BD and I were moving in together and trying to make a go of things.

She told me then it was a stupid idea destined for failure. She was angry with me because I tried to feed her the same spiel I’d given my mother about being in love and getting married and yadda yadda. It was bullshit and she knew it from the first time I said it. She was insulted because I’d lied to her.

Telling my mother what I think I need to tell her is one thing, but Laryssa and I, though a few years apart were pretty much peers. What she hadn’t understood is that I had to lie to her. I was lying to myself. She’d stopped speaking to me for a while after that. We never really had a falling out over it, she just stopped calling. So it was a big deal to me that she reached out and wanted to come visit. And I wanted us to have some more time together. I wanted her to bond with her nephew and I wanted us to wake up together. It was just one night.

“I’m gonna go get him,” I said.

“How’re you gonna do that,” Laryssa questioned expressionless. I told you, she knows bullshyt.

“I’m just gonna go get him. I’ll be back.”

I got in a cab outside the hotel room and rode the short 20 blocks up the street to the apartment. It was literally right up the street. Straight shot. I could not understand what BD’s problem was. I also did not understand what I was about to get myself into.

My stomach was in knots. I was nervous and I was worried and I was having second thoughts about going up against BD tonight. As the cab pulled up across the street, I called my mother.

“Hey, Ma,” I said. Before she could even answer I just spewed out everything. I never complained to my mother about my relationship with BD. I knew how she felt about him and I didn’t want to feed it. I had not been ready to leave and I did not want to hear it. So I quickly brought her up to speed in one breathless sentence ending in --

“I’m right outside in a cab/ I’m about to go up now/ There’s no way he’s gonna let me just take the baby/ I don’t know what’s gonna happen/ I don’t know what I’m walking into/ I just want you to know.”

My mother was a master organizer. She could put a group together, draw up a plan, delegate duties and have that shyt executed in under five. She spoke competently and quickly.

“Melyssa, that is your child. You bore that child. You go get your son. Be careful and be brief. I’ll call you in 15 minutes. Answer the phone. If you don’t answer the phone, I’ll call you again. I don’t care what happens, you answer your phone or I’m calling the police.”

She said a short prayer for my protection. I paid the driver and got out of the car.

When I got to the door my key wouldn’t work. BD had put the bolt on. I knocked.

He answered the door in the dark, cradling our sleeping baby still outfitted in his snow suit. They’d just gotten in a few minutes ago. I had no idea how this was gonna work.

We began in the living room, sitting on the sofa talking about our different positions. I’d taken off my jacket and put my bag down.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I said. “Why don’t you call Allen and ask him? Call your mother, call somebody reasonable and get a second opinion.”

BD has this unchangeable tunnel vision. When he locks onto something it’s as if he is unable to change his mind. He cannot be enlightened. Sometimes, when he’d get like this, we’d call up his mother and she could talk some sense into him. Or his normal friend Allen who I respected, or his cousin. This time, BD said no.

The argument escalated and we, for some reason, moved into the bedroom. I don’t remember why.

The baby was lying on the bed now, still in his snow suit. At some point, I picked him up and made a quick reach for my car keys sitting on the shelf in BD’s open closet.

He quickly cut me off with his arm, but I was able to snatch the keys before he knocked me backwards, back onto the bed. I immediately got up and moved toward the bedroom door that BD positioned himself in front of.

I laid the baby, still asleep thank God, back on the bed and took position at the door. I was so tired of being controlled.

My phone began ringing off the hook from the living room as we struggled at the door. My mother’s ringer, then my sister’s ringer, then my mother’s again.

I kneed him, I scratched him, I bit him, I clawed at his eyes, but for a skinny dude -- about 180 soaking wet -- BD was pretty strong. He held his stance and I could not wrestle him away from the door. Then his phone began ringing now, over and over again. It was my family calling him. Who knows what they were thinking was going on. They were scared. I was scared. But I was also determined.

I fought hard. I exhausted myself. I knocked over a nightstand, a glider, broke a lamp ... he knocked me down each time and I came back each time. He’d never seen this from me and it had been a long time since I had. He wrapped one hand around my throat and pulled his fist back with the other and I flinched instinctively, cowering with my hands covering my face. A twisted smile spread across his and he said, “See, you’re not that tough,” before releasing me.

I picked the baby up off the bed and went for the door again. He wrapped his arms around the baby’s waist and tried to take him from me, squeezing. He woke up wrinkling his face and I let go.

BD took him, cradled him, whispered to him, comforted him and rocked him as he walked away from the bedroom door, freeing me.

“You can do what you want, but you won’t take my son,” he said.

I rushed out of the bedroom, grabbed my phone and began calling the police. BD did the same on his phone and he got the 911 operator first. He told the 911 operator I was trying to kidnap our son. This would not be his last allegation of kidnapping.

Simultaneously, both standing in the living room, I was reporting domestic abuse. I was not leaving my son.

Seconds later, in a blur of red and blue lights, 12 officers arrived at the door. I told them I just wanted to go. I didn’t want to press charges. I didn’t want anyone arrested, I just wanted the opportunity to gather my things and get out of the house with my son.

BD protested, telling the group of officers that he was this child’s father and “Don’t I have any rights!?”

“Take it up with family court,” one cop told him. “If I have to make the decision tonight, I’m letting the child go with the mother.”

“Why? How can you just make that judgment?”

“Look we got about four calls to us tonight (me, BD, my mother and my sister) we’re here now, and it’s my job to settle the situation. That’s my decision. A judge might tell you different, but tonight, I feel the child will be best served with his mother.”

It was pouring outside. I picked Laryssa up about 10 blocks away from the apartment. She’d put on her boots and her coat and started hiking to me in the downpour with her roommate in tow. I was so glad she hadn’t made it. My sister is kinda gangster. They got in the car soaking wet and we went back to the hotel.

I would never share a roof with BD another day in my life. But it was not the end. Actually, our fight was only just beginning.

 Originally posted on March 14, 2008

 

20. Hiding the Truth

I stopped by the mirror in the bathroom on the way out to let Shay and Mike up. Not so bad. It wasn’t that obvious, I thought after a quick scan for damage. It was dark in our apartment, though. All the lights were out. I stepped out into the hallway and my eyes took a couple of seconds to adjust. I practiced covering my mouth with my hand as I walked down the stairs, in a yawn. No that would only draw attention. I got downstairs and walked to the door as naturally as I could without looking head on, positioning myself so that my profile would hide the busted lip on the left side of my face.

I could see Shay and Mike standing at the glass doors. I opened them and before they even stepped in, I saw the look on Shay’s face. Mike’s mouth dropped.

“What happened?”She said.

“We got into it,”I admitted, adding nervously, “he didn’t hit me.”

“He didn’t hit you?” My sister looked at me incredulously. “You sure about that?”She fingered the swell on my lip.

“Shay,” I locked eyes with her convincingly, “You think I’m bout to let a man hit on me?” The irony.

“I tried to push him and hit one of those big closets up there,” I continued. There had been pushing and shoving.

“It’s over now, everybody’s calmed down, but ... I hate to ask this, it’s just ... been so crazy with us lately.” I stammered nervously.

“What?” Shay hurried me along.

“Can you guys stay at a hotel tonight? I’m so sorry to even ask. I just really think it’ll be more comfortable for everybody.”

“Yeah, if you come with us,” Shay retorted.

“No, I can’t do that,” I began.

“It wouldn’t be any trouble. Bring the baby,” Mike added.

“No, that would just make things worse. I need to stay here tonight,” I said. “He’d never let me take the baby with me, anyway. Not now.”

“I don’t feel good about this, Mel. I know he’s not gonna try shyt with Mike here. Just let us stay tonight and we’ll get you out of here in the morning when he goes to work,” Shay said.

All of the sudden we were hatching plans of escape. The hallway was bare with a high ceiling. It resounded in unforgiving echoes.

“Shay, really, it’s not that bad. It was an accident and it’s over now. We gotta get out of this hallway, my neighbors can hear everything.”

I’d left the door to the apartment cracked. We walked in and I did not turn the lights on. I stood in the living room with Mike as Shay went to the bedroom to gather her things.

She later told me she and BD had this exchange:

“Hey, BD. Can I turn the light on?” she’d asked entering the bedroom. The door had not been closed.

BD was rocking the baby in the glider, facing the open doorway leading to the living room.

“I’d rather you not,” he said flatly.

“Well it’s dark and I can’t really see,” Shay said reaching for the switch. The room brightened.

She took a few minutes getting her things together quickly from my closet on the wall right next to BD. And with her bag in hand looked at him and said, “Well good night. We’re going to a hotel.”

He hadn’t said a word, short of asking her not to turn the lights on. 
---

Shay rushed out into the living room with a twisted face.

“He is weird,” she mouthed exaggeratedly in a whisper. What is wrong with him? Why is he acting like that?”

The front door was already open. I put my hand on her back and softly pushed her over the threshold. Mike went after.

“Mel,” she said one last time. She was asking me again to go with them.

“It’s okay,” I said, this time forcing a half smile that I’d hoped would make her comfortable enough to just go.

That night, I lay in bed with the baby spread eagle lying asleep in between me and BD. We'd taken to sleeping like this. The baby between us kept me from having to brush up against him at night and it kept him from brushing up against me. The thought of him touching me made me cringe. We hadn't been romantic since near the time I found out I was pregnant and the baby was almost eight months old now. That's a long time. His advances had become less frequent but I was no less disgusted at the thought.

Sometimes, I'd sleep on the futon in the living room just to get away. He forbade me from taking the baby with me, though. I don't think he was really scared I'd actually tiptoe off in the night. I think he just wanted to make his position very clear about the difference between my leaving and my leaving with my son. Though one may have been inevitable, the other was an impossibility.

That night though, as I lay awake thinking about how quickly this weekend had deteriorated, I still hadn't made up my mind to go. The inevitable, though, was fast approaching. 

For all my attempts to rush Mike and Shay upstairs into the darkness, I had no idea how thankful I’d be for those couple of minutes when not one, but two people had seen me, disheveled and bruised just moments after one of BD’s black-outs. That night, under the harsh florescent light in our building’s foyer would be the only evidence, ever, to back the claims I’d later officially make of emotional and physical abuse. I wouldn’t know the importance of that day until almost a year later.

As it appeared that things were falling apart, they were really lining up into place.

 Originally posted March 13, 2008