Penduline Press

Sylvo and Jordan’s parents would explain that they didn’t so much believe in the Rapture as they believed in rapture. Believed in believing in it. This was why, after the apocalypse failed to present as promised, their parents were much less sheepish than their neighbor—Mrs. Jayl, who drove the boys to Lincoln Elementary—had expected, had perhaps been hoping for.

His phone rings half a ring. Maybe. As if he’s expecting a call. In good cheer, “Hi there!” God forbid he’d say hello like everyone else.

“What the hell, you sitting there waiting for me to call or something?” God forbid I’d respond with “Hey” like everyone else.

He laughs, “Hey, Twig.”

Sarte wrote, “Hell is other people.” Did he have children, John wonders as he stands over his grave. Sartre is laid to rest next to his partner, Simone de Beauvoir, and John thinks matching graves might be the next time he has some peace with his wife.

I have suicidal and psychotic patients waiting to be assessed, but not budging from my chair for as long as possible is more important to me than comforting someone else right now.  I am going to sit my ass in this chair for as much as I can during the next 6 hours of my shift.  It is clear, without being spoken, that whoever sits in their chair the longest is the Winner of The Game.

I want to grow up, be a woman. Run around the East Village wearing slip dresses, witch shoes and too much mascara. I’m thirteen, my freckled face incapable of pulling off make-up, but my D-cup breasts get a lot of attention. Curfews, pleated uniform skirts and braces imprison me.

Even though the local cops were off my ass, I still had to worry about the feds. The feds always went after the big guys. So I did my best to blend into my neighborhood.

Talk to the neighbors when I saw them. It’s a fine line; if I talk to them too much I have people stopping over all the time.

Never leave my garage door open. That’s an open invitation to neighbors.

Have a job, anything normal, to look productive and busy. Delivering pizzas was all I knew.

Right now these fictionalized memoirs are important to me, because I am finally seeing and processing what I was facing as a young teen and how unprepared I was for it all. My daughters are reaching this stage and I can see that they are not bathed in violence and they are much more confident and mature than I was at their age. Writing through these experiences has given me so much optimism—that positive change does happen, and the chain of family violence can be unhinged, broken, laid to rest.