Invisible

Have you ever felt invisible? Like no one ever sees you?

 

 

       

      “Where did everyone go?”

 

     I walked into my fourth-grade class at school only to find a bunch of empty chairs. My teacher had changed rooms, and I didn’t know anything about the switch. Standing in the middle of that quiet room, I felt abandoned and invisible. The teacher probably sent a note home, but I wasn’t in class that day to pick one up. All of us kids missed a lot of school. Either we didn’t have anything for lunch, or we didn’t have any shoes to wear, or occasionally we were sick. Sometimes Mama needed help with the other kids, or maybe she just wanted someone to stay home with her. I could count on one hand the full weeks of school I attended, without missing at least one day. But I always had a written excuse from Mama, so what could the Principal do?

 

     One of my teachers told me, “You’re smart, you could be a straight-A student, if you’d just come to school all the time.”

 

     But I never had the chance to find out if she was right.

 

     I didn’t feel too good one day at school, so I told the teacher I was sick and needed to go home. She sent me down to the Principal’s office with a note, and the Principal took me home.

 

     “Just drop me off at the bottom of the hill,” I told him, “the bus driver lets me off there, and I walk the rest of the way.”

 

     “Well,” he said, “you won’t have to walk today, not in this cold weather.”

 

     I was so embarrassed when he insisted on taking me all the way home. I didn’t want him to see where I really lived. I wished our house had been invisible.

 

     But Mama was glad when I came home early, and we had fun together. We watched “Queen For A Day.” The host, Jack Bailey, would come on and shout.

 

     “Do YOU want to be Queen For A Day?”

 

     Then four women, each with a sob story, would tell why they believed they should be crowned “Queen”.

 

     They awarded prizes like a washer and dryer. I knew that if Mama got on that show, she’d win. Then she wouldn’t have to wash in that old wringer washer and hang the clothes outside to dry, even in cold weather. All the clothes were stiff as a board when she brought them in.

 

     Ronnie looked frozen stiff when he came in from school. Mama brushed the snow off and tried to warm him up with a cup of hot cocoa. We had supper and played games until bedtime. Our only heat was a stove in the middle of the room, and we were cold. Mama set up the ironing board and ironed the sheets. She told us to get in bed, then, one at a time, she ran really fast and wrapped one of the heated sheets around each of us, then piled blankets on top. Being cozy and warm put us all to sleep until Daddy came home.

 

     No matter how hard we slept, our dreams would be interrupted by headlights shining in the bedroom window or the sound of his keys, and that put all of us into fear mode. Daddy would stumble in the door and bark his orders at Mama.

   

 “Hey, woman, get out of that bed and cook me a steak,” I remember, when she was so tired she refused to get out of bed. Daddy took the T-Bone into the bedroom and kept slapping her across the face with the steak until she got up.

 

     Before long, the smell of his nightly T-bone, or porterhouse, wafted through the rooms. If fighting started, things would escalate rapidly. Daddy would take his frustration out on Mama with his fists. Mama used her mouth. I remember lying in bed, shaking, and praying the same prayer.

 

     “Please, Jesus, make Mama shut up!”

 

     That’s the trouble with Mama, she was too much in Daddy’s face, visible. Nothing ever excused him from beating her, but she always egged him on.

 

     “Does that make you feel like a man?” she’d yell, “Well, go ahead then, hit me again.”

 

     And Daddy always obliged.

 

     “Okay, you hit me on this side,” she’d say, “now why not try for the other side?”

 

     And BAM, he’d hit her again. I was afraid he was going to break her neck. I never knew what would happen. Would Daddy take a break and be still long enough to pass out? Would I hear Daddy snoring and Mama going back to bed? Or would Mama come after me for a sneak away under the stars? I knew I was on the way out if I heard the word “illegitimate.”

 

     I used to wish that I could teach Trixie to attack, then when Daddy started beating on Mama, Trixie could protect her. But that never happened. Mama sent me over to borrow something from one of the neighbors. I was carrying Trixie in my arms. Their daughter, who was a little older than I, answered the door. She said something to me, and I thought she was being a smart aleck. Trixie must have thought the same thing because she growled at the girl, then leaned over and bit her right on the mouth. The girl touched her bloody lip, then started screaming and ran for her Mom. After she told her Mom what happened, I had to give up my beloved dog. Daddy took my little puppy away, and I never saw her again.

 

     But everything turned quiet that night. I heard Daddy snoring, and Mama went back to bed. Everything was okay for the rest of the night. I dreamed about all the fun I hoped to have the next day.

 

     The school was taking us on a field trip to the Shrine Circus. My class boarded the bus, and away we went. I was so excited and looking forward to the trip, since Daddy had never taken our family to the circus. Cotton Candy was something I’d only heard about, from my friend Darcy, but it sounded good.

 

    The circus rented the IMA, a huge arena. When our bus pulled in, we saw that the place was packed with cars. My class followed the teacher, and suddenly we were in a different world. Everything about the circus was spectacular, from the round stadium to the rows and rows of seats all around the inside. Our teacher led us to seats way up high in the bleachers. The entire place was busy, loud, and colorful. There were funny-looking clowns with big red noses, painted faces, and clothes that were much too big for them. Most people laughed at the clowns, a few kids cried because they were scared, but not me; I had fun. We watched the elephants, wearing their rhinestone collars, parade around the ring. There were pretty ladies riding horses that were all decked out in fancy outfits. There were lion tamers, tigers, and jugglers. My favorite thing was the people on the flying trapeze, even though they made me hold my breath a lot because I was afraid they would fall and miss the net.

 

     People all around me were buying hot dogs and pop, but I didn’t have any money. When a man walked by holding up fluffy clouds of pink and blue heaven on a stick, I almost drooled. The man so enticed me, and no one noticed, not even my teacher, when I followed him. I kept walking behind the man and watching the kids as their mouths turned pink and blue from the cotton candy. Suddenly, I looked around, and I didn’t know where I was. I tried to find my class, but there were too many people. The circus was over, and the place began to clear out. My class had left without me. I felt so scared and alone, wondering why no one even noticed that I had disappeared. But, then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised; I always felt like no one ever really saw me anyway.

 

     After standing at the circus for far too long, I gathered up enough courage to walk over to a friendly-looking lady. I told her I was lost. She called the police, and they took me home. My teacher never missed me or even called to see if I got home safely. And, worst of all, I never even got to find out if cotton candy was as good as it looked.

 

     But, back at home, Mama had some freshly baked banana bread. Snacking on a piece of her bread with margarine was delicious.

 

     Daddy never seemed to lack for food or drink. He lived on steak and booze. Daddy and Grandpa had been building a new house for us, but before they finished, Daddy decided we should move in anyway. There was a coal furnace in the basement that would keep us warm. We just had to keep the box filled with coal, which always turned us black when we messed with the old thing.

 

     To cover the hole that led to the unfinished upstairs, Daddy laid a 4-by-8 sheet of plywood across the opening. Whenever he went up there, he had to slide the heavy sheet of plywood back, crawl up there, then slide the board back. He forbade any of us from going up there. Whenever he wasn’t at the bar, he came home and spent his time upstairs. He had a room up there where he kept all his Ham Radio equipment. He never talked to any of us kids, but he could wile away the hours, closed off, upstairs, where he talked to anyone he could reach. We knew his call letters by heart.

 

     “This is KN8 CWM, Charley, William, Mary. Come in, come in, come in.”

 

     We listened for hours, fearing he would slide the heavy board back and come downstairs.

 

     One day, while Daddy was gone, Ronnie, a stubborn one, decided to snoop around upstairs. He struggled to slide the plywood back to expose the hole.

 

     “Ronnie,” I yelled, “you better not do that. Daddy could come home at any minute and catch you snooping around in his stuff.”

 

     But he continued and climbed through the hole.

 

     “Hey, Mama,” he yelled, “come and see what I found in Daddy’s desk.”

 

     Mama went in and found cheese, crackers, packages of Beef Jerky, cans of sardines, and many other dried treats.

 

     “Well, that rotten drunk!” she said, “Come on, kids, let’s have a party.”

 

     And we did. Mama loaded up all the treats and took them down to the kitchen. She poured us each a glass of Kool-Aid. We tore open all the wrappers and had a ball eating. Except Mama was the only one who liked the sardines.

 

     “Won’t Daddy be mad when he finds out?” I asked.

 

     “Well, the nerve of him,” she said, “hiding food while we’re starving. He better not say one word.”

 

     And he didn’t. But I always wondered what he thought the next time he pulled out his drawer, looking for his secret stash, only to find not even a wrapper left.

 

     Now, many years later, after I asked the Lord to forgive me and come into my heart, I don’t feel invisible any longer. I know, where God says in Isaiah 62:4, “My delight is in her.” And also from Genesis 16:13, where Hagar says–

 

   “You are the God who sees me.”

 

     You can read more about this in my book, “Daddy Never Called Me Princess.”

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