Trying To Walk In Beauty

The monsters under my couch came in the forms of my drunk uncles and my drunk cousins. I say couch here because I didn’t have a bed of my own. I had a couch instead that I slept on when I was home. Anyway, under the influence of alcohol, my uncles and my cousins became violent and confrontational, saying and doing things they normally wouldn’t if they weren’t drinking. Scary violent! Early on, they taught me how and what I didn’t want to become. And I’ve seen the worst of the worst. I’ve seen cousins, uncles, and in-laws get into fights and chasing each other around with hammers and axes. I cannot unsee the things I’ve seen. I cannot unhear the things I’ve heard no matter how much I wanted to and tried to. I can’t unfeel the feeling of being terrified, scared out of my wits, and always hoping that I was anywhere else but there, a safe place.

There was something I took pride in though, the fact that we could get away from them in a moment’s notice. All it took was the smell of alcohol or slurred words and my mom, my sisters, my cousins and I were out the door. We’d vanish into the woods near our home, most times without proper shoes and clothing and at times, no shoes, which meant the older ones had to carry those without shoes. No one could blend into the woods faster than my mother, my sisters, my cousins and myself. We would end up staying and camping out near our hogan if it wasn’t too cold. If it was, we would end up at another relative’s house down the road.

The thought of calling the cops or them coming to our rescue us was so far-fetched and that thought never crossed our minds. We had no electricity and a phone line up where we lived was completely unheard of.