Behind the Bricks

By Karen J. Gatling

Behind the Bricks is a book written from the core of my heart. It is a book that portrays the physical, verbal and mental abuse I suffered through out my childhood at the hand of my mother. She ultimately blamed me for my father leaving her when she became pregnant. In this book I reveal ways in which I kept my focus as well as my sanity, through the gift of laughter. God sustained and preserved me while I endured pain and rejection. Behind the Bricks is a book that is intended to encourage, mend and heal those who have had like experiences to know that God can really restore, build and promote them to positively impact the lives of others through His genuine love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 23, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452035680

Karen J. Gatling

Karen Wicks Gatling is a native of Atlantic City, New Jersey, who now resides in Towson, Maryland.  She is a retired Baltimore City Public School Educator of thirty-four years.    Karen has been happily married to her college sweetheart Eley for thirty-seven years. This union has been blessed with four children and two lovely granddaughters.  When Karen isn't writing she enjoys reading, playing chess, traveling and fellowshipping with family and friends.  It is Karen's desire to motivate individuals to never give up on themselves or God.    Karen's illustrator Parris Bowens is a native of Philadelphia, Pa. He is an international musician, composer and artist. Parris resides in Towson, Md. with his wife Dionne and one year old son Matthew, who we affectionately call Matt Matt.  

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© 2009 Karen J. Gatling. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 7/9/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4389-2085-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-3568-0 (e)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Cover illustration by Parris Bowens.

Contents

1 Why Am I in This Family?

2 The Nightmare

3 The Ugly Truth

4 A Strong Position Changed My Condition

5 Stealing from Mr. Bill

6 The Double Betrayal

7 Mr. Jeff

8 Persecution Personified

9 Return of the Chameleon

10 Crazy Pompeii

11 The Agony of Victory

12 The Well Planned Plot

13 Behind the Bricks

14 The Ultimate Decision

15 I’m, Having a Senior Moment

16 Lady Montague

17 From Jiggs To Rags

18 Your Best Days Are Ahead

Dedications

1

Why Am I in This Family?

Help! Help! Help! Heeeellllpppp! Aw! Aw! Aw! Nooooooo. Nooooo. Nooooooooo! Ouch, Ouch, Ouch! You all back up. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Scutty loosen up the rein! Wait Mook! Slow down! Slow it down man! No! No! No! Don’t do that Ray! Hold! Hold! Hold up! Hey Moe! Man are you blind? Move to the right Pick! Moose, whatcha doin’ MAN? Dang! Pull it! Pull it! Let her rip Scootchy! Move back Shrimp! I’ll be dang if you all ain’t some sissified winches. Oh snaps he’s loose, better step man! OOOOW! OOOOW! Oh! Oh! OOOOW! Run man run! Roof, Roof, Roof. Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arrrrrffff! Arrrrrffff! Arrff! Woof, woof!

Abruptly awakened from a pleasant dream, I struggled to open my bedroom window above our backyard. All of this commotion was caused by eight grown men and one eleven year old boy. The night before, we had survived a severe thunderstorm, during which our dog was injured by a small metal chain. Somehow it had become embedded in his paw. Although we made many attempts to bring Ting into the house before the storm. He refused to leave his doghouse. All of our attempts were futile. Ting, very stubbornly would not budge. We had no other choice but to leave him out there. Obviously, the thunder and lightening must have frightened him. That’s probably when he ran from his house and was injured. Instead of taking Ting to the vet, this heroic crew of nitwits convinced my perfectly sane grandfather to allow them to pull the chain out!

The leader of this motley crew was a man of whom I only knew by nickname, ‘Swag’. Just watching this mob of madness, create dust storms, back and forth across our backyard, was not an amusing sight. The screaming, whooping, hollering, shrieking, yelling and wrongful accusations imposed by the leader caused me to suffer a migraine. Finally, someone who was running in the opposite direction accidentally stepped on the chain, freeing it from Ting’s paw. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, now that’s right! We did it! We did it! Yeah! Yeah! You all some ok sissies though. Yeah! Yeah! Not you Mr. West, but this crew here man, I don’t know. Shaking his head from side to side, with a wide grin, Swag began interlocking hands with and embracing his rag tag band of friends. My grandfather rewarded them with some of his mouthwatering barbequed chicken, ribs and cold beer. The young boy pouted as my granddad handed him a soda. The men laughed him to shame. Then for at least an hour between bites, gulps, chews, burps, and I’m sure other ways of gas expulsion; they each told their share of lies about the important role they had played in rescuing our dog. Ting in protest began barking. I’m sure he was cursing them out in bark code. Now, I remembered why I had shut my bedroom window on such a hot, steamy 3rd of July day; TO TUNE OUT NEGATIVITY! As I rose to my feet, to turn my fan higher I thought, Why am I in this family?

2

The Nightmare

Once all the noise in the backyard died down I fell back to sleep. This time the beautiful dream of my having been wealthy and slowly descending a marble staircase, into the outstretched arms of my handsome husband, did not return. I drifted off and found myself in our old apartment in Atlantic City. I was in the living room playing with my doll baby. My grandfather was at work. My grandmother had gone out to pay some bills. Momma called out from her bedroom asking my whereabouts. I told her where I was and what I was doing. She came into the living room reeling from side to side. It was obvious that she had been drinking. Hand me the telephone, she demanded! I quickly complied. Momma called my paternal grandmother. She began to question her as to my father’s whereabouts.

I loved my grandmother. Grandma Mary and I had special tea parties together with my doll baby, Anna. Each time I visited her she would let me put on her pearls and small red velvet hat. Sometimes she would drape her fox fur around my shoulders. I never liked looking at the fox’s beady eyes though. Grandma would call me Lady Ciara and I would call her Lady Grandma. Her best friend Ms. Jenny had tea with us a few times. It was delightful. We spoke like the Queen of England, as we drank from our dainty teacups.

Momma began cursing at Grandma Mary. Hearing my precious grandmother being called bad names hurt me. My mouth and eyes were wide open. I began to cry. Momma screamed at me to shut up and I did immediately. Listening intently for a while my mother blew her breath real hard. She pulled the phone away from her ear for a few seconds. I could hear my grandmother speaking rapidly but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Momma placed the phone back to her ear. This time she took a really long breath. All of a sudden she seemed to have snapped. She called my grandmother every curse word, curse combination and curse phrase she could think of. Momma was shaking violently and screaming hysterically. She slammed down the phone extremely hard. I hid behind the sofa with my doll baby until my grandmother came home.

When Grandma Dya returned home, momma told her that Grandma Mary had called our house and cursed her out. My grandmother said, She did what? I have never known her to even utter a curse word. I wonder why she would do something like that, out of the clear blue? As my grandmother stood there totally dumbfounded, momma screamed, Are you calling me a liar? If you don’t believe me just ask Cici she’ll tell you the truth. By this time Anna and I had come out of hiding. Turning to me momma said, Didn’t Mary call here? I said, No momma you called grandma and cursed her out. There was a beautiful, oversized, coral conch shell sitting on the living room table. Hearing my words my mother grabbed it and announced that she was going to kill me with it. Subduing her hand, my grandmother ordered me out of the apartment. I knew the drill. That meant go sit at the top of our stairway. I had rehearsed this act many times before. The noise inside the apartment was unbearable. My most paralyzing fear was who would open the door. If my grandmother opened the door, then I would be safe. If momma opened the door there was a chance that I might die. I verbalized my thought by saying, But I don’t want to die! A short time later the door opened.

My body began whirling counterclockwise, then clockwise, whirling, whirling, whirling. I was whirling out of control. Suddenly, I was back in the same apartment. This time I was older. I was five. It was at nighttime. My grandparents had decided to go to the movies. They never went out much. I was glad they were going out to have fun. They promised to bring home some popcorn and cracker jacks. I kissed them on the nose and gave them a doodle blooper (a wind filled- kiss) on the cheek. Momma was reading a love novel in a corner chair of our bedroom. I hopped into bed and fell fast asleep. Sometime later a loud knock came on the door waking me up. I stayed under the covers wondering who it was. One of my grandmother’s best friends named Ms. Henrietta stood at the door. I loved her so much. She wore lots of, Love Waltz perfume and powder. When she spoke she had a deep southern accent. I loved her husband Mr. Arthur too. They were both short and looked cute together. The two of them loved children but were unable to have them. Often they would bring me toys and goodies. That night Ms. Henrietta had stopped by because she wanted to talk to my grandmother. Earlier that day, she had received a letter from an attorney about an inheritance, but the legal jargon was beyond her understanding. My mother invited her in. Momma tried to pry into Ms. Henrietta’s business by pretending to want to help her. However, she told momma that she would rather discuss it with my grandmother. As Ms. Henrietta was about to leave she said that she wished I was awake. Momma announced to her, No problem, with that she slapped me on the behind as hard as she could. I sat up quickly trying to mask the pain. Ms. Henrietta held out her arms and I jumped into them kissing and hugging her. She placed a dollar in my hand. I said, Thank you Ms. Henrietta. I sprang from her arms, scaled the rungs of my dresser, placed the money into my piggy bank and sat on the bed happily, swinging my feet. She said, Oh, I wish I had a beautiful little girl like you. My mother said, You can! Take her with you! I don’t WANT her! Ms. Henrietta looking a little nervous said, Oh, I know you don’t want to part with this sweet little baby. Momma said, I really mean it! Take this little WHORE and GO! I HATE her and my life would be better off without her! Momma yanked me from the bed, bruising my upper arm. She violently pulled out the bottom dresser drawer, snatched open my small suitcase from the closet and ordered me to pack. Ms. Henrietta and I protested vehemently. However, our pleas of desperation fell on deaf ears. Momma pushed me in the back with her fist and made me pack. As I picked up the second piece of clothing, momma jumped down onto the floor and screamed curse words at me. She told me I was trying to leave her just like my father had. Then she took her fist and punched me in my right eye. The impact lifted me off the floor. The pain was horrible. I saw multicolored stars. Ms. Henrietta began to scream while pulling my mother off me. By this time momma had begun to punch and slap me. I was rolling around on the floor in severe pain. Something strange began to happen to me. It was there on that cold floor that I began to experience my first asthma attack. It was very difficult to breathe. Faintly, I could hear my grandparents running up our apartment steps. As they came through the door I felt myself blacking out.

Suddenly, once again I began whirling, whirling, whirling out of control. This time I was six. I was sitting in my first grade reading group. We were, The Eagles. I was an excellent reader. Mrs. Carlson my teacher was upset because my grandfather had taught me how to read before I entered school. I read everything extremely fast. I paid absolutely no attention to punctuation marks at all! This made her angry. Mrs. Carlson was a large lady with the most beautiful long, silky, black hair and her skin was a flawless, dark, chocolate color. She was not friendly, sweet, or loving like our kindergarten teacher Ms. Myles. All of the children were afraid of Mrs. Carlson. She hollered at everyone all the time. It was now my turn to read. I began reading rapidly. Almost immediately my teacher began to shriek, WHY DON’T YOU STOP AT THE PUNCTUATION MARKS LITTLE GIRL? She raised her big foot which looked like it was going to crush me. I screamed and dropped my book. I ran to the classroom door. The period from the last sentence that I had just read, arose from the page and began to roll after me. With each rotation it grew larger and larger. I ran from my classroom down the long hall. As I looked back the period had reached the ceiling, it had filled the entire hall. I kept on running, but it kept getting closer and closer. Finally, I reached the big double doors at the end of the hallway. Running and screaming, I pushed them open with all my might. I woke up screaming only to find, that I was back in Pleasantville in my own bed. I was relieved when I realized that it was only a dream! However, my screams caused my grandmother to respond. I assured her that I was alright. Cocking her head to one side and closing one eye (as she often did) she said, Come on gal. You’ve got too much idle time on your hands. I knew that statement meant I would be helping her with the finishing touches, for our 4th of July family reunion.

3

The Ugly Truth

The day I had anticipated was finally here, the 4th of July. We were hosting our family reunion. My aunts, uncles, and favorite of all my cousins were coming. I wondered if they would recognize me. It had been almost three years since I had last seen them.