Breathe: Madness Revisited

By S. N. Bynoe

She was playful and always got into trouble, but she was not a liar. When she told her mother that she was about to be raped, she was telling the truth. But instead of being comforted and defended, she was slapped and called a whore by her mother. Breathe: Madness Revisited is that raw and poignant look at the chilling terror Bynoe experienced in an abusive home. Divided into four parts, this moving account portrays the silent screams and dry tears she had to deal with during her youth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456899738

S. N. Bynoe

S.N. Bynoe was born in 1985 in Brooklyn, New York. Her troubled childhood had resulted in her living throughout the five boroughs, and never truly savoring in a stable environment. It is through her experiences that she was able to find her passion for the performing arts, and literature. Today, S.N. lives in Tacoma Washington with her husband and three sons. She is pursuing a Bachelor´s Degree in Video Production, in hopes of becoming a director. In addition, she continues to write poems, short stories, screenplays, articles and books to be released in the future.

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 by S. N. Bynoe.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2011905300

ISBN: Hardcover    978-1-4568-9972-1

ISBN: Softcover      978-1-4568-9971-4

ISBN: Ebook           978-1-4568-9973-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

-Acknowledgments-

-About The Author-

-Writer’s Notes-

PART 1:

THE WIRE (AGES FOUR TO ELEVEN)

Chapter 1:-My Earliest Memories

Chapter 2:-Harry’s Hankering

Chapter 3:-A Hell Of A Time

PART 2:

THE GREAT REBELLION (AGES ELEVEN TO TWELVE)

Chapter 1:-Open Call

Chapter 2:-The Crew

Chapter 3:-Vinny’s Friend

Chapter 4:-Decisions, Decisions

PART 3:

THE BEGINNING OF THE END (AGES TWELVE TO THIRTEEN)

Chapter 1:-The Triangle

Chapter 2:-The Decision To Run

Chapter 3:-The Ultimatum

Chapter 4:-Déjà Vu

Chapter 5:-Class Of ’99

PART 4:

THE HELL HOUSE EXPERIENCE (AGES THIRTEEN TO FOURTEEN)

Chapter 1:-The Big Event

Chapter 2:-Nowhere To Hide

Chapter 3:-Hell House

Chapter 4:-Stand-Alone

Chapter 5:-Requiem

Chapter 6:-A New Day, New Choices

Chapter 7:-The Melting of Months

Epilogue

Coming SoonBreathe Book 2: The District Queen

 -Acknowledgments-

To my lord and savior Jesus Christ,

it is he who presides over me. All that I am I turn over to him, for it is he alone who has kept me alive.

And to Mother,

who has given me the opportunity to practice my survival skills.

 -About the Author-

S. N. Bynoe was born and raised in New York. However, she currently resides in Washington with her husband and three sons.

 -Writer’s Notes-

Breathe is an account based on my youth ages four to fourteen. Names and places have been altered to protect the identities of persons involved. The purpose of the creation this book is not to blame others for my personal misfortune. Fate points no fingers or puts fault in choices that I have made or the choices of others.

Consider this a book a guide that parents, teachers, and adolescents can learn from. Let us all love each other and, most importantly, prevent errors that might affect the course of a child’s life. After all, isn’t compassion what we have and search for in others?

Part 1:

The Wire (Ages Four to Eleven)

Harry’s shape towered over me. With a ferocious force, his hands clamped on to my throat.

—S. N. Bynoe

I ran into her arms and the cunt slapped me. Could you believe it? Her only daughter was not only being called a liar but being labeled a whore as well.

—S. N.Bynoe

Chapter 1:

My Earliest Memories

Goddammit! my mother shrieked from the kitchen. She knew that I did it again; I had chucked her clothes out of the window. It had been the second time that I had done it in a week. Garments flapped like banners in the wind. Passers-by lifted their heads as I pushed laundry underneath a set of bars. The colors had always fascinated me, especially black. It was the only shade that never changed its form.

I had been observing underwear nestle alongside the usual pile of project trash. As I did this, Mother crept up to slap me. The stinging was swift and strong enough to make me topple off the couch.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Mama screamed. Didn’t I tell your dumb ass not to touch the clothes?

I was four years old, so the reality of what I did didn’t register. I just recall asking myself, What’s the big deal? I was just playing around. Why is Ma so mad? I can go and pick them up.

That was exactly what I was stuck doing that day, fetching clothes from the nearest State Gardens garbage pile. The year was 1989. It was an interesting time frame to be a resident in Coney Island. A multitude of people gathered from every nook and cranny of New York. However, very little was mentioned about tenants of the hood.

Most individuals only understood how it felt to stroll on the boardwalk or take a dip in the water. As the shouting of travelers echoed from the waterfront, the shadow of mud-colored buildings could be seen mounted in the distance.

The issues that sprang out of my neighborhood can only be compared to a tiered cake. At the first layer, there is destitution. Issues in society always begin here. From this, more shit is piled on top, ranging from underemployment, lack of education, disease, and corruption. I’m not through yet.

Did I mention that crime also springs from poverty? Around this particular spell, prostitution, kidnapping, drug use, and turf wars became an everyday occurrence in my environment. So now here I am standing with my two brothers, Jason and Osmond. They don’t appear to be happy.

Rummaging through broken bottles, stale food, and used condoms can have that effect on someone. Quietly, we all dug through the muddle in hopes of retrieving everything that I had cast down. As I finished fetching a white shirt, my oldest brother spoke.

Nicole, I’m tired of coming down here with you, Jason said. When you get in trouble, you know that we’re going to be blamed too. Try to be good, okay?

With a sigh, Jason heaved a pile of clothing into a plastic sack. There was no doubt that he was pissed, but he was great at blotting out his emotions. Jason had been seven years my senior but had been the one that I always turned to. In spite of my impish habits, Jason had a huge level of patience.

My mischievous ways were very hard for an average sibling to stomach. Nevertheless, my brother had sensed me doing something like this.

Prior to this situation, I recalled running around the house with Jason. There isn’t much to tell about my living quarters. Our apartment came equipped with areas for dining, cooking, and company. The two bedrooms were like closets. In other words, it was like an average New York City abode.

I combed the house for my brother. I tossed the entire place in search of him. I looked in the cabinets. No sign. I even sandwiched underneath his bed, losing a patch of my hair. Still there was no clue as to what happened to him.

After ten minutes of scavenging the halls, I began to worry. As a child, I believed that our home was a living entity that very often swallowed things. I began to think that perhaps it had eaten my brother.

Despite how much I screamed, he remained concealed. Finally, I heard muffled giggles coming from the bathroom. Out of rage, I decided to fix him good. I took a sheet and knotted it from the bathroom door to the knob of our bedroom.

When he decided to come out, it was simply too late. I had him locked inside there like a rat on a trap. He must have been in there for at least an hour, hollering and pulling at the door handle. As devilish as I was, I literally laughed until I was gasping for air.

Nicole, if you don’t open this door I’m gonna . . . he began.

What? Tell me, what can you do? Are you going to come out and get me?

Just when I thought that the good fun was just beginning, Mother came into the house.

What the hell’s going on in here? she screeched.

I didn’t really care much for her though. I just wanted to see my brother’s expression. When the door sprang open, his eyes surged in my direction.

Nicole, you . . . he chirped.

I thought at that point I was a goner. I was waiting for a noogie, a wedgie, or one of my favorite dolls to be missing a leg.

With Jason, this never happened. He was the only person who was never mad with me. A grin formed his mouth, and he said, You bean head! When were you planning to let me out?

We both laughed until our heads fell back. Jason and I didn’t share the same father, but that mattered little in our world. Blood is blood and we came from the same source. Strangely, Jason and I still resembled each other. Looking through his almond-stained eyes, I noticed a reflection of myself.

My brother Osmond was like an alien to me. We shared the same father (whoever he was), but I hated his guts. Osmond had been two years my senior and could only be described as a very morose creature. He rarely spoke to anyone, and when he did, it didn’t make much sense.

My earliest recollection of him was in an institution we had both attended. Our school was located just across from our apartment building on Twenty-fourth Street. During my attendance there, the teachers simply adored me. Not only was I bright, but I was also very lovely to stare at.

The women there used to call me Betty Boop because I had a set of honey-dipped shades. I got along with my other classmates and always organized toys after playing with them. On the other hand, Osmond had trouble adjusting.

I remember walking by his classroom and seeing two teachers restraining him. A small girl had been on the floor, crying. Her face was as swollen as a puffer fish. By the looks of things, it appeared that he had punched the girl and sent her crashing to the ground. As I stared at him, a feral expression was plastered on his face. He began to remind me of an animal that had broken out of its cage.

Of course, like any ghetto parent, Mother was in denial that anything could have been wrong with young Osmond. My ma stood at six feet two inches and used her features to intimidate the teachers. I can still see her standing in the hallway of the school. Her eyes are rolling like dice and her hands are tucked tightly against the hip.

When she’s finished listening to the teachers, she barks, Ain’t nothing wrong with my son. You can take that little report of yours and shove it. He don’t need no counselor, and he damn sure don’t need to be in this school.

The teachers kept quiet because they had known it was best to avoid a confrontation. After all, Mother was a woman who had mistaken advice for coercion. Osmond and I fought like wild cougars on a regular basis. He would insult me or shove me around when my mother wasn’t present.

Unfortunately, I had to share a space with Osmond. There was no way of avoiding him. I would be sitting on my side of the room and he would leap on me without warning. I was no punk, so we would have it out. It didn’t make much sense though. My mother was the one who always ended the brawls.

My thoughts drifted from the mound of materials that we scavenged through. After finishing the task, we headed toward the front of the building. A swarm of dope men clogged the front entrance. When they realized that we were children, they gave us clearance to enter.

The lobby bore the aroma of ass, cigarettes, and cigaweed. Anyone who has never been to our building would be inclined to vomit from all the sordid smells leaking from the room. Anyhow, we were accustomed to the odor. One might as well say that it was perfume that every person had gotten sprayed with.

My brothers and I stepped on to the beige-black tiles. The floor was supposed to be white. However, with a combination of maintenance neglecting the building, and young thugs getting paid, beige was its typical hue. Altogether, there were three platforms to assist with transporting residents. The building had a total of seventeen flights.

We had been fortunate enough to be living on the sixth level. For some odd reason, these elevators broke down frequently.

Some residents blamed the elevator’s malfunction on the materials used to make it. However, for those who knew better, they could inform newcomers that the elevator was used for many purposes.

Sometimes it had been used as a public restroom for visitors. On other occasions, it became a jungle gym for the snot-nosed kids of Twenty-fourth Street. So to enter the elevators meant to ride at your own risk. Conversely, we were kids, so we didn’t pay attention to the danger around us.

When the elevator ascended, Osmond was probably thinking about his comic collection. Jason might have been fixated on meeting his friends. I just wanted to stay out of Mother’s radar.

My beginnings had rough spots, but whose household didn’t encounter trials? My mother, Charlene, fit right in to the stereotypes of America. She was a single mom of African American and Native American decent. She had three children whom she battled to raise on a small amount of government stamps.

Mother couldn’t afford to rent out a bed-sitter in the suburbs. Instead, I had to learn to make the best of the urban jungle in which I inhabited. As I mentioned before, I didn’t meet the bastard who brought me here. His name was Benedict and he was of Jamaican descent. The only thing that I know about him is that he had loved getting stoned and gambling.

It was those two vices that broke up his relationship with my ma. His borrowing habits resulted in him making shady deals. Mother told me that for our safety, she had left him to his own problems.

With each passing year, she had reduced the showing of his picture. I had taken a mental note of what he appeared like. Benedict was shorter than her and possessed golden-brown skin. Raven-colored locks dropped down to his back. His features strangely reminded me of Bob Marley’s.

That piece of shit was no good. I don’t even know why I was with him, Mother would say, gnashing her teeth. You not even supposed to be here. You nothing but a mistake.

These sort of statements escaped Mother all the time. She rarely had anything good to say, and when she did, it was only to the friends that she partied with. There were so many hags that she hung with. However, I believe that the most memorable in my mind were her friends Princess, Flow, Natal, and Nikia.

Princess was not considered beautiful at all. She was a greasy little woman with a complexion that resembled burnt bacon.

The women that Princess spoke to lied to her each day, complimenting her on the neon tights and snug shirts.

Flow was just as plain as Princess was. Her figure was asymmetrical, and it appeared to be just as confused as the emo teens that walk around today. Her personality was just as complicated. On one side, she had been an outgoing woman who shared an interest in helping children. On the flip side, Flow would poison kids that caused trouble.

I used to love going to visit her. However, when rumors spread that she was putting roaches in the meals, Mother avoided her completely.

Natal was Flow’s sister. She also happened to be the woman that was appointed to be my godmother. Memories of her had always been marvelous. She took me everywhere and showered me with gifts. The only flaw in her is that she always mispronounced my name. Instead of calling me Nicole, she called me Naliquor. I think that this was due to her excessive drinking.

Her boyfriend, Jamal, was a burly man. Like most Coney Island men, he found it impossible to keep his dick in his pants. It floated from woman to woman and, for some reason, never made it back home to Natal. I was very young at the time, but these were the details that I heard during her drunken fits.

Natal lived on the fourth floor of my building. When she got into arguments with Jamal, she would hike the steps of the second staircase. Natal would have drunken outbursts, elaborating on her declining relationship. The night would end with Natal weeping until she was sober.

Nikia had been the tame one out of the bunch. When my mother had been working at the State Community Center, she would watch me and my brothers. I loved talking to her because she wasn’t like most parents. She was young and stunning. Having said that, in later years, narcissism resulted in Nikia’s downfall.

My ma frequently drank, partied, and met men through her network of dysfunctional friends. Nostalgically, I can refer back to the day that my ma left me at Natal’s apartment.

Mother’s friends had been drinking, smoking, and dancing in circles. Altogether there were five bedrooms, but I wasn’t bound to any. I sat around these adults and ultimately became the life of the party. I did what my mother did when she got around her friends; I cursed like a pirate.

When everyone had settled to play cards, Natal’s brother Daniel sat adjacent to me. The pungent stench of him had burned my nostrils. Like his sister, he had also taken up a fondness for booze. He clutched his bottle of beer and shoved it onto the table.

In his stupor, he asked me, Do you want some of this? Come now, girl, have a sip.

I had grown weary of being exposed to adults. They were smashed all the time. The truth was that I missed my mom and didn’t want to spend my evenings with these washed-out old adults. So what I said next was rude, malevolent, and overall a hell of a thing for a child to do.

Listen, you cock sucker, I don’t want any of that, and if you come any closer to me, I’m going to smack the pussy scabs off of your face, I yelped.

The music stopped and everyone’s mouth parted. I assumed that Natal would react, you know, punch me in the face or even barricade me in a room. However, none of this occurred. Everyone just laughed at me and assumed that it was a cute routine that every kid should practice.

The uproar of hilarity upset me further, and I went off in a rant. What are you ugly motherfuckers laughing at? You all smell like dried cat shit.

The curses flowed from my mouth like a dirty pipe. As the group continued to cackle, I continued my mad bluster. Eventually, my ma arrived to collect me. She was instantly angered with the way in which I decided to entertain her friends.

That night, I had been introduced to the wire. What is the wire exactly? The wire is a tool that is used to inflict agony and fright. It’s commonly used in households like the one I was raised in. The cord is ripped from an old kitchen appliance or radio. It is then used to peel the flesh off a child.

When we arrived home, I took one look in her face and knew I was going to get it. However, as a child, I didn’t understand. Her associates thought it was humorous, so I gave them what they wanted. Besides, they swore all the time and took no shame in it.

Mother’s reddish brown skin was burning by the light. She stripped me down to the panties, grabbed me by the head, and whacked it in to the wall.

So you think you’re grown, huh? I’m going to show you what happens to little bitches who think that they’re funny, Mother roared.

The crack of the wire brought me to my knees. The cable cut through my back like butter. I trembled like a wilted leaf. The thrashing continued in intervals of four. Blood gushed over the inlay of the living room. I tried to crawl away, but Mother dragged me back. The scene became so graphic that I remember my brothers retreating to our bedroom.

Bursts of blasphemy were dumped from her lips. In that instant, all I saw in her eyes was aversion. It is all that she had shown to me with an intensity, and it became what I would project toward her—hate.

After the flogging that I received, I tried with much difficulty to avoid Mother. She would caress my hair or grab one of my baby dolls. I’m assuming that somewhere inside, she genuinely did feel awful after beating me. Nonetheless, the physical trauma on my body gave every indication that it was best if I kept away.

Mother resumed hanging out with those middle-aged