The Rebel in Me

I was a rebel.
And I married a monster.
My mother said I took after my dad. The kind of man who’d draw his gun first and ask questions later if someone so much as looked at me or my brother the wrong way.
When Jimmy’s fist left me once again with a black eye, I didn’t call my thirty-year-old bodybuilder brother.
I called my sixty-year-old father.
The one with the Santa Claus beard.
Minus the belly.
Headlights pierced through the rain and washed over the living room walls. I couldn’t see the car, but I knew it was him. My shoulders dropped. Not from relief. But from knowing what would follow.
Jimmy saw then too.
He grabbed my hair and dragged me away from the window. My scalp burned as he forced me to my knees.
“Be silent,” he spat, saliva raining dots on my face. His breath reeked of whiskey. I nodded carefully, afraid the edge of the blade press into my throat would open my skin.
Then the banging started. Hard. Furious.
My name
Jimmy’s name.
Roared through the door.
Jimmy didn’t budge. He pressed harder on my neck.
“Jimmy,” I said. His name a plea on my lips. “You’re hurting me.”
“Shut the up!”
He banged my head against the edge of the couch and warned me not to move. A dizziness overtook me and my body slacked against the couch’s edge. In front of me, Jimmy paced back and forth, kicking the clothes scattered on the floor in his wake. His pupils were dilated. His wife-beater drenched in sweat and his hair stuck to his head.
Outside, the banging had stopped.
“You think you can leave me huh?” he shouted. “Me.” He banged his chest with the fist holding the knife.
“Nobody leaves me,” he said, tapping the palms of his hands against his temple.
“Jimmy pleeeease. Stop this…” I sobbed.
He stopped, put the knife in his pocket and retrieved a gun from the back of his pants. My eyes bulged and my teeth clattered. He spun the cylinder once and the mechanism whirred, haunting the moment.
His gaze searched the room and landed on the suitcase. He aimed at it and shot. I put both my hands on my ears and screamed.
One Two Three. In rapid fire.
The banging of the door started again. “Lauren! Jimmy! Open that damn door. I’m gonna kill you.”
Jimmy let out a boisterous laugh.
“I’m okay dad.” I shouted.
He pointed the gun at me. “Hey! What did I tell you. Shut up!”
I didn’t call the police. My father was right. Prison was for the salvageable. And Jimmy wasn’t worth salvaging. The extent of his rage might make anybody want to kill him.
The broken bones.
The purple bruises.
The tyranny of his rage.
I tried to remember how I got there. At what point did a man putting his hand on me become acceptable. Somewhere between high school and the five years of marriage I stopped existing.
The first time it happened, I was paralyzed with disbelief. I came from my parents late. We didn’t have a car, and my dad had to drop me off. When I came through the door, the yelling started. The rebel in me yelled back, before I knew it, he slapped me across my face.
One slap became many slaps. Many slaps turned to punches. Punches to broken bones. Before I knew it, years had passed and here we were.
Jimmy put the gun on the dining table. I counted the steps to get to the gun and shoot him before he could intercept me. Then I shook my head. I wasn’t my father. Even if my mother liked to tease me about being a rebel like my dad. Where was that rebel now when I needed it?
The rain plopped onto the windows. Lightning raced thunder, illuminating the driveway. Several headlights came through the windows. Jimmy rose from his chair and grabbed the gun. He peeked outside the window. “Your uncles are here.”
Relief.
Soon I’ll be free.
A loud bang sounded on the door, shaking it. Oh, they brought a battering ram. Jimmy grabbed my hair again. I took a hold of his hand on my hair and kicked him in the stomach with my knee. He grunted and hit me with the barrel of the gun. A warm liquid trickled down my face, its metallic smell overwhelmed my nostrils. I was about to slip into unconsciousness, when the door gave. Four men in their sixties and fifties bulldozed through the room to get to me and Jimmy.
Jimmy threw me on the couch and raised his gun on my father.
“Jimmy, you son of a —” my father said, before Jimmy pulled the trigger. I saw my dad being propelled backwards into the arms of my uncles. A scream pierced the room, only to realise it came from me. Jimmy raised his gun again, my uncles moved on him, but I moved first. We tussled on the couch. I landed a punch on his knee. He shouted but managed to pin me on the couch. By the time my uncles got to us and pulled him off me, I had the gun in my hand and bang.
I shot him.
My uncle released him and he dropped to the floor.
His eyes searched mine. He smiled.
“You’re just like your daddy,” he said, before darkness claimed him.
Maybe I was.
Or maybe that’s what freedom costs.
And I’m free now.