Brave. Rose McGowan

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СКАЧАТЬ it turned out, my creepy new faux dad was molesting his daughter Mary. We found out years later when she bravely brought charges against him. I always felt something was really wrong, though, instinctively. Mary, who was about fourteen at the time, and I were forced to take baths together while Lawrence watched. Having only recently met her, it was distressing for me. I knew something was off about this and hid myself as much as I could. We would both huddle and turn away.

      Apparently Lawrence liked blondes, and thank God I had dark hair. But I saw him looking at my sister Daisy, who was blond. Sometimes she would walk down the hall and I would see him stand up and start following her. I would block his path and get in his face. Well, I would get in his stomach, because I was ten. One particular time I spit at him and it landed perfectly on his lips. He gave me a beating and I took it. I was damned if I was going to let him do anything to Daisy. One of my proudest achievements is keeping her safe from him.

But there was only so much I could do to protect my sisters and brothers during this period. I did my best. My youngest brother, Robby, was three and a half, so cute and so pretty. He rode his Big Wheel tricycle down the street, and for some reason, it set Lawrence off. Lawrence marched out, took spiky rosebush branches, and beat my little brother until he was bleeding all over his back and his bum. Outside of the house, Lawrence made his son and daughter forcibly hold me up and make me look through the window to watch him as he beat my brother. I had never hated anyone more.

      Lawrence would find other sick ways to rile me up. He knew I hated the N-word and he would get in my face and say it over and over until I lashed out at him, so then he had an excuse to beat me with his belt buckle. Now I look at ten-year-olds and I think, Jesus, they’re small. I was small.

      Lawrence listened in on the line when we had our weekly phone call with my father to make sure we didn’t tell him what was going on. He monitored the mailbox, too, so we couldn’t send any letters for help. It drove me insane that this worthless human had power and control over me. The beatings were one thing, but silencing me was his favorite thing and what I hated him for the most. He punished me by not allowing me to speak for a month. I was not allowed to utter a word. I felt so violated. I have had my voice stolen many times since, but that was a big one because it was so literal. I have no idea what I did to get grounded off speaking; knowing me it was probably for talking back. When it was mealtime, I would look across the table at my mother, beseeching her with my eyes, trying to get her to intervene, but there was nothing to be done. Having a voice and being heard is a fundamental human right and this indignity set a kind of pattern in my life.

After a while, my mom did try to break up with him, numerous times. She’d say it was over, that he was gone for good, and I’d get my hopes up, but then he’d be back. One night, he drove around in his pickup truck with a shotgun threatening to kill my mom. I hid in the back of the truck and when I caught sight of her running, I’d shout warnings: “He’s coming from the left, he’s coming from the right, go right!” Finally, after that, she broke up with him for good. Abusive relationships are no joke and extremely hard to escape, but she did it.

      Later, my mother found out he’d done terrible things to all these other women he’d been with before and after her. He’d gotten off every single time in court, playing the system. He even got off the molestation charges. The cops loved him. He got off all the time. No one would listen. Eventually, Lawrence kidnapped his son’s girlfriend and raped her across three states in the cab of his truck, holding a shotgun on her. He was finally arrested and sentenced to jail time. I hope he’s dead. I hope someone drove a stake through his heart.

      I think of how many kids are abused, and how heartbreaking it is that no one helps them. And then it just begets more abuse. I don’t know where Lawrence’s kids are today. Poor Mary. I hope that poor girl is still alive, and I hope she’s doing okay. I hope her and her siblings haven’t had their lives totally ruined.

I remember thinking as a young girl, How is it possible that women can be so gullible? They just ignore the reality of what is happening and believe what they want to believe. I think women in general, and my mom for sure, got sold this bill of goods, the story that a man will save them. I don’t think that’s really changed even for girls today. We’re still getting sold the same story. I had to unpack it because later even I was ensnared in an abusive relationship.

      We need to look at why so many women believe a man is going to save us. It’s not because of evidence of saving. I haven’t seen a lot of dudes on white stallions pulling up to single women’s homes. In fact, I have seen most women get on their own damn stallion. It’s just male-dominated society that snows us into not noticing it’s we women doing the saving. We are the white stallion and we have to wait for no one but ourselves.

      Even though I had these early experiences with men who were horrible beasts, I still somehow got it imprinted in me that a powerful man was going to come along and make my life easier. In reality, they usually just complicated things. Even though rationally I knew it wasn’t true, there’d always been this feeling deep inside me that I was bad, and men were, somehow, the superior ones. I was bad because I was tempting. I was bad because there was want attached to me. Lawrence was truly a psychopath, probably the first true psychopath that I met. I would go on to meet others, but he set the mold. There’s a direct correlation between my relationship with my father and Lawrence, and later on my relationship with men for the rest of my life.

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