Abuser

Every rage, every pounding of the table, every cruel remark hit like a big knuckled fist with a massive skull ring. People wonder how I had the strength to leave the “security” of that relationship, but he was killing me off one piece at a time.

I moved here for the peace. I found a little townhouse on stilts. It’s quiet here. My windows and lanai door are open almost every day. The Gulf breezes flow through. I can breathe. Deeply.

My neighbor is my age – tall and thin with harsh features softened only by makeup or cocktails. When I moved in she was alone and quiet and I heard nothing.  She was a respiratory therapist. She didn’t warm to me, but there was a quiet understanding of some kind. A boomer thing.

Then her daughter moved in, a model in her late 30s. A half-naked predator on the edge of irrelevance. They screamed at each other. The sound didn’t come through the walls, it came in the front and back windows. I started keeping them closed.

Then the son moved in. When Karen was at work, her son and daughter screamed at each other. I considered relocating, but the daughter found a shady boyfriend and the son was sent away for past mistakes.

He wasn’t gone long when Karen lost her job. She freaked, of course. I told her I’d be happy to help her with her resume or anything she needed.  I came to regret the offer because she became a pest.  

One day she told me she’d found a roommate. Someone her daughter’s boyfriend knew from the bar. I remember thinking “uh oh” but I didn’t say anything.

Around Halloween a pickup truck pulled up with the first load. A middle-aged man was driving, but an older man stepped out the passenger side. A friend was helping him move too many possessions into Karen’s too small second bedroom.

His name was Dick. He said he was 68 years old and in real estate. He gave me his card. It had his picture on it. I sort of snickered. I didn’t need his card, he would be right next door. Turns out I did need his card.

We got to know each other because she made him smoke on the lanai. He was there most mornings when I came out to pee the dogs and feed the squirrels. We laughed that the squirrels were just about tapping their watches and scowling those mornings I fed them later than usual.

At night he’d be out there having a few smokes – and avoiding her – before he left for the bar. He was like clockwork – left for the bar at nine and came home around midnight. Those people were his family. He swore he didn’t have too many beers, but I always made sure I was never out with my dogs around the time he was due home.

We became friends. He was a friendly voice in the morning and evening. My Lhasa loved him. Sometimes he called her over to sit with him while he had his coffee.

It wasn’t long before Karen started complaining about him. “He watches Fox news!”  I think I laughed out loud.  Days later she said “he doesn’t help out around here.”  I said “he’s paying you $500 a month.” She wasn’t paying her mortgage. The unemployment checks had been delayed and she needed that money.  She said “he could at least take the trash out.” I asked “Have you seen the way he walks? He’s not in good health.”

She wasn’t hearing any of it.

Dick had a ratty old tumor cat that he loved very much.  I know because one day after he left she pounded on my door and said I had to come in and see something. I knew she wanted to have a witness in case things got legal. This was going to get ugly.

She wanted me to witness the fact that his cat was missing the kitty litter. I was supposed to be aghast at the cat’s mess. I was aghast … at the condition of the carpet and darkness of the poor man’s room.   I was also upset to be violating his privacy.

Shortly thereafter the sound of stomping and slamming started coming through the walls. Like she was wearing bricks for shoes. She pounded on my door. He had locked the adjoining bathroom door during the night. I said “he’s old, it was probably an accident.” She said “that’s what he says but I don’t believe it one bit.” I asked why she didn’t just use the downstairs bathroom, but she wasn’t in the mood for logic.

The following Sunday morning there was a knock on my door. I had been working nonstop and woke up with a migraine. She stood there expectantly with a file folder. Somehow entitled. She informed me she needed me to scan and email some things for her.

She knew I’d been working long hours. I said I was sick and couldn’t help. Period. She said ok, sorry about my headache, she’d just go to her daughter’s. She would help. As it turns out, Dick helped her get it done.

Thanksgiving came. She wished me a good one and informed me she had given Dick 30 days notice.  It was casual, as if to say they were having sweet potatoes as a side. I could not contain myself. I said “you’re throwing him out on Christmas!!!” And she said “you don’t know what I’ve been going through.” I reminded her he had helped her scan and email all that information. She said “yeah, but it took him four hours. It would have only taken you one.”

The next time I caught him on the lanai I asked how it was going. He said she was being awful, but he had threatened to get an attorney, so she gave him 30 more days. Also, her daughter had sent a vicious email about how he was wrecking her mother’s life. He said his friends at the bar had a good laugh about it.

In December Karen went to her daughter’s boyfriend’s place and stayed with them. She returned just before Dick’s deadline. She was spitting venom – stomping, slamming doors and yelling. It was coming through the wall like knuckled fists. She sent Dick into a panic. Most of his stuff was out, but he had to get the last of it himself. I heard him drop something heavy – maybe a TV - on the stairs.

That night he called. He had fallen on his hip in the driveway while carrying something out to his vehicle. He couldn’t feel his leg. I suggested he go to an emergency room. He asked if I could sneak in and get his cat for him. I told him she’d have me arrested. I felt awful, but someone else would have to do it.

He asked if we would still be friends. I said there was never any question we would be friends.

A week ago he pulled up one last time with a friend and I heard her – everyone heard her – screaming at him from her front door. He left his meds and a few last things, but he had his cat.

The dark lanai made me sad. I drove by his bar and nearly stopped. A few days ago I happened to be going out as Karen was coming in. “Did you hear?” “No, what?” “Dick died.”  I was speechless. Good thing. I would have said was “you bitch, you killed him.”

She put the last of his stuff on the porch for his kids to pick up. His son drove in from Texas, his daughter from Miami. Two cars out front, trunks open. They were both in shock.  They hadn’t been on speaking terms with their dad and now he was gone.

I came outside with Princess. His navy blue blazer was over the rail. She sniffed it and I choked back tears. I told them their dad was a nice man. I told them he loved Princess and she loved him. I hugged them and gave them my phone number.

Then Karen had the balls to come out. It was an Academy Award performance. She talked about helping him move in. How he smoked and that was bad for his health. How his cat had peed on her carpet.  While she talked to his daughter I asked his son how old Dick was. “76. He lied about his age.”

They mentioned stopping by the bar before they left. They wanted to meet his friends. Karen said she would go too. When they left she turned to me in an accusing tone and said “he didn’t even have a good relationship with his kids!” I ignored her. I said “do you know he was 76 years old?” And her jaw dropped. “I told you he wasn’t well.”

I thought to warn her not to go to the bar. I imagined her getting a piece of someone’s mind, slashed tires or a black eye. But then I changed my mind. She deserves her consequences.

I’m trying not to be furious, but I hope he haunts her ass.

And I treasure the silly business card with his picture. I will not forget my friend and the fact that he spent the last week of his 76 years at the mercy of an abuser.