All In Passing

Today I saw a boy almost throw a brick at his mother. He was yelling at her to “stay away” and screaming “I don’t care.” I watched from a second floor window as he raised the brick and dared his mother to come closer. I knew he didn’t quite mean it because I’d been that boy as a little girl.

Watching this interplay summoned feelings of anxiety and shame, hatred and loneliness because it made me recall the time I stood in front of my mother, towering over her 5’3” frame, arm cocked, fingers balled into a fist, threatening to punch her in the face.

The boy screamed that he was going to do it and after she yelled one expletive to him after another she knocked the brick from his hand. He then screamed louder because all his power had just been stripped and his own mother couldn’t give him the respect that he might be a threat, that he was real.  What the boy needed was a hug, even if he rejected it, because that’s what yelling at moms really means, you just could use a hug.

I told my mom that I hated her and that she was vicious and mean and that if she didn’t move I’d punch her. She smiled back at me, belittling me, making me feel like I was invisible.

The boy and his mom started walking again and I watched as he ran up to her to grab his (cartoon character) backpack. She relinquished it and walked ahead. He took it and swung it around his head, letting go so it could fly through the air and land in a parking lot. He didn’t look at it as he walked to catch up with his mother. A stranger walking towards him looked at the child and then the parking lot wondering who was going to retrieve it.

My mother stood looking up to me and said things like “go ahead, hit me. Bet you can’t.” And “you’re too weak, but go ahead, try it.”  I replied by screaming “Yes I can. I can fucking kill you if I want,” all the while hoping she’d back down, stop egging me on. But she never did. Instead she said “I’ve been hit by tougher people than you. You’re nothing.” And that summed up all the feelings I had at that moment and through puberty. I was nothing—no one.

The boy kept walking, passing his mother. She saw that the pack was gone so she turned to retrieve it. She went into the parking lot and when she had it in her hands she pivoted in preparation to run, but instead, she walked. She kept yelling as she neared and he had run ahead enough to hide in a doorway, scared, sad and aching to be held.  I saw him peek around the wall, eyeing his mom, not sure what to do.

I was 14 when my mother told me to go ahead and hit her. I already had an ulcer and I was feeling my stomach react to the rage inside of me. I swallowed bile as I stalled, not sure what to do.

The boy saw that his mom was approaching so he showed himself and started walking away from her. I know that dance they were doing—he was trying to maintain his anger while fighting the urge to run into her arms and she was tired and mad and feeling non-maternal as she just wanted to haul off and smack him.

Sometimes when you do that dance both parties try to lead but neither knows where they’re going.  Mom told me again to hit her and part of me wanted to but it was a trick, one I’d fallen for before.  I tried to keep the anger inside where it chewed up my stomach but I couldn’t, so I gave in.

The boy kept looking back at his mom as he walked knowing she’d catch up. Soon they rounded the corner leaving me to wonder did he pick up another brick? Did she tell him later that she still loved him? Or did she ignore him when they got to the house forcing him to go to his room where he’d swallow the neglect like a wad of gum.

I never did hit Mom that day. I really thought I might but when my arm let loose and my fist veered towards her, I rerouted to the kitchen window, punching through the glass. I needed over twenty stitches and had to pay to repair the window but was glad I’d showed self-restraint. At least one of us had.