No Way Out ! (6/73)

We all settled into the new house rather well after our initial game of lost and found. The following months through out the summer we would begin to adapt to all living together. I would spend every 2nd weekend with my father and the weekends I was with my mother, her and Jack typically went out to the bar. Yes, my mother did like to drink. She was not an alcoholic by any means but Jack on the other hand was an alcoholic. There would be times on those weekends that I could hear them arguing after getting home from their night out.

As the weeks passed and by the time September came around their arguments would become more frequent and louder. The sounds of their elevated voices would wake me out of a deep sleep. I would lay in bed with the pillow over my head hoping the noise would stop. The arguments began to escalate to physical violence. I could hear the sounds of glass breaking and people wrestling around in the house. In between the loud bangs I would hear my mother scream out to me telling me to get out of the house. I would never reply to her; I would just lay in my bed very still with my eyes closed tightly pretending to be sleeping. My bedroom door was closed at night and they had never came into my room before when they were fighting so I figured I would be okay if I stayed there ever so quiet.     

Unfortunately, that would not be the case one night in October of 1981. My mother and Jack would return to the house in rare form. They had been enraged with each other since they left the bar and it was only escalating more and more as they got closer to home. You could cut the tension between them in the cab with a knife.

The moment they entered the house and the babysitter left the banging and screaming began. As their voices got louder and closer I could hear my name being mentioned but could not make out the rest. Soon they would be right outside my bedroom door pushing each other about. My mother was trying to get to me to so that we could leave the house, but Jack had no intension of letting her into my room and kept pushing her down and hitting her with his fists. There was no way in HELL he was letting her leave that house.

My mother eventually backed off and retreated into the kitchen away from my door. The house became eerily quiet for a few minutes before my mother seen an opening to run to my room and get me from my bed. She came storming through my door and whispered to me to get up because we had to go. With in seconds Jack was behind her with his arm reached out in an attempt to grab her by the neck.

Jack would take her by the neck and lay on down on my bed in front of me as he instructed her not to move or he would kill her in front of her daughter. I froze in fear; I could not believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. As my mother started to struggle under his grasp on the bed he pulled out a very long, shiny, sharp butcher knife and pointed it directly at me.