Triggered #MeToo

I told myself not to watch that documentary, but I did it anyway. You know which one I’m talking about: Surviving R. Kelly. I thought I was just fine as I watched it because it didn’t seem to be telling me much of anything that I didn’t already know. There were a few things that stabbed me in the chest, like learning where “you are not alone” came from. I loved that song. LOVED IT. The lyrics started swirling in my head and I had to pause the show to stand and pace for a moment. Even in Michael’s voice, it made me sick. I knew the man was disgusting, but I had no idea to what extent. I, too, at some point in my life became one of those women blind to abuse.

Why?

Because my own trauma has been suppressed. Unlike most women who are still protecting this abuser even though they, themselves have been  abused, I’m on a different road. I’m right there with the director of this docuseries. I’m at war with R. Kelly and all men who think this shit is okay.

For as long as I can remember men have looked at me sexually and have been bold enough to try me. They were always the suitors of my mother. I’ve blocked it all out until now. Watching that docuseries placed me right back on Cadiz street in New Orleans, Louisiana. I was nine, maybe ten. It was the strangest house that I can remember us living in, because you walk in a circle to get to every room. I’m going to draw you a picture. No, seriously, I am.

His name was Mr. William. Well, that’s what we had to call him. I didn’t care to know his first name until yesterday 1/6/2019. I called my mom with my shame, weakened pride, vulnerability, and pain and asked her his name. I needed to be able to call my abuser by name. “Henry” she recalled and I cringed and broke like the levees in New Orleans in 2005. Henry William. He was a taxi driver. I can remember always hating his face. He was tall, dark, and bald, just the way my mama liked them. His eyes were always yellow. He scared me from the first time that I met him. All I can remember about being around him is fear, even when he touched me. I froze in fear. I was just a little girl that needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I wished that I had just stayed in my room and peed in the bed. There was no need for him to come in the bathroom with me. He asked me if my mom really loved him? He asked me if she was just using him for me money? Things I’m sure he knew I had no idea about.

I can still feel his grimy, shaky hands. I remember what his voice sounds like. I remember his dick hanging from his white boxers. I remember being frozen.

Until this day, I can’t for the life of me understand why my mom thought it was a good idea to leave me and my sister alone with a strange man. It was something that she did was too often. I had and still have so many questions.

Mr. William wouldn’t be the last, but would remain one of those worst.

The second was Calvin. An ex-con fresh out of prison that taught me how to cheat while playing cards. He’d learned it in jail. He would wait for me to go swimming in the complex pool and invite his hands to my clitoris underwater while I struggled in the deep end. Once, he slipped dirty, guilt money in my back pocket as I walked home and ran off like I child. My sister was there to bare witness. I was older now, maybe 14. I didn’t want to be afraid any more and I thought I could tell my mom. Maybe my opening line was wrong? I pulled out the money to show her and she began calling me names: ho, bitch, hot in the ass. Before I could get the explanation out she lashed out in a rage asking, "What did you do for this money?! Are you fucking him? You're fucking him!"

I’d never tell again.

The only people that knew were my sister and the boyfriend I had at the time. My protective little Scorpio. He, himself was a child, but dare not let another man or boy near me. There are two boys walking around the world right now that got a hefty serving of his hands just for thinking about it. I’d never seen two beatdowns happen so fast.

It was the first time I was ever actually protected and probably why I’ve followed Scorpios to hell and back.

Shoutout to my first love. He deserves his own blog.

Funny that I met him because his little brother grabbed my ass and I dropped him with one right then a left. First fight I ever had in that neighborhood. He did stand back up in an attempt to defend his pride, but I’m certain I dodged every lick and put him on his ass again.

I wish I had that same energy with grown men back then.

Fear-- stronger than love and cocaine.

I started to write my encounters down. There were harassing phone calls from a man that my mom was dating. He knew she worked at night. It got so bad that I had to unplug the phone. He thought I was “fine.” I was twelve.  

There were threats from men about what they were going to do to me if they ever got me alone. I made sure they didn’t. I collected friends the way black people collect grocery bags. I was never alone. Someone slept over or I slept out. 

There was David--his middle name. I wish I remembered his first name. I remember seeing it on my caller ID and when I asked, he said it was his roommates name. He lied about his age just to get my phone number. I was sixteen. He said he was nineteen. Turns out, dude was twenty-two and married with two sons. How do I know? His wife called and ran down his history. She knew he was a predator. Twelve to fifteen was his range.

SHE KNEW HE WAS A PREDATOR.

Then there was Reginald, who would pass notes to me about my body, particularly about my fifteen-year-old pussy. He’d also make sexual gestures behind my mom’s back.

I climbed on up the ladder of perversion until… rape. Thirty-two and I’m still fleshing that one out in my mind: sodomy and a pregnancy scare.

My dad found my diary after searching through my things. At that time, I felt he cared with his tears and calls to all of his police friends to search for the men who harmed me. Now learning that my dad is pretty much a compulsive liar and abuser to women himself on other levels, his outrage was fake as fuck. He did forewarn my mother that this would happen, but that’s it. He offered nothing else. He didn’t take us away or tell us what to do just in case. He went on about his life and blamed my mother for what he should have taken half the responsibility for. He swears she kept us away from him.

People kidnap their own kids for less, every day B.

Anyway.

I wish I knew how to tell other women how to keep surviving these disgusting men who walk around without a care in the world. Here I am thirty-two years old and I’m still haunted. I stand with any victim. I didn’t need a documentary to make me believe these women or any woman. In my little time spent on earth, I’ve only met one woman that was not violated by a man. ONE.

I’m skeptical of every man that I come into contact with, from my cousins, to my brother, to my own father. NONE of them get a pass. I wouldn’t bat an eye if one of them were accused of sexual assault. I’d stand beside whomever it is with a torch to burn their entire life down.

This shit has to end somewhere.

If I ever have a daughter or a son and they are harmed, please use this blog as evidence against me. I did it. I put that motherfucker down like a dog. I will serve my time with a smile.