Over in the dark corner

The following words were spoken to me by a child when I taught public school in Bristol. The thing is, many of these same words were spoken to me too many times. By too many children.

“Mr. Talley, I can always tell when Daddy is drunk because he starts callin’ Momma names instead of fussin’ at me or my sister. But last night him and Momma didn’t scream at each other like they usually do, because Momma was asleep on the floor and Daddy couldn’t wake her up. Daddy said somethin’ about too many pills. I tried to sleep on the floor over in the dark corner where me and my dog like to hide when things get bad. But my dog gots fleas really bad, so every time I fell asleep they would bite me back awake. And I was too worried about Momma. I stayed awake until I was sure she was okay. I don’t know what time it was. After a while I snuck out into the light to hug Momma, but she was too tired to hug me back. I could tell she was breathin’ when I hugged her, though. I’m not sure where Daddy went when he slammed the front door mad. I wanted him to play with me like he did one night when I was little. Me and him played all night with some Legos he’d stolen from a store. It seemed like all night. I know he stole them, and some other stuff, because the po po came to take him to jail the next mornin’. I didn’t get to tell him bye.

But Momma did take me once to visit him at the jail. That was nice of her because he had always hit her a lot. I’ve started hittin’ my dog like that sometimes when he don’t mind. I sometimes hit him really hard to make him mind. I felt sorry for my dog sometimes at first. But then it began to feel good to hit him sometimes, like Daddy says it feels to him when he hits Momma. I love Momma but I want to be like Daddy. He helps us. He says, “at least somebody in this house works” before he goes to work. And he is brave. He says he doesn’t “let any woman tell him what to do”. He even killed our new kitten for peein’ on the floor and told me to go bury it. He said I was bein’ brave to bury it. He said that he had done the hard part. My part was easy. I cried when I dug a hole in the woods near my apartment. But I did it. My little sister stays by herself a lot now. She used to play with me and laugh, even when we argued a lot. But she stays in her room now and cries a lot. Momma’s new secret helper friend comes by when Daddy’s not home on weekends and visits my sister’s room a lot whenever Momma passes out. He always locks the door behind him when he visits my little sister in her room. He made me promise not to tell anybody, Mr. Talley.

It was time for me to come to school this mornin’ and I couldn’t find my coat. My coat smells like cigarette smoke anyway. I can hardly wait to get to school, to get to eat. I don’t get to eat much at home. The refrigerator gots a lot of beer in it, but not much food. Oh, and I will get in trouble today for not havin’ my homework. I really did try to do it last night. But Mr. Talley, over in the dark corner where the fleas bite, there just ain’t enough light.”

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Though some readers may have a hard time imagining it, such horrifiically adverse childhood experiences are an everyday common reality for too many children in our midst. We must all do our part to help these children learn resilience and find hope.

Do we pretend that such children deserve such a fate? Do we choose to just look away? Is out of sight really out of mind?

The truth is, we need not just turn our heads and pray such dark realities go away. Virtually all of us can do something to help in some way.

We can support public education, social services, local children’s non-profits, child advocacy centers, and mental health services - every chance we can, in every way we can.

We can volunteer to be a Big Brother/Big Sister mentor or a Reading Buddy at a local public school.

We can reach out to the poor and needy in our community through our place of worship or local civic club … either in a group or on our own.

Join me, my friends. Let us shine some light in the darkness.