My Father Was James Brown. I Watched Him Beat My Mother. And Then I Found Myself With Someone Like Dad.
The beatings always begin the same way, with the same terrible sounds. My parents are in their bedroom, behind closed doors. First comes the boom of my father’s voice. “Dee Dee! Goddamn it, Dee Dee!” Then I hear what sounds like thunder rolling through the house. That’s Mom hitting the wall. I wait for her to scream, but she doesn’t. She whimpers. She must have learned long ago that screaming incites him.
I swear that during those fights, I could feel the whole house shake with my father’s crazy rage. Whenever he’d start, my sister Deanna and I would run for cover, usually in a closet or under our beds, and cry quietly into our cupped hands. I shook a lot as a kid. My hands. My face. My knees. A 5-year-old with tremors. As my grandma used to say, “Ain’t that just the saddest thing?” Sometimes the fights lasted only minutes. Sometimes longer. The monster would appear, wreaking havoc on our lives, and then the rumbling would stop and we’d hear our mother’s muffled cries. After that, the house would go completely quiet. The sound of the silence was the worst because that’s when Deanna and I would wonder if our mother were alive or dead and if we would be next.
(snip)
After a while, I did what my mom did and acted as if the beatings hadn’t happened. I’d pretend the Browns were just like everyone else, a happily married couple with their two great kids.
(snip)
I ran to the front door and peered outside. My mother was dressed in her blue and white robe. Her legs were splayed wide open and my father was straddling her, pummeling her with clenched fists. Doosh. Thud. Doosh. Thud. Blood spurted from my mother’s face. She started thrashing around, kicking her legs, holding up her arms to ward off the punches and trying to break free, trying to save herself. I froze in place, but then something inside of me took over and I knew I had to do something. I felt no fear, only rage. I ran outside, screaming, “Leave her alone! Stop punching Mommy!” He didn’t even turn around. He just kept punching. The next thing I knew I was on his back, trying to pull him off of my mom. Sweat was dripping off his face and his eyes were glazed and wild. When he first looked at me, it was as if I was looking into the eyes of a stranger—and a mad one at that. “Stop!’’ I screamed. “Leave Mommy alone!” My father looked stunned. It was as if he’d awakened from a bad dream. His head dropped and his shoulders slumped. I looked down at my mom. Her eyes were purple and her face was bloody. She didn’t look back at me.
(snip)
Years later I read a quote by Stephen King that summed up what it was like living with the abuse: “People outside such relationships will sometimes ask, ‘How could you let such a business go on for so many years? Didn’t you see the elephant in the living room?’ And it’s so hard for anyone living in a more normal situation to understand the answer that comes closest to the truth; ‘I’m sorry, but it was there when I moved in. I didn’t know it was an elephant; I thought it was part of the furniture.’”
More at Link:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/09/17/cold_sweat_my_father_james_brown_and_me_excerpt_james_brown_s_daughter_yamma.html 
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