Game Changer

Beverly wakes up from her nap rubbing her eyes. She looks around her and sees she has been placed back into her crib. She has no memory of what occurred but her little self is teeming with helplessness, rage, and, guilt. Beverly doesn’t yet know the hands and the mouth of the fucking bitch mother had her way with her again and she can do nothing about it.

She lives on the second floor of an apartment building for U.S military families stationed overseas. The father was in the army assigned to the Stuttgart Army Base in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1959. She was eighteen months old when they travelled by ship from the states to Europe. The monster mother thing got her panties in a twist because Beverly would not drink her milk if the baby bottle was not heated. It was already a difficult state of affairs as one of a handful of black families on the ship let alone requesting the captain make an exception to access the ship’s kitchen. The monster mother is beautiful, and her flirtations help with the negotiations. Of course, she cannot tell the father husband- he would lose it - and they would lose everything.

Beverly is now two and has been able to unhitch the crib railing for months. She listens and catches her breath as she hears the monster in the next room rumbling about.

Beverly has found a new game to play. Once the railing is down she turns around facing the crib, so she can slide down onto the floor. She reaches for the door knob and frees herself. She is now on the mission for which the game was intended. She heads to the bathroom, locking the door to imprison herself. She turns on the water in the bathtub and hums to herself as she splashes about.

The father comes home to an upset mother bitch screaming that she cannot open the bathroom door. He speaks sweetly to Beverly through the door asking her to unlock it. He hears her humming, so he knows she hasn’t drowned yet. He starts yelling – “Open the door! Or else!”. Or else what? What else could there possibly be? But Beverly does not hear any of this dialogue surrounding her. She is in a pool playing with her toys. She hangs onto a bright red raft kicking her feet and glides across the pool. Mission accomplished.

If she only knew how extraordinary she is. She wants to know – there is a nugget of something there - but she doesn’t get it, not yet anyway.

She comes back to the present as she hears the bathroom door being wrenched from its hinges. Her big brown eyes witness the anger in the eyes of the father and the mother thing. She disappears for a while only to return too soon and starts crying as she feels the pain from the spanking the mother fucking thing is giving her for scaring and disobeying them. She retreats back into the inner recesses of her mind. The swamp creature pulls Beverly up by one arm her feet no longer touch the ground.

“DON’T” SMACK.

“YOU” SMACK.

“EVER”. SMACK.

“DO”. SMACK.

“THAT” SMACK.

“AGAIN”. SMACK.

The beating has a charming rhythm.

Beverly plays the game two more times before the father gets rid of the door.