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The Fury and Fear
I don’t need to look for the roots of Dad’s misogny. I don’t want to. What I do want to do is to actively disengage. Find refuge. Saving myself sounds high-drama because it was. (It is). Escape isn’t always a planned event. Survivors of abuse and domestic violence know escape routes come in all shapes and sizes and at all times of the day and night. In the best of circumstances, Mom or me try to grab a phone before the next blow comes. In the worst of circumstances, you run for help or, at least, scream, “Stop ! Please stop !,” over and over or until Dad’s fury exhausts itself on the phone pulled out of the wall, on the door knocked off its hinges, on the handfuls of hair ripped from Mom’s scalp and the dollar bills pulled from the wallet in her purse strewn on the bathroom floor.
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and the dollar bills pulled from the wallet in her purse strewn on the bathroom floor. [Photo credit: Author]
Misogyny is an ugly word. One word made that much uglier by the addition of just one more word, methanphethamines. Dad saw himself as this happy-go-lucky Mexican Marvel of a Man. In fact, in one of his manic episodes of meth madness, I remember his voice uncharacteristically high-pitched and breathy boasting, “I’m fuckin’ Superman! I can do whatever the fuck I want!” I had never been a comic book fan, so I was aware of no possible reference Dad may have been making in this neighborhood proclamation, perched atop the front porch stairs. My younger sisters, standing behind the screen door, giggled. I just stared, clueless at who this man was and why he felt so free and easy to compare himself to some kid’s superhero, right here on West Lafayette in front of all the neighbors and yelping dogs.
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father and son : a conversation (photo by Ruben Avilio Mauricio) [Photo credit: Author]
Conversations with Dad while he was here to explain himself ended poorly. “You don’t need me,” he once told me. I remember holding the phone with my right hand, pushing, pressing into the kitchen wall with my left, confounded by what I heard. “I will always need you, Dad,” I reply, broken. Dad’s been gone ten years now and all I can summon is silence. This silence is not a silence of lost intimacy, rather a void of time and opportunities, gone. No more awkward kitchen phone calls late in the night.
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me and the mural down the street from my childhood home in Southwest Detroit [Photo credit: Author]
Living for my own definition of love, I have to believe in who I am here and now, in this moment, and that happens to be a mix-Mex (half-Mexican, half-Polish American) and what I’m capable of in this multi-race America. It’s like I have 2 cultural selves, 2 distinct identities, one of which is the RubenAvilio who just has to get his ass to work each day and give his heart and soul to his students and do what I can to help them see and feel the beauty of who they are. My work as a teacher of students with Cognitive Impairments is all about guiding them toward a happiness of their own making, becoming an independent and vibrant part of their communities. Connected. That’s my daily work , my one identity. The other Ruben Avilio is the quiet one who dreams, and writes and creates, and hopes that my art is making space, creating a safe place for other Brown Brothers and Sisters, for all of us, to not be afraid, to sing, to dance, to write about who they are and what makes them feel so alive.
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I’m not afraid [Photo credit: Author]
This post was previously published on Medium.
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Image may be NSFW.
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Dad’s smile, photo by author.
The post Forging My Own Definition of Love appeared first on The Good Men Project.