In Mathias’ graying memories the sweetness and innocence of childhood withered early. His father had broken three of his bones before he was five years old. The monster would certainly have broken more if his mother hadn’t shielded him from the unending fountain of violence that flowed from the man, suffering each time in his place.
If he had no other good qualities, Mathias’ father was predictable. He was paid every Friday at the end of his shift and went directly to the bank before it closed to cash the check, then to McNeill’s Bar to celebrate surviving another week “at that wretched dump”. Always the last of his friends to leave, it was only a question of which of the dozen liquor stores he’d stop in between McNeill’s and their apartment for a bottle of whatever was on sale. He had learned to never open the bottle before he got home. Once, drinking from the brown paper bag while making his way to their apartment, an officer approached and gave him a choice, either dump the bottle out or be arrested for drinking in public. He was determined to never again waste twelve dollars again because of some do-gooder cop, and so always kept the bottle sealed until he got home.
The steel-clad front door opened and slammed the same way each Friday night, nearly shaking the only picture on the wall to the floor. The man collapsed on an impossibly uncomfortable hand-me-down couch and watched whatever was on the television channel that came in the clearest. His wife and son knew that if he was interrupted before the bottle was empty, or before he fell asleep, one of them would need a trip to the free clinic two blocks over. If he didn’t pass out before the bottle was empty, Mathias’ mother was roughly escorted into the bedroom and the door was closed.
Most nights he would pass out on their double bed while waiting for his wife to make herself ready. He wasn’t a patient man but he was always willing to wait for this. She knew that the longer she took getting ready, the better the odds he’d be asleep and she’d make it through another Friday without him touching her. Occasionally, his eyes were still open when she came out wearing the closest thing she owned to actual lingerie, a lace edged white slip she bought to wear under her old waitress’ uniform. On those nights she closed her eyes, retreated into herself, and thought about her life before, and about the little boy in the next room.
It was on one of those rare evenings, after he had been satisfied and had drifted off to sleep, that she left the room to check on Mathias in his bed. She knelt beside his mattress, on the floor next to the couch, and stroked his hair as he looked up at her. He was such a quiet baby. He had learned that crying, or sometimes making any kind of noise, drew the attention of his father. Experience had taught that it was always best to stay quiet if his father was in the apartment, no matter what kind of mood he was in. She whispered, almost entirely to herself, “If it weren’t for my precious boy, I’d have left years ago. I’d be free”.
As young as he was, Mathias understood that she was talking about him. He believed, in that moment deep inside of himself, that she blamed him for all his father’s anger, for all the bruises and broken bones that came from protecting him, for all the tears that flowed so frequently since he was born. The comment was made out of frustration and despair at the way her life had turned out, not from a lack of love for Mathias, but at five years old he couldn’t tell the difference. She didn’t truly blame Mathias at all. How could she? Mathias was her only ray of sunshine in a world of thunderstorms, but Mathias never learned that.
She kissed him on the forehead and laid him back on his bare mattress, tucking part of his blanket under his head for a pillow. “Go to sleep my precious boy” was all she said, then got up from the floor and walked back into the bedroom. Mathias felt the weight of her words on his heart and he decided to do better. As the weight of sleep pushed his eyelids closed Mathias told himself that he would never get mommy hurt again.
Two weeks later, long after Friday had became Saturday, his mother packed both of his outfits and his only toy into a kitchen garbage bag and carried Mathias out of the apartment door on her right hip, not bothering to shut it. His father slept on. In her left hand was his father’s wallet and what remained of his paycheck.
Tonight he had only slapped her around a couple times, not even hard enough to bruise. He said, “that's what you get for being lazy”. She could only assume that he was talking about her performance in the bedroom. He was probably right, but it was hard to give everything, or even anything, when you despised the man on top of you; when you had to take your mind somewhere else just to get through it. Now he was laying with his eyes closed and breathing deeply, tired, spent, and unconscious. There was no way he was waking before noon.
It wasn’t iron bars, barbed wire, or guard dogs that had kept her with him, imprisoned all these years. She could have left whenever she wanted. The apartment door didn’t even lock and she was alone with Mathias sixteen hours a day. No, her incarceration was poverty, hope that had eroded into hopelessness, and the growing weight of despair that kept her from summoning the energy to change anything at all.
This night something had changed. As she slipped off the white lace and looked at her body in the bathroom mirror, the dim fluorescent light flickering, she saw and accepted her life for what it really was. She counted the scars, the bruises, and the burn marks on her pale white skin. She had never been so thin, even in highschool, and her skin seemed almost translucent, making the hallmarks of his rage, his anger, and his self loathing stand out like badges of horror. They covered her entire body, he left no part of her untouched. Even her breasts, which he claimed were his favorite part, bore the marks of his violence. In between the flickers of light, slowly breathing in and out, looking into her own green eyes, she accepted her own death, fully and unreserved.
She didn’t want to die. She simply accepted that she already had. Whatever happened to her body after this was unimportant. Physical pain was familiar to her, and what eventually caused her heart to stop beating was irrelevant. She never thought she’d die in her early twenties, but it was over, and she simply accepted that and unconsciously smiled at the realization. The crushing weight of lost dreams and dashed hopes fell away from her, a burden that had accumulated slowly and she never recognized she was carrying. For the first time in years, she felt free. She walked from the bathroom to the rusting wrought iron balcony, leaving the lace edged slip on the floor where it lay. Her mind was entirely blank.
She walked past the baby mattress where Mathias slept, glancing numbly toward him. Instead of finding his small form softly breathing, covered in his fraying brown blanket,part of it tucked under his head, he was sitting up looking into her eyes. She found it curious that he was awake and was watching her. She continued toward the balcony. It wasn’t that she didn’t care what happened to him. He was all that she cared about. It was that she couldn’t, it didn’t even occur to her to care any more.
Mathias watched his mother, moving slowly but deliberately through the room. She looked into his eyes but didn’t stop. Something was happening; the only place she ever went without her clothes was the shower. The only place she let him go without his clothes was the shower too, but now she was walking through their house completely naked, not even carrying any clothes, with all those funny marks on her body, moving toward the balcony like she was, what? Asleep? Thinking? Confused? Something. She turned the handle and pulled the door open.
Mathias wasn’t allowed on the balcony. It was too dangerous and it was too scary anyway. You could see through the metal bars all the way down to the sidewalk. He didn’t like how his belly felt when his dad carried him out there. His mom always seemed extra nervous when dad did it, especially when he was already angry, and she was always relieved when he brought Mathias back in. She, herself, never went out there. But tonight, she stood on the metal grated floor, the cold night air blowing back in through the open door. She looked off into the distance for a moment, put her right hand on the wrought iron railing, and looked back at him as she lifted her left leg up to the rail.
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The cold air blew across the front of her body, causing goosebumps to form instantly from her shoulders all the way down to her ankles. She could feel the occasional puff of warm air escape the apartment and brush against her back and the backs of her legs. She knew what came next and she wasn’t afraid of it. It felt so natural, so right, so welcoming. She gripped the cold metal rail with her right hand, steadying herself, lifting her left foot up onto the rail. One quick movement and she would be free. Free from him. Free from pain. Free from oppression. Free from everything.
As she embraced the freedom that was about to come, a part of her heart stirred, a whisper of a memory of the life she could have had, the life she thought would be filled with joy and love and laughter with a man who would love her. It could have been so good. So good. But it had all crumbled around her. As a final goodbye, as she lifted her body to the top of the railing for that one step to freedom, she looked back into the apartment. He had ruined every other part of her life, certainly he would be there to ruin this too.
He wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t. He was passed out on the bed. If he had been, she would have just done it quicker. All she saw was her own green eyes looking back at her from Mathias’ innocent and bewildered face. He stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob. His words drifted on wisps of warm air out to her, “mommy, I’m cold”. He would never have spoken in his father’s presence, but to her, he could open his heart, he could share what he felt and what he needed. He could be who he really was. He wouldn’t have that anymore. She would be gone. Mathias would grow up to be…like him. As she balanced on the top of the iron handrail, bright white moonlight reflecting off her translucent white skin making her glow in the darkness, she could see it. She could see Mathias’ entire future; the abuse, a life devoid of love or affection, the example he’d follow, the man he’d become. He would become his father.
Slowly, carefully, she lowered herself back onto the balcony. Nothing changed inside of her, she didn’t feel shame, she didn’t regret what she had been about to do, but now she felt purpose, one thing left to do before she could take her freedom. She had to get Mathias as far from his father as possible, and then she could be free. She had to keep her son from becoming the monster his father had always been. She turned from the city, walked through the door and closed it behind her. She smiled at Mathias, bent down and kissed his forehead, and walked into the bedroom to get dressed.
She had no friends in New York, he didn’t allow them. He had assured her that the only person she needed in her life was him. Anyone else meant that she didn’t trust him, or didn’t love him, or didn’t need him. The remaining money in his wallet wasn’t enough to start a new life, she knew that. Her closest family was a sister who lived in Cleveland but they hadn’t spoken since she left home. He wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. If she could just get Mathias to her sister, then she could be free.
Looking at the departure board, the first bus leaving the Port Authority Terminal on 8th Avenue that night wasn’t going to Cleveland, it was a 2:40am bus going to Pittsburgh. It would at least get them away from him, out of New York City, and it was going in the right direction, west. When they arrived in Pittsburgh she could figure out the rest. She had an old phone number for her sister and enough cash for a night at a very cheap motel and a couple meals, but that was all. She always thought that her sister’s boyfriend, now her husband, seemed like a good person. Though she hadn’t spoken to her sister since before Mathias was born, she was hopeful that they would help her.
They boarded the bus an hour before it was due to leave, as soon as they had their tickets, and made their way to the back of the old Greyhound. It had been cleaned recently, you could smell the disinfectant in the air and some of the plastic arm rests were still damp, but it couldn’t remove the smell of oldness that hung in the vehicle. It had seen too many miles, too many people eating, smoking, sweating, and sleeping in the cloth padded seats over the years. Each left a trace of themselves behind as they walked down the aisle and out the door, contributing something to the old bus’s aroma. Mathias’ mother crouched below the top of the headrest of the seat in front of her. She trembled as she looked back and forth from the window to the bus’s door, praying that he wouldn’t wake up early, that she would leave no trace of where she had gone, and that no one would ever remember that she had been here.
Traveling by bus is not the fastest way to get anywhere. With stops at every station between where you get on and where you get off, what should take six hours by car takes twelve by bus. The long silver Greyhound Mathias and his mother rode stopped four times between New York City and Pittsburgh, waiting at each station for thirty minutes to an hour for new passengers to store their luggage and board the bus. The longest stop was in Philadelphia, and though she struggled to sleep while the bus was moving, all she could do was stare nervously at the door every time they waited at a station, waiting for him to walk up those steps.
Obviously, there was no way for him to follow them, she knew this. Certainly there was no way for him to get to a stop ahead of them, the didn’t own a car. Her mind assured her of it. She had all his money and he probably still didn’t know they had left, but her heart whispered that he was coming, that he knew where they were, where they were going, and that he would catch them before they got away. He was smarter than her, he had told her so. He had said it in a hundred different ways. When he was drunk, “You’d never survive without me”, “did you even graduate high school?”, “I had a dog as smart as you once”. Even when he was sober, to almost anything she said, he’d reply “why would you even think that?”. Eventually she stopped thinking for herself at all, deferring to him in all things. He seemed to like it better that way, the supreme ruler of his three person kingdom.
Mathias slept through most of the trip, drifting off almost as soon as they got on the bus. He didn’t see them leave the city, hadn’t seen them cross the Hudson, missed the skyline of Philadelphia, and slept through the sunrise as they made their turn west onto Interstate 76. This was his first time outside of New York and these would all be new sights and experiences for him. When they pulled into Harrisburg station he stirred and she knew he would be hungry and probably need a bathroom. They left the bus just long enough to get a banana, a bowl of dry cheerios, and a small carton of milk. They both made a stop in the restroom. On the way back to the bus they passed a TV on the wall of the passenger lounge. The morning news was on and she almost expected to see her face next to a story about a kidnapping.
At 8:15am they pulled out of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania station, exiting the bus parking lot to the north onto Market Street. One more stop and they’d reach the end of the line, Pittsburgh. They could disappear into the city while she tried to contact her sister to let her know they were coming. In New York he’d be waking up about the time they pulled into the station on 11th and Liberty street, three blocks from the Allegheny River. It would take him an hour or two to figure out she wasn’t at the park with Mathias or buying their weekly groceries. By 3pm he would begin looking for them in earnest, searching the building first, then the block, then all of the places he allowed her to go within walking distance. When she hadn’t returned by five or six he’d know she was gone. But what would he do then? Would he hunt them down? Call the police? File a report? Claim kidnapping or robbery, or both? Or, would he just let them go? Could he just let them go?
The bus arrived five minutes early, at 12:25pm. Mathias and his mother were the last ones off. Not because they were seated all the way in the back, but because she sat, staring through the window at everyone milling around the station, searching for his face, until the driver had to ask her to disembark. She did so cautiously, and walked directly to the schedule board to see when the next bus left for Cleveland. The last bus of the day had left three hours earlier; they would have to stay the night in Pittsburgh. She walked to the ticket window to buy their seats for tomorrow’s 7:45 am bus and to ask for a suggestion for a cheap motel within walking distance.
The gentleman behind the ticket window had kind eyes, glasses, a short grey beard, and reminded her of her grandfather, Mathias Mueller, her son’s namesake. He even had a slight German accent which warmed her heart and gave her confidence. She remembered how much he loved her, how proud of her he always was, how smart he said she was, and she always warmed at his smile which began at his lips and spread all the way up to his eyes whenever he saw her. She had never felt so unconditionally loved by anyone in her life. Mathias was born three years after Grandpa Mueller had died. He left her a copy of his German language bible, complete with all his personal notes in the margins. It was one of her prized possessions and she had it with her now. In his will he encouraged her to study it, to learn the language of her ancestors, and to find the peace and comfort in it that had sustained him throughout his life. She still couldn’t read it, but just having it close always gave her a degree of peace.
It was because of this that she begged and pleaded, promising anything, if Mathias’ father would allow her to name their son after her grandfather. Ultimately he conceded, not having any name suggestions of his own and extracting a number of unpleasant concessions from her. Secretly, there was a second reason she wanted, even needed, to name her son Mathias. The name Mathias, in German, Greek, and Hebrew all meant “gift of God”. In this life where she often found herself alone, living with a man that didn’t love, respect, or value her and resented their son, she could only see him as a gift of God.
The memories washed over her as she looked into the old man’s eyes, the slightest hint of tears forming in the corners of hers. He smiled at her as he asked, “how may I help you?” Her heart swelled at his accent, not German, but maybe somewhere nearby. Maybe Scandinavia; wasn’t that near Germany? “Two tickets, please, for the 7:45 bus to Cleveland”. He looked down at his ticket book and frowned slightly. “I’m sorry,” he replied with a disappointed tone, “that one is sold out, and so is the second bus for tomorrow. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the day after to get a bus to Cleveland.” Visibly she deflated as she thanked the old man and moved from the window to a nearby wooden bench. She knew already there wasn’t enough money for bus tickets, food, and two nights at a motel. There was barely enough money for the tickets. Feeding Mathias while waiting two days for the bus, even if they slept in the bus station, would use most of their money.
Taking Mathias’ hand his mother walked to a pay phone near the doors that lead out onto 11th street. She dialed her sister’s old number, expecting the phone to tell her how much it would cost to make the call. Instead, it told her the number was disconnected and no longer in service. They weren’t going to Cleveland.
