22 July 2000 ~ Run, Helena, Run...

I heard people fighting today. I guess that’s kind of an understatement. I was walking down Chestnut Street today – a quiet, tree-lined street on the west side of Binghamton (only a few blocks from where I live, but Chestnut Street is really very non-ghetto…). I was walking down Chestnut Street, and listening to the soundtrack to “Run, Lola, Run.” It’s techno. I had it turned up as high as it would go, which is fairly loud. And STILL, I heard the screams.

Immediately, of course, I took off my headphones. I didn’t even bother turning the CD off, just let my headphones droop uselessly at my side. I stood on the quiet, tree-lined sidewalk, and stared up at the house. It was a man and a woman; the woman seemed to be the louder of the two, but her tone was defensive. His voice was quieter, calmer…

I couldn’t hear their words. Rather, I couldn’t hear enough of their words to make sense of what they were saying. It was like trying to translate the German parts of the “Run, Lola, Run” soundtrack: the only German words I know are the ones my grandmother slips into her speech every now and again, ie: “pass me the butter, bitde.” Bitde? Bitte? Whatever. That means “pass me the butter if you have nothing better to do.” If she REALLY wanted the butter, she’d probably do it herself.

So why was I giving myself a German lesson in the middle of Chestnut Street?

Because I could imagine what those people were saying… I could hear the voices, I could hear the tones rising and falling – mostly rising. I could hear the slams of unfortunate dishes left lying on the counter. I heard… And suddenly, I wasn’t on the sidewalk at all; I imagined myself right into their home, and was listening to the choked, hate-filled argument of the couple inside.

He was saying, “It’s no wonder you don’t have any friends, if all you do is behave like this.” And I could see her eyes spark – they were black with rage and frustration. Hell hath no fury like a woman who’s just been told she’s nuts and it’s no wonder she doesn’t have any friends. He liked that; he was egging her on. She just wanted to kill him, she just wanted to KILL him, because someplace inside, she knew that she wasn’t nuts, that she was screaming and freaking out, but that she wasn’t screaming and freaking out because she enjoyed it – she was screaming and freaking out because that’s what he WANTED her to do, and that infuriated her all the more.

She says, “I HAVE friends,” and he looks at her with cool amusement, hiding a little bit of terror behind eyes that say, “I don’t give a shit, I know I’m right.” He’s scared of her at this point. She’s really lost it. And he WANTED to piss her off, because HE was pissed off, he’d had a bad day at work and come home and things were a wreck… But all he meant to do was yell at her a little bit, release a little bit of tension… and now her eyes are glazed over and they’re screaming at each other, and it’s gone well beyond simply bitching and complaining. He says, “yeah, like who?” And she drops something off the counter in her blindness. The dish cracks and she throws it against a wall. “LOOK what you made me do!” she shrieks, and I actually hear that part from the sidewalk: “look what you made me do!”

I started shaking. Tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t even see the fight, and it terrified me. I can hear two totally irrational people on the verge of killing each other, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

(Peter and I used to sound like that. Not so loud, I don’t think. I didn’t scream. I yelled sometimes, but I always broke down crying before I could even think of screaming. I don’t remember ever breaking anything. He was the one who always threatened to throw things, and would slam chairs around and things. But there was just enough hatred between us – real hatred, the kind that only happens when the one person you’re closest to tells you you’re worthless – to make our tones of voices turn fierce. When I’d hear the hatred, I’d begin to cry. I’d call him an asshole. And I’d tell him I loved him. In the same breath. And I’d mean all of it.)

(I can’t understand how these things started. I don’t understand how they escalated, and how we’d tear at each other’s throats like animals. We wanted to break each other. I never understood why it never turned violent – it almost did, many times – but I never understood how either of us could be so destructive… We would have killed each other. And sometimes, I wished we WOULD just kill each other and it could be all over with.)

I heard a fight today. I put my headphones back on my head and listened to “Lola” on top volume as I ran like hell. I hate fights. I hate them. They scare me. I ran and I held back tears.

I’d emailed Peter this morning. It wasn’t a very nice email. It was a long email about my future plans. I brought up a lot of things I probably shouldn’t have brought up: him leaving me, sleeping around, lying to me and about me, threatening me… None of that has to do with my future plans. I guess I’m just still angry at him about a lot of things. I knew it wasn’t very nice, but I also knew that most of it was true: that Peter really has done a lot of unnecessarily shitty things to me in my life.

But when I heard that fight – on sweet, quiet, tree-lined Chestnut Street – I wished I hadn’t sent that email. I wished I hadn’t said anything. All the fear and the anger and the hatred came back. But mostly, the pathetic feeling of cowering in a corner, wincing at each word as though it was a punch. Sometimes – often – I wished he’d just punch me. You can nurse bruises and cuts. You can’t do anything about a look that wants you to hurt, wants you to bleed. You can’t do anything about somebody with hatred in their face and in their voice. I thought I’d rather be killed than be hated. I thought, if we killed each other, we could just go to sleep together – a long dreamless sleep, with no nightmares and no kicking because one of us stole the covers.

I wished then, thinking back on how I wished to die and sleep forever rather than live with the fights, that I never had to see Peter again. I love him. But how can I ever look at him again, knowing that I wanted to hurt him, knowing that he wanted to hurt me? How HAVE I been able to look at him? How have I been able to forget the rages and the threats and the accusations and the doors slammed in my face?

Hearing the fight today brought it all back. It brought my mood so far down. I felt a little tiny sun sink inside me, but instead of making pretty colors, it left streaks of grey all over. It’s been a LONG time since Peter and I fought like that… Probably about three months. But three months isn’t really long enough for the echoes to leave my head.

I saw Peter tonight. Nathan and I were gossiping over coffee. I didn’t know what to say. I was scared of Peter. And I was scared of myself.

Half of me wanted to curl up in his arms and fall asleep and never wake up. And half of me wanted to get up and run – run as far and as fast as I could, and never look back.

Fear isn’t a reason to run. Fear isn’t a reason to lay down and die either. As the t’shirts say, fear isn’t an option.

Run, Helena, Run…

”What’s there that makes you so afraid? You’re shaken to the bone…” --Sarah McLachlan.