The Ravages of a Man
alcoholism, spousal abuse, child abuse, violence, brooklyn, short story
Published on:
Feb. 22, 2008, 5:49pmWord Count:
4862Work Description
The horrors an alcoholic Brooklynite perpetuates on his family during the 1930's and 40's and its impact on the family members.
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Thankfully, the Bowery in Brooklyn was a large place; there were
plenty of tenements and not all the landlords knew and shared
tenant information. It was a
disorienting world where a day could start off looking one way, and
by the end of night they would be adjusting to new furniture, new
smells, new sounds, new people, new lies to tell. Only the run-down, beaten up appearance of the
apartments stayed the same – that didn’t change, no matter how many
times they moved. Urni always counts
the cracks in the ceiling to see if the number matched the same as
their last apartment. The burden of the
frequent moves affected Urni’s schoolwork; she was always playing
catch-up and her grades tended to suffer, particularly in those
subjects that didn’t come naturally.
But Urni had a strong sense of justice and righteousness. The actions of her father, no matter how much she loved him, created a deep chasm of rage in her. Her own wellspring of violence would seep out throughout her life, tainting and corrupting what she held sacred. She was a survivor. The childhood verse “When she was good she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid” seemed expressly made for her. Had she not been such a fighter, she herself might not have survived. Jane certainly wouldn’t have without Urni’s protection. Urni could never justify the reality of who her parents were with who she wanted to believe they were. She would sometimes paint a picture of them that had little to do with reality, but fed a need deep within her for normalcy, to be a little girl protected and cared for by attentive, loving parents.
The day inevitably came when the dam broke and the violence became too much for even Urni to bear. Late one November night, after the bars had closed, Gerard came home, so drunk he could barely stand up, but with murderous intent in his eyes. Astrid had let his dinner grow cold once it was six hours after the rest of them had eaten. He went at her with fists flying. It didn’t take much to have her down on the floor where he proceeded to kick and hit her senseless. Urni jumped out of bed and tried to stop him but he just threw her off. Jane woke up and started to cry but Urni couldn’t take her out of the apartment because Gerard was blocking the front door. His daughters’s cries didn’t stop him. He grabbed Astrid’s ear and twisted it, feeling the tendons pop beneath his fingers, wrenching it until the skin tore from her head, yelling that she better listen to him from now on. Astrid was whimpering as blood rushed down the side of her face, spreading out on the floor beneath her, but even those cries ended as she lost consciousness.
Gerard slowly looked at his hands and blood on them. He methodically dropped the ear on the table, its sticky blood smacking against the surface, and went down the hall to the community bathroom to wash. Urni quickly took Jane and the ear, she had reached the bottom of her endurance. She knew she could never fully protect either Jane or herself after what she just saw. Urni grabbed some clothes and wrapped Jane up in the blanket and headed out into the chilly night.
The nearest police station was five blocks away. Streetlights created pools of light in the dark, scraps of papers danced across the streets. There were few cars to be seen – in the Bowery most people couldn’t afford cars – a can skipped across the street, pushed by the wind, a rat skittered into an alley, bricks lay tumbled in a heap beneath the crumpling façade of a tenement front, garbage spilled from tipped garbage cans. When she reached the station, she went inside to the front desk. The institutional grey walls were lined with benches and posters referring to bail bondsmen. Desks were crammed behind the long counter. Tired officers rattled typewriters while their nights’ booty, the scummy, corrupt cast-offs of
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You have the start of an incredible story here with fascinating characters and a wonderful grasp on description, creating a scene that the reader can taste, smell, see, and hear. That said, I think you need to bring the story to life. I felt a bit like I was reading a historical police account as opposed to a story. I know it's cliche, but "show, not tell" comes to mind. You nailed this with the beginning, bringing the readers into the story. If you could carry it throughout the piece, you'd have magic. Great start.
Astrid had made them eggs and boiled potatoes for dinner
"Astrid" stumped me and took a second to figure out that she was the mom. It just seemed like their was a third person thrown in, probably because Urni seems to be the main character and most wouldn't call their mother's by their first names.
Anna unfolded before Urni’s eyes.
Just wondering who Anna is? Did you mean Astrid?
Urni had his way with words
Again, just need clarifacation about who you were talking about? Urni or Gerard?.
In the early 1940’s women still had few rights and too few knew how to pursue what little they had, certainly not a barely literate one from another culture
This is a bit encyclopedic, telling history instead of showing it. Can you incorporate it into the story without creating a sense of textbook for the reader?
The details here are terrific. The setting is particularly well-done; at all points this story feels like it's firmly in pre-WWII Brooklyn. The pacing/plotting is problematic, and there are a lot of places where the grammar breaks down. There is a ton of good material to work with here - but there's lots of work still to be done.
When I say the pacing is problematic, what I mean is that this piece needs a stronger plot to give it order and progression. There's a good introduction and a terrific climax here, but in between are a lot of episodes whose order seems practically random. I think too much effort is spent on emphasizing how ever-present the family's problems are. Too many of those episodes between the start and the climax feel like digressions. The point of view should be tied more firmly to Urni. As it stands it feels like the point of each little episode is to emphasize how desperate the family's situation is. If, instead, each incident was tied to Urni's thoughts and each one nudged her closer to escape - that would get the plot on its feet and put some real steel in the story's spine.
Reorganizing the episodes and how they relate to each other could strengthen the plot. It could start off with Urni and Jane hiding in the basement. Then flash back to the specific violence that drove them there. Then flash back further, setting up the older stuff like Gerard's employment, Astrid's history, and the family's apartment-hunting. Urni's friend Lillian provides an opportunity to build a good progressive structure - she gets closer to the Perrys, things get better for her, and then it all comes apart when her father snatches her from the church. Then it goes back to the darkness of living with Gerard - in my mind this is a good place to show Gerard sleeping with Urni. At last it comes to a head when Gerard takes Astrid's ear and Urni escapes with Jane. Arriving at her aunt's home and being integrated into a new household makes a good end. I would keep subsequent details to a minimum - how Gerard finally killed Astrid is worth mentioning, but I don't think Urni would much care what happens to her father after that. When Urni escapes from Gerard she should take the story with her.
Now for the grammatical stuff:
Not for the first time, Urni wished she was a shadow disappearing into the walls.
Consider how the opening line would read without 'Not for the first time.' I think it would be much stronger.
the Brooklyn tenement her parents’ currently called home.
'parents' isn't possessive here. No apostrophe.
An overall note on the first paragraph - there's plenty of good scene-setting detail here. Too much of it, really. When the details are laid out neutrally they're kind of superfluous. When they're directly related to the characters they're much more interesting - Jane getting sooty and sticking fingers in the spiderwebs is a much stronger than saying 'there were spiderwebs and soot.' No need to do both. I bring this up because the same situation occurs repeatedly. The story can be condensed and the pace improved by sticking to the details that matter to the characters.
She had been in that hot, dusty, cobweb filled space for the last four or five hours but she could see, from the dirty, cracked window across the room there were still too many feet to be seen on the street of this September evening; Gerard would not pass out for a while yet.
This is an overloaded sentence. Too much information makes it hard to follow. Break it up and squeeze some of the excess stuff out: "She had been in the hot, dusty basement for four of five hours. She could see the street through a cracked window across the room. There were still too many feet outside; Gerard would not have passed out yet."
Astrid made Gerard’s dinner with food she couldn’t spare for the rest of them and placed it at the table, seating across from the plate and drifting off to sleep, her head in her arms – she knew better than to go to bed before Gerard came home.
It should be 'sitting,' not 'seating.' Or 'seating herself' could work. And the 'she knew better ...' clause is a great detail.
When father, Gerard, with a chest like a barrel and two spindly legs beneath, came home, smelling of over-ripe sweat, rancid breathe, and the overpowering stench of gin. . The stale, rancid smells of the bar followed in his wake.
Again, there's too much going on at once here. The grammar has fractured under the load. Consider the first sentence with the descriptions taken out: "When father ... came home ..." There's no actual subject or action going on, is there? It's a fragment, but it's so long it looks like a real sentence. Compare: "Gerard came home smelling of over-ripe sweat and gin. Their father had a chest like a barrel and spindly legs, and the stale, rancid smells of the bar followed in his wake."
With the face of a bull dog and a dispossession to match ...
'Disposition,' not 'dispossession.'
Quicker, and sober, she would race to her friend’s home, four blocks away, in her pajamas, or, more likely than not, in her underwear, and sought refuge.
First, I really like the economy of 'Quicker, and sober.' But there are two problems with the verbs here. There's a tense mismatch - race vs. sought. The bigger problem is the 'would.' Putting this sentence into the pluperfect (I think that's the technical term) is a small-scale example of the overall problem I mentioned earlier - stressing that this happens over and over weakens the language and, ultimately, the story. I would rather be reading about Urni specifically running from one incident of abuse: "Quicker, and sober - though wearing just her underwear - she raced to her friend's home and sought refuge."
Through the Perry’s, Urni found a second home –
'In the Perry's house' would be a better start than 'Through the Perrys' (which doesn't need an apostrophe).
She and Lillian loved to buy extra sour pickles and sit in front of the choir. As the choir would start to sing, Urni and Lillian would bite into the pickles, making sour faces and spitting out juice to throw choir singers off their notes.
This is great, an example of what I meant by 'terrific details.' I know I'm bringing up a lot of problems and suggesting a lot of changes, but I really want this story to hold onto these moments of kids being kids. They help make Urni's confrontation with grown-up problems poignant.
Anna unfolded before Urni’s eyes.
As others noted, 'Anna' comes out of the blue. It should be Astrid, right?
he was the one with the least to loose.
Should be 'lose' rather than 'loose.'
And then there was Astrid . . .
While doing this second read-through for grammar I've figured out a big pacing problem. This whole section - the description of occasional happy times, Gerard's work history, and Astrid's back story - is really out-of place. It interrupts Gerard sleeping with Urni, which is one of the darkest parts of the story, one that should be very close to the climax. This stuff is too good to get rid of, but it shouldn't be here. It needs to be worked into the story much earlier.
In that hazy never, never land of alcoholic fumes, the cries of children had little meaning.
'never-never land' should be hyphenated, not comma spliced.
There were few cars to be seen – in the Bowery most people couldn’t afford cars – a can skipped across the street, pushed by the wind, a rat skittered into an alley, bricks lay tumbled in a heap beneath the crumpling façade of a tenement front, garbage spilled from tipped garbage cans.
These are all good details. Cramming them into a single sentence is cruel. It could be broken into five sentences - it should be three at a bare minimum. I'd start a new sentence with 'a can skipped' and 'a rat skittered.' Note that the last clause in a comma-separated series ('garbage spilled' in this case) needs an 'and' at the beginning.
The winds of change swept Urni along the streets of Brooklyn, with leaves and garbage rustling in her wake as she left the police station and made her way across town.
'The winds of change swept Urni along the streets of Brooklyn' is bloody beautiful. I'd emphasize it and separate it by making it a separate sentence and rephrasing the rest ('Leaves and garbage rustled...' ) as appropriate.
After school her hours would be spent cleaning, waxing furniture, banisters and stairs a gleaming, burnished gold, washing floors and linens, only to leave the doing of her homework late into the night and Urni considered herself lucky.
Another overloaded sentence. Compare: "After school her hours would be spent cleaning. She waxed furniture, polished banisters, and washed floors and linens. Urni left doing her homework until late at night. She considered herself lucky."
... she assumed her mother would be safe, but in the 1940’s authorities rarely, if ever, interfered with household matters.
This is one of the rare moments when the authentic setting breaks down. By explicitly reminding the reader that the story is set in the 40's it pulls the reader out of an otherwise immersive environment. I would just say "The police rarely interfered with household matters," and leave it up to the reader to make any comparisons with how the police behave today.
That's it for the line-by-line. I pulled several examples of sentences where too much detail strains grammar and comprehension; there are more like them in there. A careful edit with an eye for simplicity will do wonders for this story on the grammar angle. As for the larger issue, the plotting/pacing problems I saw, some judicious reorganization would help a lot. I think the feeling to shoot for is "Things are bad now. They're not always bad, but they're bad a lot. And they're getting worse ..." If the episodes are laid out along that general path I think the story will be much improved.
There's a really good story in here and it just needs a little more attention to make it a great read. Thanks for sharing it.
Hey Debbie,
I finally got a chance to read this! God I hate when life gets in the way!!!
Let me start by saying I lived in an abusive household and you catch the essence of it very well in this story. From the physical description of the house to the people in it - every element screams that this world is dark and dingy and scary for a child narrator.
Couple of things.... I was confused by the change in voice here...
Astrid had made them eggs and boiled potatoes
the original voice appears to be a third person limited from Urni's POV and calling "mom" by the first name really threw me off. I had to read through the paragraph and then go back to figure out that Astrid was mom ..try and keep to one voice or the other - if you change mid-story your reader will get impossibly lost. Calling dad Gerard didn't throw me as much because of the disgust the narrator feels for the father, but with the mom - it really threw me...
Also....
Anna unfolded before Urni’s eyes.
Who is Anna? The name appears more than once and I THINK it is astrid - but I honestly am not sure if there is someone else I am missing?
you can't end a sentence with "or":
no basis in reality or. A
couple little spelling issues and grammatical issues - so you might want to give it a read through for the technical level.
Also...just a little opinion, take it for what it is - a lot of the story seemed to be TELLING because of the tense you used....if you change all of this to present tense instead of past and SHOW it I think it will increase the emotion of the reader and the impact of the story.
I'd be happy to read the rewrite if you decide to edit it. Happy Writing!
Kathleen
This story to me was in one way realistic: For one, alcoholism affects this country greatly and you had demonstrated this very well within pages of the story. This also reminds me of the fact that irresponsible drinkers drink and drive -- but this is such an ugly thought that almost makes me shudder and ache inside....
This is sort of like a living heck for me -- in a home with the scents of things like basil, curry, and cabbage that pervades through and through the house.
"She smelled the odors of too many different meals, garlic, cardamom, curry, basil and the scent of cabbage wafting over it all, her stomach an ever constant reminder that it had been some time since she had last eaten. The floor was littered with the relics of past tenants’ castoffs."
This house was a living nightmare to my thoughts. 5 out of 5.