“We normally spent time together on Sundays. Because that was...

“We normally spent time together on Sundays.  Because that was the only day he wasn’t drunk.  We’d watch football together.  I could name every player in the NFL.  Then he’d take me out to the backyard and have me throw footballs through a tire.  He wanted speed and accuracy.  He said he didn’t want me throwing like a girl.  He showed me how to use my hips to get extra power.  On weeknights he’d usually come home and pass out in the living room.  But if he’d been drinking hard liquor, he’d get angry.  That’s when I’d go up to my room and put on my headphones.  I’d listen to Alice Cooper or Black Sabbath and turn up the volume.  But I started to notice a pattern.  The yelling would get louder and louder until it suddenly stopped.  And that’s how I knew the beating had begun.  The next morning my mother would have bruises or fractures or missing teeth.  She’d always give me some lame excuse about falling down the stairs.  But I knew what was happening.  And for years I had this rage building inside of me.  Then one night, I finally took off my headphones.  I went downstairs and caught him in the act.  I ripped the phone off the kitchen wall and threw it as hard as I could at his head.  Right through the tire hole.  He woke up on the floor, called me a terrible daughter, and never touched my mother again.”