There were two things that my mom, Starr, loved – beating my ass and Whitney Houston.
My mom believed in corporal punishment. She was often heard quoting Proverbs 13:24 – spare the rod, spoil the child. She practiced a very literal interpretation of this verse, although most other aspects of her life were far from pious.
These were not spankings. That sounds almost quaint. No, what my mom doled out were “whippins”. I do not practice corporal punishment. I once popped Conley’s diaper cushioned bottom and then immediately collapsed into a heap of stinging tears and crushing guilt crying. That was my one and only foray into physical reprimands.
I, on the other hand, received my last whippin’ when I was 15 years old. It was on report card day.
I had received straight A’s – despite the fact that my had been arrested for buying narcotics from an undercover cop and would soon start her first stint in Alderson Federal Prison. To celebrate that I had not yet spiraled into an abyss of teenage angst and wildness due to the sins of my parents, my mom had promised me Western Sizzlin’ and a movie.
Movie theaters were a church of sorts for mom and me. We loved sitting in a cool dark theater with a tub of popcorn between us. It was one of the few places that the tension of our relationship wasn’t palpable.
That night we were going to see “The Bodyguard”.
In addition to my mom’s love for her, Whitney was a huge part of the pop culture of my childhood, well, actually of my entire life. I remember listening to ‘Greatest Love of All” on repeat. I would insert the tape in my boom box, grab a hairbrush and put on a show stopping concert for my stuffed animals. With Whitney’s golden voice filling my small bedroom, I could momentarily forget the turmoil that was usually twirling around on the other side of my door.
Although I was a sulky, eye-rolling teenager who was deeply ashamed of my felonious, drug-addicted mom, she was still the love of my life and I was very excited about our date. I was excited for a few hours of normalcy.
However, my people aren’t really known for normalcy and we would not be starting a new tradition that night. By the time we were sliding our red trays along the rails at Western Sizzlin’ there was no denying that my mom was completely loaded.
My mom’s drug of choice were opiates. They caused her to nod off and talk like a dying robot. During dinner mom’s head drooped and her hand relaxed until her fork would fall out of it and clank against the metal of Sizzlin’s plates. The noise would startle her and she would snap her head back, rub her nose and try to casually ask me to pass the ketchup as the waitress cast pitiful glances at me.
I was crushed. Therefore, I did what any 15 year old would do, I acted like a complete and total a**hole. My behavior continued even when the drugs started to wear off. I was surly, I mumbled answers, I made snarky comments. I sat in my theater seat, arms clutching my ribs, refusing the salty, buttery movie theater popcorn that I love more than a lot of people. I didn’t even enjoy it when Whitney hit THE note in “I Will Always Love You” because I glanced over at my mom and saw her wiping tears and quietly whispering, “Sing, girl, sing!” It made me furious!
Had I cut my crap once she started to sober up, I probably would have gotten away fairly unscathed. However, considering my frontal lobe was still developing, my critical thinking was not one my attributes. After one too many sighs she whispered one of her patented phrases, “Sosha, I’m telling you, you are cruisin’.” She left off the second part of that sentence off because we both knew that it was understood. I was “cruisin’ for a bruisin’”. However, I was on a huffy, rage-filled roll by this point and I figured her guilt was so great that I didn’t have much to worry about.
I was wrong. So wrong.
When we got home, she walked back to the bedroom and I plopped down on the couch. She called me back to her room. I sighed, rolled my eyes and trudged down the hall. I opened the door and grunted, “What?”
Before I knew what was going on she was on me like a panther. She had a hard sole sandal in her stubby, chapped hand and started smacking my backside with it. I was taller than her at this point and it really didn’t hurt that much through my jeans. So, I smirked and said, “What in the hell are you doing?”
There are some points in your life when you say exactly the right thing, the thing that will diffuse the situation. This was not one of those times. She started swinging wildly, using her hands, grabbing for a belt and pulling down a bunch of clothes in her fury. I was slightly awestruck, but it still didn’t really hurt.
I was determined not to cry. Granted, there were a couple of times, when the belt landed above my jeans that it was hard to not get a little misty, but I knew that was exactly what she wanted. Eventually, she tuckered out and sent me to my room. I plopped on my bed and stared at the ceiling incredulously. I could get my driver’s license in the next couple of months and my mom just whipped me. This made me giggle, giggle until I cried.
I’ve watched “The Bodyguard” multiple times since then and it always make me think of that night. A sad smile always creeps across my face.
When I was growing up in broken down rentals and roach-infested apartments, I dreamed that I would grow up to live a glamorous life like Whitney Houston.
When Whitney was flawlessly belting out ballads and making grown men weep with her version of the National Anthem, it was impossible to imagine that her life would become so imperfect. I could have never imagined that it was actually my mom and her that were kindred spirits.
Although it racked me with guilt, I was glued to Whitney and Bobby’s reality show. There was part of me that was relieved in knowing that it didn’t matter if you were a multi-millionaire with multiple Grammy’s, you could still be as big of a train wreck as my mom. Whitney and Starr were both golden in their own right, and they were both moms who were torn apart by addiction.
Addiction is blind in its rage. It doesn’t give a damn who you are. Addiction will as happily capture one of the most talented singers to ever grace the earth as it will a pretty blond high school dropout. In the eyes of addiction, they were the same.
Whitney was a Starr. Starr was a Whitney.
Soshally Awkward
Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.
