For Such As These

Jeff stood in the kitchen as I explained that I was taking the kids to the doctor the next day. Two of them had ear pain after a long round of influenza, and even I had tinnitus from the pressure in my ears.

“Tinnitus?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

I looked at him. “Tinnitus. You know—ringing in your ears?”

He still looked confused. “Humming?”

I shook my head. “No. Ringing. High-pitched.”

He stared at me. “That’s not normal?” he asked.

My brain short-circuited. “No. No, it’s not normal. What do you mean?”

We’d been married nearly twenty years. He lived with tinnitus, and I didn’t know it.

“It’s always like that,” he said.

The conversation kept going. I asked about illness, injury. I explained that tinnitus is an injury. You’re not supposed to live with it, all day, every day. I asked when it started. He couldn’t say. It could have happened anytime.

His mother used to box him around the ears. Violently.
He was beaten up more times than he could count.
Fireworks once blew up in his hand.
The sheriffs.

Later, sitting on the bed, he choked out, “I forgot. I forgot things. I didn’t know I forgot things.”

He paused. Then: “One time, I’d been homeless for three months. I came home. My sister let me in. I went straight to my room. Ten minutes later, six squads showed up. I was twelve. I ended up at Harbor Shelter.”

“On Myrtle Street?” I asked. Stillwater, Minnesota.

“Yeah.”

He wiped his face. “We were outside, playing with a ball. It rolled toward the street. The counselor told us we’d better get it. So we ran.”

He swallowed.

“And right then, a squad—maybe two—drove by. They saw us running. They stopped. Got out. And just beat the shit out of us.”

He was crying now. “They hurt us. They hurt us so bad.”

He took a breath.

“And when they were done, they ordered us to get the damn ball.”