ALLISON THOMAS             ©2014 by Myron Schreck

Allison Thomas, an old friend of mine.  The first time we met she was only a child.   Each day at the mill, we worked the same shift. And sometimes I’d walk her back home up the hill. She lived with her father in a one-bedroom shack. Her mother had died about seven years back. She worked at the Mill since before she was nine.   She never learned to read;  she never learned to write.

And sometimes I noticed a bruise on her neck — a black and blue eye … or a limp. She never would tell me just what had occurred. She acted as if she had sinned. And then one day she told me about him …

He lost every job; he fought all the time.  He spent all their money on whiskey & wine. This brute of a father abused her each day. For all of his problems – he said she was to blame.

She told the police of the things that he did, but they laughed and they told her: “It’s only discipline …  A father has rights, and you’re still his child … If you want you can leave.  If you want you can hide.”

 “But each time that I leave, he just comes after me. And he drags me back home by my hair. As if I’m in prison — I simply give in — It’s gotten so’s I just don’t care. ”

Then Allison Thomas whispered to me — “I can’t even mention the worst … “The things that he does to my body at night — I feel just as if I’ve been cursed.”

* * *

Nineteen eleven – Upstate New York – the trial only lasted a day. She had no attorney.  The evidence was clear.   The Judge only asked her, what did she have to say? She said that her father had threatened her life. He’d beat her and broken her nose and her teeth. And each time she left him – he always brought her back. And so she was forced to stab him in his sleep.

The Judge was astonished – with no sympathy. “That’s not self-defense – that’s murder!” said he. “You can’t simply kill a man in his sleep.  You had time to run or call the police.”

   “But each time that I leave, he just comes after me. And he drags me back home by my hair. As if I’m in prison — I simply give in — It’s gotten so’s I just don’t care. ”

Poor Allison Thomas, alone and afraid — She never revealed that her father had raped her. She swore me to silence:  “Take it to the grave.”  She wanted to hide her horror and her shame. She’d rather be in prison, or even be hung, then to have the world know … what her father had done.              What her father had done.    

Allison Thomas, I saw her last week.  She finally learned how to write and how to read. There’s hope for the future  …   her pain’s in the past  …   Although she’s in prison, … she’s found  …  peace …  at last.