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Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Girl Next Door


The girl next door needs lots of help.

This could be a title of a story by Steven King. Certainly the circumstances are something right out of his genre of storytelling. I have written about her before, so this is an update. First, the basis of the story:

The Girl next Door is a real person, aged 34 years old. She suffers from development impairment, and as a consequence has the mental capability of a seven year old. Her mother died a few years ago, and the rest of her family, including aunts, brother and sisters, have all concluded that she must live in the family home on her own with her father.

Her father is a man of about 60 years of age with the mental capability of an eight year old.

The Girl is her own worst enemy. I’m sure that she suffers with some medical problems, and one of those problems that she labours with is that she tends to start crying frequently in a very passionate and loud manner that causes her to vomit and make retching sounds. These bouts of crying go on for hours at a time, sometimes lasting throughout a full day until she is exhausted. Quite naturally, this is very stressful on those around her. While her mother was alive she was the girl’s principal support. Her father would leave home and go to the local bar. Now he is directly responsible for her.

Now, when she starts crying he starts yelling. This reminds me of when I as a very young child and I would start up crying over something that had displeased me, my father would ask: “what you crying for boy? You want me to give you something to cry for?” At that point he would take off his belt and give me a few licks around my legs. The vocal pitch of my cries would rise dramatically so that I was then crying for real.

No surprise, she does the same and his yelling also gets more violent. He is possessed of an army drill sergeant’s voice that terrifies the girl, plus he does strike her, as can be heard clearly.

I called the police, and I directly reported the matter to the town council. I should not be getting involved in this Spanish family’s affairs, especially as her extended family all know about the abuse. No-one in her family will take her as she is simply too much for them to handle, however, everyone agrees that she should not be living with her father on her own. In fact, she really needs to be institutionalised, but under the Spanish system that would require her family having to pay for her upkeep. There is simply not any money available to do this.

We understood that an Order of Nuns have agreed to take her under their roof but they are awaiting the paperwork to be completed to allow this to happen. It has now been more than one year since that story started to circulate. Meanwhile the awful situation that exists in their house did continue to get worse.

The father drinks heavily and practically loses his mind in the face of the aggravation. I’m not so sure I would do any better. It seems that neither he nor his daughter eat healthily. The housekeeping appears to be non-existent, although I have not seen the inside of the home. If you placed a bag with a million euros in the far back room and said it was mine if I cared to go and get it, I think I would pass on the opportunity. It’s just something about all that vomiting that I hear going on in the house that would put me off.

The police have attended when some of the out of control abuse has taken place, and they have threatened the father with jail. That only serves to agitate her even more as he is all that she has. From his viewpoint he is disciplining his childish daughter and anyone who doesn’t approve of his methods is free to take her.

She is well possessed of a sense of theatre as sometimes when we have friends over for lunch on the terrace she will launch into a crying episode, complete with retching, and cries of “Mama! Mama!” I play the radio to try and drown out the sound but she raises the level of her voice, apparently happy to know that she is spoiling our lunch.

How will all this end? It will certainly end in tears. If the authorities come to take her away the separation from her father will be traumatic for her, but that will be her best chance for the future. If they don’t come soon he will probably kill her in a drunken rage. That will set off a wave of denials of responsibility, if indeed anything at all can be done for this unfortunate girl and her hapless father.

I try to imagine the angst of the father being stuck with his daughter, considering that he is entirely incapable of caring for her, and the terror of the girl when he is yelling at her. The irony of this tale is that there are times when they have weeks of peace and harmony marked by delightful laughter on her part. Her laugh is a very joyous and infectious sound. We are presently going through one of those periods. I must say that the peace does make me nervous.

Copyright © 2010 Eugene Carmichael