Breaking Free, pt. 1

by Eric F. Crow

It was a Friday like any other morning. I got up to cook breakfast for my first partner, Chuck. We lived in Portland, OR, at a place owned by a lady friend of Chuck’s father—we’d been there about six months after having a falling out with his father for not accepting me, oddly enough (stay tuned). 

I was turning the potatoes when he came down. He saw me using “the wrong spatula” and quickly took it out of my hands, hitting me on the back of the head with it. The pan fell on the floor and potatoes went everywhere. As I got down to clean up the mess, I started to cry. He started making fun of me. “What are you gonna do, cry. Poor Eric?” 

Something came over me. I got up, tears falling down my face, which I could feel was scrunched in anger, looked him right in the eye, and said, “No, not poor me. FUCK YOU!”  He smacked me in the face. That was it. Five years was long enough. I’d threatened to leave at least four times before, but then he found me and convinced me to come back. 

This time was different. I went upstairs to pack a suitcase. He told me he wouldn’t allow me to take anything out with me. He even tried to stop me when I grabbed a coat to keep myself warm. I asked him, “Are you really gonna make me go out of here and freeze?” He relented and let me take the coat, but nothing else. 

As I was at the bottom of the stairs, he called down. “Eric? <pause> Are you really leaving?” 

I had no words. I just nodded. 

“Then get the hell out!” he said, and slammed the bedroom door. 

It would the last time I ever saw him.

I started walking out onto SE Main Street, toward downtown, angry, swearing, crying. It was five miles to downtown Portland, and I had about 80 cents to my name. While I was crossing the bridge over the Wilammette River into downtown, I knew this time was different. I knew it in my bones. I wasn’t going back. I needed to break free. 

I’d been receiving food bank services from the Cascade AIDS Project for about six months, and I knew they had counselors. I walked in and went to the front desk, where I explained my situation. I sat in the waiting area for about ten minutes, and then a counselor called for me to step into his office. I re-explained my situation, and asked for help in getting out of that situation. “I just can’t spend the rest of what time I have left living like this. I need help.” 

As he was doing my intake, the matter of my possessions came up. “Do you want to go back and get them? Because we can escort you back and have the police there, as you take what’s yours.” I contemplated briefly and then said, “No. I’d rather not go back there. I’ll cut my losses.” The counselor set me up with a room at a residential hotel and gave me a voucher for food. I had their number in case I needed anything. I planned to call Mom to ask for help with getting home. 

As I walked to the hotel, I stopped at a store and got some food, cigarettes and a note pad. I decided I would start keeping a journal again. I was safe and out of harm’s reach. Better yet, I was free. Finally free. I’d spent so many nights awake in bed wondering. But no more. I was free.

That was 25 years ago today. I have no words for the feeling I have right now, sitting her in 2019, 25 years after the darkest chapter of my life. 5 years of every kind of abuse you can imagine. The list of horrors is a mile long. And here I am, not just surviving, living my life to the fullest. Surrounded by friends and family (of origin and of choice) that love me and believe in me. A list of life accomplishments a mile long, partly because I set out to prove him wrong for every time he demeaned me, but also because I didn’t have anyone trying to tell me “you don’t deserve that.” About to have a year as Mr. Long Beach Leather that I strongly suspect will be unparalleled to anything I’ve ever done before in the community or maybe even in my life. It boggles my mind. Stay tuned.