The Making Of Alexis Valdez: Chapter 2
Sticks and Stones
The safest place in the world was underneath the covers of Mom’s bed. Snuggled close, she’d grab my Children’s Bible from the nightstand and read stories out loud until I drifted off to sleep. I loved feeling her chest move in and out with gentle breaths as she flipped through the glossy, illustrated pages.
She wasn’t religious, but I think Mom found strength and refuge between those pages. The sudden death of my stepfather shook us all to our core, leaving us to pick up the shattered pieces of a life we once knew. Reading with Mom in bed each night was where we found tiny moments of peace.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
I knew The Serenity Prayer by heart. I’d close my eyes and hold Mom’s hand as we recited each line.
I think about those nights often when I cuddle with my son, Samson, the same way Mom used to with me. I ruffle his chocolate brown hair while he tells me everything about his day at school.
“Mom, don’t look,” he once said as he pulled the elastic band of his pants just below his waist. “I’m just checking to see if I have a bruise there.”
“Okay, okay.” I covered my eyes with my hand and turned to lie on my side.
Shifting to a new position on the bed, a memory of my younger self flashed into my mind. I was nine years old, the same age as Samson when I would stand in the bathroom of my father’s home practicing different poses in the mirror. Coming out of the shower, I used a second towel to wrap my wet hair the way I saw the older girls do on TV. Tilting my head to the right and jutting my hip out to the left, I imitated my favourite actresses. When I turned around to get a glimpse of my bum in the reflection, I saw the furious face of my father in the mirror.
“That's what you like to do?” he yelled. “You like to look at yourself?”
The rage in his voice startled me. I turned around, gripped the bathroom counter with my fingers and braced myself for the weight of his fist to hit my small frame.
With a lingering look of disgust, he turned around and stormed away to his bedroom.
Wrapping my towel tightly around my body, I sunk to the floor. I was spared this time from the physical wounds he’d usually inflict on me, but in place of those bruises was a deep shame from his words.
Tears pooled my eyes as I attempted to shake the memory from my mind.
“Mom, you can turn around now,” Samson said as he poked my shoulder.
Staring into his eyes which are the same colour brown as mine, pain pierced through my body at the thought of ever hurting him the way my father hurt me. My greatest fear as a parent is that I could end up passing along to my son the wounds I’ve carried since I was a child. That I would end up being like my parents who, in their minds, believed they were doing the right things even though the reality was much different.
They were teenagers when I was born, so maybe they didn’t have enough life experience to understand how to raise a child when they were practically children themselves.
But that’s bullshit. I’m always making up excuses for my parents. I want to believe they were supportive, that they loved me unconditionally and made me feel that love every day. But those excuses are tainted by the trauma I’m afraid I’ll pass on to my son. Will Samson turn around one day and tell me that something I did or didn't do traumatized him? That fear lives with me daily, so excusing my parents’ failures is like letting myself off the hook.
The truth is that I still feel the fractures in my relationship with my Mom. The woman who used to read me bedtime stories every night vanished not too long after the death of Big Mike. In her place was someone who often saw me as an inconvenience and a burden holding her back from having the life she wished to live.
One night, she stood across the living room and stared at me like I was an intruder in her home.
“Everyone thinks you’re an angel but I know different.” I could tell she was drunk.
“You fucked him didn’t you?”
I don’t know if it was the alcohol speaking or if she had truly lost her mind, but I sat in disbelief as Mom folded her arms across her chest and waited for me to answer.
She had been drinking all night; a dangerous cocktail of alcohol and the adrenaline from fighting with her boyfriend fueled a paranoia she couldn’t be talked out of.
Across the room was a frightening image of who I could become. We look so much alike. Mom always said that if I had her green eyes and blonde hair, I’d be the Latina version of her. Although her beauty and fiery personality attracted groups of men she’d meet at the bar, she was never the type to bring a revolving door of boyfriends in and out of our lives. Each man she introduced to my siblings and I was a part of our family for years.
The boyfriend she had accused me of sleeping with had been with us for three years. He was a good guy and definitely tried to be a father figure. Their relationship was great for the most part, but when Mom got upset, he was no match for the viciousness of her words. Their arguments often lasted overnight until the early hours of the morning. Overhearing the intensity of their words reminded me of the fights Mom had with Big Mike. Particularly the one they had on the night Big Mike threw himself over the ledge of the balcony.
But this time my mom’s antics had gone too far. Believing that her teenage daughter had sex with her boyfriend was something I could never forget. Trust me, I’ve tried many times.
It marked another moment in our history when she turned against me instead of trying to protect me. There were countless other examples, but the times she’d call my father over to talk sense into me when she felt I got out of hand always stands out. She thought my father would just yell or smack me around a bit to smarten me up for talking back to her. She didn’t know at the time that he beat me senseless and said the most horrific things. She only discovered this years later.
But I’d had enough by then. After years of feeling unprotected at home, I made the decision to take life into my own hands and moved out of Mom’s house the month after I turned 17. I’d been paying rent to her at the time, so I knew I could take that money and find an apartment with my boyfriend. I was young but had reached my breaking point of living in that house. It was time to search for my own home.
Plus, I wasn’t afraid to be on my own. The one thing I learned from my father was street smarts. I knew how to navigate the world and go after the things I wanted in life from watching him. I learned over time that I couldn’t control others’ actions toward me, but I sure as hell could take power over my own. So I found ways to make my life feel powerful.
Not long after I moved out, I discovered a career where I was not only in control of the money I made but also had full agency over my body. For the majority of my childhood into my teenage years, my body was a source of shame and never felt like my own. Instead, it was a beating ground for abusive hands, verbal and sexual assault, and illness. Living in my own space and making my own rules left me determined to change that.
I was introduced to sex work at 18 years old.
This was my chance to reinvent myself. To quiet the echoes of my father’s judgement. To silence the whispers of my mother’s accusations. I would take command of my body and my sexuality in a way I never had before.
I was no longer that teenage girl seeking love and validation from a home I didn’t belong to. Those days were over and in my new life, I needed a new character. So I created one.
This is the making of Alexis Valdez.
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These stories are all real, though some names have been changed.