The Silent Screams of Little Jessie

That evening after Carol had fixed supper, Dennis Ray announced, “I’m going out.”
“Dennis Ray, what are you going out with? I don’t have any money.”
“Did I ask you for money?”
She was afraid to carry the conversation any further, so she just shook her head, and began to clean off the table.
“Lil Jessie, go get your pj’s; mommy will come and help you get bathed.” Carol was hoping she’d do just as she asked, so Dennis Ray wouldn’t show himself again. He left, and Carol was counting her blessings. She hoped he would stay gone, because she knew if he came in drunk it would be horrible. She hurried and got Lil Jessie bathed and they cuddled up on the bed and went to sleep.
So soon it was morning. Carol woke up and peeked out to see if Dennis Ray had come in. She didn’t see any sign of him. She went to the kitchen to make Lil Jessie a pancake out of a
little flour and water. She was out of syrup, so she topped it with a little jelly she had left.
She headed toward the bedroom to wake her when she heard Dennis Ray coming up the stairs. He began pounding on the door, cursing, demanding to be let in. Her heart went to her stomach;
she was terrified. She ran and shut the bedroom door, hoping Lil Jessie would stay asleep.
She went to the door and unlocked it. He shoved the door hard, hollered at Carol, and pushed her down on the floor. She began to cry, “Not again!”
He grabbed her, “Fix me some breakfast!”
“I don’t have anything,” she sobbed, “I fixed the last little bit of flour for little Jessie so she wouldn’t go to school hungry.”
He shoved her down again. “You ain’t good for nothing,” he spat hatefully.
He went to the kitchen and saw the little hoecake with jelly.
He picked it up and started to eat it. Carol came into the kitchen and saw him eating the food she had fixed for her child. “Dennis Ray, how could you? That was all I had for little Jessie.”
“They’ll feed her at school.”
Lil Jessie woke to all the commotion, and came into the kitchen, not realizing her clothes were all wet. Carol noticed. “Lil Jessie, go back to your room. I’ll come and help you get ready for school, ok, darling?” She was looking closely at her sleepy little girl. “Go on, honey, I’ll be there shortly.”
But before she got turned around, Dennis Ray noticed that she was wet. It made him even more furious; he got up, and Carol didn’t know what sort of outbreak to expect. “Dennis Ray, she’s
only a little girl,” she pleaded. He threw Carol to the ground.
Lil Jessie started to cry. He picked her up and took her to her bedroom and rubbed her little face in the wet spot on her bed.
“You’re not changing her clothes! Let her go to school wet! That’ll teach her!
He insisted on taking her to the bus stop; “Stop crying; you hear me?!” He screamed at her and made her get on the bus. “Maybe next time you won’t pee your pants, you li’l pee-pot.”
She was humiliated, and wouldn’t even look at anything or anyone the whole way to school. She just sat and cried. When she got to the school the teacher sent her to the school nurse. She
just thought the child had had an accident on the bus. She put some dry clothes on her and sent her back to class. But it was already too late; all her classmates knew she’d wet her pants and
it wasn’t long before they picked up on the name her daddy had called her as he was putting her on the bus. They made fun of her and called her ‘pee-pot’ for many days afterward.