An Evening With Juanita Price

[originally published in Against the Grain, a short-lived small literary journal]

Juanita Price is a formerly battered woman who has been helping other battered women for the past eighteen years. She has developed a theory of human relationships based on her experience as a battered wife. She was a volunteer and contract worker at CHOICES For Victims of Domestic Violence in Columbus for eight years, she is a volunteer with New Beginnings Shelter for Battered Women in Newark, Ohio, and she is a member of the Board of Directors of ACTION-Ohio Coalition for Battered Women. She was interviewed in January of 1988 by Carolyn Cutler and Carol LeMasters.

CC. Tell us about your background.

JP. First off, I'm an ex-battered wife. My husband who beat me up was my second husband. I had a pretty good marriage with my first husband. I had four children by my first husband. He had a gambling problem, and it wasn't like he was mean or anything, he never tried to jump on me or treat me with disrespect, but after awhile we started losing things. You know I had all these children who were hungry, and I was hungry too, so after awhile I got to quit this, and I did. Had it just been me and him, I could have maybe made a go of it, or at least I would have hung around longer, but I could not see my kids hungry. So enough of that. Then heartbroken over having to divorce my husband who I still loved very much, I was emotionally depleted. Just gone.

At this time, who steps into my life but XX, the villain. The predator of all time. I was ripe. It took me three years after I had gotten that stuff straightened out to understand how in the hell did I ever get caught up with him. Because, he's not even my type of man. How could he have gotten in on me like that? I always say that insides speak to insides, and because I was so weak, vulnerable, defenseless, and he picked that up. He saw that. What else he saw at the same time that while I was like that, [it] was not my true state; there was something in me that still said strength. But I was just at a weak place. And it really sicced him on me because he is a man who despises, utterly, despises females. And he needs to feel that they are weak, and it is their place to be used by the male to whatever end or whatever his pleasure is. They deserve that space because they're so weak, you see, and despicable.

During some of that time, I was seeing him as this big strong man, [but] somewhere, on a subconscious level, I got glimpses of what the real situation was, just blew my mind. Because while he was looking like this big, strong man, that so heavily dominated, and all, there was these other times when I saw this glimpse, that actually I had this little kid--have you ever seen little kids hanging on their mother's leg? When she moves, she's dragging this kid, and he won't let go, and she can't scrape him off her leg. That's exactly the way he made me feel at times. Even though I was afraid of him. He glued himself to me and I could not get him off, and he knew that, and so it went his way for awhile. But eventually things turned around where I had to climb back up.

People cannot see what they actually are looking at. A lot of times if they see it and it's too ugly, they pretend that they didn't see it. They cover that truth back up. We are backwards in the sense that we embrace a lie and will turn away from truth. We act like truth is our worst enemy, and a lie is our best friend. If you love your child, protect it from the truth. If you love your loved-one, by all means, protect them from the truth. Oh, but tell them all them big lies. That is backwards. Truth is our best friend, and [if] we can grasp that, turn that stuff around, we [won't] have all this ugliness out there. That truth be hurting. It's hard to take the truth. The further away from you the truth is, the better you can deal with it. You only begin to hate it the more it starts coming in on you. That's just human nature, that's the way we are, and it really takes something to face the ugly truth about yourself. So often the truth is opposite from how we believe a thing to be. We try to make things look as best we can make them look. Like in fairytale land. Oftentimes the truth, it ain't like that. So we build up all little stuff where it's half way decent and pleasant and stuff where we can deal with that, and then when the truth comes along, and does away with our pretty picture, we don't like that.

CL. Did it take you a long time in your second marriage to face what the truth was?

JP. No, he whipped on me too good. It didn't take me too long. No, honey, it was like, I want out. Tell me which way is out. Show me. I'll do it whatever it is.

CC. But when you learned the way out...

JP. Yeah, stuff is easier said than done. And when you sit up there and be talking stuff, you mean it at that point, but see you haven't been tried with it yet. Then when it comes to delivering, and then you what the price of it is, you have a change of heart.

CC. Tell about the day you turned things around.

JP. Having to deal with the truth of XX--all the time he was telling me he loved me--but if you gonna live with a man and take his name you gonna do all this stuff, it's a blow to your womanhood to have to deal with he don't care about you. So many women hide from that truth. Stay, still trying to make it work. That's what they have to protect themselves from the truth that this person they've turned themselves over to don't give a fuck about them. That's some hurting shit. When you can't face the truth about a situation, then you give that situation a chance to keep you prisoner.

Women come to me and they busy crying "he", I say I don't need to hear about "he" it is not about "he", it's about "you". It's hard to get people to see on this certain level this man's put his fist in her face, done blacked her eyes and broke her jaw and all this shit, it's hard for her to understand and comprehend that actually he does not exist. That's a hard concept. You got all these teeth knocked out--see I got all mine knocked out--to show that yeah, he do. That's all these different levels, these unseen levels. Because the strength comes from the victim to be beat up. When I first started, I was [praying], "oh make him change." And it wasn't about him changing. It was me. I said [to God], "what you say? I didn't want to hear that. Slap my face. This fool out here treating me bad and you gonna tell me it's me?" I got all hot about that when that truth came out I didn't want to hear that, it didn't make any sense. So okay ignore it, and run back in there and get my head knocked some more and then run back around here and look at the truth one more time. I'm all whupped up now. This stuff I'm doing ain't working. It finally went down, and when I put it into operation I could not believe it. It was like, I began to get instruction through prayer.

So the first leading that I got was to stop arguing. I got all mad. [I said to God,] "you want me to stop arguing, and he keeps calling me a whore?" Words will kill a child. A word is a word is a word. And it has no power to hurt you except that which you lend it. But a kid can't see on that level. A word to a kid, that's death. So we have to get up off the little kid level, and that's exactly where I was. I was this scared little girl. Living in fear. And he was this even greater scared little boy. Living in fear. The fear that I'm now feeling after all these beatings and all this is not my fear. He passed that off on me. It was originally his fear. He comes in there and makes this trade. He sucks up all the good and the positives from the stronger woman, because he needs her to be weak. He hands her all his negatives. Turn that shit around and start making that little boy grow up. I'm saying it's time now to quit playing with these little boys. Kids beat up other kids. They need to put it on the billboard. They want to know how to stop it? First thing we need to do is start taking away the hiding places of those little boys.

That's what the turnaround did. I had gotten to the point where me and the kids would be hiding from him when he came home from work. When it was time for him to come home this heavy blanket just fall in the house. It was so oppressive. We just wanted to put off to the furthest instant even having to contend with him He was so ugly and so mean. Kids would be outside playing and hiding, course I'm the housewife, and I would be in the basement pretending to be busy washing clothes or whatever, or else I would go up in the attic--just the highest place or lowest place, mostly I'd be down in the basement acting like I was doing work down there. But actually I was hiding from him.

And he would come in the house like a raging lion. Stomp. I used to hate the way he would call me because the way that he said my name, it didn't sound like "Juanita." It was so ugly that my kids could pick up on that. And their faces would just tear up. They could hear the disrespect. He might as well have been saying "Bitch" "whore" "slut." Now my husband hadn't said to me, "when I get home from work you better be hiding down there in that basement." It was his ugliness and his meanness that made me voluntarily to try to stay out of his face as long and as much as I could.

Then I began to see that in the animal kingdom where we sometimes live--there's spiritual, there's human, and then there's the animal kingdom--but we went to the animal kingdom, and I saw this picture of what it looked like, and it hurt my feelings. It dawned on me that he knew I was hiding. He knew that even though I was acting like I was busy. Every time I went down in the basement, hid in my hole in the basement, I was like this rabbit. You think about a rabbit. A rabbit can only hide and run away. It can't fight. It's a prey. That's all it is, it's a prey. So then I understood that my fear made me into this defenseless prey. And when I became the rabbit, it created the space for him to become the wolf. Now, if I didn't want him to be the wolf, then I have to stop being the rabbit. It's as simple as that. My position created his position. The abuser is dependent on the victim to be the victim.

The other thing I understood that he was this big kid. And that was really hard to deal with because he looked like this big man to me. This is a two year old? That's the part that I train the women to zero in on, cause that's the little motherfucker that's scared. And that's the one that can't deal with life. And that's the one whose ego will not allow him to be honest, so he has to ball all his fear up and find somebody to fill up with it, so he can feel like he's big and strong and say "that's the weak one. That's the one full of fear. That's the one who is stupid." And his ego won't let him face the truth about himself.

So, the first instruction was that I needed to turn it around, and all I had to do was don't be hiding in the damn rabbit hole. Get the fuck out of the rabbit hole. Me in my position made him strong. He comes in there and I'm this rabbit, and he knows I'm hiding, he comes in there acting like the hunter. Acting like the wolf. I was scared to death. I was really scared cause I felt like I had prayed and asked for help, and I get these stupid instructions that don't make sense. All that stuff that I was doing wasn't working, cause it really did not make sense to me. I felt like if he seeing me standing at the door, I'll get knocked into the room. I already know he hates me and doesn't want to be around me, so I try to accommodate him by staying out of his face.

That day, I'm gonna meet him at the door. I ain't hiding in the damn hole. I was scared, but I had to climb past my fear. Fear really makes you display the behavior that helps the abuser beat you up. I said, "today I'm not going to let my fear rule me. I'm gonna climb past my fear and do what I'm supposed to do." So I'm standing in the door when it's time for him to come home from work.

He pulls up, and I was just standing there. I wasn't threatening or nothing, just standing there in the door. And he looked at me and he sees me. I could see him real good. It's like I could read body language. He was shocked. Now all this time, see, he had to come into the house and find me cause I'm hiding. Dang today he don't have to find me. Lord have mercy there I am, standing in the door, looking at him.

He goes into shock because now he's learned this pattern. He's learned this position. He's ready for the wolf place, but I'm standing in the door, I've taken away his place. Ooh. Now he don't know what to do. His place is gone. He fills this place. But he don't understand that. So he looks up there, and I'm just standing there looking. Then it's like "Maybe I'm seeing things," so he shakes his head and he looks again and this time when he looks again, it's like "Oh please don't let her be there. " And I'm still standing there. Then he sits there trying to figure this out.

Now he don't feel safe because any time your position is gone, you don't feel safe. I erased those positions. He sits there, [and] I begin to see after awhile that the fool is scared to come into the house. I ain't threatening him. I ain't even looked at him ugly. All I'm doing is standing in the door, and he is scared of me. It turned around. Then when I see that, inside, my little girl is just jumping up and down. "Hot diggety dog, don't it feel good the fool is scared of me. Look at him. The fool is scared to get out of his car. I ain't done shit to him."

Finally, all the weight that left me starts settling on him. I call that psychological weight. You can't see it but that shit is heavy. It will crush you to the ground. He sits there but I'll wait. I'll just stand there. All pleasant in the door. He don't want to come into the house because now it's like, "maybe I pushed her too far." He's aware how ugly he been. He's been trying to make me crazy. "Maybe I pushed her too far. Maybe she crazy. She gonna hurt me." Now when I be standing in the door, I probably got this knife behind my back. See, now he don't know what to expect. All before, he knew what to expect because he dictated my behavior. But now, see, he don't know where I'm coming from because he's no longer in control. When you turn it around, the control comes back.

Okay, so now I'm in control and he don't like that because he don't know what up. After awhile it begins to dawn on him, people are out there, peeking out the windows behind the curtains at him [and he thinks they are saying,] "why XX sitting out there in the car?" He begin to be aware that he's looking funny. And then because he knows he's scared to come in the house, then he feels naked. He feels like they know he's scared to come in the house. Now, his ego can't take that because he is a man. He ain't scared of no woman. So, the ego makes him have to walk over his fear now. He got to come in the house to deny that he's scared of me. It's really wild.

So, he comes up to the door, and before when I would greet him, I was walking all soft and saying "how was your day?", saying something nice to try to stay on his good side. We done changed places. Here he come, I'm still standing in the door. My instructions were, as he came up to the door, not to move. Not to stand aside to let him in, until he had acknowledged my presences. We're talking about getting some respect. Dig?

I'm standing there and now he's not feeling strong enough to push me out the way. I'm just standing there. He has to speak to me, cause I don't speak first. This word comes out of his mouth that I have not heard since our courting days. The word is "honey." He says, all nice, "How are you, honey?" I'm seeing that we have changed places. He is trying to walk softly around me, to not upset me, because he don't want to send me off. And before it was the other way around. After he speaks to me, I say "I'm fine." Then I say, "Won't you come in." And then I move away from the door. He is glad to be asked in to his house.

Every client that I work with, I find places where she can start, according to her situation, what we can use to turn the shit around. Because we got to turn it around before we start working on it. Then we start slapping on ass. Kick ass, mama. You can kick that ass and don't even raise your hand or your voice. Kick ass, and require that little boy to grow up and give you what? Your respect. It's about respect. The man who beats up his wife has little or no respect for her. Respect is her protection. Not the law. Not the guns and knives. Respect. The women need to learn how to get that. How to require it from the little scroungy things. Respect is her protection.

It's like the male has a license from society, from the churches, from all the places of authority, he has this license to disrespect the woman. He's encouraged to disrespect. He's taught that he don't have to respect her. All of these ways he's given license to not respect her. She got to get her respect in order to be safe from the fool. It's about respect.

I got respect. I got respect from XX. I stayed in that house six months beyond the time I started receiving answers to my praying. And it was then I saw out in my face, the power of it. He turned into this whining, crying little two year old in my face. I couldn't believe it because I could see there was this little kid, but I found that very hard to grasp because his physical presence was so strong. And then his behavior, it turned around like that, he couldn't take it.

He begin to run to the church and boo hoo cry. And whine. And point the finger and tell on me. He ran to the church to tell daddy, the pastor. [The pastor] may be his daddy, but he not mine. That's how I learned how the churches really reinforce those men. A lot of women get caught because when [they] start standing up against [their] husbands and the husbands will run to daddy the pastor the pastor will side with [the men] and use his pull to rope [women] back in. But to obey the little boy pastor is the same thing as obeying the little boy husband. She becomes a child up under the pastor, it pushes [her] right back up under her husband. They become one and the same, the pastor and the husband. That's a spiritual thing.

I learned to tell both those fools no. Of course they see me now, a reprobate. Satan got me. And on top of that, I'm crazy. The church persecuted me for four years, because I refused to allow that little boy that was so high in the eye of the church to kick my butt and beat up my children. I would not take that. And the pastor kept trying to use his pull and telling me God required it. See? I got this communion with God, [who] instructs me.I didn't need [the pastor] to tell me what God said. God talking to me, direct. And do you know the fool sit up there and let it out how they see women when I told him. He come and tell me, "Well, Sister Price, see God done told me to tell you that it's time for you to do thus and so about your husband." And I said, "Well that's strange because I just talked to God yesterday, and God didn't tell me that." He said, "What is wrong with you? God don't talk to women."

People are afraid. They are all scared of daddy. But we gotta come out here with the truth if we're gonna escape. So somebody's gonna have to not be scared. It's from fear that we get kept in this prison. Every woman got to stand up and throw away fear. They ain't nothing but those little kids out there. She got to stop seeing what everyone telling her is big strong men. Fuck. It's a scared little boy. And he can hide that fact from her as long as he can fill her up and make her be the scared little girl.

Kids don't have authority. Adults have authority. Kids have power. And that's the biggy. That's the principle thing [is] that people don't understand what authority is and power is, and the vast difference between the two. On the t.v. all the time, in books, [they are] misusing the word power. You hardly ever hear the word authority. Every thing is Power imbalance, Power this and empower and women are powerless. Men have all the power and women are powerless. And in these relationships there is this imbalance of power. There are two things in those relationships and those aren't even looking at one of them. One is authority and one is power. Can you see the authority and power in marriage? The husband is given the authority--he's getting it from church, the Bible, and from society. They recognize him as "head of the house"--authority over his wife and children. That is a relationship where he recognizes his authority and her position is that of power.

Make another power-authority relationship. A real good authority-power relationship is that of parent and child. Because that's where all the trouble comes good. It makes this cross-over. The parent anc child relationship is in a class by itself. It is different from the other authority-power relationships. It is what I call type I. The type II is an authority-power relationship but it is different from the one of parent and child. Where the battering and the trouble comes in is that in the sub-conscious, the abuser takes and reaches into the parent-child authority-power relationship and takes those rules that apply to the parent-child and transfers them onto other relationships where the rules do not apply. These other relationships we talk about are two adults. The rules change. It's that wife or that person in the power position into what I call the child position and you have to learn to stay away from there. It's an invisible place but it's real. The moment a woman marries she is standing in the child position. Any time you are in a child position, the person who is holding the authority in that relationship becomes the parent, and they got a license to whip your ass because the parent has the right to discipline the child. It's terrifying, but it's real. All this undercover stuff. People got to see this, especially women. Because if you don't see it, you will buy into it and won't understand what is happening to you and why. You have to turn it around and not take it. You don't even have to get uglyÑall you have to do is get out of the child position and get on the adult level. It's an inside move.

When I met the man at the door, I was an adult; I wasn't trying to threaten him. I didn't meet him at the door like no kid. I had to quit being the child. I was on the adult level--then it turned around and he came into contact with his scared little boy side. Before, he could get me to act like a scared little girl. I'm standing in the door acting like a woman. STAND UP IN YOUR HOUSE LIKE A WOMAN, and walk over your fear to do that.

It takes more than age to make you grow. Some of us grow older and bigger and haven't grew up worth a damn--even if [we] are fifty years old. Society don't even require you to grow up. Excusing every fucking thing he does--he may not do shit, but he is excused. Church does not require him to grow up. Women out there better start requiring them to grow up. Victims are required to grow up FAST. Victims should require [their men] to grow up, if not, it's going to get worse and worse.

CC: I was at support group the other day and I told the story of the time you and XX were in the restaurant.

JP: Oh my God. [That] guy was after me. He used to drink, and I would feel like if I could keep him from drinking, he wouldn't reach that ugly stage. This is how I fooled myself. One of the first things he tried to do to me [that night] was sell me. He tried to sell me to these three men in this car. I had what you might call a "sixth sense" and I prayed to God that he would guide me right. So I managed to do the right thing by not allowing him to sell me.

The principles and the issues that I deal with are intangible, in that I see him operate on the surface and I try to understand what I am looking at. I had to see the situation, like him trying to sell me. He is reaching a point where he is very hungry, and at this point I am doing what I know [in order] not to play into him. He can't get me yet. He is kind of mad about it, but he is still trying. I am not doing what he needs me to do. By this time, I am scared. I can just feel how really ugly he is getting. It's dark out on the street, and I wanted to get around some other people so that I feel safer.

We come to this little diner with people inside, so I go in, with him behind me. I'm walking kind of fast, and then after I wait and he doesn't show up, I get this really eerie feeling because I'm sitting right by the window, but I can't see out of it because it's pitch black outside and I feel that he is up to no good right about now. I don't feel safe at all even though I am sitting inside with all those other people.

After awhile, he come in and he is wearing this horrible grin. I say to myself, "oh shit, he's getting ready to have some fun." So he orders food and we are sitting there and the food comes. This fool sits there and he sticks both his hands in the bowl of greens and dumps the bowl of greens on his head. Sticks his hands in the mashed potatoes. I am revolted. He has this stupid grin all over his face. How many people do you know that would do that shit?

He looked a mess. He made you lose your appetite. So now I'm mad. My sixth sense tells me "he wants you, he needs you to try to go back on him. He needs you to say one damn thing to try to reprimand him so he can knock your ass through that window without opening it up." This is what he is waiting on. They need an excuse to jump on you and the women don't see this.

Now if I would have done this, he would have told me to shut up and he ain't no child for me to be telling what to do because he would bust my ass. It was a trap and he kept doing worse things to try to make me tell him what not to do so he could slap me.

I saw through that and I didn't say nothing. Then the manager comes. The manager is bigger than him, but XX has the beast in him. He had already made an offer to the three men to sell me to them. Can you imagine three men running from one man? They looked in his eyes and saw the BEAST. They were scared. So here comes the manager to try and put him out. He looked and when XX turned around, his eyes looking like tiger eyes, the man got a good look, he sees the beast. The manager is a man like XX is but he is scared. So he jumps on me. So not it's switched over to me and he is going to try to order me. He's talking all bad to me. He is really scared to death. Him yelling at me made him feel good.

He was trying to make me feel responsible to make XX get the hell out of there. That's exactly what XX wants. He wants me to say something so he has an excuse, and I get my ass killed. They don't understand that even if I did what they thought I should do, it ain't going to make him do no different. But I had the knowledge. I understood.

All these faces are looking at me, watching for what I'm going to do, cause I just sit there. He is waiting for me to move. People are thinking, "she should be ashamed to sit there like with this man, letting him do this. This woman should act like his mother." This man could have been a two year old. But what could I do? He was acting like a two year old in a high chair and [they thought] it was my fault that I had not taught him better manners. Therefore I could get up and take my brat home. That is exactly what they wanted me to do.

I had to sit there and take all that shit, and after awhile, he's waiting to make the right move, and then he is ready to go. So we get up and go.

Okay, then we go through some more and my sixth sense is still telling me what to do and I escape the trap that time.

CL: When you were going through this, did you have any other support other than your spiritual life?

JP: I had the support of my children who were in the house with me. We became closer through all of this. I didn't have many supporters in the church because we were both in the church and because of the church teachings. Do you know what my pastor said to me? One time he saw the BEAST, and it blew his mind and he became terrified of my husband, but still he did not have any mercy on me. He was just out to protect himself from the beast.

After I had left, the pastor came to me and told me that God had told him to tell me that it was time for me to go back to my husband, and I said to him, "suppose he kills me?"

Now, see, at this point he could not even deny that that was a possibility. He had seen the Beast. So he couldn't deny that. He couldn't even act like he didn't know what I was talking about. [He said,] "well, at least you will die in the Lord." Why should I die at all! He actually said that to me. In order to serve God--God made man to be God over woman. Man has the power of life and death over her. That woman is responsible for that man--to make him a man and that is the shit that went down. The truth has got to be told. There is a license out there right now. On the surface it looks like women are making all these gains, and this is a cover up because we BETTER STAND UP! Oh, shit!

The church puts the members in a child position, and they sit up and let their people play like they are some kids. I came out from under the pastor and that was the reason why the pastor hated me. Everyone in that church was under his wing and they let him run their private life and all that stupid shit. Uh, uh. I have seen the right way and I acted on it. Repercussions came from this, but honey, I'm okay now. I grew from that. I came out from under XX. I steady grew.