But everybody knew already, they didn’t need to see the marks. Those comedians around the elevator and lobby told everybody.
Everywhere I went, people would ask me, “You all right? We heard you got beat. Are you okay? You need help?”
I told everyone I was good.
But I wasn’t good. I was in a bad way. All those people there wanted to help, but I couldn’t receive their help. All I could do was push them away, and then go back to the dude that was abusing me.
Why?
I ask myself that a lot. I don’t know the answer. Maybe because I didn’t want to be a quitter. I felt like it was my first time making a commitment in front of God, and getting married was a big deal to me. I’d never been baptized or anything like that. So this was the biggest commitment that I’d ever made in my life, and I didn’t want to be a quitter, I wanted to find a way to make it work. I didn’t want to seem like I just gave up.
Even though I got beat up. Even though the Jehovah’s Witnesses were telling me to get out. Even though a different pastor, from the Baptist Church, was also telling me to get out. It was like God was sending me all these messages to get the fuck out, but I still couldn’t.
Maybe it was just that I didn’t know any other way to be loved. Maybe this was the only man that I had ever thought truly loved me. Maybe I just couldn’t leave that, no matter how bad it was.
I don’t know. It’s still hard to think about this.
On some level, I felt like if I loved him enough, I could heal him. I could heal him from being mad, from being so vicious.
It was like those Twilight movies. It was the same thing for me. I can keep him from drinking human blood. I can bring him deer blood, I can heal him. I just have to love him the right way. I just have to figure out his language, learn how to speak his language.
I even went and talked to his mama:
Tiffany: “How did you show him that you loved him?”
Mama: “Girl, once I burned him with a hot comb, because he was messing with my butt.”
Tiffany: “Okay, so I need to burn him with a hot comb?”
Mama: “He was a terrible child. I had to lock him in the house and tell him don’t touch nothing until I get back from work.”
That was not good advice. So how do I do this? I just really wanted to be a great wife.
Really, I wanted to be a better wife than my mom was.
I wanted to be supportive, not a pushover. But actually take care of the kids, actually take care of people. If I say I’m going to do something, to do it, to have it done. Just better than how she was to me. I wanted to clean the house. Make sure my man don’t have no roaches in his house. My mom had roaches in the house. We would never have a roach issue, thank you very much.
So I recommitted. And things got worse at home. He set down new rules for me.
Ex-Husband: “You’re not allowed to get text messages or phone calls after ten o’clock, because that’s disrespecting our marriage. I don’t care if your grandma can’t call you after 10 p.m., I don’t care if somebody died, that’s disrespecting our marriage.”
I went along with that. I made everybody talk to me between nine and five o’clock. Business hours. I legit told that to people.
Even though I’m a comedian, and sometimes clubs would be like, “Hey, can you come and do this spot?” I didn’t answer the phone. I didn’t talk to them. I told them, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. If you don’t call me during business hours, I can’t talk.”
Finally, the tide started to turn. I started to see the light. But it wasn’t because of anything physically abusive he did to me. More abuse did come, but the last straw was something very different.
One night, we were driving away from the Laugh Factory, and he got a text message. His phone was in the center console, and it popped up on the screen.
Lisa: “Why you be lying?”
I saw that and I knew. Before I even knew, I knew.
Tiffany: “Who is Lisa?”
Ex-Husband: “What are you talking about? You’re seeing things.”
Tiffany: “No. No. No. Who is Lisa, and why does she say you’ve been lying?”
Ex-Husband: “You tripping. You seeing things. Something wrong with your eyes.”
Tiffany: “Oh, now I’m blind?”
Ex-Husband: “You know you can’t read.”
Tiffany: “No, I can read now, and this says Lisa: ‘Why you be lying?’?”
Ex-Husband: “No. You tripping.”
I grabbed the phone, and I started texting her: “Why?” She texts back in two seconds, like she’s a professional text messager.
Lisa: “Because you said you was giving me some money to get my nails and hair done tonight.”
I texted back, and I read my message out loud, “?‘Well you know my wife be spending up my money.’?”
As I texted that back, he got so mad. He grabbed me by the head and pushed my head into the window. He was trying to get the phone, and I was pulling the phone back.
Tiffany: “Nigga, what is wrong with you? Like what the fuck is wrong with you? What did I tell you about putting your motherfucking hands on me? Get your motherfucking hands off of me!”
Then he pulled over, and he took the phone from me.
Tiffany: “Why you don’t want her to know that your wife’s spending your money? What’s up with that? What’s up with that? What’s up with that? What’s up with that?”
When we black women repeat our words, you know shit is bad. Well, shit was bad.
Ex-Husband: “You need to shut the fuck up.”
Tiffany: “No. You need to shut the fuck up. I told you to keep your motherfucking hands off of me, and you put your hands on me, and you know what’s going to happen. When we get where we got to go, somebody’s getting their ass beat, and it ain’t going to be me.”
I poked him in the side of the head. When I poked him in the side of the head, he went ballistic.
Ex-Husband: “I’m not afraid to fight no one, and I’ll pull your ass out the car.”
Tiffany: “Pull me out the car, motherfucker.”
He waited until we got home, and then it was basically an MMA fight. Except he was big and trained in hand-to-hand combat by the police academy, and I was small and fighting for my life.
He choked me a bunch of times. I scratched at him, I ran from him, all of that. I hit him, but my punches didn’t do shit. He’s a big guy. I hit him as hard as I could with a pool stick a few times (I found that in the back of his car). He grabbed me by the throat and threw me into a shelf at one point. It was like being tossed around by the Incredible Hulk. I thought my eye socket was broke. My lip was busted. I was tore up.
I am glossing over all the details, because they don’t matter. The point was, the man whipped me. He beat my ass.
But now, shit was different. I was done taking this. I was ready to commit murder. I was ready to kill. I got in my car and left the house, and I drove to the police station.
First the police station was closed when I got there. I’m like, What the fuck? How can a police station be closed?
They had an emergency phone outside the front door, so I picked it up:
Operator: “Yes? May I help you?”
Tiffany: “I’m about to kill somebody. I’m about to commit motherfucking murder.”