Dressed in Decay prt 1
My mother always told me I was born on a rainy day in April. I suppose its true because well why would she lie. I guess maybe because a majority of my childhood was built upon lie after lie it made me think that maybe just maybe that it wasn’t raining the day I was born. That maybe just maybe when something for me happened it was sunny, and bright and the birds were singing. But like everything in my life at one point it was only wishful thinking. I knew from an early age I wasn’t everything my father expected me to be. He wanted me to be strong and tough like him. He wanted me to be perfect in his eyes and I knew from an early age I wasn’t. I remember once he bought me a tape recorder and me and a friend of mine Hugh would sit there making the Dracula voice into it.
“I vanna suck your blood,” which would set my mom into hysterics.
My mother was small petite and blond. She barely came to my father’s shoulder. My father on the other hand had a big, big chest, big shoulders, big arms and big fists. He was dark to my mom’s light. Dad was the devil and mom was his angel whose wings he’d ripped off. I was their sin, I was the atrocity, I was a forsaken creation that he as the Devil, tortured every chance he got. Unlike my mother I never knew happiness. That wasn’t something that was allowed, he never allowed us to be happy when he was around. All I was allowed to feel was fear and anger. His anger, our fear.
There were times I remember when he tried to be nice. A Christmas present of a puppy, taken away three days later just to be mean again. A birthday where he bought me a bike, only to force me to learn how to ride it into a fence. I broke my arm for the first time that day. He refused to drive us to the hospital; he told me to suck it up. That things could have been worse. Finally my mother snuck me out of the house and walked the 10 miles to the hospital with me in her arms. I remember the doctor’s skepticism when my mother told him how I broke my arm.
“He was riding his bike and hit a bump and fell,” she had told him.
But this was when the doctors didn’t call the cops as often as they do these days. They set my arm and gave my mom pills to ease the pain. Apparently when he grabbed me up off the ground after I fell off, it snapped my forearm. Mom took me home and was so gentle with me tucking me in soothing my pain, giving me one of the pills with a glass of water and sitting with me smoothing my hair.
But, I remember so clearly that no matter how tired the pill made me I couldn’t sleep because he stood there in the doorway glaring down at me. He hated me, I knew in that moment at the age of 4 my father hated me. He hated me enough to want me dead. I was scared of him and that’s what he wanted. He had beaten that terror into me already. And even in my heart I knew there was no hope of ever getting him to love me. I didn’t sleep for three days no matter how many of those pain pills Mom gave me.
I watched him watching me, wondering then even at that age what he was planning to do to me next.
It went on like this for years, deadly calm before the strike.
My father drank heavily and at all times of the day. Everyday of my life I saw him with a beer in his hand or a glass of whiskey. Whiskey was his weakness, he loved it more then life itself. My mother always had to keep a bottle handy, if not there was hell to pay. I don’t know where my mother was the day he decided I should be his lunch as he put it. I could smell the whiskey rolling off his breath in waves of bitter sweetness as he clung to me in an imitation of a hug. The hug wasn’t the first he’d faked when mother wasn’t around, this was his way of getting me close enough to him so he could do damage. Damage that I still carry the scars for, I hide them well sometimes, but other times they’ll surface with out me wanting them to.
My father had a fascination with my right arm after he broke it. Anything he did to me he did to my right arm. That day was no different, as he sat there hugging me, pinching the fragile skin on my back between his fingers. Suddenly he swooped me up into his arms, carrying me to the kitchen; he set me down on the counter. I watched him warily, knowing how he could be. Knowing that he had some dark pain surfacing in his alcohol fueled brain. He grabbed my arm, suddenly dragging me across the counter, he opened the toaster oven turning it all the way up he shoved my arm inside. He slammed the door shut and even though I struggled to pull away he draped himself across me and whispered into my ear.
“Don’t scream, we’re cooking lunch.”
Pain surfaced and burned along my arm I stared up into brown eyes filled with anger. I shook with terror, trying desperately not to cry out in pain. I looked up catching his eyes so like my own. I wanted to cry then and there but I held back the cries. He watched me intently to see my reaction to my now burning arm. I turned my eyes back, watching blisters form. I prayed my mother would return home and save me from the devil himself. I remember the smell that day so clearly. The smell of burning flesh and bittersweet whiskey mingling in the air making my stomach turn.
Suddenly he yanked me away, tossing me aside and to the hard floor. The air left my lungs as I slammed into the cold tiles and I lay there gasping weakly for air. He stood over me glaring down at me. I lay there like the broken toy of some spoiled rich kid, long forgotten, never to be played with again. His foot made contact with my ribs and he was gone with only the parting words.
“Worthless little brat,” he hissed at me like a snake on the hunt.
He lost his job when I was five, just before I was supposed to start kindergarten. Things went from bad to worse. My kindergarten teacher had the same opinion of me that he did: I was useless, a waste of time. I hated school from the get go, I hated it and even at that early age fought with my mom about going.
He left when I was seven, mom tried so hard to make ends meet for several months but finally she gave up, sold most of our stuff and moved us to Jersey and into my grandmother’s house. I was given my own room, even if way back in the past the room was my uncle’s, it was my own room. Something of my own, I had when I lived with him had slept on a small cot in the kitchen. But here with my grandmother I had my own room, with a real bed and it was warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I started first grade in Jersey and my teacher for some unknown reason adored me. She would help me with my reading and writing as much as she could. I was the best in her class at math, maybe because numbers made sense to me. First grade came and went and my grandmother forced me to go to her synagogue every week. She wanted me to observe our family’s rich history I suppose. She would sit with me every day for an hour after school and teach me what she could. In a way I hated it, but I loved that time was set aside special just for me and no one else. I loved it so much.
For my eighth birthday my uncle bought me a guitar, he said music was too important to pass up. I cherished that guitar. I started playing as soon as I could. When he saw I showed a genuine interest in the instrument he started paying for lessons, which I went to everyday, just like I ran home to spend that hour with my grandmother. I was happy, for the first time in so many years I was happy.
Second grade was uneventful unless you count knocking this kid’s teeth down his throat and being the first ever second grader expelled for anger management problems. I remember the principle telling my mom to seek help for me before I was too lost to save. So she took what little money she could gather each week and took me to see a councilor. The doctor was one of those sickly sweet people who acted like your friend but was really just waiting to get you in a corner and strike. And strike she did, ripping into my fragile walls and trying to see what made me tick. When she couldn’t do that she medicated me. Said I was ADHD and that Ritalin would take care of that problem. My uncle was the first one to notice that I wasn’t me anymore. The medicine made me floaty and not all there. I hated it but I never fought it, I started a second school two weeks after they medicated me and remained there till my 10th birthday.
My tenth birthday was when he returned. When he knocked on the door and I answered it and stared into the face of the devil again. But the few short years he’d been gone I’d misplaced my fear of him. I’d set it aside and forgotten him, but there he stood starring down at me, eyes so like my own burning into my skull, making me weak in the knees and sick to my stomach. I wanted nothing more then to hide behind my grandmother and bury my face in her skirt when she came to the door.
“I vanna suck your blood,” which would set my mom into hysterics.
My mother was small petite and blond. She barely came to my father’s shoulder. My father on the other hand had a big, big chest, big shoulders, big arms and big fists. He was dark to my mom’s light. Dad was the devil and mom was his angel whose wings he’d ripped off. I was their sin, I was the atrocity, I was a forsaken creation that he as the Devil, tortured every chance he got. Unlike my mother I never knew happiness. That wasn’t something that was allowed, he never allowed us to be happy when he was around. All I was allowed to feel was fear and anger. His anger, our fear.
There were times I remember when he tried to be nice. A Christmas present of a puppy, taken away three days later just to be mean again. A birthday where he bought me a bike, only to force me to learn how to ride it into a fence. I broke my arm for the first time that day. He refused to drive us to the hospital; he told me to suck it up. That things could have been worse. Finally my mother snuck me out of the house and walked the 10 miles to the hospital with me in her arms. I remember the doctor’s skepticism when my mother told him how I broke my arm.
“He was riding his bike and hit a bump and fell,” she had told him.
But this was when the doctors didn’t call the cops as often as they do these days. They set my arm and gave my mom pills to ease the pain. Apparently when he grabbed me up off the ground after I fell off, it snapped my forearm. Mom took me home and was so gentle with me tucking me in soothing my pain, giving me one of the pills with a glass of water and sitting with me smoothing my hair.
But, I remember so clearly that no matter how tired the pill made me I couldn’t sleep because he stood there in the doorway glaring down at me. He hated me, I knew in that moment at the age of 4 my father hated me. He hated me enough to want me dead. I was scared of him and that’s what he wanted. He had beaten that terror into me already. And even in my heart I knew there was no hope of ever getting him to love me. I didn’t sleep for three days no matter how many of those pain pills Mom gave me.
I watched him watching me, wondering then even at that age what he was planning to do to me next.
It went on like this for years, deadly calm before the strike.
My father drank heavily and at all times of the day. Everyday of my life I saw him with a beer in his hand or a glass of whiskey. Whiskey was his weakness, he loved it more then life itself. My mother always had to keep a bottle handy, if not there was hell to pay. I don’t know where my mother was the day he decided I should be his lunch as he put it. I could smell the whiskey rolling off his breath in waves of bitter sweetness as he clung to me in an imitation of a hug. The hug wasn’t the first he’d faked when mother wasn’t around, this was his way of getting me close enough to him so he could do damage. Damage that I still carry the scars for, I hide them well sometimes, but other times they’ll surface with out me wanting them to.
My father had a fascination with my right arm after he broke it. Anything he did to me he did to my right arm. That day was no different, as he sat there hugging me, pinching the fragile skin on my back between his fingers. Suddenly he swooped me up into his arms, carrying me to the kitchen; he set me down on the counter. I watched him warily, knowing how he could be. Knowing that he had some dark pain surfacing in his alcohol fueled brain. He grabbed my arm, suddenly dragging me across the counter, he opened the toaster oven turning it all the way up he shoved my arm inside. He slammed the door shut and even though I struggled to pull away he draped himself across me and whispered into my ear.
“Don’t scream, we’re cooking lunch.”
Pain surfaced and burned along my arm I stared up into brown eyes filled with anger. I shook with terror, trying desperately not to cry out in pain. I looked up catching his eyes so like my own. I wanted to cry then and there but I held back the cries. He watched me intently to see my reaction to my now burning arm. I turned my eyes back, watching blisters form. I prayed my mother would return home and save me from the devil himself. I remember the smell that day so clearly. The smell of burning flesh and bittersweet whiskey mingling in the air making my stomach turn.
Suddenly he yanked me away, tossing me aside and to the hard floor. The air left my lungs as I slammed into the cold tiles and I lay there gasping weakly for air. He stood over me glaring down at me. I lay there like the broken toy of some spoiled rich kid, long forgotten, never to be played with again. His foot made contact with my ribs and he was gone with only the parting words.
“Worthless little brat,” he hissed at me like a snake on the hunt.
He lost his job when I was five, just before I was supposed to start kindergarten. Things went from bad to worse. My kindergarten teacher had the same opinion of me that he did: I was useless, a waste of time. I hated school from the get go, I hated it and even at that early age fought with my mom about going.
He left when I was seven, mom tried so hard to make ends meet for several months but finally she gave up, sold most of our stuff and moved us to Jersey and into my grandmother’s house. I was given my own room, even if way back in the past the room was my uncle’s, it was my own room. Something of my own, I had when I lived with him had slept on a small cot in the kitchen. But here with my grandmother I had my own room, with a real bed and it was warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I started first grade in Jersey and my teacher for some unknown reason adored me. She would help me with my reading and writing as much as she could. I was the best in her class at math, maybe because numbers made sense to me. First grade came and went and my grandmother forced me to go to her synagogue every week. She wanted me to observe our family’s rich history I suppose. She would sit with me every day for an hour after school and teach me what she could. In a way I hated it, but I loved that time was set aside special just for me and no one else. I loved it so much.
For my eighth birthday my uncle bought me a guitar, he said music was too important to pass up. I cherished that guitar. I started playing as soon as I could. When he saw I showed a genuine interest in the instrument he started paying for lessons, which I went to everyday, just like I ran home to spend that hour with my grandmother. I was happy, for the first time in so many years I was happy.
Second grade was uneventful unless you count knocking this kid’s teeth down his throat and being the first ever second grader expelled for anger management problems. I remember the principle telling my mom to seek help for me before I was too lost to save. So she took what little money she could gather each week and took me to see a councilor. The doctor was one of those sickly sweet people who acted like your friend but was really just waiting to get you in a corner and strike. And strike she did, ripping into my fragile walls and trying to see what made me tick. When she couldn’t do that she medicated me. Said I was ADHD and that Ritalin would take care of that problem. My uncle was the first one to notice that I wasn’t me anymore. The medicine made me floaty and not all there. I hated it but I never fought it, I started a second school two weeks after they medicated me and remained there till my 10th birthday.
My tenth birthday was when he returned. When he knocked on the door and I answered it and stared into the face of the devil again. But the few short years he’d been gone I’d misplaced my fear of him. I’d set it aside and forgotten him, but there he stood starring down at me, eyes so like my own burning into my skull, making me weak in the knees and sick to my stomach. I wanted nothing more then to hide behind my grandmother and bury my face in her skirt when she came to the door.