An American Fairy Tale

Emotional true stories of an unusual childhood.

       Once upon a time there was a girl. But you already know that, because that is how all these stories start. But this isn't your average European fairy tale, full of stone castles, witches and knights in shining armor.

      No, this is an American fairy tale. What is the difference you ask? Well, most importantly, there are no  knights galloping up to rescue yon fair maiden. There are no wicked witches cackling, looking for children to eat.

     But there are monsters. What is a good fairy tale with out monsters, right? And while the castles weren't made of stone, there were still castles, at least that was how my child's mind precieved it. My castle was a two story house built before the 1900's in the wild west.

     The house had once been a hotel, bar and well, as times were different, a w***e house as well. The stories I grew up with were that for a long time a woman managed the bar, which at the time was called, the River Side Motel, getting it's name from the fact that the Yellowstone river runs along side it. Apparently by all accounts the woman who ran the motel was hard as nails, and had no problem tossing a rowdy, drunk, cowboy out on his ear.

     As the stories go, she could also be very kind, and when scarlet fever ran rampent through the small wild west town, and the hospital next door had no more beds available for patients, the woman, who's name I have never been able to find, used her own hotel rooms for patients, before she too caught the fever towards the end of the wave of sickness' and succombed to scarlet fever as well.

 

   This nameless woman was as much a part of my childhood as anything else. I greatly admired this ghost of a person, for her courage, her spunk, as well as her kindness.

  In it's glory days it was said that Jesse James and the Young gang stayed there at one point, along with Butch Cassidy, and whether they were true or not, they were the stories I grew up with. Of course at the point that I lived in it the house was a far cry from it's glory days.

 

     The paint on the wooden siding had long ago worn away, though I do think I recall somewhere, way back in the depths of my memory, it was a clean, nice white. But for the most part, I recall the gray, bleached wood planks of siding, speckled with flecks and chunky spots of white paint. In that house everything was worn, from the carpets, to the wooden floors, to the creaky stairs, the dining room table, all the way down to the clothes of the three children. 

  

As I write this, I know there will be those who will be angry with me. They will call me a liar, they will say I am out to do nothing but slander my father’s name with the means to get somewhere. There will be those who doubt me, having known me growing up, and would never believe the hell that was my child hood. But it must be said, before all else, what I write is the truth, word for word, frozen in my brain, no part embellished, fabricated or exaggerated. Only the plain, cold truth. I expect this anger, and I am prepared for it, but it is time the truth was said.

 

I knew a long time ago, even as a small child, that I was the story keeper, that it would be my job to remember this story. I grew up in a family who seemed to live in a life of pretend and fantasy, never acknowledging, always excusing. It is from them I expect the most backlash, but I am too much my father’s daughter, in all of the right ways, to be silent forever. I am speaking up now, for the three children lost in that ghostly existence of a childhood. I am speaking out now, for the adult in me who wants enough justice, for the words to be read on paper. For it to be impossible to turn a blind eye when it is written out in black and white.

 

I had always been rather fond of old black and white movies. The general lack of interest in my own generation had always made me rather sad. But one I think relates rather well to my own tale, is one called Citizen Cain.

 

For those of you not accainted with the movie, let me give you a very short and basic summary. A man born into poverty, reaches wealth, yet as he grows older, he finds it is an empty life, and as he dies, he whisper’s a single, utter word, that has the media scrambling to find out what it means. For those of you familiar, you already know that single word, but for every one else, the word was Rosebud, the name of his sled he had as a child, still poor, when he was happiest.

 

The plot is obviously a moral tale, and I believe also, every one has that Rosebud. That place of happy youth, that precious frozen memory in time. Perhaps yours is Christmas at your house as a child. Maybe even the house you spent your younger years. Mine was actually Rosebud.

Rosebud, Montana, a very small town. Now one may read this and think that they can relate, coming from a relatively small town themselves. I assure you, very few people really could understand. For you see, in the town of Rosebud, the population when I grew up was eighty, and I am fairly certain that was rounding up by perhaps a bit.

It was a small rural town, and in the days of the old west, was actually booming. It held mills, a soda factory, hotels, casinos, a hospital, among many others. And as a young town, had every possibility of growing, perhaps even being the county seat. If it hadn’t seemed doomed from the start, being burn down twice, been flooded countless times.

The town was surrounded on one side by hills, and the other side by the large Yellowstone River. I remember climbing those high hills, looking down, trying to imagine what it would have looked like if it had ever grown larger. It wasn’t hard to picture it as it was, for my mother has an original extended view of the town as it was in it’s youth, and there really wasn’t a very large difference, in fact I could always pick out my house in the photograph, or at least it’s roof. It was the type of town that country songs are written about. Letting your children crawl the town, knowing every one knew them and would report directly if they were up to mischief. It was a safe town, seeming almost frozen in time. Not to say it was idealic. It was far from that. It is a town that was never moving, booming, bustling or any of that nature. Though it had it’s perks in a childhood, it was still, to be honest, had the speed of a stagnant pond.

Chapter 2

My mother’s step mother, Candy. My memories of Candy are rather mixed. I remember loving her with a child’s love, but I also remember the way she treated us when my parents were in Salt Lake City and she watched us, three small children.

I recall that living there felt Closter phobic. As if we were never given enough freedom to run and play. We were always too loud, fought too much, cost too much. I remember her telling me, a child of seven, almost eight at the time, that she would keep me, but my brothers were just to much for her to handle. She vented her frustration and anger on me that my parents didn’t send her any money to take care of us.

I listened silent to this, fear growing in my belly, cheeks blooming with embarrassed shame for my parents. A child, though young, already I knew where this conversation was going to be leading.

“I think your brothers may need to live with someone else.”

My jaw tightened slightly and I wonder if she misread the expression as she said quickly, “I don’t want you to leave, but your brothers are going to have to go somewhere else. I can’t handle them, they are raising my blood pressure. You don’t want me getting sick do you?”

With a sickly father, who was now away for a heart transplant, it was emotional blackmail, plain and simple. None the less the fear left me as a determination filled me. “I won’t leave my brother’s” I said in a very serious manner. “No matter what, we are all living together.”

She gave me a sad smile and a nod before saying, “go grab the lotion to rub my shoulders.”

I turned to do so, quickly, so she couldn’t see the grimace on my face. She had made it a game as a child, to rub her shoulders and feet. Though it was something that quickly turned vile and disgusting to me. Her large calloused feet, her broad shoulders with the large mole. I still can’t stand the smell of pink baby lotion.

I would sit there for the better part of an hour, massaging soft, revolting flesh with slimey pink lotion. But I did so silently, always. I felt that I had to do it. That I was obliged to. For my brothers, my parents. She had to keep us longer. Where would we go? Why wasn’t mom and dad helping her? Did they forget about us?

Little did I know that they were sending money for us, and also saw to it that she received food stamps to help with the cost of food. On top of that there always seemed to be relatives. Aunt Dolly and Uncle Troy, Uncle Raymond and Aunt Linda took us on the weekends now and then. Even Aunt Debbie living hours away had us for a bit. Then there was Great-Grandma Wolff and Grandma and Grandpa Wilhelm.

In those few months that we lived with Candy, we were shipped around so much that I don’t recall, and never could, who we stayed with when and in what order.

But while my existence with her was tedious, for my brothers it was hell. The littlest, J.R. was five, Buck was six. They seemed to be constently getting a spanking. For being too loud, for fighting, for playing to rough in doors, for having an accident at night. For hiding their accidents. I tried to ignore these things. She had to keep us. We couldn’t live on the streets.

The fact that my Uncle Raymond, who at this time in his life, seemed rather against responsibility, stepped in and took us spoke volumes to a child about the going on between adults.

I knew that Candy and my parents had been fighting. Children may not hear everything, but they hear enough to know what’s going on., or at least pick up enough to come to their own ideas of what is going on.

I had picked up enough to know that every family member we stayed with was frustrated and angry with Candy.

My Great-Grandma Wolff, or Grandma Freda, as we called her, didn’t bother trying to lie to honest questions, even if they came from an eight year old girl..

“Grandma, how come mom and dad are fighting with Grandma Candy?” I asked while I sipped my coffee.

Coffee was something my grandma had been letting me have since about five or six, even at the protests of my mother.

Grandma sighed, “I don’t think your mom and dad want you knowing these things,” She said gently.

I frowned and gave her a very grown up look, “Grandma, I want to know. Candy says she doesn’t want us living there, well at least not the boys.”

Grandma Freda’s cup paused midway to her lips and those turqious eyes flashed angrily as she set her cup down, “What? Why would she tell you such a thing?”

I didn’t understand that what she meant, was why would an adult tell a child this so I went on to explain why Candy didn’t want us, “Well she says the boys are to stressfull and raise her blood pressure -”

“Raise her blood pressure? Sure they can be stressful but that’s just ridiculus.” She said at a complete loss for this new information.

“And that she can’t afford to have us live with her. She says we are eating her out of house and home.” I said quoting something Candy had told me.

The area around my grandmother’s lips became pinched and I could tell that she was angry, “Your parents have given her money, so has every other member of this family.to help you kids. Your parents should have never sent you to live with that woman.” She said, practically spitting out the last word, as if she wished she could have chosen a far fouler term.

“Then why did they send us to live there?”

She sighed as if she realized she had said to much in her anger. “Because she lives in Rosebud and your parents want you kids to stay in town and keep going to school there,” She explained gently.

“I don’t like it there,” I said with an angry growing in my belly.

Grandma Freda sipped her coffee, “Woman never has been right. Ever since your grandpa Ron passed away.”

Grandpa Ron had been my mom’s father and had passed away the year before. The fact that she remarried less than a year later was a sore subject for all. Even more so when the man was younger. He looked like a door to door salesman, with a mustache, big flashy smile, reeking of insincere motive.

“Call me Grandpa Jay!” He said when he was introduced to us.

With narrowed eyes and a rage filling me for this man trying to take my real grandfather’s place, I straightened my back and said as coldly as any eight year old could, “You are not my grandpa.”

Looking back on the conversation with my great grandma, it was most likely one of those things that set the ball in motion fro my Uncle Raymond to collect us one day. It was rathered hurried also. The fact that we had forgotten our little rabbit piggy banks and had never been allowed to return to collect them told me that we had not left on good terms. She still owes me the twenty dollars or so from my piggy bank…It had been a good birthday that year.

We lived with my Uncle Raymond in our own house once more, he merely moved in with us. My Aunt Linda and Uncle had been married the year before, but for some reason I don’t recall her being there. Of course I don’t remember much about those months there.

I think that was because Candy had stressed out that little girl so much, caused me to take onto many adult responsibilities and fears. Months of wondering in fear if I would be able to keep my siblings and I together, shipped around to relatives, wondering when mommy and dad would come home. It had all been to much for me, and now back at home, with an adult in charge, who actually took charge and gave me the opportunity to not concern myself with my brothers well fare. I was left to recharge, gather myself once again. I think in those months I was on auto pilot if you will.

My Uncle Raymond was young and made some charming learning mistakes along the way when it came to parenting. Though who could blame him. He had just given up bachelor hood the year before and was now the primary caregiver to three young children.

I remember he took us to see True Lies in theaters. Rating R. I am not sure why no one said anything about him toting along a five, six and eight year old. Though I am fairly certain the youngest had fallen asleep before Jamie Curtis’ dancing scene.

Once school was out that year we went down to Salt Lake City to live with our parents. We had seen them at Easter break, but besides that it had been phone calls and care packages since January.

Coming from a tiny rural town to a city like Salt Lake seemed a surreal experience. There were resteraunts, fast food, stores, flea markets, malls, large movie complexes that had multiple screens and movies playing at once. (A new concept for me.)

We lived in a small apartment, which a seven bedroom house, down to a two bedroom apartment was an extreme wake up call. I had never wanted for space before. Had taken for granted all of the freedom and room the large house and home town had for me. Sharing a tiny bedroom with my bothers, sleeping on the floor, while they shared the bed. It was another learning experience for me.

But there were multiple play grounds and walkways all around the complex, and the favorite of all three of us children was with out a doubt, the pool It was right outside a gym and laundry mat.

So each time my dad had to work out for his rehab, or mom had to do laundry, we were in that pool. Even with my parents just relaxing in the launge chairs beneath the said watching us, or swimming with ous. We spent as much of our time there as we could.

To say the least, Salt lake City was proving to be a fun experience. Or at least it was until we learned that where we lived, was a year around school district.

Then the rest of our summer was spent crammed into a class room with 30+ kids. The school was so large that there were multiple fourth grades, each with the same amount of kids or more as my class. Our own school back in Montana was K-12 and would break one hundred kinds in attendance on a good year. Once there was a graduating class of three.

I recall pointing out where I lived on the map to my new class mates when introduced. Then they were allowed to ask questions.

“Do you live on a farm?”

I frowned and shook my head, “We own a wrecking yard.”

“What’s that?”

“We sell cars and parts.”

“Do you ride a horse to school?”

I raised a brow, and answered, “I have never ridden a horse.”

“Do you have T.V.?”

“Um…Yes?”

And on it went until it was rather clear, very quickly, that while we were not that much different, we were still alien to each other.

Needless to say, my time at Meadowlark Elementry school was not pleasant. There were impossible math homework of 50+ questions a night, and with so many students there was never enough help.

It was a perfect example of what is wrong with schools in America. Before school there I excelled at all my subjects, and they had even wanted to skip me ahead a grade or two. Afterwards it felt as if I missed a vital step in certain subjects and was always trying to catch up.

I recall being asked while on a car ride to the flea market one weekend if we wanted to stay in Salt Lake City or move back home with out thinking over the question at all I immediately answered that I wanted to move back home, to Rosebud.

I had never planned on this place being my house. There are times when I think back to that decision and wonder what may have been. We may have made more money and had been better off in our living conditions. Also my parents would have to drive 12 hours every thee months and stay at the hospital for two weeks at a time. The city offered more opprotunities but also more threats. Being chased home from school by fourth and fifth grade gang members was something I didn’t enjoy. It told me very clearly that we would loose ourselves in that city. Well I feared mostly It would consume my brothers into it’s violent life as they matured.

So we moved on Halloween night. Us kids went trick or treating and my parents finished packing us up and off we went back to Montana. But we would be bringing a guest back with us.

His name was Clint, though even to this day I can’t recall his last name or was ever sure that I knew it.

He was a large man, but from a child’s memory I couldn’t tell how tall he was, though he seemed like a giant to me. I couldn’t tell his age either. Everyone over twenty five seemed old to me, such is the way with children. What I can tell you is that he had salt and pepper hair, was heavy set and had a mustache.

I recall meeting him in Salt Lake City. My father was taking him somewhere and he had been ranting about his ex-wife.

“The f*****g b***h came over wearing this perfume….what’s the f*****g name of it? S**t I don’t remember, anyway she comes over right and she’s wearing it, and she knows I’ll practically rape a b***h if she’s wearing it. I just can’t f*****g help it, it’s just something about the way she smells. Anyway, so of course we end up f*****g. She f*****g did it on purpose.”

I decided then and there that he would be the type of adult who would always make the conversation interesting for an ease dropping child. I had already gotten in the habit of being quiet around adults. They seem to forget you and continue on with their oh so interesting, very adult conversations while you are there.

And so this Clint fellow, a friend of my father’s came to live with us. With open chest surgery my father was weak still, needing help lifting heavy things and such. He was basically restricted from doing a large portion of things that went along with running a wrecking yard. So it was that Clint stayed with us and helped out, in return getting free room and board.

There was also those two weeks every three months when my parents would have to go to Salt Lake City for check ups. With there being school, it was better us children stayed behind. And Clint was so generous with his helpfulness, that he watched us at those two weeks. At a certain point, Clint made the decision to help himself to their eight year old daughter.

　

　

The Nightmare.

By: Heather Wilhelm

Age:12

When I close my eyes he’s there, when I dream, he’s always there.

A man, a monster, a creature unknown.

Tell me, tell me, is he friend or foe.

In the distance, the howling of wolves can be heard,

In my ears is the constant beating of my heart.

I hear his footsteps, as nearer they come.

Tell me, tell me. Is he friend or foe?

This man, this monster, this creature unknown.

The moon, it too is against me,

For it does not even produce enough light,

So that I may find my way through this twisted web of fears.

Every night is the same,

I run from him,

I hide from him,

I even feel as if I know him.

But it is he, that I can not run from forever.

And when he catches me,

The question will be,

Will he let me go?

Is he friend of foe?

This man, this monster, this creature unknown.

I feel it is important that this poem go before this following chapter. For many reasons. The Nightmare was the first poem I had ever wrote, in Junior High. I remember penning it, my insiperation causing my heart to race, my palms to sweet. I knew what it was about, and I vented a lot of stresses through my poems, but I tended to do so in a sort of…coded meaning. I seemed to enjoy writing about my pains, and letting others read it. They tended to only hear the pretty play of words, the rhythme of things. I am sure it wouldn’t be overly hard to look at my poems and decipher them. But I did a well enough job that I laughed to myself when teachers mistook a few poems I did, purely a fantasy story as a real tale.

I remember how neat it was, my English teacher Ms. Welbes encouragement, her sending it off for me to get it published. She most likely thought it such a simple thing at the time, but to me, it was a large turning point in my life, it was one of the sparks that ultimately led to the writing of this tale.

I even recall the dreaded work project she started called Poem Packets, where students had to right a certain amount of poems during a certain quarter. Most of the other students hated it, but of course, I enjoyed it greatly.

It is an interesting thing to know, after reading a poem, that while dark, seems utterly harmless, was really a message of a scared little girl, afraid of the man who had been sexually molesting her. That it was my silent story, said out loud, but in such a way no one would understand it’s meaning. I have to admit, when given the knowledge of what the content matter really is, understanding the age of the girl crying out, it at times has caused me shivers. But then again, it was just as it said, the nightmare.

Chapter 3

“Come here,” Clint said, and I obeyed and followed, watching with quiet, eager eyes as he pulled out a yellow legal pad and some crayons. He took a pen and made a large loopy squiggle.

I raised a brow, “What are you doing?”

“Just watch,” He said as he took the crayons and began filling in the spaces, one loop at a time, alternating colors.

“There,” He said when he was done, holding it up to show to me, “All done!”

“What is it?”

“Anything and nothing. It’s not really suppose to be anything.” He tore the paper out, “It’s sort of abstract. Kind of looks like stained glass though.” He handed me the paper, “Why don’t you go and hang that up.” I took it and ran out of the room, down the hallway and into my room. Taking a tack out of the wall, I proudly hung it on the wall next to my door. It was something Clint had made for me, just me. Not for my brothers, not for all three of us, but for me especially and I wanted to show it off.

I left my room and dashed down the hallway to his, “Thank you for the picture!” I said as I went to him in the chair he was sitting in and threw my arms around him. He chuckled and lifted me up into his lap as he hugged me in return.

He turned me around in his arms so that I was facing away from him and set me astride his leg. Before I could ask what he was doing he began to bounce his leg. I giggled and put my hand on his leg to hold on for this horse ride. He continued bouncing me, and I continued laughing, giggling, curls bouncing.

He stopped then, leaning me back against his large body as he took a few deep breaths, “I need a break,” He said, his hand resting on my belly, holding me there. I was laughed leaning my head back to look up to him, “Do it again, please? Pretty please? Just one more time?”

He smiled and gave a soft chuckle, and started bouncing me once more, this time though, he almost seemed to grind his leg up into me, though I hardly seemed to notice, other than it caused me to painfully hit my pelvic bone on him a few times. His hand that was on my belly, holding me on, began to creep under my nightgown, and before I seemed to know it, or notice, into my panties. Than his leg slowed and his hand seemed to explore. He found a tiny nub and began to rub it.

At a total bout of confusion, as to what was going on, I looked down, watching his hand move beneath the fabric of my panties, feeling him. My body followed the natural reaction to moisten as he manipulated a part of me that I had yet to even explore myself. I don’t recall the sensation ever being what I would call pleasant, but could only call different, with no sensations that wowed me. The only thing I found odd was that it was even happening.

“Do you like that?” He asked finally, breaking the silence.

“It feels funny,”

“Hmmm you like it,” He said, judging from the wetness he was causing.

He pulled his hand free after an amount of time I couldn’t judge, “Don’t tell anyone or we will get in trouble.”

If there was one thing I knew it was not to tell on someone, knowing what the punishment would be. In fact, countless times my brothers and I would be fighting, angry as could be with one another, and as soon as we heard my dad enter the house, we would stop. Calling a truce if you will, for the greater good, not getting yelled at, spanked, or stood in the corner for hours on end. No matter who was at fault, or how righteously angry we were, unless someone was bleeding, or seriously injured, no one ever told dad.

So it was with little surprise, this seemed to fit in easily, almost logically into this world that fostered my childhood.

It was some time before he touched me again. It was as it had never happened. I am sure he was merely watching to be sure that I hadn’t told anyone, biding his time, growing his courage. Maybe wrestling with his guilt? It is an emotion that I will never know if he felt, nor would it really matter if he did. The next instance was the first time my parents were away on one of their trips.

I giggled as I was darted just out of his reach, while Clint tried to catch me, to deliver on the promise of tickling me until I peed myself. I was only eight at the time, a bubbly child with bouncing dark curls, wearing a fuzzy, worn pink Barbie nightgown that hit me at the knees. As I write this, it strikes me that I can’t exactly recall wearing nightgowns to bed after this incident. How odd, it seems to be a learning experience for the writer as well as the reader.

I danced just out of reach, laughing as I missed his several attempts at catching me. He laughed and gave one last lunge and grabbed me. I gave a screech of laughter, and he hushed me lightly. I didn’t have to worry waking my parents, they were in Salt Lake City for two weeks for one of Dad’s check ups, and Clint, who helped out in the wrecking yard and lived with us, watched us kids during these times. I did however have to worry about waking up my brothers on this rare treat of being allowed to stay up much later than them.

Just after he pulled me down atop the bed he was sitting on he began to tickle me, and I laughed loudly, twisting and withering on the bed, trying to push his hands away, to me this was an innocent moment. I had always been quite ticklish, the slightest touch had me squealing, and a child whose parents are always away, delighted in the extra attention.

But the Big Bad Wolf saw something else. He saw a laughing girl, withering on his bed, nightgown riding up her thighs, as she squirmed and twisted against him. The fact that she was virginal, a child, a complete innocent only drove on that animal side.

And in an instant he seemed to snap, hands still moving over my body, fingers not tickling now as they began to pull, my nightgown off rather roughly. This was a bit unsettling, and I laughed softly still, thinking this was part of the game. He moved so quickly, hands running over naked flesh, pulling me towards him a bit like a hug. It made me a bit nervous, but still, unashamed of my nakedness, it didn’t make me afraid. He gave a growling sound in my ears as he brought my small hands down his chest, wrapped them around his hard shaft. It was then my voice caught in my throat and terror struck me.

I had never touched someone else in such a manner before, and I tried to pull my hands away, but he only held them there, holding tightly, despite me trying to jerk my hands away. I began to cry and try to twist away from him harder, completely frightened now. This was no longer a game to me. This was a trick, this was wrong, and I wanted for him to let me go now. And he did let my hands go, but before I could get away from him, his large bear like arms wrapped around my small body, holding me to him as I continued to cry.

“Shhhh” He whispered, breath hot in my ear, “Shhhhh, don’t cry,” He growled. “I promise, I won’t ever rape you again.”

That word seemed to make me pause, shock me enough that I think I may have stopped crying. Was that was this was? Rape? I didn’t realize what the word meant exactly as a child, and I always found it odd that he used that word. Partly because he hadn’t raped me…not in defination, but mostly because he would do it again…many times.

Chapter 4

The next time he touched me I was more prepared, less frightened for what would happen. Whether it was the same time that my parents were gone as the last, or another time I am not sure. It seems impossible to keep times and dates accurate in this instance.

I do remember the first time he showed me his member. I hadn’t seen it before, not really. I was pressed so tightly against him, hands moving over him. This next time…this time it was different.

He would let me stay up later than my brothers. I was the oldest after all, it was a privilege I surely felt I deserved. I recall it was a scary movie, one about flying spheres, killing people and stealing souls. It scared me half to death.

At some point, whether because I went to him in fright, or because more likely this had been his scheme from the beginning, I ended up in his lap, him comforting me, while I squirmed in his lap at each frightening moment. I tried covering my eyes, not wanting to look at the T.V., though peeking through my fingers now and then. The room was dark, only the T.V. was on, casting the room in a dim light. The stage was set, and the wolf had managed to trick the young, naïve, lamb exactly where he wanted her.

“Do you feel that?” he asked grinding himself against me.

At first I was at a complete loss, “Feel what?”

“You can’t feel that hard thing?” He asked, emphasizing his words by grinding against me once more. In only pajamas and panties, I could feel something I lifted myself up a bit, with the intent of investigating, only to feel his large hand on my tummy, pulling me back into his lap.

“Hmm, it’s me.” he reassured a bit, “it’s called a hard on.”

“A hard on? “ I asked confused, the meaning lost on me, “Why?”

“Because,” he explained, “It get’s hard when you are turned on.”

Turned on? What did that even mean? I didn’t bother asking, instead choosing to remain silent, instead of pressing him with a bunch of annoying questions. Then it was his turn to ask one of his own.

“Want to see it?”

My stomach churned a bit, since I recalled when he had forced me to fondle him, forcing my hands on that exact same thing he wanted to know if I wished to see.

“I don’t know,” I said warily, my instincts warning me away from things that I couldn’t understand. But curiosity is a damn thing and being treated like an adult was an addicting high.

“Come on,” he coaxed, “You don’t have to touch it, and you can keep your clothes on this time.”

I frowned, pondering, hesitating. “All right.” I said, moving onto the arm of the chair, feet resting on his thigh.

He unzipped his pants and pulled it out. It looked large, full of veins, but I had only seen my little brothers naked, and this was two totally different things.

“Is it always hard?” I asked.

His breathing seemed to be getting heavier as he began to stroke himself.

“No, just when I am turned on.”

There was that word again, “What does turned on mean?”

“It means you make me feel good,” He said, his voice beginning to sound a bit gruff and odd.

I tilted my head to the side, only becoming more confused by his explanation, “Feel good, how?”

“This,” He said, nodding down to his hand that was slowly moving up and down, over his c**k, “This feels good.”

I still felt as if I didn’t completely understand, and sat there in silence a moment, just watching.

“You want to feel it? It’s silky and soft.”

I frowned, looking back up to him, “You just said it was hard.”

“It is, it’s both.”

“How?” I asked.

He gave me a wicked smile, “Why don’t you touch it and find out,” He challenged. Even to this day I rarely can back down from a challenge.

And so I leaned forward, gingerly running a finger down him, and was a bit surprised, it was velvety, smooth, just as he said it would be.

“Put your hand around it,” He said softly, his voice sounding husky, needy, “That way you can feel it better.”

I did so, and was a bit astounded to find he was right, as I moved my hand up and down, over him, exploring this new, odd sensation. He moaned and I paused, startled as I looked up to him with unsure eyes.

“Don’t stop,” he groaned, eyes drifting shut. Raising a brow I continued moving my hand up and down. His breathing grew a bit faster and I felt at a complete loss for what was happening, not understanding. I knew it wasn’t right, but then again, I knew staying up late, watching scary movies while mom and dad were away wasn’t right either. There didn’t seem to be much of a difference between the two to me. Both could get me in trouble.

“Want to see something neat?” he asked, his breathing more like panting.

“Hmm?” I asked as he moved my hands away and began fisting himself quickly. For a while I wondered if anything would happen, but soon his body was tensing, and white jets seemed to errupt from the tip of his shaft. I looked to him confused and didn’t even have to ask.

“It’s called come, “ He said, “Taste it.”

I wrinkled my nose, “ew, gross, it came out of your pee-pee.”

“Come on, just a little taste. It’s not gross. Grown ups do it.” I gave him a look that still said I clearly didn’t want to so he said, “I let you stay up late,. I led you watch a scary, grown up movie.”

I frowned not liking how he was manipulating it so that I wasn’t really left with much of a choice. I ran the tip of my finger over a bit of his belly and quickly tasted it. It tasted odd and I gave him a weird look. He just smiled and patted my head.

“Good girl.”

Chapter 4

As an adult of twenty six, I realized that fifteen years is never enough. I saw my father through the eyes of a child, and as a child, you tend to only see your parents as just that, a parent. Not a person, not an individual, but as Mom or Dad.

It isn’t until adults that we have the ability to understand, to relate to our parents. It is that reason that I understood, in many ways, I didn’t not know my father, and it saddens me terribly that I never will.

I realize now, nearly ten years later, that I have my whole life ahead of me, with no father and I feel like a huge part of my life was stolen.

I fear a life time of memories and moments will push away, what will one day, be the blurry memories of him. I a afraid I will forget, afraid each day I live pushes him further and further away. As if he was never hear. Forgetting scares me to the bone. In a way he still lives, through the memories I refuse to let die, through me, and now, forever, I hope, in this tale.

I read a quote once that read :

“Never say goodbye, because saying goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting”- Peter Pan.

I find it rather fitting for the topic. Maybe some will read this and thing my father was a cruel a*****e, wonder how I can remience about him, miss him. Above all else, he was my father. It takes many more years than I was given with him to have that love die and turn to hate. Even with the added years I am not certain that I could hate him.

Chapter 5

“Why the f**k can’t you do dishes right? Is it so f*****g hard?” He yelled.

I stood on the other side of the room, well out of striking distance. I was about ten at the time and had been given the job of doing dishes and the like about a year ago. Of course I only did them when I was told to, and after about four days the counter would be heaped with them. Then I would spend the better part of the day, sometimes two, doing them. I often day dreamed that I was Cinderella, having to scour pans and clean before I would be allowed to go to the ball.

At that age, I was extremely slow about it. Not on purpose, believe me, I wanted to be done with them as quick as possible so that I could go play. Last summer I had mad it a habit to be out of the house early enough before I could be asked to do them, and wouldn’t come home until supper time, just so I could get out of doing them.

Of course my mom caught onto that in a couple of weeks and simply would tell me the night before that I would be doing them. But being a child, and one who didn’t wish to spend the whole day doing dishes, sometimes I didn’t get them cleaned properly.

And so when my father got a glass of water, only to realize that it tasted soapy, he was irritated. When he grabbed the second glass to find it the same way, he became enraged.

He threw the cups into the sink, as he threw curses at me. I just became quiet, whispering phrases at the right time, “I’m sorry.” “Because I didn’t think and I am lazy.”

These were usually the answers that pacified him, but not this time.

He grabbed a plate out of the dish drain and slammed it onto the floor, the plate shattering sending white shards across the kitchen floor.

I jumped, startled as I took a step back, bumping into the refrigerator, trying not to move overly much since I was bare foot and the shards of glass seemed to reach every corner of the room at how hard he threw it to the ground.

He reached for another plate and threw it and it came crashing to the ground, where it splintered into a million tiny pieces.

“Maybe if there,” He growled out as he grabbed another plate from the dish drain, “Weren’t anymore f*****g dishes.” He threw it to the ground where it exploded, causing me to jump, the sound seeming to be jarring on my nerves and much louder than it really was. He grabbed another plate, “You won’t be able to f**k them up,” And another plate exploded against the floor, “When you wash them.”

The plates in the dish drain were gone and he opened the cupboard to grab more plates, “Hell their won’t even be,” He threw a plate down from the shelf, “any f*****g plates to wash.” And another plate met the floor.

“And there won’t be any to eat off of either,” I whispered. Then my eyes widened with terror, my heart lurching in my throat, adrenaline rushing through me when I saw him tense, and stop. I hadn’t meant to say those words out loud and I wanted nothing more than to pull them back in. But it was to late.

He turned to me, glaring, eyes still glittering with his rage, and I felt a lump in my throat, sure he would cross that room and turn that anger to me.

“What did you say?” he asked, his voice was quiet, angry, cold. It wasn’t worse than the yelling and cussing, but it was more frightening. It was as if he were waiting, just waiting for a reason to turn loose that anger on me. To justify it.

I paled, my mind working quickly, as I said nearly with out hesitating, “I said, what will we eat off of?” it was close enough, that I hoped it wouldn’t anger him.

He seemed to pause at that and looked at the mess around him, as if he hadn’t really seen it before. Tiny white shards of plates were every where. He had been slamming them to the floor with such a force, that there were no large pieces at all. Just many, many splinters and pieces of plates, covering every bit of the floor.

He looked back at me, and I could tell that he was still angry, only a calmer anger, slightly at least.

“Clean this mess up,” He said softly, cold.

I nodded, looking down to the floor. There wasn’t a bare inch of it I could step with out walking on broken glass. The broom was on the other side of the kitchen, and I didn’t even bother asking for shoes. I knew what the answer would be, and I didn’t wish for him to be any angrier with me. I would gladly walk over broken glass if it meant that he wouldn’t strike me.

I bit my tongue, jaw locking as I walked slowly over those sharp tiny pieces of plates, holding back any sounds of pain, only wincing now and then as I blocked out the pain, ignored it. I grabbed the broom. Head bent down, not looking towards him as I heard his boots crunching over the shattered bits, as he left the kitchen.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized that I had been holding and leaned against the broom closing my eyes. I had been so sure he would turn that anger on me, and I could feel nothing but relief flood through me. I opened my eyes and began to sweep up the kitchen. I was half way done sweeping when the adrenaline that had been flooding my system began to leave me. My knees were feeling weak, and I was left with a head ache.

I put the broom away, and limped to the bathroom and got the tweezers before walking gingerly, painfully through the house, upstairs and to my room. In my room I sat on my bed and plucked out the pieces of glass. And while I did this, I never questioned that this wasn’t how every one lived. For me this was a normal existence.

Chapter 6

In the small towns I grew up in, a there were really no minorities . A few Native Americans, a few Hispanics perhaps. But to a sheltered child, they still seemed white to me. I, for the most part saw people, not color.

Then the first African American moved to town. Their mother was white, and for many years, the dad wasn’t around, or at least I had never met him. I recall naively thinking that they were adopted, or foster children. Which I found out after a year or so of thing this.

It most have been around this time, my father had the talk with me about races.

“I haven’t got anything against the black man. I’ve even met a couple who were good people. Sure a long, long time ago, they went through some pretty rough stuff. But it’s when they get to thinking that they are owed something. I don’t owe them a God damn thing. I never owned slaves.”

I sat there, quietly through this, nodding now and then. Always keeping eye contact. If you didn’t keep eye contact, he would think you weren’t listening, and then he would become angry. So one always stared at him. I found out, if you stare at someone long enough, it seemed as if they shrunk down to a tiny size, or became huge. An optical illusion I am sure, but I had stared at him long enough that it was at times a game, or a distraction at least. Other times it was difficult to get it to stop at.

“And if a black man marries a black woman.” He shook his head.

This sounded odd to me, and I raised a brow, and he must have translated this confused look as he said, “Let’s just say, if you ever come home pregnant at sixteen with some black man’s baby. Your on the streets. Done, disconnected. S**t you might as well not come home at all.”

I remember this seeming so shocking to me that it seemed to steal my breath away. I was only seven or eight at the time, and so the thought that he could even do something like cut me off was shocking, and the thought that I could do something to cause such an action utterly confusing. I thought parents were suppose to love you no matter what. I didn’t know they could simply toss you out on the streets. Sure he had said before that we were allowed to call the police on him if we didn’t care for the way he “disciplined” us. But then it had always been explained that people would come and take us away. I didn’t know he could so easily just get rid of us.

“I mean, white people marry white people, and where do there kids belong, with the white people. Black people, marry black people, and their kids go with the blacks. But intermixing.” he shook his head, “Where do they have to go.”

I recall thinking to myself that I didn’t agree with that. We were all people, Why couldn’t we all just go with one another? Or at least all the mixed kids could be friends with the other mixed kids. I decided right then and there I would never be like that.

Chapter 7

Doing the journey of traveling back to collect these memories, I can’t help but wonder. Is it worth it? Dredging up all of these painful memories, putting them down on paper for others to read. Is it healthy going back to that dark childhood? Even now, as an adult, I find myself content, even happy. Do I dare risk that to traverse through the shadows to bring up only the ugly?

And for what reasons do I pull up all of these painful moments? Does it help heal me? Perhaps a bit, to tell the big ugly secrets that were always unseen, unknown or ignored. Perhaps I comb through these memories to understand how a child can go through hell, all five levels of abuse, only to come out a mentally well adjusted person.

I know people who seem…crazy, shallow, or with the complete inability to be self aware of themselves. Yet they have normal childhoods, or childhoods that couldn’t hold up a candle to what I went through. I can’t help but wondering…Is it because I am naturally more mentally inclined to take on such anguish, to cope, to deal. Stronger, taking more to break than most. Or is there some points, hidden somewhere in my childhood that made this possible. What it boils down to, is nature vs. nurture., which made it possible for me to not be completely insane. What is it that made me the mature, well balanced, thoughtful, kind, nurturing, and all around amazingly good, ethically and morally?

Chapter 8

“Don’t give me that answer, I f*****g hate ‘I don’t knows.’” He growled out, and I knew the sign well enough to know that I was very close to that actual point of violence. The seconds seemed to drag painfully long, as the terror ran through my veins like ice. Time was running out, and I knew if I didn’t answer soon It would possibly lead to the exact thing I was trying to avoid…being hit, being hurt. But I didn’t know the answer to the question, and after previous attempts, the response ‘I am not sure’ would not pacify him.

“I-” I whispered, barely letting it slip out, because I didn’t know the answer, “I don’t know.”

The hand came out quickly and sharply, causing me to jump startled as it cracked against my

cheek. I pulled back, biting my lip to keep from crying as I stood there silently, my hand resting against the hot stinging flesh.

No, don’t cry, don’t let those tears fall. Let them swirl in your eyes, making this ugly world look like a kaleidoscope of colors, but never cry. Tears and sobs only led to the response of “Do you want a real reason to cry?”

As child, I learned quickly how to carefully read the emotions, the body language of adults. One had to when their father was Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hyde. Always had to know when to be quiet. Tense jaw, quiet, stiff shoulders, these were signs to tread carefully, to not draw any attention to yourself. Laughing to hard could be met with punishment. Fighting with your brothers, running through the house, jumping on the floor upstairs, all no-no’s.

No on these special days, it was soft treading steps, constantly walking on eggshells. Some children natural walk on the balls of their feet and need to be trained to walk properly, I had trained my self to walk like that to move softly, lighter, to be more quiet. Some times this would only be for a day, sometimes for a week. During these times, the shades were all drawn, the house dark, save our rooms where we were often sent to play with the warning of being quiet. But if that was all, then we were all right, we were being good, being quiet, just as we were suppose to.

My father, pale, watching his racing, the sound of the announcer could be heard echoing up the stairs to us. The very house itself, seemed tense then, everything on edge, as if the very walls themselves held it‘s breath, waiting for an eruption. If memories could sink into the walls of a house, and in a sense, give life, than this house would ooze of dark rotten, decay.

“Daddy is sick and doesn’t feel good, so we have to be quiet,” My mother would tell us in hushed tones, or warn us when we had gotten to loud. This wasn’t anything new to me, in fact, I never knew what it was like to have a healthy father, one who didn’t take medicine, one who didn’t have the stress of supporting a family, medical bills, and the impending sense of death hanging in the air. But as I said, a child doesn’t understand these things.

My father had been diagnosed with Viral Cardio Myopathy, a term I wasn’t even able to remember or say until I was about twenty. It was a condition that slowly turned the muscle walls of his heart to mush, while enlarging the organ. Even as a small child, I remember getting the talk that one day Daddy wouldn’t be around anymore, that he would die. I grew up with death seeming to always be lurking about, hiding, a villainous being, and in my eyes, my father was the super hero, conquering death.

He was suppose to never see me born, and here I was six years old, with no fear when he was suddenly rushed to the hospital. He had beat it before, told time and time again, by countless doctors that he wouldn’t live beyond six months. And then those months turned to years.

As my father’s sickness progressed, so did his mine field of a temper, some days flying off, for what appeared to be for really no reason, and it wasn’t just with us children that dealt with his wrath.

Chapter 9

I recall sitting on the landing of the second floor, after sneaking out of my room when I heard the yelling start. My brothers woke up to and crept from their rooms. I had my arms wrapped around the youngest, J.R., he was only three or so at the time, to young to remember, to understand. Buck sat next to me, blue wide eyes starring into the darkness of the stair well as we listened to the voices ring quite clearly.

“DeWayne!” my mother shouted, and it was clear there was anger in her voice, but also, a pleading. The sound of breaking dishes made us all jump a little, and the toddler in my arms started to cry. I cooed to him a bit in a hushed tone, panic striking me quickly, as I was afraid Dad would hear, and then we would bear the grunt of his anger for not being in bed.

My mother must have said something, though her words were to quiet to hear, the only voice that carried clear and well, was the roar of my father’s voice. “Fine, leave then, take the kids with you too. No, leave Buck, he’s the only one I want.”

Those words rang in my ear, breaking my heart, as tears stung my eyes, the rest of the words a blur, looking to my brother, a small part of me so jealous that I nearly hated him. I was six years old, and those words never seemed to leave me. The door slammed, and there was the sound of his blue, ford, truck blaring to life before screaming out of the drive way and down the street, echoing through the night until it faded away. Then it was silent.

“Let’s go to bed,” I whispered. I began picking over all of the things I had done in my short life that would make my father not want me. Was it the time that I told him I was to big to be called ‘squirt’ anymore? Or the time that I dropped the gallon of milk, spilling it all? Maybe I was in trouble too much, I did spend an awful lot of time in the corner, but no more than my brothers. I looked back, trying to recall the last time he had said he was proud of me, and the last time I could remember was a year ago or longer when I had managed to color in the lines for the first time.

I can still remember the exact page. It was Cinderella, and she was sweeping around the fireplace. Every color was perfect, save for the carnation pink broom she held perhaps, every bit of crayon in the lines. There had a been a big hug and a smile for that one, along with a “good job, I am proud of you!” when I proudly showed him, but since, I couldn’t remember the last time I heard those words. I was sure perhaps somewhere there had to been others, but I couldn’t remember them.

That was a start of almost an obsession of mine for quite some time. Working as hard as possible at something, anything, completing it not only to the best of my ability, but beyond if I could, only to hear those precious words once more. As I said, I am sure that there have been times between then and now, where those words were uttered, but for the life of me, I can’t remember them. Any time I went above and beyond in search of praise, his response or attitude was somewhere along the lines that of course I should do my best, he expected no less from me.

I think it was when I heard those words, concerning which of us children he would keep, that I felt as if I wasn’t worth keeping to my father. I decided with a passion, an anger that never seemed to leave, that I would never let my own children think I didn’t want them, that I would never let their be doubt in my own child’s mind about my love for them. They would know that I loved them, they would know I was proud of them. They would know that they were my world, and I would never leave them.

At that young age, I began to scrutinize my parents, my father mostly, to learn from their mistakes, so not to repeat it.

　

Chapter 10

“Your not suppose to be back here, where are your parents?” The nurse asked us, giving us a scolding look as she came up the hallway. I hadn’t expected to run into anyone, or be questioned, but three kids, the oldest only being eight, what reasonable adult wouldn’t stop them.

Of course, with out blinking an eye, my expression turned weepy as I looked up at her, “I’m sorry, we’re just trying to find my Dad’s room. We got lost and can’t find the elevators.”

My brothers both gave her a solomn look as well and nodded in agreement. The Nurse gave us a small smile, and pointed back down the way we had came, “That way and to the left, down the hall way until the first right. Only nurses and doctors are suppose to be back here kiddo’s” she said in that patronizing voice most adults used on children. I gave her a beaming, yet slightly shy smile, “Thank you very much,” I said as I took my brothers hands and we began the way we came. Coming to the first corner we paused, until we saw the nurse was gone.

“Nice work you guys,” I whispered to them before we headed back down the forbidden hallway we had just been turned away from.

“I can’t believe she believed us,” Buck said smirking.

I simply shrugged as we continued down the hallway, looking out the large windows at the city below, eyeing the artwork here and there as we wondered. Growing up, the hospital hallways were our playgrounds, and with a father in the hospital for long periods of time, it didn’t take long for my mother to trust us to go for a ‘walk’ so long as we behaved and came back in a timely manner.

Of course, being my brothers’ keepers, it was my duty to see we all behaved. We always seemed to as well. We never fought, didn’t run, didn’t yell. We moved quietly down these sacred hallways, exploring deeper into these labyrinths of the ill. All the hallways would end up looking the same, and the deeper we got lost, the more fun our game seemed.

Our playground this time was the large University of Utah. We had discovered a sky bridge that had lead to the other side of the building, and were currently roaming it.

Passing the open door ways of patients room’s, a small glimpse of the person laying in bed, often pale, staring catatonically ahead at the TV, most with out visitors, I couldn’t help but feel bad for them, and in my head I would wonder what their story was. What did they have? Did their family visit them often? Did they have any family? Were they all alone?

J.R., the youngest, only about five at this age, stopped, giving a clear pout, that I knew to mean he was close to giving us trouble, “I’m bored, I want to go back.”

Buck stopped, and frowned, clearly as agitated as I was, “No way, we never made it this far before, we got to keep going.”

J.R. glared at him, his chin stubborn as he crossed his arms, “I want to go back, and if you don’t take me, I’ll go by myself,” He threatened, knowing very well that we knew he would get lost, and if he even made it back on his own, the two older siblings would be in trouble for not taking care of him.

I took a deep breath and sighed, “J.R., why do you want to go back? There’s nothing to do there. Mom and Dad are talking to the doctors, there’s no toys, and they won’t let you watch TV while the doctors are there.” I said trying to reason to him, and I could see by his expression that I at least had a foot in the door. “Plus, I’ll let you push the elevator buttons on the way back” I added sweetening the deal. His eyes lit up and I knew I had him.

Buck rolled his eyes and continued down the hallway, “Come on you guys.”

I sighed as I held my hand out to J.R. He ignored it, taking after his brother’s independence instead and moved past me down the hall. I followed them. We had wondered for some time until we came to a large two story fountain, made up of whimsical carvings, flowing metals, bolts, nuts, and what seemed as hundreds of other small intricate pieces, water flowing through the well chosen joints or spots, creating one of the largest, most beautiful water fountains I had ever seen.

“Wow,” I breathed as we walked closer to it. The bottom was a large shallow looking pool, glittering with coins as we all leaned over the edge, looking to it.

“That’s a lot of money,” Buck said, “It’s just laying there, we should take it.”

I shot him an angry look, “You can’t take it Buck, those are people’s wishes.”

He snorted, “That’s just stupid. If they just toss it away anyway, we should be able to take it,” he said in a sullen voice.

I sighed, “we’ve been gone for some time, we should get heading back,” I said, our game coming to an end as we turned and began heading back. It was our quiet little time to escape, but it couldn’t last forever.

Chapter 11

Sept. 18^th 2005

I saw them today, at a stop sign while I sat in my car. I was listening to the radio, smoking a cigarette, when I realized that it was them at the stop sign to my left. She turned to look at me, and I smiled and waved, but then again, why wouldn’t I, they were my paternal grandparents.

It was a shock, a pain that struck deeper than a knife, when with cold eyes, a pinched mouth, she turned her head away, ignoring my little wave, staring straight ahead as the suburban pulled away from the stop sign. My brows knitted, as I stared at the tail lights of the vehicle that drove away, and though I didn’t want to, though I hated the fact that they could bring me to this level, tears stung my eyes. I drove through the stop sign, trying very hard not to cry. My mind whirled with the laughing, kind grandparents I knew as a child, and this snub, this ignorance that seemed to come out of no where, catch me so unaware that it knocked the breath from me. There had always been tension there, more than I was aware of at nineteen, a lot of it in the makings since I was a child. All behind the scenes and hush, hush of course. But as I drove away, feeling a painful hurt, as if I was responsible for the family tragedies in some way, I had no way of knowing just yet, what was happening.

Of course, I couldn’t help but go over the many years I had known them. Of course as a child, we love certain people naturally, unconditionally, and of course grandparents fit into this category. I had not noticed a difference in their treatment when I was younger. They seemed to love us equally. Of course they didn’t seem to spoil us the same way my maternal grandparents did. They seemed a bit colder, a bit more judgmental.

I recall being at the fair one year, I was about twelve at the time, watching the demolition derby. My father had helped my uncle Raymond with his car that year and was part of his pit crew. Our R.V. was stationed in the pits. My brothers were to little to be in the pits, and while I was not, I was not allowed to be for the simple matter that someone had to be their to watch my brothers. It seemed I was always loosing out on certain privileges just so I could spend my childhood helping raise my brothers.

I was sitting up in the stands, watching the derby, and I have to admit, I loved it. The lights, the smell of the exhaust, the sound of cars crashing, becoming mangled in one another’s frames. Twisted, broken, metal corpses were the cars fate by the end of the night. It was a noble death, I think.

While I watched the derby, I was also constantly, keeping an eye on my brothers. Buck was hanging with his friends in one of the first rows, but it was the youngest, J.R. that I was currently worried about.

He and another boy were arguing. It is hardly surprising that my brothers have a temper problem, and always have, but when their father was leading the example he was, it was little wonder why. In this case, it is clear that nurture over nature won out. The fact that this little boy was one of the black kids, of the only two in the small rural community held little matter to me. The point was that he should not have been fighting, and if he got into trouble, it would be certain that I would to. The last thing I needed was for my little eight year old brother to come out looking like a hoodlum in front of the packed stands. Most of the town always come out for the derby, and that would be a whole town that saw the insistent. I sighed, as I began making my way down the stairs to break up what was soon to be a fight. I saw the other boys sister, a girl near my own age, come over to do the same thing I was about to do. Break up a stupid child argument before it got out of hand. Then I saw my brother push her.

S**t. I began to move down the stairs very quickly then at that point. “J.R!” I called out as I reached the bottom, crossing the large cement pathway that reached from the stairs, to the thirty or so feet to the fence where the cars were preparing for another heat. “What the hell?” I asked when I got to him, “What’s going on?”

“He started it!” He growled angrily.

I shook my head, “I don’t care, knock it off, your gonna get us in trouble. Stop pushing them, and go find somewhere to sit to watch the -”

“Heather Wilhelm!” My grandpa Wilhelm’s voice boomed through the stands for all to hear, interrupting what I was telling J.R. I turned to look up to him, at the top of the stands, standing in the stairs. “Get your God damn a*s up here now!”

I frowned looking to J.R. before back up to him. What did I do wrong? I began climbing the stairs, going over what had happened. I hadn’t been the one about to get into a fist fight, I had stopped it, so why did I have that familiar feeling knotting in my stomach. The one that said that I was in trouble. As I climbed the stairs I could see his face twisted in anger. I wasn’t use to my grandparents being angry at me.

They had never disciplined us, though as I had said, they weren’t exactly as doting as my other grandparents. I was only a few steps away when he said angrily, not even to bother lowering his voice, “How dare you stand up for a N****r girl!”

I blinked, taking a stepped back, feeling as if I had been slapped. This was what I was in trouble for? Confusion filled me as I looked back down to where my brother and the other boy had been before looking back to him, “But J.R. was starting it.” I tried to protest.

“I don’t f*****g care!” He snapped, “Get your f*****g a*s to the R.V. Now!” He barked. My face bloomed at the way I was being spoken to, in front of so many people. My jaw tensed, locking in an angry set as I turned on heel and began making my way down the stairs, not bothering to look at the many faces that were watching me. I was so angry that I didn’t recall the quick walk that led me to the R.V. I slammed the door shut, not knowing that my Grandma Wilhelm was only a few moments behind me. I was reeling, going over the whole scene. I was in trouble because the other kids had been black? That didn’t even make sense. Would I have been in trouble if they were white?

My Grandma Wilhelm stormed into the R.V., her face a mask of anger that twisted those features, made her eyes beady, and her mouth a flat line, and she moved directly into my face. She was of short stature, and we were nearly the same height, almost eye level.

“If I ever catch you standing up for some n****r girl, instead of your brother again, I will slap your f*****g face off!”

I inhaled sharply, biting my tongue hard to keep the retorts back. I was so shocked by this, the first real show of just how racist my grandparents were. It made me sick, but I wasn’t stupid to argue.

“Do you understand me?” she snapped.

I swallowed back the anger, but it must have been there, evident on my features. “Yes,” I barely let the word slip out.

She stood there, glaring at me for a moment, actually, we glared at one another, lines clearly drawn by each, grandchild and grandmother. A look of disgust crossed her face, as if the thought that I was her granddaughter sickened her, and she looked for a moment that she still itched to slap me, “Stay in the f*****g bus.” She hissed before leaving.

I was seething, full of anger at this injustice. I don’t remember telling my mother, of the tale, or if my grandparents did, I don’t even really remember talking to her about it. I do remember talking to my grandma Linda about it, my mother’s mother.

She was angry, her mouth pinched, “Those racist b******s. I tell you one thing, if she would have slapped you, it would have been the last thing that woman did on this planet. I can’t believe Chuck (Grandpa Wilhelm’s first name) said that in front of the whole town, do you know how many people heard him?” She was in an angry flurry moving about the kitchen.

“I didn’t even do anything wrong, grandma,” I said softly, glad to find someone else who saw my side of things, and had the ability to point out that I was not the one with the wrong view of things.

“I know, baby girl, those damn people. They are just so full of hate it makes them ugly.” She moved things about angrily, “I swear, if she would have slapped you-.” She let the sentence go unfinished, but there was a definite unsaid threat there. “If I were there, I would have given that woman a piece of my mind. How dare she treat you like that. And to threaten you on top of that.” She gave a frustrated shake of her head.

She was my favorite among all other grandparents, spoiling me, letting my parents know that she didn’t believe that they should be giving me, a child so much responsibilities. That I shouldn’t be the one raising my brothers, that I shouldn’t be forced to be an adult when I was still a child. She was my champion at times, when it seemed to matter most.

           CHAPTER 12

After I hung up the phone, I stared down, at the floor where he lay. And all I could think was “any moment the ambulence will be here…I just have to wait for them.” I slid down the side of the desk, my eyes never leaving him. The room was silent, but then again it wasn’t as if my company was speaking., eyes open, staring up unseen. There seemed to an odd silence about the room.

I looked up, spotting my friend Melissa. I had forgotten completely about her. Her wide eyes were staring unseen at the figure on the floor, her hands covering her mouth as she shook her head. I remember thinking how odd her reaction was. She was frozen in spot, never moving, and yet I had moved quickly into action, jumping over the body to grab the phone, calling both my grandmother as well as the ambulance, moving in a flurry of action. It was now that I had a moment to stop, to digest, did I realize she remained immobile.

“Melissa,” I said her name softly and calmly, trying to break through to her.

But she didn’t seem to hear me, merely shaking her head, staring at the floor, chanting the mantra, “Oh my God, he’s dead. He’s dead, he’s dead. Oh my God, he’s dead.”

“Melissa,” I said her name again, a bit more forceful this time, but she still didn’t look at me.

“Melissa!” I said once more, my voice having enough snap to it to sound like a verbal slap, and it seemed to work as her eyes moved to me.

“Oh my God, Heather, he’s dead! He’s dead, Heather.”

I nodded my head, talking slowly and spoke as if addressing a child, calmly, clearly, not wanting her to slip back into her shock and not hear what I was telling her.

“Melissa, I need your help, listen…I need you to keep my brothers out of the house,” Her eyes drifted down to the floor, to look at him once more “Melissa,” I said, my tone stronger, getting those wide brown eyes to look back into mine, “Keep my brothers out,” I said sternly, “Don’t let them come in here and see him like this. Keep them out,” She nodded mutely, and like a frightful little mouse, darted quickly out of the house.

And then I was left alone with him. I looked down to him, his eyes open, staring up unseeing.

In the movies they close the eyes of the dead….I should close them. I slid slowly towards him, my hand stretching out slowly, hands trembling slightly, but at the last moment, so close to touching him, I snatched my hand back, as if pulling it from burning flames. My stomach twisted and I felt sick, but mostly I was sick with myself, and the fact that I couldn’t touch him. My eyes drifted to that hand, clutched so tightly in a fist. I couldn’t live for ever knowing that I couldn’t touch him one last time because I was disgusted.

I scooted a bit closer, and reached tentively towards his hand, afraid. My fingers barely touched it, long enough to feel the sensation of a cold waxiness before I snatched my hand back. I bit my lip as I looked down at him, and it began to hit me then. Everything I had ever known, was different. I would never wake up and be able to live the life I had before. In an essence, my world came crashing down, only I had never realized that, that term was an actual physical sensation. It felt as if I were falling and I would never stop. I closed my eyes, finding it odd that I was crying, with no sobs, no effort, tears running freely down my cheeks in a torrent that could hardly be called tears. Tears sounds like a word of individual beads running down ones cheeks. This was an unending flow of tears. I looked to the door. Where was the ambulance? I couldn’t tell how long I had been kneeling there, but it felt closer to half an hour, than the few moments it actually was.

Unfortunately at that time, my littlest brother came in, and paused long enough to look at the floor before, staring down at him, and I saw in an instance, the childhood die in the eyes of a twelve year old, and at that moment my tears stopped, and I felt hallow. But he didn’t stop to absorb it, didn’t stop to think, much the same way I had been rushed into a flurry of actions when I saw him, he dashed through the dinning room and into the living room, hitting the panic button on the life line pad. I hadn’t thought of that I realized. I was angry he was here, I wanted to take on the burden of seeing him like this, not my brothers. Always the protector I wanted to sheild this bit of ugliness from them, and a part of me, couldn’t help but be extremely angry at Melissa for not helping me.

Buck fourteen at the time came in then, running to the body. I sat back, feeling a bit numb, and for a moment I heard nothing. I watched my brothers lips cry out silently as he beat on the chest, trying CPR. I shook my head mutely a moment, “It won’t work Buck,” I whispered softly, “He’s dead.”

Buck pushed himself away, giving an angry cry, sounding like an animal in pain before he stalked out of the house, the sound of glass breaking on the porch echoing. I felt numb now, still sitting on the floor, “Wait outside, Jr.” I called out softly. I am not sure why I didn’t leave him, and I don’t recall seeing my brother leave, but I sat there mutely on the floor. I suppose I was afraid that this was a bad dream, and I had to stay here to change it. I closed my eyes, praying with all my will, every ounce of might, every cell and fiber of my being to have him back, but when I opened my eyes and looked down he was still staring up unseeing. Once again time seemed to slip by as I stared mutely, almost unseeing down at him. I knew this was going to be one of the last times I saw him. I had taken for granted simply things like seeing him, and now he was going to be locked away in the darkness forever. It was then I realized I would never hear his voice again, never hear his laughter. Never help pull of his boots again, never catch that scent that was so distinctly him. I let all of these thoughts run through my mind as I told myself silently, as I had at any great memory of my life, “remember this, every detail, ever feature, every moment and never let it go.” my eyes scanning over the body, how it was positioned, the clothes, the expression. The way his dark hair fanned slightly over the dirty, worn lineluim floor. The way one hand clutched at his chest, the other fisted at his side. The messy desk, the cluttered table, a bag of groceries at the end of it, not unpacked.

“Heather?”

I looked up, to see Bibbis, a girl from my school standing there before me. We hadn’t always gotten along in school. She ran with the much cooler crowd of kids. The ones who dyed there hair, had piercing, and listened to all the right music. I was not one of them, was odd, and had no social life due to my strict parenting. However when she looked down to me, and I to her, none of that mattered. I remember all those years ago, her and her sister had come home and found their mother dead one day. She knew exactly what was going on in my head, and there was nothing but compassion and empathy in her eyes, and it seemed to break through that quiet shell I had placed around myself as I began to sob.

“He’s dead, Bibbis,” I said, sobbing truly for the first time since I had found him. Bibbis toed around the body, coming to me, taking my hands in hers as she pulled me to my feet.

“I know honey, let’s go outside.”

I shook my head, “I don’t want to leave him,” I said between heavy sobs.

She shook her head now, giving me a sad, pained look, “There’s nothing to do for him, honey. Come on, let’s go outside.” She said leading me out of the house. And as I left, I knew I would never stay another night under it’s roof, waking in the room I grew up in. I would never eat dinner there again, never spend an evening watching T.V. I was leaving a home I grew up in, and it was the last time my father and I would ever be in that house together.

CHAPTER 13

So many people had showed up at the funeral that they had to fill the VFW hall next door to the funeral home and broadcast it over the T.V.’s there.

I can’t say for certain, though I can say that it was the largest attendance I had ever heard of or witnessed in the small town.

We were in the family section, and for the most part, out of view from all others. A little T.v. was up in the corner, showing a view of my father in his casket, the podiuem in which the speaker was going on and on about my father, able to get a chuckle here and there.

The funeral for the most part was a blur. I don’t recall really what was said, or how long it was, other than it had a strange way of seeming painfully long, and at the same time, knowing this would be the last time my father would ever be, physically above the earth’s surface, it seemed all together to short. Was there a way to freeze this, to rewind this. Just five days ago he had been alive…Not even a week. Surely, somehow there had to be a way to rewind it, to make this all go away, to go back to the way things were.

All I could think, were things like, “This is the last time I will ever see him. Soon he will be in the ground, In the dark, covered up forever. Why is this happening?”

After all of the abuse ,the pain he had dealt out in the years, this was the worst pain I had experienced of it all. A crushing, pain in my chest, the ache of feeling as if my insides were being twisted, tore, cut.

I looked to my brothers and mother and I couldn’t help but be angry. How could he do this to us?! Whether I meant God or my dad, at that point, I wasn’t sure.

I kept trying to tell myself it was all a bad dream. That none of it was real. But after fourdays of trying to tell myself this, I knew it wasn’t a dream, that this strange altered reality was just that. My new reality.

I recalled waking up that first morning after. The sun filtering in my eyes as I stirred, giving a soft sigh. In that split second before I opened my eyes, my world was still right, it still felt whole.

As I opened my eyes however, I realized I was in my mother’s house. But why? And as soon as I asked myself that, it all came crushing back, and with it the pain.

I still, as an adult, on accasion have vivid dreams of my dad, only to wake up, the main more dull now, but still there as I am left with the feeling that something is missing. In a way these dreams make me feel closer to him, connected, and in a way I fear and hate those dreaams. IT’s like salt in the wound. Even if it’s healing, and much better then it was, the salt still stings.

These were the types of thoughts running through my mind. I was tring to dissassociate myself from the ugly world as I had during so many points in my life when the pain seemed to great for me. But soon the funeral was over.

“Now what?” I asked, my voice drained, emotionless as we listened to the people filing past the coffin and out, though shelid from sight as we were, I couldn’t see them. All I could do was stair at the monitor above, watching my father and the backs of the endless line of people.

“People pay their last respects,” My mother was saying, “And then it is the families turn, and then we go to the cemetery.”

Tears instantly stung my eyes as she mentioned the cemetery. That would be the last goodbye. The last time he would be physically here with us. The last time the sun would shine on him, before being put into that darkness.

It was a guilt that took me some time to process and overcome. I would forever be in the sun, warm with the love of family and life and I had to leave him, alone, in the cold embrace of a dark grave. Even now, living a state away from my father’s resting place, I feel a guilt of not being able to go to him, to see him.

Soon we were ushered into see my father. I don’t know if it was my mind playing tricks on me, or if the lights were turned off, but I remember it was dark, very dark. Each of us children held a white rose and one bye one we placed it atop his chest.

“Kiss your daddy goodbye kids,” My crazy, drugged up Aunt Debra was saying. She was my father’s sister, and while her behavior was usually off at best, right now it was completely bizarre. Of course I didn’t know she was so high on pain killers at the time, that later she neither remembered the funeral, or this “lovely” moment she shared with her young, traumatized nephews and niece.

She slowly began pushing the littlest, J.R. towards the casket were the cold body of my father lay, “Kiss your dad goodbye. It’s the last time you’ll see him,” She said in a sad, sing-song voice.

J.R. at this was on the brink of hysterics as he dug in his heels, shaking his head no, his twelve year old eyes wide and full of tears.

My mother, gracefully, with out causing a scene, pulled him away from her and into her embrace, his back pressed against her, her arms wrapped around his smaller body as she leaned forward.

I could hear her whisper in his ear, “You know that’s not your daddy. He’s already in heaven. It’s just his body. Don’t listen to her.”

Hurt and pain quickly churned in my stomach, turning to something I felt I could use, rage.

“There’s no such thing as goodbye kids, it’s always, ‘I’ll see you later’”

This was my father’s motto and I could hear his voice echoing that in my mind.

How dare my Aunt rub salt in our wounds by reminding us of the obvious. Of course we would never see him, but as children, we were trying to get a grasp on that concept.

How dare she tell us to kiss a corpse. How dare she panic J.R. like that. How dare she!

I thought these things as I stared at my father, my jaw tense, tears swirling my eyes. My eyes flickered to the back door where the pall bearers and the hurst were.

‘I have to get out of here, I need to get to Mr. Miller.” I thought to myself. I felt as if I couldn’t breath, the room and that darkness closing in on me. My heart began racing in my chest.

Mr. Miller was my shop teacher and had been my choice for a pall bearer. I remember the night I came home from school and found my father dead. While at my grandma and grandpa Wilhelm’s my mother had been going over them with the arrangments, asking who should be pall bearers.

“Can I ask Mr. Miller,?“ I asked softly, my voice weak from all the tears I had shed that day. He and my father had been friends and at school the man had been like a second father to me.

My mother paused looking to me before nodding and smiling, “Sure honey, do you want to call him and ask?”

Tears stung my eyes, causing me to choke them back as I shook my head quickly. I had called enough people that day, telling them my father was dead. His niece, Melissa had been with me when I found him, so I knew he already knew, but I couldn’t handle telling another person on the phone that he was dead all the same. “Can you do it, please?” I asked in a small voice.

Mom smiled, understanding as she nodded. I continued sitting in the large recliner, letting it swallow me up in it’s cushions as I listened to mom in the next room, talking to Mr. Miller.

“I am sure you have already heard-” I could hear her saying, “It would mean a lot to us-” The rest of the words I tuned out.

But now, standing here, at my father’s casket, feeling the weight of the world pressing down on me, all I could think was, “I need to get outside, I need to get to Mr. Miller.”

I silently moved to the door, quickly trying to hold back the tears, trying to keep it together just until I got out side. I just have to get to Mr. Miller, and then I would be alright.

My aunt grabbed my arm, most likely to have me stay, or ‘Kiss my daddy goodbye,’ I am not sure why she stopped me, and never found out, for I turned to her and lashed out with my pain.

“Don’t you ever f*****g touch me again.” I said coldly, hissing the words powerfully.

She took a step back as if I had hit her and I turned on heel, going back to that door.

I pushed it open, and though it was an overcast day, I remember it being bright out in comparison to that darkness, and it blinded me a moment.

And there I saw Mr. Miller, across the drive way, in front of me. His kind eyes softened when they saw me, and what ever anger I had felt for Aunt Debbie, was gone and I ran toward him and threw myself into his arms. His arms came around me and I couldn’t hold back the tears as they came in a torrent of sobs.

There were other men, pall bearers themselves around us, but for the most part, I didn’t see them. Only Mr. Miller. He was my anchor in this stormy sea of pain that was threatening to drown me.

“Shhh,” He said softly, into my hair, “Stop now, or you are going to have both of us crying.” But by the gruff sound of his voice, he was very close to doing so, if not already.

I didn’t bother to look to see if he was crying, as I closed my eyes and cried harder. I wanted to ask Mr. Miller to make it all better. Make everything all right. Tell me it was all one huge, nightmare. But I didn’t ask these things, knowing the cold truth.

“Shhh,” He said again, rubbing my back.

I heard the door behind me open and looking over my shoulder I saw the blue casket coming out. I began to cry hard once more, my cheek pressed against Mr. Miller’s chest as I watched the other pall bearers go and begin moving the coffin to the hurst.

This was it. That coffin would never be open again. No going back from this. Time had ran out and now it was off to the cemetery. I didn’t want that to happen. Didn’t want to let him go. It felt as if they were taking him away from me.

I watched them shut the door to the hurst and heard Mr. Miller say softly, in almost a whisper, he said, “I have to go now.”

It felt as everything was being taken away from me now, or that it was leaving as I let go of Mr. Miller, giving him a small nod, not looking to him. My sobs for the most part had ceased, even if the tears still flowed.

I heard my mother behind me and when she moved passed me, I follwed her to the limo that the family rode in. I remember when I was younger, I always wondered what it would be like to ride in a limo. I hadn’t realized that it would be a trip like this, a ride to the cemetery that I could hardly enjoy.

To this day, nearly ten years later, this one memory can still bring forth tears and make me cry as no other memory can. I can only guess it would be a connection of having a father figure there while I watched my own father being closed up and carted off. To be comforted by someone who was like a second father to me. To hear those words, “I have to go now,” Coming from Mr. Millers lips, as if they were really my father’s words while the doors were shut on the casket. No matter how many times I go over this scene in my mind, it still makes me cry, what ever the reason.

　

Chapter 14

“Please, no!” I screamed, resisting the urge to cover my bottom with my hands, even occasionally letting them flicker back to cover my bare bottom.

“Move them or they will get hit too!” My Dad barked. I was bent over the Large automen, tears all ready running freely down my cheeks, biting my lips as I tried to keep from sobbing, tried to keep still, knowing there was no way to escape the spanking. Spanking is such a light word it doesn’t seem to fit. Beating would be a better word.

I was seven, a second grader, and I had spent the whole evening in trouble, over what would later turn out to be a huge misunderstanding, mostly on my part. Though I did lie, I couldn’t excuse that part. And my father hated liars.

At school that day, my best friend Ashley and I had decided to trade toys, a Barbie for her Aladdin figurine. We borrowed each other’s toys for the day. But it was suppose to be a secret, for my little mind thought borrowing was something that could get me into a lot of trouble.

So when I got home from school and my mom found it in my back pack, and asked me where it came from, I lied, “I won it at school.”

Well clearly that was fishy. Soon it became an interigation between my mother and I, and as the afternoon turned into evening, my father became involved in this interigation. From there my tale had shifted to say that I had found it on the playground, still not revealing the fact that I had borrowed it.

After frustrating my parents for the evening, and lying as well, my father was furious at this point. “I am going to teach you what it’s like to be a liar and a thief, “ he growled, for my father made it very clear, the two worst types of people were a liar and a thief, and it was only compounded when they were both.

It would be the first time I had ever gotten spanked with a weight belt. A weight belt is like a normal belt, only much thicker and easily three times as wide as a normal belt. Though I can not say for certain, I can only assume it has something to do with supporting the back during weight lifting. My introduction to it was much worse.

You know that point right before you get a shot, or right before they start doing a tattoo, or a piercing, or anything you know is going to be painful and you sit there, waiting for it to happen. That almost agony of having it drawn out. I recall it seemed an eternity laying over that footstool, whimpering, and pleading, fighting down that urge to run, to scream. Then there was a silence before the belt came whipping down, snapping across bare skin, causing me to lurch forward, and scream in pain. And then they kept coming down, one right after another, leather biting into skin, sometimes hurting so much it knocked the wind out of me and I couldn’t scream.

“DeWayne! That’s enough!” My mother protested. But the strikes kept falling. “She has to learn damn it!” He growled out between gritting teeth. And then blessedly it stopped. I lay there sobbing, gasping for breathe, my skin feeling like it was on fire.

“Jesus, she pissed herself,” My dad said in frustrated disgust. I had? I had not even realized, my bottom and thighs felt so hot from the bruising welts that crisscrossed across my skin, that I couldn’t even feel it.

That borrowing that toy, and the spanking, the two most vivid memories I have of that night. Afterwards is black, no memory coming to the surface. Well later I do remember learning what the word borrow meant, and feeling shocked. It was something completely harmless, something I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble with in the first place. Though I still had lied, that was what had pissed off my dad the most. Odd now, it is extremely difficult, at times almost causing an anxiety attack to do it, to tell a lie. A flutter that gasps at my chest and makes it difficult to let the words fall out. When something is truly important, and in every account I give, it is word for word, a detailed account of what happened.

As odd as it may sound, it is a lasting effect from an ugly situation that happened a long time ago that I don’t happen to mind. I at times feel, cautious and skeptical about what many say, only because it was a sad lesson to learn that not every one had such a high standard for the truth. I don’t see it so much as a high standard, but perhaps rather, a simple fact.

Chapter 15

I feel it isn’t fair to write all of the bad, with out sharing the good. After all, my father was a man who I know tried, even when he made mistakes. His anger is what seemed to be the worst, and perhaps he had some depression or bi-polar issues never diagnosed. I will simply never know. But there were good times.

I think my father regretted his actions at times, because I remember being told, repeatedly from a young age, my father’s voice echoing in my ears now as I share it with you.

“You know, things may not always be the best here, and I am not always going to be around, so I want you to remember the good times. I want you to remember that no one else’s dad lets them race three wheelers around the wrecking yard. How many of your friends get to say they go to tractor pulls? Or get to ride on dirt bikes? Or get pulled on the truck hood when we go sledding? Times aren’t always good, and I won’t be around your whole life, so I am trying to create memories you will remember.”

The only sad thing about that, is a bad memory seems to be ten times stronger than a good memory, seems to block out so many of them, take up so much space. This is most likely what started me trying to memorize my happiest settings, and times I am having, to relish on them later.

I feel it would be unfair to my father’s memory to not share this part of the truth as well.

The tractor pulls may seem an odd point to one, so I feel I should explain. My father was, well, at least in my eyes, and the eyes of many who knew him, nothing short but a genius when it came to anything mechanical. He could tear it apart, build it from scratch to his own design, and it would run like a dream. In fact, he custom built a 1972 blue ford pick up. I remember it was a beast, and all the boys in town, whether they be a Ford fan or a Chevy fan, drooled over that truck.

My grandparents, with the help of my father, built a tractor puller that looked much like a monster truck on a smaller scale. It had a glittery green body that sparkled in the light, and a red and gold lightening like bolt of striping that went down the sides, with the words, The Rosebud Express elegantly scrolled across the side with a rose beneath it. My grandparents built it, and use to pull with it in the eighties. After five years or so not pulling with it (at least that I can recall anyhow,) Somehow my dad and grandpa got together and decided that not only would it be fun to bring back, but for my father to build himself one as well.

While his parents had a puller that was a truck, my dad went with one that was an actual tractor like body. He even built the body on the damn thing, from the bottom up.

I have to say, traveling to the different fairs those couple of summers was an interesting experience, but not one I would call overly fun. These reasons usually consisted with the fact that, my mother was overly stressed packing and unpacking, dealing with three children, and going on these trips, and when she wasn’t stressed, my father seemed to be. Whether it was because the puller’s weren’t running right, or the prize money wasn’t that much, or us children found in opportune times to annoy him.

There was also the fact that while we could wonder around and look at the fair, sometimes given a few dollars to spend, we very rarely had the funds to afford to go on the rides. There was once or twice, but the majority of the time, we could only watch.

While as an adult I can understand, but as a child, it was an excruciating sort of torture. All the lights, and smiling faces of people having fun. People you didn’t know, from a town you were only visiting. It felt very much being the outsider.

As much as I dislike saying it, with the non-existent relationship I have with my paternal grandparents. It was on these times that I felt I bonded with grandma Wilhelm the most. Walking the stalls and booths of venders, watching as often times she saw something that got that craft side of her brain going in plans of recreating something she saw. It felt peaceful and calm in those moments walking with her, enjoying the easy casual conversation. It is those visions of my grandmother that I miss and wonder what happened to, the ones I felt I knew and loved, rather than the cold hearted, twisted old being she turned out to be.

Now as for my father’s mentioning of a truck hood used for sledding. Now, there is a memory that I do treasure completely. Ah, good old hook bobbin. Nothing says fun and redneck so much in the same sentence. What one did was basically take an old truck hood (which with a wrecking yard full of was in high supply), weld two holes in the hood in which to loop ropes, which were then attached to the ball hitch of a truck, with quite a bit of length in the rope of course.

Then one drove the tuck, with passengers on the sled through fields and over snow packed roads. Was it dangerous, maybe a little, but it was much more fun than your basic, climb hill, slide down, only to climb hill again type of sledding. This was speed, and catching air, drifting off to the side, hoping the driver would move far enough away from that telephone pole so that the hood of the truck wouldn’t hit it. Ah, good old country fun.

Though as fun as that was, I think I preferred the smaller scale version of the tabbogen sled pulled behind a three wheeler. Of course Dad had a little whip to that three wheeler that tended to send the sled barrel rolling, and it’s three riders, flying off into a snow bank. How ever frightening it seemed, it only added to the fun.

　

　

　

Scars

They say that time heals all wounds, and they are right, it does, but like wounds, they never go away, but rather they turn into scars. The deeper the cut, the nastier and bigger the scar. I had multiple sets of wounds through childhood. So many in fact that if these scars were visible, they would crisscross my body, one atop the other. I would receive new wounds many a times before the other had begun to heal. But you can’t see them, they are buried to deep.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I can see the scars, see the broken little girl staring back at me. On these day I take a bit more time with my appearance, a touch more detail on the make up, more care with my hair. Taking the time to carefully place the mask over them so no one else can see my stains from the past.

What many people don’t tell you, is before they are scars, but after they are raw, these injuries tend to become infected, to fester unless, like a real wound, taken care of quickly. But a young child, with out these tools, My wounds festered and caused me pain for a long time. But then, slowly, they began to heal, until one day, I woke up and found myself an adult, with no pain from my cuts, for they had healed over, thick with scar tissue.

Though there are times when scars of old injuries can still act up and ache. Sometimes it is when the weather changes, or the simple advancement in age that triggers these aches and pains, reminding you that it is still there, affecting you in someway. But yet, there is always some trigger. For my scars it is a different trigger than those, but still there.

One night recently, over a game of cards, he raised his voice in a mock shout of anger. And in that instant, the second he did it, my breathe caught, palms became sweaty, a tremble came to an utterly stiff body, even after so many years, so close to a decade ago, my body, having long ago been trained and tuned into the abuse of another, could still be triggered into this reaction.

I let out the breathe I had been holding, ‘He’s not my father,’ I told myself, forcing my body to relax and give a small smile, a normal smile, “Please don’t shout,” I said softly, lightly in response, as if it was a small, simple thing. But all the while, clutching desperately to the Heather of the present. For a moment though, it felt like the mask had slipped, but I had caught it quickly, hiding the scars from his view.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” He said in a loud voice, instantly followed by a mischievous chuckle, reminding me of a naughty boy just having his bit of fun.

My body cringed some as he raised his voice once more, but this time, not caught off guard by it, I could control my actions more. I didn’t feel instantly put into fight or flight mode.

I merely smiled and continued playing the game, never mentioning how such a simple action spiraled me into a different place. A dark place that can still haunts and terrorizes me when I am awake. Letting the ghosts of the past stay there, in the past, I smiled, going forward, back to the game, and embracing his light, carefree mood until, it too, became my own and I found myself able to laugh and enjoy the light, easy moment.

Sometimes that’s all that we can do. Find that light and keep moving towards it, never letting your eyes leave it. Until, eventually, that light engulfs you, warms you. Like a blessed warm beam of sunlight, shining down on you, making it impossible not to smile and relish in it.

Sometimes that sunshine isn’t sunshine at all. It is a moment of laughter shared between friends, a tender kiss between lovers, the impish smile of a child.

It is rain pattering against a window pane. It is the first leaves of fall and the last flower blooming in spring. It is life’s little moments that make us smile and realize we are alive. Moments that are all to easily over looked, all to frequently forgotten. Moments that need to be seized, cherished, memorized for all of their beautiful little details.

For the three lost children in this tale, it is the ability to leave the shackles of abuse behind, to break the chains of fear that held us, to destroy the cycle as to not consume us.

To move forward with the realization that no one could save us but ourselves. And that is how my tale ends. Well not for me and my brothers, our tale continues on as we live and breathe, as we age and raise our own children that we will one day have. Our tale, like everyone else’s will continue to be written until the day we die.

This is merely the end of the tale that needed to be told. The tale of children who were to often forgotten, left to be raised in the shadows of a life others created from their own pain, letting it ripple down and affect the lives of us, as children. This is the tale marking the journey the three lost children took to find their way out of that inky cold existence.

If parts of this tale has felt heavy, dark, hard to imagine, that leaves you grieving for these three little children, has angered you, saddened you, has put you in their shoes and has caused you think of the world from a different perspective, then it has done it’s job. For this isn’t a light, carefree fairy tale with a your classical happily ever after. It is the telling of what will most likely be the worst times I will ever have in my lifetime, a childhood I can never have back, can never have to redo. Even when I am an old women, looking back on my life, my childhood will most likely be the hardest thing I ever had to go through in my life.

But please, don’t feel dishearten, to leaving you feeling depressed over this is not my intent when I invited you on this journey with me. No, it still has it’s happy ending. For you see, the three children, lost in the darkness that was their childhood, they found their way out of the realm of shadows. They found their way into the light.

The end, and a beginning.

Author's Note

This is a work in progress. Unfortunately it has been for the better part of a decade. Very much wishing to change that. So any comments and constructive critisism would be most helpful.