What had love got to do with it

What had love got to do with it the story of an old man and his memories

he lay on his bed, so tired and worn out from  just surviving the day and waiting for that blessed day when he would finally have some peace and rest from the memories that still plagued his mind when he became tired or just worn out, people would look and see the smiling clown as he had learnt a long time ago to only let people see what he wanted them to see, something he had got very good at in his younger days but as time wore on and he wore out it became harder and harder to do, what did they know of the small crying child that lay buried deep down? frozen in fear  and now to frightened to come out to the light. what do they see but the shell that he had  put up to protect himself.
His mind raced backwards through the years to what was one of the first memories he could recall, It seemed  that they were only sort of memories of his childhood he could ever remember, he was sure that there must have been more to his life than what now seemed to have been  a never ending journey  of pain and humiliation, either at home or at school but he was buggered if he could tell you what they were, he supposed that they were the small things, like throwing paper planes from a balcony of the flats he was living in, he lay remembering the way the plane flew, the way the sun looked on the paper wings and then like a torrent the memories broke through again, he thought that he had built the wall strong enough this time but it cracked again letting the memory flood through.
he lay trembling on his bed as he recalled heard her voice once more.
“NO, Please mom No, I will be good, I promise” at that moment he would have promised anything to stop what he knew was coming but like a juggernaut on the motorway she had got her steam up and nothing and more importantly no one was going to stop her, it really didn’t matter why the punishment was given, hard day at home, some one else had pissed her off who knew, all he knew was  that once again he was the target and as  if she was listening to the beat of some music in her head, her hand started to rise and fall, the young boy squirmed and cried but to no avail she had got him so transfixed with terror that he knew, that to try to escape was to incur an even greater punishment  and even longer time bent over the sofa arm, so he did what he had learned to do when she first started  and disappeared inside himself, sometimes staying there long after the punishment finished and allowed the watcher to take the punishment, let him walk around with a sore backside being unable to sit down, (go on laugh, picture the small child in pain holding his behind with two hands, se him hide in a corner so that he hopes to disappear from view just  in case she hadn’t quite finished,out of sight and hopefully out of mind)  he had learnt over the years to disappear inside himself where no one could hurt him and build the wall just that little bit thicker so that next time it became easier to hide away, she continued to beat the boy until her arm at last got tired or the music in her head at last stopped he was never sure Which was which, he often wished that she would listen to a different tune, perhaps something shorter in length but he had learned to accept the punishments and assumed that this was normal and everyone got beaten this way.
his day would start normally, get up from the bed, which  he had shared with his 4 brothers two at the top and two at the bottom for as long as he could remember, get ready for school and then walk to school sometimes it seemed to take for ever especially in the rain or the cold driving winds,  but well they had never had a huge amount of money at least not enough for bus fare and the walk did him good or so she kept saying, he would often joke with his kids in later years that he would walk miles in the rain and snow to go to school  but like all children they would never believe him, but the truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction.

He had very few friends at school or outside and found that he preferred it that way he learnt from a very early age that people couldn’t be trusted, how can you smile and be nice to  someone then beat the living crap out of them? he felt himself getting angry and taking a few deep breaths as he had been taught by one of the many counselors he had been to see , sending  it back where it came from, came back inside to wait until it was needed,
The father was a quiet man, always working and trying to bring in the extra dollar fixing  cars anyone  else would have consigned to the scrap heap.
He rarely raised his voice, leaving the running of the house and the kids to the mother who ran the house with an iron hand that was sometime coated if you got lucky in a velvet glove, he lay on the bed smiling to himself and as he lay there, he remembered that he always hoped that if a punishment had to be given then he always hoped his dad would be the one to give it, he was more a talker that than a fighter, more a this will hurt you more than it will hurt me kind of person but the only one that got lucky enough for that was the middle one, his luck never seemed to run that way.
He is the first born the eldest, therefore was responsible for the others or so he was always informed normally the  point was stressed in that  rather rhythmic way she had of talking when she had a point to make, this normally involved a sofa arm, a slipper and sore bum  and as they all grew up he did his best  to see that they did not suffer the punishments the way he had and he often stood in the way take  the blame so that he copped it instead of them, but then he had got quite adept at leaving the body behind and switching off, going away to some secluded place in his head where she could never get him and allowing the watcher to take his place and take the punishment.
It's strange that as he grew older and the terror became less, the patterns of the past  matured into a strange form of duty, leaving school to make sure there was enough money in the house, going out and asking for the cheapest thing he could because he knew that they could not afford anything else and besides the more money left over the more available for the others.
 “What had love got to do with it”  he heard himself snarl under his breath, a vastly over rated emotion especially when you were young and seemed to spend the day just waiting for the hand to fall again as it usually did for some minor infraction of unwritten rules   
Lying on the bed he suddenly gave a small smile and recalled the time he and the oldest brothers talked his youngest brother into leaving home, they warned him of the impending Armageddon that was coming his way, why who can remember now, but he remembered how they had talked him into sneaking downstairs and only to get caught by the old man and true to form when asked where he was going, he  dobbed us in and told the father that we had told him to leave home.
Mind you the best one as he recalled was when they talked him into being a superhero from the second story of the house and he sprained his ankle.
As he looked back he started to remember some of the good things, his dad building him a bike  spending his time building air fix models only to see them destroyed as we tried to see if they would fly, finally his eyes getting tired, he drifted off to sleep hoping that tomorrow would bring a better day.