My father moved out when I was about 9. I remember my mother telling a social worker at my school about the impending divorce. The social worker was trying to be sympathetic and gave me a book about how I should be okay with feeling sad. SAD? Are you fucking kidding me? We were joyous! Why did it take my mother 23 years of alcoholic rage and abuse to get rid of him?
I don't remember a lot of things about my early childhood, I've been told I am "blocking" memories. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, as I was the youngest. I suffered the least of the abuse, next to Shouf, who was born special. My father, bastard that he was, tended to steer clear of Shouf individually, unless she was being included in the group. Of course, that doesn't mean that either of us didn't see a lot of scary shit!
One of my earliest memories is my father playing hide-and-go seek with us. You would think that would be a happy memory, right? But my father played a "Here's Johnny" version in the middle of the night while my mother was at work. He had woken us all up when he got home from whatever bar he was frequenting after his 2nd shift job. How it worked was we all got the chance to hide, and whomever he found first got beaten with a stick he found in the yard. Who the fuck knows what triggered his anger that night, it could have been anything. I don't remember the outcome, I was probably 6 at the time. All I remember is hiding under a bed with Shouf on one side of me and Bouf on the other. Bouf had one hand over my mouth, and the other hand over Shouf's mouth because we were both hysterical. Kouf, as the oldest, was probably hiding Jimmy. The only boy in the house always deserved to be treated as an extra special punching bag, it didn't matter if he was ten years old. I'm assuming Horhay* must have passed out that night before he found anyone, because I don't remember the outcome. Who knows, maybe I blocked it.
*Horhay is what we now call him. I do realize I'm not spelling it correctly, but Jorge just doesn't have the same look. He is now a sad depressed old man living in Florida all by himself. He is no longer scary, but I still don't want pretty much anything to do with him.
2 weeks ago
4 comments:
yes Jimmy was my special charge, although I don't remember that particular incident, I remember hundreds more that were very similar without the stick and Here's Johnny, now that's especially creepy. Do you remember which house, Coventry or Bolton? I do remember him kicking Jimmy down the icy stone outside stairs because he forgot to take out the garbage and was a "sissy" because he was crying in terror and not moving fast enough...
That just brought tears to my eyes, Kouf. I cannot imagine treating my child that way.
Ditto to that, ladies. I don't remember being under the bed w/you and Shouf... but yeah, reading this just brought back some really bad feelings. Thank God we are so well adjusted today! :)
I also have blocked many many memories from our childhood. I do remember Jimmy as "my baby" I was 6 when he was born. He used to sneak into my bed every night until he was maybe 6 or 7, Horhay absolutely hated that but Jimmy got away with it most of the time since Horhay slept late sleeping it off every morning! Oh, there's so much more. I'll have to blog on it myself.
Post a Comment