Want Me To Give You Something To Cry About?

My biological dad was visiting. He always brought a girlfriend as to not raise rial rivalry with my step dad. I was surprised the atmosphere was so civil— my step dad being ruthless was with his possessions. They smoked pot together, always signaled to me that everything was ok and there was no rivalry as to who was my father.

My biological dad and I played video games back and forth all night. Later I was laying on my belly playing Pac Man. I had just surpassed my highest score with an abundance of extra lives. I was feeling extra happy and confident from my achievement and the extra attention I was getting that night. I suspect kids from healthy families would just call it “feeling normal”.

Then it came to an end.

Wrap it up. It’s time to go to bed.

What I said in response was a shock, even to myself.

I never dared to talk back to my step dad. When I hard my name called by him a shot of adrenaline and fear always shot through my nervous system. It was like being stabbed with my own name. There were rules and protocols. When called, I was to immediately yell “coming!”, drop what I was doing, and run to him.

So I can only cite this dangerous state of high self worth to explain my joking response.

No way José!

He got up off the couch and kicked me in the foot. Hard. It really hurt. It was embarrassing to have happen in front of everyone.

I laid on the floor, holding my foot, crying as the sound of each dying surplus Pac Man came from the TV.

No one did or said anything to stick up for me. It was clear who was a father to me. No one.

When I was tweleve I was starting to find my independence. I had a bike and I loved the freedom and autonomy I felt with it. I didn’t have to ride the slow, herky-jerky bus with the savages.

My best friend had a connection at a raceway 15 miles away where we had the opportunity to work the concession stand! I lived such a sheltered and eventless life out in the country. We didn’t go on vacations, or field trips, or drives in the country, or even out for pizza. So this adventure was like red drop of paint being mixed into a white can of paint. A swirl of beauty.

On top of it, we were going to ride our bikes there. The ultimate autonomy– getting there by our own means.

Once it was time to leave I could see that the permission I was shocked to receive earlier was indeed too good to be true.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To ride bikes to work at the race.”

“You’re not doing that.”

“You said I could!”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did, I asked you earlier and you said yes!”

“Boy, you better get rid of that attitude real quick.”

I was so frustrated and angry. I was good at not having wants. That was survival at my house. But when I finally let myself believe something good is going to happen, I would cling tight and feel such a rupture if it was taken away.

I dared very little in defiance of him. I was terrified of him. If he saw one ounce of assertiveness in defending myself he would stomp it out with all his weight. I NEVER won an argument. Even my tone of voice, or posture, or movement of an eyebrow showing dislike for his actions would ignite his anger.

But I was getting sick and tired of being sick and tired of the injustice. And I was growing up. But it was a shock to myself when this came out of my mouth:

“Fuck off!”

I felt a rush of empowerment that turned immediately in panic when I saw a look of fury on his face that I had never seen before. It was like fire being angry.

I ran straight out the back door, into the yard, around the end of the trailer where he caught me, pushed me onto the hood of the car and punched me three times in the face.

“You’re… Gonna learn… Some respect.”

With each punch I saw a flash of light light up the inside of my skull.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

 

Lots of new things come with playing football as a kid. Shoulder pads, padded pants, a helmet, and a mouth guard.

The mouth guard is a right of passage. When it’s new you hold it in boiling water, then after a quick dip in cold water, you put it in your mouth and bite down so it will form perfectly to your teeth. It was scary and painful- I might as well have been walking across fire.

But I did it. It all felt so empowering.

Then came the jock strap. For those who don’t know, it’s basically a very tight pair of briefs that have the butt cut out. My step dad insisted I wear one and I hated it.

I felt exposed and gross to have my bare nine year old ass up against my football pants material,  which were white, and silhouette friendly.

My step dad’s way of teaching me how wearing one would protect me from the worst pain a male can feel was to say:

“Drop your drawers.”

I looked at my dresser.

“What?”

“Drop your drawers!”

Somehow I figured out that he meant underwear. I had to pull my fucking underwear down in front of him.

“Now squeeze your balls.”

I thought he’d know if I didn’t actually squeeze. So I squeezed. Pretty hard. And I really hurt.  For those who don’t know, it’s a pain that has a presidential motorcade escort flying down the Autobahn of the nervous system. There is no pain like it and I had to fucking inflict it on myself.

“Do you feel that?”

“Yeah”

“Do you feel that?!!”

“Yes!”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what it’s going to feel like if you get hit in the balls if you don’t wear a jock strap.”

It didn’t feel like empowerment. It felt like a violation and humiliation.

 

I couldn’t believe it when I saw this scene from This Boy’s Life.

Because I lived it. Almost word for word.

Except instead of mustard it was a slice of American cheese so old that the edges of had hardened and turned darker, still inside the plastic sleeve.

And instead of smashing it in my face, he made me get it out of the trash and eat it. I brushed off the coffee grounds and forced it down my mouth. It smelled like trash and was gritty.  I felt disgust and dread with every trudging bite.

I don’t know how Robert DeNiro did it, but that is exactly my step dad.

He would call me into the bathroom while he was shitting to lecture me. A book in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

I had to smell his shit and breath his cigarette smoke while I got told what a piece of shit I was.

I hated it.

In his lectures, I was wrong no matter what. If I tried to defend myself I’d hear:

You have an excuse for everything.

Or he would counter with any argument no matter how bizarre or untrue. His conviction always made it seem true.

Like when I tried to solicit his praise by telling him my pride of learning how to do averages in math that day.

Okay dad, the average of zero, one, and two is… one!

“No it’s not. Zero isn’t a number.”

We argued about it until I cried. I was wrong. No matter what.

Our neighbors were real men’s men. They were from Alabama. I think my step dad looked up to them, the way he would adopt a slight southern accent while talking in the yard with them. The way each of the neighbor boys learned to swim was their dad swam them out over their heads, left them, then swam ashore. They had no choice but to swim. And they did. Men.

My step dad’s way of teaching was to give no instruction then throw me in the depth of what he was already angry that I didn’t know how to do.

With swimming, he literally did that.

We were at a family friend’s pool. I loved it there. It was heaven: the comfort, the play, the weightless feeling.

But that day, he decided it was time I knew how to swim and threw me in the deep end of the pool. The deep end. I hit the water. It’s way up my nose and I panic. I’m disoriented. I struggled with all I have to get to the surface. Every gallon of water in that pool was trying to get into my mouth. I felt so out of control. Everything was blurry. The bottom seemed to go down forever. No movements helped. And oxygen, oh my God, the instant I hit the water my adrenaline burned up the oxygen in my lungs. It felt like they were burning from the inside out.

He dove in and pulled me out and I felt so ashamed that I couldn’t just do it, that I was completely inadequate. Not a man.

He continued his lessons on our swimming trips to Lake Michigan. What had been one of my greatest joys was now terrifying. Such a  betrayal. As we got closer to the lake my anxiety would build. Seeing the horizon of Lake Michigan rise in the windshield felt like a tsunami the size of the Earth heading towards us. This is because on each trip, before I was allowed to play on my own, I had to pass the following test.

He’d take me out, chest deep, put his hand on my head, and make me hold my breath under water while he counted to the number he named. Each trip to the lake increased the count by one. If I couldn’t do it, he’d let me come up for air. But I had to do it again. And again. And again. Until I could do it. Since this wasn’t actual instruction on how to swim, I guess it was to teach me not to be afraid of the water.

This is what it felt like.

Wading with him into the water, with each step I begged in my mind to go no deeper. The waves moved against me with absolutely no regard for my tiny body. His hand went on my head and I had to say when I was ready. I had to fucking participate. It felt like such a betrayal like I was condoning it.

I went under. His hand on my head. My hands on top of his hand, which was an odd comfort, like keeping the hammer of a revolver from cocking back. A few seconds of silence. I could hear the echo of his count. Then my heart started to pound. And my lungs started to contract. Every second seemed to last twice as long as the previous until I again felt like the water was trying to get into my mouth. This time it was the weight of all the water in Lake Michigan. Trying to prying my lips apart. When I couldn’t take one more second I’d come up gasping. I dreaded catching my breath because that’s when I had to do it again. Until I made the number.

Every time I thought I was going to drown. To drown. I felt so mortal. This grown man and all of Lake Michigan versus and nine year old who thought he was the problem.

He loved this phrase.

I could in no way understand it. I was feeling pain from the complete injustice of his explosive, unpredictable anger—that to a small child, felt like a tidal wave. But I was wrong for feeling it. My feelings were wrong. Like being punched in the nose then threatened with more because my nose was bleeding.

It makes me so fucking angry to think about it and re-feel it now.

Then I think of the reason for it. He wanted me to stop showing evidence of his problems… and I think: How pathetic. A grown man saying that to a child. Can you imagine saying that to a 12 year old? A nine year old? A seven year old? A five year old?