Indulge me for a few moments. I didn’t do a blog dump after the psycho last Monday because I guess I didn’t really know what to say. At this moment in time, I can clearly say that I am angry.
Dr. Dragonfly and I have been talking about that anger for a little while now and it seems that between my mother and my father there’s enough to go around. My father was a given, but I hadn’t considered my mother. My father was (is) an asshole and bully who never thought I could do anything right. I always had to learn the hard way and nothing was ever good enough for him. By the ripe old age of 14 or 15, I knew that I was going to escape. There was no way that I would stay in the small town environment. I didn’t have the small town mentality. I didn’t deal well with the small ideas and the closed mindedness.
There were a few particularly telling events with him from my teenage years that actually made me finally give up on him. He forced me to play basket ball in Jr. High. I sucked. I actually made a basket for the other team because I had no idea what was going on. Luckily, I got hurt and that ended my basketball career. About that same time, and earlier, hot wheels race cars were very popular. Unfortunately, the race car tracks made a good weapon to use against your children. He would beat me mercilessly with them. The welts were visible for days on my ass and the backs of my legs. This is also the time when we wore track shorts for PE. You could see all of the welts. The PE teacher could clearly see all of the welts, but she did nothing. She didn’t care. You didn’t get involved with family squabbles.
Since it was clear that I was being abused at home, why not abuse me at school too. I mean, the name calling just wasn’t enough. More than a couple times, I was forced by stronger classmates to suck cock either in the shower or while we were changing to go to class. Afterwards, I just sat in the shower and cried. The PE teacher knew what was going on, but all I got was a ‘C’mon Stewart. You’re going to be late for class and I’m not writing you a pass.’ There was no one I could tell about it. No one would believe me. They still don’t. I would tell my mom that I was being harassed and bullied at school and she would just dismiss it and tell me to try harder to get along with the other kids. She didn’t understand why I had to be so different from everyone else. Dad just called the bullying horseplay and said that it happened to everyone. Now, we call it aggravated sexual assault. It happened more than once over the years. The first time, I was 13.
I was also very good with music. At that time drum and bugle corps were very popular. There was one in a nearby city. He took me to audition, but I didn’t make it in. When we got in the car, I was already crestfallen, but he had to add insult to injury and slam his ram and fist into my chest and tell me how worthless I was because I couldn’t get into a goddamned drum and bugle corps. How would I ever make it into Ohio State’s marching band? (I wasn’t going to go to Ohio State.)
That same year, we were coming home from church one day. I noticed a pair of dogs running around playing at a house we always went past. They were German Shepherds, but something was different about them. They were albino. I said, look, there are two albino German Shepherds! My dad quickly said that there was no such animal. I said, look, there they are playing in the yard. It didn’t matter. They didn’t exist and I was on the receiving end of the hot wheels racetrack again. Later that same day, we went back to Ridgeway (nearby village) to work on a float for an upcoming parade. The preacher came up to me, put his arm around me and told me what a wonderful, christian man my father was. I was incredulous! I looked at my preacher and said, loud enough for everyone to hear me-welts fully visible-My dad is a bastard! That didn’t go over so well. I was taken behind the building and, of course, beaten up. We retuned to the float where dad said, he’ll be fine now. I just gave him a little tune-up. No one intervened, not even the preacher. I told my mom what happened and got, ‘well you shouldn’t say things like that about your father, especially when you’re in public.’
My last attempt at pleasing him was a tractor certification course. Ohio changed the laws to where if you didn’t have a license, you had to be certified to drive a tractor on the road. (As if driving a tractor were difficult. I’d been doing it since I was 8.) Fine, I took the course like he wanted me to and did very well on the laws part. It was boring, but it got me out of the house. The tractor/combine driving part was ok as long as I was backing something up that had 3 or 4 wheels and a long enough tongue to give me some wiggle room. It wasn’t perfect, but I could do it. When it came to something with two wheels, however, no dice. I couldn’t back up a plough to save my life. One day, after practicing for who know how long and not getting it right, my dad got really mad again and pulled me off of a moving tractor. Luckily, I had time to pop the clutch so that the tractor stopped moving. He slammed me against a metal corn crib and started beating me with a lead/metal pipe and I started screaming at him. Mom heard the noise and came out. All I got was a ‘Jim put that pipe down and let him go before you hurt him.’ Dad stopped. I looked at him and said, ‘If you ever fucking touch me again, the next person you’ll be looking at is a police officer.’ and walked away. I think I got in my car and went to visit my grandpa for a very long time. I was 14 and it sucked because I was still dependent on them.
Now, my anger at my dad is still there, but it has subsided and mostly turned into repulsion and disgust. He is an ignorant, overbearing ogre to this day and still tries to pick fights with me. All I wanted to hear from him the entire time I was growing up was that he was proud of me and that he loved me. He finally said it when I came home from my year abroad in Spain (Universidad de Barcelona) when they picked me up at the airport. I just looked into his eyes and said, ‘thanks, but it’s too little, too late.’
Now, my mom comes into the picture. I hadn’t realized that the entire time I was growing up she had been impotent and mostly absent. Not absent in physical terms, but absent in emotional terms. I never gave anyone trouble. I was a chameleon. I could be what you wanted me to be. I had no identity. Since I didn’t cause problems, everyone else took precedence over me. My brother was a mess (still is). My cousin was a mess (still is). It didn’t matter who or what it was, it was more important than me because I was able to take care of myself. I was independent from an early age.
I constantly told her about the bullying and the things they called me. I’d tell her that on the playground I didn’t really play with anyone because they all wanted to play ‘smear the queer’ and you know who the queer was. ‘You just need to try harder to fit in.’ Why do I have to try harder? I’m not doing anything. They’re doing this to me.’ ‘It will be ok honey, or pumpkin or whatever she called me.’ It was never ok. I stopped saying anything. It didn’t matter, she wasn’t going to really do anything anyway. The only time she actually intervened on my behalf was in 4th grade when the teacher put me in the ‘blackbirds’ reading group. (The lowest skill group. I was already reading at an 11th grade level.) Then, she had an opinion. ‘Aren’t you going to go to my conferences (especially in high school)?’ ‘No, I don’t need to worry about you. You’re getting good grades and you don’t cause problems. I have to deal with your brother.’
I’d go up to my room after dad got done with me. Sometimes, she’d come up and try to console me. She’d say that your father loves you, he just doesn’t know how to show it. Obviously. Why didn’t you protect me? Why didn’t you stop him? Why do you hit me when you’re frustrated with dad or my brother? I didn’t do anything. Why are you so strict with me but you let my brother do whatever the fuck he wants? You don’t smell the pot and vodka on him when he comes home every night? (from 13-on) I don’t care what the neighbors think. Why do you? Why does everyone come before me? Why didn’t you leave? (Later answered as ‘people didn’t do that during that time period.’-Yes they did.) Why did you forget me at graduation? No one offered me a ride home and I was once again a laughing stock on my last day of school. I thought parental love was unconditional. That went out the window when you found out that I’m gay. That took years for you to get over. It’s funny how your gay son is the normal one and your straight one and my straight cousin are hot messes. There are worse things than being gay.
I don’t visit now, other than for medical reasons, because I don’t want to. I don’t want to see dad at all and I’m a little miffed at you now. Even now, as soon as you think we’re going to get into some sort of emotional discussion or discussion of something that happened in my past, all of a sudden, you have to get dad lunch or Brooke just walked in the door or Damien’s a hot mess and you don’t know what to do with him, or David needs new pants so you have to go to the store and get them for him. Everyone comes before me.
The other day, I put up a video of me in the middle of a cluster attack. I wanted people to see what they are and to see the pain they cause and the damage they do. Most people wrote something on my wall. My father-in-law wrote on my wall for both of them. You sent me a a text apologizing for not being on the computer lately because it was going bad. Wtf? You always say you want to be part of my life, you want to know what I’m doing and you want to know how I’m doing. Text, call…’I don’t want to call. I don’t want to interrupt you.’ Interrupt me?! I’m disabled. I’m not doing anything.
I’m done.
cazandoconejos 