"Ragged and Redeemed" Part 2

I came home from school one day, this was when I was 8, with Tyler and Austin, to find our beat up Chevy pick up piled up with our belongings in the driveway, A pink sheet on our door said

       “EVICTION NOTICE: leave immediately prior to three days of receiving this”

My mother revved the engine and beckoned Tyler, Austin, and I into the cab. We asked no questions, it would be about the 10^th time we moved because our mother had failed to pay the bills. It was nothing new. I had just begun to like this town and we were yet again moving to stares, disgust, pity and newness.  The town after this new one was where my real story began, 4 years later.

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Dad came home after 4 or 5 days to Mom’s worried and disgusted cries, and to Nick and my silence. He came home sick, with red rimmed eyes, messed up hair, rumpled clothes, and some forgotten anger. My father was a gentle father in the beginning, but not after this day. My mother wouldn’t shut up. She kept asking him questions like “Where were you?? What happened to you? Why do you smell like liquor?? What is wrong with you??” and this was when my dad began his history of abuse, when he drew back his hand and slapped my mother across the cheek. The noise seemed to echo in my head and I felt Nick’s shuddering cries. I looked down and saw him sobbing silently into my shirt. I had forgotten he was there, I gently guided him back to my room. Walking down the hallway with my mom’s shaking sobs and my father’s whispered apologies behind me…… Throughout the next four years were torture. The only safe place was school, home being a hell on earth. Mom didn’t look the same and Dad didn’t either. All those hospital trips, all those cries, all those hits, all those shouts. He began beating me too, easily at first when I didn’t do something right, but harder after a while. The beatings started when I was 9 and went on still when I turned 11.

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We moved into a small apartment 4 years after the other town. The apartment had only two bedrooms and one bathroom. My mom took one and the twins and I shared another. Bill and Meg both took residence at a friend’s house for a couple of months, they were leaving for college soon anyways. This new town was pretty. They had a good school and a park right next to it. Immediately, Tyler and Austin made friends, while I stayed a loner, as always. Until I met Melinda, in my first day, in Language arts. This was in the year I turned 11 and Tyler and Austin were both about to turn 7.

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Nick went to sleep crying as time progressed. Not only was mom and I getting beaten, but Dad started something new on both of us. He started sexually abusing me and my mother. I would try to fight, because my mother had given up fighting, but I couldn’t get away. It was horrible, it made my skin crawl, whenever he would touch me in one of his drunken hazes. Most of the bad nights, when dad was overloaded to the brim with alcohol, or a new favorite pastime of his, meth, he would stumble through the house yelling at the top of his lungs. I would hide Nick in the closet and pile old clothes on top of him. “go to sleep buddy” I would whisper although my voice would be quaking a little bit. Nick, now 7 years old, would nod, blow me a kiss, and immediately drift off.  Then dad would come in, swaggering and stumbling, with a stank  breath and a scary grin. This was when he would give me nightmares for weeks to come, I knew it was no use to struggle, he would just break something to keep you from moving. So I just stayed still and hoped he that the alcohol would take its toll and he would fall asleep. Then I would go take a shower, scrubbing extra hard, because maybe, just maybe, the soap could have wiped away all the memories and all the hurt, pain, and humiliation. You may be saying, he can’t have just started up like that in a couple of weeks, but he did. Once you’re hooked on something, YOU ARE HOOKED. Like my dad was. But through the beating, through the nightmares, through the touchiness, and through the pain, at least I knew that the only angel in my life, Nick, was safe.