Child Abuse Story From David C Part 1
by David W. C.
(Springdale, Arkansas, USA)
I was born on October 5th, 1956 in Dallas, Texas. We lived in the projects in west Dallas. It was a low income housing project and we were poor. Mom had 4 kids and I guess Dad wasn't around much and eventually would leave us all behind. I don't know the whole story behind that because my dad died when I was 18. So Mom is a single mom with 4 kids, in the fifties, which is not the best situation for anyone to be in.
We lived in south Oak Cliff, Dallas, Texas. It was the early sixties. We were a middle to low income family. The next 8 years were very complex, maybe bliss, sometimes happy, even a few warm memories, that still to this day give me a very deep happy feeling...BUT....a hellish, horrible home that no child should ever have to live through. At least if you were a male child. It's normal on the outside in every way. We're not rich, not poor, first family on the block to get a color TV, and never going without a meal. But walking into that house was a completely different story.
I remember that I was a bubbly, happy (and probably dorky) kid that was very creative and a very curious kid, always thinking and always wanting to do something, anything. I just wanted to do things. It didn't matter what, just doing things, whether playing or talking to the neighbors or just running. I couldn't sit still. I always wanted to do something. It just seemed like everything fascinated me. Maybe by today's standards I would be diagnosed with ADHD and put on Ritalin or something. But it was fun being very curious and fascinated by everything around me.
I made a lot of friends at that time. I was not shy like I am today. I wanted to know everybody and everything. That was fun to me. Phil and Gary were our two best friends. Me and my brother Donny did just about everything with our two friends. Sleepovers, six flags, swimming, etc. Mom thought these guys were a step above us in life. According to Mom, they were better than us. We would be reminded daily from Mom that we were not as good as Phil and Gary but we should strive to be that good. "Why can't you keep your room clean? Phil and Gary do not have dirty rooms." "Why can't you keep your room cleaned like Phil and Gary?" Those were pretty common lines Mom used on us all the time with only a few changes. If we were acting bad or not minding, it would be "Why can't you mind like Phil and Gary?" Other times when we were not minding or what I think was us just being kids, Mom would pinch the flesh on our arm with a twisting motion, then call us "a sorry slut." She called me this countless times and she said that I would never amount to anything. To this very day, I can't help but think that everybody else is better than me.
The warmest memory I have of this home is Christmastime. We didn't get a lot during the year, like the girls did, and I never had a birthday party for myself, at least I can't remember one, but we got everything for Christmas that we asked for. I look back on it now and with Mom being married now to Frank, a plumber who provided us food, and a home, and nothing else, it must have been very hard to provide us all with nice Christmas gifts. I know you had to go behind Frank's back to do it, so I take my hat off to you Mom for that.
I don't really know why Mom married this man but he was willing to take a woman with four kids and provide them with a home and food. That's where it stopped though. He played no part in raising us except for one thing. Frank was a child abuser. He physically abused me and Donny.
I don't remember when or how my first beating started. I don't know if I was beaten at a very young age or if it just evolved as a way of life. But it did just become a way of life and something that I struggled with every day. I remained in constant fear of this man. I remember many times I would be sitting in the living room and Frank would come home from work and when he would walk through that door I swear my heart would feel like it was about to jump right out of my chest. I would always start shaking inside from fear and being a child, I couldn't run away from him. I was under constant stress and fear from this man everyday of my life. I knew something wasn't right with this and it couldn't be normal. But there was no one I could talk to about it. No one I could call to help me with it. After all, this was the sixties.
Whippings were with switches. Small thin switches with little nubs on them that would cause the most pain and largest welps. I learned at an early age what the word welps meant. On the back of the legs between the buttocks and just above the back of the knee. I don't know why they were called welps but I still remember what they looked like. Most of them would be oval shaped about the size of a silver dollar and they would be filled with pus. Which made it very uncomfortable to sit down most the time. Most of the beatings were while we were asleep so we would be in our underwear so it was all flesh being ripped. I still remember sleeping and drowsily being awaken by the covers being pulled back in a smooth quick jerk. I would know what was coming next. The beatings would last for what seemed like forever. Us screaming "Please stop Please stop" but no one else in the family would say a word. Mom would always be there watching and would only seldom say a word. Most of the time we were told to go out back and get the switches ourselves and if it were to break during our beating, then Frank would go get the switch this time and we would get another beating that night.
Many times I went to school trying to hide the welps while wearing shorts. My friends at school would laugh at me, making sick jokes about the welps on my legs. I realized one day that if I could handle being beaten by one of the strongest men that I knew, then I could handle a few punk kids teasing me. Teachers didn't do anything or ask any questions. I guess their mentality was that if I had marks on my legs from beatings, then I must have done something to deserve it.
Frank was a very strong man with huge arms and biceps and he never pulled back from beating us with his enormous strength. Most the beatings would be for stupid things like us forgetting to bring the empty garbage cans to the backyard. Waking up to a beating time after time has left me scarred for life and I have tried to deal with this every way that I can but it won't go away.
As the years went by I learned a way to make the beating durations a little shorter. I suffered from asthma and several times had to go to the emergency room for it, so one day I had an attack while Frank was beating me and I tried to scream, in between the screams of pain, to get enough air to scream "I can't breathe" and he suddenly stopped. He didn't like it but he did stop. I can still remember that look in his eyes when he couldn't finish the beating. It was a pissed, unfinished, unfulfilled, angry look. I will never forget that look. I remember one time hearing Mom telling Frank to stop, while I was screaming "I can't breathe". But she said it in a way that sounded to me like it wasn't out of concern but that maybe she was just tired of hearing me screaming. But it worked and after awhile I realized I could use it most of the time to get a shorter beating. But there was one problem with that. Frank did not finish my beatings as I was glad for, because all he did was make Donny's beatings longer to compensate. He got what he wanted. The beatings lasted for years.
Young boys will pee all over the lid and on the floor but not much in the commode. But that's just what little boys do. Frank had grown tired of us boys peeing on the lid (and I can understand this, but not the punishment) and he said the next time he found pee on the toilet seat, he was going to make me wipe it off with my hands...and then lick it off my hands. I wasn't too crazy about the taste of my own urine but after a couple of times, I made it a point to lift the lid every time. His form of discipline worked but I really question the method.
Frank was always threatening us boys that he was going to give us a burr haircut because he hated long hair. In the sixties this would have been a horrible thing for anyone to be seen with. One summer my hair was getting a little bit long and Mom just never got around to taking me to the barber shop, so one Saturday morning Frank takes me and I am not too worried because for years he threatened a burr but never did it. So I was sitting in the barber's chair and just got the apron put on and tied around the neck and I heard the worst thing I could have ever heard from him. "Give him a burr, BUT, don't cut the sides. Leave it long on the sides" Oh my God! A burr on top and long on the sides! There is only one person in the world that wears hair like that. Bozo. I had to go to school with a Bozo haircut...the embarrassment...this was just plain cruelty.
Frank never spent any time with us. We never went on vacations. He never took us fishing. He never took us to the movies. Never sat down and talked to us about anything. Never said we were good or that we were good at anything or we could one day be good at something. Never took us to the circus. Nothing. Not ever, ever, ever. Nothing.
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