Life of Nobody

[Adios]

It was a .357 and I am a little fuzzy on the time line. The snake was just a garden variety green snake. See Pancho and I fought all the time, about anything. It was just good clean fun.

[Adios]

Sometime the cards we are dealt aren't very good. My parents split when I was very young. They moved on and remarried. This left me with my mother and stepfather.

My stepfather had a temper and used it quite often. I was backhanded away from the dinner table once for one scratch of my wrist. Seriously, I just scratched it once. I was knocked to the floor.

If he was really mad he would make me lay naked on the bed while he beat me with a wide leather belt from my shoulders to my knees. It would leave nice large welts all over me and the criss cross designs were pretty cool.

He hated me because he never made me cry. Ever. He is the one who taught me to hate, I mean really hate. The mental abuse was far worse than the physical. He almost had me convinced I was the most worthless thing on the planet.

I was a scrawny kid and he was a pretty good sized man so there was nothing I could do about it. Or so I thought.

When I was 11 I ran away. They found me after 3 months and made me go back. I ran away again the next week. This time it only took 2 months to find me. The 3rd time I ran away they didn't find me for 5 months, I thought I was safe. I was wrong in a way.

This time they took me to the Orange county Juvenile Home in Orlando, Fl. where I had a very nice stay for 7 months. Then they decided I need to go back home. I told the judge I would be back and he was puzzled that I would rather be in juvenile hall than at home. It took 1 week to get back to juvenile hall. Life was good again. I got along good with everyone there, even the guards. Now right next door to juvenile hall was the Orange County Parental home. Due to my good behavior I was then sent there. I was in heaven. No locks, no guards, there was even a swimming pool. We went to public schools and had freedom to go for walks.

We had to keep out houses clean and share rooms with other kids but they were all good kids. This lasted about 4 months. I never had any visitors so a girl named Gigi and I (she never had visitors either) would always work the door to have the visitors sign in and we called the kids they came to see. One day I saw my mother walk in. I asked Gigi if she would be ok alone and she agreed. Then my own mother walked up to me and said "I am here to see Charles XXXXXXX." I just looked at her. She looked back and waited for me to call me. I gave it about 5 minutes and then stood up and said "Hello, Mother." She seemed to feel awkward and I just let her. I almost learned to not care that day.

They let me go about 4 months later because they decided I had learned my lesson and would be fine at home. They were wrong this time. I left home, got a job and rented a house. I had my motorcycle and a girlfriend and plenty of other friends. The cops knew where I was. My mother and stepfather didn't. No one came for me this time.

Life was finally looking up again.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This one kills me.

[snow bomb]

The year was 1962. I was almost 9 years old and we were living in Moore Haven, Florida. It had been a good summer swimming in the river and fishing in Lake Okeechobee.
School was back in and life was going pretty good. It was the carefree life of a kid who was for the most part happy. I mean my stepfather was abusive but I spent as much time away from as possible.

One day in October this all changed. Everything changed. I think so many of us kids lost our innocence that fall. To the end of my days the memory of those 13 days will never change, never fade, never lose the terror of what might have been.

In school we were having more and more drills about ducking under our desks when the sirens went off or laying on the ground if we were outside. We didn't mind, it was something out of the ordinary. Then one day the President came on television. He said some things that confused us kids and our parents had to explain parts of it to us. We didn't know what an atom bomb was, but we learned. We didn't know where Cuba was, but we learned. What we understood was the Soviet Union had put some very bad things on an island only 90 miles away from us. Things that could pretty much destroy everything.

Children know when , or they did in those days,  when to be seen and not heard. Walter Cronkite Was on the television every night. So much was way too easy for us to understand, but some we as kids just couldn't figure out at all. One thing we all knew was that things had changed. Adults were quieter. There was less laughter. All over every neighborhood people were building concrete bomb shelters. Families were having their own drill about how to evacuate to the shelters. We were too poor to have one so we just practiced going to the middle of the house and laying down.

It was a frightening and confusing time for us and the adults just didn't want to talk to us kids about it. So we talked among ourselves and I am sure we made some of it worse than it was and some less bad than we should have. We had been taught in school that America had never lost a war but it sure sounded like Mr. Cronkite was trying to say we couldn't win this one. One thing was for sure, my stepfather drank more and got meaner.

I remember the school showing us films of the big bombs that we dropped on some place called Japan. A lot of us really wondered if we were being lied to about ducking under our desks being safe or not. I mean we were only kids but we could see whole building being just knocked flat, with nothing left. So we got scared. I wish they had never showed us those films. Even the teachers were quieter than normal and spoke in whispers when they talked to each other.

As more time went on the jumpier the adults got so we started spending as much time away from them as we could. We would fish and play but something was missing. It was like even at our age we were just going through the motions but having no real involvement in doing them. Every day got worse. Adults were yelling a lot more, and not just at us kids but at each other. Us kids got in more fights than usual. Grocery stores hardly even had any candy in them anymore.

Then one day everybody was laughing. Everybody was talking in loud happy voices. They even took the time to tell us kids that everything was going to be alright. But we were changed. In an age of innocence lost none of us would ever be the same again. We would never be able to trust to the same degree ever again. See, we now knew that people we didn't even know could get us killed for things we didn't even understand. The world was a lot scarier now. It has been ever since.

But as time passes memories fade. Or do they?

I fully intend to read the rest of this thread but this post... made me almost cry.  ONWARD TO CONTEXT!

[snow bomb]

Yeah, welcome to life.  : / 

I'm not trying to be flippant, far from so.  Your parents were douchebags, the authority at the time were douchebags.

I have the typical noobs urge to reply to things that SING in my soul, and this is one of them. 

[BadBeast]

Sometime the cards we are dealt aren't very good. My parents split when I was very young. They moved on and remarried. This left me with my mother and stepfather.

My stepfather had a temper and used it quite often. I was backhanded away from the dinner table once for one scratch of my wrist. Seriously, I just scratched it once. I was knocked to the floor.

If he was really mad he would make me lay naked on the bed while he beat me with a wide leather belt from my shoulders to my knees. It would leave nice large welts all over me and the criss cross designs were pretty cool.

He hated me because he never made me cry. Ever. He is the one who taught me to hate, I mean really hate. The mental abuse was far worse than the physical. He almost had me convinced I was the most worthless thing on the planet.

I was a scrawny kid and he was a pretty good sized man so there was nothing I could do about it. Or so I thought.

When I was 11 I ran away. They found me after 3 months and made me go back. I ran away again the next week. This time it only took 2 months to find me. The 3rd time I ran away they didn't find me for 5 months, I thought I was safe. I was wrong in a way.

This time they took me to the Orange county Juvenile Home in Orlando, Fl. where I had a very nice stay for 7 months. Then they decided I need to go back home. I told the judge I would be back and he was puzzled that I would rather be in juvenile hall than at home. It took 1 week to get back to juvenile hall. Life was good again. I got along good with everyone there, even the guards. Now right next door to juvenile hall was the Orange County Parental home. Due to my good behavior I was then sent there. I was in heaven. No locks, no guards, there was even a swimming pool. We went to public schools and had freedom to go for walks.

We had to keep out houses clean and share rooms with other kids but they were all good kids. This lasted about 4 months. I never had any visitors so a girl named Gigi and I (she never had visitors either) would always work the door to have the visitors sign in and we called the kids they came to see. One day I saw my mother walk in. I asked Gigi if she would be ok alone and she agreed. Then my own mother walked up to me and said "I am here to see Charles XXXXXXX." I just looked at her. She looked back and waited for me to call me. I gave it about 5 minutes and then stood up and said "Hello, Mother." She seemed to feel awkward and I just let her. I almost learned to not care that day.

They let me go about 4 months later because they decided I had learned my lesson and would be fine at home. They were wrong this time. I left home, got a job and rented a house. I had my motorcycle and a girlfriend and plenty of other friends. The cops knew where I was. My mother and stepfather didn't. No one came for me this time.

Life was finally looking up again.

Hi Hawk,
Reading about abuse generally makes me feel uncomfortable, so I started reading this with a little trepidation. No need to worry though.
You set this down just right. Just the facts, circumstances, and a little background. None of the sentimental or moralist / judgemental stuff that is so
often unecessary, or even gratuitous. And somehow, you still managed to retain the really personal feel that all your writing has.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Shit like this is only readable for me if the morality is kept out of it, otherwise it becomes whiny propaganda. Congrats Hawk - you nailed it!

[Adios]

Thanks all. Honestly it was the only life I knew so I just thought it was all normal. The time for active hate has passed and faded to a void. My mother and I eventually patched things up and I held her hand when she died. Life goes on.

[P3nT4gR4m]

FTR I feel I should clarify that I didn't read it without morality and compassion, I just prefer to add that shit myself rather than be spoonfed if that makes any sense.

[Adios]

FTR I feel I should clarify that I didn't read it without morality and compassion, I just prefer to add that shit myself rather than be spoonfed if that makes any sense.

Makes perfect sense to me. TBH it was painful to write and I was worried it would be too detached.

[BadBeast]

FTR I feel I should clarify that I didn't read it without morality and compassion, I just prefer to add that shit myself rather than be spoonfed if that makes any sense.

Makes perfect sense to me. TBH it was painful to write and I was worried it would be too detached.

This reads just as well as any of your stuff, because your detachment, seems to be a detachment  from any conflict associated with the events, not a detachment from the piece itself. It says everything anyone needs, to click with the writing, and doesn't need to even imply any reaction from the reader. Just assumes the reader is growed up enuff to empathise. (Or not)

[Adios]

When I was young I was bounced around a lot between my mother and father, aunts and other family.

One of my favorite times was living with my paternal grandparents on the farm in Georgia. In those days kids were allowed to be kids and weren't loaded down with having to learn every minute and light homework. On the farm there were 2 ponds, both loaded with fish and plenty of woods for hunting in. We were all given a shotgun as soon as we were tall enough to keep both ends off the ground at the same time and taught how to use them. Yes, shells were counted and matched against the game we put on the table. A miss was grounds for severe humiliation and the memories of a miss were long lived.

I never realized until years later the burden this must have placed on my grandparents. I was the favorite and to me it was just right to live there. They never complained and I helped on the farm as much as I could. At 8 years and up I was driving a tractor and plowing fields, cropping tobacco by hand and picking cotton by hand. I loved those days.

When it was time to pick cotton Papa would hire croppers, usually blacks, and we would all go in the field together and work. Sunup to sundown. We had the bags about 20 feet long and when it got filled we would just take it to the mule drawn wagon and get an empty one. What I will never forget about those days is the field chant. Picking by hand is backbreaking and monotonous as all get out. The blacks (called a different name in that place and time) would start what would sound like singing. But as you listened there were no words, just voices rising together to make a rythmic music that set the pace of work. The your pulse would soon join the beat and all would be forgotten as you worked. Many days it came as a surprise when the end of the day was called. Oh, the stories those croppers had. I would sneak away to just listen to them tell their stories every chance i got.  I never knew where they came from or where they went after but they sure filled a young mans summers with a sense of awe and wonder.

My favorite was cropping tobacco though. The work was hard but we all had fun. We had tobacco barns that were designed to hang the sticks of tobacco in and when the barn was full it would be closed up and the burners would be turned on to cure the tobacco over the winter. Before this we would bury sweet potatoes in the dirt floor and all winter we had perfectly cooked sweet potatoes for the cooking.

In front of the barn we had stringers. The tobacco sticks were about 4 feet long and the stringers had racks the sticks fit on and they would take 3 leaves, string them on both sides and then move down the stick repeating this until it was full. Then a man would take the full stick in the barn. The barn was built with struts placed perfectly to hole the sticks and the barn was filled from the top down. It was passed up from man to man and then hung.

In the field were the croppers. I was a cropper. Tobacco plant leaves grown in well defined layers with 3 leaves per layer. We always cropped from the bottom up so the first time through the field only the bottom leaves were cropped, then the next layer and so on. We would put the leaves under our off arm until we couldn't hold any more then walk over and put it in the mule drawn sled. Once the sled was full it was taken back to the barn and an empty sled was brought to the fields.

Where we put the leaves under arm would build up a black cake up to a quarter of an inch thick by the end of the season. Yes we wore the same clothes every day because they had to be thrown away when we were done.

Then there was the tobacco auctions. I have never been to a more magical place in my life. Those auctioneers could sing! The tobacco would be placed on very large croker material squares and then the corners of those squares would be all brought to the top of the heal and tied. You can guess where all of us kids sat. We could see everything. And the aroma of all of that cured tobacco was wonderful, it was simply perfect.

And there was still plenty of summer for fishing.

[BadBeast]

Did you start smoking tobacco?

[Adios]

At 12 years and still do. 


I know.

[BadBeast]

Yeah, me too.