3

When I was four I fought off a grown man in the front seat of our blue mustang. I do remember that much, all these years later. When I was sixteen I couldn’t remember anything before the age of twelve and knew it, was aware of it, like some secret that should’ve been burning a hole into my soul but wasn’t for some reason.
I guess he was my dad but I know him as R__. He was indignant and shocked for good reason. I had been born 'twisted' during labor, and supposedly was 'slow.' I hardly ever made a sound as a baby, and was a slow developer. The people in my life didn't treat me the same as other children, it was like all the adults had agreed that I was irrelevant, and I gradually became invisible and unkept.

As a boy, I was never acknowledged by other people, and I could feel myself slowly disappearing because of it, until I began waking in the mornings and finding that I was numb.
There was Abuse, but it seemed systematic, not personal yet. The only way I can explain it is that when I found myself numb and 'disappeared', it was the same as a wild animal who over time, after one abuse after another, had been beaten tame.

I remember what it was like being 'slow.' Even in first grade the English language still sounded to me like a mumbling with a few words thrown in. Everyone seemed to talked too fast. The only reason I made it through school was because I read the text books. For awhile they thought I was deaf and I was sent to different physicians, but little came of it.

There was this other intelligence, and I listened to that instead. It was a kind of emotional, competitive, word-less intelligence, instinctive, intuitive. Except it was a smooth Knowing, not compartmentalized like the above attempt at description might suggest.

In the blue Mustang, when R__ reached across, maybe any other boy would've known that his dad was reaching for the glove box. But this other intelligence knew something else, something new and ancient at the same time.

I tried to make clear to my sisters that he was Bad, in my own little-boy way, saying things like 'I don't like him.' I would especially make sure to never be alone with him. There was a father-son camping trip planned with the church, and I absolutely got out of it, following my now militant principles.

My older sister, a self-described 'daddy's girl' jumped on board and went on that camping trip. Something Bad happened that weekend she was alone with him, but she didn't tell me until we were both adults. A year after her telling me, she denied everything, and aligned herself, along with my other sister, as R__'s eternal defenders.

One sister is a year older than me, the other is a year younger. They were both 'popular(?)' in the House. They had this other kind of confidence, the opposite of my confidence; their's was rooted in being accepted and liked in general.
My sisters wouldn't listen to the little-boy me, and called me 'difficult.' A__ could make anyone laugh, even her worst enemy. And H__, being the youngest, was impossible to dislike because naturally I felt protective of both my sisters.

There was no going to my Mom; she was a beautiful woman, tall and thin with dark hair, but wild in the eyes. She seemed naturally abusive, like she was so good at it, it was effortless for her. She had come from Abuse, an intelligent, manipulative kind.

The real problem with telling her was, she already knew.
When I was first born, it was just me and my older sister, A___. H___, my younger sister, hadn't been born yet. Right now, my first memory is of being drowned in the kitchen sink. My second is a summer party where a dog bit me. My third is my wetting my diapers and running screaming out of the House and into the fields. Another was when A___ once said to my Mom, while the three of us were in the car going somewhere, _When I grow up, I'm going to marry Ben. He's my husband._
I remember seeing the pained look in Mom's eyes.
I remember how creepy A__'s words were to me.
As a young man now, I can see clearly why my Mom's abuse over time became so pointed. Just the sight of me was accosting. She had my kind of intelligence, she knew. It was the knowing that drove her crazy, not mental illness.
It used to be that I was her favorite, I was her Son, she used to seem to love me the most and my sisters would accuse me of it; I used to know exactly how to make her laugh, but then things changed ..

The last time I saw her it was like talking to a ghost, and I knew, I knew I had done it to her, her Best Thing, her son. Something Bad had happened, then I made it worse, made it so obvious to her and anyone who wanted to pay attention that something Bad had happened between me and R___.

My Assertiveness seemed to have a mind of its own, and I was simply along for the ride. It exacted these prices on other people's lives that I watched happen and could do little about. I was this Boy Warrior with this Fight in me that I couldn't control, it was like it was emanating from deep inside me from a bottomless reservoir, which once opened could never be shut, or slowed down, or even controlled. This Fight, this wordless intelligence, was and is still my Best Thing, but its immediately decisive violence can haunt me.

My unexplainable Boldness forced my Mom and sisters to quick make decisions they weren't ready for, and they made the wrong ones. A Boldness, and Insistence of subsequent decisions, that destroyed the lives of my Mom and my sisters. Decisions that would turn them into compulsive liars, into people who could manipulate others so well, that they could even manipulate their own minds, until they weren't even themselves anymore.
The last time I saw my sisters, it too, was like talking to ghosts. I know my sisters, the ones I used to play with, those two little girls, pure, both of whom weren't slow and were much smarter and 'worldly' than me, who would laugh and accuse me of being Mom's favorite and half-jokingly argue. I know they died some time in the House, in God’s Country, some incident, some lie they told concerning what I Knew, that finally killed the last True thing in them.

Hence, when I was eleven, despite all the books I had read, all the characters I had known from the Harrowing and the Horrific, I was still Rocked by what would come. Somehow, I had seen my sisters as victims the whole time.

I remember being on the playground when we were little. Due to the Abuses of the day, my family’s behavior was on my little-boy mind. I realized that the way they fought was unlike real Fight, the kind I felt I recognized in myself.
When they fought, they would tear the other person down first, and they would keep tearing the other person down, day after day, so that they never got around to actually fighting. It didn’t make sense to my little-boy mind.
I felt that fighting was the only way to learn, and that you should want the opponent to be their best when they fight you, so that you can learn what Best is. But it’s hard to put into words a little boy’s thoughts.
I knew at that point that my family would destroy themselves, Abusing each other and returning Abuse in turn, over and over, until they there was nothing left of any of them.
My exact thought was: _Someone has to be the one who doesn’t abuse back._ That way one incidence of Abuse wouldn't destroy all of them with all the subsequent Abuse.
I knew each of the other members of my family did not understand this .. they had already chosen to be Abusive rather than to Fight .. so that just left me. And I accepted that, and only fought when I wasn’t Aggressive, which meant I would be abused harrowingly ..
I used to look back on that day on the playground, standing by the swings, looking at my family on the other side of the playground, and think what a huge, enormous mistake that thought process was. Now when I look back, and when I see the ghosts my family have become, I know that those little-boy-thoughts may have been holy.

When I was eleven I was pulled out of school. Mom told anyone who asked that she was ’home-schooling’ us. Puberty set in, muscles developed. I was in the House, not in school, trapped with three Bad women, with a grudge against Men to take out on me. My sisters were near my age, but in the House they were equal to Mom, because that's how R___ treated them. He treated them according to his attraction to them, as if he had three wives.
I had to shave in secret, very early in the morning; if I ever was caught, the two pre teen girls and Mom would be reminded of my gender and I’d have hell to pay in a myriad of ways.
They all stuck together while at the same time competing for R___’s attention. I instinctively did my pushups and situps in the bathroom, in secret. I learned sports in secret. I read in secret any book that might be considered 'masculine'. I had to keep everything masculine about me a secret.
I would wonder, Which gender is capable of the most horrific crimes? The men have this amazing remorselessness like they don’t even register any wrong has been committed and are so amazing they will never register it, no matter what.
Women are amazing too, they all say the same thing, in response to any act they’ve committed, no matter how harrowing, no matter how horrific: _You don’t know how I felt .. _
Puberty was never explained to me, never mentioned to me, Mom and my sisters did know about it and kept it a secret from me, torturing me with little comments and snide remarks and manipulations of how I should view myself.
Because of my age, I would thrash in my sleep. My sisters would stand over me sleeping and discuss it. I woke up once from hearing them, while remaining still, and pretending to be asleep.
My older sister would do the laundry and she kept accusing me of something that wasn’t true. Later, as puberty set in, it would be true, and I had to wear a folded up paper towel in my pants when I went to sleep so she wouldn’t be right.
I felt like what happened while I was asleep meant I was a bad person, like my sisters and mom insisted. Meanwhile my sisters kept their eyes on me in a way I found sickening, in a way that reminded me of R__ in the blue mustang.
Once, my grandma, a woman I barely knew, took me fishing. I insisted that she never mention that we went fishing, that it would be our secret. I knew that if my sisters and Mom found out it would elevate my torture due to them considering fishing 'masculine.'