Charleston

Charleston, South Carolina, I was three then, I remember more of my early years than I probably should. More than I would like. Some of the memories are wonderful and some still send me into that dark place that children go when things become too much to bear.

We'll start off with some good, I could use some good right now. When we moved to Charleston dad made it a big adventure. We would walk down to the pier to buy fresh fish regularly, I had by this point learned to read and had become obsessed with it, so I would read off the signs to dad and he would let me decide what we would have for supper. He was secretly building my math skills at the same time by forcing me to create supper for under a certain price. I would have to figure out how to get fish, vegetables and bread for his determined price of the day and I ended up loving math almost as much as reading. I owe him a lot for that.

One day we were investigating a shop when I noticed a sign advertising Dolphin, I was enraged, I walked up to the man behind the counter, full of all the self righteous indignation a three year old can muster and informed him that he was a very bad man, I then turned to the shocked customers who were listening, pointed to the sign and wailed "He killed Flipper!" They found it hilarious, my father turned very red and the man behind the counter roared with laughter. It took my father several years to convince me that it was not a dolphin but a dolphin fish.

Dad also had a crazy aunt that lived relatively close to us, by crazy I mean bat shit fucking crazy. She was great fun most of the time. I remember very well her wandering around her home in a slip and nothing more at all times  except for when it was time to bathe, at those times she would go into her room, dress herself in a mans shirt and overalls and then go out in the yard and wash with the hose. I told you she was bat shit crazy. I remember her putting me and two of my cousins in the turkey pen and telling us to catch one and wring it's neck. We looked at her like she had two heads and then at the turkeys, she shooed us towards them and after a few steps they became agitated. I was flogged on the head, one of the other two has a scar running from ear to lip and the third, the biggest caught the damn thing and attempted to wring it's neck as we were told to do. It didn't work, the turkey got away and we were all told that we were completely useless on a farm and let out of the pen. She then went and got a gun and shot the turkey we attempted to strangle. I have never understood why she thought it a good idea but I have laughed about it many times since.

Things in the house started changing in the early part of my third summer. Dad was around less with each day, and when he was there he was not the same. My mother became increasingly less tolerant of me, until one day she finally snapped and I ended up in the hospital with a broken arm, that was the first of many broken bones over the course of my life.

We've reached a point where I feel I must once again state that this is going to become pretty graphic, this is not a story that a child should read, nor is it going to be pleasant for most adults. If you decide to keep reading you've been cautioned.

When my arm healed and the cast was removed that's when things started getting really bad. Dad moved out, most of his family quit coming around and my mother started finding true joy in hitting me. Most of the time it was a quick slap, just enough to sting. Occasionally it was a full blown attack that left me lying in the floor sobbing. She also developed a habit of forcing me to bathe with her, to wash her. Some days she would seem to be almost normal, she would get out of bed in the morning hours, sometimes even cooking breakfast. She would brush my hair and paint my nails. These were the days I dreaded most, when the ceremony was over she would pull out a camera and tell me I was going to model, modeling for my mother was not like when I modeled dresses for catalogs, that I enjoyed, I felt like a princess... Modeling for my mother I was expected to traipse about in my underthings and when I cried I was slapped for messing up her shot.

Those days were for a while gone when dad came back and we moved again. I found out later that my mother was being investigated and it was leave or face possible jail time.

We'll talk again later, for now I think that's enough. I feel the need to go crawl under a rock for a while and just hide.