A Pause to reflect
If anyone reading this finds that their childhood resembled the tragedy below, I am sorry. What happened to you was not your fault. I hope you find healing, as I did.
I have no intention of turning my blog into a pity party. But I was seriously abused verbally by my father for over twenty years. From early in my life, I noticed that the sound of my voice caused his bushy black eyebrows to slant in anger. They might soften later, but my presence and voice clearly caused stress and anger. He never said I love you, and I stopped saying it very early.
My mother said he stopped hitting me around first grade. She said he stopped because he was unsettled about enjoying the violence.
The biggest example was at the New York World’s Fair in the summer of 1964. It was blazing hot and after I had seen the dinosaurs (the Ford and Sinclair exhibits as I recall), I had a bad headache. But he interpreted that as a ruse, that I had seen my attractions and now wanted to leave. I was the most selfish person in the world. For at least 20 minutes he stood and screamed at my mother and I as we huddled on a bench–real hoarse-voiced, spit in the corner of the mouth anger. People walked behind him and stared. A few paused; many covered their children’s ears and hurried away. I’ve always wondered how many people came away that day talking about all the fun things and then told people about this psychotic man who could not stop screaming at his boy. Shame that the Daily News wasn’t there to cover that, eh?
At some point around second grade, my friend Jeff said something to me about “Man, your dad is really mean.” I shrugged and said, “Doesn’t your father yell all the time?” He said no, only when he or his brother really messed up. (Dad already had that covered; he told me all fathers screamed at their kids, so I wasn’t being picked on.) I figured Jeff was just lucky, but over time, other kids said the same thing in passing–‘your father is REALLY scary’. When I was supposed to be ‘helping’ dad do some chore, I would get yelled at for not knowing the right screwdriver, forgetting which way to turn the spigot, putting my hands in my pockets, not intently watching him work, or being unable to repeat something back to him verbatim. The screaming would start outside, then quickly move inside as my mother ran to close all windows. The ranting and screaming could go on for a half hour or more. Frequently, he would go outside, do some tasks, then come back in fifteen minutes later and start over. When he got tired of screaming at his quiet, weak son, he would start on my mother about how worthless I was and how everything wrong was her fault. And so, all his attempts to teach me ‘handy-man’ things around the house were lost, as I saw any of his ‘learning’ sessions as enjoyable as waterboarding.
Occasionally, I’ll return to what it was like living with a sick, pathetic racist monster in the glorious sixties.
But just as he let his temper flair unhinged in New York, he also blew up one summer evening when he had a long argument with Mrs. Overstreet (the ‘PA Dutch’ neighbor) that went on for at least an hour. She didn’t back down and there was nothing dad liked more than fighting with someone with a stiffer spine than his kid or wife. As this took place on the front sidewalk, the neighborhood became witnesses, and recognized the monster he was. After that, not a soul paid him the slightest attention and newcomers no doubt were told to stay away.
Fate would hand Mrs. Overstreet delicious revenge over easy on toast years later, but let’s keep that for another day.