Disclaimer / Summary : This story will deal with the physical abuse of a teenage boy and references to past sexual abuse, but it will not be glorified. This is the story of how one young man finds redemption and strength with the help of his best friend to overcome his tramatic past. Now, that's your summary LOL!) ******************************************************************************
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Other stories by me currently on Nifty are :
"I HATE ANTHONY" last updated - March 28
"AROUND MY WAY" last updated - March 11
"THE HANDSOME JEWISH YOUNG MAN" last updated - March 17
(All my stories can be found in the High School / Interracial sections simultaneously)
"CHASE AFTER ME"
By Maddy A. Dante
CHAPTER ONE:
THE BEGINNING
All it took was one punch to my gut before I dropped hard to the floor. The series of one, two punches ravaged my body. Have you ever been hit so hard, that it didn't hurt right away? It took a few seconds before I felt the sharp pain so severe and sudden, that my breath got caught inside of my lungs.
I couldn't breathe, all I could do was close my eyes, grit my teeth and bear it. My only defense from him was to curl up into a ball on the marble tiled kitchen floor and hope that he would leave me alone, but I KNEW he wouldn' t. He never did. Desperation filled my thoughts. I could beg for him to stop, but I knew he enjoyed that too much. I wouldn't bring that sick bastard anymore joy. No matter how many times I would promise to be good...to be better. No matter how many tear drops would stain my face, he would never stop until HE felt that I had enough. He was making me into a man, that's what he told me. I was almost seventeen and to him I was just a boy. I did everything I could to prove to him that I was already one. I played sports because he wanted me to, I dated girls because he wanted me to. I did whatever I could to prove to him that I could be what he wanted in a son, but nothing was ever good enough. It was because he blamed me, I know he did. It wasn't my fault that she was gone, it was his and I hated him for that.
If I wasn't so stupid, I could have avoided today's run in. Everything was fine that morning when I left for school. If I just would have remembered to close the gate when I came in that afternoon then everything would have been fine. This was my own damn fault! He's right, I am dumb. I do fuck everything up! I deserve whatever it is he gives me! Again, the punches still rained down onto my back. He hated it when I would try to protect myself and his punches came down like thunder, leaving a trail of bruises from his fists.
`FAGGOT'! Is what he screamed at me while inflicting his harsh punishments. His hands grew tired and he directed all of his strength into his foot as he kicked my left side. I could feel his dress shoes edging there way across my ribs. ONE, TWO, ONE, TWO. The repetitive motions of his feet and fists would have been killing me, if I didn't already feel as if I was dead inside.
"YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING RIGHT YOU STUIPD BASTARD! GET UP! GET THE FUCK UP YOU PANSY!" He yelled whatever insults came to his mind. It didn't matter that I was his son, the only one to carry on his family name. He didn't care about me at all, but I loved him. Today it wasn't so bad. He hadn't drunk any liquor which is always a good sign. If he had a little Jack Daniel's in him, things would have been a lot worse. Mom was coming home today so he couldn' t drink. She thought that he had been sober for the last fifteen years, but
I knew that was a lie. He was a whiskey man, through and through. His tastes could be expensive, but wine held no appeal to him. Wine wasn't a "real man's" drink. It amazed me that no one with the exception of me knew just how much he really drunk. To the world and everyone else around us, he was the all American man. He played the role of a loving husband and a devoted father so well that sometimes I would forget about the monster that he had inside of him. No one knew the monster except for me. Time for me held no concept. All it did was serve as a reminder for me for the length of despair that he inflicted . I would watch the clock tick, tock. With each passing minutes the pain would become stronger and stronger.
I could remember the first time my father "toughen" me up. I walked out of the bathroom after having took a shower. I didn't dry my feet so a small trail of my wet foot prints trailed the hardwood floors, leading from his bathroom and into my bed room. I had never seen him so angry before. He was always loving towards me when I was younger, but even then the love never felt real. It always felt forced. I didn't understand why, but it always felt like he was pretending with me. He screamed at me, "LOOK AT ALL THIS FUCKING WATER! ITS GOING TO ROT THE WOOD! GET YOUR ASS IN THE HALL A DRY IT UP." I was stunned. In my seven years on earth, I had never heard my father utter a curse word and my first reaction was to laugh...big mistake. That pissed him off more and he back handed me and down to the floor I fell. I looked up at his face to see nothing, but hatred in his eyes. I began to cry, my father hated me? I was so confused by everything. As I got up he pushed me into the hall and watched as my body shook with sobs. He made no attempt to comfort me. I dried the water up and looked into his face for approval, but all he did was push me aside as he walked away. She was gone now so there was nobody to love me. It was when I was seven years old, that's when I knew I was alone.
After that first time, beatings for me came often and frequent. I used to stare at the clock pretending that the time would speed up, but it never did. One day I just stopped pretending, stopped hoping. Time wasn't of the essence. The only thing real was the hurt that I held inside of me.
"STOP CRYING YOU FUCKING SISSY!" He yelled at me again. I didn't even realize that I had been crying. "YOU REALLY ARE A FAG AREN'T YOU?" He continued to berate me. You can't break down someone who is already broken.
"No Dad! I'm not! Please stop! I won't forget next---UHGHG!" My plea's where silenced by his foot again. ONE, TWO, ONE, TWO. I shouldn't have talked. I knew better than that. My words to him served as fuel for his rage. The left side of my body was burning from the pain. This time I knew there would be a lot of marks. The bruises are what I feared most. I could tolerate the abuse because when the ordeals were over, I could always pretend afterwards like it never happened. Bruises would only serve as daily reminders of the hell that was my life. Its hard to pretend that your life is SO wonderful when your lips crack and bleed from being busted the night before. There was always an excuse, always a lie that I came up with and no one ever questioned me. Not even my mother. I love that woman, God knows I do, but I don' t think that she loves me. If she did, how could she not know? Maybe she blamed me too. It wasn't my fault, it was his. I know what I saw, but I could never tell. He would do it to me to.
The wounds left me vulnerable and I hated feeling that way. Each red mark was a secret that had slipped out. It almost felt like people could read the pain that I held inside of me off of my face. As I slowly pulled myself up off the floor, my stomach had one last meeting with his fist.
"GO CLEAN YOURSELF UP. WHE HAVE TO PICK UP YOUR MOTHER!" He yelled at me. I nodded my head slowly and looked into his eyes as I mumbled a `yes sir'. Staring into his face, I could see very little traces of my own. His eyes were light green where mine where the darkest brown. His hair was the lightest shade of brown, where as mine was pot kettle black. His skin was pale and white where mine was the color of melted caramel. I had very little of his German heritage present on my face. I took after my mother. She came from the Haiti and was the purest of all the chocolates. They had met in college and married soon after much to the chagrin of both their families. My fathers family didn't want him to marry some foreign black woman and my mothers family didn't see why she wanted to marry some white man. Haitian woman were suppose to marry Haitian men. If it wasn't bad enough that she was dating an American, the fact that he was a white man was a catastrophe. When she came home pregnant at 23 her family disowned her. Both families eventually came around to accept them and I was now close to both my fathers parents, my Nana and Papaw and my mother's parents, Madear and Padear. My father married her and they gave birth to my sister Gia eight years before she gave birth to me. Gia wasn't around anymore and he blamed me for that. It was his fault, I saw what happened. I missed her so much that even after all these years I still cried for her. I waited until I heard his bedroom door slam before I dragged myself into my room.
From the way he treats me its easy to assume that I am from the wrong side of the tracks. I'm not, in fact the town I live in is on the higher end of middle class. I am only one of a handful of minorities, but no one make a fuss about it. I lived in one of those towns that were nice from the outside, but everyone who's in wants to get out. There's absolutely nothing to do here except hang out at the Quick Check mini mart. You have to drive over three towns just to find some excitement. My father is lawyer for a securities firm and to everyone around him, he was well respected except by me. I just feared him. My mother worked for some company out of state and I wasn't sure what exactly it was that she did, but I knew she was always away from home. She would be home maybe one week a month tops and that was just when you added up the weekends. She only started working those long hours when Gia left us. With Mom gone so much that left me alone...with him. If she loved me liked she claimed to then how could she do that to me? How many `accidental' basketball mishaps do I have to incur for her to realize that I barely even play? Sometimes she's so good at pretending that I actually believe that she truly loves me. Maybe she does, but if she did why did she leave me so much? When she's home, he's nice to me. He acts as if he loves me, but once she's gone I go back to being that same annoyance that he stomps and shits all over on.
The only person that I feel truly unconditionally loves me is my best friend Chase. He is the most beautiful person that I know, inside and out. He's an fair-haired haired angel that brings me salvation. We've been the closest of friends since elementary school and still were now that we were about to be seniors in high school. I loved him more than he could ever know and that scared me. One year and a few months and I would be off to college in North Carolina, with Chase at my side. He wanted to play football at UNC and I wanted to go there because he was. He is the only thing in my life that makes my life worth living. If I didn't have him I don't know what I would do...
As I looked into the bathroom mirror, my image disgusted me. I was almost five feet ten, but I thought I was too skinny. I hid underneath my baggy clothes that most people thought were just a fashion statement, but I wanted to hide inside of them...inside myself. I played all of the mandatory sports in hopes of bulking up, but it never happened. I see an ugly stupid person who wants too much and will never get it. My blood shot eyes and tear streaked
face repulsed me. I'M SO WEAK!! WHY AM I CRYING!! My own reflection was laughing at me as I tried to wipe of the sickened look plastered to my face. My black hair had grown too long and fell back across my cheeks in soft waves that I thought were to rough. It was slicked down, matted down my forehead with sweat and tears intertwining. The more I stared at myself the more I felt out of control. My rage boiled just below the surface. I HATED my hair long! In a rush I searched the drawers in my room until I found my hair clippers. I stared at myself, clippers in hands and the anger grew and grew. I grabbed a handful of hair and shaved it all of as I choked down the sobs. My face didn't bruise this time, but it wouldn't have made a difference if it did. I WAS STILL UGLY!!! I didn't do that bad of a job, but it didn't look to professional. I preferred the closely cropped faded crew cut look any way.
Girls would often comment oh how cute they thought that I was, but I take those statements of beauty with a grain of salt. I didn't feel the way that they saw me and if they knew what I felt inside, then they would see what I saw. They would see me for the revolting person that I am. No one knew the real me. Only one person got close enough to actually see me for who I was. It was Chase and he didn't hate what little he knew about me. I loved him for loving me, but it hurt me to know that even he didn't know everything about me. He couldnt, he wouldnt understand no one would. I was almost seventeen when I knew that I was still alone....
TO BE CONTINUED
COPYRIGHT 2005 Madison Aysha Dante
Updates go here first and to Nifty a few weeks later:
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If you cut and paste, delete those so you can get the right group (and there is an underscore after the "A" ). If you still have problems, e-mail me and I will send you an invite.