IN TROUBLE

#15 - IN TROUBLE

Fourth grade had almost been over and there had been only a week or so remaining when Nick had asked me for a favor. Nick had been a cool guy that had seemed to get into trouble nearly as much as I had but unlike me, he had gotten into a lot of fights and he was always in trouble for using bad language. I had been goofing off in class and always trying to make people laugh, I guess that you can say that I had been the class clown. I had found out that year that I had been different from the other kids as I had always suspected, and that year it had became more obvious to me because I had been falling down a lot more than I normally had in Springfield. I had overheard the doctor and my mom talking about my condition and I had thought that I had figured out with my ten year old little brain, I should have been out enjoying my life rather than wasting time going to school. I did not have very many friends at that school and I had thought it to be cool that Nick had wanted a favor from me, he had swiped a Game Boy from someone and he had figured that the teachers would check his backpack first and they would never suspect me. Nick had been right and for one reason or another, I did not see him for the rest of the day as he was supposed to meet me after school to get the Game Boy. I had been excited to play it because I had always wanted one but my mom had told me that it had been to expensive and my mom had walked in and caught me playing it. She had demanded to know where I had gotten it but I had not told her, she had whipped me with the belt ands I had still had not told her. The damn kid had his name written on the back of the Game Boy but, my mom had not bothered to tell me that information until she had shot out my light right after both whipping me and sending me to bed. The next day we had went over to my Grandma's house, my Grandma had really been my Great-Aunt but I had always referred to her as my Grandma. The two of them had continued to yell at me about being a thief and wanted me to tell them how the boy had been that had owned the Game Boy, the boy had been in my class but I had not wanted to get Nick into trouble. I remember there had been a knock on the door and after my grandma had answered, there had been a cop standing in the living room and I had stared down at the shag carpet while my mom had explained to the cop that I had stolen from some kid. The cop had asked me if it had been true and when I had nodded my head he had demanded that I look at him, he had re-asked me the question and when I had nodded my head to him he had demanded that I stand up. I had gotten off of the couch with trembling knees and the cop had made me turn around while he had cuffed me before he had led me out front and helped me into the back seat of his cop car. I had only been 10 and the cuffs had barely fit my small wrists and my grandma had been standing in her front yard crying her eyes out as the cop car had pulled away. It had been very uncomfortable sitting with my hands behind my back so, I had slipped off the cuffs and had not said anything until we had pulled up at the station. The cop had been pissed when he had open the car door and I had handed him the cuffs, I did not see why he was so angry because it had not been like I was going to escape. I had stood there by the car and waited for the cop to put his precious cuffs back on me but he had instead grabbed my right shoulder firmly and then had led me into the station. I had never been in a Police Station before now and I can say that, the inside this one had not been as exciting as the ones I had seen on the television. I had been expecting to have been taken into an Interrogation but almost to my disappointment, I had been taken into a regular office by the cop that had brought me into the station. He had given me a lecture about taken things that did not belong to me, then he had went off on another lecture about going down the wrong path if I did not change my ways. This had been the only time up to that age where I had helped someone take something that had not belong to me, I had been thinking that the man had been mis-informed about me. So, I had made the mistake of arguing with him and his face as well as his neck had immediately gone red and not the red that would hint embarrassment. He had began to threaten to have charges pressed against me that could lead to having to spend time in jail, I had immediately told him that I had been a minor witch had meant that I had not been old enough to go to jail. The last thing that I had said to him was that I had known my rights, he had gotten up out of his chair and walked out of the room making sure to slam the door behind him. He had been calmer when he had came back into the room and had told me that he had called my mom to come and pick me up, I remember noticing that he had the GAME BOY on his desk and when I had looked at it I had not wanted one any more.  The things that had scared me the most about the whole ordeal  had been the fact that the cop had told me that he was going to return the GAME BOY back to Ryan as I had figured that my name would be mentioned   as the boy that had taken it. I had not wanted to have to face him back at school. My mom had been pissed at me for making the cop so angry and I had to go to bed when we had gotten home. Ryan had not spoken or even looked in my direction but  a few times when he had been giving me a dirty look, Nick had gotten into trouble or something and I had not seen him the last few days of that school year. I HAD FOUND OUT YEARS LATER THAT MY MOM HAD GONE TO SCHOOL WITH THAT COP THAT I HAD MADE SO RED. I ofcourse had not stolen anything else until 2003 and that had been food because I had been starving. The whole ordeal of having to go to the Police Station had not effected me to badly because I had always wanted to be a good guy rather than a bad one, I had been just trying to make friends with a cool guy.

TRISHA

#13 -

TRISHA

She had lived in a house across the street from us and I had not met her until my little sister had been borne. She had been a few years older that I so, the two of us had never hung out or spent much time together unless she had been babysitting me. Roger and her dad would hand out on occasion because it had seemed as thought they had both enjoyed to drink beer. Trisha had younger brother that I had soon met and became good friends with, I remember how the two of us had both loved to play THE DUKES OF HAZZARD on our bikes. Everyone in Trisha's household had been mexican, with the exception of her dad. I remember Trisha's grandmother Aggie, the old woman could not speak a like of English and I had always enjoyed having her babysit. She had managed to scare me off of eating canned tuna because she had me convinced that I had been eating cat food. I think that Trisha may have not liked me very much for one reason or another, I had always been to wrapped up in playing NINTENDO to have let it bother me. I can say this from memory, Trisha had a hot little cousin that would come over and swim in the new pool both Rodger and my mom had put in the back yard. It had been not long before my mom had started to address Trisha as being one of her kids and this had not sat to well in my mind. I had been kind of a mom's boy of sorts back then, it is hard for me to believe that I had once adored her so much but like she had recently told me that feelings change. Trisha would have soon moved some of her things into a room in the house and she had began to spend large majorities of time at our house. I had soon found myself referring to her as one of my sisters.

THE DIVORCE

#12 - THE DIVORCE

I had seen many things happening between my mom and Roger and now that I look back on it and weigh out all of the events that I had witnessed, I can not help but ask myself or anyone else that could answer "Why in hell was she with him for so long"? My mom had finally left Roger and moved my little sister and I to her hometown of Vandalia, Ohio right before my 4th grade school year had began. I was used to the way that both my mom and Roger treated me as my mom had sometimes been meaner than Roger had been towards me and was sad when I had found out that Roger was not going to be living with us. Looking back to recall the events for this post I would say that 1990 was a rough year for all of us and it also had to have been the breaking point of the marriage. I do not remember how Roger came into the picture or when they had gotten married but I was about four or five. I remember that he had both a daughter and son from a previous marriage and they would both live with us from time to time. I did not have to deal with Roger much during this time. I would of course see him at night but I avoided him every chance that I had got. Roger had the same routine at night, he would always eat his dinner on the couch in front of the TV and he had always eaten meat and seemed to love greasy foods. Normally he had eaten a whole bag of frozen french fries, he drank a beer with dinner and then he would drink a few after dinner until he would fall asleep and snore loudly. My mom would wake him and like clock work, he would go to the bathroom and then go to their bedroom. A couple of times we had heard a loud boom from the bathroom and soon learned that the boom had been Roger passing out. The first few times that he had passed out, my mom had called 911 and they had came and put smelling salts under his nose. But eventually my mom ignored the boom of him falling, I remember one night after the boom he began calling out to my mom in a loud voice and she had pretended not to hear him. I know she had heard him because she stood in the hallway by the bathroom door listening and she had whispered to me to get out of the hallway, a few minutes later I heard Roger cussing at her and it sounded like they were having a shoving match before their bedroom door slammed behind them. Right before the divorce I would be in my bed sleeping and would have been awaken by my mom whispering in my ear and she would put her hand over my mouth, she had awoke me like this a few times and I would make noises until I was fully awake. My bedroom was at the end of the hallway and on the corner of their bedroom door, my mom would hand me my shoes and then I would follow her past the bedroom with Roger's snoring echoing throughout the house and I would follow my mom out the door to the carport. My little sister would be sleeping in the front seat and I sat in the back seat always being wide awake because soon I had known where the three of us had went when we left in the middle of the night. (I just did not know why until later.) We were on our way to the hospital and it had been a memory for me because it was one of the few times where I got to stay in the waiting room and play with the LEGO'S, you know? The divorce had to do with what my mom had found out by taking my little sister to the hospital and in the end I was saddened by the divorce. I had not found out what had happened to little sister until a few years later, I would not have felt as bad about the whole situation if I would have known. I was going to miss Roger a bit, he had not been a monster to me all the time. He used to take me for rides in his TRANS-AM and he would tell me that I could push the speed button, (The car's cigarette lighter) when I had pushed it he would accelerate like crazy. I had to think hard when I had written this post because it would be fair to write that I had very few good memories of the guy and yet, I had missed him some on the day that he had moved out of the house in Springfield until my mom had found us a new place to live. My mom had taken me and my little sister to live in the town that she had grown up in, (Vandalia, Ohio) Trisha had decided that she would stay in Springfield with her dad. Roger was found to be having an affair with both the neighbor lady and her sixteen year old daughter, I had heard in later years that he had gotten the daughter pregnant. It had been nearing the end of the summer and I was about to start the 4th grade.

THERAPY

#11 - THERAPY

I had been attending church every Sunday since I had began the first grade and I had been a member of the AWANA'S. The AWANA'S had been a group that had been around a lot of churches in our area and they would award us with medals and badges for our knowledge and memorization of passages of the Bible. We would even compete against the other churches and their AWANA groups in games like dodge ball and other physical games. I was not always allowed to play many of the games because my bible coach had decided some of the games had been too rough for me, I had not always understood why I had not always been allowed to participate and I can remember how much fun the other kids had looked to be having.

LOCKED UP

   

                                              #10 - LOCKED UP

Rodger had babysat for me on the weekends because my mom had began working for a large car dealership in the area.I had always enjoyed when Rodger had babysat for me because I had known that had meant that I had been allowed to go as far from the house as I had wantted.If I had not felt like going outside I could just sit in front of the living room T.V. and play NENTENDO, I had known that rodger had always stayed outside working on his Trans Am.I had very few memories of actually playing the system with him because he had a bad habit of throwing the controller against the wall and my mom had made it a rule, I had to sit there and let him win against me whenever we had played. One day I had just started playing Mario Bros. when the neigheor lady had came over to see him and he had told me to go outside and play. I had hopped on my bike and deicided that I would see how far that I could ride in an area that we had driven past often in the car.I had been ridden for what had seemed like hours and I had not yet reached the point that I had been aiming to get to when, I had seen a group of children playing guns and I had asked them if I could joy in.While I had been playing with the kids, I had noticed that it had been beganning to get dark and I had known that mom had to be getting off work soon. I had began the long bike ride back to the house and had been stopped by the cops and told that my mom had been looking for me.At that point the cops had loaded my bike in the truck and then had me ride in the back of the car until we had made it to the house.I had never riden in a cop car before so that had been pretty exciting but had been over shadowed by the fear that I had at wondering how pissed off my mom had been at me.I had known that I had never been allowed to leave the block but she had not been home, I had taken long bike rides numerous times and had always made it home brfore she had. This had however been the longest ride that I had ever taken, she had pulled me out of the backseat of the cop car before they had even turned off the engine.She had walked me into the house while she had been holding on to my left arm and smacking my ass hard with every step that it had taken to get me into the house.I had heard the cops laughing at me while I had been taken into the house and on top of the embarrassment I had suffered, my bike had been locked into the closet on the carport.I had been unable to my bike for a few months and had worried that I might forget how to ride the damn thing again whenever I had been allowed to have it back. My mom had decided that the weekends of Rodger watching me had ended. I WANT THE READER TO KNOW THAT IT HAD EITHER BEEN THE SUMMER OF 2ND GRADE OR IT COULD HAVE BEEN THE SUMMER OF 3RD GRADE, I WANT TO WRITE THAT IT MAY BE THE LATTER OF THE TWO BUT I AM NOT SURE.I had been taken to a building where my mom had told me that I would be taken to every morning and she would come and pick me up when she had gotten off work in the evening. Sitting in the waiting room with my mom, the first thing that I can remember noticing had been how many keys the people that had worked there had clipped to the belt loops of their pants.I had watched a few of them enter thru one of the big doors that had been in the waiting room, each person had to unlock the door with one of the keys.I had soon found out that every door in the building had to be unlocked each time that someone had wanted to open the door. The building had not been at all like a jail as there were many every day items in each room, I had found out that most of the other kids in there had been from the detention center that had been across the street.The building had a counselor that all of the people in there had to see at least once a week, I had not minded because she had given me points for my good behavior and it had not been long before I had enough points to get a prize. The oldest kid in there might have been around the age of 14 or so and one day he had went into a rage and destroyed a model car that I just gotten as my prize from the counselor. When you are younger it is weird to think back on a situation only to realize that the kid you had thought to be so much older at the time, turned out to be just a few years older than you had been.I remember how one of the staff had yanked me out of that room until he finished thowing stuff around.I had approched him afterwards and told him that he had torn up my model and I remember how he had asked me what I had planned on doing about it. He had been so much taller that I and I had been frightened by the way he had been sizing me up but, I had kneed him in the nuts and then took off running.The two of us had became friends after that point as he had taught me how to hotwire older model cars because that was from what I could gather, why he had been there.I can remember hanging out with a boy that had been younger than I, he had heard voices that had told him to light stuff on fire.There had been a few other kids there but I had only associated with a few people and I can remember when she had arrived, she would allow all of us to touch her and look at her when no adult had been in the room.She had been a 13 years old girl who had obviously had a hard life but, she had an awesome sense of humer and as it had turned out we both had liked the movie SHORT CIRCUIT.My new freinds and I had soon spent numoerous days plotting an esacpe, we had never went throught with it and honestly had never even talked about where we would go or escape to. None of us had spent the night in that building as we all had been sent are separate ways in the evening, what can I say but we had been young and had seen the challenge of a locked door.

A PAINFUL BIKE RIDE

#09 - A PAINFFUL BIKE RIDE

I was 7yrs. old when Batman came out in theaters in 1987.  I remember being taken to the movies to see it and my mom bought the VHS for me when it came out. (which I still have) I had gotten a plastic watch with the JOKER on it and I wore it all the time.  I had just gotten out of school and it was a nice warm day so I asked my mom if I could go for a bike ride. I had a new BMX that was really nice and it even had a pair of dice covering the air stems on the tires.  My mom had told me that I could ride around the block while she was mowing the yard as long as I checked in with her every time that I passed the house. She told me not to leave the sidewalk and when I rode around the block I was not allowed to get off my bike. I can understand why she had made these rules. For 1 thing, we were not living in the safest part of town. (I can not even tell you how many of my big-wheels had gotten taken from me by bigger kids who never gave them back.  I was even getting yelled at by both my mom and Rodger. I can recall being sent to my room a few times and even getting spanked once by Rodger. He whipped me because I had decided to fight a black kid and lost.)I can also understand why my mom had said that she was timing me each time that I had went around the block, it was not just to make sure that I had not gotten off my bike but was a safety measure that would prove to be important on this day in 1989. I do not remember every detail of that day but I know that I had made a few passes around the block, when a girl from my class had seen me ride by her house a few times. I am guessing that she was not allowed to ride all the way around the block, but she was following directly behind me on her bike each time that I came on her side of the block. I guess that we had started to play cops and she was trying to pull me over.  I will say that even though we lived in a bad neighborhood, many of our neighbors took really good care of their lawns. (Unlike the neighbors that lived next door to us. I remember that they had all the grass in their front yard pulled up and when it rained their yard became a mud pit.)I remember how I had looked over my shoulder and seen that she was directly behind me, I had turned around in time to see my front wheel get caught in the bare crack that separated the grass line from the sidewalk. (When I worked in the garden department at WALMART in 2007 I would occasionally be reminded of the bike ride that I am discussing in this post, when I would come across one of those tools. LOL traumatized by yard work, no but it fucking hurt!) I fell off the bike when I tried to steer out of the crack left by a yard trimmer, hard. But before that painful vibration of hitting the ground could pulse through my body, the girl that was riding directly behind me ran over my right forearm with her bike. That pain was instant and severe especially when I tried to roll over and sit on my butt. The girl had fell of her bike after she ran over my arm so we were both trying not to cry but, when I looked down at my forearm I began to scream. I remember how I had held out my arm to the girl with my palm down to point out where she had hit me and when I pointed out the tread mark, I had seen that part of my forearm was sagging down like I had the letter 'U' in my skin. It had hurt bad but like most severe breaks that I can remember, the actual sight of the fracture freaked me out. I scared the little girl away when I began screaming but I remember how many people came out of their houses and stared at me. A woman that I did not know tried to calm me down. (Hey honey! There is a screaming, little white boy laying on the ground outside. Lol, I bet at least one person had said that.) I was on the ground for about three minutes and then I had seen my mom running over to me. She had sat down on the ground and held me until the ambulance came. (Given how our relationship has changed over the year's, it is weird having those memories of Dolores.) I do remember seeing the girl that had ran me over, she was watching them put me in the ambulance. (I must have scared the shit out of her that day. I would see her at school but we never spoke to each other again.)Guess who was wearing their JOKER watch? And it was on my right hand! Both my mom and the doctors (I was always taken to the CHILDREN'S MEDICAL CENTER but the ambulance took me to the city hospital. But I do not blame them because my hospital was over 2 hours away) they  tried to un-hook it, but the pressure caused by them tugging on my wrist was too much.They had to go ahead and cut the watch off and then a sneaky doctor came into the room. I call him sneaky because when I showed him my arm, he grabbed my arm and squeezed the bottom of my forearm. While he was holding onto my forearm another guy had began to set my arm to be casted. I was taken in to see Dr. Lehner the next day. The watch was in reality, a cheap piece of plastic and even though my mom  had told me that she would get me another one she didn't. (If I was the parent in that situation I would have probably said the same thing.lol) Not getting the another JOKER watch was ok because TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES came out a few months later. HELL YEA!!

BATTER UP

#05 - BATTER UP

We had about 5 cars in front

 of the house but only three of them ran.  I was on summer vacation from school and spent all day with Oggie, the Mexican babysitter who did not speak English to well.  My mom had a new job working at a car dealership and was gone every day and Rodger was always working at the machine shop.  Oggie had been Trisha's gradmother and had agreed to watch us whenever it had been needed.  Rodger had been off on the weekends and he would watch me on his days off and did not care where I went.  I remember how he used to work on the Trans-Am while he drank and blared country music on the carport stereo. (I used to ride my bike far from the house, it was fun to get out and explore.) Sometimes, he would let me hang out with him. When he did this we had an understanding, I would get him another beer whenever the can that he was drinking out of had became empty and  he would let me open the can's for him and drink the foam. (I had so much fun being his helper.) Rodger was an incredibly racist guy which made it difficult because we were honestly 1 of the only 3 white families on the block.  He would drink and then go out and stare down the neighbors.  He used to get in arguments with big mama often and no, I am not talking about Martin Lawrence.  An obese black woman lived across the street from us and all the neighbor kids would refer to her as Mama cause she always gave us snacks. When I played there I would hang out in the backyard so he would not see me at her house.  Rodger would accuse her of allowing the kids to play to close to the two cars that he parked in the street in front of the house.  He seldom fought with her whenever the teenagers were hanging out there.  I can remember when we all were out driving somewhere and these two black guys in a Buick had cut us off.  Rodger had been  drinking, (as usual) and sped up and forced the Buick onto the shoulder, I remember that my mom had started to cry and was shouting at him to stop before he had gotten us killed but he seemed to be ignoring her.  He backed our car up in front of theirs and snatched the key out of the ignition before he had  thrown the car door open and had gotten out.  I turned around in my seat and witnessed him slap clap his right hand down on the top of the Buick,  the driver had their window up and the door locked because Rodger was trying to force their door open.  The Buick went around our car in the grass and then back on the road as it sped away.  Rodger calmly got back into our car and started driving while my mom was sitting in the passenger seat yelling at him for taking the keys and picking a fight that could have gotten us killed.  My mom was at work and Rodger was home watching me.  I was in the house playing a racing game on the Atari , (Racing against a bunch of rectangles, does it get any better?) while Rodger was outside working on one of the cars I went in the kitchen and grabbed a beer and a bottle of DR. PEPPER and then went outside to give Rodger the beer and see if I was allowed to have the soda. (It was the late 80's and they used to have those glass bottles of soda, remember?)  When I had gone outside I had seen that Rodger was talking to the creepy white guy from down the street.  I thought that this guy was creepy because he had like a million guns and, he had all kinds of dead animals in his living room.  Rodger had seen me holding the beer and motioned me over to take it as well as the bottle of soda,  then he told me to go back into the house and get a beer for the other guy.  When I brought the beer out they took it and Rodger handed me the then opened bottle of soda.  (Rodger could be a nice guy sometimes and his mood towards me was always better when there was another adult around.)  I took the drink and sat down on my big wheel which had been right by them, there was some noise from the children playing at Big Mama's.  The two turned in the direction of the noise and then began to bitch and throw the N'word in the direction of the kids.  They figured that the kids would harm one of the cars, I finished my soda and stood up to get off the big wheel and head back inside so that I could continue playing with the Atari.  I heard a voice arguing with Rodger and his friend and when I turned in the direction of the voice I had seen a tiny black boy standing in the street.  I did not recognize that boy but noticed that he was the only one remaining in the street and even though he was not standing right in the front of Rodger, I admired how the boy did not back down to him. Rodger and his friend were edging closer to the street but I knew that they were just trying to scare the boy who could not have been older than six.  I think back to him and say that he had one hell of a mouth on him for being that young.  I was between 7 or 8 and I remember being taller than he even though I was a scrawny kid.  Rodger had locked eyes with mine and motioned me over to where he was standing, he said a few racial things to the boy stopping long enough to tell me to go around our car's and knock the boy down.  I did not have a second thought about doing that for him because we had been getting along and I knew by doing that he would be proud of me.  Plus, the weird guy was cheering me on and had really liked Rodger's idea of me knocking the kid down.  I ducked down by the car and noticed that the kid did not even know that I was there, I ran at him and pushed him down hard.  He fell but I was able to catch my balance and steady myself, I have no idea where the other kid had came from but when I turned around he jabbed me in the mouth with the handle end of a whiffle ball bat.  My mouth was all bloody and some of my teeth had been knocked loose (and apparently some were my adult teeth,) my mouth hurt so bad and I remember that when I saw the blood I began to cry louder than the kid I had knocked down.  Rodger was so mad at me and ended up sending me to my room and came in before my mom had gotten home and told me that it was to be a secret between the three of us guys because he did not want to embarrass me by telling my mom I had gotten beat up and cried.  My mom found out the next day when I got home from school, I could feel that they were loose so I did not play with them but I was eating something at lunch and one of my teeth had fell out.  I cried and one of the teachers said something to my mom.  Teeth are bones too and do to my disease my teeth are not very strong.  I have always been and am to this day very conscious about my teeth, I have lost a few and I have gaps.  Leading up to that day was the last time that I was welcomed at Big Mama's.

DON'T TALK DURING STAR TREK

#04- DON'T TALK DURING STAR TREK

I remember certain things about Roger that I do not think I will ever be able to forget.  Like seeing him sitting at the table on some mornings, drinking his coffee and flipping through the paper.  It was at that time that he was normal as a matter of fact I can even remember a few mornings where he was actually smiling.  I never seen him eat anything in the morning for breakfast, he worked for some kind of machine shop so when he would come home he would be covered with oil and grease.  Rarely, he would come home for lunch and when he did he would stay in the kitchen with my mom.  Sometimes he would bring a big bucket of chicken, (he loved fried chicken) or some other fast food that contained meat.  The first thing that he would do when he walked into the house would be going into the kitchen and get a beer from the fridge.  He would sit at the kitchen table and occasionally talk to my mom, (who would already have dinner started or done for him.)  He would finish a beer and grab another before coming into the living room and sitting on the couch with his dinner on a plate in one hand and a beer in the other.  He would always eat dinner in the living room watching the television.  I cannot remember ever having him sit at the dinner table with us.  I would normally be in the living room watching "KNIGHT RIDER" and my lil sister would be in her baby walker annoying me.  The rule was that whenever he came into the room he was given the remote.  Now that I am older I can understand this rule better but there was a catch with him.  I was alone with him enough to know that when he changed the channel to watch a show that he liked, you did not get up and walk out of the room right away.  After work he would already be drinking and alcohol made him view things differently and walking out of the room at the beginning of a show that he had turned too was disrespecting him.  Living in Rodger's house you had learned that if you are smaller than him then you did not disrespect him.  My mom had went outside to talk to the neighbor lady leaving my sister and I in the living room watching the TV with Rodger, he had turned the channel to Star Trek.  (whenever I see William Shattner I am reminded of Rodger.)  I did not like the show because I did not find it very interesting, (I was 7 or 8.)  I was sitting in one of the chairs and my sister ran into my foot with her baby walker, (it had four wheels with round plastic all around it and a sling where the baby would sit in the middle.)  She used to get them little legs moving and could go pretty fast, I can remember how I would run up and kick it when no one was looking and witch had sent her rolling across the room but, I can say that she would giggle and enjoy it most of the time.  Any Way, she ran right into my socked foot.  I remember how it hurt and I let out some crying.  He had gotten off the couch and picked me up right out of the chair that I had been sitting in and he had began beating my ass hard. I was a little guy and I had health problems but that never got me out of a whipping or beating.  He had this way of holding me in one hand while he hit me and when he would pick me up, my ribs would hurt as if I was in a vice-lock.  On that night I remember that he hit me square on the butt like 2 times, his aim was off and he hit my lower back a few times and my legs just below my butt.  It hurt so bad as it always did but hey, that was the point right?  Then he would lower me using both arms and release me so that I would be able to catch my balance against his legs and not fall down.  I ran out of the house crying.  He had scared me sometimes because he did not always give me a warning and sometimes I never knew when he was going to snap.  My mom was standing there when I came running up to her crying, I embraced her and told her what had happened.  She told me to wait on the porch while she went in to talk to him.  Thinking back I noticed that at times like that I still looked to her for protection because sometimes she could be almost as bad as he but, she had been easier to predict.

    



SAM

#03 - SAM

It had been just my mom and I until she had met

 Roger and they had soon gotten married.  I do not remember much about the in-between or the memories before she had met him.  My mom used to teach me many things like tying my shoes and  to read she had always told me that I had known how to do something because she had shown me a few times.  My mom had been a nice woman and I had loved her very much but she had seemed to always have a short temper and sooner than later the belt would be used by her on me until I had  showed the results she had been looking for.  I had learned to tie my shoes and read at a 2nd grade level before I had even began kindergarten.  Soon I had gotten a break from my moms lessons because she had been pregnant with my little sister and I had been jealous as hell because, I had heard somewhere that the first child would receive less love and I had not wanted that with my mom.  It had been bad enough that I had to share her with Rodger and at the time I had known that I would also have to share my mom's attention with my new sister.  I HAVE TO LEAVE SOME OF THIS OUT BECAUSE MY MOM-DELORES- HAS THREATENED TO SUE ME IF i WERE TO MENTION THINGS ABOUT SAM.  FIRST OFF I WANT TO POINT OUT THAT THIS IS THE STORY OF CCRACKER AND NOT SOME GIRL THAT IS THE SPAWN OF A BIG BITCH, PEEPS I WAS ONLY GOING TO MENTION HER BIRTH DAY BUT GUESS WHAT, SHE IS FIVE YEARS YOUNGER THAN ME AND I WAS BORN IN 1982.  When my sister was born I had been meaner than hell to her and I had done some things that I am not proud of, to give you an example there was a time that I had pushed her out of the window of a parked car when she had been about three.  I kicked the back of her baby walker and send her rolling across the room.  She had paid me back  as she had grown up and one time she had hit me with a hair brush and left about a hundred bloody holes in my head, she had liked to grab my hair and haul ass when she had been in her baby walker.  I had realized later that I had deserved it and brought the treatment on my self for the way I had been with her when she had been younger but, I am sorry.  I had been trying to keep my mom's attention.         

                                                           

   

D IS THE PROFFESSOR OF HARD KNOCKS

#02 - D  IS THE PROFFESSOR OF HARD KNOCKS

Even to this day, I do not know why my mom (Dolores) had pushed me so hard and had me learn so much in such a small amount of time.  I was about to start kindergarten and my mom and I were out enjoying the weather and walking to the store.  (My mom liked to walk everywhere,)   I remember her going over the days of the week and wanting me to say them in order.  The deal had been that if I had said the order of the days of the week, she was going to get me a BUTTER FINGER and a juice.  So by the time that we had gotten to the store and near the candy, I said the days of the week properly and got my juice and candy bar. When we were walking home and I had eaten the candy bar already, my mom had asked me to tell her the days of the week and I had forgotten.  Our game had been over and I had won the prize, she was furious and then she started a new game that I did not like.  I had until we got home to re-name the days of the week or she was going to spank me with the belt, I was lying on the bed and had been hit twice before I was about to be hit again and I was able to say the days of the week.   She had called me into the kitchen and proudly had me recite the days of the week to Roger when he had gotten off work, and Then she had decided that I was going to start kindergarten knowing how to tie my shoes.  My first few attempts were not very good because I would just tie my shoes in a big knot. (I was little and did not grasp the concept of what she had been trying  to show me with all of  the complicated loops and swoops ,) she had gotten pissed and threatened to send me to my room if I did not pay attention to what she was showing me.  She did end up hitting me once because she had trouble undoing one of my knots and that night one of Roger's friends came over and he had shown me his technique once, then I had done it perfectly.  My mom had been pissed but his technique was a lot easier than hers loop, Swoop and Pull. When I was younger SESAME STREET had a book collection and I eventually had all 20, These books contained stories that involved each of the individual characters as well as games.  Don't get me wrong, I did not like the show but I liked the characters.  I had first began to collect the books before I had began kindergarten and before I could read, My mom did not mind buying books for me cause I would sit quietly and look at the pictures for hours. I have always had a good imagination.  Anyway, I liked to look at the pictures and my favorite was the COOKIE MONSTER.  (He was blue and that has always been my favorite color.)  Whenever My mom would read one of the stories to me I would want to hear one involving the COOKIE MONSTER.  I had been read his stories so many times that I had the stories memorized and knew what was going to happen by looking at each of the pictures.  It did not take my mom a long time to figure out what I was doing and she made it clear that I was not allowed to look at my SESAME STREET books anymore, until I learned to read.  (My mom had me reading at a 4th grade level before the end of my first grade year.  She would take care of my little sister and when I came home from school, the two of us would sit down and work on my reading until it became time to start making Rodger's dinner.  I loved my mom so much back then, I really did.  I just always seemed to be the one she would both lose her temper and then physically take her anger out on with whatever object was within her reach.  (This would go on until I was 17 and realized that I was bigger and stronger than she was.)  I remember learning cursive in the first grade,  My mom had gone and gotten about 20 of those note pads that are specifically designed to learn to write letters and numbers.  I had to sit in my room and practice writing over and over again until I had it down.

I had a nice brand new desk as well as a dry-erase board and tons of paper and other supplies but hey, I was a young kid and did not appreciate those things.  I wanted more toys lol.  When I was in trouble with school  my mom would go through my room with garbage bags and fill them with all my toys and keep only the desk which had been filled with school supplies, my clothes in my closet and my  bed were the only things left in my room.  This happened often and of course I was confined and only allowed out of the room for dinner or to go to the bathroom  so I began to like being at school and hated for the school day to end.  There had been a time where I hated to walk into that house and would even take the back way home even though the kids around there kept taking my jackets and things that were in my backpack numerous times.  Math was a hard subject for me from the start and one day when I was in the third grade I had decided that I hated it.  My mom would sit me down at the kitchen table and she had gone over some of my math with me and she would tell me how to do it and I would get the problem right, we did other problems when she would come back to the original problem I could not get the answer right.  She would show me how to do it again and when we had came back to it  I could never do it,  My mom would lose her temper and would go to get 1 of Rodger's belts. I remember how my knees always began to wobble as I watched her lay the belt down on the kitchen table.  (I guess she thought that I had been just playing games with her and was trying to upset her,)  she had re-written the problem and told me to solve it as she stood behind me and looked over my shoulder.  Talk about being nervous and not being able to think straight, I could not remember every step that I had needed to do in order to solve the problem.  She would grab the belt off the table and put one hand on my shoulder while hitting me hard with the belt,  she had me try to solve the problem a few more times each ending with me getting the problem wrong.  My mom hitting me with the belt.  Finally, she must have gotten tired and told me to go to bed.  I remember climbing into bed when it was still light out.  Math continued to be a weak spot for me for the rest of my time in school and it had gotten to the point where my mom had done all of my math homework for me.  Don't get me wrong, I was not the best behaved boy and my mom's tactics had gotten me to get good grades but why did my mom go through those tactics?  I will never know.  

FIRST FINDING OUT THAT I HAD A DAD

#01-FIRST FINDING OUT THAT I HAD A DAD

I had lived in Springfield,Ohio and  I am unable to remember my exact age but, this time period had been around the time that I had been due to begin the 1st grade.  It had always been my mom and I for as long as I could remember on a long- term basis anyway meaning a boyfriend here and there but they never hung around long.  I loved my mom very much and never missed out on any of her affection, I had not began to think about the idea of even having a dad until my mom had married Roger.   He had been both an alcoholic and very abusive to my mom and I.   I guess the term of aloholic is normally followed in description with the term of abusive.  One day I had been told by my mom that I had to  straighten and organize the books and magazines that had been on an old bookcase in my room.  I had to normally straighten that case about once or twice a month and you might not have guessed by my age but I had been able to read books without pictures pretty well.  Although, I did have a lot of books that I had enjoyed based on my age range.  I was always getting new books and I had totally loved to read.  One Christmas I had even gotten an electronic story-teller where you had to push a colored button to access a list of choices and then you would press another colored button that had represented what you had wanted the main character to do. I would cheat by reading through the short storied book and find out the result of every choice before I would load the tape in the electronic reader.  I had a collection of books that I had been very proud of and at  the time, THE  SESAME STREET TREASURY collection  I had almost all of them and had kept them in numerical order but, that old bookcase had never stayed clean.  SO I HAD BEEN- cleaning the case, which had meant that I would toss every book on the floor and then wipe down each shelf with a rag.  My next move would be to load up the top shelf with the larger books and make sure that each book had been standing straight up on the shelf with the label pointing out, then I would go on to each additional shelf with the smaller books.  My magazines and many comic books would get stacked up on the bottom shelf along with a few books that had belonged to my mom and I had decided that day to see what the books had been.  I had cleaned that case numerous times and never bothered to look at the books on the bottom shelf, I was never nosy I had just never cared.  UNTIL THAT POINT.  My mom had a few boring textbooks and an old bible but, I had noticed that one of the books had been my baby book.  I had glanced through a few of the pages but had stopped when a paper had fallen out, at first I had been scared because I had thought that I might have been too rough with the book.  I had laid the book down and unfolded the paper to read that it had been my birth-certificate and despite seeing a weird name behind my moms, I had seen a different name than Roger's as being my father.  I had been able to read but yet I had not been mentally developed enough to know where I had came from and that my mom had a maiden name, at that time I had not even known what a maiden name had been.  I had always wondered why my last name had been different from my mom's and when I had told her about what I had found, I had gotten in trouble for going through things that I had known had not belonged to me.  My mom had given me the option to take on Roger's last name but, I had chosen to keep that of my dad's.

HEY GUYS. LONG TIME, NO POST. IT HAS BEEN A LONG ROAD AND I AM HOPING THAT I AM ABLE TO GET MY STORY TOLD. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST AND PLEASE CHECK BACK OFTEN -LATER