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.
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