It was the summer of 1981 when things took an interesting and troublesome change in my lfe for the first of many changes. In a few months I would start my 4 years of high school and prepare for the rest of my life. Little did I know that this was also the summer in which my uncle decided to retire from work and move to Tulare with me and my aunt.
For the previous 8 years, my uncle Ted, lived in San Jose with my aunt's father because he was still working in the San Jose area. Over the 8 years, he would drive to Tulare every few weekends and spend the weekend. Those were always the weekends that I did not want to be home much, but was always stuck at home. I had several friends in the neighborhood but I could never spend the night at their houses because my uncle would not allow it. I would ask and I would always be told no by my friend's parents, because at the time, I did not know that they all owed him in some form or fashion. Living in that neighborhood was fun as long as I was outside of the house and away from home.
During the weekends when Ted was there, the house was more like a prison and I was only let out after work detail was completed. The amount of things he would make me do would take hours to complete and to me, was things that I should not be doing. Not because they were dangerous, but because I was not old enough to properly understood what was to be done. I would always try my best...but my best was never good enough.
I remember one weekend in which I was told to mow the front and backyards and then trim the hedges in the front yard. Mowing the grass was not a problem because I was already mowing the lawn for many years to help my aunt. I hated to see her out there in the hot sun and working so hard to cut the grass. I grabbed the lawn mower out of the tool shed and put gas in the tank. I grabbed a garbage can, rake and shovel and took everything to the front yard.
As I was pulling on the starter for the lawn mower, the string broke on the third try. I quickly went inside and told my uncle that the string broke and I could not start the mower. He looked at me like I was stupid and stated, "that string can't break, so stop your f..king lies and get the damn lawn done". Since he didn't believe me, I showed him the string and he immediately jumped up and slapped me across the face. I hit the ground and looked back at him with tears in my eyes. I quickly asked, "what was that for?" He stated "just to get out of doing work you cut the f..king string, didn't you, you little piece of s..t". I tried to explain what happened and that only caused me to get hit three more times in the face and back of the head.
He decided to go fix the mower and then got it started. I was sitting on the porch just watching and trying to stop the tears from running down my cheeks. I turned to me and told me to get this f..king lawn done and there better not be anymore problems". Needless to say, I got the lawn done and then completed the back yard as quickly as possible. When I was done, I had to rack up the grass and put it all in the garbage and put everything away. The next task was to trim the hedges in which I had never done that before, however I seen him do it, so I tried.
While trimming the hedges I stopped to get the mail because the postman just put the mail in the mailbox. As soon as I went to the mailbox, I was stung under my chin by a wasp. That hurt so bad that I ran into the house to my aunt to see if she could stop it from hurting. What I did not know at the time was that my aunt had already told my uncle to do something about a small wasp nest that was starting under the mailbox. He was sitting in the window of the living room watching me get the mail and laughed because I was stung by the wasp. After my aunt took care of the sting, she told me to go lay down and do the hedges tomorrow.
The only problem with that was the fact that my uncle did not let me wait. He waited about 30 minutes for my aunt to leave for the grocery store. Once she was gone, he came into my room and woke me up and yelled at me to finish the hedge right now or get beat. I tried to say that my aunt said to wait, and he didn't care. After getting slapped again in the face, I got up to put on my shoes. As I was kneeling down to tie my shoes, he is standing behind me and gives me a kick in the butt to make me move faster. With tears in my eyes, I walk outside, get the tools and start on the hedge again. At this time, my chin is swollen from the wasp sting and my cheeks are red from his hand print.
My aunt arrived home about 30 minutes after I was done with the hedge. I was already back in my room laying down, but was able to hear them talk about me. My aunt asked my uncle if he forced me to finish the hedge and he said no, he said that he finished it and because of that I had to stay in my room for the entire weekend. The only times I was able to come out of my room was for dinner and to go to the bathroom. I couldn't even go into the kitchen to get some water if I was thirsty. I would just go into the bathroom near my room and get water from the faucet like a dog getting water from a hose.
On Sunday nights when he left to head back to San Jose, I was always very happy because I knew that I would at least have 12 days in which he would not be there. When he wasn't there, my aunt and I would work together in the yard, and play games at night while watching TV in the family room. I would even sit there and help her scrub her feet when she would soak them. Things were always so wonderful and stress-free when it was just the two of us. We would laugh and talk and she would show my home to play the piano. I really enjoyed the days that I would have at home alone with just me and my aunt.
But all of that came to a terrible end in August of 1981 when Ted decided to retire from work and move to Tulare.
As we moved closer and closer to the day when he would finally be there to stay, each day seemed to get darker and darker. The fun that me and my aunt had around the house was soon coming to an end. I kept telling myself that things will get better once he is there more and see that I do help out around the house more than he thinks. The sad thing is...it didn't make a difference. The only chance I have for some normal safe fun was to be at school. He moved in for good the weekend before school started and that was the beginning of drama, sadness, violence, anger, tears, pain, lies and terriblle language in my life.
Back then I kept asking myself over and over...what am I doing wrong for him to treat me this way. I must be a terrible person and I must deserve the violence and abusive language that he directs at me. Whatever I was doing, I had to change so that I could be happy again, and have those wonderful moments with my aunt. I wondered if he ever did these things to my aunt, and I decided that I didn't want to know and that I would do everything in my power to ensure that he never hurts her. If I had to, I would make sure that he takes his anger out on me instead of her, because she is a sweet loving christian woman and only deserves joy and happiness. I felt the need to protect her from him, so I will take whatever comes. This continued for 3 straight years, some weeks good, some weeks bad and some days were brutal.
"Wounds heal, breaks mend, bruises fade...
but the pain from distrust and abuse can stain the soul"
My soul is stained, but I won't let it change me into the man that was supposed to be a father figure. The real heartbreak is to know that him and my mother are brother and sister...how can he treat blood this way? I got my answer to that question when I was an adult visiting my familly in Oklahoma. There was much more evil inside him than I knew when I was a kid. But that is another story for another day...
