I sat on the edge of the bed with one of our baseball bats in my hand. I would lift the heavy end as spin it along it's axis, watching the large wood screw flash from the corner street light. Someone had broken my favorite bat last year. I found an old C-clamp in the basement, and some Elmer's glue. To secure the part that I couldn't clamp, I bought one wood screw at the hardware store on Lincoln Ave. After hours of wallowing out a hole with a hand drill, as you likely know by now, our dumb-ass step-father wouldn't have known how to hold a motorized drill anyway, I got the screw almost flush with the bat. Close enough to use this year in pick-up games at the park. Certainly strong enough to crush some bones.
On the bed a couple feet away was my brother; he was sound asleep; it was about 2am. As children we had been shipped off to separate homes of relatives when mom divorced the sperm donor. My brother went to live with our mother's twin brother and family. That family had taken over Grandpa's farm, though they still milked cows, and kept a hay loft, the signs of eventual ruin were showing. A couple of the pastures had gone fallow, and the silo had been empty for a couple years. My mother's twin was a brutal man with a constantly complaining wife. His wife had been in some small theater in Milwaukee, and had always complained that she'd given up the lights for this stinking farm. She seldom left the old farm house; grandma (ma) collected the eggs, and slaughtered the chickens, and kept her own console. She could catch the most wary chicken with her sweet clicking and corn; with a lightening flip of the wrist she'd have them caught around the neck and strangled. A quick chop with the ax and she'd let them run for the kids to laugh. My brother's foster family believed that a good beating was all in a day's work. Someone had to get to wailing or it wasn't a proper day.
I was less than six months old when I went to live with my mother's oldest sister and her husband. Grandpa was still alive then and said that they needed a child to raise because Dorothy was barren. So I became little Chuckie. A name I'd later hate, but it stuck, even today some people remember me as Chuck. Quite the opposite of my mother's twin, my foster parents were very lovely people without a clue as to how to raise a child. I was basically pampered and given my way on a million issues. In the vernacular, I was a spoiled brat. I had a giant toy chest full, my own bedroom, my own bike, and a acre backyard that had a sand hill 20 feet high, where I spent most days grinding the sand deep into my pores. Toy trucks, and cars all had to be the same scale, the roads and bridges were designed with great care. My best friend, a girl, lived up the road. She and I spent summers running and playing and building forts, tree houses and race cars. Once we had an old white oak beam that we tried to nail into – we would have been as successful using petrified wood. We'd climb up in the hayloft and swing on the large ropes, and build up forts with the hay bails. We'd try to catch the feral kittens with no success. ride the cows with little success. I loved my life. I was truly happy.
When I was to start school, the agreement between the adults was for me to return to live with my mother and brothers in Milwaukee. I simply didn't understand what was happening. I wasn't aware of adults and their agreements. What did Momma owe this lady? Why were they taking me from my home? Couldn't I have my bike? I can remember sitting in the back of the '48 Buick begging Momma to take be back, but the car drove off with my mother, two brothers and this dumb-shit who was to become my step-father. At his bravest he'd use his own belt, but mostly he'd use one of mother's 3” wide ones whenever he took a mind to it. I'm sure with an IQ of around 85, he had a lot of trouble raising the sons of another man and the woman he was sleeping with.
My brother, the one still asleep in the bed across the room, was just a year ahead in school, but 18 months older. His hobby was punching me. Every day he'd punch me in the shoulder or upper arm until I'd cry. Then I was the cry-baby – the spoiled cry-baby that deserved whatever he decided to provide. He hadn't ever owned a bicycle or had the loving care of a parent. We, three brothers, weren't cherished as returning children, but tolerated obligations. Besides looking in the mirror, and practicing her unique lisp -- it was her teeth you know, our mother was above all this, she tolerated it because ma said so.
My oldest brother was quite an athlete, so my step-father and later our birth father used it to every advantage they could – sitting in the parents section at events, chatting up the coaches. My middle brother was a decent basketball player, so he got by, Me, I tried for a while, but I really hated most of it. I hung around playing, and sitting the bench to avoid gym class, but I really didn't like the coaches, or the politics of it all. All the way through school, I was very immature. I lacked any self-confidence to succeed. My first move to independence was a fist fight with dumb-ass: he put up his dukes and threatened me; I smacked his knuckles like kids do to make your hand hurt -- his broke. I won the fight, lost my home, but my best move was to join the Marine Corps. I hated it; I loved it. Iit did a lot for me: I grew up; I was on my own; and I have remained independent all my life.
So I sat twirling the bat. I was debating as to where to slam it down. If I hit him in the head, I'd kill him. If I hit him in the back, he might be crippled for life. I just wanted him to hurt for a long time. Hurt as bad as the years of hurt he'd been punishing me with. Maybe just above the knee, break the leg, and get the hell out of the house. The problem was that I'd pay for it later. He'd get me some day when I was asleep. He'd beat the shit out of me or kill me. I was too scared to follow through; I chickened out. I slid the bat under the bed, stuffed my face against the wall and waited for sleep.
I never see either brother -- we simply learned wrong.
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