The true complete hell begins now. Living in a place where everyone knows everyone and everyone talks about everyone all the time is complete hell. Everyone judges you for what you wear, who your parents are, what kind of house you live in, who your friends are. No one looks at "you". One good thing about this place was that my father was only around on weekends. He worked and lived about 75 miles south of where he had bought the family a house. So we only saw him on weekends. My parents weren't separated or getting a divorce or anything like that. My father just worked away from where we lived. He had made the choice to move to his hometown when my oldest brother was about to start high school. Where we lived before, my brother would have had to go to a school off base and in the city of Manhattan. My father decided that he didn't want my brother to go to school there. So he put in a transfer and got it. Of course, him being an officer helped a lot. Officers seem to get what they want when they want. Including within the family, no matter what the consequences were. 

During the week I was at peace. Happy, caring, loved to do things to help mom out. She had the three of us on her own. She worked and took care of the house, besides having to take care of us. So I would often come home from school, cook dinner and clean the house. 

But when Friday came, my stomach would start to hurt, I was nauseous, had a hard time breathing and really hated the weekend. Kids are suppose to look forward to the weekends aren't they? Not me. I would get up out of bed with this feeling of doom. I was 11 years old and I hated weekends. Of course, I also hated going to school, but it was a lot better than weekends. Every Thursday night I would call the only two friends I had and see if I could stay with them at least one night during the weekend. I didn't want to be home. Anywhere but home. Friday morning, if I hadn't already had plans to spend the night somewhere I would be really sick. I couldn't think of anything else besides finding somewhere to go for the weekend. I didn't want to be in the house, near my father on the weekends. 

On the weekends I didn't have anywhere to go, I had to get up at 7 am. I had tons of chores to do. Cut the grass, work in the garden, clean the house. And while all this was going on I would have to listen to my father tell me all about how I was worthless. Not mention try to duck the swings of his fist if I didn't do something exactly how he wanted it done. This went on until about 7 or 8 pm when he would finally let me stop. I would go straight to my bedroom and cry myself to sleep, only to get up the next day and do it all again. 

I remember one weekend, I finally got the nerve to say something. Or was it I had lost my mind at that moment? I don't know which it was. I was around 12 years old at this time and I finally asked how come my oldest brother never had to do as much as my other brother and I did. Mentioning my oldest brother to my father was one of the worse mistakes I could have made. I got slapped and was told that my oldest brother was the only decent one and that he would amount to something. HA! Boy was my father wrong! But, just the same, my other brother and I still had to do most the work.

One Friday, my oldest brother decided he was going to start trouble. He knew my father was due home that evening. And he wanted to see me in trouble. When we got off the bus, he started in on me. I didn't need his crap so I ran to the house and inside. There were two front doors to our old farm house and one usually stayed locked. My brother decided he would put his hand threw the small window pane on the door to unlock it, then tell my father I had locked him out of the house. Which was not true. He could have come through the other door, which was unlocked. When my father got home I was in my bedroom. I heard him come up the stairs. I had a private set of stairs to my room and the banister was really shaky. My father grabbed the banister and in his madness it came off in his hand. He swung the board at me and hit me in the hip. Then he continued to hit me in the legs with this board. Mom came running up the stairs and grabbed the board out of his hand. He let me know that I was to go no where and I had to do all the chores that weekend. I tried to tell him I didn't lock my brother out, but he wouldn't, didn't, couldn't hear me. My oldest brother was perfect. 

I worked like a dog that weekend in pain. And I held those bruises for weeks. And I started fantasizing about all the possible painful deaths my father should endure.

When I was 13 I started noticing that there were boys in the world. My brothers weren't boys, they were "brothers". But because of this, it struck up a whole new fire in my father......