Back To Basics

Chapter 53

Back To Basics

 

By late October I was ready to go back to school. Even though it was earlier then we had planned, but I was good with that, sort of. Just the fact that I was being held back rubbed me the wrong way. I also didn’t like that there wasn’t a blasted thing I could do about it. I had to count my blessings that it wasn’t longer than half a year. Also, this was the third caseworker I’d been assigned since I’d been with the Rothwell’s in the last five months. Since they came and went so fast it wasn’t worth getting to know them or their names. It was a royal pain to have to catch a caseworker up only to have the state replace him or her.

The dumber they were, the harder it was to explain things. For instance “No Home Visits!” If it wasn’t for the Rothwell’s and the pictures of the damage they had done to both the Rothwell’s and myself, I would have been packing my bags for a weekend and pray that I’d come back alive. I was glad that Dad kept a copy of everything including where the state court had outlined no home visits in the near future. Yet the “Ding Bat” couldn’t get through his head that wasn’t going to happen and decided to set up one anyway because my parents requested one.

Mom and Dad ended up having to go to Family Court to deny the claim, and once again my parents got away with it. They claimed the injuries could have taken place at any time, and anywhere. That they could have been done by anyone; they had an alibi. They were ‘out of state’ visiting relatives. The Judge demanded proof, but they had stated they were en route. They only had a gas receipt for later that day.

The Judge once again bought into their half-baked story, but the ruling still favored the Rothwell’s. It was because of their long-standing of being good foster parents, having taken in several boys over the years who had aged out of the system and not been placed in a home for wayward boys or prison. The Judge stated that whatever they were doing worked, so if they denied a home visit, there must be a good reason. So their case was denied.

I hated my parents and I could see it in their eyes: they weren’t through with me or the Rothwell’s. My parents countered the claim and tried to use my past against me. They said that I was known to run away and that I had tried to run away so that I could go back to the Downing’s. My parents stated that every time they had tried to make contact with me they were told I was not at home, and that the Downing’s were still petitioning them to allow the adoption. Dad growled, wanting to crack my father’s head open like a ripe melon.

Mom told the Judge that it had been her understanding that I wasn’t allowed contact with my parents or the Downing’s. Mom said that I hadn’t been allowed phone privileges without them present nor had I written a single letter to any of them. Not once had I tried to run away even with plenty of opportunities to do so. Of course, my mother said that all of us were lying. She said that I had runway on numerous occasions and that’s why I wasn’t in school and why they had been denied to see me: I wasn’t at home.

Mom said that I wasn’t at home because I had been staying at a friend’s house down the street and that I had been severely injured in a ‘skateboarding’ accident. If anyone wanted to see the bill or the doctor’s report they could. Mom told the Judge to turn the page number that showed all the documentation including a private teacher; it stated that I was indeed in school and being home-schooled due to my injuries.

She also said that the Judge was more than welcome to verify everything with Mr. Pratt, who they had had contact with and that his number was listed. My parents didn’t like it, but there was very little they could do about; granting the Rothwell’s to determine when home visits would take place, if ever. I knew this wouldn’t be the last time my parents would try something. I was glad; however, that the Downing’s hadn’t given up.

I am not saying there were no problems nor am I saying that I was a perfect child. What I am saying is that there was more expected of me than most kids considering I had already gone through the 8th grade once. I was required to check in with a time sheet to each of my teachers to say I was in class and on time. If I was more then 5 minutes late I would be punished when I got home. I had too provided my time sheet to Dad every day and face his wrath when it didn’t add up correctly. It was to keep me and my teachers honest and to prevent me from running away. For now, I was to be trusted. I also had to keep my grades up when my grades were lower then a C+ regardless if was on a test or assignment; I got punished even if was the teacher's fault for grading on the curve. (So many A’s so many B’s and so on)

Basements were still my downfall, and boring classes that caused me to fall asleep and would turn into an episode; mild ones, but bad enough for the teachers that would try to bring me down. Someone had also forgotten to tell them that they could happen and anytime and anywhere, especially when it came to a basement. At the time, Lehi Jr. High had converted their basement into classrooms. Like I said someone forgot.

It had taken three hours and several teachers to hold me down. They had notified Mom that I had freaked out and when she came I had been placed inside a closet that they stick unruly kids in while they are tied to a chair. My school clothes had been torn to shreds and bloodied. My glasses were broken and I was going through my third panic attack. Mom didn’t waste time, she just tranquilized me right there.

When I finally woke up, I was in my room with Dad. I just said one word ‘basement,’ Dad nodded and left the room; that one word had saved me from a severe punishment. The next day I was in enrolled in a different class nowhere near the basement, but the damage had been done. I was teased and ridiculed for it and was getting locked in closets causing another episode and being late for class each time it happened. Even though it wasn’t my fault, Dad was getting tired of me having them in school and was angry. So he did the one thing that was only made things worse, hoping to cure me of them. In a way he did.

The monster came out and placed me into the hot box, to create the same atmosphere of the closets. He became my father causing an episode using his belt and beat the living crap out me, not as bad as if he had used the cattail. Nor as bad using a sharpened end of the buckle like my fathers, but bad enough to raise welts and more bruise I couldn’t count, from either his fist or the leather strapping. It was warm, stuffy, and dark. I was left in there for the entire weekend, plus three extra days.

It required me to miss church, school, and scouting with a jug of water small rations of food, nothing else. To everyone else, I had the flu, but every day he would beat me and throw me back in until I stopped panicking and realized that he wasn’t my father and that I had nothing to fear of dark closets. It was a new record, by his standards, how long one of his boys was kept in the hot box.

Personally, it wasn’t steaming hot because summer had come to end by that time, but hot enough to be uncomfortable when the sun beat on that tin shed all day and it was cold enough at night to give you the chills. When you weren’t given clothes or a blanket, you stunk worse than a skunk after having to bathe in the horse trough for two days. I broke that record several times during my three years with the Rothwell’s.

As I said earlier, your sins were forgiven once you came out, and it did lessen your time being grounded, but at this particular time I wasn’t grounded; instead I was being a taught a valuable lesson. My lesson was that I had nothing to fear from dark closets, but I had every right to fear Dad on any level. In a sense, he had heightened the fear of him whenever he came close to me. I couldn’t sit near him for long without shaking in fear; he made the slightest move I jumped. When he smacked anyone, I panicked and earned another beating or another day or two in the hot box.

Shawn and his friends were my worst enemy. For instance, when nobody was around they would do anything they could to me and Arthur. Since nobody saw it happen it was always his word against mine. He would use his friends as witnesses, the same people that had done these acts to me; they would corner me and beat me, adding more bruises and tie me up. They would cut me using one of the kitchen knives or a friend’s pocket knife. They would pee on me, dump raw sewage on me, and spread it all over me. All while I tried to break loose.

Shawn would tell Mom and Dad that I was having an episode and that they were trying to bring me down since Shane and Kerry weren’t around. He would tell them that I tried to run away and take Arthur with me. When in truth, I had been told to do chores in the field by Dad. Shawn and his friends would undo the chores and make a huge mess; blame it on me to make me unreliable. The problem with lies is that sometimes they come back and bite you.

Kerry and Shane caught them in the act; Shane had heard me scream, wondering why I was in the basement. He had found me stripped naked, seeing that my clothes had been cut off, and covered in piss, cuts, and blood. Shawn was holding the knife and his friends were beating on me. Kerry had also heard it and was wondering the same thing, knowing that I would never go down there, even if my life depended on it. Mom and Dad had gone out shopping, so they weren’t home. I was hysterical and consumed by the terror that had been taking place. For me, I didn’t see anyone, but my parents beating me in the basement.

When I woke, Dad was holding me, I screamed seeing him and the episode would start all over again. I went through three tranquilizers before I could face reality, and it was almost two days before I could even come out of my room without running back in. Every time Shawn or Dad came near me, and it was longer than that before I would stop jumping from the slightest movement at home or at school without causing an episode of total panic when someone would just simply touch me.

I could never trust Dad or anyone for a very long time. Even though Shawn was grounded until further notice or wasn’t allowed to see or talk to his friends considering they were grounded as well after their parents heard what they did and had been doing. The damage was done. It didn’t matter how many times Dad and Mom apologized to me. Their trust had been broken, and it would be a long time before they could earn that trust back.

Even though I wanted to run away, but I chose not to. It was one of the hardest things I had chosen not to do. In retrospect, not having anyplace to go and being so far away from people that might be able to help me, that probably didn’t help much. Even the Downing’s had moved on according to my grandmother, having been denied at every turn with the courts and my parents. I wasn’t even told that they had come to make some sort of arrangement with the Rothwell’s, being told I didn’t live here anymore and had been sent to a home for boys out of state to keep in me in the dark. I had learned this after reading my file years later

According to the State and Social Services, I was adjusting well and better then they expected without a single runaway event. Well, at least that was what it said on paper and my grades and attendance records at school. It wasn’t noted was I was a prisoner with parents that could inflict punishment at the drop of a hat, and you lived not knowing if they are going to be cruel and abusive or loving and caring from one minute to the next. It was just easier to keep your head down and focus being part of the furniture when the monsters came out to play. And pray that you weren’t seen so they couldn’t afflict their wrath on you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.