The Rock, The Window and the Lawn Chair

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

2nd Grade

Up until the 4th grade, we lived in a big 2 story house in the city in a quiet residential area. We were a block away from the city park where there was a zoo inside. A small one but they had a good selection of animals. There was a big lion that roared all day long and you could hear him from blocks away in the day and in the middle of the night.

One summer day on a saturday morning I was sitting in a lawn chair under the cherry tree. There was a big cherry tree in the back and side yard that towered over the house and most of the yard. We had lots of birds and cherries were always dropping. We never really ate any of the cherries as the tree was so big we could not really reach any of them to pick. So there I was sitting in a lawn chair minding my own business. I was alone listening to the lion roar and watching the birds flit from branch to branche eating cherries.

The silence was soon broken by the sounds of my brother who was three years younger than me running around. He was running and playing by himself and soon decided to pick up a rock. He threw lots of rocks at nothing in particular.

My parents car was parked in the driveway on the other side of the chain link fence that divided the front and back yards. I watched my brother pick up a rock and he threw it up into the air. It landed. It landed with a lot of force. It landed with a lot of force right on the car's front windshield. The windshield cracked. There was a small gooseegg in the center with a spider of cracks spreading out from the gooseegg. I looked at him. He looked at me. He took off running to the darker recesses of the back yard.

I got up and went into the house to let my parents know what happened. That the car windshield was broken and that my brother did it. I saw my mother first and told her. She called my father. I told them both that my brother did it and what happened. My mother sent for my brother. They asked him what happened and he lied. He said that I did it. I defended myself and said that he was lying, that I was sitting in the lawn chair, just sitting and he was throwing rocks. They believed him and not me.

They always believed him and of course I got his beating. I was the whipping child. Out came the extension cord, long and black. I was whipped with that cord until whelps appeared all over my arms and legs and still I protested I did not it. The more I said it was not me the more they whipped. You would think that if a child is still protesting during a beating that maybe they really were innocent. Not may parents. They only struck me more. Finally it was over and I went to my room and cried and tried not to let the bedspread touch any of the places on my arms and legs that had whelps on them.

They always believed him and I got many of his beatings due to his lying. I finally learned to avoid him or not be in the same place at the same time when things happened so that I really could not be associated with it.

It did not matter what I said about anything, I got beatings if it was raining outside and if my parents really wanted to make a beating bad, they would wait until I was in the bathtub taking a bath. That extension cord on wet skin is 1000 times worse than it was on dry skin. I was the whipping child but eventually I got old enought to defend myself. I would not hit back but I would run if I could get away or I would pick up a sofa cushion if I could not and use it to block blows. Finally I was old enough to get out of that house permanently.

Yes, I was the whipping child and the extension cord was not the only thing used. Just the main one. Shoes, large metal kitchen spoons and hair brushes can do just as much damage.