As I told you, when I was four years old, I managed to climb up to the bathroom window and fell from there right on my head. I narrowly avoided breaking my neck. That story ended with a week of rest in the hospital.
I’m an only child, and I feel sorry about that. If I had siblings, the beatings I received from dad would have been shared among more people. Unfortunately, I didn’t have siblings to hold my hand, but that doesn’t mean I was completely devoid of guidance or education.
Among the first words I learned, I often heard one in particular: “whore.”
“Whore, haven’t I told you a hundred times not to put so much salt in the food?
Whore, are you late from work again?
You damn whore! If that damn neighbor steps foot in our house again, I’ll break her legs!
Dare to talk back to me? I’ll stomp on you, whore!”
So, one day, I gathered up the courage and asked my mom:
“Mommy, what does whore mean?”
Mom caressed my forehead, looked at me sadly, then said:
“Don’t you have anything better to do outside? Look at how sunny and beautiful it is. Come on, don’t stay indoors, go out and play.”
Over time, I began to understand the meaning of my dad’s words on my own. Along with whore, I started to add other words to my collection. For example, tramp, rag, bitch, slut. Sometimes, when I went to play with other kids in the streets around the house, I would use them too.
Fortunately for me, until I was about six years old, mom was the only one who received beatings in the house. Dad didn’t hold back, he would hit her and curse at her without caring about me. Broken dishes, dad’s screams, mom’s cries… they were daily occurrences, part of the landscape.
But around six years old, my dad’s wristwatch was going to bring a change in my life. That wonder of a watch was placed on our big radio in the bedroom, the radio at the end of the bed.
I liked to play with my dad’s watch. I was fascinated by the glass cover, those two hands that kept spinning every time I turned the side button.
One day, I kept turning that button until there was a loud “Clank!” and then the watch refused to tick anymore.
Misfortune never comes alone, so I wasn’t surprised when dad suddenly entered the room.
He looked at the watch, looked at me, placed the shot glass of brandy he held in his hand on the table, then slapped me so hard that my snot flew to the walls.
“You little brat! Did you have to touch my watch, huh?”
It was the first slap I received from dad, and that’s when I learned a very important lesson: it wasn’t good to stand on dad’s left side. He had a fantastic strength in his left hand, he was left-handed. If he hit you with his right, you had a chance, but it was best not to give him any chance. Nothing.
You had to run. Through the door, through the window, it didn’t matter. The essential thing was to run.
“Don’t hit the child on the head!” yelled mom like a furious lioness. “Children are spanked on the butt, not on the head! Do you hear me or not?”
“Shut up, whore!” said dad calmly, then pointed at me: “Who does he resemble? He resembles you, damn seed!”
In the years that followed, whenever I messed up (and I messed up a lot), dad used to remind mom that I was a “bad seed,” that I resembled her and that I wouldn’t amount to anything in life.
To be fair to him, I must admit now that he was absolutely right. I didn’t amount to anything in my life. From a young age, I was always a cursed and very cheeky child. It was as if I had a devil inside me; I broke or damaged everything that fell into my hands. It was close that I set the house on fire.
Dad wasn’t a bad-hearted man, on the contrary. When he was drunk, but not too drunk, he could also be in a good mood and very talkative. He hugged me, kissed me on the forehead. Then I felt safe and loved.
Alcohol loosened his tongue, and he became sentimental. In those moments, he talked about his childhood.
He had been a greatly tormented child. By his father, obviously. Grandpa was a guy who had never known what mercy meant in his life. He beat his wife and his seven children like crazy.
So, around thirteen years old, dad lost his mind and set out to seek his fortune. Years later, his luck was my mom, a quiet, peaceful woman, so kind-hearted that when I think of saints, I see her first.
My mother’s martyrdom lasted forty-nine years.
Growing up, I hated dad a lot for everything he did to mom. Many times I fell asleep with my face on a pillow wet with tears. The walls were thin; I could clearly hear dad’s curses and the slaps he gave mom, and her cries of pain pierced my heart.
My sins… my whole childhood was overshadowed by the desire to kill dad. I imagined all sorts of methods, made plans. On this occasion, I developed a taste for reading. I borrowed a lot of detective books from the city library and carefully noted the most interesting methods of killing a person.
I was particularly interested in the suitable methods of covering your tracks and getting away with it.
Unfortunately, at the end of each book, there was always a damn clever policeman who discovered the culprit and sent the killer behind bars.
I didn’t lose hope. I continued to read another book, then another, determined to find a way to commit the perfect crime. That’s how I acquired a taste for reading. Books became my best friends for the rest of my life. I read everything that fell into my hands: romance novels, science fiction literature, adventure books, and many psychological books.
Years passed, but I never found the perfect method to kill dad. I was left only with the passion for reading and daydreaming.
Around ten years old, I began to rebel. My mom’s face and arms were full of marks, scars, bruises. Some would heal, others would appear.
More and more often, I intervened between her and dad, trying to stop the stream of relentless slaps. Often, I took them instead of her. I began to become callous, my skin hardened, and the blows didn’t hurt me as much anymore.
In our house, that was normalcy. If a day passed and dad didn’t get drunk, and mom and I escaped without a beating… well, that was a strange day, downright scary. Why wasn’t he beating us? When would he start cursing? When would the first slap fall?
It was better if he beat us and we got it over with, rather than feeling that sense of anticipation.
But sometimes the beatings were too harsh.
Mom couldn’t take it anymore and would run away from home, going to her relatives.
I remember that during those days, Dad would come home more drunk than ever. So drunk, it took him quite a while to manage to put the key in the door lock. For me, those days were good and amusing. He was too drunk. I knew that if I pushed him with just a finger, he would collapse.
I watched him enter the house singing with that hoarse and broken voice of a drunk. He sang some damn German songs he had learned in school when he was young. I didn’t understand a word, but, oh God, how I hated that cursed language! Dad had a special respect for Germans. He always said they were a clever and fair people. Oh, well…
Usually, my old man would collapse on the tiles in the hallway, and I would grab a pillow from the bed and neatly put it under his head. I would cover him with a blanket. There he would stay, on the tiles. I knew he would complain about his back the next day, and that filled me with joy.
From an early age, I learned how to take care of a drunk person. For example, Eva, never let a drunk person sleep face up because they might vomit in their sleep and choke on their own vomit. Remember that, in case you marry a drunkard!
Fuck him, old bastard! He was helpless and my pity for him prevented me from committing the perfect crime.
Maybe I should have done it! Maybe not…
Yeah… that’s it. What else can I say? If I sit and think about it, I can’t remember ever having a Christmas or Easter without broken windows and furniture. The holidays were awful.
The only solution, even in the dead of winter, was to run away wearing whatever clothes you had on, regardless of the time. It didn’t matter what time it was, as long as you escaped.
All the neighbors on our street knew us like the back of their hand. Sometimes we slept at one house, other times at another.
The outcome was always the same: Dad wake up from his drunken stupor, wash up, comb his hair, and then come looking for us. He swore to Mom that he wouldn’t touch a drop of alcohol for the rest of his life.
He reassure her, coax her, convince her to come home.
Sometimes it would be good for a day or two. Other times, as soon as we entered the house, he would pounce on her and beat her right there in the hallway.
“Whore!” he would yell. “You’re embarrassing me in front of the neighbors again?”
Mom would scream. I would cry. Things went back to normal.
The worst beatings of my life happened when I was around twelve years old. I admit it, I was a troublemaker, a lazybones. I used to run away from home whenever Dad told me to do something, to work, to help with something. I had become a rebel.
The old man beat me with whatever he could get his hands on. Nothing was off-limits, any object would do. Pots, belts, pieces of wood. I didn’t care.
Plates smashed against the walls, but I laughed. I was getting very close to the brink of insanity. The only thing that still somewhat impressed me was the belt. When Dad took off his belt, folded it in half, and signaled for me to come to him… I felt like I was going to wet myself. It was a visceral fear, uncontrollable.
I’ll never forget what that belt looked like. It was painted red, the leather had a sheen, and it had embossed floral patterns on it. Sometimes those floral patterns would be imprinted on my arms or thighs. Damn weeds!
How long can someone endure beatings? I have no idea. I never tried to find my limits. When I was about thirteen, I ran away from home and swore I would never come back even if I knew I would die. I took to the streets, but after only two days, a policeman knocked on our door, and the policeman was holding my hand. My excursion was short-lived.
Five minutes after I entered the house, Dad broke the broom handle over the back of the wayward son.
A man’s life has its ups and downs. Life in Dad’s house had only downs. That’s how it seemed to me.
From my childhood, I remember especially my mother’s tearful eyes when we were alone, when she turned to me and whispered:
“Promise me you’ll never drink, Tiberiu!”
“I promise, Mom!” I whispered back, then started to cry.
“Promise me that never, but never, will you hit a woman!”
“Never, Mom! Never a woman!”
That’s what she said. I’ll never forget the despair in her voice.
About a month after I got that broom handle to the back, I went and signed up for a boxing club in town.
For me, the conclusion was clear: whoever knows how to throw a punch succeeds in life. I had to prepare for life.
The coach was thrilled with me. I was the first one at the training gym, always the last one to leave, and I trained like a maniac.
“Kid,” he said happily, “if you keep training like this, you’ll become a great boxing champion!”
I hit the punching bag with frenzy. The coach didn’t know, but I imagined that my old man was inside that punching bag. I wasn’t hitting the bag like beans, I was hitting Dad. I kept hitting, hitting all the time, and I was soaked in sweat.
“Take that!” I whispered, panting! “And that! Take it in the liver, you bastard! I’ll destroy you! I’ll kill you! I’ll smash you!”
I kept at it until I ran out of breath. The results were showing: I was getting in better and better shape. In my first amateur fights, I beat the hell out of the poor souls in the ring so badly that twice I won the matches by the opponents not showing up.
I had never been happier in my life. I felt important. I knew how to fight. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was worth something.
Maybe because of my young age or maybe because I didn’t care, my mind didn’t make a clear distinction between the gym and the classroom. I had become a little terrorist, and the boys in school would tremble when I showed up.
In my early years of school, I was calm and stayed in my seat. I wasn’t the type of kid who looked for trouble. Then, with boxing, things changed: I started to think more with my fists and less with my head.
“Don’t you like that I have a hole in my coat?” Bam!
“So what if my shoes are worn out?” Bam!
“Did you say something about my mom?” Bam!
Around the age of fourteen, I developed a taste for smoking in the school bathroom. I could never get rid of them, all my life. I’m thirty years old now, and I’ve been smoking for ages. I wish I could turn back time to my first cigarette and give myself a Bam!
I started to lose my breath from the tobacco. The coach shook his head disappointedly. Then came my first serious beating in the boxing ring.
And my last.
A guy completely knocked boxing out of my head, broke my nose, and sent me into dreamland. Compared to him, Dad was a little kid. They carried me out of there on their arms. It felt like a train had hit me; something exploded in my head.
I lay on a bench in the locker room for over half an hour. Through the slightly open door, you could hear the screams of the spectators and the gong announcing the beginning and end of each round. I couldn’t even last one round.
I struggled to get home, staggering. My head hurt for days at school and at home. Then the pain suddenly stopped, just as abruptly as it had started.
“Enough is enough,” I said to myself. “If this is what boxing means, no, thank you!”
I never set foot in the boxing ring again. My dreams of becoming a champion were shattered. Then other things started to fall apart.
I was a good student. The first two years of high school were no problem for me. The problem arose the day I knocked out a classmate with a single punch, and that idiot fell and hit his head on the corner of the table.
I don’t even remember what we were arguing about, but I remember him well. He was a nice, clean-cut guy. The top student in the class. Always well-dressed, always top-notch.
I knocked him down with one punch. The bloodstain under his head spread on the floor like a pool of red ink. I looked around in confusion, not understanding what was happening. Then the girls in the class started screaming, and I understood. The ambulance came and took him away.
Things were just beginning. I later found out that my classmate’s father was a well-respected and well-liked school inspector in the community.
In conclusion, that boy returned to school the next day with a few bruises and a good scare, and I was expelled from school so fast I couldn’t believe it. I was sixteen when I was expelled. Because there is a God of idiots, I didn’t end up further, neither at the police nor at the court. The inspector didn’t file a complaint, and things remained as they were.
My expulsion woke me up a bit. I realized I was just a tough guy with weak brains. For two days, I hid like a worm in my room. I raised my fists and looked at them.
“Maybe it’s time to use my head!” I said angrily.
The door to the room opened, and Dad walked in. He had heard everything.
“You… you little punk!” he said, emphasizing each word. “If you have so much energy, at least use it properly!” he continued, waving his hand in disgust. “See, I’ve found you a job! You start tomorrow morning.”
And he left, leaving me speechless.
A job for me?
Did I have to work?
Me?
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