TL : DR It’s long and about abuse. Not particularly well written, but it’s mundane, perhaps pointless and I though I’d share:
“Tokyo, how are you feeling?”
What a seemingly normal, perhaps even banal query in a normal household. But like Wile Coyote getting tricked into running off a cliff, the nine-year-old boy was filled with dread, instantaneously away that he was in eminent danger but that there wasn’t a damn thing that anyone could do about it.
“OK,” ventured the kid, since his day had seemed to not be anything out of the ordinary.
Whamph, or whatever sound a kick to the gut makes, knocking the air out of him. Didn’t see that one coming.
The guessing game begins. Now I have been informed that I’m not “OK.” Can I guess what my father has already decided what I’m feeling? There’s more, but take baby steps.
“Proud?” Not terribly likely but let’s get the worst out of the way first.
“Stop lying!” He takes a step forward, face contorted in rage. This doesn’t look good at all.
“Angry!” Yeah, another bad emotion.
“OK, see you don’t have to lie to me.” He steps back.
“Who are you angry with?” He slipped up, gave a vital clue. It’s a person, not a thing.
“Albert” I reply, praying with my entire existence that it’s my older brother that I’m angry with.
He grabs me by the hair with both hands, violently shaking me front and back, back and front, like a terrier will shake a rat to its death.
"DO! NOT! LIE! TO! YOUR! FA! THER!”
Each syllable is punctuated with a head jerking thrust back and then forward and then back and forth again for the next. His fury is bottomless. There is absolutely no reason left in this man. It’s pure emotions, pure rage, pure hatred at this point.
I didn’t mind the kicks. Even if one sent me down the stairs and then off to the ER. That was almost the ideal solution since it ended the interrogation quicker.
Nor the punches. Even when another trip to the ER was required for the stitches on my head from the corner of a hardwood chair.
No, it was this, the out of control shaking which terrorized this kid. It just felt like, well, like I was going to die.
“You?” I guessed.
The shaking stopped. It was him. I had been mad at him.
“See Tokyo, if you just wouldn’t lie to me, then I wouldn’t have to do that.”
The funny thing is that this kid believed that. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I found out that my father would somehow construct elaborate stories in his head and then start to believe them. So, he would have decided (1) what I was feeling, (2) why I was feeling that way and (3) why that was wrong.
The hardest part was that he would invent details from whole cloth and that you would have to wholeheartedly agree about everything, including the “fake news.”
So, skipping all the gory details of the rest of the abuse, it came out that:
- I was angry
- With him
- Because he had corrected me the day before.
- But he only did this because he was the priesthood leader of the family and God’s representative.
- I was worthless and a tool of Satan because I didn’t humbly accept this correction and by being angry with him, I was angry with God.
- God doesn’t like boys who are angry with him. Remember those kids that god sent the bear to eat? The ones mocking the prophet in the Old Testament?
So, this was all my fault and that I needed to feel bad and repent. Well, no doubt I felt bad. I did say that I would repent.
I’ve always remembered this incident. There were too many, but this is one that for some reason sticks out.
It got triggered when my therapist asked me “How is Little Tokyo feeling?” How can you explain why your body shuts down when it’s such a simple question? How can you convey the panic, the terror?
Looking back after almost 50 years, the thing which surprises me was the odd finishes to the abuse. You would simply go back to whatever. There was no one to turn to. No one to ask for comfort or help. No adults or children. Mother was a battered wife and she couldn’t help. We kids were too afraid for ourselves. Never told relatives or neighbors.
As a child, you just don’t know any other reality. It’s what it is.