I Am an Animal

I am consumed with trepidation as the school day comes to a close. I do not utter a word for the rest of the day. Not to Mrs. Hyde or my classmates, not to anyone. My mind is too busy talking to itself about the fate that awaits me at home. I look at the kids who so mercilessly picked on me, and I look at Mrs. Hyde who not only didn’t protect me, but became one of them. I hate them. Every one of them. I hate myself for my lack of control. I hate myself for not knowing how to stop them. I just hate. Everyone and everything at this moment.

I can feel the acid burn through my stomach lining as I walk home. I feel the lump in my throat, and I am unsure whether its tears or vomit.  I realize it’s both as I stop along Oakwood Avenue, and I puke and cry and beg God to help me simultaneously.  I contemplate not going home, but I know that I would have nowhere to go permanently. I’d have to go home eventually and the beating would be tenfold because his anger would be increased.

I get to the corner of Frear and Oakwood Avenues and I can see the yellow Corolla that Dad ‘borrowed’ from Uncle Chuck over a year ago parked in front of the house. My heartbeat is deafening in my head and painful in my chest. My limbs go numb. I feel dreamlike force my body up each step onto the front porch. I reach the outer door and I inhale as much air as my lungs will hold. I keep it captive in there until my head swoons, then I let it out and I open the outer door. I stop between the outer and inner door, gather the little bit of courage I have, stand up tall, and enter the inner door into my nightmare.

Dad is in the living room waiting for me, belt in hand. There is rage splashed all over his hate-filled face. I stand and stare at him with a dumb look—my mind has gone blank and all courage and stature has disappeared.

“You want to behave like an animal in school, Puke?”

“No”, I answer, and I see his jaws clench.

“You obviously think you’re an animal, so you will be treated like an animal. Do you understand, Animal?”

“Yes”, is the only way I know to answer this question.

I am immediately knocked to the floor with a punch to the center of my body. Before I can get up, he kicks me back down to ensure I am unable to do so. “Animals belong on the floor, Puke. From now on you will walk on all fours.” I answer, “Yes”, to which he replies, “And animals don’t talk. If you want something you will bark like the animal that you are. Do you understand, Animal?” I bark in response, and I remain on the floor waiting to be kicked again. Like the animal that I am. It is taking every bit of will power in my arsenal not to cry because I am more humiliated than I have ever been in my short life. I hurt physically, but I hurt more in my heart than anything.

 

“Get out of my sight, Puke Animal”.

I climb the stairs to my room on all fours and I am filled with more hatred than I ever knew it was possible for one person to feel. I sit on the floor of my bedroom because I assume that’s where an animal would be, and I want to punch something. I want to punch and scream. Instead, I sit on my floor and I cry. I try to cry out all of the hatred that has welled inside of me for the kids at school, for teachers, for dad, for this life that I have been given to live.