Our family was forced to move from the courts, to Campbell Avenue somewhere around 1975, I remember getting cable, and staying up to watch the first SNL show (Oct. 11, 1075). The abuse never stopped here, although more about beating me up, than anyone else.
Had a family move in downstairs shortly thereafter, and was abused by the son, he was at least 5 years older than me.
We found a bottle of London Dock one Christmas, I’m pretty sure I was 9 or 10 years old. We drank the whole bottle, so, as punishment, my mom took all my Christmas presents back and got the money for them and kept it. I remember there weren’t many gifts, but there was an electric guitar I was looking forward to playing, well, that never happened.
Started smoking heavier around this time as well, my mom would even buy them for me, way to go, lead by example?
So, the next few years were being abused by my dad, abused by my neighbor, abused by The Christian Brothers at school, etc, etc.
I spent pretty much a whole year (11-12) in my room when I stopped going to school, I had had enough of everything and just stayed in my room. They tried everything to get me to go to school, even had a cop pick me up and drive me to school one day, I went in the front door (Holy Cross), walked out the back door and went home.
After hanging out in my room for a year, I had a growth spurt and emerged at about 6′-4″, aged 12. I hit the streets shortly thereafter, mostly because of my dad, who started calling me crazy all the time, usually when I would come out and use the bathroom, so I would wait until everyone was in bed to use the facilities, usually staying up all night, and sleeping all day just to avoid everyone.
I may have been crazy to a point, after years of abuse, even my sister used to beat the crap out of me, until one day, she started hitting me, I went to my room and grabbed a barbell, chased her into the bathroom where she locked the door, I proceeded to to put that barbell through the door, as hard as I could about head high, it penetrated through the door and missed her head by mere inches, needless to say, she never raised a hand to me again. Of course, she called me nuts as well, but it just boiled down to enough is enough.
The only somewhat good memory was getting laid for the first time, losing my virginity to my sisters’ friend Mildred, who was 19 years old, I was 14.
It was here that I met a crazy lady, More about her later because it will be a very long post. The whole story is so messed up, I almost submitted it to “The Steve Wilkos Show“. I would start dating this schizophrenic a few years later, although she was not diagnosed as such at the time, there was definitely something not right with her, as she was 7 years older than me, I was only 13 when we sort of went on our first date, we went to a movie, nothing really happened, but it was a date. I used to hear her fighting with her husband, and I recall her being very pregnant when they moved in next door. She used to say it was her husband who was breaking glass and windows, etc. It was only years later she admitted that she was the one who would throw glasses and dishes, and break the windows. The husband was smart and left about 6 months after they moved in. More about this relationship in another post!
They did an aptitude test and figured I could go from grade 5 to 7, mostly because of my size, so they sent me to St. Theresa’s, well, I thought the brothers were assholes, the freaking nuns were 10 times worse, they hit you upside your head if you looked at them the wrong way.
I lasted at that school for about a week. The next year they tried again, this time to Brother Rice, to grade 9 (remember, the last grade attended, not finished, was 5). The work wasn’t that bad, but still had to deal with the freaking nuns and brothers, so after 2 or 3 weeks, I quit again.
I finally got my Grade 12 equivalent after I had to write the GED to get into Cabot Institute.
