The Struggles Of A Dark Childhood
By Donald Jones
Going to Cuba on board a passenger ship at the age of six was a grand adventure that my brothers and I welcomed. The USS Thomas was a small passenger ship with one smoke stake. To a six-year-old child it was an enormous ship. Our cabin was equipped with a large master bed and bunk beds built into the wall. The dinning area seemed unusual because it had chains on the bottom of every chair and the tables were bolted to the floor. My young mind kept thinking why would anyone want to steal tables and chairs? The recreation room was the best place for my older brother and I. We spent most of our time playing ping-pong. When ever one of us missed hitting the ping-pong balls they would be knocked through the open window into the sea. When we were not playing at ping-pong I was at the rail watching and being amazed at the flying fish and the porpoises swimming along with the ship.
After a hard day of play my parents decide that it was time for me to slow down so the made me take a nap. If a parent wants to be kind to their kid they should never put a kid to bed while on the open sea. Seasickness that catches up with your body when you lie down and sleep. When I awoke I thought I was going to die. Mom and Dad took us to the dinning room for supper. After a few bites I went running for the open deck and hung my head over the rail. That was the end of the trip for me. I wanted to go home. When the ship made port the next day at the Naval base, I was feeling better but could not eat. Putting my feet on solid ground again was the greatest feeling on earth.
We arrived at our new home, which was an old barracks that had been converted into residents for the sailors with their families. The community was arraigned in circles. There were so many of these converted barracks to each circle and the circles were placed in a circle around a middle circle that had a playground in the middle. The back yard was an old shooting range. On the other side of the field there were about five Quonset huts. At the left end of these huts was a large growth of prickly pear cactus. These were left there no doubt to keep anyone from going past this area. There was a lookout tower there at that time, I could not figure why it was there. Being older and taken several firearm courses over the years I now know that the old tower was the last remains of the shooting range that had not been torn down.
There were kids from every culture and color. Many of my playmates were Asian, Black, Hispanic, Korean, and White. At that time, my life had been protected from racism. Many of my dad’s co-workers were black along with several other races. It never was an issue in our home. For as long as I can remember at any time even to this day my father treated everyone as his equal. It would be when I was in high school at age 16 I learned there was an ugly thing called racism.
This is where I began to experience, child abuse. Mom began to start burst of anger toward me when I said or did things I shouldn’t. These were not spankings they were beatings. If she had a broom or any object she would hit me with it.
Some people think they know how they would react to having a child that is born with a birth defect. The truth is, no one knows what they will do until they are faced with it. This is very true of parents of physically and mentally challenged children. I read a study done years ago of parents of Spina Bifida children. Several of the mothers simply could not deal with the horrific emotional toll it took on them. Some rejected their children, and some abused them. My mother was no different. She did the best she could without the emotional support that people get from groups today. She was embarrassed by me, and could not deal with having an imperfect child. When company came, I was ushered to the back bedroom and instructed not to come out until the company had left. God for bid, if I had on wet paints and our company caught sight of me. One of the symptoms or conditions left from Spina Bifita was having and incontinent bladder. It never worked from birth, so as a child my pants were wet almost all the time. If those instructions were violated, there would be a whipping. Of course my older brother was allowed to stay in the living room with everyone else. I knew it was not his fault that I was kept out of the company’s sight. He even felt bad for me when I was not allowed to mingle with the rest of the company. I think it made him feel guilty at times.
When I was seven, I violated the taboo of being seen in public. It was fire prevention week while living at our first housing complex. The Navy had placed a small old building in the middle of the field and set it on fire as a fire demonstration. Every kid in the housing project was there, including me, climbing all over the fire engine and talking with the firemen. The base News press was there with cameras. The next issue came out with a picture of the house, and every kid on the base standing in front of it. Yes, I was in the front row with my wet pants for all to see. Mom was furious. She started with a spanking for going out to the sight. That turned into a beating, for embarrassing her with those wet pants. She sat on my chest and pinned me to the floor with her knees on my shoulders and proceeded to pummel me with her fists. This is not love, I thought. If she loved me she would not treat me like this. I felt like she was ashamed of me because I was different. At that point I began to hate her, but I didn’t like feeling that way when I knew I was supposed to love her. It was truly a love hate relationship.
When dad came home from his trip out to sea, he asked my mother why my eyes were so black. “O he got mouthy with me and I had to whip him,” she said. He knew the truth. In those days such things were tolerated. There were no child abuse laws in place. It was just one of those things people never talked about but quietly accepted.
There were many fits of rage over the years. Eventually I would learn to put up my arms to protect my face. This aggravated the situation further. When she would attempt to hit me with her fist, I would block her blows. She would bruise her arms sometimes, but this was interpreted as hitting my mother. She used this to full advantage when Dad came home. Showing the bruise to him would set him off into an angry mood. There would be no doubt as to what he was going to do about such a rebellious son. My Dad’s practice when spanking me was to grab me by my heels, stand me on my head, and whip me with a belt or his hands. Unknown to my father, the location where I had surgery as an infant, left all my nerves that are customarily covered by the sacrum exposed just under the skin. The doctors had grafted the backbone of a rabbit into my spine in hopes that it would grow, but the graft failed to take. This was where many blows landed from the belt or hand when I was whipped. His blows would send shock waves of pain and tingling down my spine to my legs, and leave me momentarily paralyzed. I would cry out for him not to hit my scar, but he ignored my plea. He thought it was just another ploy to avoid punishment. I never blamed my dad for any of the punishment because I knew he had no idea what was really going on at home. Nor did he understand the serious nature of my back at that time.
The mystery of my tingling and paralysis of my back from those blows came to light, when I was 40 years old. The doctor looked at my x-rays and told me, “You don’t have a sacrum.” It was as much a surprise to me as it was to him. He instructed me not to pickup anything weighing more then ten pounds, and to watch my step going down stairs or stepping off a curb. There was a very thin disk between one of my lower vertebra that could be crushed if I was not very careful.
We stayed at the old barracks residents for about a year then we moved to another housing area that had been built for the dependents of those stationed on the base. I had been told to stay in the house and not go out. This was a new neighborhood, and I was grounded for a month or two at a time. It was obvious to me I was not being punished it was an imprisonment. This way no one would know about my problem. Eventually I would sneak out to play with the other kids in the neighborhood. Sooner or later a kid will say I don’t care what the risk is going to be, and will take it. I often did and often got a beating for it.
The Navy base was heaven for any kid. Free swimming pools, free movies, and any type of recreation was free. So the beast way for parents to punish their kids most of the time was simply ground them. Being a seven year old you want to be around other kids sometimes older then you.
There was a recreation building just behind our apartment complex on another small hill. It was a building that was screened in. Some nights there were dances for the enlisted men and their wives. On other nights there were movies. On one occasion I had followed a group of older boys about nine and ten years old to the theater building. They had found the doors open that normally were locked. They also found the dance powder that they would put on the floor to make the floor easier to dance on. The older kids covered the floor with the powder and were having good time sliding all over the floor. Being a kid I want to have fun too so I followed them and started to slide on the floor along with the other kids. With all the activity, I decided I needed to use bathroom. When I started to the bathroom the older boys followed me. At that time I had no idea what sex was or sexual behavior. These boys were about to introduce me to something that would follow me for the rest of my life. They wanted me to give them oral sex. That is what I now know it is called, back then it had no name just something to do to be mean. That was something that was not only out of the question but I first thought they were joking. Till one of them pulled out a knife, and I felt a panic, and fear take over my body that is beyond my ability to express even as an adult. I knew the fear of being punished by my dad for disobeying him, but this was a fear I had never known. It was a paralyzing fear that puts you into shock and your unable to scream or run. Two of them held me to my knees while one held the knife to my throat. Details of this memory has eroded with time, for which I am grateful, as to how many of them there were and how long I was in that room. What made it worse, when they let me go, I was running back home and I ran into my older brother. The older boys informed him of what they had made me do. Of course they did not tell him as to how the deed was done. My older brother was not there so he came away with a different impression. Telling my parents was out of the question because it would mean just another beating. My older brother would latter use this information to black male me into doing things for him while growing up by threaten to tell our parents.
It took many years for me to figure out that I did not do anything wrong. The guilty feelings however and anger followed me until I was in my 30’s. While working with a friend, who was also a counselor for incest, help me deal with this part of my life when I discussed my childhood with him. He helped me realize, I had nothing to be ashamed of. I simply was the victim of an attack and had no guilt to bear. Now I can freely talk about that experience. It no longer hunts me. My parents still to this day do not know about what happened in that recreation hall.