Eeny Meeny

19

I can’t remember when I first saw my father hit my mother. I don’t really remember things I see anyway. It’s sounds I remember most clearly. The sound of a fist on a face. Of a body crashing into the kitchen table. A skull hitting a wall. Whimpering. Shouting. The endless abuse.

You never become inured to it. But you come to expect it. And each time it happens you get a little bit angrier. And feel a little more helpless.

She never fought back. That’s what pissed me off. She just took it. Like she deserved it. Is that what she really thought? Whatever, if she wasn’t going to fight him, I was. The next time he started on her, I’d get involved.

I didn’t have to wait long. My dad’s best mate Johnno died from a heroin overdose and after the funeral my dad drank for thirty-six hours non-stop. When my mum tried to get him to stop, he head-butted her – broke her bloody nose. I wasn’t having that. So I kicked the stupid tosser in the balls.

He broke my arm, knocked my front teeth out and choked the life out of me with his belt. I really thought he was going to kill me.

A therapist once suggested that this was the root cause of my inability to form meaningful relationships with men. I just nodded, but really I wanted to spit in her eye.