In Memory of Anthony

IN MEMORY OF ANTHONY
Born 1955
Died 1969

Sometimes, depending on the capricious deviltry of nature, monsters
arrayed as angels stand at your door. With childlike innocence, and
starving for male attention, you invite them in, despite the tragic
consequences that await you.
Sometimes, they are incarnated with wide, toothy smiles, patting you on
the head and grazing your cheek, attempting to garner your trust.
Sometimes, they wear black suits with their hair neatly slicked back in
a wave of oil, bearing gifts of candy or a genuine plastic Indian
hatchet. They can be as big and handsome and masculine as the men in
cigarette ads.
Soon-almost instantly, their ingratiating and innocuous manner invites
them through the threshold, and into your life. Then, once the door
closes and the trap is set, fire ignites from their mouth, -mean,
injurious incisions of ridicule and mockery. Their hands become
instruments of pain, and their voice the condemnation of yearning
souls, turning their possessions into empty, desiccated vessels of
despair.
My monster mimicked the cold laughter of a steel soul inflamed with
rage-empowered with the tools to chip away at my childhood, sculpting
me into a void of hopelessness and unworthiness.
There was no escape from that tragedy of my fate, where it seemed
benignity existed only in other children's homes; perhaps those who's
fortunes were smiled upon from a God who doles out gifts in random
afterthoughts. Somehow, I was overlooked-but I wasn't alone.
The monster had shape and movement, each calculated to instill terror;
a terror that shut down human faculties, scattering all my synapses
into a heap of mangled confusion. I was a living wraith, unformed and
ugly. I lived outside of myself, observing with detachment the wretched
child who cowered naked beneath verbal degradation and the virulence of
his bottomless, black pupils. My monster kept me frozen into place,
cemented in self-loathing and reproach.
For years I existed in a mind numbing state and found the passageways
of escape fraught with fear. With every feeble attempt at sanity I was
threatened with injury if I didn't return to his savage authority. The
monster ordered my thoughts to wither and then willed me into an
insensate and hollow machine.
That was my life for most of my young years-buried and laid waist at
the feet of the monster-my step-dad.

I reached for the only lifeline available-a walled sanctuary of my own
construction. I found solace within my illusory design, blissfully
fortified from the outside forces.
When I stood naked and torn before the eyes of my father, I hid within
those walls. I barricaded myself from his scorn and ridicule; in the
beginning it was tenuous, then gradually the walls became unassailable.
With every beating-with every assault upon my mind, a nail was hammered
into its surface; every seam sealed, the light kept out. It was my
refuge from an ugly world of curses and spit and threats and
bruises.
I willed it out of my desire to live in some degree of safety; my
defense against feeling. I could empty myself behind its shield.
Once ensconced, I could create my own environment. I might be floating
backwards on a lazy river, its small ripples slapping at my sides. With
my arms stretched out, I'd pretend to trace my fingers along the velvet
banks. Lush pine boughs diffused rays of heaven's glory, bathing my
body in serenity. No amount of fist shaking threats could distress
me.
When the raging monster stormed heaven's gate, I'd take to the sky and
swoon like an untethered kite pulled along by a gentle breeze. I'm
weightless, moving through satin clouds, sailing towards the universe,
its gravity pulling me further into the celestial glitter of stars.
Planets smile at my passing and comets leave iridescent trails while
the earth fades into a tiny marble of insignificance.
Though I'd sense the harsh grating outside my walls, I was locked
momentarily within the universe I created for myself, where pain and
suffering ceased to exist until the hurricane had passed. I remained in
its eye until it dissipated; until my will weakened; until my walls
shook with more violence.
I remember a night I wandered from my sanctuary. A feral cry for mercy
punctuated the tense air. It was the wailing of a boy my age-the boy
next door. I pressed my forearms over my ears, and tucked my body into
a tight ball. Yet I could see Anthony's figure through the dark veil of
my eyes. I could see everything as vivid as if I was there because I
have witnessed it many times before.
Anthony's head was being slammed against the wall. The large,
tar-blackened hands of his father held him up under his armpits, as
bloodied plaster chips fell to the linoleum floor.
Anthony's dad was deaf to his cries. The beatings were always brutal,
and his house would rumble with the violence. His father would only
stop when his rage was satiated, his arms quivering from
exhaustion.
Anthony's monster was a bald, 300-pound truck driver and ex-amateur
boxer. He hauled crude oil, dumping the pungent load into huge round
pools filled with the black sludge. He was always dressed in filthy
overalls and tar tracks soiled his entire house.
The screaming inevitably ceased, followed by sobs and moans.
Sometimes, Anthony would be kept from school for days or even weeks
until his bruises and cuts healed.
My step-dad didn't have the strength to lift me up and bang my head
against the wall. His mode of operation was to beat me exactly where I
stood. I never understood any other options, other than his quick
retribution for any transgression bearing upon the mind of the
monster.
I braced myself for a well-placed slap across the bridge of my nose.
His long, nicotine colored nails lacerated my eyelids, and blood mixed
with the sweat of fear burned my eyes. I thought of Anthony and
believed myself fortunate that I wasn't punctured through by the
monster's talons, or thrown down like a rag doll upon the kitchen
floor.
We eventually moved to a new city, a few miles from the smell of tar
and the traumatic screams that knifed through my bedroom walls. The
monster found a new place to continue his sport upon my mind and body.
The surroundings were new and improved, but the pain was the
same.
At twelve years old, the monster walked out of our door the same way
he came in, ingratiating and disingenuous. He begged my mother (who
suffered vicariously through my own) to let him stay, but the scars we
bore were tangible within the very air we breathed. They were jagged,
wretched marks that left their imprints in the pores and cells and
blood of our beings. His words stabbed and slashed at our souls and
parried with our attempts at love.
With great gradations, a molten heart snuffed out whatever feelings may
have existed for him, paving over any hope to revive it. We had learned
from him; we had become the callous instruments of pain; an
impenetrable pair of inured, yet unforgiving victims.
A few years later Anthony found rest from his dad's wrath. He hung
himself from a garage rafter. He was 14 years old. I remember reading
about it in the newspaper. His mother was quoted as saying it was an
accident. But I knew the truth. I had seen the bloodstains on the
walls. I had seen the swollen lips. I had seen the contusions around
his eyes. I had seen the broken skin on his thighs and buttocks. I
remember watching him pull broken teeth from his bloodied gums and
putting them under his pillow. But the Tooth Fairy never came. All
Anthony ever got was pain and misery.
I knew the truth of Anthony's death. I knew he put that rope around
his neck because he couldn't take another one of his dad's beatings. He
was hopelessly lost and alone and never experienced the loving hands of
a man. The only hands that ever graced his cheeks were hard with rage,
pummeling devices of hate and evil. The only soft voices of comfort
were his own as he tended to his wounds, assuring himself that his
guardian angel would awaken soon and make bearable the only life he
knew.
I was sure of Anthony's last thoughts in that garage before he ended
his life; only because we were recipient companions of acts of
violence, knitted together by crushed hopes. We shared the weight of
dejected cries, the helplessness of little boys in an adult
world.
Anthony's last thoughts wouldn't have been bitter or hateful. Before he
stepped off the ladder, a last flicker of thought rested on the hope
that after he was gone, his father might miss him.