In this chapter I want to talk about my relationship with my father falling apart. Basically, our final show down, and of course, it was over the woman he prioritized, constantly, instead of making his priority, his own flesh and blood.
Did any of you grow up in a home with divorced parents? Spend one week at moms, one week at dads? Well, up to that point, I only spent summers with my dad as he lived across the country. At first, they would drive me across country, my mom and him meeting halfway in the middle of their two states (five days of total driving, often featuring us all sleeping in the car). Later in life, they would rely on planes where I was afforded the much more efficient option of being flown out.
My mom never wanted to see my dad again, so she avoided interactions at every opportunity and intentionally lived far away from him. When it comes to broken homes, the dad is almost always superficial with his love. He often clearly has other priorities in life than you. The stepmom most always, deep down hates you, because you are the constant reminder that her husband was in a meaningful relationship before she was ever relevant. But she fakes her kindness because she wants the father to give her babies as well. Once she has those? Now she has him in lock, and she does not need to treat you well anymore. She becomes the evil stepmother the moment she pushes a human out of her vagina. To stepmoms, the original kids are just practice till she gets her own. It is a toxic mess.
My stepmom however never got kids of her own, her husband, got a vasectomy (as I heard) and apparently, there were no viable options for him to reproduce at that point. Maybe he couldn’t reverse it? Maybe his junk just didn’t work anymore? I don’t know.
Then you have the resentful mom, who is often pissed that the ex-husband moved on to some other woman (often very quickly). The original mom notices the estranged father barely acts like his own kids exist for weeks or months at a time. Leaving mommy with all the parenting while praying dad actually pays child support this time.
So… before I get into my dad’s blood pouring out of his face, soaking my white t-shirt in the back of his car, let’s talk about why it happened: A girl.
There was a girl in one of my classes, I was in 10th grade, and this brown haired, freckle-faced, pale skinned cute girl laughed at everything I would say in class. She was a preppy girl who was on the color guard team. I did not know what that was at the time, but I found out, it basically meant she spun different objects around and marched in a formation during football games as well as other events. Basically, she was a marching band member without an instrument.
So, this girl showed interest in me, and I had not considered her as a viable dating option till she started laughing at the things I said and smiled at me whenever I looked at her. My sigh of relief was this girl was actually hot and likable. I had no luck with ladies over the past few months, mostly because they either said insane things that made us an impossible prospect, or they straight up were not my cup of tea as far as their overall look and personality went. I was struggling to find someone normal, healthy, clean & genuine.
This girl? She had spunk, brushed her teeth, took showers, had clean clothes and I would later learn, she lived in the same neighborhood as me.
It did not take long for me to ask her out, and for her to say yes. Like my simple idiot self, I fell in love with her quick. I was finally able to go through the steps I went with my goth ex-girlfriend back home, only bonus, this girl was not a druggy or someone who casually slept with people. She was, despite being a prep, more like me than the goth girl I had loved so deeply.
She and I hung out a lot, we’d kiss innocently when we got the chance and generally had a normal functional relationship. We dated for weeks and one night she invited me over to her house to watch a movie. At her house I learned she was a foster kid, and she had a twin brother. The foster dad was super weird and kind of creepy. The brother was also weird, but I didn’t think much of it. Both of them had blonde spikey hair and wore glasses. The dad was kind of chubby and the brother was skinny/very short.
My girlfriend, her foster dad & I began watching “Enemy at The Gates” together. I stated prior that it was my favorite movie, which was a comment that didn’t sit well with the foster dad once the movie got to the slow, very sexual scene, where two of the main characters thrust into each other while trying not to wake anyone around them.
“This is your favorite movie huh?” the foster dad said as I sat next to his daughter, holding her hand on the couch in their basement. I brushed off the ridicule of my choice and tried to have a positive night regardless. I thought “People have sex in movies sometimes dude, get over it.” But… maybe he didn’t understand the concept of people having sex? Like, he was a foster dad, so? (I’m just implying there is a reason he didn’t have kids of his own… because I’m a certified asshole.)
I attended a football game where my girlfriend was set to perform. She wore a skintight purple and black outfit from her ankles to her neck. It was a gorgeous thing to wear and reminded me how feminine her figure was. Basically, I was with a girl who was muscular, but had a reasonable sized chest, great hips and was all around what I as a boy, was designed to reproduce with.
If you Google: Meryl Silverburgh, you’ll get a good idea of what my girlfriend looked like. Meryl Silverburgh just happens to be one of the first women I ever fell in love with. She is a video game character from Metal Gear Solid (remember, one of my favorite games of all time). She was strong, athletic, had a beautiful voice and was in love with me, Solid Snake. Perfect woman.
You may or may not be aware, but the primary life-mission of most every straight male on Earth, is to reproduce with straight females. Don’t argue with me, argue with science. You’re born, you bang, you die. It’s kind of the reason you and I exist, so, complain if you like, but you’re here because of this reality.
For most “breeders” like me, if you find a woman who looks like she can more than sufficiently carry your children, it’s a huge plus. If I stayed with my girlfriend at the time, we definitely would have had plenty of kids together down the line. We were a pairing that just made sense. In fact, later in life? I wound up having kids with someone who also had a muscular body, was heavy into physical activities (like color guard) had all the right parts and was similar to a different crush I had when I was younger: Chloe Sullivan from Smallville.
So, when I was very young, I loved Meryl Silverburgh, but wound up marrying another love of mine Chloe Sullivan. Cool. I consider that a huge win. Mind you, I married someone else before then, who wasn’t really similar to any dream girl I had in mind, but we’ll get to that later.
Despite most everything going right in the relationship with the girl who reminded me of Meryl, we still had a hiccup at one point. This is a big “go figure” moment. We were all sitting at a cafeteria table, with her friends (déjà vu). It was in the middle of lunch, and guess what happened? This time around, I was still the goth kid, but I wasn’t dating another goth surrounded by goth friends… she was instead, the normal, functional prep girl with all her normal undamaged prep friends. It was just like the incident I had on February 13th the year prior.
I tried to talk to my girlfriend, but she ignored me, and continued only listening to her friends at the table. I tried to get her attention again. She was sitting next to me, she could hear me, so why was she not responding? Feeling a flash of the same emotions I got with the other girl, I was floored. I stood up and walked away from the table. Just like that, she suddenly noticed me. As I walked away with my trench coat blowing from the breeze generated by my forward momentum I made storming out of there, she screamed “Greg! Wait!”. As I continued walking away, I threw my hand up in the air, displaying a prompt middle finger for her to see as I disappeared into a class hallway nearby.
I sat in front of my computer programming room door the remainder of our lunch break, finished the day, and went home, all without speaking to her.
That night my girlfriend called me on the phone and I wasn’t having it. I told her why I was upset, how I felt like I was nothing to her because she prioritized her preppy friends over me. I knew what was coming in life. I was to marry, have kids & settle down. Why did she not have the same general priorities as me?
For every idiot who thinks friends are more important than your significant other, answer this: Who do you spend most of your life with? Your friends, or the person you will live with: your spouse?
A lot of people wind up being single, or dating around, well into their 30’s and 40’s because they can’t sit down, look in the mirror and admit what the hell their priority should be. Do you want a family? Do you want grandchildren? Do you want a funeral full of loving family?
No, many folks these days just want to fool around with people and party with their friends, somehow denying their core programming and obvious reality. At some point, you have to grow up and say: “Oh shit, I’m a breeder. I should probably prioritize being a breeder, so I don’t wind up a miserable, lonely, cat lady.”
I have met so many people who say, “I want to settle down and have kids” and yet their life does not reflect that priority whatsoever. Then those same people say, “Bros before hoes!” and it’s like, dude? Do you want to have the life of a teenager at age 40? Or do you want to finally grow up, settle down, and raise a family? Even if you can’t have kids with your partner, you can adopt and settle down just the same, so what the hell are these people prioritizing in life? Inevitable loneliness? What happens when all your friends settle down? Then you’re just that weird guy, non-binary or girl who never got a family of their own… but at least you got to party right?
So, I told this girl that I felt I was not the priority in her life, and… she heard me. Like she actually listened to me, and understood my words, which felt great. My girlfriend asked me how she could prove that she cared more about me than she cared about her preppy friends and I picked the obvious answer. You can probably guess it if you stop and think for a while.
I straight up said to her “Dress goth for a day.” She replied laughing slightly under her breath “Um, I don’t have anything goth.” I replied, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, see you tomorrow.”
The next day before school started, I stood near the entrance of the school indoors and she found me right away. When I saw her, I could feel tears trying to form under my eyes. She nailed it. She turned herself completely goth, purple eye shadow, black lipstick, a dark outfit… what an honor. I had turned a preppy girl into a goth. I knew it was for only one day, but it was an incredible way to say to all those people “I am whoever I wish to be.” Or even better “I’m with whoever I wish to be.”. Naturally, we kissed right away, and our relationship was now better than ever. We didn’t have a negative moment between us from that point on.
Not long after we concluded it was time to take our relationship to the next level. My father was leaving town that weekend, which gave me my opportunity to invite her over. She was excited. My now 1% goth girlfriend was a virgin and wanted to lose it to me. I was once more, honored. I had lost my virginity to someone who was not a virgin, so I felt like I was finding balance. Receiving the honor I had once given to another.
It was time, the night had come. At around 9pm, she showed up to my house. Apparently, she had snuck out from her house and had to be back home a few hours later. I went to kiss her as she followed me in my room, but she stopped me and said “Wait, I have way too much energy, can I just, run around your house a few times to calm down?” I was weirded out a little, but in a funny way. I had a condom, and I was emotionally ready to go right then and there, but she was not quite where I was yet, so, I replied “Yeah, whatever you need to do.” She smiled, nodded, and disappeared downstairs while I waited in my bedroom thinking “She sure is strange.”
After a short while, she came back up, still breathing slightly heavy from running her energy out. I laid her on my bed, and we started kissing intensely then slowly, then deeply and so on.
I had finished and she was in a surreal state it seemed. She had taken in the moment and had a calm smile on her face.
The thing is, I wanted to go again, but I only had one condom. Naturally because I was in love with her and had plenty of unprotected sex with my last girlfriend, I was more than happy to go unprotected with my current girlfriend as well.
While on top of her still, I asked her softly “Do you want me to take it off and go again?” She nodded with her eyes closed, smiling ever so slightly and so? I did exactly that. We had sex two times that night, and after we cuddled in my room for an hour or so, she went home.
Something she talked to me about later was the purple light in my room. I liked it dark there, so in the ceiling fan, I had nothing but purple lights, and the whole time we had sex, the whole time we cuddled, everything was purple. She said she would stare at the purple lights, just taking in the moments she had with me, and… thanks to my abominable stepmother, that would unfortunately be the last time I’d sleep with my girlfriend.
Yeah… life… it can be rough for a semi-problematic teenager like I was. Especially when faced with the cliché bitch stepmother situation.
The next weakened, I had planned to have my girlfriend over again, to continue making my heart explode with happiness and to see my girlfriend, yet again, content/smiling blissfully after we made love. I made plans with her, she was happy to come back again, and we both talked all week about how great it was to be together. Basically, the whole relationship was awesome, and everything felt perfect. Literally, perfect.
But guess what happened come that Friday? My stepmom decided to include a requirement that I go on a RANDOM long-ass trip to Tennessee.
My idiot inconsiderate cackling turkey if a stepmom didn’t ask me if I had any plans because as you remember, I was “family” not a “guest” which I guess means you can treat others like their priorities are irrelevant.
As I understood, they were in fact supposed to be leaving that weekend, hence, my girlfriend being invited over again. But no one had said where they were going, or that I was to go with. I had clearly understood that I was not to go on any trip with them, just like the weekend prior, as it had been approved for me to not go with them by my dad. But the wife? She had other plans.
So, after sadly letting my girlfriend know the weekend plan wasn’t happening, I hopped in the car and began blasting my Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie & Nine Inch Nails music on my headphones. My dad was driving, and my stepmom was once again, not driving, and before we even got in the car, as usual, she refused to open her own door, because she is, quite effortlessly, a stupid useless potato-looking swamp-dwelling quadra-bitch.
There we were, driving down the long highway. My father was getting increasing irritated by my music being blasted on my headphones. One song that came on, by Nine Inch Nails screamed “God is dead, and no one cares… if there is a hell, I’ll see you there”. A direct attack on my father’s religion.
I was listening to it so loud that everyone in the car had to listen to it. That’s what you get when you force me to be away from the current “love of my life”. If you’re going to go out of your way to prevent me from holding my other half, I at least get to listen to my favorite music on blast.
As we drove through Kentucky, my father tried to say something to me, and I, in response, presented him with my middle finger. He shouted, “What is your problem!?” loud enough for me to hear it over my current song. I took off my headphones, now blasting “Dragula” by Rob Zombie and said, “My problem is your fucking bitch wife.”
My dad went silent. He took the next exit. He pulled over at a run-down gas station on a massive rundown cement lot. He unbuckled his seatbelt… and violently threw his body between the two seats in front of me, to establish a strong and unforgettable choking hold on my neck.
The nearly 200lb man, pushed into my neck and my brain, naturally, began to get fried? I don’t remember what he was saying to me while choking me, I do however remember his saliva hitting my face as he said it. I also remember what I said, I had, while I was choking, warned him that if he didn’t stop choking me, I would fight back.
I warned my father, choking the whole time, that I was going to fight him, so I would not lose consciousness, if he did not stop choking me.
My warnings were partially muffled, as while you’re being choked and yelled at to the extent where saliva is hitting your face, it can be hard to communicate at the highest efficiency level.
My father didn’t care that I was having difficulty talking due to how much pressure he was putting on my neck. And his wife seemed completely fine with him actively assaulting a boy less than half his age, like I said, she’s not a nice person. She just pretended to be on the surface.
So, in this predicament, what did I do? Well, I was on my back, and he was close quarters, really close. Throwing punches at him wouldn’t get him off my neck. I needed to breathe, and I was desperate.
Right before I left my mom’s house, you remember from previous chapters, I had pushed my mom off me using my feet in response to her striking me with a massive flashlight. This time my father was on top of me, choking me with half his body in the front of his car, half of it back, with me.
Without further warning as I had already told him what was going to happen multiple times, I proceeded to pulling up my right foot, wrapped in a black combat boot, and proceeded to pushing and kicking him off of me using the same amount of violence he showed me.
I had kicked him in the face, the neck, and the chest. In that moment, my father learned very quickly, I wasn’t like my other family members. I wouldn’t be touched in any unwanted way and not immediately beat the shit out of him. At least… not in that moment (as he later continued to abuse me, but had me hostage, as if I fought back, it was clear I’d be arrested).
My father had no idea my legs had so much power. I remember the sound of his body slamming against the dashboard of his car as I continued to kick him in front of his God-loving, uppity white dork of a wife.
After quite a few kicks, I had assumed that was enough. I thought that my father would not try to choke me again, so I stopped kicking. But did he also stop? Yeah, no.
My father, pretty quickly recovered, got out of the car, walked to the door immediately behind his, opened it up, and put me in a god damn choking hold yet again. Are you fucking serious right now?
I was out of plays. I had already kicked the shit out of him, and now his wife was opening the other door to grab my boots so she could take them off.
As my father continued to choke me, now bleeding all over my white shirt, his wife struggled to figure out how to untie my shoes. I was wiggling my feet around intentionally to make it difficult for her. I know, it’s a pathetic sight if you think about me being choked by my dad, as he was bleeding on me on one end, and her trying to remove my boots, my feet wiggling around, on the other end… but, reality is sometimes just like that. Ridiculous.
The blood pouring from my father’s face was a bit much for him at some point. He was getting his own blood in his eyes and had to step back away from the car to wipe his face with his own shirt because his blood was impairing his ability to see the 15-year-old son he was actively abusing.
When my father went to wipe his face, that was my opportunity to run. It was my only option considering I had already beat him up, and he was still coming at me. I didn’t want to harm him beyond repair, and I already did so much damage, so running was all I had left.
I ran behind the gas station, soaked in his blood (it’s amazing how much you bleed when someone really kicks your ass) and it occurred to me: “I have nowhere to go.”
So? I just found a curb and sat on it. I contemplated my life, I felt like it was over. I began to crumble. The tears exploded out of me, and I started crying, then sobbing, hysterically.
Eventually, I looked up to see if they were trying to find me, and I saw a police car driving around the massive lot about 800 meters away. The cop car seemed quite confused in its movement pattern. Then I saw my dad shout at the cop car and point to me. The betrayal just kept coming.
When the cops came over to me, they asked me what happened, as I sat there, still crying.
My brain was at the peak of being scrambled. You could say I had memory loss or was confused from the trauma. You could say that my adrenaline was so high that I couldn’t think clearly. You could say because I was a teenager who was highly emotional at the time, that I wasn’t able to communicate or recite the prior events. Whatever your explanation was, I couldn’t communicate to the cops what had really happened. I could not communicate coherently or reasonably whatsoever. So? I was arrested based on how it looked, based on how illogical my own scrambled words were and possibly based on whatever my dad said. I wound up in cuffs, instead of my father.
Did he stop them? Tell, them what really happened? No. Did his wife? Of course not. They let me go to jail, and played victim, even to this day.
My father, accused by multiple women in my family of molesting them. Accused of molesting a child. Someone who had already lied to my face, and would lie many times more, a certified child abuser… he watched his son get hauled away and didn’t stop it, all right after he repeatedly physically assaulted the same boy, causing the retaliation.
My father went on to say that he had done literally nothing. He actually thought it was a believable statement to say that I “just started punching” him for no reason. He said that to my cousin, who later told me. This message was shared with my cousin because he was the one who lived in Tennesse. I guess they continued the weekend trip without me. Classic.
Later my father switched his story and claimed he had done something. He now stated he had put his hand on my shoulder to settle me down. And even later in a documentary, my father said he had “shaken” me, but not choked me (by the way, shaking someone is assault, so even then, he admitted to some level of assault). He did however, also on camera, say that he probably wanted to choke me at the time. In other words, he changed his story three times, all while insisting I was 17 and not 15.
The problem? My birth certificate, my juvenile records, and my college records. If you ever need to certify that my dad is a stone-cold liar, all you have to do is look at the fact that I was in college, in Washington state, when I was 17. So, I could not have been living with him. Then look at my juvenile hall records, and it states I was in fact 15, and that the incident occurred on a date 15 years after my birth.
In other words: My father excessively and violently attacked a 15-year-old boy, all because the teenager called his wife a name, and then repeatedly changed his story to cover up the fact, that he is a certified child abuser.
What kind of idiot, lies? What kind of idiot, not only lies, but also does so about an incident that can be proven as contradictory to your own statements?
What is it like, being a certified, undeniable, liar?
And yet, he still had custody of me.
What came next, will be covered in the following chapter.