Chapter 6: The Gun Incident

Let’s talk about the ‘gun’ incident. To say my mother’s husband is a shithead is a drastic understatement…more on that later. I want to speak about a specific incident that took place when I was in high school.  I hated High school. I wasn’t bullied by anyone, per se, but the way I was treated at home made me take everything personally.  More on that later as well. I loved basketball.  Playing, watching, reading—anything I could get my hands on. That said, we played a LOT of hoop. We didn’t drink, we didn’t do drugs, or even smoke. My idiot mother and her fuckhead husband could not be convinced otherwise.  They were under the impression that I was a delinquent when the only thing we did wrong, was to go to a closed park and play BBall in the dark or to trespass at the church on south Mattis, again, to play basketball at their lighted court. I had a curfew- 2300 in the summer. Sometimes assface was awake glutting himself on Old Style and Nick at Night, sometimes he was in bed. Regardless, I was always home on time. Even still, I’d get woken up in the morning specifically to get screamed at for ‘SNEAKING AROUND THE GODDAMN HOUSE! AND IF YOU DON’T LIKE MY GODDAMN SWEARING THAT’S JUST TOO GODDAMN BAD”. That was his mantra. Billy badass yelling & screaming and beating up at a 15-year-old kid-of course this started when I was 11…but continued throughout.  He’d wake me in the morning just to tell me he didn’t want me ‘sneaking around the house ‘....even though I supposedly lived there. He’d also make sure to tell me what piece of shit I was. He was always telling me that I didn’t matter, that my thoughts were unimportant, and that no one cared about me or what I had to say. Every. Fucking. Morning. From the time that cocksucker moved in, until the day I moved out.  Anyway, this bitch KNEW I was always home at 11:00 pm on the button.  It was demanded that come in the front door because coming in the side door which, by the way, opened DIRECTLY into my bedroom was considered ‘sneaky’. On this night,  I was coming in the front door as usual. I hear dipshit moving around then I see him come out of their bedroom in his robe- with a motherfucking shotgun. He pointed it at me and we made eye contact –for about two minutes we stood there with direct eye contact until I looked at the clock, me with my hands up and his stupid ass holding me at gunpoint.  He KNEW it was me but I seriously think he was considering shooting me and claiming he thought I was a burglar.  Mind you, it was 11:00 pm ON THE BUTTON. IF he hadn’t stood there-for what seemed like an eternity- for 4 minutes (I was watching the clock on the bookshelf) I COULD have seen this as a mistake.  PLUS the next morning, as usual, he wakes me up - to yell at me- and to make sure to tell me ‘your mother doesn’t need to know about this’.  I never told anyone about this.. even now my hands are shaking and my pulse is about 130.  I knew she probably wouldn’t believe me (I’ll remind you what a liar she is so that's her default- to think SHES being lied to) or, more likely, she wouldn’t do anything about it. I’m sure even though he was blackout drunk, he knew he fucked up. I wish I had the strength to have moved out much, much sooner.  I asked my mother the next day if I could go live in Chicago with my Grandmother and my Uncle, but ‘she didn’t want me exposed to that sort of environment’. Instead, I was forced to stay in that fucking house with her fucking cocksucker husband. Coming out with a gun and holding someone at gunpoint for 15 seconds is a mistake.  4 minutes is deliberate. I started to sleep with a knife under my pillow….