The last post was one of the most painful yet as it’s forced me to re-evaluate everything about my childhood and youth. For all these years I’ve comforted myself with the knowledge that whatever else went wrong, and so much did, I had parents who loved and cherished me, who saved me from the worst of my excesses. Now that comfort lies in tatters as a more objective view than mine has come forward.
Much as I hate to think of it as the “wicked step-father” principal this uncertainty only came into my life when I was 12 and after a gap of 8 years got my new Daddy. At first everything was just about perfect and he so obviously wanted a son, the fact that his first wife hated children was why he got divorced, but thinking back we did a lot of “boy stuff” in the early days. He took me to my first professional football match (Portsmouth v Huddersfield at Fratton Park), taught me how to chop a tree down with a felling axe, without chopping bits off myself, building our model railway things like that. His only involvement with my music was to ensure that I did my hour of practice every night but that was more about being responsible and disciplined. By the time I was 15 it was clear that he didn’t consider music a proper career choice for a boy even though all my music teachers were convinced that I had the talent to be successful at it.
Not long after the row I spoke about yesterday I’d had enough and decided to run away from home. Getting out was easy even though I was officially gated (grounded), out of my bedroom window onto the porch and a short jump to the front garden. I’d already decided where I was going, London of course and it was pretty obvious how I’d get by. At my age and with what people insisted were good looks I wouldn’t have too much trouble finding “paid employment”. I’d gone almost 5 miles, nearly to Haslemere where I’d be able to hitch a lift, when 2 police cars and our car got me cornered. Clambering over a nearby gate and running across a field didn’t help, they were all a lot fitter than me and I was brought down in moments. Apart from a telling off from the sergeant the police were satisfied with a job well done and vanished leaving me to face a furious father who didn’t speak one word to me all the way home.
The punishment was long, painful and more humiliating than anything I’d ever suffered and after that I was banned from leaving the house except for school and my Saturday job, that went on for the rest of the term. Even then I convinced myself that it was a form of “tough love” now I’m less certain.
Love
It’s rather telling that you ran from both the police and your step father don’t you think? I am glad they did catch you and bring you home though. Why? Well you wouldn’t have lasted long on the streets, and we would have missed knowing a truly wonderful person.
Your step dad was a total shit, but you are a complete love, and it was to his loss that he missed knowing the wonderful person you are.
kisses
Biki
Yeah, I know you’re right, to be honest I knew I was way to sensitive to survive life as a rent boy or working in porn. You can see why this is getting painful now, I’ve taken the blame for all this crap since I was a kid and now most of what I believed in has to be re-evaluated. Kind of funny looking back, scrawny little 16 year old being chased across a field by about 5 big, strong men. Took 2 of them to hold me down at first, I couls squirm like hell when I wanted to get away.
My father went to one Parents’ Evening at my grammar school when I was eleven (it was not the custom for me to go too). When he came home he more or less disowned my education, saying that he’d never been so humiliated (how did he think I felt at school each day?) and was never going back to that school again. How I wished that I could have said that too!
So I don’t know which was worse: having a father who ignored everything to do with his son’s education or progress for seven years or having your sort of step-dad who wanted to own, control and manipulate.
Parent’s evenings! Same thing at my school, an opportunity for teachers to bitch about us and no way for us to defend ourselves. That’s another story I’ll be telling soon. To be honest I don’t know which of us got the shittiest end of that stick, a happy medium would have been nice for both of us eh?
* sigh *
I have to agree with Biki. Even though you probably didn’t appreciated it then, ‘caught’ and brought back was probably for the best. What’s out there for a young teen, on his own? It’s a recipe for disaster.
However I truly understand the mechanisms behind the decision to try run away from it all. The frustration, the feeling of being cornered and without options, no one understands, no one listens… everything is just too much. But seriously, how do you outrun THAT?
I believe most of us has run away at least once, for various reasons. Me too. And I’ve tried to outrun the cops too, didn’t work. At all!! My escape didn’t solve anything, it just made my mess even worse… and when I got picked up and taken home, it didn’t feel that great as I had expected. No victory in there for me at all, it was just humiliating.
Love
Daniel
Daniel
You are, of course, absolutely right. If I’d made it to London and disappeared it’s unlikely that I’d be sitting here writing this blog, to be blunt it’s unlikely that I’d still be alive. You’re absolutely right about my notives though, nobody was listening to me, nobody cared and I was trapped in a form of hell, running seemed to be the only answer.
Humiliation, that’s what they count on I think. One of the things I didn’t mention was being made to sit down and write a letter of apology to the police and my father insisted on reading and altering before it went in the post. All designed to make me feel as foolish and childish as possible.