THE TIP OF THE BRIMSTONE - PART 5
TIMELINE OF ABUSE – PART FOUR
1984
My Grade Six teacher was ‘Mr McMalleus’, again. It was another composite
class of kids from Grade Five and Six. That year was the beginning of a living
hell far worse than that I’d previously endured. It started badly. ‘Patroclus’,
‘Lilith’s’ Labrador, had become so blind, deaf and cantankerous that his car
chasing had resulted in being run over, multiple times. Some drivers went out
of their way to hit him. ‘Lilith’ had him put down. She got a new dog. And a
cat. It had kittens. The new dog ate most of them. ‘Lilith’ beat the dog with a
stick for a good five minutes and then tied it to the clothes line without food
or water for three days. I had snuck a bowl of water to him on the second day
but ‘Micha’ told ‘Lilith’ and she thrashed me with the wooden hearth brush she
kept by the fire. It was something I remember well because she hit my right
wrist with one strike, right on the end of the bone on the little finger side.
It sent a jarring pain right up into my elbow and hurt like crazy for weeks.
‘Sharleen’, ‘Lilith’s’ mother, got me a pet rabbit for my birthday. She had
always made an effort for my birthday because she knew what ‘Lilith’ was doing
to me. But that year her memory started to go. She had early onset dementia.
Turns out it was caused by a brain tumour, but it’d be years before anybody
realised the cause and, by then, it was too late. That year was the last time
‘Sharleen’ made me a birthday cake, or even remembered my birthday at all.
It was the mid-year holidays when ‘Lilith’ met ‘Bull Shyte’. He was a
government employee who was tasked with testing cattle for Brucellosis. He came
to test some of Miss ‘Yabb’s’ animals, and then ‘Edward’ and ‘Sharleen’s’.
‘Edward’ had worked for Miss ‘Yabb’ for years. She had never married and was
very old. Her brother had been a soldier during the war and had been given land
on [DELETED] Road as part of the resettlement package when he returned. He
eventually moved to [DELETED] and sold his farm to ‘Edward’ and ‘Sharleen’ in
1962. So ‘Micha’ and I were there when ‘Bull’ came to do the job. He wasn’t a
very pleasant person, and he was incredibly cruel with a short temper and
limited intellect. ‘Lilith’ took an instant liking to him. Actually, she took
an instant liking to all the money she mistakenly believed he had. He had
travelled to the United States and Canada a few years earlier. His father was
‘Jack Shyte’, a former Mayor of [DELETED] who owned farming land on the
[DELETED] River in [DELETED]. The land had been rich with silt until the
[DELETED] Lakes had been opened up and the salt water flooded in. But then its
borders were being lost to the salt. But from the way ‘Bull’ talked, he and his
parents had money, and lots of it. ‘Lilith’ moved in on her new target.
Within the first week of dating, ‘Bull’ had started getting physical
with me. He thought it was funny to shove me around or hit me in the head.
‘Lilith’ would laugh. When he realised what ‘Lilith’ was doing to me, and how
she wouldn’t stop him, his aggression got worse. ‘Lilith’s’ father gave ‘Bull’
one of the Kelpies he had trained, a dog called ‘Pal’. It was considered
one of the best in the State. Within the space of three months the dog was
incapable of following instructions. ‘Bull’ didn’t use it properly. He’d scream
incoherently at it instead of using its training. Eventually the dog was good
for nothing. ‘Bull’ set it on the pet rabbit ‘Sharleen’ had given me, just to
watch the dog tear it to pieces. He liked hurting things. One time he shoved
his ferrets into a cage with a turkey just to watch them kill it. Another time
he went out to shoot Galah’s because it made him laugh when they exploded in a
puff of pink feathers. He’d often brutalise sheep and leave them wandering
around on one or two broken legs for days until they could no longer move, then
shoot them with one of his rifles from a distance to see if the scope was
accurate. He lived with his parents. He was forty-two and had never been
married or lived on his own. My ‘chores’ now extended to acting as a domestic
servant for ‘Bull’ as well as ‘Lilith’ and ‘Micha’. I buried the rabbit beside
the garage, in a shoe box, on my own. ‘Micha’ didn’t seem to notice. ‘Lilith’
and ‘Bull’ had laughed about it.
‘Bull’ was friends with Mr ‘McMalleus’ and another teacher at the
school, Mr ‘Moron’. Mr ‘Moron’ had been suspended after multiple incidents of
assaulting the kids in his class. And when I say assault, I mean physically
hitting and throwing kids. The ‘McMalleus’ family were Catholic, as far as I
could tell, and so were the ‘Shyte’s’. ‘Lilith’ claimed she had been
excommunicated from the Catholic Church after she and ‘Claud’ had divorced.
Then again, she also said he had refused to grant her a divorce. He said the
same thing about her, using it as an excuse not to marry whichever woman he was
dating at the time. ‘Claud’ had a lot of girlfriends. Every time I’d spent time
with him he was with a different woman, sometimes dropping one off and picking
another one up within the hour. They were always about the same age, no older
than late twenties. But ‘Lilith’ didn’t have that luxury. She was close to
thirty at the time and had decided ‘Bull’ was her ticket to an income without
working and a potentially lucrative inheritance from his parents. ‘Lilith’
started sending ‘Micha’ and me off to the [DELETED] Catholic Church so we could
undergo Confirmation. Every Saturday it was off to Confession to “beg
forgiveness for all the wicked sins you’ve committed that force me and ‘Bull’
to punish [brutalise] you” and generally make my life a living hell. On
Sunday’s it was off to Church so they could look like super-Christians despite
the hypocrisy of the behaviour they didn’t let the congregation see. ‘Bull’
was, at the time, one of the so-called Knights of the Southern Cross, some
little cult within the cult that elevated him above everyone else. If
hypocrisy, brutality inflicted on children and rampant stupidity were key
criteria to enter those ranks, ‘Bull’ was clearly overqualified.
‘Bull’ and ‘Lilith’ decided to go camping. They were going to Point Hicks,
up on the coast near Orbost. I’d been there once before when I was very small.
‘Lilith’ had taken ‘Micha’ and me there with ‘Peter’ when she dated him. I had
asked to go back for years. ‘Bull’ and ‘Lilith’ took ‘Micha’ and me there
earlier in the year. Normally I hated picnics and trips out with them. ‘Bull’
use to use his “fil-em” camera to record things. One time ‘Lilith’ had put
tomato in a sandwich for me. She knew I hated the stuff. But it was a trap I
didn’t see coming until too late. I took it out and when I thought she wasn’t
looking I turned around and threw it into the bush and bracken behind the
table. But ‘Lilith’ had been waiting for that. She slapped me across the side
of the face from behind so hard my ear was ringing. I couldn’t hear properly
for about ten minutes, my face felt swollen and hot, stinging and making my
eyes water with the pain. “You horrible little bastard!” ‘Lilith’ had screamed.
“You threw that at me on purpose! You always try to ruin everything, you little
shit!” ‘Bull’ had recorded the whole incident, grinning maliciously. I remember
the spittle dribbling from the corner of his mouth. He seemed to get off on
hurting small animals and children. “Are ya gunna cry, ya gutless little wimp?”
He said. Then ‘Bull’, ‘Lilith’ and ‘Micha’ had all laughed.
After another picnic a few weeks later, they took ‘Micha’ and the picnic
stuff back to the car and made me wait at the table. It was out in a paddock
off the road between [DELETED] and [DELETED]. The picnic table was made of rough-cut
timber logs and surrounded by bush. It had taken a few minutes to walk from the
car to the area, and it seemed strange that I should have to wait, but I knew
the penalty for not doing as I was told. They left about half-past-one. I sat
there until it dusk. I didn’t have a jumper or water or anything to eat. They
hadn’t come back. I thought about going to look for the car but if I did then
‘Lilith’ and ‘Bull’ would punish me. So I sat and waited. At dusk they came
back. It had been about three hours. They had looked unhappy, even frustrated
to see me there. So I really didn’t like day-trips or camping with them.
Actually, I didn’t like being anywhere near them at all.
But that trip to Point Hicks ended prematurely when a bunch of
hippy-throwbacks had rounded a corner and smashed the front of the car in. They
handed over a wad of cash and left. The back of their car, according to
‘Lilith’, was filled with marijuana plants. So ‘Lilith’ and ‘Bull’ had decided
to reschedule the camping trip. They took ‘Micha’ and sent me to Portsea on a
camp organised for kids during the school holidays. Kids from all over the
State were going. I didn’t want to go. “You want puttin’ in the army!” ‘Bull’
would often scream at me, barely coherent. He accused me of being lazy, weak,
and having a high pitched voice. “You have book work hands,” he’d say, “yer
only fit fer women’s work!” He never did domestic tasks. He never cleaned up
after himself either. That was, according to him, “women’s work.” ‘Micha’
quickly adopted the same attitudes. ‘Micha’ even used the same phrases.
‘Lilith’s’ father didn’t do those things, so ‘Micha’ decided that since ‘Bull’
didn’t either, real men didn’t do those jobs, which meant he didn’t have to do
them either.
Nobody I knew was going to that camp. It was two weeks of hell. The guy
that had organised my stay kept the $5 spending money ‘Lilith’ had to give him
for me. The only way to avoid the bullying by bigger kids was to buy them
lollies. I had no money. I spent the days on my own, hiding whenever I could. A
lot of the other kids did the same. It got worse. There must have been about
three hundred or more kids at the camp, and one day we were all rounded up and
forced to strip down to our underwear for a medical examination. We were all
marched, one by one, into a room with a doctor and nurse who took our blood
pressure, listened to our hearts, checked our vision and hearing, and then
shoved their hands down our pants and fondled us with the instruction to “turn
your head and cough”. That test went on for a while. I remember them taking
blood too. To this day I have no idea why they needed to give us that medical
examination. One day the dorm supervisor where I was assigned started talking
to all of the boys in his dorm about sex and how good it felt. Then he asked
all of us to strip down to our underwear and started massaging us, one after
the other, with oil. I didn’t hang about and let him do that to me. I snuck off
and grabbed my stuff before sneaking out to one of the dorms that wasn’t being
used. Nobody noticed I’d gone. Nobody looked for me. A few days later, when the
buses came to take us home, I got on. Again, nobody noticed I’d been missing
for the last few days.
When ‘Lilith’ asked me what had happened, I told her. I had learned,
after years of conditioning, that failing to tell ‘Lilith’ what she wanted to
hear would result in physical violence or days without food if she found out
I’d kept something from her. She screamed abuse at me and told me I was a
“filthy little bastard” and to never, ever talk or think about sex again. When
she was done, ‘Lilith’ dragged me down to a local burger store where the dorm
supervisor worked or frequented (I’ve never been sure which) and confronted him
in front of everybody there. He tried to deny what he’d done, at first, but
eventually ran out of the store. ‘Lilith’ threatened to go to the police. She
never did. I often wonder what happened to the other boys. I don’t feel much
sympathy for them. They bullied me and a lot of other kids. The year after that
camp, a sea-mine was found buried in the beach we had all walked along, a thing
dating back to the Second World War. The whole section was cordoned off and it
was detonated, leaving a huge crater.
1985
Mr ‘Dullson’ was my Year Seven home-room teacher. ‘Lilith’ sent me to
[DELETED] College on the west side of [DELETED]. It was located across the
farm-land at the end of [DELETED] Street. A lot of kids rode bikes or walked
down the street to the dirt track at the end that ran alongside the caravan
park to the highway, then followed it to the school entrance. The decision made
my last year of Primary School particularly hard. When it was discovered that I
was not going to the high school across the road from the primary school I’d
attended, the kids I had thought of as friends turned on me. I became a target
for vicious attacks. The start of the last term began with two of my “friends”
holding an arm each, pulling in opposite directions, while a third hurled an
apple into by back from a few feet away. The pain was excruciating. It felt
like someone had run a cattle-prod into my spine. There was a vicious stab of
pain and then my legs just wouldn’t work. I dropped like a stone and they
stomped on my head and ribs for a while, then left, laughing. It took about
five minutes before I could walk again, and the bruise it left ached for days.
The teachers told me to “get over it”.
[DELETED] College wasn’t much better. I came from a low socio-economic
family while most of the other kids came from wealth. I was also very small,
underweight, and covered in bruises. Since all the boys had to strip naked and
shower in a large, open bathroom after gym, with teachers watching to make sure
we did, my physical condition was obvious. I became an easy target. ‘Bull’ and
‘Lilith’ had married the previous year but ‘Lilith’s’ plans to find a patsy to
work while she stayed at home and did nothing didn’t last. She’d quit her job
as a District Nurse soon after she got married. She had managed to get it after
several years working on the wards. It had allowed her day-shift hours rather
than random shifts, and freed her from needing to rely on Mrs ‘Stain’. She was
pregnant. She spent her days just as she had in [DELETED]: smoking two packets
of Alpine Fresh a day, drinking litres of coffee while she read trashy romance
pulp fiction, then a cardboard cask of Coolabah Moselle wine each night. Life
was a living hell. ‘Lilith’ would invent all manner of lies to tell ‘Bull’ when
he got back to the house, claims of my horrible behaviour and disrespect that
resulted in beatings. ‘Bull’ didn’t bother with implements, he just used his
fists. ‘Lilith’ seemed to enjoy watching the abuse. She’d stand back with a
malicious grin, her eyes alight with a malevolent light.
‘Lilith’ found it difficult to move while she was pregnant. She put on a
lot of weight when she was pregnant, and never bothered to lose it. Her
lifestyle choices also had disastrous repercussions. ‘Lara A’, the baby, was
born three months early. She was tiny and almost died several times. She and
‘Lilith’ had to be moved to Melbourne and stay in some hospital there for
several weeks. I don’t remember the name of the place. The city was too big and
made me feel ill. Everything was too close and there were too many people.
‘Bull’ took us to visit a couple of times and we stayed at ‘Warner
Darbyshyte’s’ (not sure of the spelling) place. He had gone to boarding school
with ‘Bull’. ‘Warner’ was a bank manager with a wife and two daughters who
looked as malnourished, pale, gaunt and undersized as their mother. While he
ate steak and vegetables at dinner, they each got one sausage and half a
potato. It was an attitude he and ‘Bull’ shared. While we were in the city,
‘Bull’ got himself two large McDonalds meals for lunch. ‘Micha’ and I were
given a packet of six McNuggets to share. ‘Bull’ ate three of them. ‘Micha’ got
two. That was the kind of person ‘Bull’ was. He didn’t seem that concerned
about ‘Lilith’ or ‘Lara A’ either. Instead, ‘Bull’ spent a lot of the time
during those visits in the TAB while ‘Micha’ and I waited in the car.
‘Bull’s’ parents wanted to be closer to ‘Lara’, their latest grandchild.
They agreed to let ‘Lilith’ and their son have the vacant house-block next to
their home. [DELETED] Street, [DELETED], had been their orchard for decades.
Backing onto it and ‘Bull’s’ parent’s home on the corner, [DELETED] Street, was
the home of one of ‘Bull’s’ sisters and her husband. They had a number of kids
but they never really made any effort to spend time with me or ‘Micha’, and
none of ‘Bull’s’ relatives liked ‘Lilith’. Still, the old orchard was pulled up
and [DELETED] contracted to build a new home, but their incompetence
became a problem. They demanded regular payments but didn’t start construction
until almost six months after the start date, well after the time ‘Lilith’ and
‘Bull’ were meant to move in.
As a result, ‘Lilith’ and ‘Bull’ had to renegotiate the move-out time
for [DELETED] Street. They had sold it to ‘Ranald’, Mrs ‘Stain’s’ son, and left
a three month window from the build start date. ‘Ranald’ worked at the labs
where ‘Bull’ delivered blood samples, opposite the entrance to [DELETED]
Street. He agreed, according to ‘Lilith’, to let them stay for three additional
months if the sales price they had settled on from $120,000 to $60,000. It
seems ridiculous now, but at the time he knew they were desperate. But after
the three additional months, [DELETED] had only just started. ‘Lilith’ was able
to find another place to stay. Mr ‘Yabb’, the brother of Miss ‘Yabb’ and former
owner of ‘Edward’ and ‘Sharleen’s’ farm, had died. Miss ‘Yabb’ agreed to let
‘Lilith’ and ‘Bull’ move in and pay rent until the property was sold three
months later. The place was creepy.
Mr ‘Yabb’ had died in the bath. ‘Lilith’ said it had been a couple of
days before someone checked on him. ‘Lilith’ insisted I be the first to use the
bath. Needless to say, I really didn’t want to do that. I was outside, in the backyard
at the time. ‘Lilith’ didn’t like me being in the house unless there were
chores that needed to be done. Rain, hail or shine, outside was where I had to
be. She had blamed me for the premature arrival of ‘Lilith’. According to her,
my behaviour had caused the early onset of labour. ‘Micha’ was a very
aggressive, domineering child. He liked to pick fights and bully others, and I
was an easy target. ‘Lilith’ rewarded him for telling her things I’d done that
required physical punishment. Most of the allegations were untrue, but ‘Micha’
liked the rewards. I rarely spoke, let alone argued with ‘Micha’. There was no
point. He was only ten but would bully me and do his best to cause friction in
the hope of being rewarded; I tried to ignore him, keep to myself and just do
what I was told as much as I could. At the time I had no real will of my own. I
felt lonely, unhappy and hungry all the time. My only desire was to go and live
with my grandparents at [DELETED] or [DELETED], I didn’t care which as long as
it was away from ‘Lilith’, ‘Bull’ and ‘Micha’. In my darker moments I
considered suicide, just to escape. Apparently, I was suffering from the early
stages of depression. But ‘Lilith’ made sure I knew that ‘Lara’ and her close
brush with death was my fault. She didn’t once consider maybe her excessive
consumption of cigarettes, coffee, alcohol and food was the cause.
So that day, in the back yard of [DELETED] Street, ‘Lilith’ found me.
“Everyone is waiting for you to have a bath so they can use the bathroom,”
she’d sneered at me, “now get in there and use it, you stupid little bastard!”
I told her someone else could use it before me. She snapped, as she so often
did, without warning. She grabbed a fist full of my hair and dragged me over to
the garden tap, then she snatched up the garden hose, making a loop, and laid
into me with it. She was screaming at me about how much she hated me, how I’d
ruined her life and was like ‘Claud’, but I don’t remember the exact words. Try
getting flogged with a garden hose with a nutter screaming abuse at you and see
what you remember. I remember screaming in pain and her laughing. She didn’t
drool when she beat me, like ‘Bull’ did, but she’d get a hungry, excited look
in her eye and a vicious smile on her face. That was the last day I ever cried.
I stopped screaming and tried to remain silent. ‘Lilith’ got even angrier,
frustrated, and laid into me even harder, but I wouldn’t give her the pleasure
and she eventually gave up and stormed inside. The street had gone quiet. There
were no sounds for a while, but nobody came to help. Nobody ever came to stop
her or help me. ‘Bull’ came out after a few minutes and grabbed me by the neck.
He dragged me into the bathroom and threw me into the bath before turning the
cold tap on and smashing his fist into my face.
And if the year’s violence had ended there, I’d have been fortunate, but
it was only mid-year. Three months after moving in, ‘Lilith’ and ‘Bull’ moved
into the new house. There were structural problems [DELETED] promised to fix
but never did. Sometime around then ‘Bull’s’ father got cancer and died. I
don’t really remember dates that well. The days blurred. The routine was always
the same. Get up and do laundry. Put it on the line. Eat if ‘Bull’ and ‘Micha’
let me. ‘Lilith’ always slept in until around Noon, but stayed up until
midnight drinking until she passed out. I’d change ‘Lara A’ and give her bottle
then off to school. After school I’d get the washing in and fold it after I’d
done the daily dishes. I had to get the fire going and cut wood, then get dinner
started. ‘Lilith’ refused to sit at the table. Always in her chair before the
television beside the fire. ‘Bull’ sat in the middle of the table and grazed
off his and any other plate within reach, which was all of them. His big hairy
hand would reach over and take what he wanted. Whole potatoes went into his
mouth with meat he’d dragged off his plate with his fork while he used his
knife to hold it. Most of the time he just used his hands and sprayed food while
he threatened me if I tried to stop him. He never closed his mouth.
After dinner it was dishes and another bottle for ‘Lara A’. ‘Lilith’
refused to look after her when I was at the house so it was up to me to change
nappies and feed her. ‘Bull’ did it a few times but never bothered to put the
nappy on properly. He’d shove the safety pin into one corner then the front but
never back through the corner again, so it always fell off. A few times he
drove the pin through ‘Lara’ too. He never bothered to check why she screamed,
just dumped her back in her cot and went back to the race page of the
newspaper. ‘Lara A’ was my one bright moment of the day. I could protect her
from ‘Lilith’ and ‘Bull’, as time went by and they turned their attentions to
brutalising her. But school was just a different phase of that living hell. I
had to take the bus from [DELETED] to [DELETED] College, all the way across
town. The bus was the hunting ground of a pair of mindless thugs by the name of
‘Shawn Tuggonit’ (not sure of the spelling) and “Horror”. Horror would put his
bag in the stowage above my head and then smash it into me, every day, until
the driver decided to physically throw him off the bus, sick and tired of his
bullying and foul mouth. ‘Shawn’ would call your name and when you turned
around to see who spoke, smash his fist into your mouth or face.
Mr ‘Dane’, an overweight and incompetent Deputy Principle at [DELETED]
College, summoned me to his office one day. It followed several of these
attacks. My eyes were black and swollen. I had a cut across the top of my nose,
split lip and loose teeth. Someone had reported the attack. Mr ‘Dane’
reprimanded me and warned me to stop making myself a target or he’d have to
suspend me. That was the attitude at that Catholic Secondary School. Not long
after that, I was set upon by four Year Nine boys. They usually just threw
apples at a distance, dropping kids with a high velocity strike to the head.
Action was only taken after a Year Twelve girl had to go to the hospital with
concussion. But until then, they had the run of the place. They’d sometimes
target smaller Year Seven boys, and drag them to the ground with a vicious
headlock. One or two would leap on the smaller child and drag them into the
ground while another one or two would climb on top of the victim, grinding his crotch
into the buttocks of their victim while they all laughed. The victim would have
their face shoved into the dirt or asphalt during the attack, then they’d get
off and lay in the boots. This was all done in front of scores of other kids
but nobody would say anything for fear of retribution. When they set on me, I
managed to fight the first two off, briefly. Everyone else just backed off.
By the time they were done, I couldn’t move. I was away from school for
two weeks. My head and shoulder had been twisted so badly I couldn’t move
without being in intense pain. I had to get physio for twelve weeks to repair
the damage and still suffered from a twisted spine and pain for months
afterward. It was the only time I got to go to a doctor and have injuries recorded.
‘Lilith’ threatened to sue the school. I got called into the Headmaster’s
office. Mr ‘Knuckledragger’. A real scumbag by any standards. Every year he
took his family on a school funded trip to England to recruit new teachers.
Every week he’d cram a thousand kids into a hall designed for half that and
lecture us on his ideological version of religious-morality. Hypocrite. He left
his wife and kids a couple of years later, vanishing into Queensland with some
teenage harlot and a good chunk of the school funds according to the gossip
shared between teachers and members of the Church. That day he called me to his
office and made me sit before the four kids that brutalised me. He explained
that they claimed I had attacked them and they had only defended themselves.
There were no other witnesses so he had no choice but to believe them. I was
warned to behave myself or face suspension and charges. Any act of violence or
theft at the school resulted in a call to the police, so I was told I should be
grateful for the lenience of his decision. I was also reminded this was my
second warning for making myself a target and causing trouble. ‘Lilith’ was
furious, but she couldn’t do anything. I think she was more upset at the missed
opportunity to sue the school.
Many of the teachers at the school really shouldn’t have been allowed
near children. Mr ‘Ballistic’ (again, not sure of the spelling) was a
particularly vicious animal. He liked to hand out the corporal punishment
allowed by the school. Considered himself a real wit. Used a piece of chalk to
draw a little cross on a sandshoe and then lay into his victim’s backside for a
failure to hand homework in on time or just because he felt like it. Others
used the cane across your hand. I managed to avoid him all but once. I
misunderstood what he said and asked a follow-up question. Our new teacher was
late, delayed because they had “lost their baggage”. I asked if they had found
it. I’d misheard. He said “lost their baby”. “Are you some kind of
smart-arse?!” He’d screamed at me. A week later he had laid into a Year Twelve
kid called ‘Esterman’ and copped a smack in the mouth that laid him out for his
efforts. Still didn’t change his attitude toward bullying kids. Kids learn from
observation as much as what is supposed to be taught. The school taught kids
bullying and violence was okay as long as you were bigger and had more power
than your victims.
But violence and bullying at home and school – from other students and
the teachers – began to take its toll. I spent most of my free time in the
library. I hated swimming events and fat tests. We were all forced to dress in
the school togs: skin tight underwear that left little to the imagination and
even less when wet. We would be ordered into the pool and then lined up. We had
to keep our hands by our sides while a number of teachers would walk along and
look us over, making comments about “fat” or “weak-looking” kids, pointing out
defects and deficiencies, and laughing as they mocked various kids. The fat
tests with their callipers were the worst. I was one of the “weak” and
“scrawny” kids, but some of the girls were not so lucky. That year one of the
Senior girls left the school. Rumours abounded that she had committed suicide
after one of those fat-tests had been conducted. She wasn’t overweight but the
humiliation had been too much.
When I failed to hand my history homework in for six weeks in a row, Mr
‘Turd’ consistently failed me on everything I did. He refused to give me even a
pass grade until I handed in that homework. I spent days of my holidays at
‘Edward’ and ‘Sharleen’s’ farm studying to complete it. When I handed it in, Mr
‘Turd’ threw it straight into the bin. When I asked why, he told me “You needed
to learn your place.” He never changed my grades. But it wasn’t just History
where I was failing. All of my grades had dropped. I’d gone from what teachers
considered a gifted child in Primary School to a B average by the end, and then
a D average in Year Seven. Mr ‘Dullson’, my homeroom teacher, sat me down and
asked what was going on. He was the son of the family that owned the
‘Dullson’s’ furniture store in [DELETED] before it got sold to Myer. Turns out
the IQ test conducted at the start of the year had resulted in me having the
second highest rating out of the one-hundred-and-eighty Year Seven kids that
had started. I came in second to a girl called ‘Kylie Cloverdell’. He wanted to
know what was going on. I told him. I told him about the bullying at school and
the abuse at home, and how ‘Lilith’ wouldn’t let me have time to do my
homework. That was why I didn’t complete all the homework (two hours per
subject) each week and why I couldn’t play the recorder like the other kids. He
just looked at me and said “You know, your father was the cop that took me for
my driver’s test and gave me my licence.” That was it. Nothing changed. He
never reported what was going on.
The only good to come of that year was ‘Bull’s’ selfishness actually
paid off. ‘Lilith’ organised for him to meet with a real-estate agent in Tumut.
She had found some land for sale, six hundred acres in the Tumut Valley. She
sent me and ‘Micha’ with him. ‘Bull’ had no interest in looking after ‘Micha’
and me though, so he dumped us at [DELETED] with ‘Claud’s’ parents. When
‘Lilith’ found out, she was furious. ‘Micha’ and I hadn’t seen any of ‘Claud’s’
relatives for five years. ‘George’ and ‘Elisa’ were overjoyed to see us.
‘Claud’s’ brother, ‘Lorenzo’, was also excited to see us and took us around to
see his own children, our cousins, then brought them around to ‘George’ and
‘Elisa’s’ to spend time with us each day we were there. ‘Bull’ never made the
meeting. He went fishing for the first two days and when he went to see the
agent the land had been sold the day before. ‘Bull’ blamed the agent. ‘Lilith’
blamed ‘Bull’. They both took it out on me.
Comments
Post a Comment