Fake Family

To be honest with you, two things saved my life in childhood. As I told you already, music was one of the components. The other, sports. I excelled in softball and basketball and I would have given my right eye to play. Softball was my sport of choice and I am not too proud to say I was damn good. It was sometime in the mid eighties, and I had the highest batting average in the entire city, including all men's, boy's and women's leagues. I still have that trophy, name plaque all worn and tarnished, just as my memories of childhood. When I was on the court or the field, I mattered. I was part of something larger than myself and my crumbling existence. Every bead of sweat meant that I was contributing to my "team," my fake family. I call them fake because the only time these people were nice to me or wanted anything to do with me, was when we were in the heat of competition. I got all the high fives, back slaps, way to go's you could ever imagine during my games. Yet, when the final score displayed, I was nothing again. This is an area of human behavior I have never been able to wrap my mind around. How do you treat people like this? How do you pretend, if only for a moment? Truly, nobody cared. These kids' parent's loved me, yet they had no idea what little fuckers their kids were. By fuckers, I mean devious, satan worshipping little maggots. Remind me to tell you about the "the stick-up."

Music

I guess I can say at this time I learned of the dark recesses in a person's mind. It's quite frightening as a child especially. Your mind takes you to a dark place where everything is black. There are no trees, no sunshine, no laughter. A place where you can visualize your body and mind a mangled wreck. What happened in my life in about the sixth grade was that I realized my mind had not taken me anywhere. This was my life. I would recoil like a snake into my room and hide inside my stereo, and let Bonnie Tyler and Spandau Ballet spill my guts out onto my pink carpet. My battered heart and soul was liquefied and slowly seeped out each pore of my speakers and gave me a momentary release. Music was my first true love, and I fell deep and hard. I wrapped my every emotion into it, and no matter what I was doing, I could think of a song to identify the moment. To this day, music has been my solace. My dad was especially bad during my sixth, seventh and eighth grade years. The beatings were relentless and I told no one. The verbal abuse was just as potent from him. I could only be called fat so many times before the tears soaked my pillow. My dad had a very sick sense of humor as well, and made jokes about me regarding feminine issues as well. I hated him. I literally saw myself killing that bastard. It was at this time that "My name is Luka," was released on the airwaves. A touching song about child abuse that wrenched people's hearts and stirred up anger in many parents. I just laughed. I was Luka. I was Luka at home and school. All their anger was for show. I was right there. I was right in front of their eyes. No one saw me. Everyone looked right through me.

Reality

Realizing at this time in my life that I was neither wanted at home nor at school became a huge dose of reality for me. Although school was like a second prison to me, I refused to miss a day. Anything was better than being at home with my dad. My outlet in school was learning everything I could and daydreaming about my favorite teacher adopting me. I also dreamt of Bob Zaremba taking me home too, but that was a little different! I had no friends, and was picked on constantly. School was an extension of my home life, yet sometimes felt even more brutal. The bruises my father inflicted on me would fade, but the kids' verbal bashing remained in my head. Truth be told, it remains to this day. It never goes away. The memory may dissipate, but once it's refreshed in your mind, it pierces just as bad as the first time it happened. I can instantly be transported back to fifth grade in one fleeting thought. I hated every single one of these fuckers. When I hear about these kids on the news going into schools and shooting the place up because they were bullied, I feel sick. Sick for two reasons. One, the loss of children's lives. Two, and probably the source of my feeling ill, I understand why they do it. I do not condone this by any means, but my inner being feels a compassion for these people that others may not be able to. This is a difficult cross to carry. It is but one more scar the little pieces of filth left on my battered heart and mind.