STORY
LIST
DISNEYLAND This was the start of one of the most horrifying experiences of my life, other than in the orphanage. I can not remember being kicked, slapped or beaten as much by anyone as I was by my step-grandparents. I remember one of them coming into my bedroom almost every night with a bag over their head, with a flashlight inside and trying to scare me. They would shake me awake and then move to the end of my bed. There they would stand saying over and over, in a scarey voice "Youuuuuu are CRAZYYYYYYY, Youuuuuu are CRAZYYYYYYY". I would sit in their living room and hear them telling everyone who came to visit that I was mentally retarded and that they wanted to put me in a mentally retarded center for children. They would tell their friends that they did not know how to do that legally, because I was not related to them and that they could not afford to do that on their own. I barely remember my grandma taking me across the street to the Dixieland Elementary school in Lakeland Florida, to talk with a teacher. I remember them talking with one another and I heard over-heard my grandma telling the teacher "Now Mrs. Harrell, you don't have to teach this child to read. He is feeble minded and all I want you to do is sign a paper saying that he can't learn and we will put him in the Sunnyland Training Center." After my grandma left the school I remember Mrs. Harrell putting her arm around me and saying that she was going to teach me to read even if it killed her. "That really gets my back up", she said, as she walked back to her desk to get the papers to give me a IQ test. The test said to move the marker down to the thing that makes music and I didn't know what it was, so I asked Mrs Harrell. She told me that it was a test and that she could not help me. But told me that she would show me the answer after the test was over. After the test was completed she showed me that the answer was a "Grand Piano". I looked at her, straight in the eye, and said "Just how do you expect me to know that when I have never seen one". Mrs. Harrell grabbed me out of my chair, picked me up and hugged me as hard as she could. Mrs. Harrell looked at me and said "Not only are you not retarded, but you are very, very smart." The next day Mrs. Harrell started teaching me to read and within a week she said that "I was reading handily", whatever that means. She let me take a book home after school because I loved to read. When I entered the house and told my grandma that I could read. She grabbed the book out of my hands and slapped me across the face, as hard as she could, knocking me down. Then she grabbed me by the shirt and brutally drug me over to the school building, located across the street. I was screaming at the top of my voice and my legs were being cut as I was being drug across the hard pavement. When we reached the school building My back and stomach were bleeding because of being drug down the 40 foot sidewalk. Grandma immediately started yelling at all the teachers, as well as at Mrs. Harrell, who just stood there smiling at me. "You just hate that boy, don't you?", hollered Mrs Harrell, as she grabbed me by the hand. "He will not be back to this damn school", yelled grandma, as she snatched me back from Mrs. Harrell, who had taken my hand. When we got back over to our house grandma beat me with a fly swatter out on the porch. Then when we walked inside the house she snatched me by the arm, grabbed the leather strap and beat me laying across the kitchen-table chair. Then she made me go to the bedroom and go to bed for the rest of the day. All she kept saying the entire time was "I thought I told you to keep your damn mouth closed you little Indian bastard." The next morning I was looking out the front door at all the children who were going into the school house. I wanted to see my friend Mrs. Harrell, 'cause she liked me and I liked her. I walked out of the screen door and I crossed the street to try and see Mrs. Harrell. I saw the play ground and I walked across the street in order to play on the merry-go-round in the school yard. My grandma came running across the street swinging the leather strap over her head, and began hitting me across the face and back. I started yelling and screaming as loud as I could. I remember running and trying to crawl on my hands and knees to get underneath the steel bars of the merry-go-round so that the strap would not hit me in the face, or on the back, 'cause I was already real sore on my back. She finally stopped the merry-go-round and my grandpa ran over and grabbed me by the ears and picked me up off the ground. Boy! That hurt real bad too. Grandma came running around the merry-go-round and began hitting me with the leather strap, as hard as she could. She was like crazy, sort-a-like. I tried to run, again but grandpa would not let go of my ears. They beat me from the school-grounds all the way to our house, across the street. Two or three of the ladies from the school came running out and started yelling at my big fat grandma "You stop beating on that child before you killed him." yelled one of the teachers. One of the women called my grandma "a snake," and told her she was going to call the police and have her arrested. Then the teacher ran back towards the school building. After the three of us got inside of the house, grandma told my grandpa to take my pants off because I had wet on myself during the beating. He grabbed me and threw me to the ground, placing his foot on my neck. Then he started ripping my short pants off. As he was tearing my pants off he yelled at granny "Bring the damn leather strap. He done shit his pants." "I guess I had messed on myself when they beat me over on by the merry-go-round, but i didn't mean to. Grandma hit me several times across the back and then on my head. Then grandma took the pants and started rubbing the mess into my face. They took me over to the sink and rinsed me off. Then I was taken out on the "pickle porch" and hosed off with the cold water hose. About an hour later the police showed up and began to question my Granny and Papa about what the school had told them. The police told them that they wanted to see me "right now," to make sure that I was all right. My granny told the policeman that I was asleep and she asked if they could come back later. One of the policemen began walking from room to room trying to find me. But I was no where in the house. When the policeman finally did find me I was standing outside in the back yard naked, black and blue marks all over my body, with both of my little arms stretched upwards towards the sky - holding my little pants up to the sun so that they would dry. When I was thirty three years old I developed cancer and was given less than a year to live. I sold everything I owned and went searching for the two people who had done that to me. After about a year of searching I managed to find both of them in Florida. All by myself I slowly walked up to where they were resting, side by side. I looked down at their graves, shook my head back and forth, wiped the tears from my eyes and then I slowly turned around and I just walked away, and that was the end of that.
