SOUL CRY ( Missing Fathers: The Misunderstanding Of A Fatherless Child ). o'mar brown
grade year, and on Anthony’s first day of 6th grade, I went with him to register. They did not have a fourth grade at Summers, but I stayed the rest of the day with him anyway. Sherry attended Wingate high school. The next day, I received a great surprise. The family that my mother worked for was going to pay for me to attend a private school, so I registered at Holy Cross, on Church and Rogers in Flatbush. It was here that I began the transformation into the man I have become today. It was at Holy Cross where I met Sister Mary, whom was very fond of me, she was the principal and Spanish teacher, Miss Flatts, who was a life saver, as I had passed nothing but my math class, and still made it to the fifth grade on time. Miss Flatts followed me to the fifth grade; she said she saw something special in me and she knew that she could help me. During lunch she spent time with me teaching me how to write, read, and speak English. I was reading and writing on a 1st grade level when I started school at Holy Cross. I was illiterate and that made me feel ashamed and afraid to read out loud whenever it was my turn. But I gradually progressed with the help of my friends and Miss Flatts. I love her. She read us a book about the life of a black doctor. I think his name was Ben Carson, hearing his story and the struggles he overcame gave me hope for my own life and problems. I also had Mr. G, he helped me with basketball, and he was my science teacher and computer teacher. Mr. B was my video game friend and my “friend”, one of the few father figures that blessed my life. Miss Patton was my religion teacher, female guidance, a comfort, even when she was being hard on us it was always in our best interest. Miss Patton played a strong female presence in my life and she always did her best to talk to us and prepare us for our futures. Mr. Strong, he was my history teacher. He was a nice man, but for some reason, we liked to go crazy in his class. We would throw papers, running around, and talking out of turn. Last of all was Ms. Kelvin; she was an English teacher, a very funny old lady. My best friends were William and Adam. Adam and I got all the girls. In the first week of school, all the boys were talking about Power Rangers. Everyone was arguing about what Power Ranger they would be. Ray, the bully of the class before I came, did not like anyone being or even thinking of being the red Power Ranger. After a smile from Jessica, I stood up and announced that I was the red ranger. The bully was enraged, and started acting up. Little did he know that I was from Jamaica, where we don’t act up, we just fight, along with the fact that, my mom beats me daily. I was well aware of how to harm someone. We began to fight, and after that was over, he tried to be my friend from that day on. (I had whooped his ass) After my first fight in America, I felt at ease with the pain my mother inflicted on me. School fights would soon become a pattern in my life; it was my way of earning love and respect from my peers.
Chapter3
In sixth grade, my mom and I moved to Troy Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It was in that home where I came face to face with the darkest hours of my childhood, and some of the scariest moments of my life. I came to terms with the phrases, “I gave you life, and I can take “It” away.” and “You are so stupid, why couldn’t you be like.” and then she would go on to compare me to one person or another. My favorite” You are a mistake and I wish I never had you”. My mom and Brian fought every other night. I would see everything; my mom would slap Brian, he would punch her in the face, she would sit there, and bleed, with her shirt torn. I would sit with the blanket covering my head, holding my Bible, and praying for my mother. “Lord God, please let him stop hitting my mummy, please don’t let her die. I promise when I get older I’m going to make him pay for hurting my mummy.” I remember feeling hurt and scared because I wasn’t big enough to save my mom. I use to tell myself it was my fault she was getting beat so I deserved the way she treated me. Because I couldn’t save her from her hurt and pain. I was so sorry and I ashamed that I couldn’t help my mom. Whenever I tried to stop him, Brian would just lock the door. Moreover, the tears would fall from my face onto the open Bible pages. About once a week, the cops came to the house, and my mom would make Brian leave. Nevertheless, just as soon as he left, he would be back. After each fight, my mom would come to me, and we would cry together. I felt her pain, yet something inside me thrived from those hugs that were not always there when I needed them. My life was like walking on thin ice in brick shoes; no matter how carefully you step, the ice is going to break. When that ice cracked, I wished with all my heart I could stop time, because to me, there was no worse pain than being hurt by the one woman who was supposed to love you and care for you above all else in the world. Anything could set my mom off. You see, my mother would hit or beat me for any reason you might be able to think of, if there really is a reason for anyone to abuse their child, and reasons you would not believe.
On Valentine’s Day in the seventh grade, my valentine was Maya. Maya was a sexy, caramel, light skin complexion, who wore a school girl uniform, with delicious pink lips. At lunch all the popular kids would sit at one table and vote on who was the cutest male and female. Maya was the hot girl in our class, so I had to get next to her. It all started in Miss Kelvin’s free period, with a game of truth or dare in the back of the classroom. It was me, Adam, William, Damian my friend from Jamaica. He came to Holy Cross in the fifth grade, his mother and mine grew up together. Maya, and Vanessa, a skinny, tall, hidden beauty with braces was there. Also, Chanel who was a smart, hood wise girl who was always ready to fight, athletic, singer and, Jessica the first girl to like me at Holy cross. I got into my first fight at Holly Cross, off the strength of off Jessica’s smile who was a very beautiful sexy dark skin girl who had luscious lips, with the ass of a 19 year. And Grace, boy oh boy, fucking with Grace was a whole other world. She was a skinny, light skin freak with a sense of hopelessness and lost in her eyes, but Grace had a real thing for the kid. Honestly, I always liked Lisa. She used to let me suck on her tits in the hall way and in the bathroom. After gym class, she used to let me finger her in the locker room, or sometimes she would just sit behind me in class and I would do it right there. My dares always had to do with Maya though. After school that day, it was time to start French kissing. We all walked down the block and took the left by Erasmus Hall, onto a quiet one-way street. Everyone watched and cheered as I had my first French kiss. Nobody knew that it was my first. It was like meeting in Heaven, tasting her soft, pink lips, after she had just ate a red Now and Later candy. We both closed our eyes, and I immediately had no pain or worries. With only a day before Valentine’s Day, and after a kiss like that, you must get her something. Therefore, I stopped at the corner store and picked her up a five-dollar teddy bear.
Later, after my mom got home, I was sitting in the living room, and I asked her how her day was. I guess it was not okay for me to ask that, because right after she ran to the bathroom to try not to pee on herself, she came out and knocked me out of the chair. She began to explain to me, through brutal force, that I do not disrespect her like that. “How me day was? Boy, a who you a talk to? I am going to teach you some mannas.” After she became tired, or the phone rang, she would just go on as if nothing happened. If she was on the phone, no matter how hard the beating, I could not cry for anyone to hear. I had to endure the pain in silent tears or I would get it twenty times worse when she hung up. After my beating, my mom discovered the Valentine’s Day gift I had brought for Maya. While still recovering from my last beating, and thoughts of a new one lingering, I told her the gift was for her, but I had to wait until tomorrow to give it to her. When Valentine’s Day came and went, later that night I was in the shower getting ready to go to bed, and my mom must have realized the gift was not for her, and that it had been for a girl. I can still feel the belt hitting my naked skin, while all I can do is put one hand over my dick and the other over my face, and beg for her to let me put clothes on first. “Mummy, please, your hurting me! I’m going to listen! Mummy please, just let me put some clothes on mummy, it hurts!” After about five minutes or so, and seeing all the welts and hives that covered my body, she couldn’t watch anymore, so she allowed me to go get dressed before continuing my punishment. At this point, I’m feeling weak; it isn’t my fault I’m getting beat, my tears would burn and soon stop coming and I no longer made a sound. I just took it in silence, curled up in the corner with (crazy) welts on my body, thinking of fantasies and fairy tales of me going upside her head with the kitchen knife, but that’s my mummy and I don’t really want to see her dead. I’m just tired of the abuses to the body and the head, matter a fact sometimes I wished I were dead. It was at this point that I began to feel a complete sense of hate. Hate towards myself, towards peers, and a dark hate towards my mother, the woman who gave me life. Now it is as if every beating would take a part of my soul, on the outside, I am calm and collective