sddrizzt

something I wrote about the night i became free. what do you think?

Jonathan's Freedom


This tale of courage starts in April of 1987. I was sixteen years old,

and life had gone by in its usual way, just like it had for the past thirteen

years. Fear always running though my mind, pondering when I was going to get

hit next. I had just finished my homework it was about 10:30 at night, and I

had just climbed into bed As the arms of slumber were starting to wrap me in

their warm embrace, I heard a familiar sound. My brother was crying, and my

stepfather's voice could be heard yelling at him in that menacing tone that I

knew meant pain.

The fear of a demon, (my demon) gripped me instantly. I could feel the

numbness in all my limbs the cold sweat forming on my forehead. "I dare not

move!" I heard my inner voice say. I knew if I made a sound I would be next to

feel that all to familiar pain. As I lay there unable to move I heard the

clamor of a raised angry voice, and the sorrow in my brother's crying getting

closer. I could barely hear any words that came from either voice. Except "I

told you..!!" coming from my stepfather. I had to see what was happening. I

forced myself to get up, my body shaking like a leaf on a tree during a storm.

I slowly rose from the warm safety of my bed, and when my bare feet

touched the ground I barely felt the freezing cold from the coarse wood floor,

because I was shaking so much . Praying to anything anyone that would listen

that I did not make a sound. I made my way to the old white washed wood door

with its brass handle that was the entrance to my room. As I turned the brass

handle slowly to open the door slightly, I could feel my stomach just drop

from my body. If he caught me peeking into what he was doing I would get

beaten for sure.

As I opened the door, ever so slightly, to see what was happening, the

old hinges started to creak. I froze in place, not moving, not making a sound.

It was then that I could make out what my stepfather was yelling
"Damn you I have told you, and told you to stay out of my things!!" The

anger in the voice told me my brother was in deep trouble this time. "I didn't

know please I didn't know!" the pain and fear in his voice let me know my

brother was terrified.

"Don't give me that crap! You knew what you were doing; you always do!"

my stepfather said without hesitation. When I did not feel, or hear a rush

toward my door, I knew that he did not hear me moving around. With what

courage I had at the time, I peered through the thin crack that opening the

door had made. It was then that my brother's door flung open. The volume of

the yelling and crying became as loud as hammers falling on nails. "I told you

never to touch my things, and yet you had to go, and eat it didn't you!" The

rage in the voice was unbelievable.

"What had my brother done so wrong? Could he have done anything that

wrong?" I said to myself watching the events before me. "I didn't know" my

brother tried saying, "I don't want to hear your excuses!" my stepfather

screamed. He had gone out of control. I could see my little brother being

dragged across the old wood floor like some bag of trash by this horror of a

man, this monstrosity that my mother had decided to call her husband.

I was paralyzed, and at the same time I could feel the bile rise in my

throat. How I hated this joke of a human being, yet I knew I could do nothing

against him. The years of beatings, and abuse had paralyzed me. At that moment

he stopped dragging my brother. They were right in front of the staircase. My

stepfather grabbed my brother by his collar screaming at him.

"You knew not to eat the cheesecake in the refrigerator!" His voice was

trembling with rage. The next few moments were like those slow motion scenes

in movies. I saw this monster move his arms forward like he was going to throw

my brother down the stairs. I flung my door open, rushed toward my stepfather,

screaming at the top of my lungs "NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"


My arms in front of me went between the two of them with all the

strength I had in me, and I pulled them apart, throwing my brother out of the

way, and grabbed this thing I would never again call stepfather. I could see

the shock and fear in his eyes as I pushed him toward the wall right behind

him.

"How da" is all he could get out before he hit the wall with all the

fear, hatred, and strength I had in me after 13 years of beatings. The wall

gave way as his back hit it. The next thing I knew I saw my stepfather

through the hole in the wall that his body had made because of me. "You will

get worse then he was going to get." His voice was not the same; somehow it

was filled with fear.

No time to think, I grabbed him and with all the fear, hate, and

something new I had not felt in my 13 years of life, I lifted him out of this

ragged hole in the wall, pushing him into a corner. My mind was racing. As the

doubt started to take hold, I heard my inner voice say, "What have I done? He

is going to kill me when he gets out of this!" I could hear him screaming at

me as though he were far away. The things he was going to do to me when he was

free were too horrible to think about.

I started to feel the fear start to creep back into me, but then I

realized something. "If he could do those things to me he would be doing them

to me now, and he wasn't; he couldn't." That feeling I had earlier came

pulsing back into me like a raging river. Freedom Freedom! I was FREE! I

looked at this thing I used to fear; this beast of a man, directly in the eye,

and told him in the strongest voice I had ever heard come from my lips:

"YOU SHALL NEVER HURT US AGAIN!" I drew my other hand back making a fist

so tight my hand was turning white, but before I could let it fly, I felt

something grab onto it, and then another, and voices were filling my ears. It

was my sister, my brother, and my brother's friend. All of them had my arm

screaming the loudest they could. "We will not let you become like him." It

was then that I knew I had almost become the thing; the creature I'd hated and

feared all my life. I had almost gone down the path of hatred. "No!" with a

determined voice I heard myself say, "I will not become like you!"

By this time I heard the door at the bottom of the stairs open, and I

knew my mother was on her way up. She did not know what was going on at first,

and she was mad at me for having her husband in a corner trying to knock his

teeth out. Then the others started telling her what had happened. I looked him

in the eye and sad "WE ARE NOT AFRAID OF YOU ANYMORE!" For I knew that by what

I had done that night there was no way he was ever going to hurt my Family

again. Freedom was ours. It was mine finally mine!

I guess you can say that is when I became the person I am today. I try

to protect everyone I know from the world around them. That was when the fear

of life faded from my eyes. And although there have been hard times in my life

since that day, it was then that I realized I had the strength, and courage to

face anything life threw at me.