The Lord’s Prayer

About a month before I entered the fifth grade, I came to believe that for me, there was no God.

As I sat alone in the garage, or read to myself in the near darkness of my parents' bedroom, I came to realize that I would live like this for the remainder of my life. No just God would leave me like this. I believed that I was alone in my struggle and that my battle was one of survival.

By the time I had decided that there was no God, I had totally disconnected myself from all physical pain. Whenever Mother struck me, it was as if she were taking her aggressions out on a rag doll. Inside, my emotions swirled back and forth between fear and intense anger. But outside, I was a robot, rarely revealing my emotions; only when I thought it would please The Bitch and work to my advantage. I held in my tears, refusing to cry because I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of my defeat.

At night I no longer dreamed, nor did I let my imagination work during the day. The once vibrant escapes of watching myself fly through the clouds in bright blue costumes, were now a thing of the past. When I fell asleep, my soul became consumed in a black void. I no longer awoke in the mornings refreshed; I was tired and told myself that I had one day less to live in this world. I shuffled through my chores, dreading every moment of every day. With no dreams, I found that words like hope and faith were only letters, randomly put together into something meaningless – words only for fairy tales.

When I was given the luxury of food, I ate like a homeless dog; grunting like an animal at Mother's commands. I no longer cared when she made fun of me, as I hurried to devour even the smallest morsel. Nothing was below me. One Saturday while I

was washing the morning dishes, Mother scraped some halfeaten pancakes from a plate, into the dogs' dish. Her wellfed pets picked at the food until they wanted no more, then walked away to find a place to sleep. Later, as I put away some pots and pans in a lower cabinet, I crawled on my hands and knees to the dogs' dish and ate what was left of the pancakes. As I ate, I could smell traces of the dogs, but I ate anyway. It hardly bothered me. I fully realized that if The Bitch caught me eating what rightfully belonged to the dogs, I would pay dearly; but getting food any way I could was my only means of existing.

Inside, my soul became so cold I hated everything. I even despised the sun, for I knew I would never be able to play in its warm presence. I cringed with hate whenever I heard other children laughing, as they played outside. My stomach coiled whenever I smelled food that was about to be served to somebody else, knowing it was not for me. I wanted so much to strike out at something every time I was called upstairs to play the role of the family slave, by picking up after those slobs.

I hated Mother most and wished that she were dead. But before she died, I wanted her to feel the magnitude of my pain and my loneliness for all these years. During all the years when I had prayed to God, He answered me only once. One day, when I was five or six years old, Mother had thrashed me from one end of the house to the other. That night before getting into bed, I got down on my knees and prayed to God. I asked Him to make Mother sick so she couldn't hit me any more. I prayed long and hard, concentrating so much that I went to bed with a headache. The next morning, much to my surprise, Mother was sick. She lay on the couch all day, barely moving. Since Father was at work, my brothers and I took care of her as though she were a patient of ours.

As the years passed and the beatings became more intense, I thought about Mother's age and tried to calculate when she might die. I longed for the day when her soul would be taken

into the depths of hell; only then would I be free of her.

I also hated Father. He was fully aware of the hell I lived in, but he lacked the courage to rescue me as he had promised so many times in the past. But as I examined my relationship with Father, I realized that he considered me part of the problem. I believe he thought of me as a traitor. Many times when The Bitch and Father had heated arguments, Mother involved me. She would yank me from wherever I was and demand that I repeat every vile word Father might have used in their past arguments. I fully realized what her game was, but having to choose between them was not difficult. Mother's wrath was much worse for me. I always shook my head, timidly saying what she wanted to hear. She would then scream for me to repeat the words to her in Dad's presence. Much of the time she insisted that I make up the words if I couldn't remember. This bothered me a great deal because I knew that in an effort to avoid a beating, I was biting the hand that often fed me. In the beginning, I tried to explain to Father why I had lied and turned against him. At first he told me that he understood, but eventually I knew he had lost faith in me. Instead of feeling sorry for him, I only hated him more.

The boys who lived upstairs were no longer my brothers. Sometimes in years past, they had managed to encourage me a little. But in the summer of 1972 they took turns hitting me and appeared to enjoy throwing their weight around. It was obvious that they felt superior to the family slave. When they approached me, my heart became hard as stone, and I am sure they saw the hate etched in my face. In a rare and empty victory, I'd sneer the word "asshole" under my breath as one of them strutted by me. I made sure they didn't hear me. I came to despise the neighbors, my relatives and anybody else who had ever known me and the conditions under which I lived. Hate was all I had left.

At the core of my soul, I hated myself more than anybody or

anything. I came to believe that everything that happened to me or around me was my own fault because I had let it go on for so long. I wanted what others had, but saw no way to get it, so I hated them for having it. I wanted to be strong, but inside I knew I was a wimp. I never had the courage to stand up to The Bitch, so I knew I deserved whatever happened to me. For years, Mother had brainwashed me by having me shout aloud, "I hate myself. I hate myself." Her efforts paid off. A few weeks before I started the fifth grade, I hated myself so much that I wished I were dead.

School no longer held the exciting appeal that it had years ago. I struggled to concentrate on my work while in class, but my bottledup anger often flashed at the wrong times. One Friday afternoon in the winter of 1973, for no apparent reason, I stormed out of the classroom, screaming at everyone as I fled. I slammed the door so hard I thought the glass above the door would shatter. I ran to the bathroom, and with my tiny red fist I pounded the tiles until my strength drained away. Afterwards, I collapsed on the floor praying for a miracle. It never came.

Time spent outside the classroom was only better than Mother's "hell house". Because I was an outcast of the entire school, my classmates at times took over where Mother left off. One of them was Clifford, a schoolyard bully who would periodically catch me when I ran to Mother's house after school. Beating me up was Clifford's way of showing off to his friends. All I could do was fall to the ground and cover my head, while Clifford and his gang took turns kicking me.

Aggie was a tormentor of a different sort. She never failed to come up with new and different ways of telling me how much she wished I would simply "drop dead". Her style was absolute snobbery. Aggie made sure she was always the one in charge of a small band of girls. In addition to tormenting me, showing off their fancy clothes seemed to be the main purpose in life for Aggie and her clique. I had always known Aggie didn't like me,

but I really didn't learn how much until the last day of school our fourthgrade year. Aggie's mother taught my fourthgrade homeroom, and on the last day of school Aggie came into our room acting as though she were throwing up and said, "David Pelzer-Smellzer is going to be in my homeroom next year." Her day was not complete until she fired off a rude remark about me to her friends.

I didn't take Aggie very seriously; not until a fifthgrade field trip to one of San Francisco's Clipper Ships. As I stood alone on the bow of the ship, looking at the water, Aggie approached me with a vicious smile and said in a low voice, "Jump!" She startled me, and I looked into her face, trying to understand what she meant. Again she spoke, quietly and calmly, "I said you should go ahead and jump. I know all about you Pelzer, and jumping is your only way out."

Another voice came from behind her, "She's right, you know." The voice belonged to John, another classmate, one of Aggie's macho buddies. Looking back over the railing, I stared at the cold green water lapping against the wooden side of the ship. For a moment, I could visualize myself plunging into the water, knowing I would drown. It was a comforting thought that promised an escape from Aggie, her friends and all that I hated in the world. But my better senses returned, and I looked up and fixed my eyes directly on John's eyes and tried to hold my stare. After a few moments, he must have felt my anger because he turned away taking Aggie with him.

At the beginning of my fifthgrade year, Mr Ziegler, my homeroom teacher, had no idea why I was such a problem child. Later, after the school nurse had informed him why I had stolen food and why I dressed the way I did, Mr Ziegler made a special effort to treat me as if I were a normal kid. One of his jobs as sponsor of the school newspaper was to form a committee of kids to find a name for the paper. I came up with a catchy phrase, and a week later my entry was among others in a

schoolwide election to select the best name for the newspaper. My title won by a landslide. Later that day the voting took place, and Mr Ziegler took me aside and told me how proud he was that my title had won. I soaked it up like a sponge. I hadn't been told anything positive for so long that I nearly cried. At the end of the day, after assuring me that I wasn't in trouble, Mr Ziegler gave me a letter to take to Mother.

Elated, I ran to Mother's house faster than ever before. As I should have expected, my happiness was shortlived. The Bitch tore the letter open, read it quickly and scoffed, "Well, Mr Ziegler says I should be so proud of you for naming the school newspaper. He also claims that you are one of the top pupils in his class. Well, aren't you special?" Suddenly, her voice turned ice cold and she jabbed her finger at my face and hissed, "Get one thing straight, you little son of a bitch! There is nothing you can do to impress me! Do you understand me? You are a nobody! An It! You are nonexistent! You are a bastard child! I hate you and I wish you were dead! Dead! Do you hear me? Dead!"

After tearing the letter into tiny pieces, Mother turned away from me and returned to her television show. I stood motionless, gazing at the letter which lay like snowflakes at my feet. Even though I had heard the same words over and over again, this time the word "It" stunned me like never before. She had stripped me of my very existence. I gave all that I could to accomplish anything positive for her recognition. But again, I failed. My heart sank lower than ever before. Mother's words were no longer coming from the booze; they were coming from her heart. I would have been relieved if she had returned with a knife and ended it all.

I knelt down, trying to put the many pieces of the letter back together again. It was impossible. I dumped the pieces of the letter in the trash, wishing my life would end. I truly believed, at that moment, that death would be better than my prospects for

any kind of happiness. I was nothing but an "It".

My morale had become so low that in some selfdestructive way I hoped she would kill me, and I felt that eventually she would. In my mind it was just a matter of when she would do it. So I began to purposefully irritate her, hoping I could provoke her enough that she would end my misery. I began doing my chores in a careless manner. I made sure that I forgot to wipe the bathroom floor, hoping that Mother or one of her royal subjects might slip and fall, hurting themselves on the hard tile floor. When I washed the evening dishes, I left bits of food on the plates. I wanted The Bitch to know I didn't care anymore.

As my attitude began to change, I became more and more rebellious. A crisis erupted one day at the grocery store. Usually I stayed in the car, but for some reason Mother decided to take me inside. She ordered me to keep one hand clamped onto the cart and bend my head towards the floor. I deliberately disobeyed her every command. I knew she didn't want to make a scene in public, so I walked in front of the cart, making sure I was at least an arm's length away from her. If my brothers made any comments to me, I fired back at them. I simply told myself that I wasn't going to take anybody's crap anymore.

Mother knew that other shoppers were watching us and could hear us, so several times she gently took my arm and told me in a pleasant voice to settle down. I felt so alive knowing I had the upper hand in the store, but I also knew that once we were outside, I would pay the price. Just as I thought, Mother gave me a sound thrashing before we reached the station wagon. As soon as we were in the car, she ordered me to lie on the floor of the back seat, where her boys took turns stomping me with their feet for "mouthing off" to them and Mother. Immediately after we entered the house, Mother made a special batch of ammonia and Clorox. She must have guessed I had been using the rag as a mask because she tossed the rag into the bucket. As soon as she slammed the bathroom door, I hurried to the heating vent. It

didn't come on. No fresh air came through the vent. I must have been in the bathroom for over an hour because the gray fumes filled the small room all the way to the floor. My eyes filled with tears, which seemed to activate the poison even more. I spat mucus and heaved until I thought I would faint. When Mother finally opened the door, I bolted for the hallway, but her hand seized me by the neck. She tried to push my face into the bucket, but I fought back and she failed. My plan for rebellion also failed. After the longer "gas chamber" incident, I returned to my wimpy self, but deep inside I could still feel the pressure building like a volcano, waiting to erupt from deep inside my soul.

The only thing that kept me sane was my baby brother Kevin. He was a beautiful baby and I loved him. About three and a half months before he was born, Mother allowed me to watch a Christmas cartoon special. After the program, for reasons unclear to me, she ordered me to sit in my brothers room. Minutes later she stormed into the room, wrapped her hands around my neck and began choking me. I twisted my head from side to side, trying to squirm away from her grip. As I began to feel faint, I instinctively kicked her legs, forcing her away from me. I soon regretted the incident.

About a month after Mother's attempt to choke me, she told me that I had kicked her so hard in the stomach that the baby would have a permanent birth defect. I felt like a murderer. Mother didn't stop with just telling me. She had several different versions of the incident for anybody who would listen. She said she had tried to hug me, and I had repeatedly either kicked or punched her in the stomach. She claimed that I had kicked her because I was jealous of the new baby. She said I was afraid the new baby would get more of her attention. I really loved Kevin, but since I was not allowed to even look at him or my brothers, I did not have a chance to show how I felt. I do remember one Saturday, when Mother took the other boys to a baseball game

in Oakland, leaving Father to babysit with Kevin while I performed my chores. After I finished my work, Father let Kevin out of his crib. I enjoyed watching him crawl around in his cute outfit. I thought he was beautiful. When Kevin lifted his head and smiled at me, my heart melted. He made me forget my suffering for awhile. His innocence was hypnotic as I followed him around the house; I wiped the drool from his mouth and stayed one step behind him so he wouldn't get hurt. Before Mother returned, I played a game of pattycake with him. The sound of Kevin's laughter filled my heart with warmth, and later, whenever I felt depressed I thought of him. I smiled inside when I heard Kevin cry out in joy.

My brief encounter with Kevin quickly faded away and my hatred surfaced again. I fought to bury my feelings, but I couldn't. I knew I was never meant to be loved. I knew I would never live a life like my brothers. Worst of all, I knew that it was only a matter of time until Kevin would hate me, just like the others did.

Later that fall, Mother began directing her frustrations in more directions. She despised me as much as ever, but she began to alienate her friends, husband, brother and even her own mother. Even as a small child, I knew that Mother didn't get along very well with her family. She felt that everybody was trying to tell her what to do. She never felt at ease, especially with her own mother who was also a strongwilled person. Grandmother usually offered to buy Mother a new dress or take her to the beauty parlor. Not only did Mother refuse the offers, but she also yelled and screamed until Grandmother left her house. Sometimes Grandmother tried to help me, but that only made things worse. Mother insisted that her appearance and the way she raised her family were "nobody else's damn business." After a few of these confrontations, Grandmother rarely visited Mother's house.

As the holiday season approached, Mother argued more and

more with Grandmother on the telephone. She called her own mother every vicious name Mother could imagine. The trouble between Mother and Grandmother was bad for me because after their battle, I often became the object of Mother's anger. Once, from the basement, I heard Mother call my brothers into the kitchen and tell them that they no longer had a Grandmother or an Uncle Dan.

Mother was equally ruthless in her relationship with Father. When he did come home, either to visit or stay for a day, she started screaming at him the moment he walked through the door. As a result, he often came home drunk. In an effort to stay out of Mother's path, Father often spent his time doing odd jobs outside the house. He even caught her wrath at work. She often telephoned Father at the station and called him names. "Worthless" and "drunken loser" were two of her favorite names for him. After a few calls, the fireman who answered the phone would lay it down and not page Father. This made Mother furious, and again I became the object of her fury.

For awhile Mother banned Father from the house, and the only time we saw him was when we drove to San Francisco to pick up his paycheck. One time, on our way to get the check, we drove through Golden Gate Park. Even though my anger was ever present, I flashed back to the good times when the park meant so much to the whole family. My brothers were also silent that day as we drove through the park. Everybody seemed to sense that somehow the park had lost its glamour, and that things would never be the same again. I think that perhaps my brothers felt the good times were over for them too.

For a short time Mother's attitude towards Father changed. One Sunday, Mother piled everybody into the car, and shopped from store to store for a record of German songs. She wanted to create a special mood for Father when he came home. She spent most of that afternoon preparing a feast, with the same enthusiasm that had driven her years before. It took her hours to

fix her hair and apply her makeup just right. Mother even put on a dress that brought back memories of the person she once was. I thought for sure that God had answered my prayers. As she paced around the house, straightening anything she thought was out of place, all I could think about was the food. I knew she would find it in her heart to let me eat with the family. It was an empty hope.

Time dragged on into the late afternoon. Father was expected to be home by about 1:00 P.M., and every time Mother heard an approaching car she dashed to the front door, waiting to greet him with open arms. Sometime after 4:00 P.M., Father came staggering in with a friend from work. The festive mood and setting were a surprise to him. From the bedroom I could hear Mother's strained voice as she tried to be extra patient with Father. A few minutes later, Father stumbled into the bedroom. I looked up in wonder. I had never seen him so drunk. He didn't need to speak for me to smell the liquor on him. His eyes were beyond the bloodshot stage, and it appeared to be more of a problem than he could manage to stand upright and keep his eyes open. Even before he opened the closet door, I knew what he was going to do. I knew why he had come home. As he stuffed his blue overnight bag, I began to cry inside. I wanted to become small enough to jump into his bag and go with him.

When he finished packing, Father knelt down and mumbled something to me. The longer I looked at him, the weaker my legs felt. My mind was numb with questions. Where's my Hero? What happened to him? As he opened the door to leave the bedroom, the drunk friend crashed into Father, nearly knocking him down. Father shook his head and said in a sad voice, "I can't take it anymore. The whole thing. Your mother, this house, you. I just can't take it anymore." Before he closed the bedroom door I could barely hear him mutter, "I ... I'm ... I'm sorry."

That year Thanksgiving dinner was a flop. In some kind of gesture of good faith, Mother allowed me to eat at the table with

the family. I sat deep in my chair, quietly concentrating so I wouldn't say or do anything that might set Mother off. I could feel the tension between my parents. They hardly spoke at all, and my brothers chewed their food in silence. Dinner was hardly over when harsh words erupted. After the fight ended, Father left. Mother reached into one of the cabinets for her bottled prize and seated herself at the end of the sofa. She sat alone, pouring glass after glass of alcohol. As I cleared the table and washed the dishes, I could see that this time I wasn't the only one affected by Mother's behavior. My brothers seemed to be experiencing the same fear I had for so many years.

For a short time, Mother and Father tried to be civil to one another. But by Christmas Day, they had both become tired of their charade. The strain of trying to be so nice to each other was more than either could bear. As I sat at the top of the stairs, while my brothers finished opening their gifts, I could hear angry words being exchanged between them. I prayed that they could somehow make up, if only for that special day. While sitting on the basement stairs that Christmas morning, I knew that if God had wanted Mother and Father to be happy, then I would have to be dead.

A few days later, Mother packed Father's clothes in boxes, and drove with my brothers and I to a place a few blocks from the fire station. There, in front of a dingy motel, Father waited. His face seemed to express relief. My heart sank. After years of my useless prayers, I knew it had finally happened – my parents were separating. I closed my fists so tightly I thought my fingers would tear into the palms of my hands. While Mother and the boys went into Father's motel room, I sat in the car, cursing his name over and over. I hated him so much for running out on his family. But perhaps even more, I was jealous of him, for he had escaped and I had not. I still had to live with Mother. Before Mother drove the car away, Father leaned down to the open window where I was sitting, and handed me a package. It was

some information he had said he would get me, for a book report that I was doing at school. I knew he was relieved to get away from Mother, but I could also see sadness in his eyes as we pulled away into the downtown traffic.

The drive back to Daly City was solemn. When my brothers spoke, they did so in soft tones that wouldn't upset Mother. When we reached the city limits, Mother tried to humor her boys by treating them to McDonald's. As usual, I sat in the car while they went inside. I looked out the open car window at the sky. A dull gray blanket covered everything, and I could feel the cold droplets of fog on my face. As I stared into the fog, I became terrified. I knew nothing could stop Mother now. What little hope I had was gone. I no longer had the will to carry on. I felt as if I were a man on death row, not knowing when my time would come.

I wanted to bolt from the car, but I was too scared to even move an inch. For this weakness, I hated myself. Rather than running, I clutched the package Father had given me and smelled it, trying to pick up a scent of Father's cologne.

When I failed to pick up any odor at all, I let out a sobbing cry. At that instant, I hated God more than anything else in this or any other world. God had known of my struggles for years, but He had stood by watching as things went from bad to worse. He wouldn't even grant me a trace of Father's Old Spice After Shave. God had completely taken away my greatest hope. Inside I cursed His name, wishing I had never been born.

Outside, I could hear the sounds of Mother and the boys approaching the car. I quickly wiped my tears and returned to the inner safety of my hardened shell. As Mother drove out of the McDonald's parking lot, she glanced back at me and sneered, "You are all mine now. Too bad your father's not here to protect you." I knew all my defenses were useless. I wasn't going to survive. I knew she was going to kill me, if not today, tomorrow. Tha t day I wished Mother would have mercy and kill

me quickly.

As my brothers wolfed down their hamburgers, without them knowing I clasped my hands together, bent my head down, closed my eyes and prayed with all my heart. When the station wagon turned onto the driveway, I felt that my time had come. Before I opened the car door, I bowed my head and with peace in my heart, I whispered, "... and deliver me from evil."

"Amen."