Taking Leave from Him
---TRIGGER WARNING---
This is from one of my journal entries...
Prologue:
Will I am.
I'll make this simple and to the point.
I’m an only child, my parents named me William, and they loved me. However, they had careers that competed with me for attention like companion baby birds in the nest. If hindsight is 20/20, then we’ve all gained some clarity through the years. My father traveled the world for his career so he could make the deal. To that end, my parents moved from deep family roots in Georgia to Southern California.
Turning 13 on a June Thursday, we had a party on Friday. The next day, I was sent a thousand miles away to camp while my parents moved. I returned to them in mid-late August on the opposite coast in a house I’d never seen. My sentence began.
Camp
Camp was supposed to keep me occupied while the unpleasant task of packing up three lives and shipping them due west was undertaken. I never wanted to move. I had my friends, my woods, my house, my swim team, my life. None of those paid a salary. I flew to camp on the first of two one-way tickets. I arrived knowing I'd never live in *my* house again. A camp cabin was my "home" until mid-August.
Him
He knew. They always do. At least he offered to lend a hand. The counselor helped me get used to the new cabin. He was so helpful, he arranged to have my bed moved closer to his in caseI he needed something during the night. He gave me privileges the other boys didn't get even though I knew he skimmed the Ritalin prescribed for my ADHD. I got to go on the best hiking and canoe trips. I was fearless. He liked that. He cheered me on when I swam in the camp race in the cold lake. He even took a victory picture while I was still dripping wet in a Speedo. He picked me to help with "special" chores. He gave me a Sony Walkman with an AM/FM receiver. He knew I liked music. What a guy!
Taking Leave
Since corporeal escape wasn't possible, the Walkman served as a diversion while time passed. By mid-July, I was deep in debt to him, but the Walkman kept me company on the nights when he didn't. Since I didn't have my own mix-tape, the radio tuner opened a portal to a parallel world. "Big Stick" FM stations a hundred miles away with 100,000 watts of power traveled through the ether to the Walkman receiver and into my ears.
I heard songs that reminded me of better times. I heard songs that became the soundtrack of my summer in captivity. I heard songs that inspired hope, and songs that induced despair. The summer of 1985's music is indelibly imprinted on my body and my brain. As he completed his mission, the music played on. I remember it clearly.
Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on!
In violent times, you shouldn't have to sell your soul
In black and white, they really really ought to know
Those one track minds that took you for a working boy
Come on!
-----------------------
I set my sights on you (and no one else will do)
And I, I've got to have my way now, baby
All I know is that to me
You look like you're having fun
Open up your lovin' arms
Watch out here I come
You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round
It
***TRIGGERS***
I wanted to impress you and earn your approval, but somehow I threatened you. You hated something in yourself, and you wanted what I had. I swam, I hiked, climbed and I paddled. YOU paddled me. You hurt me. You stole from me. One night, when everyone else was in town for movie night, I refused your order, so you tried to steal my very being instead.
I remember the words you growled in my right ear as you reached through my pubic hair just so you could grab my balls and squeeze them like silly putty. You pulled my foreskin until I yelped. Your knee pressing on my spine sent electric shocks down my legs, followed by numbness. That's right. Yeah, yeah, nobody turns you down and tells you to fuck off. You showed me. You left your mark in my body and on my spirit.
You made me bleed.
You instilled fear in me.
You didn't care how I explained leaving for camp with seven pairs of underwear, but coming home with only six. You probably enjoyed hearing me cry in the shower until the water turned cold. You didn’t care that I worried for the next two years that you had given me a deadly disease.
You wanted my life. You wanted to be me. To be me, you had to take it from me. You thought you could choke the life and the will from me, but try as you did, you failed. I was thirteen, and you were nineteen, you son of a bitch. You outweighed me and overpowered me. I was a kid, and you were an adult. Without your default advantage, you were nothing and you knew it.
Epilogue
I left your care immediately following the last shot you had at me. Remember that? Remember pulling over in the strip mall parking lot early that morning?
I do.
We weren't quite to the airport. You pulled down my shorts and got your way until I came and then laughed at the way my body shuddered in the moment. You then dared to call us even somehow. Just because you made my body do that means nothing.
We're not even.
I'm way ahead of you. I've lapped you repeatedly. After a rough start at your job, I see you got a DUI, sold your townhouse outside of D.C. in the late 90s, and disappeared off the face of the planet. You've been under the radar for twenty years now. How is life now? Are you in some Thai prison? I don't fucking care. Without your default advantage, you are nothing.
I am Will.
Who the hell are you?
Will
This is from one of my journal entries...
Prologue:
Will I am.
I'll make this simple and to the point.
I’m an only child, my parents named me William, and they loved me. However, they had careers that competed with me for attention like companion baby birds in the nest. If hindsight is 20/20, then we’ve all gained some clarity through the years. My father traveled the world for his career so he could make the deal. To that end, my parents moved from deep family roots in Georgia to Southern California.
Turning 13 on a June Thursday, we had a party on Friday. The next day, I was sent a thousand miles away to camp while my parents moved. I returned to them in mid-late August on the opposite coast in a house I’d never seen. My sentence began.
Camp
Camp was supposed to keep me occupied while the unpleasant task of packing up three lives and shipping them due west was undertaken. I never wanted to move. I had my friends, my woods, my house, my swim team, my life. None of those paid a salary. I flew to camp on the first of two one-way tickets. I arrived knowing I'd never live in *my* house again. A camp cabin was my "home" until mid-August.
Him
He knew. They always do. At least he offered to lend a hand. The counselor helped me get used to the new cabin. He was so helpful, he arranged to have my bed moved closer to his in case
Taking Leave
Since corporeal escape wasn't possible, the Walkman served as a diversion while time passed. By mid-July, I was deep in debt to him, but the Walkman kept me company on the nights when he didn't. Since I didn't have my own mix-tape, the radio tuner opened a portal to a parallel world. "Big Stick" FM stations a hundred miles away with 100,000 watts of power traveled through the ether to the Walkman receiver and into my ears.
I heard songs that reminded me of better times. I heard songs that became the soundtrack of my summer in captivity. I heard songs that inspired hope, and songs that induced despair. The summer of 1985's music is indelibly imprinted on my body and my brain. As he completed his mission, the music played on. I remember it clearly.
Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on!
In violent times, you shouldn't have to sell your soul
In black and white, they really really ought to know
Those one track minds that took you for a working boy
Come on!
-----------------------
I set my sights on you (and no one else will do)
And I, I've got to have my way now, baby
All I know is that to me
You look like you're having fun
Open up your lovin' arms
Watch out here I come
You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round
It
***TRIGGERS***
I wanted to impress you and earn your approval, but somehow I threatened you. You hated something in yourself, and you wanted what I had. I swam, I hiked, climbed and I paddled. YOU paddled me. You hurt me. You stole from me. One night, when everyone else was in town for movie night, I refused your order, so you tried to steal my very being instead.
I remember the words you growled in my right ear as you reached through my pubic hair just so you could grab my balls and squeeze them like silly putty. You pulled my foreskin until I yelped. Your knee pressing on my spine sent electric shocks down my legs, followed by numbness. That's right. Yeah, yeah, nobody turns you down and tells you to fuck off. You showed me. You left your mark in my body and on my spirit.
You made me bleed.
You instilled fear in me.
You didn't care how I explained leaving for camp with seven pairs of underwear, but coming home with only six. You probably enjoyed hearing me cry in the shower until the water turned cold. You didn’t care that I worried for the next two years that you had given me a deadly disease.
You wanted my life. You wanted to be me. To be me, you had to take it from me. You thought you could choke the life and the will from me, but try as you did, you failed. I was thirteen, and you were nineteen, you son of a bitch. You outweighed me and overpowered me. I was a kid, and you were an adult. Without your default advantage, you were nothing and you knew it.
Epilogue
I left your care immediately following the last shot you had at me. Remember that? Remember pulling over in the strip mall parking lot early that morning?
I do.
We weren't quite to the airport. You pulled down my shorts and got your way until I came and then laughed at the way my body shuddered in the moment. You then dared to call us even somehow. Just because you made my body do that means nothing.
We're not even.
I'm way ahead of you. I've lapped you repeatedly. After a rough start at your job, I see you got a DUI, sold your townhouse outside of D.C. in the late 90s, and disappeared off the face of the planet. You've been under the radar for twenty years now. How is life now? Are you in some Thai prison? I don't fucking care. Without your default advantage, you are nothing.
I am Will.
Who the hell are you?
Will