You should feel lucky that "life" did that for you. For others out there, we did not need to be a mean son-of-bitch to get that lesson. We just had to be us, and the universe slapped us harder than any of your demons did. Sux.
I have to tell you this one story.
This one night my stepfather came home with beer on his breath, Kenny Rogers blaring from his car radio, and he was looking for a fight. Probably had his own childhood demons which needed to be expressed. He obviously didn’t like the look of me or maybe I was just eating dinner too arrogantly for his liking or something. Who knows.. it never took much with him. I proceeded to get the usual loving treatment expressed with knuckles and colourful language.
When I went to bed that night I was going over the incident and getting more and more worked up about it. I was imagining all sorts of heroic fight scenes where I stood up to him and he got pulverised. Anyway I worked myself up to such a state that I reached fuckit. I would show him. I got out of bed when everyone was sleeping and grabbed a Stanley knife.
One of these bad boys:
I went out to his car and slashed his front tyres. It wasn’t enough. So I crawled under the car and cut through all the pipes and wires that I could find in the darkness. When I had slashed everything I could find, I crawled out from under his car, flung the knife somewhere into the darkness and felt better. That moment felt like I was in a stadium and everyone was cheering for me. So I sat outside marinating in my glory but the more I thought about what I had done the more scared I got. Reality was dawning.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I was shitting bricks. He was going to find out. I had a shit storm of pain coming. It was going to be a big day.
The next day, I heard him go to the car. Heard the door close. He hadn’t seen the tyres yet. Heard the car turning over.
You know that sound ...
chewchewchewchewchewchew.
pause.
chewchewchewchewchewchew.
Pause.
chewchewchewchewchewchew.
Silence.
He was now on his phone asking his mate to come over and help him get the car started. By now he had seen the flat tyre because he was moaning about it as well. By the time his mate pulled into the driveway, the bonnet was open and my stepdad was standing their hands on hips just staring into the engine bay.
I was peeping out the window, dizzy with fear. The bravado from the night before had completely abandoned me.
I heard them mumbling. I saw him look up at the house. He was looking for me. My time of judgment was near.
I decided to go out and face the music. I barely managed to walk out the house my legs were rubber. I couldn’t see straight I was so scared.
He came towards me. Enraged but I didn’t hear anything. I was so scared my mind had decided to go on vacation somewhere else. I remember ending up on the floor holding my head while his boot and fists enlightened me to the error of my ways. Thank god his friend was there to pull him off. That day I got off lightly. Probably because he was embarrassed that someone on the ‘outside’ had seen him piling into a kid. Who knows.
I laugh about it nowdays. It is no longer a painful memory. It is a fond memory. I share it because that was part of my life experience and hopefully it will encourage others to do the same . You don’t have to do it publicly but you must get it out. It is a healing process. My bag of bricks was my victim mentality. Dont be a victim. Its amazing when you release your dark stuff, it sets you free.
