Not the whole story -- Metamophosis Literary Online Gazette

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Date Posted: 19:41:45 06/20/00 Tue
Author: Todd Enrico
Author Host/IP: spider-we063.proxy.aol.com / 205.188.195.48
Subject: Not the whole story

Hello, my name is Samuel Stocks. I'd like to tell you about my life, summarized of course, if you want to listen. My parents met at a bar after high school, they had a whirlwind romance. Mostly attraction I've been told. Like so many other twenty five year olds, they started having sex early on in their relationship. Then my mother wound up pregnant with me. At the time, children born out of anything other than wedlock were considered "illegitimate". They were known in colonial times as "bastards", they are accepted today and are presently known as "love children". My grandmother had a fit when she learned her daughter was going to have an illegitimate child. Mom didn't want an abortion. So, under extreme pressure, my parents wed in an attempt to appease all their relatives who dissapproved of love children. I was born shortly afterwards. So there they were, married, one child, and trying to be in love. But it wasn't to be. They both had bad habits the other couldn't live with. They separated within months, and finally divorced when I was five. Mom got custody. The road from there wasn't easy, not for me, and not for her. She had recently lost her decent job, and we were very short on money, just barely able to stay in whatever place we lived; a condition that stuck with us for many years. We moved to Indio, CA. I could talk by five of course, I was aware of my surroundings a little. But I didn't understand anything yet, I just went along with whatever happened. Mom eventually met Brian, whom she had my brother and sister with. Scott came first, when I was six, and Brian was very proud to have a son. Now, my Mom used to pay attention to me when I was an only child, mostly because I was the only one she had to focus on. But then alot of things consumed her, and I fell into the background. Baby Scott was a handful, and Brian...I must tell you about Brian. He turned out not to be so nice. I often heard him and Mom fighting when I was asleep at night, she was hit alot. And I had to be careful around Scott, or I would suffer his wrath. Two examples: I once accidentally knocked Scott over when he was sitting, and Brian pushed me on my butt; another time he needed the formula to feed Scott, and asked me to find it, and when I couldn't he threw me clear across the room. My tail bone hurt for a week after that last incident. At the time, I thought I really deserved it. I mean, Scott was important, not me. They couldn't afford my mistakes. I helped out with Scott and everything else as much as I could. I made my own lunches, got up in time for school, fetched things for Scott when needed(or tried to). I was a good little soldier, because I had to be. Eventually, Brian was too much to handle, so Mom divorced him. Not before he had the opporunity to pull a knife on his own son in a drunken rage though. I was never quite sure how that affected Scott. Oh, allow me to mention that Dad used to have me out in L.A. where he lived for visits every school break and sometimes weekends. But he only did because nothing much else was in his life, and I was the only thing he had to hang onto. Well, months after the divorce from Brian, Mom gave birth to my sister Kellee. She had been pregnant with her after Brian and my mother had, well, goodbye sex I guess. I guess living with Brian made me a little quiet. Mom now had two other children to deal with, and I thought I was ok without any atteniton from her. I just kept to school and such. Things for a while kept at a steady pace, I went to school, we were barely able to afford any place we lived in Yuma after we moved again. I was usually left to tend to myself. After the third grade, we really couldn't afford our apartment, so we moved to Phoenix where we had several relatives. I stayed there for two grades. Those two years were probably the happiest of my childhood. The kids in my fourth grade class were kept together when fifth grade came around. Different teacher, same kids, so we all knew eachother, every single one. Sahuaro Elementary was and always will be my favorite school. One of the girls even confessed to me once she liked being around me best of all her friends, because I wasn't so immature as some of the other kids(I was just quiet). In the middle of fifth grade, I visited L.A. and was the ring bearer for my father's wedding to a girl he'd been introduced to a year earlier. It fun to do. After I went back to Phoenix, I'd decided I wanted to live with my Dad. Every time I ha visited him before, I always missed him terribly when I returned home. Maybe because he paid attention to me, noticed me, maybe even loved me. So, after I passed fifth grade, I moved in with him and his wife Jean in L.A. I was so happy at first. Dad had always told me I could live with him any time I wanted to. And here I was. I enrolled in Will Rogers Middle School there. That was the beginning of the end of the time I lived with my father. The children in this Los Angeles school, they all had a certain attitude about them. They all liked the be mean, pick on eachother, beat people up and just be plain cruel. Looking back, I now know that L.A. is a rough city, and most of the kids are very mean. I did not know that was the reason at the time. I, being quiet and fairly nice, was immediately zeroed in on by everyone else as a fresh, vulnerable target. With all the things they did normally, I got the works. Every day: called names, stuff thrown at me, physically threatened, treated like trash. The people in each class I had loved to gang up on me. I'd be broadsided with spit wads every time the teacher couldn't see. Some kids would smack me upside the head. In fact, they generally didn't want me to succeed at anything. At Sahuaro, I had begun to participate in spelling bees; I quickly became very involved and good at the bees. I was class champ in fourth grade, but placing low in the school bee. In fifth I won second place in class, but still went on to the school bee, to place in the top twenty. My fifth grade teacher, Ms. Brown, was rooting for me all the way. Will Rogers school didn't participate in the national spelling program, but they still held competitions for the english classes. I was a rather good speller by then, and gave my all to winning in my class. It came down to me and one other skilled competitor. When I finally spelled a word right he had gotten wrong, I was booed by everyone. Imagine that. I won a great contest, and the whole class booed me for winning. They didn't want me to win. They wanted me to crash and burn and be able to torture me for one more thing. The full force of their cruelty didn't hit me until then. I felt very alone. Everyone wanted to keep me down. Nobody liked me. I was looked upon as pitiful by every kid at the school. Even when I did manage to tell my father, he thought it wasn't as serious as I said, and just told me to ignore everyone(not much help). Truth be told, I don't think he cared much. His wife Jean I discovered, was very resentful of me. Mom knew it, she told me things Dad told her on the phone. I was proof my father had been with someone else before Jean. And with me living with them, she couldn't have her perfect little love nest with him. She never did say so to my face. She even acted ok around me. I knew she wanted me out of the picture though. After the sixth grade school year was over, I moved back with my mother, who had moved to Yuma. I got no argument from my father. Now that he'd found someone who made him happy, he didn't need me. Through everything though, people keeping me down, I felt something I had to use. Something inside me I wanted to show everyone. Some people would say "something to prove". So I finished junior high school in Yuma. I wasn't picked on or bullied quite so much, but nobody really cared about me edgewise. Everyone had sports, clubs, some school activity that made them popular. I didn't really have anything. So no one again noticed me. It was the same at home. Mom was motherly to Scott and Kellee, but I relied on myself for any help I needed. I did win the spelling bee for the school in seventh grade. I went on and place seventh in the district. I wish I could show Ms. Brown the plaque I got, I wish she could know. She'd be so proud. Well, high school was pretty much the same as junior high. Everyone had their social lives, I hung out at home. Mom of course mothered Scott and Kellee, and I was left to myself. By now, everything had come crashing down on me. all the abuse, hurt, the lack of people who loved or even liked me. There would be times when I'd be by myself, and I'd be thinking about everything, and just cry. The kind where you contort your face up, and tears stream down your face moderately. I sometimes had to hide it because Mom, Scott and Kellee would be in another room, being a family; and I didn't want them to see me that way. I was a man who walked alone, in every sense. The only thing I liked were the drama classes. I really liked performing. I lost interest in high school, not that it was hard, but I was too sad to put any effort into it. So I had to go out of it and take the G.E.D., which I passed with flying colors. Through the period of high school, Mom had married another man, Bobby, and then divorced him. He was not abusive, but he didn't treat me very well. He actually added even more to my quietness. I visited my father that summer. I wanted to go to college out there. Even after sixth grade with all the mean kids. By college, people are there to learn, not screw around, they can't afford to. I asked Dad if I could move in with him and Jean. He said "Well, we'll have to find you another place. There's certainly no room here." I thought how silly that was. He and Jean live in a two story house, they had plent of room. I knew why he said I couldn't move in there. And I could see it in his eyes. It was Jean. She didn't want me there. And my Dad didn't want to risk arguing with his beloved wife. Plus, he was financilly secure with her, he didn't want to give that up for me. And I didn't want him to, because I knew he didn't love me. But it still hurt alot. He said he would try to help me get my own little apartment soon. I spent the rest of the summer glibly. I did meet someone though, on the internet. Camille seemed like a kindred spirit. Someone in a similar situation as I was. When I went back to Yuma, we began to talk on the phone. It was just friendship to me for a long time. But after a while, I began to wonder about a romance. I thought of asking her about it, but I didn't want to scare her away. She eventualy got other friends, and I wasn't so important to her. And after four months, I found out she had been having an affair with another guy, a guy I knew. It was a new hurt, one I had never felt before. A new betrayal. Even though she did break up with him, because she thought it was a naive thing they had. I was even sadder inside after that, and I think I never completely trusted Camille either. But, we kept our friendship intact. And I eventually brought up the subject of a romance after that. She wasn't sure about it. So I laid off a little, just sort of asked her of her feelings between me and the other guy every once in a while. She was luke warm to the idea of her and I. Meanwhile, my father kept putting off getting me out to L.A. He had all these excuses, and little things he wanted me to do first. And I know Jean was helping him come up with the excuses. Just out to stop me from ruining her life alone, trying to steal my father. She needn't try anymore, he was already gone from me. So the only thing I had to focus on was Camille, back at home. She was nice, but had this way of controlling me, not just like a girl would normlly do to a guy in some cases, but she was very firm and strict about it; and I wasn't even her boyfriend. That started to eat away at me, along the tenth month we had known eachother. Then she would mentally toy with me, and act very apologetic afterwards. We finally had one big fight, all of it just came to the surface. I put my foot down and told her I wouldn't let her control me anymore. She couldn't handle it. She almost exploded over the phone, so I hung up on her. Later on that night, she told me she didn't ever want to be with me. It struck down to my heart in a knife like way. Despite everything, I didn't fully see how bad she was for me, and I wanted to be with her. I cried the whole night. The next day however, my mother woke me up to something. She had been in an emotionally and physically abusive marriage with Brian, so she knew abuse when she saw it. I told her how it was with Camille, and my mother told me that Camille was emtionally abusive. It made me feel better a little, I still hurt from her rejection, but I knew it would have been hell to be with her. So I moved on. I never spoke to her again. But for a long time afterwards, I felt strange, dirty, and somehow out of phase with reality. The feeling of worthlessness I had always had increased extremely. Sometimes I wished for death. Not suicide though. I wished someone I knew would get shot at or something and I could jump in front and take the bullet to save them. Die somewhat of a hero. And maybe people would think something of me. Think I was a worthy person. I was so lost. My father had abandoned me. I might not ever be able to prove myself, to let that thing out. I think it was a love of acting. I wanted to perform. But my father and Jean wouldn't let me out to L.A. go to college and pursue it. I was at home with a family that hardly noticed me. And I had lost someone I used to think was my soul mate. I was wrong about it. It seemed like I was doomed. I had nobody and nothing. I was utterly by myself. How was I going to accomplish my goals? I was so lost; desrted by eevryone. What could I do? Was this how I was going to live out my life? Stuck at home with a family that didn't love me? Just rot away? Was it the end of anything I had going? Suddenly, I remembered something. And I began to think...

*NOT The End*

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