“Wait until I tell your father. Wait until I tell your father. Wait...”

She is the omnipotent one, the center of my universe, and everything she utters is profound. Her words have authority, and I’ve heard this mantra many times before. But this time, it promises annihilation. 

“Wait until I tell your father.” 

I feel a nausea. She knows. My upper and lower orifices each clench for restraint, but either one could go at any time.

I fall to my knees, eyes downcast. Another mantra: “the truth sets you free”. But it hasn’t set me free. Later, much later, I’ll find some mantras of my own.

 “Wait until I tell your father.” 

She is danger; her presence is voltaic. At last she has a peg to hang all her hatred for me. I get the impression she couldn’t find anything more delectable. I can sense she is anticipating (“Wait until ….”) the joyous rapture of comradery with my father. Her satisfaction floods the room with maleficent terror. It seems to ricochet everywhere, impaling me on its manic journey. I didn’t believe it could become worse, and so of course, it immediately did. 

The great unspoken truth is ruthlessly delivered. The words seem to hang in midair; frozen in time. Too painful to be taken in at this moment; yet, paradoxically, the pronouncement is a fact that has been known to both of us forever.

All things seem still as the words echo in my mind. My blood stops running in my veins as my mother screams at me: “I’d rather you be dead than homosexual.”

These objects are foreign.

They belong to my father and he is foreign to me.

Apparently he once used them but that was a long time ago. My mother’s lover (do I know that at this time?) continues to use his own and even shares them with his only son.

And here in lies the difference: neglect verses engagement.

My father’s partly rusty circular weights are painted pale blue in colour. The dust covered discs are stacked like a step pyramid; one upon the other as each one’s volume decreases. I stare at the neat pile. This strikes me as rare for a man who is normally more chaotic than ordered. The long silver bar, to which the weights can connect, leans conveniently adjacent against the wall. It, too, shows some similar markings of rust.

At school I have a classmate who is gigantic. He is really tall and broad.

At school, like at home, I am the runt of the litter.

I am the unwanted reject. 

Seldom chosen as a friend. And certainly seldom selected for a team. The teacher always needs to allocate me to a sport’s team; I hear the collective groan.

I don’t understand these games. 

Ball? What ball? Team? What team?

On the oval I gaze at the grass mesmerised by the ants that earnest carry out their duty. In silence they diligently lug their seemingly disproportionate burdens.

And my parents and I are not a team either. An illegitimate pregnancy suggests misfortune more than choice. Again I am not exactly “selected”.

And why am I an only child?

How “burdensome” I must be that they dare not add to their already “disproportionate" load.

Ironically, in physical terms, I actually am disproportionate in size: To small, too weedy and too pale.

I am taken to a special doctor.

Surprisingly someone has noticed I am failing to thrive.

Following a weight check, a measure of my height, some prodding and probing the visit results in me being prescribed a supplement in the form of a brown molasses. It is meant to bulk me up. 

But enforced ‘bulking up’ means that something is derailed.

I don’t know any other kid at school who has seen this doctor nor eats this treacle. It sticks to the spoon and I twirl it round and round to break the thread of this viscous substance. Playing with it tastes better than eating it. But, at feeding time, I am always watched by mum’s stern eyes.

I eat my quota. 

My difference draws disapproving looks from the prying neighbours in my avenue. Their up turned noses only accentuate their dismissive side ways glances yet they follow me. I am both unacknowledged and under surveillance.

Their compulsive contemplation and disregard is a paradox. I am a paradox too: A male who is young and effeminate.

And my gross underweight is just more evidence of ‘my failure’. Again I am different; yet all I am being is me.

I have just provided them with more evidence; more evidence of difference. I, and therefore ‘my family’, are living proof of weirdness and a source of endless curiosity (or is that perversity?).

I am to blame for in my parent’s land of scapegoating — all “our” flaws are “mine”.

It seems that the local whore and the angry, fat man who ‘knows it all’ think that no one also notices them.

But they do.

I hear it loudly whispered through mean gossiping lips. They mean for me to hear; they mean for it to hurt me.

And it does.

Suddenly a wave of acute despair envelope me as I type. My mind is filled with the haunting music of the Benjamin Britten. It is the music of his opera ‘Peter Grimes’ based on George Crabbe’s poem ‘The Borough’.

Being set in a coastal town it contains four ‘sea interludes’. Bizarrely, or is that appropriately?, I am tossed from the fourth sea interlude titled ‘Storm’ straight back to the beginning - the Prolong. And especially to two lines sung by the chorus: “When women gossip, the result is someone doesn't sleep at night”.

And I don’t sleep at night even though I perceive my parent’s denial as all too “Emperor’s New Clothes”; even for me, even at this young age.

Although I’m armed with this rare knowing it still is not enough.

Not enough to block the torrent of parental contempt infiltrating into my every pore and seeping deep into my soul.

Little wonder I am thin. Their putrid diet of pure distain is dished out in abundance. Though hollow in calories it satieties me regardless.

And now I have been ordered to the garage.

I open the side door, step in and promptly close the door again.

As the main roller door is not open the only light which infiltrates the cavity does so through a dirty frosted glass window at the eastern end. Enshrouded in gloom I sense only entrapment.

My eyes attempt to accommodate to this dimness whilst frantically darting around the cavity. But I focus on nothing.

I am 13 years old, alone and bewildered.

With time my unfocused maneuvering does morph into an observation. I now ogle at the unfamiliar metal pieces and my mind searches for a template.

This examination nudges me to remember his barked instruction: “Go to the garage and use the weights”. 

This vague recollection suggests I ought to know what I should do.

But how? I don’t know what to do.

And certainly I have no instructor present.

Then there is a dim remembrance. I have spied upon the other man and his son as they  used their equipment in their garage. I secretly peered down their long drive way, through their open garage door and into their intimate space.

Always from a distance; I never dared to approach. What was I scared of? Their house, it’s occupants or both?

I am still in the garage, my anxiety is riding high. I do what I can to reign myself in. My young teenage hands are already sweaty as I approach the stacked pile of weights.

I stop mid stride and stare some more.

I am a beach bather memorised by the drawback. The water is going out, out, right out to sea and out of sight.

Tenaciously I do my best to come back to myself; to mobilise and flee. But all is giving way and then the tsunami of terror crashes within me.

I am internally battered, disorientated and spent.

More time passes.

I now remember the metal bar and seem to comprehend the simple mechanics I need to apply. Though fatigued I move again.

Instantly I register the heaviness as I retrieve the bar from it’s resting place and set it in the middle of the void. My under-developed biceps are not familiar with such a load. My lack of engagement in manual chores, let alone exercise, is underscored by this discomfort.

Hesitantly I begin to dismantle the pyramid but only the very top level.

My wet palms maneuver the first weight. It feels heavier than it surely is. My muscles again feel the strain as I clumsily apply it to one end of the metal bar.

I repeat the process but apply it to the opposite end.

The weights wobble; but of course they do! For I have neglected to consider the use of the fading red bolts which I only now notice not too far from the stack.

I apply them appropriately and with, seemingly, less fear present.

They do their job. The weights remain in position. But although I have now completed this task I feel no sense of satisfaction; just a certain bewilderment.

And I am staring yet again.

I am alone.

I am use to this solitary state.

Now what?

I suppose I just lift.

I am drawn to marks etched on the bar. I decide this is where I should place my hands.

With no notion of correct posture I abruptly pick up the bar. It hurts my arms. This is not fun.

My small weak arms are straining. Is this right?

The bar falls from my limp hands. A resounding “thud” reverberates in the emptiness as it strikes the concrete.

The side door erupts open. A loud “bang” is produced as the flung door hits an internal wall.

The angry ones stand silhouetted within the door frame. I am cornered. They step into the space. 

With rapid fire they accuse me of my inconsiderateness. The bullets they shoot are well rehearsed; well aimed. It’s all about the welfare of their concrete. Their floor is undamaged but I am bad.

I don’t understand.

Their bellowing suddenly shifts to silence. 

Absolute silence.

Their mouths move vigorously. I don’t hear a word.

They leave.

I realise I am in ordinary silence and staring at the bar again.

This exercise is over.

I walk a lot and I walk fast. People always comment on my pace (or is that “pacing”?). It is just what I do. I suspect it’s what many of us do — the ones’ who often need to run. 

I don’t feel safe at home and I don’t feel safe away from from home either.

The walk from my parent’s house at the bottom of our cul-de-sac is always a walk of shame. I feel the searing stares from eyes which peer through lacy curtains and strategically tilted venetian blinds.

I am thoroughly scrutinised. I am a moving exhibition of perversity; a freak show lost and looking for a circus.

I wander my suburban streets aimlessly but remain hyper-vigilant.

No one likes me. What is there to like? 

I should be dead — a fact my mother tells me often. 

I only needed to hear it once but she chants it like a mantra.

I heard it clearly the first time. I mean, how could I not?

Indeed, for a long time, it was the only souvenir of my childhood. My memory had conspired to remember little else — perhaps for fear that she had said worse (is there anything worse than to wish “death” to a child, especially your own?).

Everything is harmful; nothing is fun.

Ironically, cul-de-sac is a French word meaning “anus of the bag”.

It is so appropriate for my childhood is smeared with diarrhoea; terror makes you shit uncontrollably. 

And now I do want to shit all right! To shit in her mouth once she is comatose and watch her choke.

I will squat above her face and take aim. It is my revenge. I loath this woman.

The torpid state which I had experienced of late did deeply concerned me. I struggled through work and completed only the bare minimum with the assistance of punctuated naps. Walking my three legged dog was taxing and my gym regime ceased completely. Self initiated blood tests revealed nothing of note. But now all seems clear to me.

Something deep within had been stirring unconsciously. I was utilising my energy to find the strength for this confession: It has allowed me to be honest with myself and with you.

I type and Electra dances. In my mind Richard Strauss’s music, so lilting and lush, hypnotically supports me as I mirror Electra’s psychotically induced wishful dance of pay back. In time we are one. We merge and rejoice in ecstasy.

Clytemnestra hates Electra. My mother hates me.

She goads me with a look combing evil and glee as she spiteful incites me.

“Go on!” she hisses like a serpent.

My habitually downcast eyes suddenly look up just in time to see her neck ribs spread to form a flattened, widened hood.

She scares me.

In this, her usual furious state, she seeks to pick a physical fight with me. She, with her henchman husband, coax me with a flood of insults. Their harsh words hit me. I am battered even before my flesh is bruised.

“Go on! I dare you.” she spits again before turning towards her partner in crime for immoral support. And then, in sync, they both return their gaze to me. With pupils dilated beyond human they stand firm.

I stand small and paralysed.

“Gutless!” is her defining pronouncement.

The dining room has become an arena. Although, skilfully, these events (for this is not an isolated incident) only happen when there is no audience.

It is daytime and I see all this too clearly. We all stand basking in the strong light which pours the summer warmth abundantly into this tortuous space. But I, the scrawny and emasculated victim, feels frozen.

This is very dangerous tableau.

I am on thin ice. And both it and I are beginning to thaw.

I sense that my right hand is beginning to have it’s own agency. Seemingly dislocated from the rest of me I observe my open right hand elevating itself to approximate my mother’s face.

Rather than finding an absolute position it vacillates in a very dangerous dance.

This restrained tension, which is unknown to me, is a mighty force. I am mesmerised as
my enraged crimson hand approaches her maroon coloured cheek. Each advancement seems closer than the previous. Each time the hand wisely retracts.

Soon the distance is very narrow. That one inch of separation generates an intense scorching heat.

I focus on this hand/cheek interface. And I am watching this from afar.

But as I am watching there is another part, a deeper part of me, which is in charge of the judgement. I am not consciously deciding to retract nor approach.

And yet another part ponders: How is it that this rage can be contained and restrained to only one palm, four fingers and a thumb?

This is all too precarious and I know there must be a decisive move; and what will that be?

But of course I’ve forgotten about her adjutant. In spite of his rank his ‘I’ll huff and puff and I’ll blow your house down’ intonation is only a mere echo of her dangerous rage as he dutifully echoes “Gutless”. 

It is unoriginal, clumsy, and not strategic. But for that I am grateful.

It breaks my captivation and transports me back to reality. Immediately I am reacquainted with trepidation but I am, at least, on the more conscious side of the event.

I am playing with dangerously mad people and the survivor within me is awaken. I play what I actually am (at least in real terms). I play weak. I intentionally retract my hand and drop my arm. I am “gutless”; gutless but alive.

My strategic retreat gives them, not the satisfaction of pummelling me physically to nothing, but an opportunity to ramp up their chorus of insults (which of course only pummels me emotionally).

In time, due to boredom, they turn on their heels and with leave triumphantly with one final disdainfully united chortle.

Einstein stated that “energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another”.

I did not hit her face but I had metaphorically hit myself instead. Yours truly had taken the full force of the punch. Physical or not, the contempt enfiladed towards me had set me up for a life of reddened cheeks. Beacons which could be easily be set a blaze in an unguarded instant.

But that last sentence is a lie. “Unguarded” is just a wishful thought. The trigger is both conscious and unconscious — I have no control at all.

A sudden physical slumping claims my body.

I collapse into my chair and witness my hands retract from the keyboard. I stare at the computer screen and allow for this fact to settle as a deep truth.

I sigh and consider this neglected veracity. A life lived for far too long in the chronicle of the drama has just connected with it’s narrative. And now I feel a new pain; and this pain is great.

Staring, something so common place in my world, is my default position. I have lived (if that is the correct word?) as if I resided alone on one side of a pane of glass. Isolated, fearful, envious and deeply lonely. My defensive hypomanic facade of old was successful in that it kept me running; alas just not sure to where.

One rare days I have real company. One boy seeks me out. I am very fond of him.

I feel relief for when I’m in his presence nothing seems ominous. He is short and has dark hair. I have many things and he comes from the poorer side of our suburb. But he has popularity; at school he has many friends. Today I have a friend. He is open and laughs a lot - and not at me.

We have played together at my parent’s house before. I don’t know why we are friends. He doesn’t want anything from me.  Other boys only visit because my father has adult pornography under his side of my parent’s bed. Pornography which I gladly make readily accessible to them. I steal it from it’s secret spot. 

We sit huddled together behind the shed in the backyard. The boys turn the pages rapidly with great excitement. They soon become frenzied as they hunt for their perfect picture. They get lost in the images and I get lost in the delusion that I have friends: Mutually exploitive, mutually exclusive.

My non exploitive friend and I now stand in the garage and are engaging with the weights. The roller door is open and the sun light joins us. It is warm and glowing — it is also how I feel inside. I am swooning. Verdi’s love duet from the end of Act I of Otello envelops me.

From my state of rapture honest words escape me: “A kiss?”

Met with a quiet silence and I quickly realise this is not a duet. I have no Otello.

And now I suddenly shudder at the thoroughness of my feminisation. Why am I identifying with Desdemona?

And, here is the clincher, my father’s name is Desmond. Horror! Fucking Horror! How successful has he been that I am unable to think like a boy or is it some unconscious defence to be so far removed from something that is so brutal?

Possessed with the deepest of shame I register his face. Through the furnace which is my face I see his kind and gentle eyes. He is not angry nor even confused. But his words, tender and well chosen, are still fatal to me. A death of my own creation.

Simply he states “I like you Tom. But not like that”. 

There is no dramatic exit. He just leaves; he just walks into the bright sunlight and idles up the cul-de-sac and away.

I am alone and staring at the concrete. I do not know this state: I am rejected but, in this moment, I am not bad.