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Dreams Are All But Sweet

An Emergency Story by

Bear
 

WARNING: This story contains scenes of dramatic violence that may be unsuitable or upsetting for some readers.


The dreams started after a call for a child down when the paramedics arrived they found a small boy who had been beaten by his father the child was dead.

After that run my partner and I returned to the station,they all new it was a bad run and each in their own way let us know.

I was awoken by my partner moans as it slowly turned to screams wakening the whole station. When i went to wake him he curled himself in a ball yelling don't beat me daddy please don't beat me I tried to be a good silent boy as he woke and slowly remembered where he was he said the same thing over and over why do parents beat their children just for being born? The following tale came from weeks of sessions with the department therapist in which I asked to attend and after some prompting he agreed.

"My father beat me all the time most of the time with out reason I some times felt he even beat me for being born.The summer I turned ten,was one of the worst beating ever.As any boy I wanted to be able to play outside with friends as we lived on a farm there was plenty of space. No problem, right? Wrong. Huge problem. My father explicitly forbade me to play outside.He said it was a waist of time as he wanted me around to work in the stales so he did not have to pay some one.So I didn't until my friend Peter came over to play he was new to the reservation and would often come over to help me do my work on the ranch.As be was hoping that my father might hire him he was only my age but lived with his father and grandfather.And was not as well off as we where. On this day he came over and it would be the last time I would ever see him While my father had taken some horses to sell some towns over what he did not know would not hurt him my Mother said.

Peter my friend lived about five miles away from my parents. No-one walks here they drive or ride or bikes so his father dropped him off at our house on his way to the sales selling the last of his cattle picking him up on his way home well before my own father got home.Around 4:00 p.m. I would change back into a pair of work overalls and be ready for my father.

This had been going on for about a month when my dad had a really bad day. First, one of some of his stock did such a poor job at a sale and then he totally lost a major client.

Anyway, my father was already furious when he walked into that yard and saw Peter and me.

The radio was on very loud  and the two of us were lying on our backs on bundles of hay. I heard him say my name,I opened my eyes and looked up. There he was standing over me.

As I said my goodbye to Peter who was told to leave my father told him he did not care how just to go and never ever come back.I knew I was in trouble, knew that he would yell at me. I had obviously disobeyed him. And yet, it didn't really yet seem like a big deal.This was not one of those times. Had he not been wearing sunglasses himself, I fully believe I would have seen in his eyes that there was more going on.But maybe the following events were inevitable by this point. Maybe they were always beyond my control. I don't know. What I know is that He kept up a steady stream of talk met by my silence all the way out to the shed. I can't remember all he said, but I know (because it came back to haunt me) that I told him this was the 'only time' I had played with Peter. He opened the door to the shed and 'backhanded' me in - quite literally - I ended up sitting on the other side of the shed

My father then started yelling at me. He called me time waster and a boy lover and he said that he knew what dirty things boys got up to when left alone.He then went and grabbed me by the hair.

This was the first indication I had that something was terribly wrong. He should want to punish me - severely even - but I can't explain how this was not just retribution but violence, and frightening beyond expression. I knew even at that point though that I couldn't utter another word. I had to wait for the storm to calm. He closed and locked the shed door.so my mother could not stop him Still holding a handful of my hair with his left hand, he used his right arm to clear his desk (he's neat, so there wasn't much on it). Everything went onto the floor next to and behind his desk.

"Take those shorts and off and lean over."

I pulled down my pants and bent over his desk. I wasn't trying to disobey. But he'd never had me disrobe before. I simply misunderstood.

He grabbed me by my hair again, turned me back toward him and shook me. I remember hoping my hair would magically come off in his hand. He yelled in my face:

"WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU TO DO???"

I stammered, "I thought you . . . I mean . . ."

"DON'T THINK AT ALL. DO WHAT I TELL YOU. Your problem is you DON'T LISTEN [blow across my face] and YOU DON'T THINK [another blow]!"

(In case you're wondering, I did see the inconsistency of my father's two statements even then. But even I am not that fond of arguing; this hardly seemed the time to point it out. I know this isn't really funny but humour is far more appealing than self-pity.)

I didn't say anything and pulled the T-shirt over my head. I now had only that stupid little sunsuit on. It felt skimpier than ever. I felt small, insignificant and ashamed. The man staring so coldly and with such distaste could not really be my daddy then made me remove my sunsuit.

My father looked at me, letting his eyes linger on the sunsuit, then glared back at my face, and said, "So this is the 'first and only time' you've played with Peter? That is what you said, right?"

I nodded through my tears, which had been streaming down my cheeks since he slapped me outside the shed, which welled up now and spilled over into sobs of fear and shame. I saw the trap. He spun me around so I was facing the desk with my back to him."Was that the truth?"

"No." I mouthed the word (he didn't see that) and shook my head (he did see that).

I felt his hands shove me so far over the desk that my toes left the rug.

"Don't you dare move."

I folded my arms under my face so my palms were on top of each other, face down with my forehead resting on them. The desk itself was wood covered by glass - cold. As my hand brushed the side of my mouth I could see my blood mixed into the other moisture. It left a streak on my tanned skin. My skin was cold from fear.

I could hear the metallic click of my father undoing his belt and pulling it off. Strangely, I suddenly felt less anxiety, almost a peace. I knew (or thought I did) what would happen now. I would be strapped with his belt. It would hurt. I would apologize. He would forgive me and this would be over. The stranger who called me worse than a whore, the worst names any boy could be called, would go away and my 'Daddy' would be back. Or so I thought.

Over the edge of the desk I could see that a favourite picture of the two of us (me four - him helping me fly a kite - all dark shadow - no faces) had fallen with everything else from the desk top. The frame I'd made for it sand casting with the frame I made at kinda was broken, the sand was crumbling and the glass was cracked. My last thought, as the sear of the first blow from his folded belt struck across my bottom, was of fixing it as my apology. My disobedience now seemed so disrespectful. I stared at the frame and wondered, "Do I even remember how I made that?"

As the shock of pain reached from my nerves to my brain, the hurt was much greater than I ever remembered feeling until then. Before this, I doubt seriously whether he had ever used his full strength when punishing me. Certainly, before this, my father had never punished me when he was truly angry. I didn't resist at all, but my sobs and cries kept time with his strokes, gradually growing louder. This first blow was followed by twenty-four more. At the twenty-fifth I pushed up off the desk - lying was always twenty-five with his belt.My father laughed (well, sort of):

"Do you really think you'll get off so easy?"

He pushed the middle of my shoulders down again.

Twenty-five more, much harder. My skin already felt very sore. The strap came down higher on my back and lower on my bottom, striking the tops of my legs. My sobs were choking me. I pushed up again. He shoved me back down. The belt unfolded and he stepped back a bit and whipped me with it. There was some sort of stitching at the tip that stung like bees with each stroke. Later I'd know it left blood-filled, blister-like welts, small, red and hard. This whipping was not confined to my bottom; blows landed as far down as the backs of my knees and on my back, up above my waist.

Unconsciously my hands moved down to protect myself.

It is really a good indication of how frightened I was that it took so long for me to move my hands. Usually he had to hold them at the small of my back from the very beginning of any punishment. But because he had to step closer to hold my hands he couldn't use the unfolded belt any more (why didn't he re-fold it? You tell me - I was hardly about to offer advice).

I don't remember speaking to him at this point. My pain and fear had created a sort of prison. I didn't feel it possible to make contact outside myself. I think I also was afraid of somehow making him still angrier. I do think he could have killed me; he was that angry and that far from being my father.

Still holding my hands, he grabbed a planting stake (about two-and-a-half feet long, green fiber glass, simulated bamboo, with plastic tipped ends) out of the orchid pot beside his desk. The stake was flexible, and as thick as . . . a Pilot roller-ball pen. I didn't or couldn't count the blows from it. More than thirty certainly. Probably more than fifty, but time had become elastic and I really can't say. I stopped counting at thirty. The beating went on and on. The strokes landed everywhere, from my knees to the middle of my back (below his own hand of course), delivered hard and quickly.

I was already hysterically sobbing when he started beating me with the stake, but when I cry (or laugh) hysterically it's almost silent, so I don't know what he thought or heard. Looking back I'd like to think he wasn't thinking at all and that's how this happened. Whatever else, I know this wasn't planned. Thinking that makes my current relationship with him bearable. How else could I justify still loving him? Rationalize still craving his approval?

I really couldn't feel pain between the blows. I kept thinking maybe I was numb, or hoping I might pass out (one never seems to, from pain at any rate). But my skin was so sore on my bottom and legs that each stinging blow hurt absolutely and exponentially more that the one before it. The pain welled up inside and it kept going on and on. If I could have killed myself, I would have. I kept praying, 'Let me pass out or die.

But I didn't want to die.

Suddenly a voice within me started screaming:

"please please stop stop stop"

I heard the stake fall to the floor. My father suddenly let go of my hands and I felt myself slide off the desk onto the carpet, onto my knees, facing the desk, my hands still clenched behind me. I felt too dizzy to remain upright so I curled up on my side on the floor. The welts that had been raised on my side were scratched by the wool in the rug, but moving hurt more. I wanted to get dressed, but the idea of pulling my sunsuit on seemed as impossible as running a marathon.he then picked up the stake and wiped me where I lay until it broke when it did he used the belt as I tried to crawl away hitting me where ever he could I was screaming 

please please stop stop stop

Please Please Stop Stop Stop

Please Please Stop Stop Stop

PLEASE!! PLEASE!! STOP!! STOP!! STOP!!

Was running through my head like an incantation. I felt like I was screaming. But I was only crying. I'm not completely sure I did ever scream aloud.

My father stopped. So he must have heard something.

My father told me to get up, take my shower and go to bed . . like everything was normal . . . like he had spanked me over his knee with a paddle. I closed my eyes . . . sleeping. I felt my father's rough hands lifting me up onto my feet, helping me put my sunsuit back on, leading me up the stairs like a child still mostly asleep after a car trip.

When we got within three to four feet of my bathroom I pulled away from him, ran in and locked the door (forbidden always - my mother has always feared one of us falling and striking our head and her not being able to help). Taking my shower, I fell down, jolted from my feet by pain and shock when the hot water first touched my raw skin, but refused to let him in to help me.While I was in the shower I heard him screaming at my mom then beating her for encouraging me to disobey him.

When I got out of the shower, I realized I had no P.J in there. So I wrapped myself as best I could in my towel and robe. I could feel the terry cloth sticking to my thighs,back and bottom. I knew it would hurt less if I just walked into my room and lay naked on my bed. I could imagine the cool,breeze on the raw welts, soothing. And yet I knew he was out there. I would be modest at all costs. An irrational part of my brain feared another beating were I not.

The steam obscured the mirror so I didn't see what I looked like until the next day. Still, I knew it must be bad. When I stepped out of the bathroom, my father looked at me and gasped, terrified. I would see the following morning that I had two swollen lips, a black eye and a bruise across the side of my cheek. This was trivial when compared to the cuts, welts and bruises across my bottom and down my legs arms back and bottom.And to make matter's worse the night he beat her my mother left leaving me alone with the man that so horribly beat me. I didn't leave my room for a week, the house for a month, and in September when I put on my shorts for gym, the teachers exchanged a knowing glance and told me to put my sweats back on and sit out. No-one said anything to me or did a thing. Certainly not take me to a doctor.

All I remember was that after that day until my aunt came to get me when I was fourteen I never left the farm grounds again even to go to school. I have no real idea what happened to my mother she never tried to contact me even after she left.

When my aunt grabbed me while my dad was at a sale she found me how he left me when ever he went out with a dog collar paddock to my neck and another padlock locking it to a long chain. but I never tried to find  my mother she found me I was suprized that daddy had not  killed her as he so often threatened and then he might kill me.And part of me was mad that she left me in hell when she escaped. I never saw that picture of dad and me again.

Sometimes, up till I was eighteen,when I left my aunts and my mothers house to board at the fire academy all it took was a taunting phone call his voice, over the phone, and I felt cold all over.

After the last session we both talked about how we dealt with our feelings and our anger.

my partner turned to me and said their was no way that he would ever beat is kids Chis or Jenny the way his father had beat him. And I said to him that if he ever felt that he was loosing control of his anger to call me night or day and I would come and either get him or Joanne and the children. 

The End 

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The Characters of Emergency do not belong to me. They are the property of Universal Studios and Mark VII Productions. No copyright infringement is intended or monetary gain made. I merely like to toy with them and return them to their proper owner in good working order.

Copyright © 2009
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