Chapter Five

During the summer of 1971 I knew exactly what punishments I would receive for certain tasks. Mother set rules and it was my duty to follow. I was becoming so hungry I felt like I was slowly withering away. I very rarely got leftovers from breakfast and I never got lunch. I would occasionally get dinner but not often. The day would start just like always, I would be sitting on the steps and Mother would call me up to start my chores. She ordered me to get up there and begin; I was hoping I would get something to eat that night. I started the dishes and Mother told me I had to finish in 20 minutes or else, if it was longer I wouldn't get anything to eat later on. She continuously reminded me of my time. She yelled because I wasn't looking directly at her when she was talking. She liked her knew way of distracting me and something didn't seem right. Her drunken body hobbled all over the place and she grasped the knife. She came over towards me and I became tense. She was bobbing back and forth and I thought she would fall. As she was rocking all over the place I saw something come towards me that seemed blurry from her hand. She stabbed me. My knees got weak and I collapsed to the floor, my world was black. I woke up and saw the blood pouring from my stomach and Mother was trying to dress it. She once wanted to be nurse and that is one thing that I had complete confidence in her with. Russell was chanting in the background "David's going to die. The Boy's going to die." I sat there trying to tell Mother I forgave her and that I knew it was an accident but I was too weak to tell her. She then told me that I had to go finish the dishes and if I didn't she would kill me. I couldn't comprehend what she was saying but as soon as I did I tried to move myself to the kitchen. I struggled with the dishes and I could feel the pain coming from my stomach but I had to bear through it, I had to finish my chore. I moved into the room where Father was slowly and told him that Mother had stabbed me. He didn't seem surprised. He told me to go back and finish before Mother saw us talking. I did what I was told. I lost all respect that I had for him. I finally finished after a hour and a half but as I was stretching to put the dishes away Father came in and told me he would do that, I guess my pain was visible. I moved my way downstairs and to my surprise Mother tended to me. She slowly took my bloody clothes off and I accidently fell against her, she allowed it for a moment. I was told that I could go play with my brothers outside and do sparklers. I was excited and for a moment forgot about the pain. I had a fever that and she actually seemed nervous and worried about me. I thought of my mom not Mother. This didn't last long; I soon had to return to my chores even though I still felt feverish. Mother didn't care anymore, she didn't tend the wound. It was all on me. The cut was infected and I had to clean it myself. I took one of my cleaner rags out of the dirty pile and slowly turned on the wash faucet. I only let the water drip because Mother would know if I completely turned it on. I squeezed the wound and watched the puss ooze out. It hurt, bad. I pulled the rag off and held my breath with pain. I placed the rag back on the cut and tried to squeeze everything out until it was just blood. I became worried that Mother would notice soon that I wasn't on the bottom of the stairs so I cleaned up my mess and resumed by position. My life was back to hell.