The Corner

My brother and I must have been some pretty bad kids growing up. Everyday when our mom's boyfriend got home we got the beatings. A lot of times I don't remember what we did wrong, it must have been something bad though because the beatings came. When my mom would whip us my brother would take the blame, but when the old man whipped us I would often spare my brother the whippings. One time my brother and I left the milk out of the refrigerator. We were beat with a 1"x4" board that day, I remember this because it broke on me. We were not allowed to cry when we got our whippings and our mother never said a word or comforted us, that is how I knew we were bad. Usually the belt whippings were the best ones to get because they did not include hitting or kicking, just being hit from the neck down to the calves. I wasn't scared of the belt even though it made us bleed. I was scared of the beatings that were outside where weapons of opportunity lay about, an extension cord here a water hose there, a pile of lumber to be throw into there. I tried to stop moving once and maybe it would stop but it didn't I was just kicked and told to get up, and I would crawl a little further till I was kicked down. My brother and I were bad kids we never knew what we had done wrong until the end of the day, so instead of living in fear we did what we wanted, being bad kids. We never tried to run away we just faced what was coming. We never told because even our own mother wouldn't listen. We just knew we wanted to kill this man. That is how I remember the day my brother and I grew up Tim was 13 and I was 12 and we just got a beating for something not even worth remembering and we told the old devil that he was done and we wouldn't get beat anymore, because he had to sleep sometime. He looked at the monsters he had created as if to say deal, then turned and walked away.