“No!” This is one of the first words that toddlers test as
they begin to build a vocabulary.
“Don’t you tell me no!” The imperative was immediately
reinforced with a sting on the side of my face caused by my mother’s open palm accelerated
like the tip of whip at the end of her swinging arm.
“Don’t you ever tell ME no!” She added this as if maybe she
had concern that the previous assault and verbiage was insufficient.
I got it Mom. Big
people have more power because they can cause pain.
It wasn't long before I learned that the slapping hand would
also hold another object for purpose of assault. This object could be a belt, a
stick, a switch or a ruler. However, my mother’s favorite was a plastic
flyswatter.
There was a cruel truth that I recognized but didn't fully understand as a toddler. The science of physics gave explanation that made an assaulting parent with an object in the hand more feared than a
single opened-palm slap. The acceleration of another object at the
end of arm and hand was increased exponentially and thus able to deliver
amplified pain to one’s backside. It further delighted my mother, as she
sometimes expressed, that if she used the flyswatter then it wouldn't hurt her
hand. Yes, she really said that from time-to-time.
I don’t ever remember suffering punishment at the hand of a
calm and well meaning parent. There was never any of that television sitcom
stuff of “this is for your own good” or “this is going to hurt me more than
you, son.” Punishment was always meted out in anger and the severity of it was
in direct proportion to the level of the parental anger.
My mother’s favorite perversion was to make me go after the
flyswatter for her. Being that I never hurried in this retrieval, you would
think that the lapsed time would allow her to calm down some but this was not
so. With a half smile, she watched with mocking derision as her anger gathered
more force for the assault.
With one hand on my arm and the other relentlessly wielding
the whip to my backside, she would often verbalize one word with each blow. This
manner of beatings could make a child wish for the parent to be much more
succinct. “When… (Smack!) I… (Smack!) tell… (Smack!) you… (Smack!) to… (Smack!)
do… (Smack!) something… (Smack!) then… (Smack!) you… (Smack!) had… (Smack!)
better… (Smack!) do… (Smack!) it… (Smack!) and… (Smack!) do… (Smack!) it…
(Smack!) quick! And here are a few more just for good measure. (Smack, smack,
smack, smack, smack, smack!)
Gee thanks, Mom! I
don’t think that I would have quite felt the depth of your meaning without the
few for good measure. Those last lashes really helped to clarify things for me.
There were times of nurturing when I was a toddler, though.
I have vague memories of company being at the apartment where we lived and the
adults were playing cards. Someone had, evidently, said something funny and
everyone was laughing. Being a toddler, I didn't understand what was funny but I
still felt compelled to join in the laughter. This was before any notion of
furniture being built with child safety in mind.
I was sitting on steel folding chair. The weight of my small
body was focused on the rear of the chair’s seat. In my excitement and
movements from the laughter, my concentrated weight folded the chair up
underneath of me. I went through the back of the chair as it folded and sent me to the
floor, hitting my head.
I was picked up by one of my of my parents, inspected and
coddled while I wailed with the pain of my fall. Another thing that I learned
as a toddler was that more tolerance was afforded to children when other adults
were in witness. I played it out to the point that I was warned that I had
cried enough.
Since we had guests and the warning was not accompanied by a
slap or a beating I didn't fully grasp the magnitude of the warning. I
continued to wail. To this my father gave a final warning. “Do you want me to
give you something to bawl about?”
No thanks, Dad. Having
an adult-sized folding chair eat me and drop my little butt to the floor did a
pretty job of giving me something to bawl about.
That was one my father’s absolute favorite questions once he
had beat me enough to elicit wailing. Sometimes he would follow it with, “Do
you want me to col’ cock you to shut you up?”
Actually, Dad, I don’t
really know what ‘cold cock’ means but it sounds bad enough that I'd prefer to pass on the opportunity
I won’t mention much about my siblings in these memoirs. Even
where our experiences were at the exact time, they may have their own and very
different memories. However, one of my most haunting memories of beatings was
of my sister clamping her hand over her mouth. She did this in an effort to muffle her own
screams for fear that our father might give her something more to bawl about.
It was very rare that either of my parents ever hit us with
their hand alone, unless it was the sucker slap to the face. Beatings were
always done with an extension to the whip-arm. For my mother it was usually the
plastic flyswatter. For my father it was whatever was within his reach.
I remember once that my sister was beat with an electrical
extension cord by my father. The next day he examined the marks left on her by
the cord and advised my mother that “they” had better not use an extension cord
to beat us anymore. What a concept!
My mother began to outgrow the idea of the plastic
flyswatter as her whip of favor when I started wearing blue jeans. That
sadistic whip had much less of an effect coming through denim than it did on standard
toddler clothing. Being the crafty little fellow that I was, I tried to feign
more pain than I was receiving from the flyswatter but it didn't take her long
to catch on.
Eventually, my parents found a paddle in a souvenir shop
called The Board of Education. This thing was a sadist’s delight. It was about
18 inches long, 3 inches wide and 3/8 of an inch thick. That sucker was brutal
unless you were wearing cast iron jeans. It was even labeled The Board of
Education.
My mother loved it. As with the flyswatter, she loved to
make me go after it for my own beating. As I grew older, there came a day when
I was ready to take her on before letting her beat me with the ridiculous board
again. That story is for another telling though.
The earliest learned lessons in my life were fairly simple.
1. Never say NO to an adult.
2. Do what you’re told and do it fast.
3. Big people inflict pain to enforce obedience.
4. Take your beating with minimal fuss to avoid something more
to bawl about.
