"5150" One Who Flew Into The Cuckoos Nest

effect. Time moved by slowly. I usually craved isolation, but not like this. It was terrifying to be left alone in physical pain, as if I would be forgotten and never escape. I concentrated on not shaming myself by crying out for help. The strategy worked because I had recalled that time of victory in my life that gave me strength and soothed me. It was one of the pinnacles of my success. It helped distract me from the current chaos that surrounded me. My mind began to wander once again. This time I went back further to a very different childhood.

The Street Kids

          I was a poor street kid that went through a string of foster homes. I was the oldest of four children and I took on the parental role. That was because my parents split up when I was 5 years old. My mom ditched my dad because she couldn’t tolerate the beatings anymore. She was a strikingly beautiful girl and he resembled Elvis Presley with jet-black hair and a flirtatious flare. Jealously and war got between those two. They were jealous of each other because each of them was extremely attractive and that was the source of their insecurity. My dad was just released from a Korean prisoner of war (POW) camp before they were married. He weighed only 78 pounds and went through death marches, dysentery, disease, brutal beatings and cunning mind games from his captors. The tortuous experience had filled him with a lot of unresolved anger, which he unleashed on his family. That war continued to claim victims. There were times when our bodies were tossed around like rag dolls. Other times, we stood fingertip-to-fingertip in line formation with our heads tilted back aimed at the ceiling. If we bent our heads or dropped our arms from fatigue it meant physical punishment similar to what he may have experienced as a POW. Even today, there are several memories of our bloody tortures at his hands, whose recollection can still make my sister physically sick. Today, she is almost unable to openly hear about or speak of those days of blood and pain.

     This is one such event I witnessed at 7-years-old.

          Duepy, that poor kid. He was a terrified 2-year-old. We looked on in desperation as dad swung the rubber hose against his tender baby flesh. It was almost impossible to see the color of Duepy’s skin through his swollen green, blue and black body.
          Again came the hose splitting the baby’s flesh. We begged him to stop. Dad’s face was red as it usually gets when he becomes worked up and

Copyright Year: 2007
Copyright Notice: © 2007 by
Kathi Ann Stringer. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-6151-5359-9