Hello dear reader, I hope you had a blessed day.
It's taken me a few days to get the courage to continue recalling a most painful part of my life. I usually share the link to a new post here, but I felt so much shame that I couldn't. I will try to do it this time. I hope that people can learn from my experience, how being abused can affect a person, for years.
While mother was pregnant my behavior towards it was mixed. A part of me was happy, yet another was full of hatred. The child would be Manuel's kid, his flesh and blood. The son of the man who abused me.
Sometimes I would honestly be glad when my mother would ask me to touch her belly, to feel the baby move. But many times I would have to pretend, to act as if I was happy when all I could feel is hatred.
After he was born, mother entrusted me to help her take care of him. Back then I dropped the kid a lot, and to be honest I have no idea if it was on purpose or accidentally. What I do remember was that I felt a lot of resentment towards him.
During the pregnancy and his birth my grades dropped drastically and I started to drink in secret when I was out of the house. I didn't become a drunk, but it gave me a buzz that made me forget how miserable I felt.
I ended up being expelled out of my school, and the two schools after that. My imagination and day dreaming was partly to blame. Sometimes I would imagine being someone else, at peace, with family that truly loved me, that would protect me. Once in a while I would imagine Manuel dead at my feet. Yeah, those were dark days.
Mother eventually told me to get a job or else. So at 15 years old, without finishing what would be equivalent to high school; I got a job.
I had a friend who worked at the local Pilsen brewery that got me a job there. My task was quality control. The beers would come out on an automated line and I was to make sure no damaged or defective bottle went past my station.
The bonus was that I could drink as much beer as I wanted at work, as long as it didn't affect my performance. Everyone, even the supervisors would drink all day long. It was a great job for me at the time, every day I would leave work with a nice buzz.
Back then all my friends drank liquor and/or got high. Mother didn't know because I never invited anyone to come over. She had no idea how out of control I was when I was out of her sight.
At the time my definition of friend would be someone to drink with or get high with, or do something stupid (illegal) with. I never told any of my friends about the anger, shame and pain I carried every day.
On occasion I would see Manuel at home, playing with my half-brother. Every time I wished him to drop dead, I didn't care how it would affect his son. But I had to pretend that he was a good man, for my mother and my half-brother.
I should have told everyone what he had done, I'm certain that everyone in our building would have beaten him to a pulp, probably killed him and gotten away with it. Child molesters who get killed by a mob usually don't do time in South America, justice works like that sometimes there.
Within a few years I became reckless, but I was never caught during any of my stupid stunts. I was smart and got away with it every time. My friends encouraged me, some became accomplices.
At 18 years old I felt I could get away with anything. I was proven wrong soon after. I had crossed the wrong man, who wanted me dead and had the position and power to get away with it.
My mother found out about it, and feared for my life. She convinced some relatives to hide me, I could not be seeing in public. I spent a few weeks in the house of one of her cousins, then was moved one night to her aunt's home.
There was no way out of the situation, mother tried talking to the man I had betrayed and he told her he would shot me himself if he saw me. Realizing that I had to go somewhere, one night she sat me down at her aunt's and told me I was leaving the country.
I was surprised, since I knew we had no money to make that happen. Then she said I was going to the united states to join Chila, my grandma. I was happy but also scared. Mother told me I was going to be smuggled into a ship a night, and then I would spend two weeks at sea and then meet Chila.
What she didn't mention at the time, was that she had pretty much lied to the smugglers. Promising $2,500 dollars which we didn't have. She also didn't tell my grandma I was coming until after I had left, forcing her hand. I only found out about it later on.
Chila, didn't have that kind of money. She lived paycheck to paycheck. Chila had to borrow money from everyone she knew, asked her church for help to find someone to take me in when I arrived in California; because she lived in New York and didn't know anyone there.
As mother described, I had been smuggled onto a ship. Moved into a cabin where I was locked in, and given two meals a day. I was treated well, but more than once I had been told that if they didn't get their money, my body would never be found. I had assumed grandma had the money so I wasn't worried.
In the last day two sailors showed up and took a wall apart, and put me and two other men inside the wall. They explained that there was random checks at the port and that this was the only way to avoid being found.
All three of us were sweating for hours until finally at night they opened the wall back up. We were given clothes to make us look as we were part of the crew. Waiting until late at night we all got off the cargo ship and were told to act as if we were joking around and laugh every few minutes.
Everything went smooth, we got in two cars. I thought I was going to be dropped off, meet my grandma and be safe. Instead the cars go to a dark place in the back of some large building, meeting another pair of cars. First I was confused, then I saw one of the sailor pull packages out of the trunk.
They also had smuggled drugs. I was at a drug exchange, which if anything went wrong, I could easily get killed. So from being in danger in Peru, I went to being in danger in an entirely different country. Now I can see the humor in it, of course at the time, I didn't.
I'm a bit tired, I'll continue next time dear reader.
May you walk in the light of God.
Sincerely.
Luis
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