Hello dear reader, I hope you are well today.
I'm sitting at a Starbucks, remembering how sad I was when I had to leave "Chevy's" behind so many years ago.
Back then I would call myself "Andrew" because I didn't like my first name (Luis) and my second name (Andres) sounded like the word "undress".
Grandma and I had moved to our own place near Ave. M and East 17th Street by then. We lived in the 2nd floor of a small building (3 floors). It was a 2 bedroom apartment with one bathroom, a large living room and kitchen.
My bedroom was very very small, but I didn't mind. It was far better than the sofa I had slept on. We made friends with our neighbor upstairs. Funny enough the first floor was a real state office. Like in Peru, the front door lead to stairs going straight to the second floor. I never thought about that coincidence until just now.
We had a new home, and thanks to developing a fast friendship with our neighbor upstairs (Jessica) I got hired by her husband.
He was a professional carpet installer and needed a "helper". The job was simple. I would help him load the rolls of carpet from the place which contracted him, unload it at the customer's place and then coordinate to cut the carpet for each room.
His knees were in bad shape, because to install carpet he needed to use a device to stretch it out so it's flat evenly on the floor. The device required him to kick using his knees while on the floor. I also laid down the wooden strips and padding in preparation for the carpet being placed. I worked 5 days a week and got paid $5 per hour which was decent then.
Jack was a hard working man, but he was also the jealous type, many nights they would argue quite loudly. Jessica had given him 2 beautiful kids, a boy and a girl. The boy was Jesse, the younger of the two which was around 10 years old while his sister Diana was 12 years old.
I'd be trusted to babysit them on occasion. They were a unique family, with a large dog and exotic animals which including a very large lizard and a coral snake. I was always freaked out to see the snake in the large fish tank, and seeing Jesse feed it white mice.
Things slowly began to deteriorate which affected my job. Jack moved out and to this day I don't know if he decided to leave or if Jessica asked him to leave. When it happened we had already worked together over 6 months. After splitting with his wife he would pick me up every morning for a few weeks. Then one morning he informed me that he no longer could pick me up and that he had hired someone closer to him.
I understood and didn't take it personal. Jessica didn't react as well as I did, by then we were good friends and she was angry at Jack for firing me. She insisted that he let me go out of jealousy even though nothing was going on between us besides a good friendship. Jessica was a beautiful women in her late 30's that treated me like a little brother and I was glad to accept her kindness.
She did help me find a new job though. Through a girlfriend of hers that lived in our neighborhood, I was hired by a delivery driver. He was her friend's husband that worked mainly in Manhattan for an international company. His name was Lou, I totally forgot his wife's name.
My job was far easier. I would pick up or drop off packages or envelopes while Lou would drive like a maniac to get us to and from places. He was the most insensitive, crude and temperamental individual I even met.
And that was before the fist fight, and me hanging onto the van door while he was driving away at high speed.
I'll explain further next time.
May you walk in the light of God.
Sincerely.
Luis
Showing posts with label Helper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Helper. Show all posts
Friday, November 4, 2016
Friday, October 21, 2016
My secret revealed
Good day dear reader, I hope you are having a great day.
Today I will reveal how my childhood turned into a nightmare. It is something I've only told a handful of people. My wife knew, and for some reason, still loved me.
Here goes.
After my grandma left Peru, mother took over running the building. I never met the owner; apparently grandma had made some deal with the person decades ago in writing, which limited how much he could raise the price of leasing the building which my family in turn rented out.
I knew from conversations I overheard that the owner tried to force us out legally, but the contract must have been so well done that he just couldn't.
One of the renters was a nice man, Mr. Larrea. He was always kind to me, giving me advice, and candy. He had a niece, who became my first crush. To this day I remember her name. Lina. She was beautiful, a few years older than me and I was in love with her even before I knew what the word meant.
Without my grandma around, mother felt free to do things which probably wouldn't have met Chila's approval. She opened up a small business right in front of our home. She sold jewelry that she made herself and women clothes that she bought wholesale.
She started with a table, then moved onto a nice glass display on wheels which I helped her carry back upstairs. Our front door lead straight to stairs going to the second floor of the building, because the ground floor was taken by a shoe store that paid us rent.
Mother would go out often at night, but always spent time with me during the day, helping me with homework and making me part of her business downstairs as her "little helper".
She didn't bring men home, until one day she introduced me to a "friend" of hers. His name was Manuel.
It was obvious that he was less sophisticated than my mother, but I didn't care because he seemed like a nice man. Within a few months, I saw him as a father figure. He would take me to the movies, give me money for the local arcade and gave me the attention I wanted from a father. All three of us would go out to eat every week like a family.
I never heard him talk about what he did for a living, but mother always said he was a hard worker. Little did she know that she had invited a predator into our home.
One day mother told me she needed to be away for a few days and that Manuel would take care of me. She trusted him, I trusted him. There was no way for her to know that my life would change because of that act of trust.
The first night she was gone we watched TV in the living room until late at night, which wasn't out of the ordinary. I was tired and wanted to go to bed. He told me to stay on the sofa and turned off the lights. He then said that sometimes good friends sleep together. He asked me if we were friends and innocently I said "yes".
In the darkness he stripped me of my clothes, I thought he was helping me get into my pajamas. He then moved me to lay down next to him. He was naked and I could feel him laying behind me. I was confused, because nobody had ever told me that something like that was wrong.
He moved my hand and placed it on his privates. I didn't know what to do. I thought he was going to become my father, I feared that if I didn't do what he said my mother may become angry at me for disobeying,
That was the first night he sexually abused me. I don't want to go into great detail, it has taken me decades to forcefully push the memories down into a locked room in my mind.
The two days my mother was gone, was just the beginning. He would molest me at every chance we were alone or out of sight of others. This went on for months.
Eventually my mother noticed that my behavior was changing. I was easily startled, afraid of the dark to the point I always wanted a light on in my room; even when going to sleep.
One night she sat me down in her bedroom and I don't even remember what she said. But sometime during our chat I must have given her enough information for her to figure things out. I do remember her face, she was shocked, and angry.
For a moment I thought she was angry at me and perhaps she could see my fear because she hugged me tight and spoke softly. The words she used still escape me, but whatever she said made me feel at ease.
She told me not to move, and then left the room furious. Next thing I hear my mother screaming, cursing and I had to get up and look at what was going on. I saw my mother attacking Manuel, punching him and calling him names, telling him to leave, that she was going to kill him.
He only put his hands up defensively, fortunately he didn't fight back. Renters started to come out of their rooms due to the ruckus. Manuel was smart enough to know that if the men in the building heard what he had done, they would probably kill him, It was Peru after all. He left quickly.
I could hear the neighbors ask her if she was alright, and what had happened. She just told them that she had broken up with her boyfriend and that he didn't want to leave.
Apparently the truth was too embarrassing for her. No police was ever called. Not that day, or any other day. All she could say was that she was sorry. Not too long after she hired a female psychiatrist which to be honest, didn't make me feel any better.
The woman would mostly ask me for details of the abuse, how he did this and that. I hated her for doing that, and started to hate my mother for making me go through it in my head again with someone I considered a stranger. I did learn that what had happened to me was very very bad. Realizing that I had been abused gave birth to a hatred that was quite alive until just a few years ago.
She kept me out of school for a few weeks, spent time with me, buying me new clothes and toys as if that could fix anything. However as weeks passed by, I saw the sadness she carried. Slowly I started to get closer to her again. A sense of normality started to form. It didn't last long.
Two months after the night she had kicked out the man who had raped me, we had a conversation that numbed me. She was pregnant with Manuel's child, I was going to be a big brother. Her religion prohibited her from not having it. Then she told me I needed to forget what had happened to me, because her child needed to have a father.
I did as I was told. I had to pretend in front of everyone that he was a good man. At the time my mother was smart enough to distract me with the pregnancy, because I had always wanted to have more siblings.
Fortunately Manuel was never allowed to be alone with me or to move back in.
My feelings were a storm of fear, anger, sadness, disgust and shame.
I can't continue typing right now, I'll try to continue in a few days.
May you walk in the light of God.
Sincerely.
Luis
Today I will reveal how my childhood turned into a nightmare. It is something I've only told a handful of people. My wife knew, and for some reason, still loved me.
Here goes.
After my grandma left Peru, mother took over running the building. I never met the owner; apparently grandma had made some deal with the person decades ago in writing, which limited how much he could raise the price of leasing the building which my family in turn rented out.
I knew from conversations I overheard that the owner tried to force us out legally, but the contract must have been so well done that he just couldn't.
One of the renters was a nice man, Mr. Larrea. He was always kind to me, giving me advice, and candy. He had a niece, who became my first crush. To this day I remember her name. Lina. She was beautiful, a few years older than me and I was in love with her even before I knew what the word meant.
Without my grandma around, mother felt free to do things which probably wouldn't have met Chila's approval. She opened up a small business right in front of our home. She sold jewelry that she made herself and women clothes that she bought wholesale.
She started with a table, then moved onto a nice glass display on wheels which I helped her carry back upstairs. Our front door lead straight to stairs going to the second floor of the building, because the ground floor was taken by a shoe store that paid us rent.
Mother would go out often at night, but always spent time with me during the day, helping me with homework and making me part of her business downstairs as her "little helper".
She didn't bring men home, until one day she introduced me to a "friend" of hers. His name was Manuel.
It was obvious that he was less sophisticated than my mother, but I didn't care because he seemed like a nice man. Within a few months, I saw him as a father figure. He would take me to the movies, give me money for the local arcade and gave me the attention I wanted from a father. All three of us would go out to eat every week like a family.
I never heard him talk about what he did for a living, but mother always said he was a hard worker. Little did she know that she had invited a predator into our home.
One day mother told me she needed to be away for a few days and that Manuel would take care of me. She trusted him, I trusted him. There was no way for her to know that my life would change because of that act of trust.
The first night she was gone we watched TV in the living room until late at night, which wasn't out of the ordinary. I was tired and wanted to go to bed. He told me to stay on the sofa and turned off the lights. He then said that sometimes good friends sleep together. He asked me if we were friends and innocently I said "yes".
In the darkness he stripped me of my clothes, I thought he was helping me get into my pajamas. He then moved me to lay down next to him. He was naked and I could feel him laying behind me. I was confused, because nobody had ever told me that something like that was wrong.
He moved my hand and placed it on his privates. I didn't know what to do. I thought he was going to become my father, I feared that if I didn't do what he said my mother may become angry at me for disobeying,
That was the first night he sexually abused me. I don't want to go into great detail, it has taken me decades to forcefully push the memories down into a locked room in my mind.
The two days my mother was gone, was just the beginning. He would molest me at every chance we were alone or out of sight of others. This went on for months.
Eventually my mother noticed that my behavior was changing. I was easily startled, afraid of the dark to the point I always wanted a light on in my room; even when going to sleep.
One night she sat me down in her bedroom and I don't even remember what she said. But sometime during our chat I must have given her enough information for her to figure things out. I do remember her face, she was shocked, and angry.
For a moment I thought she was angry at me and perhaps she could see my fear because she hugged me tight and spoke softly. The words she used still escape me, but whatever she said made me feel at ease.
She told me not to move, and then left the room furious. Next thing I hear my mother screaming, cursing and I had to get up and look at what was going on. I saw my mother attacking Manuel, punching him and calling him names, telling him to leave, that she was going to kill him.
He only put his hands up defensively, fortunately he didn't fight back. Renters started to come out of their rooms due to the ruckus. Manuel was smart enough to know that if the men in the building heard what he had done, they would probably kill him, It was Peru after all. He left quickly.
I could hear the neighbors ask her if she was alright, and what had happened. She just told them that she had broken up with her boyfriend and that he didn't want to leave.
Apparently the truth was too embarrassing for her. No police was ever called. Not that day, or any other day. All she could say was that she was sorry. Not too long after she hired a female psychiatrist which to be honest, didn't make me feel any better.
The woman would mostly ask me for details of the abuse, how he did this and that. I hated her for doing that, and started to hate my mother for making me go through it in my head again with someone I considered a stranger. I did learn that what had happened to me was very very bad. Realizing that I had been abused gave birth to a hatred that was quite alive until just a few years ago.
She kept me out of school for a few weeks, spent time with me, buying me new clothes and toys as if that could fix anything. However as weeks passed by, I saw the sadness she carried. Slowly I started to get closer to her again. A sense of normality started to form. It didn't last long.
Two months after the night she had kicked out the man who had raped me, we had a conversation that numbed me. She was pregnant with Manuel's child, I was going to be a big brother. Her religion prohibited her from not having it. Then she told me I needed to forget what had happened to me, because her child needed to have a father.
I did as I was told. I had to pretend in front of everyone that he was a good man. At the time my mother was smart enough to distract me with the pregnancy, because I had always wanted to have more siblings.
Fortunately Manuel was never allowed to be alone with me or to move back in.
My feelings were a storm of fear, anger, sadness, disgust and shame.
I can't continue typing right now, I'll try to continue in a few days.
May you walk in the light of God.
Sincerely.
Luis
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