Tired

“Hey anyone in here, anyone want some money”

Staggering, I reached the half open door that led into the condemned tenement building on the east side of L.A. I had been drinking since 10:00 this morning, first a bottle of cheap red, then a bottle of Old Granddad whiskey. I hadn’t  always  wore my pain like this; there was a time in my life when  I almost beat the demon who tortures my soul.

I had grown up in a working class family. My father was a longshoreman and didn’t take crap from no one.  Mom was a stay at home wine sipping drunk who was never sober.  I was an only child and an embarrassment to my father.  Never good in sports, my father thought I should have been his daughter, and let me know it, between the beatings.

“Yo, back here and shut up man”

When I turned thirteen our neighbor, a carpenter asked my father if I could apprentice with him.

“Sure he’s worthless to us anyway” he said.          

That was the green light the monster was hoping for. Two weeks into the apprenticeship I was taken on an out of town job and the abuse started.  It lasted for the whole summer. Actually it has never ended. 

Despite my upbringing and that horrible summer I managed to get scholarships to law school and graduated in the top ten. I was recruited by a top law firm and landed a trophy wife. I just could never stop feeling that greasy carpenter behind me always there, never gone, telling me he will kill me if I tell anyone.

“I have 500 dollars and a Rolex watch. I want to forget”

“Gringo, for that much coin where I send you, when you wake up, you won’t remember anything.”



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