The Child in Me.

Most who know me are aware of the fact that I am Detroit conceived and born.  Its spectacular how I now, can be proud of that fact, due to this particular project of Mr. Pastoria's.  Subsequently, my family moved to Algonac, Michigan to a very secluded and rural farm land, that I called home for 9 years.  Those nine years seemed a lifetime to a small child, and I seem to only recall very few good memories in comparison to the bad. 

My father was a wood-pattern maker and carpenter, and the top in his trade.  This is a man who was making 24 dollars per hour in the 70's.  Unfortunately, I still wore my sister’s old clothes as he spent half of that large paycheck per month in the bar.  My father was never home, except on Sundays when he would wake early, open the blinds on the large door-wall in our dining room and exclaim "God! I love it here!”  When? I guess one day a week was good for him.  My older brothers' were stuck mowing 13 acres of lawn with a push mower, and hell, by the time they got done with the back; they had to start doing the front again. 

My father and my older brother provided the thriller/horror movies that I so love today, but in an up close and very personal kind of way.  The fights they had made me scream and cry, begging my Dad to stop hitting him.  My sister would vomit uncontrollably while my Mother washed the blood off of the walls with a shaking hand and my second oldest brother called the police.  These incidents have scarred all of us for life I’m certain, and I’m also more than certain, they will never leave my mind.  I still have nightmares; the most recent was last week.

I was the youngest of four children, in that family of six; I felt basically invisible.  I played alone mostly outside and dreamed of one day moving to California and attending U.C.L.A.  My sister, who was four years older than me, seemed to have many friends and extracurricular activities.  We shared a room, but did not get along very well; we still don’t.  I really didn’t know where I fit in as my two older brothers were even more distant in age to me, one being eight years older and the other six years my senior.

Sexually molested starting at age 7 until 14, I feel that this particular experience screwed me up for life.  This was not just one relative but two.  I began to use that pretty face, personality and sex appeal that everyone had commented on, by age fifteen.  Although I had been drinking since 12 or so, I fell even harder into the alcohol and with the onset of high school, also came the onset of a quarter century of drug addiction and abuse as well. 

Finding Laura.  A selected excerpt from the Biographical novel by Laura Antonelli