The first time he tried to kill me.

The first time someone tried to kill me, I didn’t realize what was happening.

I was ten years old at the time, living in a small house in a small town, with my Mom, my sister, and a small man named Dale.  Even just writing his name now makes me sick to my stomach. 

Dale. My tormentor.  Dale was a small man by most measures of the attributes that society judges a man by. He was short, he was skinny, he was not especially bright, and he had this squeaky little voice like if a larger man had sucked in some helium from a balloon and was letting it out one cigarette smoke-filled sentence at a time.

“Hey Joe, cum here. I wanna show you somethin’.”

We were sitting in the kitchen of that old brown house that we rented, and Dale had a weathered, dingy white bath towel in his hands.  Dale never had anything wholesome or good on his mind. There was no yin to his yang, no calm before the storm. Dale was a small man who dealt in fear and intimidation. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew it wouldn’t be good.

“I don’t want to.”

This idea that people in a small town know everything that everyone else does is a whole lot of bullshit because nobody knew the awful things that went on in that house. And if they did, they’re a bunch of fucking assholes for not trying to put a stop to it.

“JOE! I DON’T GIVE A FIDDLER’S FUCK WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. I SAID GET THE FUCK OVER HERE!”

Dale couldn’t have been more that 5’7” and maybe 130 pounds, but to a kid who had seen him blacken my Mom’s eyes repeatedly, punch her teeth out, and rape her on the couch, I knew better than to say no.

“You like wresslin’ dontchya Joe?”

As I nodded, Dale’s skinny, jailhouse tat-filled arms, started twisting that gross towel up. 

Dale had spent his life working in the bush, hauling around chainsaws, so despite having a small stature, those arms still had strength, and I could see the sinews of his forearms popping up as he twisted the towel.

“This is called the sleeper hold!”

That was when Dale wrapped that towel around my neck and started to squeeze.

When something like that is happening, you don’t really understand what is going on. I just remember that towel pulling tight on my neck, and then things slowly going black.

Until.

Total darkness.

Then, I felt the coolness of the linoleum floor on my face. I didn’t know what was going on, but I saw Dale standing over me, laughing.

I don’t remember crying. I just remember thinking that this was some sort of a game, and if I did cry, it was only going to get worse. Years of torment from Dale had taught me that there was no easy way out of this kind of situation. You just had to endure whatever crazy idea he had next, get through it, and then somehow avoid him.

And of course…

“Don’t you dare tell your Mom, or I’ll fuck you up.”

I can’t remember how many times this happened that day, and I don’t remember how many times it happened through the years. I just knew that anytime I was around Dale, bad things were going to happen. I guess I always knew these things were wrong, but when this is your life, days blend together, the experiences stack up, and the badness becomes normal.

It almost becomes natural.

When this is your life on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t feel strange - it’s just another part of growing up.