Broken (4 page)

“
Stand up and
take off your skirt and your panties and also your shoes and
socks.” my father said, his voice hoarse with lust.

I stood up and took off my skirt
and panties. As I bent over to remove my shoes and socks I felt my
father slide his hand between my legs from behind and push his
finger into me. I pulled away and then sat down beside him staring
fixedly at the opposite wall of the room.

My father
began sliding his hands over my body crooning softly. His breathing
quickened and suddenly he stood up and took off his clothes. I
couldn’t help staring at his huge rigid penis as he turned towards
me.

“
Now, I want
you to lie down on your back on the couch, bend your knees and open
your legs.” my father whispered. “What I’m going to do is fuck you.
It may hurt a little in the beginning but you’ll soon come to love
it. I’m going to lie on top of you and push my cock into you so
just lie still and don’t do anything.”

I lay down on
the couch, bent my legs and opened them. My father lowered himself
onto me and I could feel his penis searching for my opening.
Suddenly an excruciating pain filled my lower body as my father
forced his penis deep inside me. I almost cried out with pain but I
managed to restrain myself by biting my lip. I lay very still, my
father’s hoarse breathing rasping in my ear. He began to move
rhythmically inside me. I heard his gasp and I felt something hot
burst deep inside me. My father stopped moving and lay on top of me
as his breathing returned to normal. After a few minutes he lifted
himself off me.

“
So.” he said
as he looked down at me. “You’ve just had your first fuck. Did you
enjoy it?”

I nodded my head, not looking at
him.

“
Okay.” he
said. “Take your clothes and go and have a bath. And remember; what
we’re doing is our secret. If you mention what we’re doing to
anyone I’ll put you in a wheelchair for the rest of your
life!”

My father
continued to sexually abuse
of me for the
next six months but when the mine began to employ him on a
full-time basis again, the molestation stopped. Although I could
see that my father wanted to continue abusing me I never gave him
the slightest opportunity, always making sure that I was never
alone with him in the house.

Strangely, although the parents
of many of my school friends worked at the same mine as my father,
none of them ever mentioned any staff retrenchments or shorter
working hours.

Although my
helplessness angered me greatly and made me hate myself
and my parents, I was determined not to let the
abuse that I’d suffered ruin my life. I began to nurture a pride in
myself and in the way I had endured my degradation. I worked hard
at my schooling even though I knew that I had a rather limited
academic ability. I also tried hard to avoid blaming other people
for not helping me. But the deep hatred and anger within me
couldn’t be ignored that easily.

I told myself
that I only had one life and I shouldn’t allow anyone to destroy
it. At the age of eleven these were huge obstacles to overcome and
many times I came close to allowing my anger and hatred to take
over my life. I persevered though.

CHAPTER 2

As I sat in
the dock listening to my co-accused, Cindy Bedford, giving her
evidence it struck me that none of my forefathers had been named
Garth and I wondered why my parents had chosen that particular name
f
or me. Unfortunately I would never know
as they were both dead now.

Cindy finished giving her
evidence and my attorney, Paul Greave, stood up and addressed Judge
Warren Bester.

“
Your
Honour.” Paul said. “I would like to introduce my client and second
defendant, Garth Gilmore at this stage of the
proceedings.”

The judge
nodded and, after I had been sworn in, my attorney spoke to
me.

“
Garth.” he
said. “As you heard my learned colleague, James Foster, say, we
want you to feel at ease in the court. We’re not here to attack you
in any way. We’re here to try to determine what caused the events
that brought you and Cindy Bedford here today. I would therefore
like you to start your testimony by telling us about your earliest
memories and then about your relationship with your parents,
especially your father.”

I nodded and began to give my
evidence.

***

Like Cindy, I
had been born in Rosettenville,
Johannesburg, the first and only child of Dennis and Janet
Gilmore, but the grand event had taken place on the eighth of
August, nineteen ninety at the Southern Nursing Home.

All my
earliest memories featured both my father and my mother and were
filled with visions of angry and hateful faces and emotions of
fear, helplessness and bewilderment. I constantly associated my
parents with pain as they assaulted me and shouted at me for
reasons that I didn’t understand.

My father was
a short, overweight man with longish untidy black hair, dark green
eyes that bulged when he became angry, a large flat nose and fleshy
untidy lips. Large pockmarks covered his clean-shaven face, the
result of adolescent acne that had plagued and embarrassed him for
all of his teenage years.

My mother was
even shorter
and more overweight than my
father, with short, thin blonde hair, small dark brown eyes, a slim
beaked nose and a thin grim mouth that gave her an almost
vulture-like look. Her chin was small and receding.

I was my
parent’s first and only child and we lived in one of five small
corrugated iron mine houses at the edge of the barren buffer zone
that separated the pristine white city of Johannesburg from the
sprawling black eyesore of Soweto. The mine that had originally
owned the five tiny houses had closed many years ago and my
grandfather, who had worked for the mine as a blaster, had been
able to purchase the structure at the insolvency auction. Upon my
grandfather’s death in a mining accident a year before my birth and
my grandmother’s death a year later, my father had inherited the
house.

The whole of
the house, including the roof, was painted a light grey and the
gutters and window frames were white. Like most mine houses, a
narrow passageway led from the front door straight through to the
back door with the large main bedroom, the bathroom and the
scullery on the right and the lounge, a smaller bedroom, the dining
room and kitchen on the right. The floors were concrete covered
with brown linoleum and the ceiling was made of pressed steel
panels. A small covered porch had been added to the front of the
house and a single rickety wooden garage, built onto the side of
the house, housed my father’s nineteen fifty four-door Austin A40
Devon sedan.

When my
father wasn’t working as a steam train shunter at the Kaserne
Railway Goods Yard, he spent most of his time drinking brandy with
his fellow workers at the railway’s employee bar or lounging on the
front porch drinking beer. As a result he was almost always drunk
when he returned from work and over the weekends when he stayed at
home.

Because of my
fear
of my parents and the helplessness
of my situation, I cried and screamed a great deal as a baby which
only served to anger my parents even more, with the result that
they inflicted even more unexplained pain on me. This misguided
belief that inflicting more pain on me would stop me crying and
screaming was typical of my parent’s level of intelligence. When I
reached the age where minor injuries metered out to me could be
safely healed at home the assaults became more subtle.

Although my
father physically assaulted me far more than my mother did, the
reasons for these attacks remained a terrifying mystery to me until
I began to understand language and could comprehend why they were
screaming and shouting at me.

One of my
father’s favourite forms of hurting me was to burn me behind my
ears with a cigarette. The pain was excruciating and I would howl
and scream while my father laughed, knowing that it was highly
unlikely that anyone would see the burn marks as they were very
effectively hidden by my hair. My mother would do nothing to treat
the burns unless they looked as if they might become infected,
whereupon she would rub a little antiseptic ointment onto the
wounds. It got to the stage where, as soon as I detected the smell
of cigarette smoke, I would panic and start crying or run into the
bathroom and hide behind the toilet bowl.

I remember
one incident in particular when my father was sitting in the lounge
and I was playing with my toys on the carpet. I saw my father
deliberately light a cigarette while surreptitiously watching me.
As soon as the smell of the burning tobacco reached me I began to
panic. Very slowly, in the hope that my father wouldn’t notice, I
stood up and walked out of the room. I hurried down the passageway,
into the bathroom and hid behind the toilet bowl.

As I peered
out at the doorway from my hiding place I heard my father
approaching. He walked into the bathroom with the burning cigarette
between his fingers. He smiled at me.

“
Why are you
hiding behind the toilet bowl, Garth?” he asked.

“
I’m scared
that you’re going to burn me with your cigarette.” I said, my voice
trembling with fear.

“
Burn you
with my cigarette?” my father asked. “Why would I do
that?”

“
Because
you’ve done it lots of times before.” I said, my whole body
beginning to shake with fright.

“
But that was
because you were naughty.” my father said. “Have you been naughty
today?”

“
No.” I
said.

“
But you must
have been naughty or you wouldn’t be hiding from me now.” my father
said still smiling.

“
I really
haven’t been naughty today, daddy.” I said as I began to
cry.

“
Well, if you
haven’t been naughty today then there’s no need for you to hide
from me. Isn’t that right?” my father said.

I was too frightened to
answer.

“
So, as you
haven’t been naughty today you can come out from behind the toilet
bowl.” my father said.

I felt
utterly helpless as I crouched in my hiding place. Was my father
trying to trick me or was he really being honest? I didn’t know
what to do. I began crying in frustration.

“
What are you
waiting for, Garth?” my father asked. “You told me that you haven’t
been naughty today and yet you won’t come out from behind the
toilet bowl. Don’t you trust me?”

My
helplessness overwhelmed me. I didn
’t
know what to do. My instincts told me that my father was trying to
trick me and that as soon as I came out from behind the toilet bowl
he would grab me and burn me behind my ears. But what if he wasn’t
trying to trick me? He would know that I didn’t trust him and that
would make him very angry and he would still burn me behind my
ears.

I peered out from behind the
toilet bowl hoping to get a clue as to what my father was going to
do to me by the expression on his face. He smiled down at me.

“
I’m
beginning to think that you don’t trust me, Garth.” he said. “Am I
right?”

I could sense
the
anger growing within my father, even
though he was smiling, and instinctively I knew that regardless of
what I did, I was going to get hurt. Resignedly, I crept out of my
hiding place.

“
That’s a
good boy.” my father said. “Now come here and say you’re sorry for
not trusting me.”

I walked slowly to where my
father stood smiling down at me. Suddenly he bent down and grabbed
me with his left hand behind my neck. I struggled to free myself
but my father was much too strong for me. I began hyperventilating
as panic set in.

“
It’s
disgraceful when a son doesn’t trust his own father.” my father
said, still smiling at me. “And so, by not trusting me you’re being
very naughty.”

Holding my
neck tightly so that I couldn’t move my head, my father placed the
burning tip of his cigarette against the back of my right ear. I
screamed as the searing pain raced through me. I struggled with all
my might but my efforts were futile.

My father moved the cigarette to
another part of my ear. I screamed and begged my father to
stop.

“
I feel
insulted that my own son doesn’t trust me.” my father said. “And as
you don’t trust me you have to be punished.”

Altogether my
father inflicted eight burns to the back of my ears. I screamed
helplessly, the smell of my burning flesh making me gag and choke.
Eventually my father released his grip in my neck and I collapsed
onto the tiled floor, fighting for breath.

As I lay gasping on the floor I
heard my father laugh.

“
You stupid
little bastard.” he said. “I hope that will teach you that you must
always trust your father. The only time that I’ll ever hurt you is
when you’re naughty and today you were very naughty.”

As I lay bawling on the floor I
heard my father walk away along the passageway and into the
lounge.

I quickly
learnt not to trust my father and this distrust of
him
, and eventually all other people,
stayed with me for the rest of my life.