Tragic Little Boy

Tragic Little Boy

Tragic little boy with golden locks
Met your stepdad at the door with the pistol cocked
Aimed the gun right at his head
Pulled the trigger and now he’s dead

Tragic little boy all beat down
He turned your smile into a frown
Now he lies upon the floor
He’ll never beat you anymore

Tragic little boy forever scarred
One third your life spent behind steel bars
A crime of anger a life in wreck
When you get out your mommy’s next


“Paid my price to society? I don’t know. All I know is that I did what I had to do to survive. If I hadn’t killed the bastard, I would be dead and that’s what I know. Spending the last five years in Juvy has given me time to think about whether I did the right thing. I have to say I would do it again if I had to.” The warden looked at me and shook his head. He knew that he would have to release me upon my eighteenth birthday under state law that pertained to juveniles who committed murder before they reached the age of thirteen. I had deliberately kept my nose clean during my five years in confinement. I knew that a clean slate of good behavior would be my ticket to parole upon my birthday, which was tomorrow. I had spent one third of my life locked away. Tomorrow I would walk a free man. “John, I don’t hear any repentance in your voice, but I have no other choice than to release you back into society. I don’t want to see you back in confinement, do you understand me?” As I took a deep breath, and after a deliberate pause I said, “You won’t see me again warden, not in this lifetime."
As I was escorted back to my cell, little did anyone know the fury I felt in my heart. I was one angry son of a bitch. There was a debt that was going to be paid, and I was going to be the collector. Tonight would be the last night I would ever spend in confinement.
The next morning I was awakened by the change of prison guards at approximately 5:45 am. “John Reinmiller, rise up, collect your belongings and come with me. You’re being released." My day had come, and with those words I was issued my personal effects and declared a free man. I promised myself that I would never speak or think of this place again. Right now all I wanted to do was take a hot bath and to sleep in a soft bed. The evil that I had planned during the past five years in confinement would begin soon enough. The wrath of God would soon be upon the wicked I told myself. "John, don't you want to call your family and have them pick you up?" "No, I'd rather take a cab", I replied. I made a quick call to City Cab, and asked the driver to take me to the nearest cheap motel.
My Stepfather had beaten me routinely from the time I was five years old until I killed him when I was twelve. He was an alcoholic and a cruel bastard. Eugene Bettendorf, what an asshole. He would usually whip me with a shaving strap if he had the time to grab it, otherwise he would whip me with his belt. I was afraid of him and his anger and I did what he said until I reached the age of ten or eleven. I wised up at that age and would usually hide from him until he drank himself into unconsciousness. By the following morning he would generally forget why he was angry in the first place. I never called him Dad, I referred to him as Mr. Bettendorf, or privately as Eugene, and that’s the way it was. To him, I was nothing but an inconvenience, a mouth to feed, and a liability that came between himself and my Mother. I don’t know what hurt more, his beatings, or my Mother’s indifference to him beating me. It was always his word against mine, and my Mother would always side with Eugene. I don’t know if it was because she was afraid of him, or because she saw me as an inconvenience, just like that evil bastard. “John, get your ass over here”, he would say when he needed me. Or “John you lazy son of a bitch, if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have a pot to piss in.” I prayed at night for God to let him die in his drunken sleep. I cried myself to sleep many nights in fear of the next day’s beatings.
When I was 12 years old I recall leaving a ball point pen in the pocket of my shirt and putting it in the washing machine. When the washer cycle finished and my Mother took out the clothes, one of Eugene’s shirts was covered with ink. When he got home from work my Mother told him what had happened, and that’s the first time I was struck in the face by his closed fist. Eugene pushed me up against the wall and hit me so hard that I fell to the floor and almost lost consciousness, all the while being berated and called stupid for my mistake. I lost an upper tooth that day, and had to explain to my friends that a fall from my skateboard caused the mishap.
The beatings continued, but became much more severe in the following months. I entered puberty that summer, and I was soon as tall as Eugene, although not nearly as muscular. I knew I couldn’t defend myself from him physically, but there was a way I thought I could stop the beatings. I knew he kept a loaded silver and pearl revolver in the nightstand at the head of his bed. I also knew he would use it on me someday. It was only a matter of time until the alcohol destroyed enough of his mind that he would point it at me. I knew long before I took the gun that I would kill Eugene someday. It was just a question of when and summoning the courage to do it.
The day before I killed him, Eugene came home from work drunk and angry. I was mowing the lawn and didn’t hear him come up behind me. He grabbed me by my shoulders and slammed my head into the engine of the lawn mower causing a gash over my left eye. The mower continued to run which drowned out the verbal abuse that followed. I lay there in the grass and engine exhaust with blood flowing down my face as he walked away. He went inside, grabbed a beer and came back and looked at me with a look that only the devil knew. It was time I thought, it was time.
The next day I took his gun and waited for him to come home from work. I sat in the recliner and practiced aiming over and over at the front door. I would shoot him as soon as he entered the threshold. I waited and waited until finally I fell asleep in the chair. Then as suddenly as I had nodded off, I felt his hand upon my shoulders, shaking me. “Get up you lazy bastard, its 5 o’clock, go help your Mother make me some supper!” As I opened my eyes I pulled out the pistol and shot Eugene right above the bridge of his big ass protuberant nose. He slid off me and crumpled to the floor in one fluid motion. It was finished. Mom called the police, I was placed in juvy, and that is how the last five years of my life were spent, all the while dreaming up a scheme to kill Mom for her indifference to my beatings.
The first night of my new found freedom I slept peacefully and dreamed of Eugene and Mom. I dreamed how Eugene had manipulated Mom as much as he had manipulated and abused me. I saw Mom as a victim for the first time, and I understood that all too well. The following morning upon awakening I called Mom and told her I had been released. "Hello Mom, I'm out. Can I come home?" Mom started crying and told me she was sorry for letting Eugene abuse me. She told me that she missed me and loved me and would be a different Mom to me if I allowed her back into my life. As I waited in that dingy motel room for her to arrive, I knew my evil plan to kill her was no more.
What I had to do was going to be much more difficult than killing her. I had to forgive. I had come back to take a life, and now I was being asked to love. It was an epiphany from heaven, a birthday present from above. I wouldn’t let Eugene’s hatred contaminate my life anymore. That which doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger it's said. As I took a deep breath, and after a pause I reminded myself out loud how freedom tasted so much sweeter than revenge and hatred. We both have open wounds that need to heal. It was time I thought, it was time.