Page 1 of Forgive Me Father: For I Have Sinned

Jamie, the early years.

Forgive me, Father, for I have…sinned…

O

R SO YOU’D LEDme to believe. Only later would I find out I’d never done anything wrong outside of being brought into this world by no choice of my own. That is, not until I was forced to by your hands in order to survive. I couldn’t help the way I was born. Your attempts to beat me into your misguided beliefs of how a man should be, only made matters worse.

How many times had I repeated that prayer at the beginning of each forced church confession?

“Repent for your sins boy!” My father would yell with each welt his belt left behind. “No boy of mine will be a pansy ass!”

How exactly does a child sin, can you tell me that? Every time my parents would catch me doing anything remotely less than what their version of masculine was, I’d receive a beating. Then off to church, they’d whisk me. My mother repeatedly doing the Sign of the Cross over her chest. Kissing her beloved rosary while praying for my wayward soul. My father, damn near yanking my arm out of its socket as he dragged me from the car and through the heavy, church doors.

“He’s at it again, Father!” he’d shout at the priest as he forced me into the confessional stand. His voice echoing through the empty church pews. Then he would leave me behind like a gift to the pedophile holy man.

My parents were raised staunch Catholics in this very parish, which led me to believe they knew what took place behind these sacred doors and yet they still subjected me to the abuse housed inside the stone walls. They couldn’t have given two shits. It was all about appearances, and I was an embarrassment to them.

Safe haven? This church was anything but that for me, and I had no one to turn to and nowhere to run. Trapped in this inhumane existence, I’d been subjected to.

Where were you, dear Father, when your beloved priest took from me what wasn’t his to takemy innocence. Along with it, eradicating me of my sense of security and faith. Who does a man of the cloth turn to when he needs to repent? His beloved God? The same one he betrayed by defiling a child left in his charge? No penance in the world would be enough to absolve him of his sins. Yet, he feels all will be forgiven as he says a prayer and lights a candle, walking away feeling whole again.

Using the unlovable child, he knew no one would believe to satisfy his lust. My word against his. I would forever come out the loser in that battle.

How many times would my father try and beat the gay out of me with his weapons of choice? Belts, wooden spoons, switches he made me pick from the tree in our backyard. If I’d picked one that he considered to be too small, the beating would be doubled. “Bite down boy,” he’d growl, as he shoved my own socks into my mouth to muffle the screams. To this day, I can still hear the whipping sound the branch made as it cut through the air with each strike, haunting my nightmares. How many times will I cower, balled up in a bloody, weeping heap before I’m finally strong enough to stand up for myself? All this pain inflicted because a lonely, ten-year-old boy was caught playing with his younger sister’s dolls. I had to miss the next three days of school because it hurt too badly to sit. When I returned, the teacher turned a blind eye to my injuries and constant fidgeting in my seat.Such is life in rural America, I guess.

What kind of God allows this behavior from its so-called parishioners?

Nothing will ever compare to the near death beating I received from my sperm donor the day he found me parading around my room in lace underwear and a camisole. The Queen herself, Christina Aguilera, was blaring in the background. Her song playing on the radio sitting atop my nightstand;Genie in a Bottle,I sang along with her at the top of my lungs while freely dancing around my room.Oh, how I loved to dance. I remember how proud I was when I’d finally gotten the moves in her music video down, or at least I’d thought I’d nailed them as I mimicked the dancers endlessly. Had the music not been so loud, I would’ve heard him come in and at least had a fighting chance. Only this time the weapons he chose to use were his fists.

My sister, Olivia was the unlucky one to find me unconscious, lying in a pool of my own blood on my bedroom floor. She and my mother had returned from shopping and called 9-1-1. She’d not summoned my parents first and was punished for that after the police left. My mother and father gave the authorities the same story, stating they found me this way when they’d returned home from running errands. How do I know this? The kind nurse at the hospital told me this when asking me if I remembered anything about my attackers. No one bothered to ask any further questions, nor did they check my father’s knuckles for damages. Not in the backward town we lived in. I’d already been labeled a social pariah by that point in my life. The lonely loser with no friends.

Loner. Loser. Faggot.Words spat at me daily as I walked through the halls of our town’s only high school.

The only positive that time was the first blow landed on my right temple, knocking me out cold. I remembered nothing after that. The pain from the broken ribs when I woke the next morning in the hospital told me he’d not stopped once I was down. It was later in life when my sister finally told me what happened after she’d found me.

My father showed up at the hospital the next morning to pick me up, tossing a sweat top and pants, socks and my old sneakers at me.

“Get dressed, now,” he growled. Turning his back as though it were a sin to see his son dress. His jaw was tightly clenched, disgust laced his smug face. Did he feel remorse when he saw my injuries, or was he really trying to take the moral high-road? I’m sure he felt nothing, not a care or concern for his only son. Not wanting to risk upsetting him again, I dressed as quickly as my injuries would allow before walking behind him with my head hung low as we exited the hospital.

Upon my release from the overnight stay, which technically should’ve been for much longer, my fifteen-year-old self was handed a one-way ticket to Seattle and taken to the bus station. Not a word was spoken during the twenty-minute drive, nor was I brought by the house to tell my sister I was leaving. When he came to a stop at the curbside drop-off, he thrust a grocery bag of my belongings and my jacket at me and told me to get the fuck out of his truck and never to return. After I shut the door, he sped off without so much as a goodbye.

Where will I go?

How will I live?

I had no money, no friends, nothing. I was still a child in the eyes of the law, but that meant nothing to my father. He feared no one but his precious God.

Without any other option, I boarded the bus to the wide-eyed stares of those already seated inside, in the hopes of finding a better life. My right eye was swollen shut, my face puffy and bruised. Tucking my head in shame, I shuffled to the back of the bus and hid. By then, I was used to the sideways glances people gave me, but it still hurt just the same. I slid into my jacket, curled up in a ball in the awkward seat, mindful of my broken ribs and cried myself to sleep.

No more…

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