Pain Don't Hurt Read Free Page B

lengthy services, the constant stand, kneel, bow your head . . . There appears to be a level of dignity there, or at least effort. The production alone demands some appreciation. Not to say that other religions don’t, and not to say that I really believe much of what any of any religion espouses. But it was pretty spectacular to watch as a kid. In the beginning I used to like going to church with her simply because for those few hours, I knew exactly what was going to happen to me, and I could blend in. After a while, that comfort faded, as I had gone through my confirmation in the Russian church very early, which put a spotlight on me in the Catholic church when all the other kids were going through their confirmations as young teenagers. If I wasn’t the odd man out by way of physical difference, somehow my parents found a way to force me to be left of center and, once again, seen as a “weird kid.” Plus, my father started to enjoy arguing with the Russian priests. In fact, I think he attended that church specifically to drum up new ways to get into arguments with them.
    My mother was always looking for peace. At her age, church was one of the only places she had been taught to seek refuge. Sometimes she would drive me around in her car and tell me, “I’m going to get us out of here, Mark, we’re going to go looking for apartments today and then we’ll be out of there.” By the end of each day, either her guilt over thinking of walking out on a marriage (us Catholics and Russian Rite have truly cornered the market on guilt; feeling guilty is practically a skill we have perfected) or sheer exhaustion from thinking about how much it would take to actually leave would pull all the steam from her engine. It always ended the same: with shame and booze. We would go back home, she would pour herself something, then she would go to her room and shut the door, and I would be left to face him, his questions, his beer breath, and all that pent-up anger. Colin had learned over time to stay scarce, so he was never there to save me, not that I can really blame him. When he was there, he got it so much worse. . . . Sometimes my parents would spend months not speaking to each other, existing on opposite ends of the house, using me as a carrier pigeon if they needed to deliver information to each other. They never slept in the same room, not for as long as I can remember. She claimed it was because he snored; he claimed it was because she was a bed hog. The truth is, they were totally codependent but they just couldn’t fucking stand each other.
    â€œ Come on! ” He grabbed my shoulders and yanked them up, nearly lifting me off the ground. “ Come on! Let’s go !” he bellowed. His anger had reached an all-time high now. This was the boiling point. If I didn’t deliver now, I would get tossed, smacked, all the while being showered with soul-crushing belittlement, characteristic of his “boy named Sue/toughen up” regime. The more of a target he made me, the harder he figured I would become. His intentions were to build a callus around my soul that was so big I would never be fragile to anyone. The onslaught was fully intentional. He would either beat me into a greasy smear on the floor, or eventually, I would rise up and become this armored beast that couldn’t feel pain. It was a bad plan from the very start. Later on in my life, when I would be standing over him, watching him take his last animalistic rattling breaths of life, instead of being able to generate love, remorse, empathy, or even hate, that callus would prevent me from achieving either catharsis or forgiveness for a long, long time. I would watch every muscle in his face relax as he growled out a final gasp, and I would, for two solid years, feel nothing.
    I took a quick breath and threw my last punch so hard it nearly pitched me forward straight into his chest. My fist skimmed off his hand