Whittle

It’s hard to communicate another’s life to anyone, even your own, there is this all present feeling that what we experience is normal when it’s really very specific to each of us. People only ever say them empathise when it suits them to, when it benefits the appearance of their character, not necessarily when it’s something genuine.

Christmas is a trying experience for me, I feel very, lazy, or something, because there’s so little that gets on top of me,but there are a few things where I’ll allow myself to indulge my weakness, which is what it is, I need never be brought down by the petty nonsense that fills the majority of my life, but sometimes I choose to, because I think it’s better for me, which I suppose sounds peculiar to an onlooker. It is because Christmas is the time of year when my great fear comes closest to reality, becomes the most possible, the most feasible, the most real.

Christmas day was unhelpful, watching people inflict pain on each other, mental and physical. I remember when I was younger, I, started observing and thinking about all the trouble, all the pain, people have, how hard it is for them to get through the day, just the day, and with that in mind the idea of causing others pain just seemed ridiculous to me, absurd, like lighting fires on the sun, as though there was a deficiency in that, as though everybody already didn’t have enough. So I stopped hurting people as best I could, I stopped allowing myself to be drawn into schoolyard fights, I was never the sort to torment someone but even the few antagonists in my story I left alone, I just stopped engaging them. There was this greek guy in my school year that would come up to me a few times a year and say "God I want to bash you." What do you do with a statement like that? I just looked and him and then left, or he’d leave, one or the other. These days, when someone hits me, usually jokingly or in good humour I have to be dull and make a point of telling them that no one hits me, I don’t permit it, you’d be surprised by how effective that is. I haven’t hit anyone in years, it just seems childish, ignorant to me. What’s the point? What is there to gain out of hurting someone?

There are, certain things, which I imagine have the potential to drive me to violence, to malice, but I’ll deal with them if they come, no need to worry about a theoretical which might never eventuate and only serve to undermine something I think is worthwhile.

The, potential, devestation that alcohol is worth noting. I’ve no trouble with a person ruining their own lives, that is an inalienable right, if I want to fuck my life I can and that’s my business, but if doing so continually hurts the people around me, almost prioritising that, well that’s different. I had that all Christmas day, over at my half-sisters, she married a beautiful Frenchman who cuts hair and sells cork… Anyhow, he’s this, horrible little peasant with a small man complex who has a psychotic streak in him, and they have two children together, Tommy and Chloe, Tommy is 8 and Chloe is maybe 5 I think.

Tommy is quite intelligent, he has this great capacity for comprehension and he’s totally dissatisfied with the explanations people give him, wonderful kid, I really adore him, absolute pain in the neck but he’s just great, he’s the sort where everyone else is absorbed in learning how to do the task and he just wants to know why we are doing the task, which can be annoying, he’s very precocious, but admirable.

Anyhow, Mario the father when he gets on the alcohol, or the marijuana, he has outbursts, and he likes to criticise, it’s, I don’t know, it’s one thing to criticise the wife, she’s a grown woman with a good mind who can defend and argue, but yelling at an 8 year old for a reason he doesn’t understand isn’t fair, isn’t something he can do much about. Partially because Mario’s points are ridiculous, and because all children at that age think their parents are gods, however much they might dislike them at 8 your parents are your world. So I’m watching poor Tommy receive this, insane outburst, and he tries really hard to understand what he did wrong, because he loves his ‘papa’ and he wants his papa to praise him, to love him, but he doesn’t understand, he just doesn’t understand, he can’t, it’s not rational, there is no right response, he’s learned to stop crying because Mario just gets angrier when Tommy cries, so he’s, I mean, it’s fucking horrible, here is this lovely kid, bright good mind who genuinely, with all his fucking soul, loves his papa, and he’s trying so hard, so hard to make him happy but he can’t, and he’s just sad, he feels inferior, lonely, depressed, confused, he withdraws into himself and stops making eye contact, stops smiling or making noise because he’s terrified of upsetting Mario, not terrified of being in trouble though, he just wants his papa to be happy.

As you can imagine I’ve got up and criticised Mario for his behaviour before, I’m, very honest with family, so Mario being half a human doesn’t see anything wrong with his behaviour and he gets into an argument with me, attacking me, which I think is fine, because at least it’s directed at me, an adult, who is on equal ground, who can argue back and handle whatever happens, but when I’ve done this Tommy gets up and defends his ‘papa’, he doesn’t like anyone criticising him…

It’s hard to watch, to deal with, it hurts.

So then I take Mario aside quietly at different times, but he is honestly so deficient in his emotions, in his comprehension he doesn’t understand, he thinks he’s teaching Tommy to have a good character, he genuinely does.

I don’t know, it’s my family no doubt, but where’s the joy in that? What is there to be happy about when you watch a child being abused and scared? Merry Christmas right? Yep, merry forsooth.