My teacher thought I was being a discipline problem and demanded I change my clothes in front of her. I was afraid of her anger so I began to take off my clothes. I tried to hide the welts, I was so ashamed of them, but she saw them and understood why I never wanted to undress. She called social services to report it. I remember shortly after that a nice lady came to talk to me. She told me my teacher told her about my bruises and wanted to see them but I told her no and she didn’t push me. She said she could stop my Daddy from hitting me if I wanted her to, she could have him taken away. I remember I was so afraid how mad he’d be that I’d told so I begged her not to talk to my Daddy. To my amazement she never did. I had an opportunity to end my nightmare, but I didn’t see it that way. I can only wonder how different my life would be if I hadn’t been so afraid and that nice lady from social services had done her job.
Valentine’s Day of 1980 we moved to city in Southern California. It was the middle of my freshman year of high school. I moved from a school of 200, students and staff to a school of 2,200, students only. Talk about culture shock. Plus it didn’t help matters that my Daddy had always said all the bad stuff happened in the city which is why we never lived there. Now we were there because of yet another job and Daddy said we couldn’t afford to live in the country any longer.
I walked into my first class on my first day of school in my best clothes. I wanted to make a good impression. I wore my best boots, my cleanest jeans, my leather belt with my name in silver on the back, and my shiniest belt buckle, my best satin shirt and my cowboy hat. I got laughed right out of class. Instant humiliation. But I had no choice, that was all I owned.
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