my Granddaddy worked hard all his life. Damn, i hate saying that. my father's values were ones i tried so hard to live up to and that's pretty much at the top of his list. And, that bastard did it. Blah, anyway, back to the point. He worked hard all of his life and he had scarred and calloused hands. He never made it through the first grade and he couldn't read at all. He could sign his name, but it was a slow laborious project. After waiting so long for him to form the signature you always expected a childlike scrawl, but Granddaddy always believed anything worth doing was worth doing right. He could produce the finest most beautiful handwriting i have ever seen. The dumb bastard must have hated school, and he seemed to expect me to hate it as well. But, i didn't. Not when i was little. At school it was warm in winter and there was always food to eat. No one hit me or screamed at me. There were no chains or dark places or dirty mattresses on dirt floors. i thought it was just about heaven. When i first learned to read, he wanted me to write lines. i suppose this had been a particularly horrible thing for him. Now, you wouldn't know it these days, my many times broken fingers will only produce an almost illegible scrawl, but he did teach me to make beautiful letters. And in my basement hell for nearly one whole year the walls were covered from floor to ceiling in pieces of paper that i had written lines on. He never knew that those lines said "Granddaddy is a big dumb jerk," over and over and over. He only looked at the pretty writing and thought i had done as he said.
i don't think any of the men who have kept me as pet, prisoner, or pokable have seen me. They always believed my sweet facade of acceptance and obedience. And, that was what allowed me to survive and even allowed me to escape in the end. But, how do i get rid of that facade now?
