War Child

         War Child a memoir by Bruce Cerew

I woke in a pool of pee to see my father peering into his snuff tin. The container was empty—I could tell by the expression on his face. He had forgotten to refill it the day before and, in a moment, would be looking for someone to blame.

Lying still atop my urine-soaked sleep mat,  sweat beginning to bead on my skin, I watched Dad  carefully with one eye, waiting for him to  smell my offense. It was already growing warm—any moment the pungent scent would reach him.

My brothers and sisters lay on their own mats, unmoving. If they were also awake, they didn’t show it. Nor would they. Not until he was gone. No matter what.

I closed my eye, wishing he would just leave for work, then opened it again. He had not left. He was staring at me. He knew.

Exploding in an instant, he lunged and dragged me onto the floor. He kicked me so violently in the head that stars shot wildly in front of my wide-open eyes and I thought my skull had shattered into tiny pieces.

Through the roaring in my ears, I heard my mother’s voice: “For God’s sake, stop! He’s only eight years old!”

But her pleas meant nothing to him and never had. He would beat her to a pulp, too, while his other children (his real children) cowered on their sleep mats and pretended not to hear.  As always, there would be no response from any of the families who shared this public house with us. They had their own problems, and didn’t need ours as well.

I cried out for mercy with what I thought might be my dying breath: “Papa, please forgive me—Mama, please—Mama, please help me!”

But there was no mercy. He kept beating me, driving me into a dark place, while my mother cried out for him to stop. From that black hole, I listened as he turned his rage on her.

“Get up, woman!” he screamed when she fell. He demanded—as he always did—to know where I had come from. I could not possibly be a child of his.

When he had reduced her to a sobbing heap, he grabbed me up again and shook me violently. “Where did you come from, you stupid, useless child?”

I couldn’t answer because I couldn’t breathe.

“You don’t look like me! A fool could see that!” he yelled. “My child you are not. So where did you come from?”

There was a long, horrible silence, made more sinister by the complicity of our neighbors—it was as if they held their collective breaths, waiting for him to do something. To kill one of us, or to simply leave. He dropped me to the floor, where I curled in on myself to become smaller. He tried to kick my head again and missed. Had his foot connected, my story would