I used to joke that my old man had a mean swing.

You know. Because he was a butcher.

Everyone used to laugh. Everyone in Waverly had seen my dad chop meat. His cleaver could half a roast so fast you wouldn't believe.

I still remember the sound that cleaver made when it hit the block.

Of course, when I said that kind of crap, what I really meant was "help."

Barney would always get nervous when I cracked jokes like that. One time he grabbed me by the arm and tugged me behind the wall of the convenience shop near our place and begged me to stop because he didn't want to pay the price just because I couldn't stop yappin' about it.

What he didn't know was that I joked to keep the world from caving in around me.

Now, my dad could cut meat with the best of them and he was known to, on occasion get a good crack at a baseball, but I don't think anyone in that town would have ever guessed that he beat the snot outta me, my brother, and my mom.

People around town knew him as a friendly guy. The life of the party. So when I would show up to school with a shiner that kept the impression of his ring in it just next to my eye, they all believed me when I told them that I slipped playing marbles in the kitchen or something stupid like that. It became a game, making excuses for all my little mishaps. Okay, maybe some big mishaps, too.

But there was no excusing it when he took my mom on a drive to clear his head and wrapped the car around a tree. He was three sheets to the wind and it cost him and my mom their lives.

All my family's dirty laundry was laid out for everyone to see and suddenly no one was laughing anymore.

Before he died, my dad gave me more bruises than I could ever count, cracked two of my ribs, snapped my pinky and ring finger back on my left hand, and broke my right arm twice. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Two weeks later, when Barney and I were ushered off by the state to a home for boys, I said goodbye to Waverly. I've never gone back.

I know this all sounds like some sob story, but not every story like this has to end the same way. If you know me, you know that Waverly and Harold Barton aren't the defining points in my life. I know it sounds cold, but rarely even think about them anymore.

But I did learn something from all that: no one can tell you what you are. My pop told me every day that I was nothing and that I'd sooner fly than do good in this world.

Guess what, old man, I'm soarin'.