RELAUNCHED AND REVISED!
I was born Horatio Douglas Turner. It's not a name I am proud of. My first generation Welsh father thought it was fitting to name for a child born with an eye that turned off to the side and wouldn't open all the way. He always told me I might as well be named after a famous one eyed Naval officer. I always had to turn to see things better, my left eye was always fuzzy and it was hard to focus on things. I tended to trip alot and bump into people. From a young age I knew I was different, in school they found this to be a great reason pick on me. And when the nuns weren't looking they would push me around and call me every name they could think of..
My Parents were converts to the Mormon faith a few years after my sister was born, and they were trying to save up money and find passage to Utah, but every time they came close, my father felt that he was to help another family and would give away all his savings. They still felt the need to provide me and my three older siblings with a Christian education. And so we were sent to a Catholic school.
I was always treated as an outsider and asked how many wives my father had. My father worked as a steam engineer, he worked on trains engines, building and repairing them.
When I was 6 my father was told his skills were needed to help build the church and sat us down to tell us he would be leaving the family home for a few months to help build the "Temple". My father was happier than I had ever seen him, but my mother burned with anger. She begged and pleaded with him to bring the whole family with him to Salt Lake Valley. After twenty years of waiting to make the trip she didn't understand why he wouldn't take us. My eldest sister Nissa was already married and with child. Britta was seventeen and worked as a seamstress, while my brother was sixteen and already working in a foundry
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My father was making me stay in school in hopes that I would one day follow in his footsteps and become an apprentice.
My father left home the day before my seventh birthday. We heard from him seldomly for the first few months he was traveling. My mother was furious with him for leaving and wouldn't respond to his letters. The money was tight and so mother took up a job at the dress shop Nissa worked in. We received word through my sister that Father wanted us to finally join him after I had turned eight. Mother was so angry, that while I was at school she sold most of our belongings and we moved from Queens to Manhattan in hopes he wouldn't be able to find us if he came back.
I started coming home from school to her lying on the floor. She had been drinking, something that was forbidden in our faith. The smell burned my nose and throat as I tried to lift her into her bed. She stopped going to work, and there was soon no money to pay for school, so I dropped out. Within weeks there was no money for food, but she somehow still had an influx of booze to fill her belly. I went out to the factories to try to find work for myself, but they all turned me down. I was too young and small for their work.
Finally when I visited a restaurant the owner offered me a job as a dish washer. I ran home to tell my mother the good news. When I got there she was passed out at the kitchen table. I tried to waken her, but she wouldn't respond. A neighbor found some police and a doctor was brought in to tell me that she was dead. The policeman gripped my shoulder and informed me that I would be brought to a boy's home until my father or siblings could be contacted about taking me in. I gathered my belongings and everything of my mother's that I felt was worth something.
I was in the boys home for a week before I was informed that my brother had moved, and Nissa had said she couldn't take me in because Britta was already living with them. They could not afford another mouth to feed with their third child on the way.
Of course no one knew how to contact my father. I soon lost hope of ever leaving the place.
Many of the boys were older than me, some seemed to be hardened criminals. Even though I was large for a nine year old it did nothing to save me from their taunting. An especially large boy who everyone referred to as Brick seemed to spend extra time thinking of ways to make my life hell. He would often follow me into the showers and shove me into the walls. I tried to avoid him, but he always came at me from the left so I couldn't see him until it was too late. He took food from my plate and would knock me into door frames when he would pass me in the hall. When I tried keeping my food from him he grabbed my hair and pulled my head back. As he glared into my eyes he said, "Pretty boys never say no to me for long."
It was always crowded in the home. We slept on racks three levels high. There was a thin mat on each one, and a light sheet to cover with. In the winter it was so cold that the wool blankets they gave us didn't help. They were filled with holes and thread bare. Those were the times that I was glad us smaller boys shared a bed. With two of us curled up together we could keep warm enough to sleep. I shared my bunk with a boy a few months younger than me named Kyndall. He was an orphaned immigrant from Ireland. He never ever talked, I was lucky to get a yes or a no out of him. When an adult threatened him he would say more and you could hear what remained of his accent.
My first days there I fought hard to keep from crying. But at night when I was cold and lonely I couldn't help but let a few sobs escape.
On the second night as my sobbing caused the bed to shake slightly, I felt Kyndall roll over. He took his blanket and covered me with it. He placed his hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at him, I was afraid to see pitty in his eyes, but all I saw was love and concern. It caused me to cry even harder, Kyndall pulled me into a hug and a held me as I cried myself to sleep.
He was my only friend in the world.
One day, after I had been in the Refuge for several months there was an outbreak of scarlet fever. I don't remember much of being ill. I was told that for a while I was touch and go. I was kept in the sick ward for longer than the rest. There was usually a boy who brought me in some food. Typically it was a boy my age, one of the younger fellas, but I was always happiest when it was Kyndall who came through the door. My whole body ached from being in bed for two weeks with the fever. He asked me one day how I felt and when I told him, he pulled the sheets from my legs, rubbed them and helped me stretch them out and try standing. I quickly lost my footing but he grabbed me around the waist. We stood there for a moment while I regained my balance. He was shorter than me, and skinnier, but was strong enough to help me to the bathroom to shower. As I took my first shower in well over 2 weeks, I turned to see if he was still there and saw him looking at me. He quickly glanced away as we made eye contact, I couldn't understand why. Standing there under the cool water I couldn't help thinking about him looking at me, that I wanted him to look. That was the first time I remember my body reacting without me wanting it too. I quickly grabbed the towel from the nearby chair as I heard a stifled cough from his direction. He helped me back to bed. The activity had worn me out, so we didn't say much. I told him I'd see him in a few days when they sent me back to my bunk. I remember him sitting at the foot of the bed as I drifted off to sleep. But the day before I was to be allowed back in the room with the rest of the boys, in came Brick, carrying my bowl of the nasty soup they fed us.
He had a disturbing grin on his face. He put a chair up against the door, under the handle. He sat on the edge of my bed and set my bowl on the floor. I looked up at him frightened.
"Keep quiet, and I'll make this quick and easy. Cause I like you kid." He said hoarsely as he placed his hand on my upper thigh and pinned my leg to the bed. I quickly started squirming my way towards the edge of the bunk and into the wall. But his other hand clamped down on my arm. He pinned me to the bed and sat on top of me. His hand went to his pants and that's when I realized he wasn't planning to rough me up. I started screaming as loud as I could in my weakened state. It didn't help that I had a guy twice my size sitting on my chest and could hardly breathe.
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As his hand clamped over my mouth I bit down as hard as I could. I could taste the metallic edge of his blood in my mouth and tried not to gag. He howled and jumped off of me and I could see his finger gushing red. He grabbed the chair nearby and started swinging it at me. I backed up towards the door trying to get away from him. He swung it at me and I ducked. As I turned to open the door and yell I felt the chair make contact with my bum eye and there was horrible pain and a flash of lightning in my skull. I was on the ground looking up at him standing over me. He was holding his hand smiling. I could think of only one final action to make before I passed out. I aimed for his groin and felt a sickening crushing feeling under my foot. I heard the door open as he fell to the ground. And that was the last thing I remembered for a long time.
Hey guys, I'm relaunching this story, I've deleted the chapters and am going through redoing a bunch of stuff that didn't sound right or was unclear. I will be uploading a new edited chapter a day for the next 2 weeks or so, with a brand new chapter coming up too. So subscribe or check back, hope you all like the improvements!