h3strongPart One/strong: emBacktracking/embrbr
pThe big fish! That was it. Balamb Garden was the big blue fish that sometimes crept suspiciously into the peripheral corners of my memories. It was the kind of image that you can't look at directly, but you can see out the side of your mind; you can never see what it really looks like, but you always know what shape, color, size it is. Sometimes it drives you mad because you really want to see what you're looking at, but how do you turn to look at something that's lodged behind your eyes, in your mind? So, seeing the Big Blue again was like scratching a ten-year-old itch. Big Blue Balamb! B³!
br
pThat wasn't the only itch, of course. In fact, the fish was a pretty small itch compared to the other itch that sprinkled across the inside of my mind. But, hey! I'll get that one scratched too, once I manage to get into Big Blue. Yeah, he'll be in there somewhere. There's a score to settle, I guess. Some debts to be repaid. That's what's gotta be scratched.
br
pAh, it was great; his face was all over the television and his name was always somewhere on the radio. "The sixth of the six that saved the world!" some called him. Miracle girls and miracle boys! Their stories were famous. I wonder how he felt hearing his name over the radio so many times. I loved to hear it. Although deep down I was always wishing I'd hear ihim/i talking. I wished he'd say imy/i name, I wished he'd acknowledge me. I even kind of wish he'd make fun of me again, about my name, about what I liked to eat, all those little things. It used to bother me, but I miss all of it. "Velouria," he'd say. I shivered a little. Then I frowned. That wasn't really his voice I heard saying it, just some contortion of my own; I don't remember his voice! Oh, that is just disgraceful. I hit the side of my head a couple times. I know that in itself won't do anything, but maybe it would trigger some memory of him doing the same thing to me. Wait...no. He never hit me, not ever. He was a soldier, he was fierce, and as far as fighters went he was among the best of them. But he never hit me. So there was no use hitting myself. That just made me think of home.
br
pHome. Ah! Home. What a place, and what parents. That's not a pretty story, really. My mother was a housewife, a subservient one at that. My father was a professional bastard, and an affluent businessman to boot. Mother always had her head turned away from me. She never cooked me meals, never went in my room, never spoke to me and never, ever touched me. Pops...well, Pops was something else. Pops would hit mother sometimes. I used to hear all the boys on the block talking about how their mothers got beaten or hit sometime or other. I never told them that Pops was never drunk when he did it. All their dads were alchoholic slobs, but Pops, no, Pops did it out of the cancerous blackness of his heart. The indication I got from mother was that he used to do it alot more, but he would never lay a finger on me, because although he knew he exercised power over her, he knew that she would slit his throat and pull his tongue through the gash if any harm were to come to me.
br
pAfter it all happened, though...that all changed. Pops rarely hit mother anymore. For some weeks it seemed he'd been cured of his violence, albeit with strange results. Later I found out that he'd been going to one of the underground clubs instead of going to work, every day of those few weeks. Those clubs were for bare-knuckle boxing, and there were loads of them, filled with all the scum of Dollet. That was why he'd come home with those 'strange results'; bruises, cuts, a broken bone on occasion, missing teeth, black eyes, friction burns, split knuckles, hyperextended muscles, torn skin, bleeding gums, cracked nails, headaches, nausea, exhaustion, vomiting, loss of voice, a three-day stint of bronchitis, cramps, pain, pain, pain.
br
pI never claimed to like the police, but I don't condemn them. Their busts on the underground clubs began then; Pops was forced to go back to work. So when he came home, he beat me. Sometimes with those massive, clenched fists. Sometimes with his belt. Twice with a baseball bat. Mother stopped him once, on the first day. After that, he'd nearly killed her. She never touched me again. He'd throw me against the walls, throw me on the floor, throw me down the stairs, throw me out the door and drag me back in by my hair. The days he didn't beat me were the days when he felt it necessary to destroy me emotionally. He'd give me long, scathing lectures about what I'd done, about why I was a disgrace, about why he was absolutely right to beat me like he did. I wasn't even twelve years old. What else was I to believe? After all was said, he'd beat me anyway. There was only ever one thing I'd say to defend myself; 'It's not my fault, I can't help it, that's how I am,' but he only retaliated stronger, hit harder, and often drew blood. He would shout and scream while he beat me, loud enough so I could hardly hear my own whimpering and sobbing. The times he used the baseball bat was among the worst of it. He clubbed me in the side of the head once, but I passed out, and after that he never hit me there again; but he'd always, always take cracks at my ribs. It was only twice then that he'd ever used the bat. That was a sick blessing.
br
pThree years of this can change a person. I became silent. Most passed me off as mute. The school administration thought I had any one of a number of possible mental deficiencies; my mind never stayed on school. My father forced me to dress heavily to cover my wounds. At the time I was at the East Acadamy Galbadian High School, at some god-forsaken former military outpost that I had to catch a 5:25 train to every morning. I had a chronic aversion to being touched by anyone. I was afraid of everyone. Absolutely everyone. Seeing my mother, even, started to terrify me. How do you iexplain/i terror? How do you iexplain/i agony? If you can I'm not that good at it, so all I can do is say what happened. Even trying to describe the emotions of it is a terrible undertaking. Recalling the facts is hard enough. Anyway, at EAGHS (which made for some interesting jokes), I met him. He asked me why I was so quiet. He was concerned. He cared. I opened up to him; I talked to him. That's where we fell in love. I didn't tell him about my father, but suddenly the beatings became tolerable. I noticed the wounds less, I cried less, I hurt less.
br
pThen my father found out about him, and all hell broke loose.
br
pThe baseball bat. He used it every single day, brutally, without respite. He only stopped using it when he managed to crack one of my ribs. I was out of school for three days. For those three days he didn't touch me; I was in the hospital. (Supposed) Cause of injury? Biking accident. Fell on some hard rocks. Right...nobody in my family bikes. When those three days were up, it was back to the devil's lair with me. Only it got worse and worse and ever worse. From the baseball bat he advanced to a gag and ropes. He'd tie me to a chair and gag me and blindfold me and kick the chair over and kick me in the stomach, in the chest. The worst of it came when he'd kick my genitals. Every day at school I would try and try to be as close to my lover as I had on our first day together, but I grew more and more detached from him because I felt it, every night; I felt what our love would cost. He would always draw me close to him and ask what was wrong, but I would tremble and begin to cry and pull away from him. How could I tell him such awful things? I loved him. I didn't want him to hear any of it. One day, however, I couldn't push it back any longer. I began to sob, loud choked distraught sobs, and I told him everything. He held on to me and made me feel better about everything, and he assured me that as soon as we could, we'd run away from here. That was when I began to see what a bastard my father was. That was when I really started to hate him, and when I decided to defend myself. That night Pops demanded I tell him what I was telling my boyfriend. 'I told him everything about you. I told him what a bastard you are. I told him about the kind of demon that my father is. And he's going to take me away from here. You'll never touch me again.' He couldn't speak anymore. His voice emerged as searing barks and roars that shook in my ears long after they were over. The first time I defied him, he knocked me to the floor, turned on a hot iron and pressed it onto my back. The skin and the flesh burned and crinkled and charred and my god, I pray and you better as hell pray that you will inever/i have to feel so much pain in your entire life. If you can picture putting your finger on a hot frying pan or pot, then picture keeping it there for a long time, and then just picture doing the same to a piece of your back.
br
pThen the worst of it. The next day was my fifteenth birthday, and my boyfriend had given me a ring to wear, which I did. My father did not beat me. He did not speak to me for a very long time. Then he asked me, in a low voice, "You will not renounce your evils?"
br
pMy response was quick. It was something I had been aching to say to him for a long time. It was a sudden exhilaration, being able to coldly growl the phrase I'd held back for months.
br
p"Not a chance, motherfucker."
br
pMy theory still holds that what he did next, he would have done regardless of whether or not I'd cursed at him as I did. I'm sure that no matter how I said no, he would have done it anyway. Even if I had said yes, I'm not sure he would have stopped it. He did it, though. He did it. "I'm taking you to Barutaru."
br
pBarutaru, it seemed, was a former convict, a three-time murderer, a thief, arsonist, vandal, brigand, assailant of all things good. I suppose my father may have found him at one of the underground boxing rings. My father grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside to Barutaru's van. He opened the back doors, threw me inside, and shut them. Inside was Barutaru, a massive, glowering figure vaguely illuminated in the moonlight. He was more like a shadow, moving slowly and deliberately. He moved towards me and I cowered on the floor, covering my head with my hands in some vain hope that he would be deterred. Barutaru grabbed my hair, pulled me up and looked at me, grinning. He ripped off my shirt, then my pants...then my underwear. Then he removed his own clothes. In the back of a van outside my house, on my 16th birthday, two hours before midnight, he forced me down, came up behind me, forced me open, and proceeded to eviscerate me. I screamed, I sobbed, I broke, I bled, I tried to shake free, and I could not escape. Through the same passage that disposed of my own waste, my soul was pumped out. For my 15th birthday, I was thrown in the back of a van and raped.
br
pAll because I was gay, and I was in love with a young man named Irvine Kinneas.
pThe big fish! That was it. Balamb Garden was the big blue fish that sometimes crept suspiciously into the peripheral corners of my memories. It was the kind of image that you can't look at directly, but you can see out the side of your mind; you can never see what it really looks like, but you always know what shape, color, size it is. Sometimes it drives you mad because you really want to see what you're looking at, but how do you turn to look at something that's lodged behind your eyes, in your mind? So, seeing the Big Blue again was like scratching a ten-year-old itch. Big Blue Balamb! B³!
br
pThat wasn't the only itch, of course. In fact, the fish was a pretty small itch compared to the other itch that sprinkled across the inside of my mind. But, hey! I'll get that one scratched too, once I manage to get into Big Blue. Yeah, he'll be in there somewhere. There's a score to settle, I guess. Some debts to be repaid. That's what's gotta be scratched.
br
pAh, it was great; his face was all over the television and his name was always somewhere on the radio. "The sixth of the six that saved the world!" some called him. Miracle girls and miracle boys! Their stories were famous. I wonder how he felt hearing his name over the radio so many times. I loved to hear it. Although deep down I was always wishing I'd hear ihim/i talking. I wished he'd say imy/i name, I wished he'd acknowledge me. I even kind of wish he'd make fun of me again, about my name, about what I liked to eat, all those little things. It used to bother me, but I miss all of it. "Velouria," he'd say. I shivered a little. Then I frowned. That wasn't really his voice I heard saying it, just some contortion of my own; I don't remember his voice! Oh, that is just disgraceful. I hit the side of my head a couple times. I know that in itself won't do anything, but maybe it would trigger some memory of him doing the same thing to me. Wait...no. He never hit me, not ever. He was a soldier, he was fierce, and as far as fighters went he was among the best of them. But he never hit me. So there was no use hitting myself. That just made me think of home.
br
pHome. Ah! Home. What a place, and what parents. That's not a pretty story, really. My mother was a housewife, a subservient one at that. My father was a professional bastard, and an affluent businessman to boot. Mother always had her head turned away from me. She never cooked me meals, never went in my room, never spoke to me and never, ever touched me. Pops...well, Pops was something else. Pops would hit mother sometimes. I used to hear all the boys on the block talking about how their mothers got beaten or hit sometime or other. I never told them that Pops was never drunk when he did it. All their dads were alchoholic slobs, but Pops, no, Pops did it out of the cancerous blackness of his heart. The indication I got from mother was that he used to do it alot more, but he would never lay a finger on me, because although he knew he exercised power over her, he knew that she would slit his throat and pull his tongue through the gash if any harm were to come to me.
br
pAfter it all happened, though...that all changed. Pops rarely hit mother anymore. For some weeks it seemed he'd been cured of his violence, albeit with strange results. Later I found out that he'd been going to one of the underground clubs instead of going to work, every day of those few weeks. Those clubs were for bare-knuckle boxing, and there were loads of them, filled with all the scum of Dollet. That was why he'd come home with those 'strange results'; bruises, cuts, a broken bone on occasion, missing teeth, black eyes, friction burns, split knuckles, hyperextended muscles, torn skin, bleeding gums, cracked nails, headaches, nausea, exhaustion, vomiting, loss of voice, a three-day stint of bronchitis, cramps, pain, pain, pain.
br
pI never claimed to like the police, but I don't condemn them. Their busts on the underground clubs began then; Pops was forced to go back to work. So when he came home, he beat me. Sometimes with those massive, clenched fists. Sometimes with his belt. Twice with a baseball bat. Mother stopped him once, on the first day. After that, he'd nearly killed her. She never touched me again. He'd throw me against the walls, throw me on the floor, throw me down the stairs, throw me out the door and drag me back in by my hair. The days he didn't beat me were the days when he felt it necessary to destroy me emotionally. He'd give me long, scathing lectures about what I'd done, about why I was a disgrace, about why he was absolutely right to beat me like he did. I wasn't even twelve years old. What else was I to believe? After all was said, he'd beat me anyway. There was only ever one thing I'd say to defend myself; 'It's not my fault, I can't help it, that's how I am,' but he only retaliated stronger, hit harder, and often drew blood. He would shout and scream while he beat me, loud enough so I could hardly hear my own whimpering and sobbing. The times he used the baseball bat was among the worst of it. He clubbed me in the side of the head once, but I passed out, and after that he never hit me there again; but he'd always, always take cracks at my ribs. It was only twice then that he'd ever used the bat. That was a sick blessing.
br
pThree years of this can change a person. I became silent. Most passed me off as mute. The school administration thought I had any one of a number of possible mental deficiencies; my mind never stayed on school. My father forced me to dress heavily to cover my wounds. At the time I was at the East Acadamy Galbadian High School, at some god-forsaken former military outpost that I had to catch a 5:25 train to every morning. I had a chronic aversion to being touched by anyone. I was afraid of everyone. Absolutely everyone. Seeing my mother, even, started to terrify me. How do you iexplain/i terror? How do you iexplain/i agony? If you can I'm not that good at it, so all I can do is say what happened. Even trying to describe the emotions of it is a terrible undertaking. Recalling the facts is hard enough. Anyway, at EAGHS (which made for some interesting jokes), I met him. He asked me why I was so quiet. He was concerned. He cared. I opened up to him; I talked to him. That's where we fell in love. I didn't tell him about my father, but suddenly the beatings became tolerable. I noticed the wounds less, I cried less, I hurt less.
br
pThen my father found out about him, and all hell broke loose.
br
pThe baseball bat. He used it every single day, brutally, without respite. He only stopped using it when he managed to crack one of my ribs. I was out of school for three days. For those three days he didn't touch me; I was in the hospital. (Supposed) Cause of injury? Biking accident. Fell on some hard rocks. Right...nobody in my family bikes. When those three days were up, it was back to the devil's lair with me. Only it got worse and worse and ever worse. From the baseball bat he advanced to a gag and ropes. He'd tie me to a chair and gag me and blindfold me and kick the chair over and kick me in the stomach, in the chest. The worst of it came when he'd kick my genitals. Every day at school I would try and try to be as close to my lover as I had on our first day together, but I grew more and more detached from him because I felt it, every night; I felt what our love would cost. He would always draw me close to him and ask what was wrong, but I would tremble and begin to cry and pull away from him. How could I tell him such awful things? I loved him. I didn't want him to hear any of it. One day, however, I couldn't push it back any longer. I began to sob, loud choked distraught sobs, and I told him everything. He held on to me and made me feel better about everything, and he assured me that as soon as we could, we'd run away from here. That was when I began to see what a bastard my father was. That was when I really started to hate him, and when I decided to defend myself. That night Pops demanded I tell him what I was telling my boyfriend. 'I told him everything about you. I told him what a bastard you are. I told him about the kind of demon that my father is. And he's going to take me away from here. You'll never touch me again.' He couldn't speak anymore. His voice emerged as searing barks and roars that shook in my ears long after they were over. The first time I defied him, he knocked me to the floor, turned on a hot iron and pressed it onto my back. The skin and the flesh burned and crinkled and charred and my god, I pray and you better as hell pray that you will inever/i have to feel so much pain in your entire life. If you can picture putting your finger on a hot frying pan or pot, then picture keeping it there for a long time, and then just picture doing the same to a piece of your back.
br
pThen the worst of it. The next day was my fifteenth birthday, and my boyfriend had given me a ring to wear, which I did. My father did not beat me. He did not speak to me for a very long time. Then he asked me, in a low voice, "You will not renounce your evils?"
br
pMy response was quick. It was something I had been aching to say to him for a long time. It was a sudden exhilaration, being able to coldly growl the phrase I'd held back for months.
br
p"Not a chance, motherfucker."
br
pMy theory still holds that what he did next, he would have done regardless of whether or not I'd cursed at him as I did. I'm sure that no matter how I said no, he would have done it anyway. Even if I had said yes, I'm not sure he would have stopped it. He did it, though. He did it. "I'm taking you to Barutaru."
br
pBarutaru, it seemed, was a former convict, a three-time murderer, a thief, arsonist, vandal, brigand, assailant of all things good. I suppose my father may have found him at one of the underground boxing rings. My father grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside to Barutaru's van. He opened the back doors, threw me inside, and shut them. Inside was Barutaru, a massive, glowering figure vaguely illuminated in the moonlight. He was more like a shadow, moving slowly and deliberately. He moved towards me and I cowered on the floor, covering my head with my hands in some vain hope that he would be deterred. Barutaru grabbed my hair, pulled me up and looked at me, grinning. He ripped off my shirt, then my pants...then my underwear. Then he removed his own clothes. In the back of a van outside my house, on my 16th birthday, two hours before midnight, he forced me down, came up behind me, forced me open, and proceeded to eviscerate me. I screamed, I sobbed, I broke, I bled, I tried to shake free, and I could not escape. Through the same passage that disposed of my own waste, my soul was pumped out. For my 15th birthday, I was thrown in the back of a van and raped.
br
pAll because I was gay, and I was in love with a young man named Irvine Kinneas.