Personal Story of Scott W. from Straight
INTAKE: September 3,1983
My Story
I was given up for adoption as an infant. I came to live in the home of a middle class white couple. My adoptive father, was a DuPont research chemist and his wife a stay at home "mother." One of the earliest memories I have is the nightly martinis my father would have after work. He drank them from a tumbler with ice and an olive. He always went to bed early and my mother would stay up sewing and doing house work.
I did not like my mother. She was mean and always telling me and my brother that we were embarrassing her. I was made to wear diapers until I was through the second grade. Each night my mother would come into my room and stick her hand inside my pants to see if I had wet the bed. I do not ever remember wetting the bed more than once or twice. I guess keeping me in diapers and feeling me up nightly did the trick.
As I got older my father began hitting me more and more. He liked sports and would often get quite drunk watching TV on weekends. He thought it was great fun to smack me in the head and say, "That’s for nothin’. Wait till you do something."
He also would tell me stories about how his friends had to beat up their teenage sons and let me know that if I ever thought I was ready to take him on he would kick my ass. He started slugging me when I was in the fourth grade. Seems I was growing up too fast. The first time he did it he hit me so hard I flew across my brothers bed room. Then he sat on the floor crying and asking me to forgive him. My jaw hurt for weeks afterwards.
I started fighting in school with the other kids. I was pretty vicious and won most of these playground battles. Soon most kids in my own grade were scared of me and the older kids fell one by one with bloody noses and black eyes. Eventually I had to leave elementary school half way through my 5th grade year. I was having severe stomach pains related to stress.
Because my father was climbing the corporate ladder at DuPont, we were transferred several times during my childhood. Prior to entering the 7th grade we moved to Chadds Ford, PA. That summer was also the first time I smoked pot. It was a wonderful experience. It was the first time I had ever felt so relaxed and giddy at the same time. I had contemplated killing myself many times over the past two years. Usually after getting in some kind of trouble and being smacked around by my father. I discovered it felt a lot better to just smoke a joint.
When I was 14, I started to fight back. One night when my father was coming after me I ran up to my room and grabbed a pair of home made nunchuks and held him at bay. I was only able to hold off the physical assault and fell apart emotionally after a minute or so of the stand off. I could not believe this was my life.
The last straw came in the fall of my sophomore year. This time when he came for me I struck back and busted up the old man’s mouth so bad he had to go in for emergency dental surgery. Again I collapsed emotionally. After that I stopped coming home. I began living in a tent and eventually was allowed to live with some friends.
When I left home I was being sexually abused by my girlfriend’s mother. She would give me money, buy me clothes, food and liquor in return for sex. She was really fat and I was terrified my friends would find out about it. She got pregnant at one point and told me she was going to tell her husband it was his. I have no memory of the next few months. She never did have the child.
Another time when I told her I did not want to have sex with her anymore, she threatened to kill herself. I acquiesced and we went down stairs to the basement where I drank a bottle of bourbon and fucked her the rest of the night. I was 16. She was in her late 30s.
On September 3, 1983, I got in the car with both of my adoptive parents. I had spent the night at home after my father had asked me to accompany him to DC to look at a custom van a buddy of his was selling. I figured I would try and get along with him. I had not expected my mother to be coming along and something told me there was something not right about the whole thing. Before we left I slipped a knife into my boot.
After a two and a half hour trip we arrived at 5515 Backlick Road. We walked into a white building where we were greeted by some old lady with bad hair and bad breath (Sussane Byrd, Assistant Director, Straight Inc. Springfield Va). She introduced me to three boys and said they were going to talk with me in one of the back rooms. I had figured out that this was some sort of "program" or reform school of some sort but I complied thinking I would bide my time. I was taken into what I found out later was an intake room. The three boys sat between me and the door and started asking me questions about my drug use. After a while I said I was done talking with them and I was ready to go. One of them said I could not leave. I stood up and all three of them stood up and blocked the door. I reached into my boot and pulled out the knife I had stashed there and told them to get out of the way. One of them started crying and screaming for help so I stabbed at him.
One of the other boys managed to knock my hand so that the knife stuck into the wall and the blade shattered. The next thing I knew I was pinned to the floor by a chair. The room was now full of other kids who were each taking turns yelling at me. I was scared and began to cry. After a bit they let me sit down again and I was told that I either had to sign myself into the program or I would be turned over to the police and charged with attempted murder. What did I know. I signed myself in. My parents came in and said goodbye, I was strip searched and then led into a huge white room. Where about 200 children were flailing their arms in the air convulsively. Everyone stopped waving their arms and I was taken in front of them all.
"Listen up everyone! This is Scott." Called out the staff member who had hold of me by the back of my pants. "He’s done pot, alcohol, hash, hash oil, PCP, LSD, Mescaline, Cocaine, and a whole bunch of other drugs."
"Hi Scott!" came the response from the kids sitting in the two groups segregated by sex.
"Hey" I said.
"Quiet!" came the harsh rebuke from another staff member. "You do not talk out unless you are given permission. Now find him a seat on the front row."
I was led to the front row and as I sat down the entire group called out, "Love ya Scott" and continued waving their arms convulsively.
This is as far as I have gotten with this tale. As I edit and complete more of it I will post it.