Living with the Devil

By Mary L. Burch

This story is based in a time and place where women did not have the support or courage to speak out and ask for help.
A young girl who grew up in an abusive and controlling environment tells her story of physical and mental abuse that she suffered by her father, and then after by the men that came into her life. She believed that she was at fault and the cause for all the abusive treatment. The miracle of surviving these horrors has given her a platform to share her experiences. Therefore giving courage to others that continue to suffer these atrocities and that are still being held hostage by fear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504980913

Mary L. Burch

Mary L. Burch traveled with her family across the country from Arkansas to California following the crops in search of employment. Finally, her parents decided to settle in Central California to raise their family and where Mary L. Burch started her life's journey. Her life's experiences took her through many avenues encountering many challenges that built her tenacious character and spirit. Today she is very active within her community as an advocate for the Developmentally Disabled, and the Elderly.

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© 2016 Mary L. Burch. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/21/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-8092-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-8091-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016902992

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Preface

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

For my beautiful daughters

Debbie

Carol

Lynn

Starla

Christy

Preface

I had two devils in my life, my father was the first devil and my second husband was the other devil. My father started beating me when I was just six months old; he beat all of us kids starting at that age. I remember him beating my little brother Donald until he would pass out, then he would hand him over to my passive little mother who had just turned and walked away and stood there with her head down crying. All of us kids would just stand and cry when he was whipping one of us. We were too young to intervene and help each other when we were small, but that would change when we grew older. I remember one time when we were taking care of my grandpa, he was in his eighties and had what they called the old timers disease. He couldn't remember anything past the time my father was ten years old. You could ask him, where Sylvester was, and he would say, he's in school. Where do you think he is? Poor grandpa had to put up with us kids teasing him all the time. He had arthritis real bad and couldn't walk without his walking cane. So we could tease him and get away before he could catch us and hit us with it. I remember one day momma had our dinner all ready to serve when we all got into the house. We always had dinner at five sharp, and we all sat down at the table together. If we didn't eat everything on our plates, we would get a whipping with dad's belt. There were five of us kids, my big brother Joe, me (Lee), the twins Donald and Donna, and baby sister Jena. This particular day grandpa got caught using his hands to eat out of the bowls before my mom had put the food on the table. Mom told dad about it, well, the old man jerked off his belt and gave poor old grandpa the whipping of his life. He pulled down his pants so that he could whip him on his bare skin, and by the time he got done grandpa had blood stripes running down his legs. He was crying like a little baby, and all of us kids were crying too right along with him. Grandpa got lots of whippings, he would mess in his pants and dad would lay in on him. He would pee in mom's flower pots, and dad would give him a whipping. I grew up hating my father with a passion. I use to lay in bed at night and try to think of ways to kill him. Especially every morning when we would wake up to the sounds of my big brother getting a whipping for wetting the bed. We found out later the reason why Joe was wetting the bed. It was because he had a kidney problem, the Doc, said he probably sustained it from some sort of blunt force, of course, mom never told the doctor about all of the whippin's us kids got all the time. He never hit our mom, but what he did to her mentally was even worse. She was very childlike and was afraid of him. I knew early on that I would become the mom and help her with the little ones (that's what we called my little brothers and sisters). On many occasions, I would tell my father, one of these days old man she is going to leave you. Of course, he loved it when I would say that because it gave him an excuse to jerk off his belt and lay in on me. I remember the last whipping me and my big brother Joe got before we left home and got married. Joe was seventeen years old, and I was fourteen. It was on a Sunday. We had company from the church over to have dinner with us. Joe said something dad didn't like, so to show the church people that he was boss the old man jerked off his belt right in the living room in front of them. Joe was standing in the middle of the room and dad said,

You know better than to dispute my word boy, the Bible says, not to spare the rod and spoil the child.

Well, he laid in on Joe, beating him all over his legs and back, I jumped up and started yelling at my dad to leave him alone. Hit him back Joe! I yelled, but Joe just stood there and took it. There was no expression on his face, in all of the years of abuse I never once saw my brother cry. I did the crying for him. When my dad finally finished, Joe just walked out the door and took off in his car, and he never came back. Joe went down to a little town called Pixley and stayed with our relatives, until one day he announced that he was getting married. He had met a little girl in the cotton fields and fell in love. Joe never forgave our father for being so mean to us kids. He stayed married to Ruby until his death. Joe died from Diabetes at 56. My last whipping happened almost the exact same way that Joes did. Once again it was a Sunday, and we had the same church friends over for Sunday dinner. When all of a sudden my dad looked up when he saw me coming in the front door.

Dara Lee! (He yelled)

I knew I was in trouble when he added the 'Dara' to my name when he was calling me. They were all sitting around in the living room, two families from the church. My dad loved to show off in front of our church friends so that they could see what a good Christian he was. You go in there and take off them men's clothing. I was wearing a pair of what we called then, pedal pushers.

But dad I said, I've been wearing them around the house for days now and you hadn't said anything about it. Is it because our friends from the church are here, and you want to show off in front of them again like you did when you gave Joe a whipping in front of them?

His face took on a look that I had never seen before I had embarrassed him in front of company. Now I was in for it. Well, I was ready for him. I stood my ground as he jumped up and started towards me. He grabbed my pants and literally tore them off of me. I was standing in the middle of the room with just a pair of thin nylon panties on. By that time he had his belt off and started hitting me. I started fighting back with all my strength. I raised back my fist and hit him across the face and