Where Was God?

By Chris

This is a true story of one mans lifefrom a small child to an adult man. It is about his lifetime of trauma, heartbreak, persecution, hardships, and many other afflictions that no person should have to endure. He lived through racism, bullying, loneliness, physical abuse, homelessness, four possible life-ending illnesses, and three life-saving surgeries. After undergoing brain surgery in 1981 at the age of twenty-one, he was given only one year to livethree at the maxbut didnt die. This story is about having to live an entire life with the notion that death could come at any moment. All this was compounded by living every day with lifes common ups and downs. Religion was abandoned but then refound. He was married, raised a family, had a career, then got divorced twice, lost his job, lost everything, and became homeless. Having endured through it all, with faith, with perseverance, and with many miracles in between, he was able to write this book. He hopes to be able to help anyone who may be struggling with a similar fate and provide them the tools to carry on from the examples of his life. This is his true life story, so help him God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543446685

Chris

My name is Chris; born in 1960 in beautiful Long Beach, California. I grew up in the suburbs of Huntington Beach, California. I have been married and had four children that have given me two grandchildren. My life has been anything but easy; growing up with and enduring through much racism and bullying in my youth. I had wanted to grow up and be very successful in my life. I had dreams, goals, and a plan for my life. However, over the years i slowly learned that God had a completely different life plan laid out for me. It lead to an alteration of my hopes and dreams. Still, through all of my afflictions i remained steadfast and true in my belief in God. It is that love of God and my firm belief in Him that i truly believe has carried me to this point in my life. I fought hard to live the life that i wanted so badly to live, but in the end i realized that God’s plan for me supersedes my ideas of what i want. So no matter how hard i fought against it at times i realized that faith in Him and perseverance through my hardships would carry me through to happiness, eventually.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Chris.

Cover design by: Margaret Crowley

Library of Congress Control Number:      2017913151

ISBN:                     Hardcover                       978-1-5434-4666-1

                               Softcover                          978-1-5434-4667-8

                               eBook                               978-1-5434-4668-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/11/2017

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Chapter 2: Junior High

Chapter 3: The Next 16 Years

Chapter 4: After Surgery

Chapter 5: Dark Days

Chapter 6: The Dreams

Chapter 7: My Salvation

Chapter 8: Muy Bonita

Testimonial Of Angel Thompson

Testimonial Of Angel Green

Testimonial Of Angel Anderson

Testimonial Of Brother Fieldson

Chapter 1: The Beginning

My name is Chris. I was born April 1, 1960, in Long Beach, CA to Mr. & Mrs. Pablo and Gloria Garcia, April Fool’s Day! I was born on April Fool’s Day! If that was any indication of how my life would turn out to be I’d definitely should have heeded that warning or message and not have been born! I really did not like celebrating my birthday on April Fool’s Day. Oh, I heard the jokes, tolerated the teasing from family and friends, but in my life it later appeared to me that being born on April Fool’s Day wasn’t just the one day to pull pranks on others. For me that day turned out to be a lifetime of jokes and pranks on me. None of which did I find funny or fun, not at all, no, not one bit. Truth be told, some were very scary, some were life-altering, some were even life-threatening, but all of them were definitely challenging.

My very first, and longest lasting, life challenge was dealing with Pablo. I had to try and grow up like a normal child in a house with a physically and mentally abusive father who liked to show us kids his love with his uncontrollable anger, his hurtful words, his belt, and sometimes with his fists; and as the fifth child with eight brothers and sisters. I had two older brothers (Richard & Donnie), two older sisters (Cindy & Alia), two younger sisters (Beth & Morgan) and eventually a little brother named James. In the early 1960s our father moved our family to the seaside town of Huntington Beach, CA. Our family was one of the few Mexican American families to move to this part of that city at that time. My mother was a typical Hispanic stay-at-home mother while Pablo was a car salesman who barely made enough money to make ends meet.

Although he didn’t drink or do drugs, he did love to smoke cigarettes. Still, we always had clothes to wear, food to eat and a solid roof over our heads. We were not a very close or love giving family. We did try, however, to occasionally look after each other because we had to. Pablo had major anger issues. It seemed he couldn’t control his anger. Sometimes, he would throw child-like temper-tantrums in front of us just to prove some point. He constantly argued with my mother in both English and Spanish. My entire lifetime I had never ever seen Pablo show any love or affection towards my mother. They did make a lot of babies, but I had never seen him hold her hand, brush her hair back, kiss her, or tell her how pretty she looked. I never heard him tell my mom he loved her. All they did, or so it seemed to me, was to fight and argue with each other.

As a family, we never did family things together. Pablo hated gatherings. So when we did do things together, it was immediate family only. When our mother wanted to visit her mother and family, that lived twenty miles away, she had to rely on Richard because she never learned to drive. Richard was the one who drove us to Grandma’s and to visit our aunts, uncles and cousins. Pablo did not approve of us visiting her family. When we did visit with her family, we always had to make sure to be home before he returned home from work. If we didn’t make it home in time, they would argue and she would end up crying. When I was growing up I noticed my mom would become very nervous and agitated when she knew Pablo was on his way home from work. She wasn’t alone. No one in my family knew what type of mood he’d come home in. He seemed to have only two moods: bad and mad. I knew at a very young age to always try and stay away from Pablo. Sadly, I also learned very early on that he did not like me much. According to my older siblings I was a mamma’s boy and that I always got my way.

My mother gave me much love and affection which, for some reason, seemed to anger him. He would tell her that she was making me into a sissy. Still, she protected me as much as she could from his wrath. Now, in some families, a mother does occasionally shower her son with love and affection. There is nothing wrong with that. But in Pablo’s eyes that was a problem. He gave me a lifetime of hell. It took me thirty years and my parents’ divorce hearing for me to find out why he hated me so much throughout my life.

I was standing out in a small courthouse hallway with my wife, Laura, Pablo, and my other siblings, who stood as far apart from our dad as they could. We were waiting for the hearing to begin. Standing next to Pablo in the hallway was the closest I had been, physically, to him in years. So I took the initiative to ask him straight up, Why the hell do you hate me so much? I asked Was it because mom spoiled me so much as a kid? Why do you hate me? Pablo looked at me with his evil look, a stare that used to scare me as a child but was ineffective now, and refused to answer me. So I asked him again Are you going to tell me why you hate me so much? Pablo finally replied and said, When you were born, your mother had insisted on naming you ‘Chris.’ I was allowing your mother to come up with a name for you but I did not like that name. He continued, But she insisted that she wanted to name you ‘Chris.’ I wanted to name you ‘Roman.’ When I heard that, all I could think about was, Good for mom for naming me ‘Chris’ because ‘Roman’ sucks. He didn’t stop there. He said Chris was the name of a boy she dated in high school. She was in love with him. He is a doctor or something now, but I had to beat out that ‘Chris’ in high school for your mother and I won. But ever since then I hated that name. After that revelation Pablo non-challantly turned his head away from me and barked out, to no one in particular, When is this damned thing gonna start!

What does someone say to that? A father hates his son over a name; treats him like crap because of his name. I didn’t ask for that name when I was born. And yet he treated me like a second class citizen because of it. I was given that name by my mother, who loved me. I had to contain my anger, I was so furious and disgusted with him. What a cowardly excuse for anyone to use for mistreating someone else, especially their child. I just looked down on Pablo, and said to myself, You pitiful, pitiful man. I was your son. I rarely spoke another word to him after that day. It took me another twenty years just to forgive him. But that was how I found out the truth of why Pablo treated me so poorly. It all makes sense to me now. Still, there were a lot of lost years between me and him, and, truthfully, I don’t think it bothered him very much.

You should also know that Pablo was not a religious man. Growing up we all knew that. He wasn’t an atheist; he just hated the notion or mere mention of the existence of God or Jesus Christ. Religion was not allowed in our home. When my two little sisters and I were young, my mother quietly read to us from the Holy Bible, from her darkened bedroom. We were not allowed to tell our father that she did this. We didn’t have to ask her why, we already knew. Other than my mother, who was raised Catholic, only my older brother Richard and my older sister Alia showed any interest in religion. Pablo never stopped any of us from attending any church, but he didn’t want us to bring any of it home. So that allowed Richard and Alia to attend church regularly. Alia attended the Catholic Church. Richard too was involved in the Catholic Church at first but in his later years became a Mormon, and still is one today.

Even as a child, I noticed that as soon as my older siblings were old enough to move out, they did. Richard and Donnie moved out together. Cindy had moved out with friends. Alia became pregnant right out of high school, and she and her baby lived at home with us for a year until she married the baby’s father. That left me, my two younger sisters (Beth and Morgan) and my little brother (James) still at home. This definitely was not going to be good for me. For one thing I was unaware of the huge strain my parents placed on Richard for being the oldest. My parents had him do everything. He was the family chauffer, the babysitter, substitute father, caregiver, gardener, delivery boy; Richard had to do all of these things and more because our father was hardly ever home to do these things himself, let alone help out. When I was the oldest sibling living at home with my parents, I wondered what duties were going to be placed onto me. Before any of my siblings had ever moved out of the house, I had already experienced episodes of what my life would be like living at home as the oldest child, with a father who couldn’t care less about me.

I remember there was one day, when I was young; I was playing in the backyard with my friend Tony, when my little sisters started to fight with each other. I didn’t know what they were fighting about, just that it was a serious fight and they were crying. Tony and I stayed cleared of the fight, playing with our Matchbox cars in the dirt all the way on the other side of the yard. While my sisters were still crying, I had to go to the bathroom. So, I stood up, ran past my crying sisters and into the house. I passed by my mother, who was in the kitchen fixing dinner, and right into the hallway towards the bathroom.

Pablo, who had just returned home from work, was at the hallway entrance and accidentally (or purposefully, perhaps) stopped me in my tracks. He grabbed me by the arm and yelled at me: Why are your sisters crying out in the backyard! I told him that I didn’t know why. He proceeded to remove his belt from his pants and began to whip me with it. Whip. Whip. Whip. Whip. Whip. I was screaming in pain, trying desperately to get away, but he had a vice-like grip on my arm. His grip felt like he was cutting off blood flow to the rest of my arm. Regardless, he kept at it. Whip. Whip. Whip. Whip. My mom rushed out to the hallway from the kitchen and called out to him: Coyote!

She said, Chris says he didn’t do anything to Beth and Morgan. Pablo answered her: He must have had something to do with their crying! When he had finally finished whipping me, I was hurting so bad that I didn’t even notice that I had wet my pants. I was soaking wet, in urine, from my waist down to my socks. He had spanked me so hard my shoes had come off my feet. Pablo was still gripping my arm, refusing to let me go, when he saw my mom reappear in the hallway with both my sisters. My mom told my sisters to tell him that I had nothing to do with them fighting outside. When Pablo had finally let go of my arm I ran off down the hall to my bedroom, threw myself onto my bed in my urine soaked pants, and cried my eyes out. While I was in my room crying I could hear my parents arguing about the spanking. I thought that he was going to get even angrier and come into my room to spank me more, but he didn’t. That was one of the very first times I could remember being terrified of my father. I also remember this sad event because it was so unnecessary and so disturbing as it clued me in on how he felt about me. I was just a child.

—THE NEIGHBORHOOD BULLY—

While home life was tough, that was just the beginning. I didn’t realize that life was about to become extremely rough for me. Not just in my home, but at school and in my neighborhood, too. Our family was one of the very few Hispanic families that lived in our neighborhood, but we did not look like the everyday Hispanic family nor had any Hispanic customs. The only way anyone could tell we were a Hispanic family in an all-white suburban neighborhood was by our last name, Garcia. In my early years of growing on Down Drive, I had basically kept to myself. I had school friends that I played with but they lived in neighborhoods far from my house and my mother thought I was still too young to go over to their house to play. Since I had to stay at home I enjoyed riding my bike up and down the sidewalk on our side of the street only.

There was one day, while I was outside riding my bike, like I had always done before, that I was exposed to racism, for the very first time in all my nine years of life. Across the street was a brown house that had a blonde haired boy standing outside. He was the same age as me and I knew he was the school bully, but I did not know his name and he did not know mine. While he was outside of his house every time I rode my bike past him (on the opposite side of the street, mind you) he would yell at me. He shouted: Hey Beaner! or Wetback! Sometimes he shouted: Better go back to Mexico! or Hey Beaner, wanna a taco?!

Confused, I rode back to my house and asked my mother what a Beaner and a Wetback was. Right away she asked me where I heard such bad words. I didn’t know they were bad words. She asked me again, Where did you hear those words? I told her it was the blonde boy down the street. She said, David? I didn’t know if that was his name but my mom acted as if she knew it could only have been David. My mom said to me, Chris, you stay away from that the boy, you hear me. He’s a diablo. Stay away from him. I mean it! Stay away! My mom told me to stay away from David but she still never did tell me what Beaner and Wetback meant. So, being a kid, I ignored my mother and went back outside to continue riding my bike up and down the sidewalk. David was nowhere to be seen and I assumed David had gone back inside his house. So I was riding my bike up and down the sidewalk free from insults. Back and forth I rode.

Back and forth and back and forth. It was on my way back towards my house when David appeared as if out of nowhere. He started charging after me with a handful of rocks. David crossed the street, yelling at me, I told you Beaner, to go back to Mexico! And one by one, he began to throw those rocks at me, all the while calling me names like; Mexico, Taco, Chihuahua. I pedaled my bike as fast as my legs could go, but I could not get my bike to go any faster than David. I was only two houses away from mine when one of the rocks hit me on the right side of my head. I fell off of my bike and onto my neighbor’s front lawn. Naturally, being only nine, I started crying while holding my head where the rock had struck me. There was no blood, but what does that matter. It hurt like hell.

David saw what he did to me and he shouted gleefully, Bullseye! I beaned the beaner! Now the taco is crying like a baby beaner!! David laughed and then ran away back to hide in his house. No one came to help me, so I just laid there. I cried a little longer then sat back up on my neighbor’s front lawn trying to figure the whole thing out. I kept looking over at David’s house wondering why he did what he did. I had never done anything to him. And I still didn’t know what a beaner and a wetback were either. For some weird reason I picked up the rock that David threw at me, put in my pocket and took it home with me as I walked my bike home. When I walked into my house, my mother could tell I had been crying. Of course, she asked me what happened. I told her of how David chased me and hit me with a rock. I barely finished when she yelled, I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM THAT BOY! YOU DIDN’T LISTEN! Oh I had listened but it didn’t matter because David found me, and clobbered me. I didn’t go looking for him. In fact, I would go on to have many, many, many more run-ins with David in the future. Too many to even write. But I just didn’t expect my next run-in with him would happen so soon.

It had been just over a week since that rock hit my head and I was at school. During recess I was playing tag with my school buddies, having a good time. I remember that, while playing tag, I had hid by the swings away from the person who was it. I was standing at the swings when the person who was it saw me and started chasing after me to tag me. As I turned to run away from the swings David was standing right there, blocking my path. He wasn’t playing tag. No, he had come to start a fight with me right there on the playground. With him were some of his bully friends, cheering him on, egging him to whoop me right there. David started by shoving me, calling me names, challenging me to a fight. All my friends saw David shoving me and ran off, leaving me to face David and his posse alone. David kept shoving me in the chest but I never said a word, nor did I push him back.

I was hoping he would see that I didn’t want to fight and would back off. So he started adding racial slurs, baiting me. Come on, Mexican! Can’t you fight Mexican?! Are you a girl, Mexican?! David and his posse all laughed at that last comment. And still I refused to say or do anything to him. I just stood there, keeping calm. David kept up the barrage of racial insults, getting right in my face, demanding I fight. Come on, Mexican! Can’t fight, Beaner?! Can’t fight or don’t know how?! You beaner! I continued to stare right at David, watching him in case he would throw a punch. But what I didn’t see was that one of his buddies had crouched down on his hands and knees right behind me. David took advantage and pushed me again, this time over the back of his kneeling buddy, landing backwards on my head and neck.

It startled me more than it hurt. I never saw who the kid behind me was. Of course, they all thought it was funny, laughing at me until the bell rang signaling the end of recess. The recess monitor started blowing her whistle, telling children that recess was over and to head back to class. David and his posse were still laughing at me and calling me names as they slowly walked away, leaving me to myself. I waited a moment for them to leave, when I heard the recess monitor’s whistle blow even louder. She called out to me saying: Chris! Chris! Recess is over. Get up and go back to class! After all that and I got yelled at by a teacher too. Anyways, I got up and slowly walked back to my classroom. Inside the class I noticed there was an eerie silence coming from my classmates and it seemed directed at me. They all had seen what David and his posse had done to me on the playground and they knew and I knew that that was not the end of it.

I had personally seen the wrath of David and his posse directed towards other classmates before, and I knew this was only the beginning. Still, I had no clue how long it would last. All that day and from that day forward, almost all of my classmates avoided me like the plague. No one wanted to be my friend, no one. I was on my own. I also knew that most of my classmates, for now, were glad it wasn’t them. That David and his posse had chosen to bully me instead.

The next day, while walking to class, I was carrying my books and my homework in my hands when one of David’s bully buddies came from behind and slapped my books out of my hands. After that he opened them up, took out my homework, and ripped it up into teeny tiny pieces which he threw into the air. On other days the bullies would walk up behind me and spit on the back of my neck, calling me Wetback. Then they added a new verbal assault. Now, not only were they making fun of me for being Hispanic these same bullies started teasing me about my looks. I was a slim child and they called me skinny bones jones. They made fun of my skin color, which wasn’t too different than theirs. They insulted my hair, my eyes, and my skinny legs. Their attacks on me were relentless. I had to face this every single day. I wanted to cry, I wanted to die, but most of all I just wanted it to stop.

I didn’t even know anyone to whom I could have gone to for support. My family was dysfunctional. And this was the late 1960s; there wasn’t much education about bulling and how to deal with bullies back then. There were also many times, trying to walk home from school, a bully would run up behind me and would purposefully fall onto the backs of my legs. This would cause me to fall backwards, bending my back in an unbendable way, and forcing me to drop my books. Then they would open up my books and remove any paperwork inside, important or not, and let them blow away with the afternoon breeze. This forced me to have to chase after my papers, much to their delight. The name calling never stopped. If the name calling wasn’t racial, they would insult my appearance. Everything was taking its toll on me, but somehow, someway, I remained calm through it all. I don’t know how, just that I did. I never lost my cool.

I ended up facing fist fights almost every day after school. One of David’s posse members always wanted to fight me for no other reason other than me being Hispanic, or ugly. That whole school year became very tiresome to me, especially trying to get home from school without facing any bullies. The bullying never slowed down and it seemed like they never took a day off. The fights and name calling seemed so overbearing, in the fourth grade, I didn’t know if I’d survive to the end of the school year. I didn’t have any friends. Whatever school friends I did have, David and his posse would threaten them with bodily harm if they remained my friend. I became a loner. Despite keeping to myself the bullies always seemed to find me. There was no balance in my life. Even in the fourth grade I knew my life was messed up. No matter where I was I was being attacked. When I went school I was hammered by the bullies for being Mexican and being ugly. When I went home I got nailed by my dad just for being his son. By the time 4th grade finally ended, I couldn’t even say if I was happy or sad because I didn’t know if the bullying would cease. During the summer following 4th grade my life would be impacted yet again.

—THE SUMMER BETWEEN 4TH & 5TH GRADE—

It was that summer that the next big change in my life occurred, and it came in the form of a new girl who moved into my neighborhood just three houses down from mine. Her name was Sheryl, and Sheryl was beautiful. She was a year younger than me, but I didn’t care. Right away, when we met, we hit it off. A few days after Sheryl moved in, she and I pledged our love for each other as only children could. We would innocently flirt with each other, we held hands, and even occasionally kissed when we hid in the bushes while playing hide-and-seek. Sheryl and I were two peas in a pod. But there was a huge problem in our innocent relationship; her name was Stella. Stella lived right next door to Sheryl, and she badly wanted Sheryl to pair up with David and not me. I didn’t know this but David also had his sights set on Sheryl too, but I won out. I was nicer and better looking than David, according to Sheryl. But that didn’t matter to Stella.

She visited Sheryl’s house nearly every day and pressured her to like David instead of me. When it seemed like Stella was failing to convince Sheryl to change her affection towards me, Stella used racism. She told Sheryl that she could not like a Mexican boy. Stella said Sheryl should only like other white people, like David. She pressured Sheryl hard to convince her to like David over me, but Sheryl wouldn’t be convinced. And, believe it or not, it didn’t seem to bother David all that much either. David seemed more interested in his buddies than girls. Besides that, he stopped coming over to our side of the neighborhood, even after Sheryl moved in. Looking back, I believe that it was actually Stella that had the crush on David.

Summer vacation for our family was really no big deal. We never really went anywhere, though we did go on a road trip one summer. Pablo borrowed a station wagon from his work, loaded up the car, and drove us to Las Vegas and parts of Arizona and then we came back. That was it. That was our one and only family vacation. After our family road trip I signed up for a summer youth baseball program that took place in our community each summer. That year I was on the Cubs team. While the team was about average I would come to find my niche. I was really good at baseball. I was one of the best players in the summer league that year. I hit home runs, I pitched strikes, and I was a very good all-around ball player. I was even better than David and some of his friends, all of whom were also playing in the league, fortunately on different teams. The person in charge of the summer youth baseball league that year was Harry McDonald. He was about twenty years of age and was always giving me encouragement during the game. He would say, Chris, you are awesome. We are going to need you for our all-star team this summer! The summer league all-star baseball team was selected at the end of each season by Harry McDonald. After the last game of each week, he would post the leading players statistics displaying batting averages, hits, homeruns, etc. We all were eager to see the stats to find out who was having a great season, and I couldn’t have been prouder of myself. I was the only one that was consistently in the top three or top five of every category. I was so happy at what I had accomplished.

All–star team picking day had arrived and all the kids who had been playing in the league were at the park to find out who made this year’s team. We were all standing in the parking lot anxiously awaiting Coach McDonald. When he did show up he was immediately surrounded by all of us, eager to find out his choices. He went into his office and posted the list of names of those who made the all-star team. On a separate list were the names of those who would be the alternates. Alternates were those who did not make the team and would not travel around to the different parks playing the various teams. Coach McDonald opened the door and all the kids flooded in. I knew I had to be a shoe-in. I was better than most of those guys, so I waited while everyone else checked the lists. Some boys were happy, some were not, and then it was my turn. All I wanted was to see my name and the words All-Star next to it. When I got up there, I checked the all-star list and did not find my name. My heart stopped. I felt light headed. I glanced over at the alternate list and there was my name.

But why? What happened? I wanted to cry, but I knew I couldn’t cry in front of those guys. Alternate? Me? I had the skills to be on the first team. I deserved it. I didn’t deserve to get the shaft. So I quietly walked over to Coach McDonald’s desk to find out what happened, to discover why I wasn’t on the all-star team. David made it. Members of his posse made it. I was the best player on my team, but two other players from my team made the all-star team and I didn’t. How could this have happened? Coach McDonald pulled me aside and whispered to me. Chris, I couldn’t put you on the all-star team this year, he said. He tried to justify himself saying: there were other kids who made the team that told me they wouldn’t play if you were on the team. So, I had to place you on the alternate team. Pathetically he added, But hang in there Chris, there’s always next year. I was sick to my stomach. I walked over to my bike to ride home and saw David. He looked at me and said No one wanted you on the team Chris. You’re a Mexican, and no one wants a Mexican. David took off on his bike all the while screaming out profanities at me. I just ignored him, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I didn’t make the all-star team despite having earned it. I went into my room and cried.

Summer vacation was almost over and there were only a few weeks left until school started again. Sheryl was gone on vacation the whole summer and my school friends from fourth grade lived too far for me to visit. So, to kill time I would sometimes ride my bike around on the school grounds with no particular purpose. One day I noticed two older gentlemen were talking outside the office building at school. I had never seen these two men before, and I had been attending this school since kindergarten. Who are they? I wondered. So I rode my bike over to them to introduce myself. Both men were in their thirties. The first man was Stan May and he was going to be the school’s new 7th grade math teacher. The other man introduced himself as Mr. Griffin, the new school principal. Wow! I thought to myself. I had met the new school principal before anyone else. We three men chatted awhile before my little sisters rode up to tell me it was time to go home. What I didn’t realize from that first meeting, that later on in my schooling, both of these men would come to my defense and stand up for me when I did not have a voice.

Still trying to find something to keep me busy until summer ended, I decided to build a fort out of the left-over wood Pablo left at the side of the house. Using his tools—a hammer, nails, a saw—I had built walls and a roof and had pretty good looking fort; at least until Pablo got home from work. He got home, and before he even entered the house, he was in my face yelling at me for using the wood without his permission. This was wood that had been at the side of the house for years, never touched, with no one knowing why he was saving it. He started hollering at me for using his tools and his wood, and commanded me to go inside immediately. I knew what that meant; a beating. And that was exactly what I got. But this beating was harder and hurt me more as he whooped me with a wooden hanger, the same one he’d use to hang his suit. After the beating, he wouldn’t let me go to my room to cry, instead I was ordered to go back outside to tear up my fort, put away his tools and the wood, and then come back inside for another beating.

A couple of days later, I went for another ride on my bike around the school campus and swung by the office. Inside Mr. Griffin was setting up his new office. Seeing me at the front door he invited me in. He told me that he was just about to have lunch and that he had plenty to eat. He kindly offered to share some of his lunch with me. I was thinking What a nice man. I was so glad he was my new principal. As we shared his lunch he asked how I liked the school. I simply replied, I like it a lot. He then asked if I had a lot of friends, to which I replied No. When he asked why not I told him that it was because I was skinny, and Mexican, and that bullies made fun of me, and started fights, and would scare off the kids that would try to be my friends. Mr. Griffin stared at me, put an arm around my shoulder and said, Chris, I am so sorry that these kids are mean to you. I will make a promise to you that I will try my hardest to stop this bullying. You should have some fun at school and not have to worry about bullies. I loved Mr. Griffin. He was the first grown man to ever be nice to me. We finished our lunch and I went home.

One hot summer evening, my two younger sisters were outside the house bouncing a large ball between them in the middle of the street. The ball escaped past one of my sisters and I ran off to retrieve it for her. Out of nowhere a teenage boy on his bicycle rounded a corner and plowed right into me. The impact knocked me down to the street cutting up my face and a huge knot on my head. I started screaming in pain. The boy had flown off his bike and onto the street as well. People came out of their houses and gathered around to see what happened. Even my mother came out screaming my name, Chris, Chris, what happened to Chris. My sisters hysterically began to tell my mom that I got ran over by a speeding bike. Meanwhile I was rolling on the ground in the middle of the street, screaming in pain, and the boy on the bike was apologizing profusely to anyone who would listen to him: I never saw him, I never saw him. My mom lifted up my head and cradled me in her arms. Some of the older neighborhood boys helped me to my feet.

My mom walked me back, gingerly, to our house and immediately called Pablo at work. She asked him what she should do, telling him that I was bleeding from the head and that I might need to go the hospital to get checked out. He told her not to go to the hospital because we didn’t have any money to pay for it and to wait for when he got home. However, no one knew when that would be. So my mom goes down the street to Stella’s house to ask her mom to have a look at my injuries. Stella’s mom was a registered nurse and was my mom’s good friend. My mom respected her. Stella’s mom came into the house and began to look me over. My mom told her that going to the hospital was out the question since Pablo had said no. So Stella’s mom began to clean me as best she could with whatever was available. She told my mom that she was worried about the knot on my head, that it was still bleeding, and to watch for any signs of a concussion. She said that if the wound gets worse, to not listen to Pablo and to call an ambulance. It took a week to recover from being hit by a speeding bike and it was really hard for me to do nothing for a week, especially since there was only a little more than a week left of summer vacation.

After recovering I had decided to take a bike ride down to the end of our street and visit with a very reclusive neighbor, Rich O’Brian. Now Rich was the same age as both David and me, but nobody ever played with him. He was an odd kid. Nevertheless, he lived on the same side of the street as I did and he had a lot of cool toys. The only reason anyone ever did play with him was because he had cool toys. I had hung out with Rich most of that day, until it was time for dinner. His house was seven houses down from mine, but before I could go home I had to help put away the toys we played with on the front lawn. While picking up the toys I noticed that David, who lived across the street and a few houses down, was standing outside watching us. He was alone. I wasn’t thinking much of it, so when we finished putting away Rich’s toys, I hopped on my bike to ride home. Half way there I passed by David’s house and David started chasing after me throwing rocks. He also tossed a long stick at the spokes of my bike with the intention of knocking me off.

I pedaled faster and faster trying desperately to get to my house. When I got home, David was still chasing after me. Upon reaching my front lawn he called me out, challenging me to fight. Inside my house my mom and my brother Richard stood watching from the living room window and could see David’s every move. Richard said, That’s it, I’ve had enough! He stormed outside to confront David face to face. I was so proud of my big brother. He was going to stand up for me and set David straight, or at least I thought that was what he was going to do. My mom and I were still watching from inside as Richard and David stood outside talking. They were too far for us to hear any of the conversation, but then my brother called for me to come out to join them. I was hesitant at first but went out anyway. Richard said to both David and me, to move just out of view of the living room window. A large group of neighborhood kids start to gather around us, anticipating something big.

Richard, my brother, grabbed hold of my arm, pinching real hard, telling me that once and for all I had to fight David and put an end to all this bullying. I told Richard that I would not fight David. Richard demanded that I must. I started backing way telling him I would not fight. Someone yelled to start the fight, so David threw a punch. I felt the sting on my cheek. My mother watched from the window as more kids joined the crowd and started chanting FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT! David punched me again, and again, and again. One of the punches was to my mouth, and I start bleeding from my mouth. The kids got louder, all them cheering for David. I still refused to fight David. He pulled my hair so that I had to look downward as he continued to punch me in the face. I screamed like bloody murder. I couldn’t see. My mouth hurt. And David kept punching me while the crowd kept chanting FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT! One kid yelled for David to kick me in the nuts all the meanwhile the crowd kept chanting. Richard ran back outside the house, from where he had retreated at the start of the fight watching this debacle with my mom. He yelled, I’ve had enough! Richard started to remove his belt which prompted David to stop punching me. The kids shouted for David to run away from Richard while I was howling in pain. David stood staring at Richard waiting to see what he would do. Richard, with his belt in one hand gripped my arm in the other, and shouted at me. Chris! Fight David now! he demanded. I could barely see Richard; my eyes were swollen shut and full of tears.

Richard yelled at me again, commanding me to fight David immediately. He raised his hand with the belt and began whipping me with the belt buckle. When David saw that Richard wasn’t going to whip him but was whipping me to force me to fight him, he took confidence. Richard still had a grip on my arm but I tried my best to run away from his belt. While that was happening David started punching me again. The kids continued to cheer on David. My mom stood silent inside the house. All this raged on until a woman’s voiced pierced the air. STOP! The voice escalated: STOP! STOP IT RIGHT NOW! Richard and David stopped pummeling me. I was down on the ground, on all fours, crying, bleeding, and in pain. My mom was still inside the house watching from the living room window. Richard ran back inside to stand next to my mom to watch what would happen. The woman grabbed hold of David’s hair and commanded him to go home and go to his room and wait for her to get there. That woman was David’s mom, Jenny. David’s mom turned to all the other kids and shouted at them to move on home, to leave, now! All the kids scurried off to their houses.

Jenny then grabbed hold of me, clutching me tightly, with my head and face covered in blood, and rested my head on her chest. Jenny started crying with me. With Jenny still cradling me, she turned to face my mom and Richard who were still staring out the window, and shouted at them: YOU ANIMALS! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?! She said, This little boy is your son! This little boy is your brother! Why, Richard? Why, Gloria? Jenny said to me, Chris, I’m so sorry, you sweet little boy. She turned back again to my mom and Richard and again called them animals. Alia showed up and Jenny handed me over to her instructing her to take me somewhere to get cleaned up. Alia took me to the backyard. We sat together on the back porch. She went inside to gather some wet towels and ice and began to clean me up as best she could. My sister never brought up the fight. Alia and I were still outside in the backyard for a while when we heard a deep male voice coming from inside of the house. Alia thought it might have been our dad, home from work so she goes inside to find out. When she returned, she told me that I had better come inside, now.

She told me that the police had showed up and wanted to speak with me. My sister’s mere mention of the police scared me. Was I about to be arrested? I had no clue what was about to happen. As I entered the house I didn’t even make it to the room where the adults were when I spotted a large police officer from the Huntington Beach Police Department in my living room. He had a long black flashlight and smiled at me as I slowly approached. He said, So I heard you were in a fight a little while ago. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I answered back very meekly, Yes sir. The officer turned on his flashlight and told me to lift up my shirt, and I obeyed. The officer shined the light on my back and my chest but doesn’t say a word. I was still thinking I was about to be arrested. He then asked me if I was in any pain. I answered, My face hurts a lot still.

My mother and Alia were watching us. I also noticed that Richard was nowhere in sight. When he had heard that the police were on their way he jumped into his car and took off. The officer finished looking over my wounds and said to my mom that since Richard whipped me with his belt buckle while I was in a fight with another minor and that since he was over the age of 18, he asked her if she wanted to press charges against her son, my brother, Richard. She answered, God no! I don’t want to press any charges against my son Richard. NO! The police officer turned his head, smiled back down at me and tweaks my chin with his hand. He then told something that I never forgot. He said It is okay that you don’t want to fight. Fighting does not solve anything. That was reassuring at the time. The officer also said, As for David, he needs to find out that the next kid he chooses to pick a fight with may be bigger, stronger, and a better fighter than him. Finished, he turned and left the house. As the officer walked past my mom and Alia, he said, "Be sure to try to