Blinkon: Surviving Child Abuse and Poverty

By Jay Holder

My book is about child abuse, self awareness and spiritual awakening.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728334820

Jay Holder

I was born in Fornfelt, Missouri but grew up in Cahokia, Illinois. I graduated grade and high school from Cahokia Commonfields High School. After high school, I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and worked in medical administration for four years. Thereafter, I opened my own small business and renovated property in South St. Louis. While running the business I attended Forest Park Community College where I got an associate degree. Later I got a B.A. in psychology from Webster University. I wrote over 150 songs that are now on youtube. I self published a CD of my music titled: Intimate The Music of Jay Holder. I recently had a book published by Author House titled Poems and Short Stories Jay Holder. This is my second book published by Author House. I am currently retired and living in South St. Louis county, I'm a long time resident of the St. Louis area.

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© 2019 Jay Holder. 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.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/08/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3483-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3482-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

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

Chapter 1 Ominous Clouds

Chapter 2 What Are Poor People Gonna Do

Chapter 3 The Funeral

Chapter 4 Coming Out

Chapter 5 Flashbacks

Summation

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED;

TO ALL GAY PEOPLE WHO HAVE

THE COURAGE TO LIVE OPENLY IN THE FACE OF INTOLERANCE.

CHAPTER ONE

Ominous Clouds

One of my first recollections of life was early one spring day as we drove up to a big white stone house owned by my grandfather James and his second wife Etta. Dark clouds loomed ominously behind the house to the north, perhaps a foreboding of what was to come. My mood was much the same as those clouds. I was upset for some reason. We had already moved several times since Dad and my mother separated. I was just a baby when they broke up and only know of events I was told later in life by my older sister Mary Lou. She spoke of how Dad was living with an American Indian woman named Mary. Her two children Lewis and Selena got preferential treatment while us kids as we would later refer to ourselves were abused. There was the time when she and Dad got into a fight and she chopped up all the furniture with a hatchet. She made my other sister Glenda stand outside on the front porch in freezing cold with barely and clothes on. Glenda was about four years old at the time. Us kids were each two years apart in age. I would have been two, Glenda four, Gene six and Mary Lou eight. While still a baby, I wouldn’t eat and lost so much weight that Dad fed me beer so I would get better. It was probably due to depression, a state of mind that would plague me the rest of my life.

Dad and my mother Myrt had gotten into a fight and she hit him in the head with a cast-iron skillet. Dad was put in jail and later that night he sent a black man to our house. The black man kept pounding on the door to get in saying Artie sent me. Artie was my dad’s name. You must remember that it was in the 1940s and there was a lot of prejudice against black men. She thought he was sent to rape her. Finally he did leave and Dad had her committed to a mental institution where they performed a lobotomy for puss on the brain. Dad got custody of us kids and went on a spree of women and alcohol. Gene my older brother wet the bed at night, I soiled my pants and sucked my thumb. We were old enough not to do so and that didn’t sit well with the women Dad took up with. Dad would often say, You’re crazy just like your mother if we did something wrong.

I was born Blinkon Holder in Fornfelt, Missouri a town that no longer exists. It was merged with a small town next to it called Illmo to form what is called Scott City today. Fornfelt was struck by one of the worst tornados ever to hit the area six days before I was born. So I guess, was meant to be here. I’m told my family was eating a fish supper when it hit. The linoleum of the floor was blown over the kitchen table without disturbing the food. My sister Glenda was sleeping in a bed close to a window. The window shattered sending shards of broken glass all over the bed. Dad rushed in and grabbed her just in time to keep her from being injured. He ran out the back door to find the cesspool cover had been blown away and he had to hang on to the screen door to keep from falling in. He got us all in his truck and said he out ran the storm. Years later at the Field Museum in Chicago, I saw a section of a tree that had been cut away to show straw driven like arrows into the tree from that tornado.

But those stories were all in the past, told to me after I was born. Now we were driving up to the white stone house of my Grandfather James and his second wife Etta. I was crying for some reason. Dad gave me some thick cardboard paper dolls to appease me and left me outside to play while the adults went inside to talk. My grandfather James was an engineer for the Cotton Belt railroad. He met Etta who drove him around in a taxi for his job. They were members of the Masons and often took us kids to masonic functions at Kiel Auditorium in down town St. Louis. One Christmas there was a fairy princess from WTMV a local radio station. She was very nice and asked what we wanted for Christmas. Etta held Christmas parties with friends and often had entertainment such as a girl who danced and played accordion.

She’s coming! She’s coming. She’s pretty. Glenda and Mary Lou were saying excitedly. Yes, Marie our new stepmother was coming. Later that evening Marie took Gene and myself to the upstairs bathroom for a bath. She stroked my penis and played with my genitals. Doesn’t that feel good? she said. It didn’t affect me one way or the other, but Gene didn’t like it one bit. It was the beginning of many sexual abuses by Marie. When we were out in a public restroom, she would sit on the stool, spread her legs and draw me up to her. Then she would stroke my penis to get it hard and stick it in her vagina. I would screw her until my penis became so sensitive that I had to stop. Nothing came out, because I was not mature enough. Just a little bit more, just a little bit more." She would keep saying, until she was finished. I was four years old at the time.

Grandfather’s house was in Alta Sita. It was a rather affluent area back then. It seemed like a place of mystery and intrigue to a small boy like me. There was a woman lying bed-ridden upstairs in a nearby house. It seemed she was just being left there alone to die. She had a large cat she said she got in Africa. Now I think it may have been a leopard and she was dying from a tropical disease. Since she had very few visitors, she seemed to welcome Glenda and I for company.

A few doors down, there were proper looking women sitting in manicured yards brushing the fur of their prize cats. Some of the houses had cone shaped roofs and the one next door had a large goldfish pond. We had a