One by One - Nicholas Bush

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can’t treat me much worse, so nothing changes at my house and it’s as though the incident never happened. I go to court about a month later and my parents pay a small fine.

      As the weeks go by, I basically become a recluse who survives by evading my parents’ strong grasp. I sneak out constantly—pretty much all I want to do is stay out of my house and get high. The wonderful herb provides a mental escape from the hell at home and the ridicule at school. It dumbs emotional responses and pain.

      At one point, I arrange for a weed deal to take place in the middle of the night at a gas station a few miles away. A lot of the pot comes from Erik, but we get it from older guys too. The guy I’m meeting now I know through my sister, and I make it to the gas station on foot. I buy the weed and then he offers to also sell some stems and caps from the most potent kind of magic mushrooms. Weed is the hardest thing I’ve done so far and I’ve been wanting to try shrooms for a while, but I’m pretty sure I can only sneak around if it’s just pot that I’m getting high on, and that I’ll get caught if I take the stems and caps home. The guy understands, but offers a single cap of a mushroom the size of my thumb for me to try then and there, free of cost, and this is too hard to resist.

      Afterward, I head home and sneak back into my house through the ground floor window. A couple hours later I’m stoned out of my mind when all of a sudden the cap hits me. I’m instantly surrounded by the noise of a blown-out speaker turned all the way up, the sort of white noise someone gets when they turn the television volume way up when it’s not turned to a channel. My bell is rung, and I’m thrown into outer space as the innards of my own home become foreign to me, like I’m experiencing them for the first time.

      Just as I’m crawling into bed, my bedroom door slams open and the lights go on. My dad must have heard me fumbling around and now let’s out a “What the hell . . .” I don’t follow what he says next, but I think he’s saying that he heard a noise; I think he thinks I’m sneaking around, but his words sound so completely jumbled that he might as well be speaking in tongues. Unable to understand him, I call upon my reserves of wit and slowly explain that I had just been reading a book, and dropped it against the wall, where it fell loudly, and I fumbled putting it away in the dark, having just turned off the lights. I must sound sober and intelligible enough, because he sniffs the air, looks around, and then goes out into the dark hallway. His shadow fades slowly, but his eyes pierce into mine, staying on me as if I’m a threat, until he’s fully out of sight.

      The bust by the cops was annoying, but I put it aside. I still sneak in and out of school during the day to smoke with the older guys. I also catch rides to and from school with them, often getting so stoned that I can’t remember much about the contents of my classes throughout the day. I last one full semester of my freshman year at the school before I’m asked to leave, which means I’m getting kicked out. The administration meets with my parents and says that my grades, combined with my rebellious behavior, make me unfit for their program. They suggest that I’m poison and not even Catholic, so I have no business being there any longer. I don’t even know what we are—Congregational or Presbyterian or some kind of Protestant denomination? Religion doesn’t make any sense to me, and from my experience with it so far, I have no desire whatsoever to try and figure it out.

      Giovanni is not asked to leave the school but does so voluntarily once I’m expelled. He tends to blend in with other kids pretty well, so he avoided being singled out like I was. Over time, all the friends of ours who followed us also return to our old district, except one girl who graduates from the private school.

      My home life deteriorates even farther after I get kicked out and I can tell it’s now nearing its breaking point. My father’s abusive treatment and scorn since he caught me throwing the party have not subsided. I’m trying my best to humor them and endure their parenting tactics in the hope of eventually regaining my freedom to resume my former lifestyle, but the level of abuse is getting worse, as is my parents’ drinking. After the company my dad presides over is sued by both the bank and the state, he starts coming home from work and going straight into the walk-in bar across from the kitchen. He pops the cork of some scotch, and bellows my name. If I don’t come running, he gets violent—outbursts I’ve experienced my whole life—so I scurry up the stairs only to have my father slam me on the head with a stiff arm. The blow is so hard that my neck will sometimes crack and I’ll careened back down the flight of stairs. I don’t know why, but the man just has it out for me. I’ve always been his whipping boy, as my mother puts it.

      My mother isn’t far behind on the alcohol abuse spectrum and is often described by my girlfriends as a “wineaholic.” When my parents drink together, they leave me alone for the most part, but if things take a turn for the worse for any reason whatsoever, all eyes are on me, the family scapegoat. I’ll never understand why I was given this role, but that’s how things always play out. In the end, they take any grievance or frustration out on me.

      Knowing this family dynamic all too well, during my brief one week hiatus from school, which is the time it takes to transfer from one school to another, I disappear to the Russo house. Each time I return, my father tries to whip me with his belt, but no longer afraid of the invariable and inevitable abuse, I shove him off over and over again until he is too tired to continue.

      One night toward the end of the week between schools, I’m in the kitchen at my parents’ house when my father comes in and starts taunting me for no reason, and then pushing me around, like a first grade bully. I’m used to this behavior, but when I go upstairs to try to escape him, he begins chasing me around the house. This continues until he injures his leg and then he begins cursing at me. My blood boils as he does this, and I run away from him.

      I head to the Russo home and let myself in. Greta can immediately tell something is wrong, and this goddess of a woman hugs and caresses me as I hyperventilate into her breast. “I need your help,” I plead. I can’t understand how a grown man, a father of four, can treat me the way my father does, and I’m starting to crack. I don’t know if I can handle him anymore. Greta tells me Francesco will be home shortly and will be able to help.

      Downstairs I find Giovanni practicing Blink-182 guitar tabs he found on YouTube. When he sees me, he offers a hit from his pipe and I gladly accept, proceeding with what has become an all-too-familiar cycle as I tell him my problems. This continues until we are interrupted by a knock on the bedroom door.

      “Who is it?”

      “It’s Papa, come in?” replies Francesco. I immediately enter panic mode because if that had been my dad, there would be hell to pay given how smoky it is. My friend would be escorted out of the house and I would be dealt with physically. My room would be turned upside down and my stuff thrown into the hallway. Maybe the police would be called, or maybe I would be put on the street and locked out of the house with absolutely nothing. But Francesco walks calmly up to his son, who is sitting in a desk chair, and gestures politely for him to take a seat next to me on the bed, adding, “Okay . . .” as he sits down with us and then addresses me directly. “I am here to help you and you should know before you ask me, that once you ask me to help you, it is already done, so think before you speak.”

      This is the first time I solicit the help of Francesco Russo, a man whose intimidating presence inexplicably seems to charge me with hope and energy as he listens to my plea through his cigarette smoke, nodding his head and staring directly into my eyes.

      I’m not one to show emotion, but everything has gotten very heavy and I am desperate. The words come pouring out. “I have to get away from my dad for a while. I just can’t take it anymore, I think he might kill me, or I might do something I’ll regret. The other night they made me cook for them and I did it as nicely as I could, but my dad made me eat it first because he thought I had poisoned it or something. I just need a place to live . . . you know, like permanently.”

      He thanks me for coming to him for help and tells me how much his family has missed me these last few months. He also says he always knew the day would come when I would reach out to him with the problem I now have. He tells me that his father was also incredibly physically abusive, and

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