WRAPPED IN A RED RIBBON

CHAPTER I

It seems as if the only reason I was born was to suffer. I'm the youngest of three and the only boy. Both of my sisters and I grew up in an extremely dysfunctional home. I cannot hold my parents fully responsible for the way my life turned out but they surely had a major contribution to it.

My father was an abusive cocaine addict and my mother was an alcoholic. They were always at war with each other. Pop would often beat and rape mom while all three of us stood there watching defenselessly. As a result, she would then take her anger and aggression out on us.

We were raised in poverty and didn't have any toys to play with. We sat on the filthy floor of our roach invested, section-8 apartment and played with paper dolls that we drew and cut out ourselves. My father would tease me and call me Erica instead of Eric. He would call me gay and beat me.

My youngest sister, Joyce, was overweight and my parents would constantly put her down and call her names that would gradually deteriorate the little bit of self-esteem she had left. My oldest sister, Sylvia, received the worse beatings because she would always stick up for us whenever our parents would physically and mentally abuse us.

One night Sylvia endured the beating of a lifetime when she stole my parents' drug and booze money and bought Joyce and me coats to protect us from the cold winter weather. All three of us shared the same small room and slept on an old bedbug-ridden, queen-sized pissy mattress on the floor. That same night, I opened my eyes and awoke from my slumber after Sylvia kissed me on the forehead gently and wgispered, "I'll be back for yall. I promise."

Two weeks after my sister ran away from home, detectives contacted my folks and informed them that they had located her. Sylvia's body was found in a dumpster near Liberty Avenue, a strip infamous for prostitution at the time. She had been sodomized then beaten to death. She was only fifteen years old. Sylvia never came back for us like she had promised.