*****
 "Antoine Smith": scared |
By the time I was three, I had only seen my father, Mark Johnson Sr., two or three times. He had been in prison for molesting two children. He claimed he never did molest those children, and I used to believe him.
I was nine when my father got out. God knows how happy I was to see him - the father I had always wanted to have in my life.
My father found work doing construction. He used to take me with him to the houses he was building. He'd teach me cool things like how to mix cement, how to lay tiles on floors, and my favourite: tearing walls down. After work we'd hang out and do things like go to the movies. But it was during those times after work that he began molesting me.
My father claimed he was trying to teach me about sex so that I would know what to do when I had a girlfriend. It was hard for me to really make sense of it all.
While my father was molesting me he never threatened to hurt me if I told anyone about what he was doing. Instead, he said he would no longer be involved in my life. That seemed worse than what he was doing to me. So I promised him that I would never tell anyone. I so afraid of how mad my mom would be at me...and I was scared that I would be taken away from my family.
When I turned 14, I got to the point where I didn't want to be around my father much. Now when he'd ask me to go to work with him, I'd say "I'll go some other time...I've got school work to catch up on." He started worrying that I'd tell my mom about our secret. Still, I told him I wouldn't.
But there came a point where I had to. I wanted this to end and the pain I was feeling to stop. I was already having a hard time in school. Boys were talking about me and calling me names like fag. They would ask questions like "Are you gay?" "Are you a virgin?" "Why don't you have a girlfriend?" because I was so quiet.
A few months after my fifteenth birthday, my mom and sister Alicia got into a big fight. Ever since my father came back from prison, there were a lot of fights at home. But this was a really big one. So big that my little brother called the cops. When they got there, they asked my sister why she was so angry. And she told them it was because our Mom wanted to divorce Dad. When I heard that, I thought, Alicia, you just don't know - it would be so much easier to have them get divorced and have my dad out of my life...than to have to tell my mom what had been going on. I felt like I had to say something.
So I did. I wrote on a piece of paper: "I've been raped by Dad."
And that's how it all came out. My sister made me tell my mom. So after the cops left, I showed my mom the piece of paper. Then I told her everything that had happened. And she didn't get mad at me. Instead, she picked up the phone and the cops came to my house for the second time that night. She got all of us kids together and, like the police suggested, took us all to the hospital to get checked out. Later, she got me into counseling. I love her for that.
The next time my Dad tried to come home, my mom locked him out. She called the cops, and when my dad heard the sirens, he must've known it was for him. He ran away.
A couple of days later when he still hadn't turned up, we decided to go look for him. A family friend drove us around to all the places he thought my dad might be. In the car I felt nervous and even sort of guilty. I didn't want him to get in trouble. But then the guy who was driving us around told me and my mom that my dad had been saying things about me - worst of all that he had been calling me a bitch. When I heard that, I didn't feel guilty anymore. I sat there with my fist balled up. My whole right arm was just shaking, I was clenching my hand so hard. I felt like I was Hercules - because I didn't want to protect my dad anymore. All I wanted was have him go back to jail and out of my life. And finally, that's what happened - he turned himself in later that night. Now he's in prison, and he's sentenced to be there for 32 years.
I remember, not long after this, knocking on my sister's door, her asking "who is it?" and saying "Mark." It didn't sound right. I felt like I needed to get my name changed quick. I didn't want my dad's name anymore.
Now I'm 17. I write poetry and songs and draw pictures. I sign Antoine Smith on all of my work. I think of the old guy, "Mark Johnson," as no more. But I know he still exists somewhere inside of me. I call him the Dead Man in the Way.
"Dead Man In the Way" came from a picture I drew of a man in the cemetery standing by his tombstone that read "Dead and gone but not for long." When I first thought up the name I called it Dead Boy... but then I thought... no, that's not right. Dead Man. The part of me that's dead and in the way hasn't been a boy for a long time.
Tags: Antoine Smith, child abuse, Dead Man In the Way, Mark Johnson