was a certified lifeguard, and always had to correct people on his name, “Keth, not Keith, you runt.” I also don’t remember being sped to shore and carried in the sitting position, with Jay and Keth supporting my legs and back on both sides. They took me up the beach steps and into my aunt’s house.
Your mother wants you to walk home. I replay the words in my mind as I slowly balance the weight of my body on my tingling legs. Letting out a deep breath, I put one foot forward and painfully start the mile-long journey up the beach to my parents’ summerhouse, regaining my full range of movement by the time I walk through the front door. I decide not to tell anyone what happened. I know why Jay did what he did, and I know what he would do if I told anyone the truth about what happened, so I keep my mouth shut. Among us kids, both on the street and at home, there is a code of silence intended to keep adults at a distance. My parents wouldn’t be helpful anyway. When they pay attention to us, it’s geared toward taking things away or making snide remarks. I can already hear it, Well, what did you expect?
The lesson I return to with increasing frequency in the coming years is that no one is looking out for you but yourself, nobody. I have to be someone who can hold his own in any situation. Besides, all that matters to me is that I haven’t hurt my back so badly that I won’t be able to play football in the coming season.
When I get home, I search around for Tylenol or something that will numb the pain. In the medicine cabinet is a bottle of Vicodin. I’ve never taken a prescription painkiller before, but I decide to give it a shot. It works, and over the next week, I finish the bottle. Each of my parents has a prescription for the drug, so a bottle or two is usually floating around their bathroom, inside a cabinet or sink drawer; they don’t even notice it’s gone.
I’m not much of an academic; sports, drums, and getting the hell out of my house and away from my parents are all that matter. My mom is a stay-at-home mom and my dad is a struggling small business owner, but he is the eldest son of a wealthy businessman, so we get by just fine.
Home is very strict. My parents act as if we kids, Lindsay and Allison, my older sisters; me (all spaced three years apart); and my five years younger brother, Austin, have to be perfect: perfect manners, perfect speech, perfect attire, the list goes on and on. We are also often forced to go to church. “We are going to instill religion into you,” they say.
Breaking the rules means facing dire consequences, with privileges taken away and sometimes physical punishment. If I give my dad an answer he doesn’t like or don’t respond quickly enough, he grabs my chin, holding it and looking at me with blazing eyes until I respond with a “Yes, sir.” I’ve harbored an almost incomprehensible rage directed at the man from as far back as I can remember. And my mother isn’t much better. She’ll look at me, screaming, “This is totally unacceptable behavior” or “I’m very disappointed in you!” so often that she actually has me thinking, I’m an unacceptable disappointment.
Mealtimes provide a perfect paradigm for illustrating home life. If my elbows are on the table, my father stabs them with a fork or knife. If we don’t eat all the food on our plate, we are not allowed to leave the table. As a kid, I’d refuse food for so long that I’d fall asleep at the table, exhausted and bored. Sometimes I tried to fill my napkin with food so I could secretly throw it away later. I’ve always hated asparagus and once, when forced to eat it, I vomited it on my plate. Rather than comforting me, my mother force-fed it to me right in front of the rest of the family. Another time, I stole a cookie from the baking sheet on the oven just before dinner and was caught running around the house laughing and wolfing it down in a hysterical frenzy. My mom grabbed me and stuck her finger down my throat, gagging me until I threw it up.
I’ve learned over the years to be secretive and never share my cares and desires, or prized possessions, with anyone in the family, so that they can’t be scoffed at, laughed at, or taken away. I’m convinced my parents are utterly obsessed, to the point of paranoia, with how their children’s behavior reflects on them. The best way to get what I want is to lie low and cater to their beck and call, always asking, “Is there anything I can do for you?” It’s as if they’re only satisfied when being worshiped or something. As long as I do these things and stay out of trouble, I’m a free man.
I can go on and on about the abuse that occurred in my family, but you get the picture. Plus, one day the better half of my siblings will be dead and my parents still living, so it seems counterproductive for me to do so. I like to think that with retrospect, seeing how things unfold, my parents will wish they had raised us differently, in order to preserve our relationships—and our lives. But of course at this stage, they don’t know what is still to come.
Since there will be ridicule and abuse whether I behave or not, my childhood perception of right and wrong has become severely obscured. I will lie, cheat, and steal if it benefits me in any way. At home, I do my best to stay quiet and out of sight. Away from home, I intimidate, connive, sweet-talk, or cajole my way into getting what I want.
To deal with the abuse, my siblings and I (except for my brother, Austin) do our best to keep as busy as possible through whatever means available. I like to call this happiness through distraction. Whether it is horseback riding for my eldest sister, Lindsay, modeling for Allison, or hockey for me, we don’t idle at home.
To my parents’ credit, they enrolled me in youth hockey when I was six years old, a year-round activity that I excelled in, so I learned early on that I’m a pretty good athlete. Everyone needs something they’re good at. I remember my coach saying early on, “Bush, if I had a bunch of you, we’d never lose a game.” In recent years, I switched from hockey to football and that has also become huge for me. I will later take up rugby and boxing.
I found my calling in sports; so just two weeks after the wakeboarding incident, in early August, I start the eighth grade football season despite my sore back. I am a defensive end, offensive right tackle, kickoff returner, punt returner, punter, and kicker.
Two full teams are formed due to the high number of prospects who try out and the high quality of talent. Each defense has three squads and I am placed on all three. Offense has a permanent roster, with myself shifting to wingback for trick plays such as reverses and the Statue of Liberty play, where I swing around and become the ball carrier, taking the ball from the quarterback as he positioned himself to throw a pass. Both teams are supposedly evenly split in terms of talent, but my team is always the victorious one. Such a stark contrast in performance leaves the other squad grumbling among themselves, and there is some jealousy among our crew of warriors.
Make no mistake: I am an athlete who has played for keeps from day one. Since I was six years old, I have always been out for blood—in the rink or on the field. (Checking in hockey wasn’t allowed at such a young age, but that didn’t stop me.) I play sports to stay out of trouble in school, stay out of my house, and stay off the streets, not to play by the rules. There are no laws in collision sports, only rules, and the punishments for breaking them are less severe than they are out of the rink and off the field.
I can vividly recall the first time I thought I killed someone. It was in Janesville, Wisconsin, in 2002, and I was twelve years old. My team was in the state hockey tournament, playing for the championship. I was right defenseman and nothing short of a goon who had a great shot and was a good passer. I could skate faster backward than anyone on the other team could skate forward, which is partially what led to the incident. As the other team broke away, three of their forwards came barreling toward me. I was alone when it happened and I knew I had to try and keep all three of them in front of me. I crossed over between the puck carrier and his closest teammate. The center had possession and I faked as though I was going to charge into him in order to get him to pass, which he did. I timed it perfectly. Just one little shift of weight caught his eye, enough to cause him to skirt the puck over to his wingman. The moment the puck left the center’s stick, I rapidly carved my way toward the wingman and barreled into him. The hit
