Impossible Situation - 1. Impossible Situation

I had a problem and didn't know what to do about it. To be more accurate, most of my family had the same problem, but no matter what we did in an attempt to resolve the issue, nothing worked. To put it simply, each of my siblings and I were dealing with the same conundrum, and it was how to escape our father's obsessive and domineering nature.

You see, my father was a super control freak who wanted to manipulate his family like a bunch of marionettes. At home this meant my mother, my other siblings and myself, because none of us dared to do anything without his knowledge or approval. He had each of us under his thumb so tightly that it was difficult for any of us to even breathe without his permission. The only time we were out from under his authoritarian grip was when we were at school, but the principal and teachers knew what he expected and acted in proxy for him. If we were to vary even slightly from his prescribed course of behavior, one of them would immediately report our transgressions to him, and we'd be severely punished.

My father also had a management position at work, and I could only imagine the torment the employees working for him had to endure each day as they labored under his supervision. He was a throwback to another time when a man ruled the roost and his home was his castle. He also believed children were to be seen and not heard, and one did not spare the rod and spoil the child. Everyone who was in a position of lesser status to him, whether it was at home or on the job, was expected to carry out his wishes without question, delay or complaint. Basically, we were all his servants, or worse yet, his slaves, and he seemed to totally own us, body and soul.

Having just turned fourteen, I felt I was old enough to wiggle out from under the heel of his boot, but history had shown me that it just wasn't possible. I had seen what had happened to my two older sisters when they attempted to escape his maniacal and vile clutches. The oldest one, Ruth, had the audacity to suggest that she wanted to go away to college.

"I will not permit you to live that far away from home!" our father told her. "You will do just as well attending the local college, and it will allow you to continue living at home."

Ruth was devastated when she discovered that she wouldn't be able to get away, but seeing our father controlled the finances too, she had no choice but to do what he wanted. She hoped she might be able to escape from his hold later, after she graduated, but that was not to be either.

When Ruth graduated at twenty-two, [CN1] she made an announcement. "Father, I've prepared my resume, and I'm going to start looking for a job."

"You will do no such thing!" he responded. "You have no experience in the world and have no idea how these things work. I will get in touch with my contacts and take care of doing this for you."

That's exactly what he did and helped to secure a position for her locally. She still lived at home, and her paycheck was deposited directly into an account that our father basically controlled, and she was merely given a weekly allowance from the money that she'd earned. Ruth was miserable and still prayed to escape, but she was losing hope every single day.

My other sister, Rachel, thought her way out of this unbearable situation was to get married when she turned eighteen. "Father, I'm in love with Jeremy, and we wish to get married," she began. "He has come to ask for your permission and get your blessing."

"This is totally out of the question!" our father screamed in reply. "You are both far too young to be married, and Jeremy comes from a family with a questionable background. I will not allow this to happen, and I forbid you from ever seeing him again."

Since Rachel didn't agree with his decision, she attempted to sneak out of the house one night, so she and Jeremy could elope, but our father caught her before she was able to get away. When he realized that Rachel wasn't about to submit to his wishes, he had her committed to an institution for defying him. I know, it seems hard to believe that something like this could happen today, but our father called upon his connections to pull this off, and he had more than enough money to make it happen. First, he convinced a doctor friend to sign Rachel's commitment papers, and then he paid to have her placed in a private institution.

After seeing what had happened to them, I wasn't sure if I had the guts or strength to stand up to him, because his physical presence was formidable as well. My father stood 6' 7" tall (2 m) and weighed nearly 300 pounds (136 kg). My best hope was that my brother, Matthew, who was two years older than me, would be the one to break this vicious cycle. Ruth and Rachel had been born before Matthew and me, but maybe things would have been different if we had been born first. Maybe we could have stood up to our father and made him back down or loosen his grip on our lives when we became adults, but that didn't happen, so it doesn't help to dwell on that possibility now.

The reason I looked to Matthew as my savior could have also had something to do with the fact that Matthew was a lot closer to our father's size, being 6' 2" (1.88 m) and weighing in around 200 pounds (90.7 kg). I, on the other hand, was closer to my mother's height at only 5' 10" (1.78 m), and I barely weighed a measly 160 pounds (72.6 kg), so I wouldn't stand much of a chance in a physical confrontation. I would just wait and see how Matthew made out first.

"Mark, I have to get out of here and away from Father [CN2] before I'm condemned to serve a life sentence in the family prison!" Matthew often told me. "I'm not sure when or how I'll do it, but I have to find a way." You may have noticed that my siblings and I were all given Biblical names, but it doesn't change the fact that Matthew was still our best hope.

I knew exactly how Matthew felt, because we had talked about it a lot. He and I shared a bedroom, so many nights after everyone else was asleep, we would whisper and tell each other about our desire to leave this all behind. Before we dared to discuss this though, we first went around our bedroom and checked to make sure that no cameras or microphones had been installed to monitor what we were doing, because we wouldn't have been surprised if our jailer father tried something like that. In fact, we searched our room for these devices at least once a month, just to make sure nothing had changed.

I was even more highly motivated than Matthew was to get away, though. The reason I felt I needed to break free of our father's absolute control was a secret that could possibly get me killed, because I was positive my father would never tolerate having a deviant for a son. My perversion was that I liked boys, not girls, and I knew I couldn't change that fact. I also realized that my father would most likely prefer to see me dead first, rather than to allow rumors of this nature to get out and shame him. This knowledge only helped to convinced me that I had to somehow escape before he found out.

I think Matthew and I finally agreed upon the urgency of making this happen one night after our father got violently angry with our mother. She was a very shy, docile and subservient person who cowered to our father's every harsh, strict and unyielding demands. She always did what he wanted, but then one day she failed to live up to his expectations and was remiss in carrying out his instructions to the letter, which upset him terribly. The infraction was that she didn't properly fold his clothes, which she then placed in the dresser. Father was incensed when he went to get something out of the dresser and discovered her egregious error.

"What is this?" he screamed as he lifted one of the items out of the drawer. "You know this isn't the proper way to do things, and you shall be punished for it."

Father then took everything out of the dresser and threw it all on the bedroom floor, before he began slapping our mother around. "Hopefully this will remind you not to make this error again!" he screamed as he struck her yet again. "Now you will do it the way you have been taught."

He then dragged her over to the dresser and made her refold every item again, as he stood over her and monitored her every move. In hindsight, I believe this incident was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, because that night Matthew and I agreed something needed to be done and soon.

Our chance came a little over a week after that happened, when our father planned on making a trip to the lumberyard. He was going to purchase some 2x4s that he would then use to build a storage shed.

"Matthew and Mark, you will both come with me after breakfast and assist me in selecting the items needed and then load everything into the truck," our father basically ordered us. "When we return home later, you will also help to unload the truck and stack the wood where I want." Since Matthew and I weren't given a choice in the matter, we piled into the pickup with him that Saturday morning.

My father knew the owner of the place and was allowed to drive into the lumberyard and personally select the various materials he needed. Once he'd loaded the truck, our father would then drive back and let the owner see what he'd picked out, so he could be charged for the items. The three of us had just gone out to the stacks, and we were busy searching through the piles of wood, as my father carefully inspected each board for any possible defect. It was during this process when it happened.

People who are confronted by desperate situations often resort to desperate measures to resolve them, which in this case was exactly what transpired. When Matthew saw an opportunity to act, he did so without hesitation. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Matthew suddenly bend down and pick up a broken 2x4 that was laying on the ground nearby, before he walked up behind our father and swung that piece of wood with all of his might. For a moment Matthew appeared to take on the persona of a powerful baseball player swinging for the fences and that piece of lumber became his bat. I watched in stunned amazement as the weapon arced through the air until it smashed into the back our father's skull. There was a sickening, dull thud when this happened and then my father crumpled to the ground. Almost before his body had come to rest, Matthew turned toward me and spoke.

"Quick, give me a hand!" he shouted.

I froze momentarily, as I attempted to absorb the events I'd just witnessed, but gradually I came back to my senses and listened as Matthew told me what to do. I then helped him position the body the way he wanted it, before he directed me to help him tip over the stacks of lumber that we had just been going through. After it all came crashing down upon our father's body, Matthew grabbed my arm and urged me to follow him, as we raced to office to get help.

"Come quick! Our father's been injured!" Matthew yelled to the people working inside. "Mark and I were up on the stacks of lumber looking for 2x4s to hand down to our father when they suddenly shifted and started to fall. It all landed on our father, and he's injured badly."

The woman working behind the counter immediately called 911 while a couple of the men followed us to see what they could do. In order to get to our father's body, we helped the workers pick up and toss all of the lumber off to one side, but when we finally reached his limp form, they told us they could find no signs of life. It was only a couple of minutes later before the ambulance crew arrived and the EMTs frantically did what they could at that point. Even after performing CPR on him, they informed us that our father was beyond their help.

"I'm afraid there's nothing more we can do for him," the EMT told us. "The others and I are all very sorry for your loss and wish to offer you and your family our sincerest condolences."

The sheriff's department arrived to investigate the incident a short time later, but since everything had been moved to get to our father, there wasn't much left for them to see. The deputies still took pictures of the scene and statements from everyone who'd been there. Then, after piecing all of this information together, they reached a conclusion and announced their findings.

"After investigating the scene and going over the witness statements, this appears consistent with being the result of a very tragic accident." We buried our father three days later.

One of the first things our mother did after the funeral was to see to it that Rachel was released from the institution where she had been confined. At first the doctor and the director of the facility balked at honoring her request, but our mother made it very clear about what would happen if they did not do as she'd requested.

"Neither one of you will receive another penny from me or the estate, so if you refuse to release her, then the expense will be all yours," she advised them, quite emphatically. They quickly acquiesced to her demand.

Our mother, sisters, Matthew and I were finally free of our father's tenacious and suffocating control. We were at last enjoying the freedom we had always yearned for, but had never known. In all honesty we had even begun to question if this moment would ever arrive.

Matthew had saved us all by adhering to an infamous creed, 'sic semper tyrannis' [CN3] or 'thus always to tyrants'. Those words were supposedly first uttered by Marcus Junius Brutus on March 15, 44 BCE as he plunged his dagger into Julius Caesar. It was also reportedly shouted again 1900 years later, on April 14, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth, after he shot Abraham Lincoln. What it all boiled down to was death to all tyrants, whether the claim was real or merely imagined. In our case, the tyrant had been very real, and even though my brother never uttered those words, the thought was still the same. Our names, however, would not go down in history with those I'd already mentioned, since our crime remained undiscovered, but the facts were still the same.

The End.