Because I was trying to sleep away as much of the day as I could my mother had a hard time waking me every morning for school. She would call up from downstairs and say, Start to stir. I almost never stirred when she commanded me to do so. I almost never obeyed the woman even though everyone else in the family was scared to death of her and rightly so. My mother was known to beat her children with rolling pins whenever they were disobedient. She would be downstairs beating my brothers and sisters and I would hear the crying and wailing from my bedroom. I would sometimes barricade myself in there, pushing a dresser in front of the door so Mother couldn’t get in. Sometimes she would rap against the door and call me chickenshit names for not having the balls to face her. I would tell her that my balls had nothing to do with it, that the sun was to blame. I’d tell her I was tired. I’d tell her I was allergic to the sun and she said, This is no way to go through life. She said I was probably anemic and chickenshit. I didn’t know what anemia was back then, but I don’t think I had it. Even still my mother tried to feed me steak cooked rare because of the anemia. She said it would help, that it fed the blood, that I was an embarrassment. She would plate a flank steak and tell everyone it was for her anemic chickenshit son and when I didn’t eat it she would beat all of my brothers and sisters right in front of me. She would say, See what you make me do, as she beat them. This is why my brothers and sisters used to beat me, too, because I never ate the bloody flank steak and they had the scars to prove it. I never blamed them, nor did I ever try to fight back. I always took the beatings lying down. Meaning I would lay myself down and wait for them to finish. I figured they would get tired or bored beating someone with anemia who took it lying down.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually had anemia, though listlessness is a symptom. I have always been listless. Regardless, my anemia isn’t what makes me tired these days. It is probably because I am dying. I think this is the only explanation as to why I am even more tired than usual. But I am also hungry and I would think if one were dying one wouldn’t have an appetite at the same time.
