Upstairs in the Crazy House

I believed what my father had always told me: I was stupid and lazy. I'd heard it so often I couldn't choose to disbelieve it. It seemed I'd always been slow and stubborn. I still couldn't tell time in the fourth grade, couldn't add or subtract, despite my father's nightly tutorials. I couldn't understand why I persisted in my laziness when it always brought me so much grief. I have very few memories of the time I spent in early grade school, and those I have are riddled with beatings and shame.

I remember the small apartment in downtown Montreal, the one with the alley in the back where all the other kids played through long summer evenings. I remember the dining-room table where he'd make me sit beside him, grade four math book open in front of me. I remember how quiet the house was with everyone else in bed.

He'd make me leave one hand flat, palm down on the table.
"Ten times ten."

I'd scratch the page nervously with my pencil, unable to remember the right response.
"I said ten times ten."

My head would go blank. His heavy fist would come crashing down on my hand till it seemed I had no bones left unbroken. Every wrong answer brought pain, causing me to panic so much that the few correct answers I could remember scooted right out of my brain, abandoning me to his cruelty.

- Pat Capponi

From Upstairs in the Crazy House by Pat Capponi. © Pat Capponi, 1992. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Books Canada Limited.