The House on Telegraph Hill

A Short Synopsis

This book tells of the consequences of child abuse and how it has turned my life into the crawling nightmare that its been, and still is. Some say I survived, but did I really? I don't believe anyone survives childhood abuse, its ravages linger on to the grave. That's not survival...it's hanging on. For some the only option is to struggle in an attempt to make something of their lives...one day at a time. That's exactly what I've been doing. In that sense, yes, one might say that my writing is a memoir alright...of a tormented life.  There is no other way for me to live, tormented that is. I also tell of what happened to the others as well, those that came around that place once too often. I can't forget those poors souls, I really can't, as I know they've suffered as I have. 

Beginning in Chapters One, and on through Two and Three, I detail the abusive actions perpetrated by two sick parents upon my sisters and me. I tell of my failed alcoholic father who couldn’t keep up with the achievements of his two successful brothers. He couldn’t accept his own fumbling faults and failures all brought about by alcohol abuse; so he decided to blame everything on me. With that goal in mind, and my loving mother by his side, he went on to prove to his drunken friends, the drunken crowd in the grand arena of our living room, just how I became his “hefty ball and chain.” That was his only way out, at least he thought it was.

It was there, every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, that my old man would heave and toss in order to level a good hard fist to my face so he could display his manhood...to that wretched crowd of his. Yes, it was there in his grand arena of hell that he showed all how he was going to rectify matters by doing the only thing that he knew how to do; get good and drunk...then pound me onto the floor.

It was there in that living room of that place that I was physically and verbally beaten, shamed and belittled until I could be shamed and belittled no more. I can still hear the yelling, pounding and hollering from the crowd of drunken perverts as they cheered him on while he whaled "the livin' tar out of me." The sweat flying off his face from the brutal smacking and pounding on my face still rings loud and clear today. Yes sir, that's how he went about his business of ruining my life in order to gratify himself and those before him.

That was how I spent my summer vacations, every summer, when I was a child. By the time I left that house years later I'd been ruined for life. They, the soaks, all got a kick out of it just as I did...in the hind end.

However, the job was never complete until my "loving mother" got her twisted hands into the whole affair, to put the finishing touches on me. She was the real sick one around that place who knew how to do the real damage. Beginning with my first grade class, she came up with incredible ways to dress me in the kind of clothing that only a sick mind could conceive of. I was the recipient of tactics designed for one thing and one thing only; to shame, belittle and ruin my life along with tantalizing her sick fantasies.

When I was dressed and all buttoned up, to her sick standards that is, out the front door I'd be shoved. Along my merry way I'd trudge in the freezing temperature knowing well what awaited me when I got there. Yes, I'll never forget the trudging and squirming on the ice and snow along my two mile trek to hell knowing well what awaited me when I removed my outer clothing. Yes, I knew what lied beneath; my sick mother it was. Yes, there below hid that creep who had the audacity to display true madness...her madness. It would be a living hell when my classmates would wallow in fun and laughter after I opened the classroom door, walked in and exposed the truth; the mother I had. Yes, I knew of the nightmare that awaited me underneath, and so did she. 

The very first time she put that frightful looking outfit on me I knew exactly what was going to happen when I got to school. I knew exactly what that creep had in mind. It would be there, in front of my classmates, that I'd be forced to remove my outer winter clothing and show them just what this kid had to offer! It would be there that I would let everyone know just what kind of a sick mother I had back in that hole. Please, God help me with this one; here it is...in the raw.

How about a six-year-old kid being forced to walk around in his first-grade classroom, and throughout the school all day long for that matter, wearing only a tiny string-bikini and a tight T-shirt in the middle of winter! Yes, down the long hallways I'd walk showing the front and back part of my swimming atire; there in full view were my covered genitals along with the bare cheeks of my hind-end, and nothing else to be exact. No, it wasn't funny,and I'll never forget it.

Once I took my winter clothing off I just stood in shame and embarrassment. Yes, there everything was; the bare cheeks of my hind-end and embarrassing front part to go along with it! If that was done to a poor kid today there's no doubt that he or she would be removed from their household by the authorities. Back then there were no authorities to come to my rescue like we have today. I was an “emotional punching bag” for the both of them at home, along with my classmates at school! It still haunts me as I write this. However, the clothing affairs were only the beginning.

Yes, there were worse things that went on in that place as time went on. They used sleazy methods to instill a lifelong sense of fear and panic in me that eventually forced me onto mental disability when I was forty three years old (1984), and for the remainder of my eligible working years. That was the kind of abuse that should have landed the both of them in jail. Yes, they got away with it, with all of it!

In Chapters Four and Five I tell how my mother destroyed my sister Annabelle and my half-sister Abigail. Not only did she take great pains to destroy Annie's relationship with a great fiancée she had but Abby’s relationship with her husband as well. All during that time my sick anorexic mother displayed her sick obsession with food and forced over-feeding tactics on those around her.  Everyone had to over-eat and get fat...except her.

It may be hard to believe what happened to those poor women, as it was sick and brutal. They died a long time ago because of her. As far as I'm concerned...Annie was murdered, along with my first wife!

Throughout Chapter Six I tell what happened to the lives of those (the others) that ventured into that place over different periods of time throughout my earlier years. The problem they had was that they hung around there a bit too long and, in reality, never got out. Not one of them ever lived a happy fruitful life. Every one, without exception, either turned to alcohol, drugs or other devious ways to survive, to overcome the pain brought on years earlier. Most ended up with some form of eating disorder. Eventually their lives became twisted, shaped and ravaged in such a way that they ended up unfit for society’s demands and expectations...as expected. There were some that just seemed to drift off into obscurity; lost in time, somewhere, someplace. I never heard from any of them again, not one. Once someone, anyone, associated themselves with that house for any length of time they somehow and someway became infected by it's inner workings and became doomed. 

In Chapter Seven I tell what happened to me when a young adult trying to deal with the real world and the cruelty of man where the world of work became my undoing, my nightmare. I tell in detail how my life unraveled into one long horrendous nightmare, one day at a time, that I was never able to deal with. All of that was brought about by the years of abuse I endured as a child. My past became my everyday present, my evryday burden, my everyday nightmare. When I became a young apprentice struggling through a five year electrical apprenticeship program I learned the true meaning of hell on Earth. At that time I was married to a very young woman named Heidi. It was beginning here that I went from one therapist to another, night after night, year after year until she died very suddenly and unexpectedly, and I gave up. My mother had her hand in that tragedy also, her death.

In Chapters Eight and Nine I go into shocking detail how my life continued to unravel after Heidi’s death...Mr. Hyde I became. I turned to alcohol, Valium, adultery and everything else that only low-lives do. I transformed myself into the monstrosity I call…..Mr. Hyde, with the potion being alcohol. During that time I was hospitalized on three different occasions for mental illness, after Heidi’s death. I eventually became an alcoholic just like my father was. Eventually I married a schoolteacher who, after eleven years of marriage, died of cancer. She put up with a lot.

In Chapter Ten I tell of the many therapists I saw from the time I left the military (when I was 22) until the end of 2006 when I turned 65.  In that chapter, Of Medicine Men, Quacks and She, I do go into depth somewhat about one therapist; She. Even though she was a Certified Social Worker at the time (CSW) she was mostly responsible for the completion of this book. I used the pseudonym Charles S. Wilson because of the initials (CSW) which are from the title she held during the time of the writing. A few pages into my book you'll see that I dedicated the book to her. That's the least I could do for her.  She was the only bright spot in my life during the writing of this book.

I then Conclude.

William W. Cairns (aka-Charles S. Wilson).