Excerpt #2: The Subtleness of Child Abuse

         The real fun came when his “boozy friends” started to come around on the weekend afternoons. Maybe some of them had been abused during childhood themselves and just didn’t have the resources to see what was really taking place right in front of them.  I suppose abuse can take on many faces and appear quite normal to those who’ve experienced the same in their younger years.  Perhaps it’s possible that an abusive upbringing can blind a person to the truth when wrongful things are being done openly and in plain sight.  They probably all saw it as normal.  The alcohol didn’t help matters either.  Whatever the case, those little charades were meant for one reason and one reason only; to convince everyone that I was the real cause of my father’s upended position in life…and his friends were a willing audience.