GENTRIFICATION

Ten-year-old boys like to play at war. It is a game of their imagination. Theymake sounds of guns firing with their fingers pointed at each other or usesticks as swords poised for battle. They shoot from around bushes and trees.They dive for cover behind garbage cans in the streets. In make believe, theypretend airplanes are overhead ready to drop their bombs. They act out whenthey and their comrades are attacking the enemy. They become victoriouscaptors or wounded warriors.

Boys can enjoy the game because it is not real. At the end of the day, theirmothers call them indoors. They all stand up, brush themselves off, and runin for dinner. They play at war because they do not appreciate what combatreally means: that people actually suffer and die.

Reginald Trent Jones, III, was nearly eleven-years-old when the War inTorkos began. He had no idea where that far off land was located. It meantnothing to him. He had no understanding of why soldiers were fighting there.In fact, this may not have had any importance to him even if he did realizethat a real war raged on. Reginald could not care. He was too busy worryingabout his own struggle to survive.

Not the kind of daily conflict where a child is unsure if he will have aplace to sleep or enough food to eat. No. This was the struggle where youlived in fear, daily fear. Fear of life itself. Fear that you could face harm atany moment. Fear that if you said the wrong words or looked the wrong way,you were tempting the enemy. A beast who might turn on you and attackyou viciously.

For Reginald Trent Jones, III, the fear and the beast were not from theoutside. No, they were right there living and breathing inside Reginald's veryown home.

Reginald's father was an angry, brutal man. He rarely laughed. His facewas set in a hard scowl. Large and muscular, with the tattoo of a fire-breathingdragon on his left forearm, Reginald II, known as Reggie, tolerated little fromanyone. Many feared him as threatening and aggressive. He never thoughtof himself as that. He thought of himself as a manly man who did what heneeded to do. He bathed regularly, kept his hair cut short and his face clean-shaven.

Reggie worked hard as a prison guard everyday. He brought home hispaycheck - well, most of it anyway. The rest he would take to the bar to watchsports events and ogle young girls. He believed he drank about as much beerand liquor as the next guy. But, Reggie used alcohol to help justify terrorizinghis children and beating his wife. To his way of thinking, that was what realmen did.

Reggie's father, Senior, had regularly beaten him as a boy. Senior physically"corrected" Reggie's mother whenever he felt it "necessary." Reggie viewed it ashis badge of honor that he learned to take his beatings "like a man." He neverrecognized being a bully in training. As he grew, Reggie lifted weights anddrank health powders that promised large muscles. He would get into fightswith other boys until he became too large and too violent to be challenged.

Reggie outwardly respected his father. Mostly, he feared him. They nevertalked to each other. Inwardly Reggie never loved or even liked Senior. SinceReggie believed that that was how fathers and sons related, he accepted it asnormal. Eventually, Reggie grew too big for his father to risk hitting him. Acold, harsh emotional distance grew between them.

Having no other model, Reggie decided he would follow his father'sexample. He felt obligated if not entitled to carry on the family traditions.Even more, Reggie needed and wanted to show the old man that he couldoutdo him. That he did.

When Senior grew old and developed dementia, Reggie had no troubleputting him away in a nursing home until he died. Reggie never visited himand never took his children to see their grandfather. At the funeral, there waslittle weeping for Senior from Reggie or allowed by him from his children.

Now, every day when Reggie came home from work, he demanded hishouse to be spotless, his food on the table, and his children nowhere to be seenor heard. After dinner, he would leave the house. He went to the nearby barwhere he would spend his money drinking and his time teasing the barmaids.He liked to pat their backsides or look down their blouses. When it came to beclosing time, Reggie would stumble home. He fell asleep wherever he landed.If awake enough, he would beat his wife or demand sex. Reginald lay awaketo his mother's screams or moans.

Sometimes, Reggie decided to come home and beat Reginald. Onoccasion, he wandered into the wrong bedroom and end up with Reginald'solder sister, Sharlotte. Reginald never understood why his father beat him.No reason was ever given. Nothing was ever explained. Instead, the next day'sabsurd theatre of the forgotten would follow the terror and chaos of the night.By morning, as instructed by his mother, everyone acted as though nothinghad happened. They were to behave as though they had heard nothing, seennothing, remembered nothing. So life went on.

Reginald could not forget, though. He would not let himself forget. Heremembered it all. It haunted his young mind. He would stay awake and listenfor his father's approach. He trembled inside at the sound of his father's heavyguard boots on the pavement outside pounding up the front stairs. Their doorwould be thrown open as Reggie burst into the house. Reginald never knewwhat to expect next, only that it was rarely good.

Eventually, Reginald grew to hate his father's very existence. When oneday he felt bold enough, he complained openly to his mother. She told himhe must be silent. She told him that his father was a good man who workedhard and provided for his family. She told him that she loved his father nomatter what he did. "Underneath, he's a good man who loves his wife andhis children."

She told Reginald that he should be grateful to have such a strong manfor a father. She told him that she loved Reggie for he was the best man shehad ever had. Most of all though, she told Reginald that whatever went on intheir house was never to be told to anyone else - ever.

When Reginald and his two sisters were younger and smaller, Reggiewould discipline his children now and then with quick beatings. As theygrew older, the beatings became more and more violent, especially towardReginald. Reggie began treating their mother more shamefully and with lessrespect as the years...