OSullan Patrick - Breaking Away: a Harrowing True Story Of Resilience, Courage, And Triumph

I was sixteen when I decided to fight back.

It was almost midnight. I was sitting in the back seat of the conversion van, staring out the window as we drove down the highway for five hours through the wind and snow. I was trying not to look at the driver. Every time he looked in the rearview mirror and saw that I wasnt paying attention to him, he grabbed anything that was handya can of Coke he hadnt opened, his thermos, his lighter, whatever was closeand threw it at my head. I was trying to tune him out, but I couldnt help hearing him insult and threaten me. Like he had for three hours before he even dragged me into the van.

You fuckin faggot, he yelled.

Minutes passed and I said nothing. There was silence in the van, interrupted only by the hum of the motor, windshield wipers squeaking and his hyperventilating. The van filled with smoke as he worked his way through a pack of Marlboros.

Youre fuckin soft, he yelled.

More minutes passed and I said nothing. I had heard it all before. He yelled again.

All my fuckin time, all my fuckin money.

He sped past cars. He floored it. He yelled again.

Youre never gonna amount to fuckin anything. Im pullin you out of school and youre getting a fuckin job.

He gritted his teeth, his eyes open wide. I knew that look.

Its fuckin over, he said.

And he was right about that. It had to be over. I had to put an end to it. I had already made my mind up earlier that night, before he pulled out of the parking lot.

I knew what was coming.

I had a reasonable fear that one of us was going to die that night.

If I didnt fight back, it was going to be me.

Its not like his anger was ever going to pass. For years it had been the same way. The way he saw it, he was always right, the only one who knew what was right. He pushed people around and intimidated anyone who got in his way. I was the one always around, always in the way, so I had been afraid for my life every hour of every day. It had been the only life Id ever known.

Some of the worst of it happened on the road, on the back roads going from one small town to another. On cold nights like this one, he would kick me out of the van and make me run beside or behind it for a mile, maybe two, maybe more. I had to run hard enough to satisfy him. He threatened to leave me behind if I didnt measure up. Sometimes he would drive off into the distance on the highway in the middle of the night until the van would be out of sight and Id run down the soft shoulder not knowing if he was still out there. That started when I was eight or nine years old.

My life had been no easier at home. I never knew what I was going to have to do just to get by. I never knew when it would happen. It could be the middle of the night, three in the morning, even a school night, when hed be coming home or just leaving for one of the shift-work jobs he picked up but couldnt keep. Hed make me run or do push-ups and sit-ups until I couldnt do one more and then he would slap me around. Toughen you up, make you tough like me, hed say.

I was never good enough, never tough enough, not as tough as he thought he was. He punched me and kicked me and humiliated me. I just had to suck it up. I couldnt even cry. If I did cry, hed call me faggot or pussy and just beat me worse.

It never stopped. Id go to schoolgrade 5, grade 6, right up to high schooland Id be scratched or cut or bruised and would come up with an explanation if anyone asked. They almost never did. Id go to school exhausted, barely able to sit up and keep my eyes open. I could have laid my head on a desk and fallen asleep anytime, but I didnt. I stayed awake, because thered have been questions if I fell asleep, and my father didnt want anyone poking around our house.

The older I got, the clearer it was to me. It was only getting worse.

It was me or my father.

My mind was racing on the drive that night. He pulled off the highway at a gas station. Only a few cars were out at two a.m. There was no running from him, not in the middle of nowhere. I didnt even have a quarter to make a phone call and call the cops. Even if I did, what could I do until they got there, which might have been a half-hour, an hour, or maybe not at all?

He knew I didnt have options out on the road. He didnt need to handcuff me or tie me up or lock me in. I was stuck. He thought I couldnt run and had nowhere to hide, not at the gas station. He was right. He believed, really believed, that I was always going to have to give in to him. He was wrong.

I had made up my mind. It had to go down tonight.

An hour from the city, he was still going off, threatening to kick the shit out of me. If he had looked in the rearview mirror, hed have seen my head turned away. I was hiding a smile. It wasnt that I was afraid of making him any madder. I dont think he could have got madder. Some fires are so big that throwing gasoline on them doesnt make them any bigger. That was the fire that night. No, I was hiding my smile because I didnt want to set him off just yet. I had to pick my spots. I didnt want him to see me smile or he would have pulled over and we would have had it out right then and there on the side of the road. Not the time yet, not the place. Soon.

When I was young, I would have run through walls for him or died trying. I believed every word he said. I thought he knew the way of the world and was one step ahead of everybody. Thats what he wanted me to believe, and I guess thats what I wanted to believe too.

I was sixteen now, though. As much as he tried to control every second of my life, Id been out in the world just enough to see who he was. What he was. Yeah, I was physically frightened of him. He was 230 pounds, maybe even 240. He had gone his whole life looking for fights, whether he was sober in the ring or drunk in the street. He had been in hundreds of fights, never backed down. He was tough that way but weak in so many others. I was old enough now to see just how pathetic he was. Had failed at everything he ever tried. Couldnt hold down a job, but it was always someone elses fault. Feared by everyone, respected by no one. In control of nothing in his life, nothing except me.

We reached the city. We were going to stop at the house for a couple of minutes and then get back out on the highway and drive five more hours to the border.

He pulled up in the driveway. No lights were on inside. The only ones on were up the street, Christmas lights that hadnt been taken down.

Stay in the fuckin car, he said as he put the van in park and left it running.

No, this is it, I said. I opened the door, got out of the van and stood on the lawn in front of the house he had grown up in. Im not going. Im staying here.

Get in the fuckin car.

Im not going anywhere. This is it. Im done with it.

I could have run then. I could have outrun him, and I knew my way around the neighborhood. I could have run and hid or tried to get help. I had an out if I wanted it. I didnt run, though. Not as a matter of pride, just survival. I had to take a stand, not for a night but for my life, and whatever the price, Id have to pay. We were going to have it out on the snow-covered lawn on a quiet suburban street under the streetlights.

He started throwing punches.

You little fuckin bastard. You piece of shit!

He put everything he had behind every punch. He had meant it when hed said Its over.

I fought back, the first time in my life that I went all in. I punched back and flushed him a couple of times.