This one is a bit heavy and I feel like I need to pre-warn.
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It's nighttime and we're the only people at the observation deck. He's got me under the arms and is lifting me over the safety fence while I scream, and kick, and beg to be released. I don't want to go over the edge. He thinks it will be fun. He is really still just a kid himself but it's no excuse for the immaturity or the way he relishes in the pleasure of my terror and powerlessness.
Those who continue to insist that he loved us need to reach deep into their gut and rethink that definition.
He worked as the Lock Master at this lock for a time. Chatting up the tourists, and goofing off on the mic made him feel special, charming, and important. He often bragged about it, angry (and at times even bewildered) because we didn't admire him like strangers.
Tyrannical Father. World's Greatest Uncle.
As I stood in this spot taking this and a few other pictures, I wonder if he ever flashed to nights like that one while performing for his audience. I wonder if he ever dug into his own gut to pull up all the cruelties big and small that he perpetrated against us. I don't think so. I truly believe that people always know no matter how hard they try to cover up and pretend. But I think he was a very split and broken person.
Some days I feel some compassion knowing he was also a little child once. Maybe someone dangled his tiny, powerless body over a deep, dark chasm destroying his sense of safety in the world. Infecting him with that poison that made him what he was. We make children into the adults they become.
And on other days he fucking deserved what he got.