The Safest Place on Earth
By Chuck Hicks
Chapter 4
Several years ago, my sister bought my youngest nephew one of those plastic “Habi-Trail” hamster cages and a couple of hamsters to go along with it. He was excited about his new pets, and before long his excitement grew when the hamsters gave birth to little hamster babies. Imagine my sister’s horror when she came home from work one day and discovered that those cute, furry, “Hallmark-esque,” creature were cannibals. Nobody at the pet store had bothered to include that detail in the sales pitch. While their babies were still helpless, dependent on their parents for everything, the parents ate them.
When a son learns a lesson from his father, it usually sticks with him throughout his life.
The first time I remember it happening, I was probably four years old. I was home alone with my father, and he took me into his bathroom to show me a new game. He made sure that I understood that it was our game, and for me not to tell anybody else about it.
Over the next couple of years before he died, we played our special game several times, always when it was just the two of us at home. I didn't understand the game and don't remember liking or disliking it, but for me, it was a special bond that only I had with my dad. It was his way of showing he loved me. When a son learns a lesson from his father, it usually sticks with him throughout his life. My father’s lesson was no different. Most of my relationships have been centered around physical pleasure and sexuality. I've always thought if the sex was good enough, love would surely follow. The ideas of monogamy and fidelity were foreign to me, even though I never bothered to share that information with the women in my life. Even within those relationships, I viewed sex as an absolute, taking it personally if my partner was tired or not in the mood. For me, where there was sex there was love. If we weren't having it, for whatever reason, I saw it as a love problem. I understand now that my problems with “people-pleasing,” a major driving force in my addiction and drug use, took root in that small, pink bathroom in what should have been the safest place on Earth.
About Chuck
Though his father was too ill for physical activities like sports or yard work, he somehow found the strength to sexually abuse Chuck at age four in the upstairs bathroom in their house, in “what should have been the safest place on earth.” Then his father died, and Chuck’s mother, who had always been the disciplinarian, began beating him for seeking more freedoms than she would allow: football games, dates, the prom.
She once changed the locks on the house, put out a warrant out for his arrest for trespassing, then cried and begged him not to move out. When he eventually did move away, he took with him a low self esteem, an intense need to please people and to see physical pleasure as the root of all relationships. What set him over the edge, giving him the best adrenalin rush of all, was a chance encounter with a transvestite prostitute who introduced him to crack.
Chuck Hicks was released from Fairfax Adult Detention Center in 2007 and is living in his hometown of Danville, Virginia, where he manages a local restaurant, remains active in the recovery community, and enjoys spending time with his sister and her family.