We’ll Always Have Stockholm

Coming to Terms with Childhood Trauma

Stockholm, by CK Brestman.

I was a rotten child. A little bastard. A no good sonofabitch. Usually suspected, often accused, presumptively sentenced. If anything happened it was likely my fault, regardless of remoteness or tenuity.

While in the case before us I recall neither the charge nor the crime, I have vivid recollection of judge, jury, and executioner: my father, then cursing my name, removing his belt, and storming forth to collect his pound of flesh.

I recall being nimble and squirrelly, forever beholden to Road Runner and Jerry the Mouse, and being quite deft at gliding through narrowest crack to make my great escape. In this case, bolting out of my bedroom, under unsuspecting non-dominant arm, straight shot down the hall, hurdle the poodle, dodge the house rabbit, and finally bursting forth through weathered storm door.

An inconceivable escape, given him a twenty stone lineman with sledgehammer hands and reeking of creosote, and me the proverbial forty-two pound weakling, but in retrospect it was merely an impromptu counter-strategy that inadvertently caught him off guard.

My traditional escape route had long been a right turn, fleeing from bedroom out towards the back door. Bedroom windows also made convenient escape hatches until they had been…