(Dean Paul: The Punisher.

Biographical Series About My Childhood.

This Story Deals With Domestic Violence Issues.) 

Dean Paul settled into our family like a hurricane slamming into the East Coast. He was a strict authoritarian dictator. We learned quickly that we were living in his house. He set the rules and disobedience was dealt with swiftly. Often these were physical punishments.

The way Dean Paul would double up his leather belt and wrap those big meaty hands around each end haunts my memories. He ‘flexed’ the belt creating a snapping sound. He did this every single time before he spanked us. A hint of sadistic pleasure danced across his face when he snapped that belt. I grew to hate the sound.

Dean Paul never directly punched us kids when we were young, but any minor offense and he would unleash the monster on the end of that belt directly to our bottoms. My brother Ken and I became very friendly with a few walls that Dean Paul enjoyed bouncing us off of when his belt wasn’t nearby.

When one of us kids stepped out of line and Dean Paul didn’t know who the culprit was, he would put us all together in my sisters’ room. The brutish man would meticulously monitor his watch and enter the room every ten minutes and spank us all until somebody confessed to the perceived offense. If nobody confessed, he left, only to return in ten minutes for the next round of spankings. He called it the Round Robin.

One particular session of Round Robin lasted two hours when my sister Joni accidently dropped a roll of toilet paper into the toilet and tried to hide it in a trashcan. More than ten spankings each. What a price we paid for that 30-cent roll of toilet paper!

Years later, I found out that Dean Paul had picked my sisters’ room so that he could listen to us through a vent in an adjoining room. He must have really enjoyed those terrifying conversations between the six of us trying to get the guilty party to confess. The fact that he still spanked all of us, even when he knew who the guilty party was, really showed his true nature. He relished in misery and fear.

You may find this hard to understand, but sometimes his words were worse than his punishments. On one occasion, when I was nine, my mom sent me out to work on the car with Dean Paul so that we could ‘bond’. He looked me right in the eye and said, "Ya know, I always wanted a son."

I couldn't believe my ears. He was going to finally acknowledge me and say something nice. It was a breakthrough!

Dean Paul finished his statement with, "Too bad I got a sniveling snot-nosed pansy like you." I just walked away. I learned at a young age that sometimes words scar deeper than a belt.