Margarette Ann Wells heard her father’s footsteps. She dreaded each step as it ominously approached the bathroom door. Judging by his behavior, it was obvious Albert had stopped off at Scooter’s Bar on the way home from work again as he frequently did of late. Margarette Ann grew increasingly scared as Albert drank more and more before coming home.
Industriously, fourteen-year-old Margarette Ann had already fed her younger siblings—ten-year-old Cindy, seven-year-old JR, and four-year-old Annie. In the process of getting them bathed and put to bed before their father got home, she kept an eye on the clock as she quickly moved about the house. There would be yelling and cursing if she didn’t have everything done by the time Albert Wells walked through the front door of their tiny farmhouse.
Her after-school chores included seeing to the younger ones when her mom went to work at the hospital before her dad came home from his job at the steel mill forty-five miles away in East Liverpool. Working hard six days a week, Albert barely supported their growing family on his paycheck alone.
When her mother went to work right after Annie was born, Albert went on a week-long drinking binge. Because the farm had finally stopped yielding the crops needed to support his family, Albert oftentimes drank until he passed out to prevent thoughts about his problems.
He figured it was bad enough he had to go to work for someone else. When their situation called for Emma to work, Albert saw it as the final blow to his already damaged ego. After the loss of the farm, Albert became surly. Here he was with a wife and four young ones and he couldn’t even make a living off the land. This constant thought disgusted and depressed him.
Albert stopped going to church around this time. Since he wasn’t going, he barely permitted Emma to go with the children. When Margarette Ann turned seven, Albert began verbally abusing his family when he got drunk. He started calling Emma names if she was slow getting things done around the house.
His next step of physically abusing Emma quickly ended when he woke up one night staring down the barrel of Emma’s daddy’s shotgun. Emma held the gun and her parents stood behind her should she require any help. That night Albert found he wasn’t as brave as the liquor made him.
He easily found a more willing and sure victim in his oldest daughter, Margarette Ann. He could yell at her, swear at her, threaten her—she did whatever he asked. He could come in drunk after work and this one would buckle down in fear and make him feel as he was supposed to feel—like a man.
Pretty soon, when the other children came along, Albert terrorized all of them in the evenings after work. He felt no remorse. These were his children, born for his pleasure! He would treat them any way he wanted, he reasoned. He felt powerful as he wielded his anger at life on his children. Soon, though, that wasn’t enough.
Emma began to find Albert repulsive in more ways than one. She shunned his drunken intimate overtures as they progressively became more and more abusive during times of intimacy. Albert quickly tired of her behavior.
He frequented the bars in the surrounding towns. Amazingly, he remained faithful to his marital vows. As he increasingly drank and physically abused his children, he subconsciously knew that the situation had to reach a peak. It was as though he couldn’t stop himself …
“Molester, come forth,” the command came out of the darkness surrounding the Wells house. The Prince of the Power of the Air held court and divvied out the assignments for this season concerning Albert Wells.
“Yes, my lord,” came the heavy reply. The deep voice of Molester reverberated in the Halls of Darkness as he stood before his master. Molester was ugly beyond belief. Because he was so hideous, he rarely showed his face. This was acceptable since only his actions were needed to accomplish the plans of darkness, not his face.
“It is time for you to make your presence known in the Wells household,” his master explained.
The prince had watched for some time now as the situation deteriorated in the once Christian family. Now the man no longer attends church services, the devil sneered.
He had bombarded this family with anger, abuse, cursing, debt, and all other manner of evil since the birth of Margarette Ann. At one time, they had been able to resist the onslaught. As time went on, the devil kept the pressure up and increased it.
He knew the destiny of Margarette Ann. She was to be a preacher just like her grandmother except even more powerful. Satan was bound and determined to not let that happen.
Because of the way her life was unfolding, the child had stopped believing in God. After being enrolled in a Catholic school to receive a religious education, Margarette Ann found more verbal and physical abuse in school because of her shyness. The nuns at the school targeted Margarette Ann because she did not desire to participate as much as the other children.
Margarette Ann never said a word. She suffered in silence. She believed the God she had heard so much about, the God Granny said loved her so much, had deserted her. She couldn’t see Him in anything concerning her. Beaten at home and beaten at school, Margarette Ann was afraid to say anything about any of it, afraid she would receive more beatings if she did.
Satan sent Suicide to the child once she turned twelve and could understand. The urge around her to commit suicide was strong. Fortunately, something always held her back from the act. Margarette Ann began nicking herself with a little penknife she found. She experienced strange pleasure from cutting her body in places only she knew about.
One night she placed the dull edge of the blade across her wrist. She imagined pressing the blade through her skin to the vein. In her mind, she could see the blood squirting out of her body. Then she thought about her mama finding her dead and couldn’t bear the thought.
Margarette Ann seemed to withdraw from life as Albert’s abuse continued and worsened. She attempted to keep the younger children from going through what she went through by getting them to bed early before their father got home. It worked for the most part.
Satan had tired of playing around with this family. He needed something significant to happen to drive the child over the edge and even further away from God.
“Molester,” he commanded, “this is what I have for you to do in this household.” He conspired with this expert demon.
Meanwhile in the Wells house, Anger and Profanity were having a wonderful time with Albert and his children. Albert had come home earlier than usual, more drunken than usual.
“Margarette Ann,” he yelled, crashing through the front door of the house. He threw his belongings everywhere as he entered the house, bellowing for his oldest daughter. “Mar-ga-rette Ann,” he yelled again, emphasizing each syllable of her name. Albert wanted to make sure she was good and scared by the time she stood before him.
Margarette Ann cringed as she heard the voice she had come to fear.
“Oh, no,” she whispered in dismay. “He’s home early!” She cringed again as he yelled her name even louder the second time. She hadn’t quite finished feeding the children and getting them ready for bed. JR and Annie had already eaten. They were sitting in front of the TV in their pajamas looking at Lassie.
“Turn that so-and-so television off,” Albert cursed as his two youngest children scrambled to get out of his way.
Annie trembled, tears rolling down her pale cheeks as Albert strode over to her. She wanted to scream but remembered the last time she screamed and how his huge hand had slapped her across her face.
Margarette Ann hurried to the living room in time to snatch Annie off the floor as JR ran to hide behind her. Her dad stood there with a look of triumph. He knew he had won another round of “scare the kids to death.”
That was the name he had given his drunken games with the children. Albert knew he would get away with every bit of harassment he poured out on his kids out of frustration.
Albert learned to skillfully threaten his children in a way they dared not tell his wife what went on when she wasn’t at home. And it worked well. In the beginning of the terror, the children were able to spring back from his bouts by the weekend as though nothing had happened. As time progressed, the children became more and more scarred by the emotional and physical abuse.
Albert taught himself to never leave marks on “Emma’s precious children,” as he snidely referred to them. She had threatened to leave him more than once if she ever found out he was abusing his privileges as a father. And of course he didn’t want to look like a failure as a father in addition to his other perceived failures.
So he learned different tactics for terrorizing them. One evening while feeling particularly carefree, he locked the youngest in the woodshed for an hour after dark. Annie screamed until she was hoarse. Albert laughed his head off as Margarette Ann, sounding like her mother, begged him to let little Annie out of the woodshed. She hadn’t done anything, Margarette Ann kept telling him. But he’d decided it was his right to do what he wanted to do to and with his kids when he wanted to do it. He continued his rampage.
“Get those kids in the bed, Margarette Ann. And get my dinner on the table,” he commanded the frightened girl.
Margarette Ann quickly scurried down the hall holding Annie with Cindy and JR in tow. She made quick work of sponging Cindy off since she hadn’t had a bath yet. She had the younger three in bed in a little over fifteen minutes before her dad yelled out her name again.
“Margarette Ann … get my dinner!” he yelled at the running child.
She quickly thought, What have I done to deserve this?