“7 x 8″ (drama) 2 minutes

Monologue Description:  “7 x 8″ is a drama that talks about what it was like to be physically abused by a parent.

Character Description:  Thomas talks to his girlfriend about what he went through with his father, as a child.

THOMAS:   

When I was nine years old, my math teacher flunked me and I needed to go to summer school.  I remember going up to school with my father and watching him beg my teacher to give me a passing grade.  He pleaded with her until she agreed.  The agreement they made was for my father to teach me Math for the entire summer, instead of me going to summer school.  My parents didn’t have the money to send me to sumer school.

Every morning my father would wake me up early, as if I had school and he would sit me down half asleep in this big wooden chair.  I fucking hated this wooden chair because it gave me a cold feeling inside.  It was a chair that made me feel small.  It was an unforgiving chair that wasn’t comfortable no matter what position I took.  This was the chair that caused me pain.

My father would question my memory for multiplication tables.  Whenever I gave a wrong answer, I would get smacked across the face.  I would get so nervous that my hands would shake and every time I tried to write on the looseleaf, it would be scribble.  I would get another smack in the face for not writing neat enough.  My father demanded and threatened for me to write evenly, between the blue line, top to bottom and whenever I didn’t, I would get smacked yet again.

My tears would hit the looseleaf and my father would pull my hair and crumble the looseleaf to make me write it all over again from the beginning.

One time he hit me so hard that I was pushed back into the back end of the wooden chair.  The impact caused my spinal cord to directly hit the edge of the wood which caused me to cut and bruise my spine.

All I remember was my father pounding the numbers over and over and over again, until I got it right…7 x 8=56, 8 x 7=56…and on and on and on….

I forced myself to concentrate because I knew that if I got an answer wrong, I would get hurt.  And I was scared.  This was the only time in my entire life that I was scared of anyone.  It was my first and last encounter with fear.  I promised myself that I would never let any other person ever make me scared.  I’ve kept that promise since that day forward.  I guess that’s why when I tell someone I promise, I NEVER BREAK IT.

That was the worst summer of my life…