I don't remember what set this next incident off with my father, I just remember it was one of the things that showed me just how much of a psyco nut he was. It was the day I became a murderer.   
    
When I think back, I realize he was probably paying me back for winning too many of our private battles. In this, he payed me back heavily.   
    
I was 13 and had started having really bad attitudes about a lot of things going on in my life. I no longer believed my life was worth anything.     
    
I had already disowned both my parents and God  and I didn't really give a shit about anything except alcohol and drugs and fucking with my fathers game. I lived for it.   
    
This particular time, my father was at home, drunk, and we had somehow ended up arguing in the backyard about what he felt was my obsession with animals.   
    
My father was informing me of the fact that animals had absolutely no emotions towards anything so I had better stop crying every time one of my pets died.     
    
I'd had a dog named freckles for 7 or 8 years and it had been hit by a car a block away. All it took was seeing my brother walking up with the strangest expression on his face, and a bloody lump with freckles collar on it for me too freak out. I had bawled like a baby, and cussed up a storm, lamenting my beloved dog. The dog loved me and never hurt me. My pets helped me keep sane and positive about my life.   
    
My father told me if we were to leave, our pets wouldn't even notice we were gone.     
    
"Well, that's a lie," I argued.     
    
My father was telling me that my pets were just eating machines and he would prove it to me.   
    
I was arguing the fact, when my father said he could kill all our baby rabbits right in front of their mother and she wouldn't even stop chewing her cud reguardless of the babies screaming in front of her.   
    
I knew animals didn't have emotions and feelings like us, but they do feel something, at least fear, when their babies were screaming in front them.     
    
And who cares anyway?  We had a difference of opinion,so what.   
    
My father was getting irate and starting to scare me, kinda hopping around from one foot to the other, his eyes getting that dead look they had when he was in a bad mood.   
    
My father was shitfaced and saying he was going to prove it to me right now. He informed me that I would have to watch him butcher the babies right in front of their mother.   
    
I absolutely did not want to watch him butcher the rabbits, so I yelled to him that there was no way that I could watch  because it would make me sick.   
    
My father screamed at me saying I would have to watch anyway.   
    
I got belligerent and yelled at him,saying he could make me stand there, but he couldn't force me to keep my eyes open to watch.   
    
Wrong thing to say to a control freak.   
    
"Wanna bet, Shaunda", said my father. His voice lowered when he talked, I could feel the coldness in his tone. The lack of humanity. The hair on the back of my neck rose straight up.   
  
OH GOD! I'd gone too far. I knew instantly I was screwed. I knew it was gonna get real bad, I knew it was gonna get bloody. I was fucked.   
  
"Not only will you watch, but I'm going to kill honey bunch first". He said.   
    
Honey Bunch was not a butchering rabbit, she was actually my pet, so I didn't understand why he was bringing her into this.     
    
I screamed at him saying he would have to kill me before I ever watched such a thing. Tears streamed down my face while I was screaming at him. I hated him for seeing me cry, but I hated myself worse for letting him see me cry.     
    
God, I hated him!   
    
My father had that evil dead look in his eyes and spoke really calmly when he told me 'since it was my obsession he was trying to cure, I would be the one doing the actual killing. And, he said I would grow up much more mentally healthy without my childish love for all animals.'   
    
"You'll thank me later" he laughed.   
    
I really started crying then. It had started.   
  
"PLEASE, PLEASE don't make me, please daddy". I cried. Dropping to my knees, I actually begged him, supplicating to him as if he were the all powerful. Telling him I believed him and this did not have to happen.   
    
No such chance. There was a lesson to learn and it was his duty as a father to teach me about all the hard knocks this world threw at us.     
    
It had started.