Meant to Be (1-48)

Summary

The autobiography, Meant to Be by Walter Anderson, opens with a funeral. Walter is on an emergency leave from the Marines so that he can attend his father's funeral. After the funeral, Walter heads back back to his mother's apartment and listens to her while she share memories of her husband. Out of nowhere, Walter questions his mother. "Mom, the man we just buried.... was he my father?".
Without any further dialogue, the author goes on and fills the reader in with the history of his father, William Henry Anderson, and himself during his childhood years. He recalls the beatings he received every day from his alcoholic father and the desperate need to get out of the house. Mr, Anderson also severely beaten Walter every time he encounters him reading a book. Living in a poor neighborhood and attending a private school on the "other side of town", Walter also faces troubles with fitting in with anyone who wasn't from the streets. He later decides to go back to a public high school where he can be with his friends. Not a few years later he drops out of school and decides to join the Marines, an advice his older brother Bill give him. Bill knew about him and their father's abuse and knew the only way to escape it is to get away from home. Page 48 ends with Walter decision to apply for the Marine.

Quote
"I remember how the taste of metal appeared in my mouth when he began to beat me, and I also remember that, for the first time, I did not feel the pain. I knew not to cry: Tears would only provoke more punishments. But that wasn't it. I did not seem to hurt. Nor was there a need for me to cry. It was as if I were an observer, disembodied, watching as my father punched and shouted." (Anderson 20)

Reaction
I thought this quote was powerful. His father is beating him severely and he has no reaction to it. As I read, this stood out to me. It is as if he no longer cares about being mistreated and abused. He knew that it would always be this way and that crying would make it worst and would show his father that he feels the pain.
When he says he could taste the metal in his mouth, I tried to think of what his father could have been beating him with. With the buckle on the belt or maybe just a piece of metal? It was a really horrible thing to visual in my head. I wonder what it must have been like growing in a poor neighborhood and being abused by his father on top of that. I wonder why his father beat him at all, period.