Coreyography: A Memoir by Corey Feldman Read Free Book Online Page B

to this as a “mental block.” I spend most afternoons doing my times tables over and over and over, picturing an errant LEGO or a Lincoln Log floating in the middle of my brain.
    As one would perhaps expect, child actors are required to maintain a decent grade point average. Anything less than As and Bs (or the occasional C) would be an indication that my “career” was taking a toll on my education, and I would have been refused a work permit. So, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that my parents chose this particular moment to start caring about my academic standing. Bad grades equaled no income.
    Shortly after returning to public school, my mother started sending a daily report card along with me, little pink slips that my teacher was supposed to fill out at the end of the day with little boxes she could check to indicate whether my performance had been satisfactory or unsatisfactory, whether my behavior in class had been excellent, good, fair, or poor. It was usually my father who reviewed them and, based on my daily “grades,” administered what was quickly becoming a regular punishment.
    “Go upstairs and wait for me,” he said on a day when I brought home a particularly ominous combination of letters, a bright red P and an unforgiving U. I marched upstairs and lowered my pants down around my ankles, until my father sauntered in and grabbed one of his leather belts. I was crying, counting off the spanks in my head when, midway through swat number four, the leather belt broke clean in half. For a brief moment, I closed my eyes and sent up a silent prayer, thanking God that it was over. My father, however, simply retrieved a fresh belt from his closet.
    He turned and looked at me on his way out the door. “You know I don’t want to do this, Corey. But I have to. It’s the only way you’ll learn what’s right.”
    I wanted to believe him. But later—when I was squirming my way out of yet another spanking—he tied my hands to the bedpost to ensure that I stayed put. He swung the belt wildly, and the buckle caught me in the eye. It bruised and swelled immediately, and I thought, surely there’s a better way to teach your kid about right and wrong than this.

 
    CHAPTER 3
    A blanket of early-morning dew had settled across the front yard and tiny blades of grass were sticking to my ankles and the tops of my bare feet. I trudged through the fog, along the winding walkway and out into the street. The windows of my father’s car were all steamed up from the inside. I pulled the sleeve of my shirt over my hand and used it to wipe away the condensation, cupped my hands together, and peered inside.
    “Dad?” I called out. “Are you coming in the house now?”
    *   *   *
    Shortly after my brother Eden was born, in the fall of 1979, my father moved out of the room he shared with my mother and started sleeping on the couch. This did nothing to allay their constant fighting, however, which was intensifying and—with increasing frequency—dragging on late into the night. They covered a revolving door of subjects, from the (apparently untenable) fact that my mother was spending all day, every day, at home, alone, caring for us, while he was out carousing, and the fact that she was pretty sure he was stepping out on her with a sea of different women, including my pretty blond teacher Mrs. Hart. After several months on the sofa, my father began sleeping in the car, curled up on top of piles of clothes and shoes and a couple of worn-out old amplifiers. How my parents managed to conceive yet another child amid this chaos is one of the great mysteries of my young life, but by the time Devin came into the world, in January 1981, my father was gone for good. He didn’t even show up at the hospital.
    The divorce threw our family finances into sharp relief. I had been working steadily for more than five years, but my parents had no idea how to manage their money. After befriending a real estate agent, they