"This is what I call a testimony book...this is one of the better testimony books I've read"
P. Luna BlogTalkRadio
David's mark - A Boy's story of Abuse in 1970's America
David's mark is the novelization of the life of the author. DeWayne Watts started out his life in what appeared to be a perfect family, then at age 6 the thread in the tapestry was pulled and all quickly became dark.
He does not go into graphic accounts of sexual abuse but instead leaves it up to the reader to know what happened. The book has been called a "tastefully presented account of a horrible life of a child".
He tells the account of his life without the use of profanity or detailed accounts of sexual abuse. Instead he focuses on the thoughts and feelings he experienced at the time and attempts to help the reader to fully understand the fear that a boy faces in a house of abuse and the fear that paralyzed his mama.
He takes the reader through several states to end up in Houston Texas in 1976. It was during this time that his father saw the profit in using him at age 9 for money. Many boys used in the mid-1970's in Houston for the sex trade were street walkers, portable convertible van boys, or cheap motel boys, but a few were held out for the elite that visited Texas. DeWayne had blond hair and hazel eyes, he was small framed and retained a look of innocence and boys with these characteristics were set apart and taken to the most opulent homes in the Houston area. DeWayne and a few of his friends were in this group.
Many boys were killed in various acts, killed themselves or were killed to ensure secrets were kept. David's mark ends with such an account. To this day many deaths of boys in the 1970's remain cold cases and sadly always will. No one cared form them than and it remains so to this day. Boys as young as 5 and as old as 18 were murdered and wrote off by the police as run-aways, drug overdoses, suicides, or street kids who starved to death. The facts were that most were murdered after their usefulness was exhausted.
