The Moment

I walked in the door from school. My sister was there, her eyes red from crying. She wouldn't have been there for a visit. She packed her things hurriedly and angrily on the day she turned 18, just two weeks ago. She looked at me in a way she never had before, like a silent, desperate plea. I don't remember seeing my mother. She never seemed to have a solid presence at times like this, which is why I sometimes think of her as a ghost.

Then I saw my father; his face was breaking. I had seen him in many states of anger and depression, but never like this.

I was 14.

He was 19. Had been 19.

I clung to something he said, probably casually, but I counted on it. I needed it to happen; I needed to get out of that place that was supposed to be my home. He said he was going to get a bus, and together with some friends would drive to California, and live on the bus. He said I could come, when I asked him. That was 6 months before. Before he went back into the hospital.

Once when we visited him there, and took him out on a day trip, my father thought it would be a good idea to take his troubled, sensitive 14 year old daughter and his mentally unbalanced son to see The Deer Hunter. After seeing the scene where the guy played Russian roulette, we had to leave. My brother and I, not the whole family. We waited in the lobby and talked until they finished the film. The movie was horrific, and had put terrible things in my head, but I was happy we could be alone and talk, and I enjoyed that time with him.

I hoped he would get out again soon. He had been in before, when he was 17, and got out. I hoped we could go soon.

3 days before it happened, I felt a sudden anguish. I’m not one to talk of premonitions, or believe in anything, it’s just what happened. I hadn’t known about his previous suicide attempt when he was 17; they kept that from me. It was sudden and intense. It was odd, and I don’t remember it being prompted by anything. I thought to myself, what am I going to do if he dies? How could he die, I reassured myself, he’s in the hospital, he's safe, they’ll take care of him.

When I saw their faces, I knew what had happened. I knew, but I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want to be told and have it be real, have it solidify. I turned and ran. I screamed “No!” and ran into my room and locked the door. I didn’t want him to follow me. Especially not him. Not the monster. He had done it. My father I mean. He made it happen. He was the reason we all were in pain, he was the reason John shot himself in the head. The fact that my brother was a misdiagnosed bipolar may have played its part, but so did he, to an equal or greater degree.

I didn’t know he was in the hospital voluntarily, and could sign himself out whenever he wanted to, which he did three days before he killed himself.

He was the only one of them that I loved, and I thought the only one of them that loved me, but I don't think he did, really. The mild molestation only complicated and confused things for me.

This is how it begins

I am three. My father sends me to get a handkerchief from his drawer in his bedroom. I am off happily on a mission. It is a low dresser, with six long drawers, three on each end, and three small square drawers in the middle. The handkerchiefs are in the center small drawer, along with a pair of magnets. They are old, heavy and large. Each one is a bracket with rounded corners, they come together to form a sort of rectangular zero. I am fascinated by magnetism, it is magical. They are lovely magnets, quite powerful. I love to play with them. So when I open the drawer to get the handkerchief, I am mesmerized by them, and forget all about my obligation. I take them out and start playing with them, putting them at opposite poles and pushing one with the other. Then I hear my father's voice, sternly saying my name. My stomach drops. Had I learned already that it was too late to fix it, to rush his handkerchief to him and apologize?  It's fuzzy then, I imagine I was interrogated, and the next thing I remember is him telling me to go get the belt. I start crying, terrified. This was not new. I don't know what other infraction I was guilty of before to get this punishment, but I remember knowing what was coming; this had happened before. His belts hung on a rack which hung over the closet door in his bedroom. My parents' bedroom, but why mention my mother? She might as well have been dead for all the protection she offered. Still crying, but unable to escape, I head for the belts. I must select the instrument of my torture, and deliver it to a monster. This was a beating, not a spanking. On a three year old. My pants were pulled down, my underpants too. On my bare skin I was hit so hard there were welts. My sister told me about the welts, she saw them, I'm not sure how long afterward. That was the last time I was beaten. My brother and sister were older by 4 and 5 years. I don't know why the beatings stopped then. But the torture did not stop then. It merely changed form. The ravings of a lunatic raining down on me, trying to convince me of whatever he felt it was that I needed to understand, still powerless to escape, my only defense was to agree with him, pretend I understood, and hope it would stop soon. In this way I was conditioned to allow myself to be abused, to not fight back, not defend myself. The world was all to happy to step in for him when he could not be there, part of the world anyway. Most of it was content to play my mother's part, turning a blind eye to the assaults.

requiem

no one talked to me. at all. maybe I don't remember. but it's altogether possible. they could do that sort of thing. all of them. aunts, cousins, uncles, grandparents. I remember my father's mother being dramatic, falling down almost, like it was about her. like it hurt her more. like it wasn't her fault. albeit indirectly, and more my father's, but still. and I don't think for a moment that she felt that, that that was the reason for her histrionics.

my mother didn't, my father, all wrapped up in themselves, as if it wasn't their fault either. my sister never talked to me under the best of circumstances. we never had real conversations. she normally treated me with contempt or indifference.

no one asked how I was, if they could do anything. not that that would have meant anything, or there was any answer that would mean anything, that they could understand the smallest part of.

I remember coming home afterward, and all the food people brought. I could not eat, even think of it, and I wondered how anyone could. at a time like this. it felt like an insult. do you remember the line in four weddings and a funeral, the speech at the funeral?


by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one:
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods:
For nothing now can ever come to any good.


when I heard this, I cried, for this was how I felt. how could they eat and talk of mundane things, and go on with their lives and pretend that nothing had happened? had they no hearts? they had not. it was a difficult world to live in, for someone with a heart.


I was 14, and alone. always had been, except for him. but I don't think he knew how I felt, or felt the same. but we were alike, he and i. my sister told me once, afterward, that he and I were closer then they were, even though she was one year younger than him, and I was 5 years younger. that was probably the most honest and meaningful exchange we ever had, and I've never forgotten it.  I did not know that at all, being so much younger than them. but he didn't feel it as strongly as I did. I don't think he did; I don't think he could have.

This is one of the first things I wrote, when I started to work through this:


The Box

I see it long ago an old movie in my mind I can't see much the box is closed and silent all around no one talks to me but they never did and he did so I didn't care that he hurt me sometimes and I forget that part and I felt anyway and I needed and I fixed on this one thing which is now in the box.



I don't think he needed to do much for me to pin all my affection and hope on him, since there was no other target at all. A small indication that I was worth a little attention. Everywhere else in my life, I was treated with disdain or indifference.

there's nothing like it. he was all I had. no one can grasp what this did to me, what I was left in, that he had been my only hope of escaping. It wasn't just that I was alone at that moment. I did not connect with others. There was nothing for me ever again. I did not have it in myself to get out, and after that, I couldn't do anything. except hurt. so much. for so long. years. so many years. I have been recovering from this and what my father and mother did to me for all this time. and from what they all did to me, and neglected to do. those who tortured me because I was weak, an easy target, there is nothing recriminating enough to say about them. perhaps I should not say them all, and my resentment is lessening. but I can't believe my life would have been so much different anywhere else. which means any of them probably would have behaved the same, and perhaps did, likely did, to others in troubling circumstances, whether that be to torment or turn a blind eye, or just not bother to offer any kindness.

waterfall

I felt it, knew it before I did drugs. I think I was about 12 when it really peaked. The song is the same, but I don't know the waterfall anymore. So I loved this song. It was part of me. I longed for that waterfall. It was the waterfall itself. Almost. As close as i could get. The waterfall it spoke of wasn't for me, or I just wasn't using the same waterfall. It probably was heroin. I think that would have been my drug, my waterfall. The only reason I didn't do it was I didn't have the opportunity. This truly horrible man I met, hitchhiking probably, when I was 16, injected something in me he said was heroin, if it was, it was very weak. I felt odd and (diffused?) floaty? But mildly, and not pleasantly, but not unpleasant, and confused. Maybe not so much confused as not thinking clearly. The point is, I took an injection of something I had no idea what it was from a person I knew was no good on the off chance it was heroin. For the waterfall. I am not there anymore, but was for a long time. They pushed me there, to the place where I dreamed of the waterfall, even if it wasn't real, even for a little while.




May This Be Love
by Jimi Hendrix

Waterfall
Nothing can harm me at all
My worries seem so very small
With my waterfall

I can see
My rainbow calling me
Through the misty breeze
Of my waterfall

Some people say
Daydreaming's for all the
Lazy minded fools
With nothin' else to do
So let them laugh, laugh at me
So just as long as I have you
To see me through
As long as I have you

sick day

It was such a small space. How could they possibly expect me to answer such a complicated question in a one inch space? Reason for absence? More of an essay question, really. I'd be happy to tell them. They, their school, their country, and my life in it, sucked. I find it intolerable to come here day after day, and sometimes I am incapable of summoning the strength necessary to force myself. That's the condensed version. But even that won't fit into a one inch space. What were they looking for? Was I the first one absent so far? No clues about the answer they were looking for from anyone else's entry. Should it be in sentence form? I have no idea. I have to put something down. I've already stood here too long. I was ill. That will fit. Later, I found they were looking for something much less complex. Sick. Good enough. If you're going to actually answer this question we'll be here all day. I suppose sick does encapsulate it all anyway. Sickness permeates everything.

flash

I sat on a curb, upending a bottle of whiskey. Back then, liquor stores had no qualms about selling to 16 year olds, provided they looked 18, and I did.

A word was said, a sentence I imagine, as I sat there, waiting for the whiskey to alleviate some of my pain. Waiting for anything to happen to take me out of my hell, however briefly. I don't remember the word, or who said it, but it was connected to the boy sitting near me. It referred to a night, a drunken, high night involving him and two others, one of my bungling attempts to escape.

One of the others I liked, one I disliked (his friend), and one, this one, I didn't know. The one I had liked very much, and had gone out with him, sort of, before. There was desperation and fear in all I did then, and after that he stopped talking to me, unable to understand me, and I was unable to explain myself. I thought this was my chance to have him, what I wanted so badly, what I imagined would quell the fire for just a moment. The others were meaningless, they were there, so they would be part of it, as he did not seem inclined towards me on his own. The one I didn't know didn't phase me. The one I didn't like disturbed, but I put it down as the cost of what I imagined I wanted, and ignored what he was.

I don't remember the word, but I remember it hitting me, the anger flashing quickly and intensely, filling me, bursting out. The bottle went up, and came down on the curb, whiskey everywhere, broken glass at the boy's throat. My anger at everything, everyone, at the throat of a scared, innocent kid. He looked in my eyes with fear and desperation and sadness of his own, and said "I was the one who wanted you". All of my anger left; only the desperate sadness remained. I walked away, alone, the boy's statement, and the feeling in his eyes echoing through me with an eerie hopeless yearning and regret. I never saw him again.

17 (interrupted)

I stood, at 17, in the basement of my parents home, looking at the yellow backpack hanging on the wall, deciding. Deciding whether to walk away and never come back to this place, or to leave a world in which only nature had ever treated me kindly.

I started hitchhiking at 16. Looking for escape. Going to bars where I would get drunk and take any and all drugs I could find. What I could find was never much, it was a shit town full of small people. A man who picked me up hitchhiking some weeks before that day made me an offer. He lived in Asbury Park, New Jersey, a couple of hours north of where I lived and offered me a place to stay if I wanted it. He was about 35, and I was dubious, but anything was better than what I had.

So I packed and left. I had a little money, very little, about 200 dollars. Not saved from babysitting, which I tried and failed when I was 14. Not from my brief stint busing tables at Rustler Steak House, which I managed to get through a second cousin and was fired from after a month. On the day of my interview for that job, my mother could not be bothered to drive me, maybe she had a legitimate reason, I don't remember, but I walked the 3 or 4 miles to the restaurant. I was offered a ride by a 25 year old man in a Camaro just before I got to the place. He told me he would wait for me to finish the interview. I was dubious, but I had nothing better in my life and needed something, so I went with him. After smoking a joint and some very aggressive struggling and refusals parked in a field, he drove me home and asked to see me again. I had no great desire to hold on to my virginity, I actually wanted to lose it as soon as possible, but I was not attracted to him. But he had a car and an endless supply of pot (he was a dealer), so I went out with him. Not to mention the fact that he was the only one expressing any interest in me. Though I was attractive, I was strange, and in a great deal of pain. It was a small town, with no art and little intelligence, and little tolerance for deviation.

identity

kelly, janice, jessica probably, i don't remember any of the others. a vagabond, drifting, it occurred to me i could be someone else, and i was terribly desperate to be. janice was chosen for janice joplin, who i imagined myself to be like. an intense tortured soul, misunderstood and damned to misfortune and misery until the self-induced end of a life for a brief time removed from its tormentors, but not released from them. it did not grace me with the epic heart-wrenching eloquent tragedy i imagined; it felt plain and homely and awkward. trailer trash waiting on tables in a cheap, run down diner in some godforsaken wasteland.

whimsy

the whimsical outsiders. the blue and pink haired lady with a pet monkey, the tattooed biker social worker, the old accordion player always stealing jealous glances at the monkey. never a harsh word for anyone; all will share their last morsel. i know these characters are a lie. a lovely fantasy world; a plausible Narnia. plausible only for those who have not visited that wardrobe and seen who really lives there. it is much more like a nature show, people devolve when they find themselves in a struggle to survive. i have been in that struggle. there was one person, in Denver, only one who was not devolved. he found me as i struggled through life at 17, homeless, with no friends or family, emotionally crippled and unable to find any opening to begin to live. he was a biker. he was thin, short, somewhere between 29 and 40, long unkempt beard, wallet chain, jeans and jean jacket, and a motorcycle. he took me to stay with him, it was like a commune almost, a cooperative anyway. there were 3 houses i think, close together. i was never sure who owned what, but they seemed to pool the rent anyway, maybe food too. i shared his bed, but he never touched me. he never wanted anything from me, he only wanted to help me. i was young and messed up. i was into some things that weren't good, but i didn't know what else to do. i was full of hatred for myself and the world. i wasn't there long, maybe a week, maybe it was 2, maybe a month. time was fluid then.

i met a girl and i began a friendship with her. she had her own story. she was on the run from something. she was with a boyfriend and another friend. they invited me to stay with them at an apartment where they were staying; someone was letting them use it. i decided to go, i don't know why. i should have known they were no good when we went to pick up my things and they wanted to rob the people i was staying with. i wouldn't let them. they wanted to take the stereo of the guy whose wife had left him and taken their baby, she was there for one or two days when i first got there. he was torn up over it. i don't know why she left; he always seemed very nice and decent to me. maybe she got tired of not having anything, or maybe there were things i didn't know. there was one other couple, they were very young, not much older than me. he was pumped up and goofy, i didn't care for him at all, or her, a cross between Barbie and Daisy Duke. then there was one other guy, he had long blond hair, an even grungier more countrified Axle Rose with a missing tooth or two. we were all smoking pot one night and he passed me a bottle of cherry juice. it was about a one liter glass bottle, someone got them from where they worked. he was grinning as he passed it to me, a strange possibly malicious grin. i couldn't tell for sure but it made me uncomfortable. what really made me uncomfortable is that i was sure there was less juice in the bottle before he upended it and took a long swig than when he handed it to me. i knew i must be hallucinating, but nevertheless i wouldn't drink it, even though i really would have liked some.

one of them was home when i came for my things. as i was getting ready to get into the car to leave he came frantically telling me not to go until the guy who brought me to stay there (i can't even remember his name now) had a chance to talk to me. i blew them off and left. he had gotten wind of some of the things i was doing and wanted me to stop. that was probably one reasons i left when the opportunity came. and the girl was close to my age and had had a life close enough to mine that i felt like i could have a connection with her, and i had never had a connection with anyone in my whole life, not since i was in sixth grade and had a friendship that lasted a year and a half. that was the longest friendship of a handful that i ever had. i suppose this was why i went. i shouldn't have. it went horribly wrong. they were thrown out of the apartment by the landlord because the person who let them stay there hadn't paid the rent. i came back from a walk to find them sitting outside the door with all of their things. there was a bottle of shampoo of mine they left behind, i really wanted it, i had bought it from the health food store, but the apartment was locked and i couldn't get back in. they wanted me to come with them, but they had no plan beyond going to look for day labor. in the meantime, i met someone who wanted me to come with him to New Orleans. he said he had a job promised to him on the oil rigs that payed $1000 a week, which was damn good money in 1981. i didn't like him at all, but i went. we hitchhiked there, i think the car broke down on the way but i can't remember. he stole all the money i had, $160, while i was sleeping. all i wanted to do was to get away from him. we go into New Orleans and i just walked fast, not knowing where i was or where i was going. he was still there, and we were at a red light. i thought the light changed. i couldn't see well; i needed glasses and had lost them before i left home. i thought i saw other people start to cross. maybe it did and the car ran a red light, i don't know. they said i flew 10 feet. i still have a slight scar above my eye, a chipped tooth that has since been fixed, and a large bump on the outside of my right thigh where the car slammed into me.

it got worse from there. i wish i could find the man who tried to help me. i wish i could tell him how much i appreciated what he did and apologize for leaving the way i did.

beans

that pot of beans.

is it ok if we put hot dogs in it?

ok, she says.

what could she say? it's not like she even has the money to buy her own dried beans or a place to cook them. so she thinks she will eat around the hot dogs and just eat the beans. for some reason she can't understand, they always take exception to her diet. it puzzles them. the story goes like this:


the little girl loves animals. they don't make her feel aberrant and inferior. they are beautiful and perfect when they are in the wild. she is beautiful and perfect when she runs with them alone in the woods. around people, especially in zoos, they become twisted and ugly inside. so now has she.


pass the roast beef. a slice of ham. they never told her what these things really were.

you mean i'm eating a cow!?

i don't like it. but i'm 6, so i can't really shop and cook for myself. this goes on for 9 more years, until two things happen in quick succession to turn things.


the fetal pig.

you will now learn intimately the internal anatomy of a pig.

they want me to cut this thing open and see its organs. i'm squeamish, but interested.


the smell of the formaldehyde is vile. on day three the smell has become unbearable, formaldehyde and decomposing pig. i take the strawberry perfume from my purse and sprinkle it on the pig. immediately i realize my mistake. now these three pungent odors battle it out, formaldehyde, rotting pig, and sickly sweet strawberry. i struggle through the rest of the class somehow not passing out, but coming close to it.


arriving home that evening, i find my mother well-pleased with herself, announcing the rare treat of baked ham for dinner. i spend that night in my room with no appetite.


one week later, at my grandmother's. i had just eaten some soup she fixed for me.


that was an odd clam chowder, i say.


it wasn't clam chowder.


what was it?


pepper pot.


those weren't clams?


no.


then what werethey?


it was tripe.


what's tripe? i ask hesitantly, sure i don't want the answer.


that was when i became a vegetarian. after throwing up for 20 minutes.

back to the red beans. when they were done, i went to fix a plate for myself. they cut the hot dogs (which should have been sausage, but hot dogs were cheaper) into pieces exactly the same size as the beans. a calculated move. i'd seen it before, but never with such an apparent desire to force me into eating meat. was that when i started eating meat again? it was then or soon after. i remember oyster po' boys from Streetcar Sandwiches. the sandwich shop near the end of the streetcar line in New Orleans.

shoes

i lost my only pair of shoes. Dr. Scholl's sandals, with a beige woven canvas strap across the toes. it is strange to have only one pair of shoes, Dr. Scholl's sandals at that, and even more so to be able to lose them. i was in a park. New Orleans, with the red beans man (happily i can't remember his name). we were smoking pot, which i didn't like, though I had asked for it. i didn't like the feeling it gave me. from what i hear from others it's nothing like what most experience. just ugliness and paranoia and confusion. but there are worse things. and i didn't think about those things when i was stoned. i got away. that was how i lost the shoes. just got back into the car without them. coming to my senses, at some point i realized i forgot them. i would later steal shoes when i needed them, but at this point i did not know how. so i got a little money from red beans, before he left to work on the oil rig, something he did for weeks at a time, which was nice, since i didn't like him. i made my way to the shoe store. barefoot. taking the streetcar part of the way. the streetcar was lovely. it was the only good thing about New Orleans. it feels like another world, and i was somewhere else when i rode it. Angle Heart has a scene with the streetcar, it gives a very close approximation of it, but not i suppose, an approximation of the way it felt to me, being so otherworldly already. perhaps that’s why it felt like home. i got off of the streetcar and had to walk for a bit. long enough to burn my feet on the hot asphalt, walking as quickly as i could across the broad streets. finally i see the shoe store, and i imagine my pain will be over soon. i did not feel embarrassed of my condition, though my clothes were poor and i had no shoes. i knew i was caught in a strange existence, and it was not to be the strangest situation i would find myself in. then i walked in. i had no idea that school was starting the very next day. the place was mobbed small children and their mothers. it was horrifying. the juxtaposition of my condition and theirs was more than i could bear; to wait among them for my turn was too much. it was more than that that was horrifying, though; it was the crowds, being in close quarters with those so alien to me. perhaps it was the multitudinous judging, one or two was tolerable; to be ridiculed by a large group is more oppressive.