Me Six, Seven, Eight

I know a girl that I went to school with in the seventh and eighth grades at St. Andrew's, who wore coats buttoned up to her neck, shy, quiet, gentle.  Her uniform was clean and pressed, a small gold cross hung under her buttoned collar.  Her father was using her to make pornographic films with himself and his friends, you never would have guessed.  I found out when she turned up in one of the therapy groups that I attended, except she was not much more emotionally older than that shy teenager she once was.  Her face was blank, she was working with the counselor to achieve being able to leave her apartment without a panic attack.  It never leaves you.

She remembered me, and was able to talk about what happened to her and her sister, that she had reconciled with her father, he had come over for a supervised lunch.  What good did that do her?  If mine had come for lunch and I had a gun, I would have cheerfully shot him.

My father had something horribly wrong with him, he hated women and would give Sunday night talks about how he beat a few up, they deserved it.  His Catholic fervor was amped up to a scream by his alcoholism, but then it was the same thing the priests lectured on at Mass, what did I have to compare anything with? Don't think impure thoughts, but examine your conscience several times a day to check for impure thoughts.  What an impure thought was eluded me, nor did I realize it wasn't meant for children, at least under the age of seven, the Age of Reason.

I was admonished by my father to keep my soul pure, but what on earth was that?  I was also told not to eat a chocolate bar too soon after an orange, that if I drank milk, it was to be before eating my orange, that too much chocolate would give you worms, and if I swallowed my gum, my appendix would explode.  At an early age, it came to be a given that my parents were not to be believed on things that had to do with reality.  Nothing was real.

Yet, bolstered by Sunday Mass sermons and all the rules and regs held dear by the Church, there were some things reinforced by majority rule.  The nuns who taught religious education suggested that we use Jesus as a playmate if we were alone.  Good luck with that; I tried making mud pies with Jesus as my invisible friend, and decided that I was on my way to the looney bin.  We were to pray to our guardian angel to keep us safe from sin, so I lay in bed many a night praying to the unseen force to please keep my father away, but no spear of righteous lightning ever saved the day.  I was convinced that I didn't believe hard enough.

My mother wasn't Catholic, my father complained that she wasn't Catholic so he couldn't really talk Scripture with her, as if he ever did anyways.  At least not in a studious way.  He'd rip out choice lines that pointed out how women are unclean whores, how Noah's daughters got him drunk in order to lay with him, how honoring your father meant he could do what he pleased.  Mom was sad all the time, wasn't allowed friends, and anything that she cared for would eventually get destroyed.  Living was crazy, a whirlpool of threats and unbalanced reasoning, a maelstrom of God and molestation.  

Thing was, and this reinforced the belief that women were expendable property, my adolescent cousin began his turn.  He was a mess who slept on rubber sheets wired with an alarm that would sound when he wet the bed.  My aunt and uncle lived next door to us, way out in the sticks, there were no other kids to play with except for my three cousins.  Half the time I was forbidden to play with them, if my father had a slam down argument with my mouthy uncle, my mother's brother.

My cousin would pin me down and spit in my face, or jump on me, naked, from his bedroom or in their garage.  When we moved away, it was glorious.  I didn't tell anyone because it was all part of God's Bible that men had the upper hand, so to speak.  Women were leeches, cesspools, harlots; be happy there's a roof over your head.

I still had my father to contend with, but since moving to the burbs, there was something different in the air; going over to friend's homes began an uncomfortable truth that the way we lived was not the way most other people did.  Fathers were nice, if somewhat removed from raising their children, but they didn't make remarks about their daughters showing/not showing signs of puberty.  No one said the words whore, or prostitute, or tramp.  My father earned the reputation as the crazy neighbor, which flowed over onto me and my brother. No one wanted us kids over, if we somehow got hurt, they would be dealing with him, which they did not want.

Even so, a relative climbed into our bed when I was staying over with a cousin at their house; he kissed us, introducing his tongue into our mouths, something I had not experienced before.  We were nine years old, it didn't seem like he was leaving anytime soon. His wife came looking, saw what was going on, and got the other company to haul him out of the bed. Everyone shushed us up when we complained about the taste in our mouths, that his tongue was used.  Don't tell. Protect him, protect the family, god knows what would happen. You're lying. Tell the feeling when you go to someone whom you love, ask for help, and be told that it's a lie you made up for attention.

Men lurked behind doors, pulled up in cars to ask what time it was then exposed themselves; a group in a car slowed down to ask me and my friend if we would like to get raped.  So many others, so much more.  Going to get pumpkins, the farmer slid next to me and groped my rear while saying that the big ones were 'over there'.  I was with a boyfriend who thought that was the funniest thing ever. He what?  Said the big ones were over there, then squeezed your ass?  Picking my son up from karate, the owner pushed me against the wall, I want you right there.  I couldn't get away, thank heavens another mother came in.  Chopping vegetables in a restaurant, what do you plan to do with that carrot, Susie?  Ho ho. Followed into the house from the pool.  Hired from the agency to "fill out" a party and show the guests a good time.  If you didn't agree with the "good time" part, you weren't considered a team member and had other modeling jobs cancelled; I quit.  

For the most part, men unsettle me.  I like the idea of them, but you never know what they are thinking but wait yes I do think I know what they are thinking.  It's not true, though; it can't be.  Yet you read of women in far away countries who are shot for going to school, murdered for watching a banned movie, burned with an iron to the face for leaving the house.  Living through the intensity of your mother being threatened with decapitation at least once a month, you believe it.

This is my story, not anyone else's, nor can it represent what anyone else has gone through, some more, some less.  The Church still runs lives with sexual guilt; do you know that if a divorced Catholic remarries another divorced Catholic in a government ceremony, they are not to consummate the marriage, but live as brother and sister?  Really?  I cannot resolve my common sense with the Church and no longer consider myself a part, my God and their God are two different ideas.

But I like to imagine that I'm okay, lived through it, and continue to contribute and function.  It takes patience to get to know me, I don't let many people in and am reasonably happy with cats.  I'm working on that.  Being more open, that is.  I have enough cats.

The body of a young officer lost in an accident four days ago was recovered today; the swift current of this river makes for a murky bottom and dangerous undertows.  A darling friend posted a photo of the moon hanging over Venus in morning display, a beautiful moment in time.  Good and bad exist within the same hour, I like to imagine that good supersedes the remainder, yet it does not erase the memory.  There is no medicine for that but to live.

Sleep then, safely, with or without angels.  Your talisman is your knowledge of what was and what can be, your wishes, your love.  No one can take that from you.  Flow into the tides of night, stir the sky with your broom that whisks away the webs and clears the stars for them to shine.  Brightly.  Oh ocean, oh trees, oh animals except for the bitey, sting-y ones, how I love you, love this life.  Let me live, if only in my dreams.  Good night.  You are safe.