April 6, 2007

The House On My Street Continued

That summer, the little girl underwent some miraculous changes. She brushed her hair; she went from so thin the docs were worried to 150 pounds. She was already 5’6” so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds, but the kids in school were cruel. Now she was fat and ugly like they said. No one would ever love her, they were right. With that, she also started wearing a C cup bra, about average for an adult woman. The men she encountered seemed to like it as they always looked, whistled or grabbed.

The little girl wasn’t ready for the reality of menstruation and mood swings and not being able to play with boys like the other girls, but nonetheless that was her reality. Her mother had the talk with her. “You have 2 choices, adoption or abortion.” That was the whole talk, and that settled that! No way could she play with boys, as badly as she wanted a baby – after all it was her dream to be a wife and mother – she couldn’t raise one on her own at 9 years old. She didn’t like the attention some of the boys paid her anyway. She wanted positive attention more than anything, but it just didn’t feel positive.

The girls were even crueler, she was fat and ugly and had those huge…things..hanging off her.

The little girl learned she could get attention because of her body.

Her brothers started doing something funny that year too. Whenever she would be in the bathtub, they would pick the lock on the bathroom door and open it up while she was in there. Usually they had a friend behind them looking through the door too. They would laugh and laugh when she was startled and tried to hide beside the wall of the tub, just anything so they couldn’t see her. They would do this 3 or 4 times whenever she was in the bath. They stopped doing it when she stopped being startled and let them and their friend look all they wanted.

The little girl learned to keep her shame to herself.

Her Mother was constantly threatening to leave, to abandon her like so and so’s mother did, she was becoming increasingly violent now that the little girl was growing up. She would yell for hours about what her brothers had done and constantly complain that the little girl did not do enough. The little girl started teaching herself to cook for the family. It wasn’t too good at first, but it got better. The little girl started doing her own laundry, which worked out well because now Mom couldn’t tell her she was too much of a slob to have white shirts or yell about spots. She began to wake her mom up in the mornings and say she was too sick to go to school. Her mom liked to sleep in, so she would say ok and go back to bed. The little girl missed so many days she dropped out.

The little girl learned you can quit.

Fast forward a few years –

The little girl is now 12 years old. She has some friends. She has no curfew.

There is the Sarah – the girl she met when her brother tried to get her to beat up the girl.

There is Ben – He’s 21 and just home from the service. He has alcohol and drugs.

There is Pete – who is really her older brother’s friend, but since he saw Sarah with the girl he is now their friend. He likes Sarah and Sarah likes drugs. Pete supplies the whole neighborhood so he always has some of what you need.

There is Bella – who is 16 and stayed back a year in school. She loves Rock n Roll and pot.

All these friends! Where did she meet them? The woman the little girl has become cannot recall. Most of those years are in a pot smoke haze and better off forgotten.

The little girl was learning so much! People liked her! They really did! She was funny, and she was charming and she was LOVED! Lots of men paid her attention, just like they always did from the time Daddy would take her to meet his friends and to the bar but not attention like you pay to someone special. She didn’t get that elusive gold star from men the way she wanted. She wanted one that thought she was special on the inside too.

Ben. Ben paid her attention. “From the minute your Mom picked me up hitchhiking down the road a few years ago and I saw you in the backseat sleeping I wanted to meet you.” He would tell her. He would tell her a lot of sweet things like that; things that made her feel special. He would bring her another beer and light the bong again and tell her she was sexy. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with the 9 years between them. Men had always said she was pretty and had a beautiful body. Boys didn’t have any interest in her, so she had no interest in them. She was looking for someone to love her, to cherish her, to make her special. She believed in love and waiting for marriage and that what she had physically was as special as the person inside was not.

Ben had one drink too many one night and pinned her down to a bed in the house they were in.

The girl learned her worth.

She made Sarah promise not to leave her alone with Ben, and she told her why. Sarah was really doing well with it, until Pete asked her to go somewhere. Still, the girl was able to avoid him or shame him into letting her pass the rest of the night.

Sarah would set up scenarios that would cause the girl to be hurt. She didn’t care about the girl and only kept her around for entertainment. She constantly talked badly about the girl to Pete, the girls’ brothers who did NOT need more ammunition and anyone else in their circle. The girl found out after a few years.

The girl learned betrayal.

A few years later, the girl is 15, now that she had her first ‘boyfriend’ under her belt set her sights on another of her brother’s friend. Bob was special, he was fun! The girl didn’t care that he couldn’t read or that he flirted with all the girls. She was going to get him!

She rides a borrowed bike the 5 blocks to his house. She convinces him it is OK for her to be out just like it always is. She really just wants to escape the turmoil at home, the constant fear of no where to live because Mom hasn’t paid the mortgage to the beatings to the verbal abuse.

For some reason Mom picked tonight to try to be a mother. She shows up at his door demanding to see the girl. She has a belt in her hand. She smacks the girl with it and tells her to get her ass home. She follows the girl out the door beating her all the way. The girl rides her bike home through the rain with her mom following in the car behind. She knows better than to take any shortcuts or ride where the car can’t go. She is humiliated, cold and wet.

When her mother gets her home the yelling and hitting starts anew. The woman cannot recall

the whole incident, but she recalls a little – “You are a whore! You do not pursue men! Since you like boys you can earn your living with your ass instead of giving it away free!” The end result of the entire incident, as the woman recalls it, is Mom wanted her to go out the next day and start hooking so that the mortgage could be paid. The next day, the girl went out and OD’d with Pete and Sarah.

Over the years the friends faded away, Sarah and Pete had a baby and broke up every other day. Ben was homeless last she knew. Bella, she went down South somewhere, the girl did not know what happened, she just moved one day. Bob had a baby with several women, got married and his younger brother is now serving time for molesting one of his daughters.

Again, this is not quite what was intended but I hope you enjoyed it.

More later….