I’ve stopped and started this ‘book’ about a dozen times. The temptation to write it won’t let me push it out of my mind. I’ve tried making it ‘like a novel’, I’ve tried making it like the things I read, I’ve tried loading it up with emotion. But it all reads fake to me. This time, I’m just going to write it like I remember it. I can’t even say it is the truth, I can only say it is what I recall. Maybe that will be enough.
My first memory is my grandmother, bathing me in the kitchen sink. I think about her and three things come to my mind, the smell of Rubin Lilies that blanketed her coffin, the look of her face, wreathed in smiles, and the look of her face when she sat in the intensive-care unit, silently begging me to stay when my own fear of death would not permit me to do so. To this day, I regret all the things we might have talked about before she lapsed into coma.
Still, my first memory is of her, how she laughed as I splashed. I really do not remember much about my baby days. I recall snatches of things, the cot I slept on and my younger sister in the crib beside me. The scary neighbors who were loud and had long, unhappy faces. I vaguely remember my mom and dad from that time, and looking back, I remember they never actually looked at each other. Their life together was glances that went past, words that landed and died between them.
My parents abandoned my sister and I to my grandmother when I was three. At the time, grandmother lived in a small trailer in East Point, Georgia. Her husband, ——-, drove a truck for S.S. Kressgie, who was at that time the warehouse and distributor for K-Mart. I don’t remember seeing much of ——-. He was a quiet man at home, and I remember he ate like a horse, and that you could set your clock to his intestines. Grandmother, ——-, and myself, we’d be sitting in the living room watching television in the early evening, Grady already in bed for a pre-dawn departure, and from their bedroom, the most amazing sound. Something like a fog horn, or maybe a oil tanker coming into port. The three of us would look at one another and smother laughter. Eight-Thirty Prime Meridian. Like clockwork.
Actually, that last paragraph skips from age three to age twelve. Strange how, after all this time, I still try to automatically jump over those years. But not today.
The days in East Point are so uneventful that I am hard pressed to write about them. I remember the daycare center, the colorful van with Muppets painted on it. I remember that we loved going to the center. I remember we watched Sesame Street. I remember bolting from the van in the afternoons to a welcoming hug, that wreath of a smile, and some manner of treat before the quiet evening rituals took place.
I remember my sister telling the next door neighbor that grandmother had gotten a speeding ticket, and the horrified embarrassment of grandma. I remember ——- being made to ‘fess up to that lie and pitching a fit over having to do so.
The two years between age three and five were peaceful, uneventful, normal. Weekends were spent at my great-grandparents home on Butner road. A huge lawn, an even larger back yard, and several acres of flowers, fruit trees, and vegetable garden, weekends with ——- and ‘——-’ were wild, free times. ——- and I roamed the yard, smelled the roses, ate fresh cherries in spite of being threatened with sore tummies and ‘ruining your dinner’. We rolled arms and legs flailing down the grassy slope of the yard and forever soiled and spoiled the clothing grandma patiently sewed for us. We churned fresh peach ice-cream, and explored ——-’s basement carpentry shop and fancied ourselves master carpenters, hammering huge nails into tiny boards and presenting them with a flourish for his approval.
One ritual in particular I recall, ——-’s wolf impressions. The door from garage to den open, we peek around the corner and there he sat, a tall, lithe, handsome man, silvered hair and perpetual smile. To catch his eye, however, was to unleash the wolf. It was, of course, unavoidable.
Raising his hands slowly, ruffing his hair until it stood on end, puffing up chest and leaning forward, he slowly came off the recliner and then…. A wild and growling rush to the music of our shrieks of fright and delight, which ended in two young girls caught up from the floor and lifted high for hugs. ——- and grandma laughing and one or the other insisting he ‘really must stop that’ before he ‘scared those poor girls to death’. The smile he gave us and our own conspiratorial looks insured many happy moments of utter panic over time.
I don’t really remember things changing. Looking back, I do not see any moment in my memory when the faces around me were different, sadder, or in any way abnormal. Which is, I suppose, why what happened rattled me the way it did. And why it has taken me the better part of my life to recover from the world-shattering events that occurred in the summer of my fifth year.
Grandma was always talking to us about summer camps, but we never actually made it to them. We’d chitter and dream about pony rides and arts and crafts and swimming pools, but summer would come and weekends with ——- and ——- continued and honestly, I do not recall caring that we didn’t go.
The spring of 1970 found Grandma once more talking about summer camps and interesting things to do. I think even by then, I had learned a more ‘wait and see’ method. So when she spoke to us about playgrounds and swimming pools, about socializing with other kids our age, and big expanses of grass, I didn’t think anything of it. When ——- and ——- joined in to tell us how lucky we were going to be to go to this magical place, it didn’t register that anything would really be any different. When the day arrived and we loaded up in the car to actually go, I still think I was skeptical.
Then we got there. It was like a little village in the middle of nowhere. They called it ‘[removed]’. Four cottages dotted an open expanse of forest, flagpole with tulips placed in the middle, and basketball courts on diagonal ends of the middle lawn. A huge playground to the west, and small hills studded with dogwoods.
Of course, the first thing ——- and I noticed were the kids. My lord, there were kids all over the place. We exited the car and holding grandma’s hand tightly, followed as ——- and ——- knocked on the door.
I didn’t understand why there would be four houses this big. I was looking for the log cabins I had heard about… I didn’t see those. But then, the door opened and a pair who looked very much like my ——- and ——- waved us inside.
The house was beyond anything I’d ever seen before… a huge dining room behind the couple, an equally large den to our left, and past that, a long hallway going left, which was dotted on either side with doorways. I saw what I later learned was an old pinball machine, and a beat-up pool table around which some older kids were playing at Moschoni. All along the hallway were chests in which books, toys, and building blocks were barely contained. I looked up at grandma, my bouncy, eager question plastered across my face, and the lady of the couple laughed, ‘You can play if you like, ——-. My name is Mrs. —– and I’m the houseparent here. If you get lost or need anything, just tell one of the kids to bring you to me.’
About that time, an older girl arrived and smiled to me, ‘Hi. My name is —-. What’s your name?’ I told her and she held out her hand. I let her lead me off to play.
I do not recall time passing. I looked around and noticed it was night. I suddenly realized I’d not even gone looking for grandma when it was dinner time and figured I was in for some trouble. —- had gone to play with kids her age and the ones I was playing with on the playground were starting to break up and disperse toward one of the four houses. It took me a moment to figure out which one I had come from, but when I did, I bee-lined back to it, entering from the hallway door and moving along the hall to the living area where I’d left the —–s and my family.
Mr. & Mrs. —– were watching television in the living area, and the sofas and chairs and floor were dotted with about twelve to fifteen kids ranging in age from five to seventeen. I stood behind them a while, waited for a commercial, then tugged on Mrs. —–’s shoulder, leaning in to ask where my family was, because I was hungry and ready to go home.
Mrs. —– took me into the largest kitchen I’ve ever seen in my life. She made me a sandwich, handed me a glass of Kool-Aid, and led me to a table to eat. When I had finished, she explained to me that I was living here now… and that my family had gone back to their homes.
I don’t remember my reaction. I don’t remember the feeling of the moment. All I know is how it feels now, thirty-four years later. I do remember that I hide in a playskool post-office receptacle and eventually feel asleep in it. And I remember that the only reason they found me was my deviated septum gave me away with snoring. I woke up in a twin bed within a room shared with two other girls. They told me to get up and get dressed, because it was time to go have breakfast. So I did.
They walked with me to the dining room, where three tables were arranged. I took an open seat by Mrs. —– and had breakfast. After breakfast, the kids went to a large bulletin board and reviewed a list to figure out what their chores were for the day. Mrs. —– explained to me that everyone in a cottage had a job to do, and lead me over to see what my job would be for today. I asked her when was my family going to come pick me up? She turned her face away and did not reply.
I do not remember much of the first year beyond this. I remember crying at night. I remember feeling lost. I remember wondering what I had done wrong that my family didn’t want me anymore. I remember feeling that I must be a very bad person because my family didn’t want me. I remember wondering what was wrong with me, trying to figure it out so I could fix it and they would love me again, they would want me to be at home with them.
The days at the children’s home blur together for me. There are incidents that stand out, things ugly and abnormal that happened back in the days before they screened people prior to letting them in contact with children. There was the man who liked to teach girls how to play piano and would tell them how pretty their breasts were, and touch them as they played. There was the man who enjoyed spanking kids too much. There was the man who chased me down the hallway and even into my bedroom, reaching for me as I cringed in the corner against the wall because the beds were attached to the walls and he didn’t fit and couldn’t get me… and how my screams brought another kid who wanted to know what was going on and saved me. That time. There was the psychologist who wanted me to tell him about the man who taught piano and who, when I wouldn’t, took it upon himself to ‘re-enact’ things as he figured they happened. I remember how ashamed I felt, his hand on me, rubbing and touching me and my heart thumping like a rabbit because I couldn’t get away… because even if I told, they would believe him and not me. After all, he would whisper to me as he touched me, he was an adult and grown ups always stick up for each other.
Looking back, I know that was no home to help and heal children. That was hell. My family consigned me to hell for reasons I do not know and likely would never understand. After six months, I was permitted to go visit my family on weekends and holidays. But things were changed. Different. Spoiled. Their guilt was written in their faces. My hurt and anger were, I’m sure, written on mine. The grass and gardens were the only things clean and unchanged. I preferred them. They were honest and could be no other way.
[ed. note: this leaves off about 1971-ish. i’ve never really had the motivation to do more, since it just gets uglier from here.]