Squirrel Cage (9 page)

I figured out who Santa was as a result.
I could tell that his Rusty had betrayed him.
He must not have had a
Squirrel
to help him solve the problem of passing as Santa. I even knew that he was the Bishop at our church.
Bad Santa. Bad Santa. Bad Cindi.
“Cindi?” I liked that name.
It was similar to a girl I knew who I adored.
Thanks Santa and
Squirrel
.
I can be called Cindi and the bishop can be called Santa.
His is okay because… why is it okay?
Why did he lie to me?
Why can Cindi not do the same?

“Cindi, you know that you can never be caught,”
Squirrel
told me.
“Santa can show himself but Cindi must never
be found out
”.
I knew that the
Squirrel
had wisdom, that I must never show myself. These were very complex thoughts for a child of only
five
years old.

My collection soon outgrew the place in the chest of drawers.
I had to look for something bigger.
I had shoes and a Barbie doll now and I knew they must never be found.
I tried burying them in a plastic bucket in the back yard.
But that didn’t work for long.
I had to keep the lid tight on the bucket or dirt and moisture would get in there and ruin my precious shoes. And then the perfect place revealed itself.
Dad had “finished the basement” soon after we moved in.
This included actually finishing one room, covering a wall down the middle of the basement with pine wood, and plastering and paint on the walls.
I know that dad spent a lot of time on it and the cost was significant to him.
But it wasn’t really finished. Under the stairs, I had access to space between the studs of the finished wall and the
sheetrock
of the
stairway
that descended into the basement.
There was a lot of room up in there.
I could
hide
my precious things in those unknown spaces
.

My stealing did not stop.
I felt terribly guilty with each acquisition.
But I could not stop myself.
This was the only thing that made me happy, truly happy, or so I thought.
In reality
,
I was becoming frustrated and empty. Dichotomy pitched evil against righteousness.
It pulled me apart. I continuously felt guilty. I was desperate and as I grew older
,
the desperation evolved into utter hopelessness.

I found other hiding places.
I used other chests of drawers.
I actually hid a couple things in my mothers’ chest of drawers.
Right among her own things in a drawer that I knew she didn’t open much.
Talk about the perfect place.
What would she say if she ever found these things?
Who would she blame?
Oh, this spot was perfect. But everything had to be Mom neat in the drawer and it was.

I had a friend who had some sisters. His family would leave the back door unlocked if they weren’t home.
I would knock on the door and if no one answered, I would walk in.
I got caught once but I just asked if my friend was home.

“No, he’s not here.”
I calmly left.
“
Oh you are a clever
Squirrel
.
”
The sisters lost some undergarments and several pairs of hose.
One of them lost some very cool foam breast forms.
I knew her secret.
I
t was the perfect heist.
Who was she going to tell?
How did I know what these forms were?
Why did the
Squirrel
help me learn the tricks of stealing and hiding but not s
how me how to really be a girl?

A year after I learned to read, I discovered the physical differences between boys and girls.
My mother kept her tampons in the bathroom and I always wondered what they were for.
She caught me several times extracting the telescoping tubes from the trash and playing with them.
They were very cool.
You could make them short and you could make them long.

“Get that filthy thing out of your hand! You are not to play with those!” she would tell me sternly.

“But what is it Mommy?”
“You do not need to know what those are.”

Here was a challenge for the
Squirrel
.
“What are these things?”

“Look there is some icky stuff on this one.
It looks kinda like blood.”

“Look in the box Cindi,” the
Squirrel
prodded.
There were clean ones in there. I stole one from the box.
“After you open this, you must destroy the evidence
.
”

I tore the package apart and saw that new ones had a soap on a string thing.
“Hmm, what is this for?”

“Look in the box Cindi.”
And then I discovered a small pamphlet with drawings.
And I hid in the bathroom with the door locked while I read this thing.
It was difficult.
I was only in first grade and I had to sound out the words.
And many of them were things that I didn’t understand.
But the drawings belied all.
Not only was I not a girl, I was
so
physically different.
I decided to keep the pamphlet.
I put it in my secret place with my Barbie.
As the years went by, I slowly was able to understand each word and each piece of anatomy described in the pamphlet.
It was well worn and yellowed by the time it went into the trash.

8, 9, 10,
My birthdays came and went.
The Rusty stopped making his appearances in my dreams.
I had known for some time that the Rusty
and Squirrel weren
’t real.
I remembered and dreaded the mere thought of
them
. I knew the fear and shame of being seen in girl clothes.
Rusty
had shown me.
I could never, ever forget the Rusty.
Rusty faded away
from my dreams
b
ut
Squirrel
never left
my waking consciousness
. The
Squirrel
was not a childhood nightmare.
The
Squirrel
was my deep seated and conscious secret thoughts.
I
t learned to run faster.

In my early teens, the activity of dressing up turned sexual.
One night as I was dressed in my girl clothes, I had the sudden urge to run to the bathroom.
Instead of urine, a white creamy material fell into the toilet.
I knew that it was sperm.
I knew that I had committed an egregious sin. I was so ashamed and I vowed to never again dress up.
My promise to myself lasted one week.
The sexual aspects clouded my true desires from that point forward.
It confused me.
I could not understand why the act of becoming a girl forced this thing to happen to me.
The
Squirrel
told me I was a pervert and I knew that it was true.

There could be no other person in the entire world as disgusting and perverted as I.
What was I becoming?
How would everyone treat me when they found out?
I knew that I would surely die if anyone did find out. And I knew deep in my heart that I wanted to be caught.
I needed the release, to be punished, for my maleness to die.
But my stash was never discovered and I was never “caught” wearing girl clothes.
There was one close call.

Mom and Dad left for a special event and I would have hours at home and alone.
This would be a few hours when I would be a girl for the whole time.
I took my boy clothes off and went to the bathroom to put on my girl clothes.
Mom had forgotten something.
They had returned and I had not heard the truck outside.
The back door opened with a sonic boom in my ears. “Oh Crap!
They are home.”
What was I going to do?
My boy clothes were in my bedroom.
I was dressed as a girl standing in the bathroom.
I quickly removed my precious articles and hid them in the hamper under a skanky wet towel.

I quickly washed the makeup from my face and then I walked out with my boy shorts on to see what was up.
Mom looked at me and asked sternly “what are you doing with your clothes off?’
Now the
Squirrel
had always helped me prepare a backup plan, a path of retreat, and always, a clever answer.
I stood there stupefied. The
Squirrel
had not anticipated that they would return after only 15 minutes.
Of course the very best answer in the world would have been that I was preparing to take a bath.
Why this did not occur to me I’ll never know.
Instead I responded “Mom, no one is here, it’s a warm day, and no one can see me.
So who cares if I run around the house with nothing on?”

“Are you sure nothing is going on?” as she looked me in the eyes.

“Sure Mom. Nothing is
wrong,” was my response to her
.
I felt as though I were saying “I dunno” all over again just as I had done the first time I was caught stealing.

Now I had added a huge lie to the black book of Cindi Sins.
The pervert not only was a stealer, but also a liar.
It hurt.
But it also got me off the hook.
Mom picked up her keys or purse or whatever it was that she had come back for.
I suppose that she thought that it would be
all right
if I ran around the house with nothing but my shorts on.
Perhaps she thought that it was a sure clue that I would not be having a party.

At fourteen, I quit stealing.
I had discovered that I could push the embarrassment aside for brief moments while I shopped and purchased clothing for myself.
B
efore long, I learned that with long hair, I could actually pass as female.
During the seventies, men’s and women’s clothing were colorful, blasted with streaks of flowers, and platform shoes were in style.
And best of all, it was cool to have long hair
… a
nd I knew that I had beautiful hair much to the consternation of my Father.
He told me constantly, in a derogatory way that I looked like a girl.
Although the comment was mean spirited, I loved it.
I loved you daddy for telling me.
I received similar comments from my
hairdressers
.
They always told me that I
“
should be a girl with hair like this”.
Yes, thank you very much. I knew more than they could ever comprehend.

I purchased a beautiful girl’s button up
blouse
with strips of peach flowers.
I had a matching pair of velvet peach colored hip huggers. I also purchased a pair of girl’s white bell bottoms.
Oh, how I treasured these things.
I did not need to hide them.
They hung proudly in my closet.
I thought this would slow the
Squirrel
down, that it would find some peace.
No.
The
Squirrel
kept running, showing even more ways to move one step ahead with my desires, find new sins to commit, and ever solidify my pervert status.

Many times I went out in my favorite clothes; I was sometimes treated as a girl. I loved it.
No…. no more stealing. Now I could get what I wanted with money. Money was easy to earn. I collected pop bottles, did chores around the house, and took every chance to make a
few dollars to buy my clothes.
I wore my blouses and girl’s bell bottoms for two yea
rs with no one being the wiser.
I wore them to school, to church functions, and everywhere else. It made me very happy to wear the things that I wanted and to come off as a girl when I wanted.
But it did not stop the
Squirrel
. And my ability to pass would not last long.
I knew that I would mature as I aged and that masculine features would soon conquer my face
and voice
.

I would not let my mother touch my girl clothes. I did not want her to ruin them in hot water or throw them into the dryer. I religiously washed my girl bell bottoms myself in cold water.
I would carefully iron them every time I would wear them.
I knew that Mom wondered why I was so careful with these, my precious things.
Many times she offered to wash them.
I would not let her touch them.
I can only wonder what went through her mind.