Underneath It All (3 page)

It had been weeks since the attack in the field. I told no one ... desperate to forget it even happened. I said nothing in my diary, afraid that if I wrote the words or dared utter them aloud I'd be found out. The thought of my father knowing a boy put his thing in me filled me with shame. I was certain his love would be gone forever, and at ten years old the thought of being hated by my daddy was unbearable. Silence was my only salvation. If no one knew, maybe I was innocent.
Forcing thoughts of Ricky out of my head, I pretended it was all a dream. But as the weeks dragged on, memories of that day haunted me. I couldn't shake it. Every blond boy at school became Ricky. His presence was
everywhere
, following me around like a ghost. I was afraid of my own shadow. I felt hollow inside . . . gutted and raw ... left with nothing but an empty carcass to carry me to fourth grade. Deeply wounded, I turned my back on myself, refusing to meet my own eyes in the mirror when I dressed for school.
I wished I were someone else. I hated myself . . . everything about me . . . even my stupid name. Who names their daughter Nora anyway? Why couldn't I have a pretty, popular name like Lisa or Tina or Traci?
I started pretending to be other people, borrowing my identities straight from Saturday-morning television. I was a cowgirl with a big fat mustache who could shoot her enemies dead, a flying fairy dressed in pink, a mouse that stole cheese from a big cat named Tom.
I preferred my make-believe world, discovering a place where I had total control.
Months had passed since Ricky hurt me, but it still felt fresh. I was confused by what had happened. Was sex always violent? Was it supposed to be that way? I didn't know for sure. I only knew that I felt unbelievably sad . . . like I had been robbed. But was I part of it? Was I an accomplice in the theft of my own body? I went there. I waited for him . . . welcomed his sweet lips . . . even felt pleasure at first. What did that mean?
Was I guilty too?
I spoke to no one at school, ashamed of my swelling breasts and secret past. Hiding behind my long wheat-colored hair, I tried desperately to disappear. I became obsessed with understanding what I was going through, spending all my free time scanning books in the school library, certain there must be a book with answers to my questions. I discovered an author named Judy Blume, who wrote about young girls and sex, and was shocked to find some of the girls were just as curious to know about sex as I was! Maybe I wasn't a freak after all. What if everyone thought these things?
But how could that be? Why would my father say sex was the devil's work if it wasn't?
What was going on!
The more I read, the more confused I became. Passages on menstruation and pregnancy held me transfixed as I realized I couldn't have a baby—I didn't even have my period yet! But why hadn't anyone told me any of this? Was it true, or did books lie too?
I slammed the book closed and flung it across the table, suddenly aware of my public outburst when the school librarian told me to collect my things and "behave like a lady." Glaring at
her, I stomped out and stared down my giggling classmates. My eyes screamed, Don't fuck with me...
Liars! Robbers! I was a runaway train, challenging everyone on the way home with an anger I couldn't even fathom. Come on, I was saying. Take me on!
Cutting through the Jewish cemetery as the crisp fall air stung my lungs, I hopped over the graves of dead people and muttered, "Excuse me," not wanting to disturb the resting souls and remembering what the minister at our United Methodist Church said about respecting the dead. Did one have to die to be respected?
By the time my feet sank in the marshy grass near the end of the cemetery, my mind was crystal clear. Blood was pumping through my veins and it felt good. Adrenaline, I thought, smiling to myself. I had discovered its release.
My mother was taping boxes together when I got home. I guess she couldn't pay the rent again, I thought, making my way toward the kitchen for some water. I slammed the refrigerator door for some acknowledgment. She said nothing and ignored me as she finished loading a box of dirty clothes. For the first time ever, I lashed out.
"
Mother!
" I screamed, startling her. "Where are we going this time?" I stood fuming in the kitchen doorway.
"Hey," she said firmly, "don't make a fuss. Your sisters will be home any time now and you need to help me pack up. We're moving this weekend to Mingo Junction. Don't worry, it's just until Mom gets back on her feet."
I stomped across the living room, making a huge display of flinging the bedroom door open, and locked myself inside. I didn't care about leaving this dump — I just wanted to be seen! Why was it always about my mother getting back on her feet? What about us? Sitting in the corner of the room, I could hear my sisters coming home. Lorraine pounded on the door and demanded entrance. I lifted myself from the floor and unlocked the door.
Maybe the next house would give me my own bedroom.
The following Saturday we moved again. This time it was fifty miles down the Ohio River to a foul little town called Mingo Junction. We looked like a traveling circus with our bags strapped to the top of Mom's beat-up brown car.
Moving was nothing new to us girls. Mom dragged us from dump to dump at least once a year. We had no permanent home, but at least constant change was one thing I could count on in my life. Mom would run out of money, unpaid rent would add up, and sooner or later we'd have to leave and start all over again. We knew she felt bad about dragging us around, and maybe that's why we said so little about it. She was our mother and we loved her. Besides, what did four girls under twelve know anyway?
Maybe the change would be good for us this time. Maybe the move would help me forget about Ricky.
Driving up the steep hill toward our new residence, I felt safer already. I closed my eyes and thanked God, thinking of what I would say to him on Sunday—it was time for me to at least tell God what had happened. It was settled. When Daddy dropped us off at Sunday school, I would confide in the Lord. But wait a minute. Why did Daddy drop us off? Why didn't he ever come in? If God was as important as Dad said, why did he ignore Him? If Dad didn't trust God, maybe I shouldn't either. And why was God a Him? Is that why boys were better than girls?
I looked at my sisters to see if they were struggling too, but I saw no trace of worry on their faces. Why was I so tortured by these thoughts when they weren't? Was I the bad seed? Daddy said there was one in every family. Was he talking about me?
Good grief . . . would it ever end?
Lorraine hummed a song to herself, her golden hair resting on the backseat of Mom's car. She saw me staring at her and wrapped her arm around me. "Don't worry, sissy," she said, "it's not so bad." Yes it is! I wanted to cry. Tell her everything! But I couldn't speak. I could only stare at her in awe and hope that one day maybe I would be as peaceful and strong and pretty as she was.
Our next place was the smallest one yet: a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a weathered building at the top of a long and winding road. It was pouring outside, and the dark fall skies were a perfect backdrop to the stormy mood that had come over me during the ride. I pressed my face against the window in the backseat and watched my hot breath fog up the glass. Some people with cameras were making a movie called
The Deer Hunter
outside, and we had to wait for their car to come by before we could park and unload our stuff.
As I watched them shoot pictures of our new neighborhood, I wondered if the man in the movie hunted deer like our daddy. I thought of the deer's vacant eyes staring straight ahead as it swung from a rope in Dad's backyard. The memory made me feel sick and I was glad when Mom finally pulled into our new carport, leaving the film crew behind.
It was Saturday and normally we'd be at our father's house eating mountains of sweets by now. But we had to move boxes in the rain. As I climbed the stairs to our new apartment I thought of my father. I dreaded him picking us up the following day. We all knew he would be angry—he always was when we moved. I'm not sure if he was angry because he had to drive twenty minutes farther to collect us, or if he was disappointed that a day had been taken off his weekend visit.
I liked to believe the latter, but I wasn't sure if it was true.
Looking back on those times, I think he was just plain angry-that his life hadn't turned out as he wanted it to. A divorced father who worked in a steel mill was a far cry from the oceanologist dream he shared with my mother when they first met. Perhaps my father felt robbed too.
Dubbed "the science experiment" by my father, my mother's new boyfriend really wasn't that far off from the description. Roger Hays was attending the University of Ohio at the same time as my mother, and they'd hit it right off the first day they met in history class. A seminary student from Fort Lauderdale,
Roger drove a big lime green van that reminded me of the Green Hornet. He was several years older than my mom and prematurely balding with a yellowish long beard he sometimes braided. My dad referred to him as "the fat hippie," but he wasn't really fat —he just had a bit of a paunch from eating too many Ho Hos.
Mom splurged on a brand-new dress for their first date. She was ready when he arrived, looking gorgeous in her pale peach taffy-colored outfit. She seemed embarrassed to have him see our dirty apartment and she rushed around quickly gathering her things to go.
Washing clothes in the kitchen sink and sneaking glances at the two of them, I got annoyed when he came over and exclaimed, "Lookeeeeeeee, she's showing me how she does her laundry!" like it was some kind of game for his benefit. No, bonehead, I thought, disgusted, I'm doing my laundry because my socks are standing up by themselves and Mom is too busy with you to care. I felt he was just another clueless grown-up and wrote him off immediately, ignoring him. Glad to see him leave, I finished my kitchen duties and took up my guard post in the living room, falling asleep by the TV as I waited for Mom to come home.
Roger and my mom became an item fast. Roger's father was an admiral in the navy and I guess he had a few extra bucks because he was always sending him money. Roger, in turn, spent some of it on us. He bought us lots of groceries and filled the apartment with junk food. Free goodies seemed to be his way of taking care of us while he monopolized our mother's time.
My sisters and I shared the one tiny bedroom that was filled with our bunk beds. We were like loaves of Wonder bread resting on shelves. It was so cramped in our room that we had to take turns getting in and out of bed to avoid a mass pileup. We each had our own corner of the room where we kept our clothes and schoolbooks. Our things rested in piles on the hardwood floor. Mom slept on the couch in the living room. But now that Roger was around, she spent less and less time at home, and more and more time in Roger's Green Hornet–mobile, conveniently parked alongside our house.
I was pissed that she had chosen him over us. Barely eleven, I was too young to be in charge of raising my eight and nine-year-old sisters. And although twelve-year-old Lorraine really carried the weight of this responsibility, I still felt overwhelmed by my siblings' needs. What kind of mother leaves four young children alone in a house while she sleeps in her boyfriend's van? She even let him run a plug from our house to his "house on wheels" so that it stayed warm. Meanwhile, the long orange extension cord that ran down the icy sidewalk and poked under our front door brought a freezing draft with it.
How could she do this? None of the other mothers in the neighborhood did this and plenty of them were single too!
The old lady who lived next door pumped me for information about the goings-on in our place whenever she saw me. She was Daddy's information source too and was clearly offended by the orange cord. She'd follow it down the sidewalk and poke at it with her cane, swearing under her breath about property values.
Mom's hippie boyfriend quickly became the talk of the neighborhood and I was mortified. Dad was crankier than ever, making nasty comments every time he saw the "heathen mobile," and I was totally embarrassed, choosing back routes to our house so I didn't add to the public spectacle that was going on in the front. I even considered putting a bag over my head as I'd seen the Unknown Comic on
The Gong Show
do. That was one way to protect my identity.
It was impossible to ignore the disapproving stares of the neighborhood ladies as I left for school each morning. Although the change of residence had helped me forget Ricky, and had put a hold on the nightmares that had been haunting me for months, I now found myself ashamed of something new — my mother. I was truly mortified that she was acting so
unmotherly
. Wasn't it bad enough that in a new neighborhood we already had the ugliest car and lived in the dingiest building? Why did she have to make it even worse? Now there were rumors of her having sex in the driveway, which made me even hotter with anger.
Totally ashamed at the way we lived, I never brought any friends home from school and always kept to myself. My only real escape came from fantasy. I disappeared into a world of books, becoming obsessed with science fiction. I believed in other planets and races, searching the sky at night for stars, secretly hoping to be abducted and taken to a kinder planet. Maybe God had made a mistake sending me here, I thought. It was obvious I belonged somewhere else. Here I questioned everything, and nothing ever made sense.
It came as a surprise when Roger and my mom took us on their summer vacation to Key West. They made us swear we wouldn't tell our dad, but that was the last thing on my mind. I was just glad I didn't have to stay home baby-sitting my sisters.
For the trip, Roger had converted the van into a rolling motel. We had bunk beds and a Porta Potti hidden away in the closet and there was a tiny kitchen area with a little sink we could wash up in. Heading out on the road, we passed the time lounging in the back playing checkers or ticktacktoe for hours. We listened to the stereo, singing along to Air Supply and REO Speedwagon, and I took long naps in the bottom bunk closest to the front of the van while Mom and Roger hung out in the pilot and copilot seats up front. There was a curtain they pulled when they wanted to speak privately, and I just enjoyed cruising down the highway to destinations unknown.