The Perfect Storm

The Big Wave, a Japanese painting, is from Wikipedia.

There’s one final episode in the “perfect storm” of my life: kindergarten—abandonment; first grade—Dad tries to kill Mom; grade one on—Dad’s continued drinking; grade five—Mr. Jackson’s molestation; that summer—Dad rapes Mom; and a three-month daily ordeal I battled a year later—in 1948.

         After completing sixth grade that year, I spent the summer with an ailing aunt and an uncle who lived a distance away. I did everything I could to help my aunt recuperate—clean, run errands, make beds, grocery shop, do laundry, wash dishes.

         The ordeal that summer wasn’t the work; it was my aunt and uncle’s son. As the leader of a gang of neighborhood boys and tag-along girls, power intrigued him. All summer, that gang, led by my cousin, vandalized local schools and businesses. And I tagged along, encouraged by my guileless aunt and uncle.

A school and playground in England. (Wikipedia)

          I became part of that gang when my cousin invited me to go to a local school playground with him. That evening in late May, he pulled me back when I tried to follow the gang to the other side of the playground. Within moments, a girl’s terrified scream echoed across the tarmac. Peering through a darkness punctuated by halos of streetlights, I saw the boys in a circle, some with their pants pulled down. Their raucous jeering almost smothered the girl’s desperate cries for help. 
          Frantically, I ran toward her. I’d gone only halfway across that broad playground when my cousin grabbed me by the arm, pulled me roughly around to face him, and shoved me to the ground. “If you tell anyone, you’ll be next!” he threatened. “Don't go spouting off what you think you know!"  

         I gaped at him. Not understanding. “Someone’s got to help! I’ve got to tell Uncle Daniel and Aunt Lisabeth!”

         “Mom and Dad?” he scoffed. “You think they’d believe you? They think I walk on water!”

         And he was right. They did. So I said nothing. To anyone. But my cousin retaliated against my instinct to tell by tormenting me for the next three months.

         When I cleaned the upstairs each day, he’d pounce, grab me by the arm, and shove me into his mom’s closet. I’d fall back against the pile of clothes she planned to give away. He’d try “to feel me up” or “have his way with me,” both of which are expressions I later learned for what Mr. Jackson had done.         

         I tried to fight him off. I’d elbow away his arms, pry away his manic hands as they groped my breasts. When I threatened to scream, he’d press one hand over my mouth to smother my cry for help while using the other to get inside my shorts.          

         The struggle seemed interminable. Then we’d hear a sound—a car backfiring in the street, a footstep on the stairs, canned television laughter, a call from his mother who was resting in the living room below—and he’d let go of me. But not before arranging his right fist so that his middle knuckle stuck out. Then he’d pummel me repeatedly on my arms and chest and leave me slumped on the closet floor.

         After the first time, I wore long-sleeved shirts each day so no one could see the accumulating bruises. All summer my cousin lurked, pounced, pummeled. And all summer I wore those shirts, until fall came and I returned home to start seventh grade.

         I never told anyone what happened the summer I was twelve. Never told that is until Dr. Nimlos—the psychiatrist I saw in 1975—said something that jogged my memory and brought back this whole series of childhood incidents. I had totally blocked them from consciousness. But of course, subconsciously they shadowed my life.

         And subconsciously I blamed myself for all of them. There was something “rotten in Denmark” about me. Something that made others act in strange ways. Like all children everywhere, always, I blamed myself for Dad’s drinking and for any violence that was done to me or others. I was at fault. I was worthless. If only I were a better person, people would love me. Treat me differently.

         Today, after much counseling and great reflection and effort, I can quote to you the words with which J. K. Rowling began her novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

     Oh, the torment bred in the race,

          the grinding scream of death

               and the stroke that hits the vein,

          the hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,

     the curse no man can bear. . . .

     Now hear, you blissful powers underground—

          Answer the call, send help.

     Bless the children, give them triumph now.

                                             Aeschylus, The Liberation Bearers