I grew up during the 60’s and 70’s, well before the computer
age, when children actually went outside
- or were forcibly thrown outside
by exasperated mothers - to play. It’s
not that I minded going outside, in fact I love being outdoors, but the
neighborhood in which I grew up had been blessed with an overabundance of boys.
The only toys and instruments of outdoor fun and good times were male
oriented. Nothing but baseballs,
footballs, basketballs, volleyballs and, well……..balls, as far as the eye could
see. I was, in fact, the only female on the circle
for a very long time.
If I wanted companions at all, I had to learn to put aside
my dolls along with my girly-girl nature, and act, think, and play like a boy. This wasn’t a real stretch for me,
as my mother was not much of a girl herself, having been raised in similar
circumstances. She was ill-equipped but mostly unwilling to teach me how to be
female and my only sister was 17 years older and married with children of her
own. My sister-in-law, Melvina, was the most girly influence I had and I loved
it when she came to visit because that’s when my true girly-ness could really
shine. She was just a teenager learning to be a woman herself, and she would
dress me up in pretty clothes like a doll and polish my nails. She would even attempt to tame my hair into
something that resembled a cute, feminine, pixie-do instead of the no-fuss,
no-muss, masculine bowl cut that my inept mother kept it in. I shudder to think what I’d be like now
without her influence; probably swinging a hammer on a construction crew
somewhere, with a wardrobe consisting entirely of denim and flannel.
My father wasn’t much help either, having been a basketball
coach. Because of him, my short little
self can still execute a near perfect lay-up and, before I nearly lost an eye
in an unfortunate baseball accident at the age of eight, my free-throw record
was stellar. Daddy is also responsible
for the passion I have for cars. I adored him and wanted to be near him as much
as I could, so anytime he was out working on the cars, I was right there with
him handing him tools and peering intently into the belly of the mechanical
beast, learning its secrets. We worked
together like a surgeon and scrub nurse; “Screwdriver” – Slap! “Wrench” – Slap! “Hold
that light steady”; he called me his tool monkey. If my aunts had not
intervened when I was a blossoming pre-teen, I would likely be a master
mechanic by now. But they convinced him, and me, that it was simply not proper for a young lady to be covered in
grease so I was no longer permitted
to be his assistant. It broke my heart and for years I sought to un-learn
everything he’d taught me because it was so painful.
I did everything with Daddy, whether it was household
repairs or yard work, I was right there carrying his tool belt like a squire
carrying the king’s sword. Much to daddy’s chagrin, my older brother was more
interested in running wild and getting high than he was in learning anything
daddy had to teach, so I took his place. Daddy’s calm presence was always
comforting to me and, if given the choice, I would rather be working with him
than mother any day. I would rather be
working with him than playing with the rough-necks in the neighborhood too. I’d become convinced those boys were out to
kill me.
None of the boys on
the block had sisters at the time, so none of them had been taught that girls
were different. They took no caution
with me, never treated me like the delicate, gentle creature I was designed to
be. They never made allowances for my small stature or lack of natural strength
either. If I didn’t want to get left
behind, I had to learn to endure – run faster, pedal harder, climb higher; keep
up or go home. Home – with my crazy, abusive, schizophrenic mother - was simply
not an option. So I learned to keep up. What I couldn’t do physically, I made
up for in wit.
I was also a source of great amusement for them, and not in
a good way. I was the butt of many jokes
and the target of some elaborate, psychologically damaging and physically
harmful pranks. They knocked me off tree-limbs and stuck a leg out to make me
wreck my bike. They held me underwater in the pool to see how long it took for
me to stop struggling. They put worms and rolly-pollys in my Easy Bake Oven
cake mixes and made me eat them. They put tadpoles in my Kool-Aid. They took
the luminescent bodies off lightening bugs and told me it was candy. They used
me as a target for William Tell inspired archery contests. It’s a miracle that,
I not only survived, but came away with only a few scars and no broken bones. I
didn’t mind the physical trauma as much as I minded the pranks. In that realm,
these little boys were pretty twisted. Stephen King could learn a thing or two
from them.
One Halloween, my
brother and I were making the rounds of the neighbor’s homes, gathering our
annual sugar-infused tribute. I should have realized something was amiss when
Jeffrey insisted on escorting me
alone. Normally, he made every effort to escape my presence. As we went from
house to house, the throng of boys behind us grew. I was still blissfully
unaware of the fate that awaited me when we came to the house at the bottom of
the hill. It was one of the nicest
houses in the neighborhood with a huge picture window that you passed under on
the way to the elegantly framed front door.
It was also the home of the first boy I probably ever had a little crush
on. At the time he was about thirteen or
fourteen and had grown from playing with the smaller boys to tormenting them. This
time, however, I was the target of his evil scheme and the other boys were all
in on it.
I scampered happily up the driveway in my Tweety-Bird
costume, excited because Glenn’s mother had a reputation for always having the
best treats on the block. This was back when you got real treats for Halloween.
Gooey, wonderful, homemade treats like popcorn balls, fudge, brownies or fried
fruit tarts.
There was a huge, gruesome looking jack-o-lantern sitting in
the big picture window and they had hung a black light over it so it really
shone against the stark-white curtains. I shiver a little even now thinking
about it. As I passed underneath the window, dreaming about the heavenly
confection that would soon be mine, the jack-o-lantern rose up and the ghostly
white sheet underneath it grew gnarled hands that blindly grasped for me. I
screamed in absolute terror, kicking and clawing wildly, as those awful hands
found me and lifted me up. I hate to admit it, but I was so scared that I wet
my pants and nearly fainted. I was screaming for my brother to save me from the
terrible monster but he was doubled over in laughter, rolling on the lawn. Seeing the puddle spreading underneath my
dangling feet, Glenn realized the prank had gone too far and he gently set me
down and took the pumpkin off his head, showing me it was just a costume. Every
inch of my little 50 pound, seven year old, body shook with rage and shame and I
ran home and threw myself, sobbing, into my father’s arms.
Daddy let me cry a
few minutes, as mother screamed and ranted about the nervous breakdown those
“awful hooligans” were going to give her with their shenanigans – she was
always so helpful that way. He then took me to the bathroom to clean me up. As
he was washing my tear-stained face he told me, rather sternly, “You’ve got to
toughen up little girl. If you’re going to play with the big boys, you can’t
act like a baby. Never let them see you cry” My dad was the eighth child in a
family of 10 siblings and was the runt of the litter to boot. He knew a thing or two about the abuses
siblings and peers can inflict. After
that fateful night, I determined that was the last time the boys would see me
cry. I did as my father suggested and toughened up. And I began to retaliate.
We had a pine tree in our yard that was so tall you needed a
ladder to reach the lowest branches. We
loved to climb that tree and sit, twenty or so feet off the ground, in the
swaying upper branches. Jeffrey liked to sit up there and smoke pot because he
thought no one could smell it up there. One day he and his friend Jimmy got out
the ladder and climbed up into the branches for an afternoon of getting high,
on high. I dutifully followed like the
annoying little sister I was. ( It’s in the job description, look it up.) I got
halfway up the ladder, when the boys started shouting for me to get lost and
pummeled me with pine cones. I sat at
the base of the tree sulking and hurling insults at them for a few minutes when
a plan began forming in my brain. I’d teach them a thing or two.
I grabbed the rope
attached to the top rung of the ladder and yanked hard. The ladder pulled away
from the tree trunk as I had expected and fell to the ground with a crash. Not having a good working knowledge of
physics at the time, I didn’t correctly calculate the distance I needed to be
away from the tree against the rate of velocity with which the ladder fell, and
so the upper foot of the ladder caught me square in the skull and bounced off
as it came down. Blood poured from the
open gash and I ran screaming into the house, certain that I was dying.
Once again, Daddy took me into the bathroom and cleaned me
up. I probably should have had a few stitches but back then you didn’t run to
the doctor for every little thing. Some alcohol, mercurochrome, and a few
butterfly bandages, and I was good as new. When asked how I had come to get
bonked on the head with a ladder, I told daddy it had just fallen on me as I
was innocently passing by. The wind must have knocked it over. My brother had
been told repeatedly not climb in the pine tree, that it wasn’t safe. So, when
daddy went outside to put the ladder away, still confused as to how it got up
against the tree to begin with, Jeffrey didn’t make a sound. My rather
oblivious father never looked up either. And I never told.
It was much later that night, when dinner rolled around and
Jeff still wasn’t home, that mom and dad began to wonder about him. Mother was out on the back porch calling him
in, when Jimmy’s mother called asking if her son was at our house. I got up
from the table and went to my room to play with my dolls. I still didn’t tell
them.
Finally, Jeff and Jimmy decided that the pain of a whipping
was better than being stuck all night in that damned tree and started yelling
for help. Of course, in an effort to save at least part of his hide, he ratted
me out. The spanking I endured, along with the massive headache, was worth it
though. I was learning to fight back.
I got tougher and stronger, if not bigger, and I learned to
play just as hard as they did. I raced and wrecked bikes with them, ran – and
won – a few foot races, endured scraped knees, bruised shins and a wealth of
thorn bush scratches playing hide and seek in the woods. I played tackle
football, got clotheslined more than once in a game of red-rover, and took more
than my share of elbow jabs to the head playing defense in basketball. And not
once did I cry. I screamed, I cursed and I raged……but I never shed a tear.
We had the best yard
for games in the neighborhood by far. It was mostly grass, flat and level and
huge, the perfect venue for pickup football and baseball games. I was forever
present, and though I was generally chosen last for teams, I was chosen. But anytime we played baseball, no matter
whose team I was on, I had to play the catcher’s position. It was an unspoken
rule among the boys founded on two basic principles. One, none of them wanted to be stuck squatting behind
the plate all day and, as I was already fairly low to the ground, it made sense
to them that I wouldn’t mind it as much. The second reason was much more
sinister. Let’s face it, most kids aren’t that good at baseball and, having no
backstop, every time there was a wild pitch, which was often, the catcher had to
chase the damn ball thirty yards and sometimes out into the street. It was
quite a workout. None of us were very good at catching the ball either, so the
job always fell to me.
There was one boy in the gang who always insisted on
pitching even though he really stunk at the job. But he was older and bigger
than the rest of us, so he generally got his way. His wild pitches made the innings drag on
interminably and were a literal pain in the ass for me, as I had to constantly
jump up out stance and run after them.
One day, after about four long innings of this torture, I
decided I’d had enough. I watched the pitches coming off his hand carefully and
began to accurately predict their trajectory. I started making astounding
grabs, even though I had to jump to a standing position. Nobody was swinging at
them anyway, so what was the harm? Or so I smugly thought.
The biggest boy on Handley Road was up to bat. He was tall
and stocky and powerful as well as totally arrogant, and my mother hated him
with a fiery passion – why I never knew. He was not even supposed to be in our
yard because she had banned him long ago. I was squatted down behind the plate, my glove
at the ready, the muscles in my legs coiled to spring, watching closely as the
pitchers arm drew back to make the throw. The rest of this tale I can relate
only as it was later told to me, as squatting there behind home plate was the
last thing I remember.
As the ball came off the pitchers hand, I saw that it was
going to sail clean over the batters head. I leapt up out of stance like a
jack-in-the-box in order to make the grab, just as the powerful batter decided
to make a violent, if futile, swing at the pitch.
As the bat came around and I came up, the end of the bat
connected, not with the ball, but with my face. I’m told that the force of the
blow picked me up off the ground and my light body sailed twenty feet backward
in the air. By the time I hit the ground, unconscious, my left eye was already horribly
bruised and swollen. The boys all gathered around me in trepidation as a flock
of crows might surround a dying snake. One boy, making an astute if not correct
observation, whispered “I think she’s dead” Then another boy looked to my
brother and dared utter the words that struck terror into all their hearts;
“Who’s gonna tell your mom?”
My mother’s insanity was well known among the neighborhood.
The adults shied away from her as if they thought her psychosis were
contagious, and the kids were quite simply terrified of her. The fear of what
my mother would likely do to the one who’d slain her child was all it took. The
flock took wing and scattered away to cower in the safety of their own homes
leaving my poor brother the horrifying job of telling my mother that her little
girl was dead.
He went inside and broke the news to her as gently as he
could. I don’t know what the conversation sounded like exactly, as I had been
left outside, alone and unconscious, but I imagine it went something like this:
Jeff – “Hey Mom, we got any Kool-Aid?”
Mom – “I just made some lime, I know that’s your
favorite. It’s in the fridge, help
yourself.”
Jeff - “Thanks. Can I
make a sandwich?”
Mom – “Sure. There’s pepper ham in there and some olive
loaf. Help yourself. You want chips?”
Jeff – “Yeah that sounds good. Do we have pickles?”
Mom – (exasperated
huff) “In the fridge. Do you not see them in there? I swear you’re just
like your father. Have to ask for
something that’s right in front of your nose. You’d rather make me stop what
I’m doing to come hand you something that’s right in front of your eyes. I’ve put up with that out him for twenty
years, I’m not about to put up with it out of you.
Jeff – (mumbling) “Sorry
Mom.”
Mom – (louder
exasperated huff) “Where’s your sister?”
Jeff – “ Ummm…. Lisa?....Oh, she’s out in the yard.”
Mom – (even louder
exasperated huff) “Well, go tell her to come in and eat; might as well feed
both of you at the same time, no sense having to clean up a mess twice.”
Jeff – (mumbling
around a large mouthful of olive loaf) “Can’t. She’s dead.”
Mom – (smacking Jeff
on the back of the head) “Don’t talk with your mouth full!”
This time my injury warranted a trip to the emergency room
where x-rays revealed I had a concussion but, miraculously, no broken bones. The
only lasting effects I have are a small scar above my eyebrow that you can only
see when I squint and nerve damage that makes it impossible for me to wink my
left eye; kind of a bummer when you’re right handed and trying to sight
anything with your left eye. That’s also the reason I work a scrolling mouse on
a computer upside down and have difficulty with directions.
My eye was grotesquely disfigured for weeks afterward and
even when the swelling went down, I had to wear an eye-patch for what seemed an
eternity. I looked like a pint-sized pirate. I milked it for all it was worth too. Any time mother got even a little irritated
at me, I’d whine pitifully and rub at the patch “but my eye hurts”. Not only would she calm down, she’d produce a
treat of some kind for me. I got all my favorite goodies and a few new, more
gender appropriate, toys. My father decided I needed to spend less time with
the boys, even though he seemed proud of that shiner. For years, he loved to
tell the story about his little slugger and the summer of the black eye.
After that, I earned a new respect among the boys on Handley
Road. Oh, they still expected me to keep up if I was going to play, but I noticed
they weren’t quite as rough with me. And whenever I was outside and one of the
neighbor boys rode by on his bike, I’d stand up and stare at him defiantly with
my good eye, letting them all see that I was bruised but I wasn’t beaten. You
might knock me down, but I’m gonna get back up and I’ll be swinging when I do.
You might get the best of me once but you’d better make the most of it ‘cause
it won’t happen again. And you will never, ever, see me cry.
