Untitled, chapter one

Northern California, 1986

      When I was a child, I didn’t feel abnormal.  I thought everything was how it should be.  My sister Christi had just turned ten.  She didn’t look like David and me.  She had almond-shaped brown eyes and wavy, dark-brown hair.  Her complexion was lighter and burned easily in the summer sun.  She looked more like our mother and David and I looked more like my father.   David was almost six.  His curly, light brown hair was always a wind-blown mess, and his eyes were like two dark brown disks below his thin eyebrows.  His skin was the color of olives, as was mine.  His clothes were usually too small, and his belly stuck out at the bottom of his shirt.  His hands were perfect and tiny, but always seemed to be getting him in trouble.  David and I looked so much alike that people often mistook us for twins.  I was the middle child, but I was closer to David’s age than I was Christi’s.  My hair was straight and sandy brown.  My eyes were big and brown like David’s, with beautiful, long eyelashes that were often admired by older women.    

     The summer heat was blazing in northern California, where the three of us were sent to live with my aunt.  Aunt Ann had a farm in the northern most part of California outside the redwood forest.  It was a small farm with a two bedroom house and a worn-down red barn.  A single barbed wire fence separated the two buildings to keep the chickens away from the house.  The ground was mostly dirt because the livestock had killed all the grass before the fence was built.            

     Aunt Ann was a tall and stout woman.  Her wild red hair seemed to go everywhere.  She had huge green eyes that turned bright yellow when she was mad.  Her complexion was pale, but it too could change to a bright crimson when compelled by anger. 

     “David, what are you doing?” Ann demanded.

     He shrugged.  His eyes were big in bewilderment of getting caught with the lid off the jar of honey that had been brought in by her gentleman friend.  Ann had come around the corner into the kitchen just in time to see him start to dip his hand down into the jar.  She didn’t wait for an answer.  Her reaction was almost instant.  The yellow floral skirt she wore flowed behind her as she ran towards the drawer that held her most punishment tools.

     “I will beat you, child!” she yelled. 

      Christi and I heard the commotion from the living room and ran to David’s aid.  She had beaten him badly several times before and even though he was mischievous, he didn’t deserve the punishment that our aunt afforded him. 

     Princess, Ann’s old pet basset hound cowered, and then dashed out of the room.  Ann chased David around the kitchen table with her weathered wooden spoon drawn over her head, anxious for the first blow.    

     “Run!” Christi screamed grabbing at us both and forcing us through the back door.  We nearly knocked the screen off the hinges as it swung back hitting the house and then back again hitting the frame once we were through it.  David was quickly ahead of Christi and me, fueled by fear.  We ran across the dirt yard and were facing the barbed wire fence before Ann had managed to emerge from the house.

     “You three are dead when I catch you!” she screamed. 

     “Go up the fence!” Christi urged. 

     Christi knew exactly where to escape to, but the fence was torturous if care wasn’t taken for the barbs.  Ann was in her late forties so she wasn’t going to catch three kids running, but climbing barbed wire slowed us down.  Our small hands and feet maneuvered between the barbs all the way to where the barn roof hung over the top of the fence.  We reached the roof top in seconds and hoisted each other up.  The shingles scraped against our flesh and clothes as we pulled ourselves higher on the roof to safety.

     “Get down from there, or I am going to come up there after you!” my aunt screamed again, as if her fat ass was getting anywhere off the ground. 

     The three of us sat in silence, watching Ann threaten us with her wooden spoon. 

     “So help me God, I am going to kill you children!” Ann promised one last time before kicking the dirt and stomping back into the house, her skirt trailing behind her.

     It was lunchtime, but we hadn’t eaten yet.  The sun was high in the sky, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight that might block out the hot rays. 

     “I hot,” David whined.

     “We are all hot, David, don’t whine.”

     “Christi, I hot,” he whined again. 

     “I heard you, David, but we are all hot so, just try to relax,” Christi replied more patient than I was.

      We all wore tank tops and shorts so the shingles burnt and scratched our flesh.  It felt like it was a thousand degrees on the roof.  The sun reflected off of everything around us.  The light coming from the white roof of the house was nearly blinding us.  The barn’s black shingles were tattered and broken in some places.  Some of the roofing tacks were raised up out of the shingles along the entire roofline and we were careful not to sit on any of them.   

    Our stomachs were all growling, but none of us mentioned getting off the barn.  We knew when we got down there would be hell to pay. 

     “Sissy, I hot and I hungry,” David whined again.

     “David, please stop whining, you’re the reason we are up here!” I said.

      Even though I did nothing wrong, I knew I was in as much trouble as David.  David and I always got punished together.  Whenever he did something wrong, I would get beat too.  Christi was older and easier to manage, so she never got punished, but knew how awful it is to get beaten.  She had been beaten by mother and father the same way.  She did everything that she could to protect us, but there really wasn’t much she could do.

     “Chrisssee, can I sit in you lap?” David asked.

     “Yes, David if you promise to stop whining,” Christi negotiated with him.

     “Otay.”

     David crawled into Christi’s lap, and she winced from the pain of the shingles scratching the backs of her legs and burning her.  I was thankful that we all were wearing shoes when we escaped.  Christi usually went barefoot, but not here.  Not when she knew at any moment we might have to run somewhere away from our aunt.  I never went without shoes, and neither did David, not even when we slept. 

     The sun was unforgiving and our eyes were burning.  We had been sitting still and silent, roasting in the heat for what seemed to be an eternity.  We thought it was a mirage when we saw Ann reemerge from the house carrying a tray that held three clear plastic cups and a pitcher of lemonade.  It wasn’t Kool-Aid brand lemonade either.  It looked like fresh squeezed lemonade made from lemons that grew on the trees behind the house.  She had even cut pieces of lemons and put them in the pitcher just like in a magazine.  It was the most beautiful thing I had seen all day.  David perked his head up from Christi’s shoulder where it had been resting since he climbed in her lap. 

     “Sissy, whas dat?” David asked.

     “That is auntie with lemonade,” I replied.

     “I wonder what she’s up to,” Christi said.

     “Come on down kids.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to get so upset.  I made you some lemonade.  I know you must be thirsty,” Ann shouted up to us in a much calmer tone.

     “What do you think, Christi?” I asked.

     “I don’t know.  She’s always beaten you two before, but we’ve never run up on top of the roof before, or stayed gone this long.  Maybe she is really trying to be nice,” Christi tried to reason all of this.

     “Come on down kids, it’s going to be fine,” Ann called again.

     “We should go down.  Even if she is just trying to bribe us down to catch us, I don’t know how much longer any of us can stand to stay in this heat on the roof,” Christi said.

     I agreed with her.  We eased back over to the edge of the roof and carefully climbed back down the barbed wire fence.  Our arms and legs were all scratched and bleeding from the shingles and the barbs.  We cautiously approached Ann, still prepared to run again.

     “I’m sorry children,” she started.  “I should have gotten so angry, but David,” she looked directly at him, this time her eyes were green instead of red, “you know you were bad and you should get punished for that.”

     “Yesh,” David whispered, looking at Christi and me for saving.

     “Am I going to get beaten too?” I asked Ann.

     “I won’t punish you if you promise to never go back on the roof,” Ann replied.

     “I promise,” I said, glad I wasn’t going to get the wooden spoon across my own flesh.  “What are you going to do to David?”

     “That doesn’t matter right now,” she said narrowing her eyes at me, “you all get in the kitchen, and I will pour you some lemonade.”

     We all corralled into the tiny kitchen and planted ourselves around the table in the corner.  I looked up at the square, plastic, white clock that hung on the wall over the kitchen window.  It seemed like hours had passed since David had hid behind that same kitchen table trying to steal honey out of the honey jar.  Our sun burns covered mine and David’s cheeks and Christi’s entire body other than where her clothes had barely protected her.  The cuts and scratches from the barbs and shingles that we all endured were being cooled by the kitchen fan since the tiny house didn’t have central air conditioning.  And Christi and I had done nothing to save our little brother.  He was still going to get beaten.

     There had been several punishments bestowed on both David and me in the short time we had been with our aunt.  None of them were pleasant.  I sat at the kitchen table worried about what she was going to do to David while I drank my lemonade. 

     “David, here’s what’s going to happen,” my aunt finally said, “you couldn’t keep your hands out of my things, so I am going to paddle your hands for getting into the honey jar.”

     “That’s it!” I thought astounded.  I was glad, but was it true?  She had beaten David and me black and blue the last time.  Our small bodies still had bruises from that beating.

     “And then what?” Christi asked, also in disbelief. 

     “And then nothing,” Ann responded.  “I talked to your mother while you three were up on the roof, and you are all going home soon.  I won’t have to deal with you little monsters anymore.  Too bad you were up on the barn roof, or you could have said hello to your mom.”

     Mother wasn’t much better than Aunt Ann, but at least she was our mother.  She never beat David because he was the baby and the only boy.  Christi was as used to the physical abuse as any child could be.  I tried to stay out of the radar of any adult as often as I could.  Sometimes I was downright invisible.  My other advantage was that I was my daddy’s little girl, and nobody messed with me much when he was around. 

     Mother had to drive several hours north from Fremont to come pick us up, so there was no telling how long it would be before she got there, but Ann probably didn’t want any more marks and bruises on David and me because then she would have to answer to mother.  Mother didn’t believe that anyone should be allowed to discipline her children other than her.

     Ann picked up the wooden spoon that had been resting on the counter.  Princess scampered out of the kitchen at the sight of her holding it.  She pulled David’s chair back from the table and made him stand and face her. 

     “David, hold out your hands,” Ann demanded in a less pleasant tone.  It was almost like she got angrier at the idea of beating one of us. 

     David did as he was told, but the punishment wasn’t nearly as bad as any of us expected.  Ann barely brought the spoon up to the height of her shoulder before bringing it back down on David’s tiny palms.  He flinched in pain, but he didn’t make a sound.  Crying usually only compelled her to hit harder, so he remained silent even with the tears welling up in his big brown eyes.  They threatened to spill over when she brought the spoon down again.  The spoon wasn’t making the usual whooshing sound as it came down through the air.  The slap against David’s flesh didn’t ring out quiet as loud as it had just two days before when we had last received a beating for his mischief.  And then a third connection between spoon and four-year-old and it was over.  David was still silent.  His tears rolled down his face, and his eyes were big and wide staring up at Ann waiting for the rest of the beating.  Ann sat herself back down at the table and David crawled up into the kitchen chair that I was sitting in.  I moved over to give him more room, but he just scooted over closer to me until I was nearly off the other side of the seat.

     Silence and then, “I hope you all know that you are welcome to come back here any time you like,” Ann stated as if she had been replaced by a nicer version of her horrible self.

     “Thank you, Aunt Ann, we appreciate you having us,” replied Christi.  Christi was taught to always be polite no matter the circumstances.  “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then keep your damn mouth shut!” mother often told us.  If nothing else, we were all fast learners.  Learning fast meant less whuppings.  That is what mother called them, “whuppings.” 

     The rest of the afternoon the three of us sat and watched and listened to our aunt as she examined the fresh honey that was brought to her from a bee farm a few miles south.  She always said that things like that were brought special for her, and she didn’t have any kids so she didn’t have to share any of her special things with anyone.  I was surprised she was suddenly willing to share with us.  The honey comb was still in the jar that seemed big enough that David could have easily fallen into it.  It was filled over half way to the top with the golden gooey substance.  She pulled out a new wooden spoon and dipped it down into the jar.  She pulled out a sample of the sun-colored honey. 

     “Have you ever tasted fresh honey?” Ann asked.

     “No.”

     “There’s nothing in the world like it,” she said. 

     Why was she being so nice now?  For the past two months she did nothing other than punish us and criticize us and our parents.  Her temper was like her hair, hot and wild.  Now she was like a different human being altogether.  Did getting rid of us make her that happy?

     “Try some,” she motioned the spoon towards me knowing I was the lover of foods.

     “How?” 

     “Dip your finger in it,” she instructed.

     “Really?”

     “Yes, go ahead,” she insisted.

     I did.  There was nothing like it in the world.  It stuck to everything in my mouth, and the flavor was so sweet it made my eyes squint up.  The roof of my mouth tickled, and my brain was telling my mouth to chew, but there was nothing to chew.  It was the stickiest thing in the world.  I had eaten peanut butter fresh out of the jar before, but it didn’t compare to this.  I coughed and choked a little, but it finally went down.  The aftertaste was bittersweet.  My hand held the smell on it which slightly nauseated me after the tasting.  I wondered how honeybees made such a thing without getting their tiny feet and wings stuck in it or instantly dying from sugar shock if they consumed a single drop.  David loved it, of course.

     “Not too much, David,” Christi said, knowing he would be bouncing off the walls when he got his sugar high.

    David looked at her and stuck out his bottom lip in a pouty face.  He felt like he deserved the biggest taste since he had to get a hand lashing for getting into it to begin with.  He felt like it was all worth it with the first lick of his fingers.  It was obvious that Christi and I were less than thrilled with the honey, so Ann handed the entire wooden spoon over to David.

     “It’s not for everyone, I guess,” Ann said in defense of her beloved gift.

     “It was good,” Christi said, “thank you.”

     “Yes, thank you, auntie,” I chimed in.

     “More! More! More!” David shouted, waving Ann’s wooden spoon in the air.  It amazed me how it was so easy for him to forget how vicious Ann had been. 

      “No, David,” Christi calmly answered him.

     “David, give me that spoon,” I said, prying it from his little hand.  I didn’t have to fight too hard with him because his palms were still sore from his spanking.  I handed the spoon back to Ann.

     “Thank you,” she said to me.  I gave her a half smile.  I hadn’t forgotten.

     The heat had not subsided outside, but the sun was beginning to settle comfortably on the horizon.  I heard the gravel in the driveway shifting and grinding under the weight of tires.  The headlights of mother’s black 1983 Ford Mustang were on, even in plain daylight.  All of the mustang badges were missing off the car because mother thought that the “5.0” on the sides would attract the attention of traffic cops.  The holes remained in each of the fenders and the rear bumper where the badges had once been proudly displayed by the manufacturer. 

     “Mommy!”  David jumped from our shared chair.

     We all rushed to the door, passed our already packed suitcases that I hadn’t noticed before, just in time to see the long black door of mother’s car swing open.  She emerged with great effort.  First one foot and then the other, she would lean back and scoot her bottom to the edge of the seat closest to the door opening, then grab the steering wheel with her right hand and the top of the seat with her left.  At that point it was almost as if she had to fling herself out of the car to a standing position.  It was a ridiculous feat every time I watched it.  It was highly impractical that she even owned such an automobile with her large frame and three small children to drag along with her, but she loved it and refused to let it go.  She probably would have given us up before the car. 

     Mother walked up to the house, sunglasses gleaming from the reflection of the sun.  Ann pushed the screen door open to invite her in.  David ran out like lightning and looked like a monkey climbing up mother’s leg trying to get her to pick him up.  She ignored him.

     “Hello children,” mother said as if she were proud of her grand entrance back into our lives.  “Hello, sister,” she said looking at Ann, “were they well-behaved for you?”

     “Here it comes,” I thought.  Ann smirked, but formed no words about our behavior or of the beatings. 

     “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” David was repeating at her heels as she stepped into the house. 

     “Hello, David,” she finally acknowledged his presence at her feet and picked him up.  “Why don’t you kids get your stuff together while Ann and I talk and then we will get on the road back home?”  This wasn’t really a question; it was more like a nice way of saying, “kids go away because I don’t want you to hear what I am going to tell your aunt.”  The three of us sat silently in the living room.

     The two sisters sat at the kitchen table chatting about my father.  Mother looked completely natural to me, sitting there in Ann’s small wooden chair at the mismatched table.  Her denim pants were clearly cutting her waistline in half, and her blue shirt barely covered her midsection that bulged over the top of her pants.  Her height made it hard for her to find shirts that were long enough to fit, but she didn’t care.  She couldn’t care less if the entire world could see the stretch marks that were like the lines of a road map on her stomach, left by us three children.  Her hair was wild like my aunts, but it was blonde.  She insisted that she was only twenty-seven years old and had been for as long as I could recall.  Distress was written all across mother’s pale, wide face.  This was a common affliction to her physical character though. 

     Ann got up to brew tea, but mother stopped her.

     “Don’t bother, I have to get these kids back on the road,” she said.

     “Okay, well let me know if you need any help,” she replied and hugged her good-bye as mother stood so that the hug wasn’t complete. 

     “Let’s go kids,” mother demanded, “get your bags and the rest of your stuff in the car.”

     We heaved our bags out to the back of the car and watched the hatch door open to display one of the smallest trunks in American automobile history, or so it seemed.  I flung my blue canvas bag over the back of the car into the trunk.  Christi loaded her bag and then David’s on top of mine. 

     “Go tell your aunt bye and thank her for her hospitality,” mother insisted.

     We ran back up to the house where Ann stood at the door to wave us off.  The three of us hugged her simultaneously.

     “Thank you, auntie, for taking care of us,” Christi said. 

     “Yes, thank you,” I also tried to sound grateful.

     David was silent until, “Byeee!”  He waved behind him as he ran to his usual side of the mustang and crawled in behind the driver’s seat.

   I got in behind Christi’s usual seat on the passenger side and Christi climbed in after me.  Mother was already in the car right after David and was pushing in the clutch by time Christi shut her door.  The sun was setting by then, and the sky was turning orange and purple.  The engine roared to life and mother shifted the car into reverse and hit the gas pedal.  We entered Ann’s street.  Mother shifted into first gear and then all the way through fifth as we headed towards home.  The ride home started in silence other than the constant rumbling of the one hundred seventy-five horse power engine.  As the sky became dark, Christi decided to plead our case against Ann.

     “Mom, please don’t send us back there ever again,” Christi begged.

     “Please, mom,” I said with the same urgency.

     “Dat lady was mean to us,” David said.

     This had been mine and David’s first encounter with our mother’s sister, but Christi had seen the woman several times in her life. 

     “I had no choice,” mother replied, “and if I have to do it again, then I will.  I am the parent here, you are the children, remember that.”

     “Where’s daddy,” I asked.  Mother knew my loyalty was with my father.  

     “He’s gone,” she said flatly.

     “What do you mean gone?” Christi asked. 

     “Look, things are going to be different now,” mother started.  “Much more different than they have ever been.” 

     I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, all I heard was the word “gone.”  First, I imagined all the horrible ways that daddy could be gone.  Was he dead gone or left gone?  Did he decide he didn’t love us and leave us with mother?  Was he taking a vacation?  Maybe he took the Harley out on a road trip down the coast like he always wanted to do.  Then, I thought of all the things that I used to do with my father before we were shipped off to Ann’s house.  He had seven Harley motorcycles in the garage.  Mother hated them, but daddy had this one special bike that had big silver boxes on the sides that he called saddle boxes.  They were just big enough to hold David in one side and me in the other.  He would put us in those saddle boxes and drive us all over Fremont and show us off to his friends.  He once let me climb up into one of his semi trucks that he ran for his trucking business and taught me how to shift all twelve gears.  The steering wheel was bigger than I was.  He’s gone.  I started to cry.

     Mother must have seen me crying in her rear view mirror.  “Stop all that nonsense.  You will still be able to see your father.”  Mother’s reaction to my tears was cold and abrasive.

    “Where is he? How can he be gone, and I can still see him?” I wailed.

    “Look, first stop the damn crying!” mother started to raise her voice, which was never a good thing.  I stifled my cries.

     “Tony screwed us, ok?” mother began again.  Tony was a single father living in our house, at our ranch, in Fremont with his son, Buddy.  “He turned your father in to the FBI, and now your father is in jail.  He’ll be going to court soon, and I had to come get you kids so I could take you with us to court to show the judge that your dad has a family to support, and maybe he will show some leniency on your dad.”

     This all seemed like a crazy dream.  Maybe mother had finally lost her mind. 

     “They seized everything.  The ranch.  The house.  All of our belongings.  All of our money.  It’s gone.  The business.  The trucks.  Everything’s gone!” she seemed close to hysterics talking about all our material possessions.  “They didn’t get my mustang baby though, and they left your father’s Ford pickup too,” she seemed thrilled about that. 

     “That’s all there is left?” Christi was distressed now too and raising her voice.  “Where are we going to live?  What are we going to do?  Are you going to get a job, mother?  How are we going to live?”

     Mother pulled her hand up off the gear shifter in one swift movement and slapped Christi in the mouth. 

     “You don’t talk to me like that!” mother screamed at her.  “That is my business, not yours!  You aren’t running shit around here, but your mouth!”

    Christi turned her whole body and leaned away from mother.  I could see her face reflected back at me from the passenger side window.  Her tears streamed down her sun burnt cheeks, and a tiny hint of red grew bigger by the second at the corner of her mouth.  She licked away the blood and cried silently, staring off into the blackness that surrounded the Mustang as it raced back to a place where I thought my life had always been average.            
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