“He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” (Psalms 126:6 KJV)
Jim Morrison pegged himself The Lizard King. I was The Scorpion Queen. They slipped through the cracks like roaches into our south Austin country home, and while my older brother sustained numerous attacks, I somehow avoided a tail lashing. Mom once forced him to put on his shoes as he complained and protested, “hurt, hurt,” but Kirk always complained. He emerged from the womb complaining so Mom thought nothing of it until a scorpion emerged from his shoe, but I was spared the trauma. I once toddled up to her holding out my hand smiling with boastful pride at my captured treasure, “see, see?” The scorpion crawled around in my tiny cupped hand as mom stood terrified, finally grasping my wrist and flinging my new pet into the air.
I was too young to know how good we had it back then. I vaguely remember the house on Circle Drive with the steep rollercoaster hill sloping down into our long driveway. If we had neighbors, they were far enough away to remain anonymous. Surrounded by a forest of oak trees, cedar trees and limestone rocks, the Oak Hill community resembled a Norman Rockwell painting back in the early 1980’s. Fireflies lit up the night sky as I zigzagged across our never-ending yard chasing the yellow blinking lights. Absolute magic to a child, but we were banned from keeping them in mason jars. Mom felt sorry for the lightning bugs, so Kirk and I were forced to catch and release. Never mind she let me squish grub worms with a rock in her vegetable garden.
In my mind’s eye, our cream-colored limestone house was a mansion, but years later when my dad took me to see it as a teenager I was surprised at its modest size. I actually thought he had the wrong place. Growing up, my memories of my father are limited at best. I’ve been told I was a daddy’s girl, and I imagine it’s true. Most little girls are or would like to be anyway. Along with selling real estate, he also had an auto parts business called Chequered Flag, and to this day those little black and white race flags remind me of him, as does the smell of boot polish. He used to sit down next to the fireplace on our dark brown shag carpet and polish up his cowboy boots. After dinner, he’d lie down in front of the television and fall asleep snoring on his oversized velvet green pillow. I might have curled up next to him, or maybe it’s just a memory I wished existed. Even at that young age, no older than three or four, I could feel the tension mounting in our south Austin mansion. I remember asking my mom, “when’s Guy Guy coming home?”
Cursed with a severe speech impediment, my vocabulary was a string of made up words as I substituted letters for the ones I couldn’t master. I discarded “Kirk” altogether and called him Bubba, blanket became haba, yellow became lello, truck became fu — well you get the picture. My mom was the only person who could decode my foreign tongue. The rest of the family just looked down at me and smiled as I talked up a storm of nonsensical gibberish. Mom was an elementary schoolteacher, English no less, so maybe that helped with the translation process. Adored by every student who had the pleasure of sitting in her colorful classroom, she was the kind of teacher who enjoyed yearly visits from high school students looking for hugs and words of encouragement. Big, hulking sixteen-year-old boys would return to their old stomping grounds not to vandalize or terrorize, but searching for that petite little schoolteacher who changed their lives forever.
A few days before giving birth to me, mom was hit with some pretty bad news. The doctor voiced his concerns that I might be born with limited mental capacities due to a narrow umbilical cord preventing blood flow to my brain. In other words, there was a chance that I might be retarded. My mom cried all night on the phone with her sister but as far as I know, I turned out okay save for a slight mathematical handicap.
On the surface, life was good back in those days. We were an upper-middle class family with a nice home in the rolling hills of South Austin, my parents an attractive couple with two blonde-headed kids and a dog – we really were the picture-perfect family. Saturday nights were spent at our favorite pizzeria, the one with the cartoon room in the back where I sat and ate my pepperoni pizza watching Looney Tunes with the rest of the privileged youth. When the old black and white episodes of the Three Stooges were inevitably played, I’d toddle back over to my parent’s table and interrupt a conversation that probably wasn’t going too well. On the ride home, dad (despite his need for speed) stayed in the right lane so Kirk and I could enjoy the deep dips in the road created by the numerous street gutters lining the curb. We took bicycle rides through the woods together with me strapped into the plastic child’s seat on the back of my dad’s 10-speed. Blue Boy often followed along, his silvery coat disappearing and reappearing through the thick trees. On one such journey we encountered a small brush fire that left a lasting impression on my young mind. I remember being terrified of the burning field, convinced that our horse-like Weimaraner would soon meet his fate as he inched closer to the flames. Although dad reassured me that Blue Boy would not willingly cast himself into the fire, I was inconsolable.
It’s the trauma that leaves its mark. Despite all the pleasant memories that drift in and out of the exhausted mind, it’s the trauma that sticks around like a well-preserved snapshot. One of my earliest memories of Circle Drive is when I braved the pigeon cage my dad had constructed from some scrap wood and chicken wire. I don’t recall the exact count, but judging by the size of the cage, we probably housed at least twenty or so homing pigeons. Some of them even had names, none of which come to mind except for one – one beloved bird named Silver Wing. He was the friendliest of the flock and my father’s favorite, so you can imagine my excitement when he flew down and perched directly upon my small head. Mom was a bit apprehensive, but I beamed from ear to ear as though all my childhood dreams had come true in that one spectacular moment. Silver Wing, however, dashed those dreams to pieces. In classic birds-gone-bad behavior, he rudely left his mark all over my red-ribbon curls. Once again, I was inconsolable.
Periodically, dad would drive out somewhere and release the homing pigeons, no doubt impressed when every last one of them found its way back to the nest. Eventually though, one by one, they trickled off. Silver Wing stuck around longer than the rest, but he too failed to return home one day leaving my father somewhat broken-hearted. Not long after, when Blue Boy also failed to return, our days on Circle Drive came to a close. One of my last memories of that house is watching a thunderstorm roll in from the screened back porch. Streak lightning splintered across the night sky as the rain lightly brushed against our faces when the wind changed directions. Blue Boy had been gone for a couple of days, which was nothing out of the ordinary, but he always returned home when the rains came. My parents sat in silence waiting, watching for that horse-like dog to appear from the darkness of the woods but the storm came and went without a trace of him. Soon after, we traded in our country living for a house in the suburbs. Dad sold his auto parts store and took to selling real estate full time, and before long, Guy Guy also failed to return home.
Divorce is never pleasant. No matter how clean the split or how civilized the two parties behave, the ending of a marriage takes its toll on everyone involved – especially children. My parents’ divorce was neither clean nor civilized, but I don’t remember them fighting too much, I just remember all the pain it left behind. Dad left mom for a younger woman whom he had met at the real estate office. Although he used to wear a cross around his neck and even taught Sunday school a couple of times, he somehow lost his way and eventually declared himself an atheist. Mom spent most evenings curled up in a ball sobbing in her closet, but for the most part, she held it together for us kids. I do remember one incident though when I walked out into the garage to find her screaming and throwing paint cans at the wall. I stood transfixed by the chaotic rainbow of colors splattered across the white sheetrock until she yelled for me to, “Go back inside, baby!” Divorce is never pleasant, but through it all, Kirk and I always had each other.
He loved to tell the Superman story. I hate it. Like a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation, it’s something I will never live down. I was about seven at the time and Kirk was about ten. In typical big brother fashion, he somehow convinced me that I could fly like Superman, I just had to believe – and take a running jump. He assured me that he had done it many times before, but for some reason failed to provide any sort of proof. So, I took a running start, leapt into the air, and plowed face first into the textured wall. Yeah. You better believe I tattled on him – Mom, Kirk told me I could fly like Superman – but he was so convincing! Tears of laughter filled his eyes every time he retold the story, and of course, his version was always much more dynamic than mine.
On the night my dad knelt down at my mother’s feet and told her he was leaving, Kirk and I were in the front yard popping off fireworks. I remember wondering why mom and dad weren’t outside with us, but Kirk kept telling me not to worry and to stay outside with him. Between dodging whistling chasers and misguided roman candles, I managed to step bare-footed on a lit punk. Despite Kirk’s protest, I ran inside to tell mom what had happened and found her seated on the couch, her head in her hands, and dad on his knees beside her. My hurt foot no longer seemed important. “Go back outside, baby,” she said in a muffled voice. Independence Day rang true that night. When mom asked him why, why he would leave his family, why he would turn his back on God, dad simply told her that he just didn’t believe anymore, that he couldn’t feel it in his heart, but that, “maybe one of the kiddos will change my mind someday.” I always figured that kiddo would be Kirk.
My brother had always been a deeply spiritual person. Despite all of his problems, he always turned to God to save him and to relieve his pain. Once, when he was no older than six or seven, a rabid dog cornered him against a wall and threatened to tear him to pieces. Alone and scared to death, he closed his eyes, clutched his bicycle, and prayed for God to somehow intervene. The metal horn on his handlebars had been broken for quite some time, but as he squeezed the rubber bulb a familiar honking sound escaped through the flared bell scaring the dog away. That was Kirk’s life. No matter how much trouble he got himself into, prayer was always his solution. After our parents divorced, he prayed for God to give him a sign that he was still there and that he still cared. That was the same night he saw the lady in the blue cloak.
She was a reoccurring theme throughout our childhood. I never actually saw her myself, but Kirk swore up and down that his vision was real. All these years later, one of the last conversations I had with him, he held tight to the same story he always told. He was about ten or so at the time and had been crying and praying in bed with the door cracked. When he lifted up his head and looked through the doorway, he claimed to have seen a woman draped in a blue cloak walking down the hallway. She stopped at his room, smiled, and then proceeded to walk toward my room at the end of the hall. If I remember correctly, he also said that she was holding an open book in her hands. I think back to that now and see it as a prophetic vision of everything I’ve discussed thus far. The woman in the blue cloak represents the holy marriage, the familiar spirit, and another book of prophecy foretold by my own tongue, but how do I even explain this? He saw her soon after our parents divorced, likewise, soon after I refused to reconnect with my dying god, prophecy began to unfold. That’s how it works. Unless you’re “born again” you fall victim to your own tongue. You fall upon your own sword, but Kirk had been praying when he saw her which is my saving grace in all of this. After sifting through all of my journals, after reading through some of the things I wrote about him through the years, after my own handwriting foretold of tragedy twenty years before it occurred, his faith in God and in Jesus Christ is the only thing that keeps me going.
He died about a year after my fiery trial began. After everything I’d been through, and everything I was still enduring, why? I had quit smoking weed, quit drinking, quit cursing (for the most part) and was trying to live a good Christian life, and this is how God repaid me? Did he even care? Had I been blotted out of his book? Was he going to let the devil have his way with both me and my family? Halloween was just two days away the night my world collapsed.
Kirk was a force to be reckoned with, and while the good memories exist, the bad always seem to take the forefront. I can’t count the number of times we received a collect call from the Harris County Jail, or the number of wrecked cars, court appearances, rehab stints, screaming matches, drug overdoses, broken windows, fists through walls, sleepless nights, anger, fear, chaos, destruction – how did I expect it to end?
But the good memories do exist. We both loved exploring the great outdoors, and with Kirk, there was never a dull moment. Never. I remember when I was working at Yellowstone National Park, he came up to visit, and we were looking for a good spot to hike. We came across these white signs that read “Bear frequenting area. Hike at your own risk,” and while I turned back toward the car, Kirk ventured ahead, his backpack bobbing up and down and his pace steadfast. I jogged to catch up pleading my case as we hiked further into bear country. He promised, as he always did, that he would never let anything happen to me. He was a protective older brother, and although we were three years apart in age, people often mistook us for twins. He was my only sibling, and now, now it’s just me.
My brother struggled with addiction up until the day he died. Alcohol, cocaine, pills – it was a never-ending roller-coaster not only for him, but also for the entire family. The night he died we found him unresponsive in his bed, an empty bottle of Xanax on his dresser and the Bible I’d bought him for Christmas on his nightstand. The paramedics were called as my mom performed CPR on her only son. The police officers who arrived on the scene unofficially ruled his death to be a suicide via drug overdose. He was 42. As if adding salt to our wounds, we were told that the person conducting the autopsy was named, Jaren. I mean, honestly, how many “Jaren’s” do you know? Kirk and I only knew one, my sexually-abusive step-father whom Kirk had vowed to kill more than once. It was as if the devil had left his handprint on, not only my brother’s life, but also his death.
I’ve never cried like that before. Heavy heaves of weeping, unable to catch my breath – “No, No, No,” I cried over and over again. A few days later as we drove to the church for his funeral, I noticed a sign posted on someone’s back fence that read, “Absolutely NO NO NO Trespassing.” On our drive home from the funeral, a white sports car zipped past us with vanity plates that read, “No No No.” It’s the little things that can drive us over the edge. My brother had been looking for a job prior to his death and was offered a position as a sales rep for a funeral home. He quit the next day when a couple came in needing a casket for a baby. The little things. About a week or two before his death he went online for a tarot reading and was given the Death Card. The little things. About a week or two after his death I opened up my Bible and looked down to see the words printed in red, “Thy brother shall rise again.” The big things.
Through it all, my brother never lost his faith in God and in Jesus Christ. His life was a constant struggle, and some of the things he did and said, well, let’s just say his good works most definitely did not land him a spot in heaven. That being said, I know exactly where Kirk is, and I know I’ll see him again someday. Faith. It’s that simple. It’s that big.
I should have picked Blind Bob. Mom started dating not long after the divorce and it came down to two men, Blind Bob and The Monster, both of whom had asked for her hand in marriage. I think he was only partially blind, but Bob was a real stickler. His house was always spotless, he always wore a stiff brown suit and I don’t remember him smiling too much. In short, he wasn’t what you would call kid friendly. The Monster, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He always paid attention to me, had four kids close to my age, and was always smiling and cracking jokes. One of my first memories of Jaren is when I hopped into his lap while he was over for dinner one night. Using a banana as a telephone, I handed it to him and giggled with delight as he held it up to his ear and said, “Hello?” The Monster was good with children. He really did have me at “hello.” When asked who I liked better, Bob or Jaren, naturally I chose Jaren. He actually babysat Kirk and I while mom broke things off with Bob.
We relocated to north Houston about a year after the divorce. Mom got a teaching job at an elementary school while I spent the year flying back and forth between Houston and Austin. My dad had become a stranger to me and I cried nearly the entire time I went to see him. When I wasn’t crying, I sat in my room creating my own Garbage Pail Kid cards. Remember those? They were huge back in 1985 and I had collected a huge stack of them. With a pencil and notebook paper, I came up with my own offensive names (I think Slimy Sally may have been one of them) along with a grossly designed image. Dad checked in on me every now and then, but for the most part, our visits were strained and uncomfortable. Eventually, they stopped altogether.
Mom rented a house on a cul-de-sac street named, Woodstock, where Kirk and I spent most of our time playing baseball with the neighborhood kids. I’m pretty sure I was the only girl out of the group but back then I could give the boys a run for their money. I collected numerous blue ribbons on track-and-field day and could beat anyone to the top in rope climbing, one of my favorite activities at the school gym. Despite the piggy tails and pink floral sun dresses, I was a tomboy through and through. For the most part, life on Woodstock was good. One of my best friends was a mentally challenged boy who seemed to always have white bandages covering his head. We spent entire afternoons together riding our bikes and hanging out by the creek behind the high school, but he turned mean sometimes. He once pulled out a pocket knife and threatened to cut me during a minor disagreement about something, and although he later apologized, our parents banned us from hanging out alone. I was also banned from the hike-n-bike trails. Unless Kirk went with me, I was forbidden from riding my bike alone through the dark forested pathways. I did it anyway though, and the more I disobeyed, the less prevalent the guilt became. It was my favorite afternoon activity, just me and the canopy of tall pine trees as I peddled through the trails lost in my own little imaginative world. I came up with all different kinds of stories and characters and scenarios that I acted out in my own head, none of which I can remember now. I was in a different world where nothing could harm me, nothing else mattered. I was invincible and in control.
I do, however, have a foggy recollection of almost being kidnapped. As I remember it, I had just left the hike-n-bike trails and took a fast right onto the main street leading to my house. A white truck appeared out of nowhere (I guess it’s possible I pulled out in front of him) and followed me, I mean, right behind me, all the way to my house. I remember being petrified, peddling as fast as my eight-year-old legs would allow as this truck stayed right on my tail. I could see Kirk in our driveway with a baseball bat yelling at me to “hurry!” and by the time I made it to the house, mom and Jaren were also standing outside yelling. Two middle-aged men stared us down as their white truck slowly circled our street. I think Jaren even jumped in his car and took off after them, but they were long gone by then. To this day I don’t know what their intentions were, but the incident put the fear in me. That was the last of my hike-n-bike adventures. Besides, I had to come clean. I mean, what was I doing on the main street anyway? Where had I gone, exactly?
It’s the trauma that leaves its mark. Although mostly positive, my memories of Woodstock contain one disturbing image that will forever haunt me. I had gone outside to play one day and noticed a small group of people gathered together a few houses down. Someone was crying. Someone was screaming. Pain. Agony. It was more than one person. It was a chaotic noise of panic and despair, but I kept walking closer unable to stop myself. Someone was lying on the ground. There was a lot of red, but it was his face, his crying face covered in red that I can’t erase from my mind. I could hear his cries. He was so alive with pain. When the ambulance arrived, I ran home, closed myself off in my room, and turned on the radio. That 80’s song, Broken Wings, by Mr. Mister echoed through the alarm clock speaker as I sat on my bed and silently cried. That song, that stupid song, no matter how much time goes by, will always remind me of that horrific day all those years ago. The boy died the next morning in the hospital. A truck hit him just as he was turning into his driveway on his dirt bike. It happened right outside his house, right at the end of his driveway. He almost made it. He almost made it home. I made it, but he didn’t.
By the end of the school year, mom finally agreed to marry Jaren. We moved to Louisiana in 1986, and although it was only one state over, Cajun country was a bit of a culture shock. Mom took one look at the public school I would be attending and decided to enroll me in a Christian Montessori school instead. My longing for home hit a pinnacle when we were given the assignment to draw our state. Without thinking, I drew Texas. My fear of tornadoes also hit a pinnacle in Louisiana. Every time a thunderstorm blew in, I just knew a tornado would inevitably follow. It all stemmed from that one day when the sky turned a day-glow green. I’d never seen it like that before or since. Mom and I were leaving school when that eerie silence settled in and the sky changed colors right before our eyes. The clouds began moving in a strange rotation and before we could make it to the car, quarter-sized hail rained down upon us. Although numerous tornadoes were reported that day, I never actually saw one myself, but the trauma left its mark. Every time thunder graced the airwaves, I’d tearfully ask my all-knowing mom, “do you think we’re going to have a tornado?” Amazingly, somehow, somewhere along the way I grew to love thunderstorms.
There was another incident. Girls’ softball. We stood out in the open field waiting for the opposing team to arrive. Lightning splintered across the sky as another vibrant thunderstorm rolled into Bossier Parish. We were sitting ducks out there, but we knew, we knew if we stood our ground and stayed out on the field, the other team would have to forfeit the game giving us the win. I was deathly afraid of thunderstorms, but I hated losing even more. By the end of the season it would be the only game we ever won.
Louisiana also marked the beginning of The Monster’s reign. Less than a year after he officially became my stepfather, things began to change, little things, insignificant and purely accidental to my nine-year-old mind. It started with little peeks through the bathroom door while I showered. The first time it happened, he laughed and quickly apologized as he shut the door. A few minutes later, the door cracked open and his head peeked through again. I left the door unlocked the next time I showered to test the situation, and sure enough, his head peeked through the crack. The longer I ignored him, the longer he stared. When I finally yelled out, “Jaren!” he giggled and closed the door. The next time I showered I locked the door behind me. After turning on the water, I watched the knob slightly jiggle as I slowly got undressed. Not long after, when he got me alone, he confronted me about it. Why would I do that? Why would I lock the door? He was just being silly, after all, and besides, it was just an accident. And so, the mind games began. The next time I showered, I was at a loss as to whether I should lock the door or not.
The red robe was the defining incident that something was seriously wrong. We sat in front of the television, me on the couch and him on the sofa chair wearing his favorite red robe. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, halfway exposed with the round tip poking through the maroon fabric. I turned away from the television and gave it my full attention, curious and vaguely aware of what I was staring at. He smiled and pulled his robe closed. After a few dozen times of this happening I suspected it was no longer an accident, though I still didn’t fully understand. I tried ignoring him. I quit looking over when I saw it poking out, and if my eyes did happen to wander, it was always the same reaction. He’d smile, say oops, and pull his robe closed. I was no longer amused, and when he began gently fondling himself, I retreated upstairs to my room. I knew something was wrong. His robe managed to stay closed when someone else watched television with us, and I saw something in his eyes, shifty and imploring. I read it in his smile, devious and eager. He was testing the boundaries.
And then there was the tucking-in incident. Mom used to tuck me in every night and scratch my back to help me fall asleep. It was a nightly routine of ours, but one night, for whatever reason, Jaren appeared in my bedroom instead. I knew, with vague understanding, that he had ulterior motives. With each scratch my shirt raised higher and higher above my waist. His hands brushed against my bare skin, grazing against my side and reaching closer to my chest each time. I brought my arms down and squeezed them tighter against my body blocking his wandering hands. I repositioned myself and tugged my shirt down reminding him to stay on top of the fabric. I finally told him it was enough. I didn’t tell him why or that he was making me uncomfortable, I just told him that it was enough, I could fall asleep just fine now. The next morning, I pretended like nothing happened. He was testing the boundaries – the shower, the red robe, the tucking in – it was all a beta test and I passed with flying colors. I knew how to keep a secret.
My best friend, Gwen, was the exact opposite of me. Aggressive and outspoken, she would alert the world through a high-volume megaphone if she felt threatened. She would scream it from the mountain tops, unashamed, unrelenting and determined to be heard. Her voice would not and never will be silenced. She was the wrong kind of child, an unworthy candidate, a bad choice for people like my stepfather. I, on the other hand, met all the qualifications. Quiet, shy, and overshadowed by a needy and troubled older brother – I was the perfect victim. Abuse can happen to any child, regardless of personality traits, but anything long-term takes careful examination of the situation. The predator must dip his feet in the water, get a feel for the atmosphere, the environment, the temperature. What kind of child was he dealing with?
Growing up, I never considered myself a victim of abuse. It was a slow awakening. My case was different. We had a special relationship, a relationship no one else understood, no one else knew about and no one else could penetrate because I wouldn’t let them. It’s not abuse if it’s consensual. It’s not abuse if I permitted it to happen. It’s not abuse if he loved me. My case was different. It wasn’t until I reached my early twenties that I realized I was one of them. An abused child, sexually molested, broken, confused, brainwashed – my case wasn’t special at all. Different, perhaps, but certainly not special. It was a slow awakening, but the fifteen years of conditioning, the psychological abuse, the lies, trickery and deceit slowly began to fade as that voice grew louder. That little voice inside my head that I’d suppressed for so long cranked up the volume and I couldn’t shut her out anymore. Something happened to me, and while I’m sure that reaching adulthood played a major factor, I also blame music for my eventual coming out. I put that blame squarely on Tori Amos.
I must have been about twenty-years-old the first time I listened to her debut album, Little Earthquakes. It’d been out for quite a few years by then, but up until that point, I refused to listen to any of her music. I come from a southern Baptist family, a southern Baptist family in south Texas and we don’t take blasphemy lightly. After seeing the video for her song, God, I wrote her off as the red-headed witch that she was, but the music, the music had a hold on me. I remember the moment I gave in to temptation. I was driving in my blue 1996 Chevy Lumina, the one that always died going 75 mph down the freeway, and her song Crucify came on the radio. I reached over to switch the channel, hesitated, lit a cigarette, and then turned up the volume. A month later, I owned all of her albums.
I listened to them on repeat, always skipping over the God track from her second album but brought to tears by most of the others. I was an emotional wreck, but I needed to be, I was on to something, something was happening to me. It came in waves of horrific clarity. At that time in my life, I was still in contact with the abuser. I saw him almost every day when I willingly went over to his house. I was awake but still asleep, aware but in denial, an adult but still a child as Tori Amos continued touching those sensitive nerves. I loved my abuser. He was my best friend and confidant. He was the only person who understood me, the only person I could talk to, the one person who would never judge or hurt me. I couldn’t imagine my life without him. Back in those days, even with Tori whispering in my ear, I couldn’t break the spell.
Abuse comes in many forms, and even to this day, twenty years into adulthood, I still have a difficult time admitting to myself or anyone else that I was a victim of sexual abuse. It’s someone else’s life, someone else’s childhood, someone else’s story to tell – not mine. He never hit me or forced himself on me. He was never cruel to me. He never threatened me or made me feel like he was anything but the best stepfather a girl could have. He taught me how to drive, took me to rock concerts, bought me whatever my heart desired, but always at a cost. I wasn’t forced to do anything I didn’t want to do, just heavily persuaded. I’ve heard heartbreaking stories from women who have survived unimaginable abuse – beaten, raped and terrorized by some poor excuse of a man, but I can’t relate to them. My abuser loved me far too much for that. My abuser held me when I cried and put a smile on my face when no one else could. I adored the monster under my bed.
At the end of the school year, we moved back to Texas where mom got a teaching job in her hometown, Bay City, which was a blip on the map just outside of Houston. It was a small coastal community where racial tensions combined with prevalent class divisions motivated the overall social climate. We were somewhere in the middle. The remainder of the summer was spent on the beach which became a home away from home for Kirk, Gwen and me. We spent the afternoons body surfing in the murky brown waters of the Gulf of Mexico until one of us inevitably got stung by a jellyfish, usually Kirk. Gwen and I vowed to single-handedly cull the invasive population by killing every single one that we found washed ashore. We combed the beach with our sticks in hand beating the stranded jellies to death and then writing our trademark slogan in the sand, “Jellyfish Killers.” Their powers were rendered useless outside of the ocean and we were their worst nightmare.
My fifth-grade year was spent at Cherry Elementary School where classes were divided into A, B, and C depending on a child’s academic performance. I hit all three. A Class for English, B Class for math and history, and C Class for science, my least favorite subject at the time. By the end of the year, I quit caring about grades altogether. School became less and less important as my childhood took a turn for the worse. Jaren’s sexual advances had become less subtle by the time I turned eleven and Kirk was spiraling out of control. I woke up to a commotion one night to find mom in a panic and Jaren in a fit of rage after discovering his brand-new red Cadillac missing from the garage. Kirk was also conspicuously missing. At just thirteen, he decided to steal Jaren’s car and drive all the way to the Mexican border where he was finally arrested in El Paso.
And then there was the incident with Mr. Spencer. I don’t remember why he was in trouble or what he had done to win the attention of Bay City Junior High’s infamous assistant principal, but the story ended with Mr. Spencer driving his car through the football field chasing after my hot-footed older brother. Kirk became a legend at the school after that, but in his defense, Mr. Spencer was an absolute tyrant of a man. You could hear him coming a mile away as he patrolled the hallways yelling and patronizing students who were exiled from class and forced to await his wrath. Whatever you did, don’t get caught in the hallway. A year after Kirk’s legendary escape, I was met by Mr. Spencer on my first day on the junior high campus. “You’re Kirk Niemann’s sister?” he asked. Yup. “I’m keeping my eye on you.”
Despite Mr. Spencer’s firsthand discrimination against me, the school year started out okay. I ran with a churchy group of well-mannered, well-behaved upper-middle class girls who shared my love for teeny-bopper pinups and Little Debbie treats. However, the day I showed up in the lunch room wearing all black and smelling like cigarette smoke, they dropped me like a Hollywood has-been. It was like a scene from an after-school special. I sat down with my lunch at our usual table and the three of them promptly got up and left. I think one of them even said, “we don’t want to hang out with you anymore.” That was that. I replaced my River Phoenix poster with Guns-n-Roses and began smoking cigarettes behind the bleachers. I was done being the sweet little girl with a cheery disposition. I was done trying to be someone I no longer was. The Monster began making deals with me. If I let him hold his hand in a certain place for say, five minutes or so, he’d buy me a new concert t-shirt. Things like that. No big deal. Besides, no one else understood what I was going through. He was cool though. He let me smoke cigarettes and bought me rock albums.
I did attend church with Gwen and her family during that time. It was a non-denominational church where speaking in tongues and casting out devils were normal occurrences on a Sunday morning. Somehow, I managed to get saved. By the end of a fire-and-brimstone sermon one Sunday night, I found myself weeping and asking to be saved in front of the entire congregation. And I felt different too. For the next couple of months, I did feel a change within myself, but my stepfather was still a sexual predator, and my brother was still out of control, and my best friend was recently rushed to the hospital after a suicide attempt left her unconscious on the bathroom floor. That same church where I had been saved rejected her as a hopeless problem child. They said she was possessed with devils. They accused her of worshipping Satan. They ignored her cries for help, so she swallowed a bottle of aspirin. After two years of living in Bay City, mom decided it was time to relocate again.
They called her the Jolly Green Giant. Six foot three and only thirteen years old, Julie was a perfect target for the herd mentality of school bullying. Her large blue eyes, pale narrow face, and long crooked nose did little to relieve her awkward disposition, and even if she had tried to fit in, Julie stuck out like an oversized sore thumb. The Sesame Street character, Big Bird, was also thrown into the mix of degrading nicknames, and although I never voiced it aloud, I couldn’t help but see the resemblance.
Julie was the first friend I made upon returning to the Houston area. After living in the small port town of Bay City for the past two years, the upper-class white suburbs of North Houston were a stark contrast. I sat alone in the lunch room watching the throngs of middle-schoolers bustle around me, none of them paying me much mind. Insecure and painfully shy, I avoided eye contact, sipped my coke, and waited. The first day at a new school is always rough, but I knew what I was doing. I had it all planned out the night before, much to my mother’s disapproval. I knew who I wanted to attract. I knew who my future friends were. I just had to wait. A dark shadow enveloped me as I looked up to see a towering blond amazon girl standing by the table accompanied by four of her average-sized friends. “Hey,” she said, “I like your shirt.” Mission accomplished. “Thanks,” I shrugged. “You want to come sit with us?” she asked. That was that. From then on, we became inseparable all thanks to my Guns-n-Roses concert t-shirt.
Besides finding my middle school clique, I had a difficult time settling into my new environment. At my old school, black and Hispanic kids from lower-income families graced the hallways, but the North Houston suburbs were the exact opposite. We lived in the fairly well-to-do neighborhood of Atascocita (the big “A” it was often called) on a windy street named Magnolia Bend. At just twelve years old, I would sit on my window sill smoking cigarettes and flicking the butts into my neighbor’s yard. They hated me. They hated my entire family. Even before Kirk and I egged their car, even before we threw condoms over the fence and into their pool, even before the cops paid us our monthly visit, they hated us because we were renters. We didn’t belong there and they knew it, sniffed us out like the lower-middle class derelicts we were. They had our number and we had theirs. We were enemies from day one.
Julie and I also terrorized the big “A.” We’d walk down to the boat docks and chase the ducks into the lake flapping our arms and quaking like a couple of special needs kids. Then we’d hike out through the tall weeds and hang out under the long bridge that connected Huffman to Humble. We’d pick up glass bottles along the way and chunk them against the sloped concrete wall yelling out the names of people who made our lives miserable.
“Mrs. Calfee!” Crash!
“My Dad!” Smash!
“Jennifer Whore-ton!” Clank!
“Everyone at school!” Whoosh. Uh oh.
One of the bottles soared over the top of the bridge and onto Interstate 1960. Julie turned to me wide-eyed, her mouth a perfect oval. I laughed and skid down the side of the bridge with my tall friend following behind calling out my name.
“Lindsay! What do we do? What if the cops show up?”
“Just run, Julie!” I laughed. She slowed me down though. Every time I looked back to see her bleach-blonde hair poking up in sporadic wisps around her head, her reddened face moistened from the sun, I laughed even harder. Tears burned my eyes as my towering friend doubled over behind me laughing and cursing at the same time. We’d light the wispy spires of yucca plants on fire and watch them burn like the Olympic flame for about three seconds. We purposely started a grass fire once and ran away when it got out of hand. We were troublemakers through and through. We both hated riding the bus, so every day after school we’d walk about five miles to my house. Inevitably, the train of loaded buses would pass by with our schoolmates yelling out the windows, “Sasquatch!” Julie’s face would turn bright red, the rage eventually replaced with sadness and humiliation. I honestly don’t know how she survived middle school. To this day I still miss her.
By the time I reached high school my rebellion reached its peak. With new friends and a new identity, I shrugged off the need to fit in and be a well-adjusted, well-mannered kid. I embraced my rebellion. I didn’t want to fit in. I hated pep rallies, despised football games, rejected school spirit, and made sure that prom dresses were absent from my wardrobe. Saturday class became a weekly affair due to the number of times I got busted smoking in the girl’s bathroom, but I shrugged off most of my appointments. Going to school on Saturday wasn’t part of my schedule, so, obligingly, I accepted my week-long stint at the short-term alternative center they’d bus us to every morning. At least I could sneak a smoke on the way over. Julie and I often skipped class together and spent our days at the park playing basketball, swimming, or goofing off on the playground. For the most part, we managed to stay out of trouble except the time we got caught shoplifting at the mall.
It was me, Julie, and a few other Charter friends. Now, I had never shoplifted before but my friends (who had enjoyed numerous stints at Charter Hospital) assured me that we wouldn’t get caught. I mean, come on, they did it all the time. Clare’s Boutique was the intended target. We filed in separately and straight away began filling our pockets. Hey, this is easy! I walked out of the store feeling like a rock star until security guards showed up out of nowhere and surrounded us. They’d been watching the whole time, waiting for us to leave the store so they could move in for the kill. We were escorted into a small office down a long hallway and waited for the Harris County Police Department to arrive. One of my Charter friends leaned over and advised me to keep some of the stuff hidden in my pockets lest they try to pin me with a felony charge. Apparently, if the stolen merchandise is over a certain amount, the misdemeanor becomes a felony. The store owners watched as we emptied our pockets, and sure enough, one of the women pointed me out and prematurely labeled me a felon as merchandise spilled out onto the table. I managed to retain about two fifteen-dollar rings and a cheap costume necklace I kept stashed away inside my bulky leather jacket. In the end, no charges were brought against me, and when they finally released us, Jaren came to my rescue. He would take care of everything, and mom didn’t have to know about any of this, but it was gonna cost me.
Most of our deals were played out at the end of a long gravel road after a night of driving lessons. That was always the excuse. Jaren and I would leave the house so he could take me driving, and I would spend the next hour or so blaring my music and racing down some back-country roads. He drank and I smoked cigarettes as my favorite hair bands screeched through the Cadillac speakers. By the time we turned onto that little dirt road, well, the fun was over. I won’t go into detail except to say that it only lasted about fifteen minutes and he was the only one on the receiving end. Did I feel like a prostitute? Not at the time. Do I now? Absolutely. It was a slow awakening.
We’d often drive downtown for merchandise. That’s where all the good stuff was, and I loved seeing the big city lights. Rare concert shirts and albums, posters, cutting-edge apparel, anything my fourteen-year-old heart desired could be mine for a cost. Concert tickets always required a little more give on my part. The bigger the cost, the bigger the deal. I make you happy, you make me happy was his favorite slogan. Kiss, Gun-n-Roses, Metallica, Motley Crue, Skid Row, Queensryche, Poison, Faith No More, Def Leppard, Pantera – you name the band, I probably saw their show, even met a few of them. I had it all figured out. I was going to be one of them, like Lita Ford or Heart, I was going to be a rock star. I was going to be famous. On one of our trips downtown, I sat in the car smoking a cigarette with the window rolled down waiting for Jaren to return from the liquor store. A homeless woman approached the car and asked if she could bum a smoke. “You look like a writer or something,” she said after borrowing my lighter. Huh. A writer.
I think both mom and Kirk probably had their suspicions. I know for a fact Kirk did because I confided in him once. When he told mom, I denied it. I called him a liar. Some things, it’s easy to forgive ourselves, other things, they last a lifetime. We stood under that covering oak tree in the front yard of our rented house. My feet wavered back and forth as I kicked at an exposed tree root and fumbled with my words. I don’t remember what I said exactly, I just told him that Jaren had made some passes at me. He was furious, but after I denied it, after I made him out to be a liar, his anger was aimed at me. Mom must have confronted Jaren about it because he later asked me if I had said anything. I told him no, that Kirk was just lying because he didn’t like him. I would never say anything! There was also an incident at school. They called me into the counselor’s office my freshman year where I was asked about pornographic pictures. They had received a phone call from a concerned “friend” who said that I was being molested at home. I knew exactly what pictures they were referencing, but I denied it completely. When I asked who this friend was, they refused to tell me. I was furious. Who did that person think they were? I figured it was one of my school friends. When I told Jaren about the incident, he panicked. He was convinced that I had said something. It plagued him. No more deals. No more driving lessons. No more concerts. This was the big one. He figured his next deal would be in court. It was later revealed that the anonymous call was made by his ex-wife. Apparently, she knew him pretty well. His oldest son, who was about Kirk’s age, told him that she was angry because Jaren wasn’t paying child support, and so she made the call. To this day I don’t know what to believe. There were pictures, but Jaren kept them in a locked safe stashed away in his closet. I’ll say this, his four kids, they knew him pretty well too.
I hate him sometimes. I know we’re supposed to forgive and love our enemies, but when I think of what he did to my already damaged family, I can’t help but hate him. Jaren nursed my feelings of being overlooked and forgotten by my family. He loved to point out that mom ignored me because Kirk required so much attention. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he’d say. “I just feel so bad for you.” He was the only one who truly cared for me, who truly knew me, who truly loved me. He was the only one I could turn to because mom was preoccupied, and Kirk was beyond hope. He isolated me from the two people who loved me the most in this world. How do you forgive Satan for being Satan?
Growing up, Kirk and I loved anything pertaining to the occult – scary movies, Halloween, ghost stories – we’d play sleepover games like light as a feather, stiff as a board or dare each other to stand in front of the bathroom mirror with the light off and recite Bloody Mary three times. We loved all that stuff, even made our own Ouija board because mom refused to buy us one. We’d see faces on tree trunks and believed they were actually ghosts. We played Stairway to Heaven backwards over and over and over again, but something happened in that house on Magnolia Bend. I know Kirk dabbled in the occult as a teenager, but I can’t say for sure what that entailed, exactly, or how far he took things. It got out of hand, that much I know. He was visibly shaken when he asked mom to come upstairs to his room one day and pray with him. I remember him saying something about all of his candles blowing out and maybe even his window flying open, but what I remember for sure is the drastic change in temperature. Walking into his room afterward, it was ice cold. It was just so frigid and cold.
Everything fell apart at that house. Kirk and I quit talking. I was constantly at odds with mom and failing almost every subject in school. I began skipping classes more frequently until I quit going altogether. The sexual abuse escalated as did my dependency on Jaren. I cut my wrists in an attempt to cry out to someone, in an attempt to get anyone’s attention. It wasn’t deep enough to do any real damage, but I bandaged them up just the same to make it look worse than it was. I needed help, but I couldn’t say why. Jaren wasn’t the problem. Jaren loved me. It was just, it was Kirk, it was mom, it was people at school, it was the neighbors, it was the house, it was Houston, but it wasn’t The Monster. Throughout my adulthood, I began having reoccurring dreams about Magnolia Bend, nothing nightmarish, no recovered memory, just the house. Sometimes it sat empty, sometimes it was bigger, and sometimes it was exactly how I remembered it. Sometimes I was an adult, sometimes I was a teenager again, but the house always held significance. The house was always the main focus. It’s the trauma that leaves its mark.
My sophomore year brought with it even more isolation. The group of Charter friends I ran with kicked me out of the band when Christy died. It was at a New Year’s Eve party when the shotgun accidently went off. I wasn’t in attendance, but as the official story goes, one of the guys was playing around with a gun, pointing it at people, and when it got to Christy it went off. They panicked, figuring she was dead, and drove out to the woods where they dumped her body. A few days later, squirrel hunters found her and contacted the authorities. Here’s the inside scoop: the bullet only grazed Christy’s head. She was unconscious, not dead. The cause of death was asphyxiation from drowning, not a bullet wound. The squirrel hunters actually found her body in an abandoned silo. No one in attendance went to the police. The next day, Christy’s mom frantically called every one of them asking if they knew where she was. At the funeral, someone placed a pentagram in her casket. She was fourteen. The guy with the shotgun went to prison for about a year and the other two people involved in dumping her body were given three months at Charter Hospital. Everyone else in my tightly-knit group stood by the accused. I didn’t. After several rounds of heated arguments, harassing phone calls and long-winded letters, they finally gave up on me. I was out of the band. Even Julie quit talking to me for a while. By the end of the school year, mom decided to homeschool me. She also decided to divorce Jaren.
Although it was a slow awakening, my dependency on The Monster lessened after the divorce. I was fifteen when we said goodbye to Magnolia Bend and moved into a modest two-story townhome. It helped not living under the same roof, and as the year went by, I also avoided being alone with him. He rented a small one-bedroom apartment about five miles up the road from us, but most of the time I only went over there to smoke weed. It was a safe house, so to speak, and his liquor cabinet was always well-stocked.
It was the early nineties and my love for glam rock and heavy metal inevitably gave way to grunge music. Bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains began appearing on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and something inside me stirred. There were no half-naked women in their videos. There were no painted faces, teased hair or cheesy lyrics about big-breasted bimbos and sexed-up groupies waiting backstage. It was a different atmosphere. The music was angry but not too heavy, raw but still melodic, catchy but not peppy, angsty but not whiny – I was hooked. When I discovered Nirvana’s breakthrough album, Nevermind, there was no going back. Even Jaren noticed the difference. Although it didn’t happen as often, when we did go out driving, I’d blast that album on repeat. He didn’t like it. He wasn’t a huge fan of my glam rock either, but Jaren hated Nirvana. Maybe he saw them as a threat, a dangerous influence that had already driven a wedge between us. Kids emulate their heroes and I had discovered a new class of rock star to worship – the anti-rock star who didn’t want to be worshipped. I had discovered a group of people who were as miserable and disturbed as me. This was my era. The hand-me-down, resale store, baby-doll fashion, the raw, anti-glam, straight-forward music, the rise of environmentalism, the death of George H. W. Bush’s presidency – change was in the air, everyone could feel it.
Somewhere between that change, River Phoenix died of a massive drug overdose outside of Johnny Depp’s night club, The Viper Room, so the official story goes. I was devastated but I didn’t know why. Five years had passed since I replaced his poster with Guns-n-Roses, but something about River’s death touched me to the core. Maybe it was his brother’s 911 call, maybe it was the media circus that followed, maybe it reminded me of my own broken childhood, I didn’t know, but his death brought with it unexplained sorrow. Less than a year after we lost River, Kurt Cobain also met a tragic fate. We all know the story, we all know how it ended, and just like River, there was something else there, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, something far stranger than fiction, something in the way of the truth.
With Jaren not around as often, Kirk and I grew close again. Our musical tastes finally landed on the same page and, I too, had discovered the wonderful world of weed. We spent our afternoons exploring the acres of woods behind the townhomes while a fat joint passed between the two of us. When we needed a change of scenery, we’d hop in the car and drive out to another secluded area. On one such occasion, we decided to hike out to the spot where Christy’s body had been dumped. We followed the railroad tracks about a mile or two into the woods until we came upon a clearing, and then, there they were. Out in the middle of nowhere, two abandoned concrete silos stood next to each other, about seven feet in height and fifteen feet in diameter. Kirk and I hesitated and then inched our way closer to the cylindrical twin structures. Carefully leaning over, we peered inside to find a horrific scene displayed before us. The pits were a little less than halfway filled with water and a couple of large tree branches poked out of the murky water. A handful of snapping turtles rested on the exposed branches along with a couple of water moccasins, but the longer we stared, the clearer the picture came into view. It was an absolute snake pit. We could see them gliding through the water and sliding on top and underneath each other, and they were everywhere. I thought about Christy waking up and scraping the walls to get out. I saw her in my mind, panicked, disoriented and scared to death as snakes attacked her struggling body. I don’t know how her final moments played out, or if she ever woke up at all, but according to the rumor mill, her fingernails were scraped down to the nub. Kirk and I moved away from the twin structures as an incoming train laid-in on the blaring horn. About a yard away from the pits we noticed a small concrete hut room enough for about one person, and next to it, a fresh pile of, what looked like, human excrement. My brother’s alert level climbed to severe. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I brought my gun.” I wondered if the crude defilement left behind belonged to one of the squirrel hunters. Kirk’s imagination matched his paranoia as he speculated that it might be from an escaped convict hiding out in the woods. Although he suggested hiking out to the old slave cemetery about half a mile away, I was done for the day. That was about twenty-five years ago, and even now, I still struggle with the knowledge of their existence. I’ve often toyed with the idea of hiking back out there to see if they still stand.
By the time I turned eighteen, I was smoking weed on a daily basis and writing in my journal every day. Kirk worked in Yellowstone National Park at the time as a waiter, and Jaren’s four kids had moved into his one-bedroom apartment with him. Even if I had wanted to be alone with him, it would have been nearly impossible. The end of my childhood also brought with it the death of my best friend. Julie died of a heart attack in the early morning hours of September 23, 1995. She was seven months pregnant. They found her in the bathtub, and although she was revived once, she didn’t make it, neither did her baby. I remember her bringing it up once, maybe twice since I met her, but Julie suffered from a heart condition that was exacerbated by her unplanned pregnancy. It’s the trauma that leaves its mark.
I was with Jaren the first time I saw the mountains. It was love at first sight as I admired the rows of shadowy figures rise above the surface of the earth. Back then, I used to love taking road trips with him. He was my best friend and number one confidant. I couldn’t imagine my life without him. In fact, it absolutely terrified me to imagine life without him. I was 23 the last time we took a road trip together, and by then, the programming had worn off, even still, it was a slow awakening. I’d heard through the grapevine that I wasn’t the only one, that I wasn’t special, and I wasn’t different, but I was (much to my dismay) one of them. I was a victim of abuse just like his daughter, just like them, and just like him.
I spent most of the trip preparing for my speech, and although it didn’t go the way I’d planned, it still went. Tori Amos ruled the airwaves for about eight hours as I summoned my girl power and resisted the urge to settle back into my comfort zone. There was no going back. I needed to know the truth. Did he do to her what he did to me? Almost twenty years later, I now know this to be true, but back then it was a new revelation that needed confirmation. We spent the night in the Red Canyon pines of New Mexico. He stayed in the car as I set up the tent, kindled a fire and prepared our campground for a heart-to-heart that would soon take place. The inevitable hung in the thin mountain air like a heavy burden suspended by the gravity of fate. There was always a price to pay. There was always the unspoken deal that defiled love and exposed the situation for what it really was. He’d held up his end of the deal, we were in the mountains, now it was my turn.
He met me by the fire and asked if I was ready, the whites of his eyes twinkling in the darkness and his chapped lips coated with whiskey. “We need to talk,” I answered. I asked him point blank about his youngest daughter, and although I’ve racked my brain trying to remember his reply, I honestly don’t recall. She said that she woke up in the middle of the night to see him sitting by her bed and that she felt like something had happened. Intuition told me there was more to the story, much more, but she wasn’t ready to talk, and neither was I, not to her anyway. I needed to hear it from him. I needed to know that I’d been played a fool my entire life. I wasn’t special. I was just brainwashed from a very early age. I then asked him how he felt about “us,” if he felt any guilt or remorse. I asked if he remembered how old I was when he first touched me inappropriately. He answered wrong. “I wasn’t thirteen, I was nine,” I said. “Don’t you find that kind of sick?” He fumbled over his words before looking up at me and answering, “Really, you were that young?” In that instant, I saw a broken man, his eyes wild and trapped, his face long and diseased. Silence hung in the air until I heard a voice I barely recognized, childish and weak, my stepdad sheepishly said with a gesture, “My mom used to touch me here. She used to smile like this and fondle me when I was younger.”
“Altitude Sickness” 12/15/2000 (Journal Entry)
I feel as though I threw you away. Up in the clouds on a clear night with the brilliantly bright full moon providing us with the opportunity to save our batteries, I felt compelled to step across the boundary and say aloud for the first time the words I never had the courage to speak. She talked to him, and I talked to her, and he talked to them, but the source for my truth was you. I feel as though you can’t look me in the eye ever since I spoke my mind in the red canyons that July with only the whispering of the pines to disrupt our private line. I wish I had the ability…I wish I had the ability…I wish I had the ability to run.
The change was coming but I wasn’t there yet. By the time I reached my early twenties, it was all about traveling, and Jaren was my ticket to ride. True, I didn’t want to be alone with him, but most of the time his youngest daughter came with us. For the most part, I was a typical twenty-something: lazy, self-absorbed, and directionless. I spent my days going to beach parties, smoking weed, writing in my journal, or taking road trips with Jaren and his youngest daughter. New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, we traveled across the west coast listening to our favorite tunes and planning our escape. One day, someday soon, we would leave Houston behind for good. I became extremely close with his youngest daughter through the years. At one point in our relationship, we were inseparable. Two years younger than me, she was like the little sister I always wanted and the best friend I always needed with no strings attached, but the more time we spent together, the more suspicious I became. Some of the things Jaren said to her, the way he looked at her sometimes, her own father, I didn’t want to confront the obvious. It was like juggling two relationships, and sooner or later, the two worlds would come crashing into one another.
I watched her slowly decline and transform into someone I no longer knew. The pills had taken hold and I couldn’t help her. We never talked about it, even to this day we’ve never really talked about it, but it’s a mutual understanding. She knows about me and I know about her, and everything in between, it doesn’t matter anymore. The addiction had taken hold and I knew the reason for her pain, but I was done with that part of my life. I was fully awake. After confronting Jaren in the Red Canyon Mountains of New Mexico, I submitted an application to Yellowstone National Park. I left her behind to fend for herself and headed for higher ground.
I spent my time in Yellowstone soul-searching and coming to terms with my life. Jaren actually came up for a visit, but I was less than enthusiastic to see him, and he knew it. I was no longer the girl he used to know. Kirk also came up for a visit which was the highlight of my six- month stay. The summer ended with the fall of the Twin Towers. I returned home in early November to find that everything had stayed the same. I was different, but Houston was the same. My step sisters and brother were seemingly lost to their addictions as well as my own brother. Aside from a daily weed habit, I managed to avoid a life-threatening drug addiction. I dabbled in everything – pills, acid, shrooms, cocaine and even heroin – but amazingly, nothing ever got out of hand. Weed, however, was my very best friend.
Jaren went on to “date” a stripper who was younger than his youngest daughter. I even hung out with her once, and while it was on the tip of my tongue, I didn’t tell her that she was sleeping with a child molester. I figured she probably already knew. After graduating college, I landed a job with a local newspaper and eventually bought my own house. By the time I turned thirty, I couldn’t hide it anymore. I was a basket case. It was a family reunion that triggered the breakdown. Mom, Kirk, and I traveled five hours to attend the event, and seeing family members that I hadn’t seen since I was fourteen, seeing them all grown up, married with their kids, seeing their seemingly picturesque lives, it was too much for me to handle. I’d never even had a real boyfriend, never had intimate relations with anyone but The Monster, would never have a family of my own, and had yet to come clean about any of it. The big secret was taking its toll. I had to tell them. After returning home from the reunion, I was in tears or close to tears for about a week. I couldn’t eat or sleep, and although I somehow made it through work, I was constantly wiping away tears at my desk. Weed wasn’t helping. Alcohol made matters worse. I finally called my mom and asked her to come over. She was in a panic by the time she arrived. Through heavy sobs and broken sentences, I told her. I finally told her the truth. The burden was lifted, and although the aftermath was yet to come, I was free.
Now you’re all caught up. I spent the next few years researching conspiracy theories and, eventually, changed my entire belief system. Once again, Kirk and I were on the same page. He talked for years about a New World Order, was an avid Alex Jones listener, and despised both the republican and democratic parties. When I got on board, he was absolutely thrilled. “I don’t know how it happened,” he said, “but I’m glad it did.” I started hoarding food and water, growing my own weed and prepping for the big one. Something was coming down the road. Something big. I also spent about three years of my life writing a sci-fi novel that will probably never see the light of day, and when I lost faith in that endeavor, I toyed with the idea of writing a memoir about my experience with sexual abuse. If I was an expert on anything, it was trauma, manipulation, mind control, and sexual abuse. So, I started a blog.
Conspiracy 101 (Blog Post 2014)
Let me start off by saying I don’t own a tin foil hat, nor have I ever been abducted by aliens, and while Bigfoot may very well exist, I’ve never had an encounter. I’m a pretty reasonable, well-adjusted person, but the more time I spend on this planet, the more I’m convinced we’re being taken for a ride. Call it what you want, the New World Order, The Illuminati, the shadow government, the powers that be, the puppet masters – it’s all the same to me, and so is the endgame. Erase competition, eradicate opposition, and enslave the rest. It’s a one-party system disguised as a democracy with democrats and republicans taking turns pushing each other on the playground, but in the end, we all fall down. They pit us against each other, divide and conquer, liberal vs conservative, black vs white, gay vs straight, prolife vs prochoice, rich vs poor, because they know if we all came together their agenda would implode, but I digress. Thousands of books and websites expose this conspiracy more thoroughly than I could ever dream, but few come with a disclaimer. Few will tell you that the information you’re about to digest will leave you disillusioned and short on patriotism.
It all started with the death of Bin Laden. I sat on pins and needles with the rest of America that Sunday night waiting for the president to make his big announcement. When it finally came, I was less than surprised. I suspected as much. I somehow knew what the announcement would entail, but I continued watching with a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. After the president left the stage and the celebrations began, that strange feeling intensified. I watched as the crowds of people piled into the streets chanting, USA, USA, USA, laughing and slapping hands as if their home team had just won the Super Bowl. I wanted to share their enthusiasm, but my stomach churned with unease as I gazed at the television. This changes nothing, I thought, this won’t bring back the lives we lost on 9/11. My eyes glossed over as I sat on the bed looking past the televised celebrations spreading across America. I saw something — a rip in the fabric, a stray foot peeking through from behind the curtain. In the grips of my self-induced trance I caught a glimpse of those invisible strings glistening under the stage lights. How convenient, I thought, after all these years, the second war in Iraq, the loss of our freedoms, ten long years of searching desert caves, and then POOF, just like that, we got him. I didn’t buy it.
In the weeks and months that followed, I immersed myself in research starting with the 9/11 attacks. I stumbled upon a little-known website called Infowars.com, a page dedicated to political corruption and conspiracy theories. I rolled my eyes while reading various articles that provided an alternate view of what actually happened that day but Building 7 piqued my curiosity. Wait, a third building fell that day? I didn’t believe it. Surely, I would have heard something about that…these conspiracy nuts must be crazier than I thought. I checked Wikipedia for confirmation, rubbed my eyes, massaged my temple and began my journey down the rabbit’s hole. Five years later, my research an ongoing task, I too, am one of those crazy kooks who reject the official story of what happened that day. I too, am a 9/11 Truther.
Before I crawled my way out of the matrix, I was a dedicated democrat. I voted for Obama in the first term, commended Al Gore in his fight to curb global warming, and admired Hillary Clinton as a strong female political figure. I believed the rhetoric 100%. I relied on CNN as my number one news source and despised the right-wing republican agenda, but all that has changed. Now, I question everything the mainstream media reports, I despise both the democratic and republican parties, and consider environmentalism to be nothing more than a money-making scheme. The truth may have set me free, but it’s hard to believe in anything these days. Let this be a warning to anyone who chases the white rabbit: once you take the plunge, your belief system will turn on its head.
Evil is Awesome (Blog Post 2014)
Evil doesn’t come to you with horns and a pitchfork, it’s shiny and happy, glossy and accepting. It defends you and builds you up. It takes care of you, nurtures and provides for you. Evil is your best friend, your lover, your confidant. It pays for dinner with a smile and asks for nothing in return. It lies in wait — the great comforter, the healer of pain. It accepts your flaws and nurses your short-comings. Evil loves you.
I just finished reading an article on MTV.com (yeah, I know) discussing their recent 2014 Video Music Awards Show. The article is titled, “16 Concrete Examples That Totally Prove The Illuminati Control The VMA’s.” The sub-headline reads, “Okay. We admit it. The VMAs are totally Illuminati. You got us.”
OMG! They’re finally admitting it!
Yeah right. Sarcasm, got it, time to poke fun at those crazy conspiracy nuts, but to give the writer credit, the article does recognize the Illuminati’s historical relevance. Even the all-knowing Wikipedia acknowledges the secret society’s formation back in 1776, but nowadays, the Illuminati has become some sort of pop culture commodity. Stars like Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, Keesha, Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry have all joked about wanting to join the Illuminati. MTV, Rolling Stone and TMZ ridicule the topic while the blatant, in-your-face symbolism goes into hyper-gear. Pyramids, owls, Egyptian sun gods, the eye of Horus, the “OK” hand symbol circling the eye, Baphomet jewelry and Cabala bracelets: the entertainment industry is a cesspool for occult imagery. It’s nothing more than propaganda, used to amuse and confuse, downplay the crime and make you question your own sanity. No honey, it’s not lipstick, it’s a ketchup stain. I would never cheat on you, that’s crazy talk!
The MTV article fails to mention the more obvious examples like the 666 design on the performance stage or the pyramids and all-seeing eye imagery that has plagued past awards shows. No, instead the writer focuses on Howard Stern’s Fartman appearance in the early 1990’s, Madonna’s cone bra (see look, they’re actually pyramids, he muses), and a series of other nonsensical highlights throughout the years. In the same stroke of the keyboard, he goes on to ridicule those who believe in secret societies like The Bilderberg Group, The Illuminati or a New World Order. I know it shouldn’t bother me, but it does. It bothers me because some kid is going to mindlessly read that article and make false connections. The writer planted a seed. Among the senseless and absurd, he hid the truth, mocking its authenticity as he dribbled along. The next time that kid hears about The Bilderberg Group or a plan to establish a world government, he’ll laugh it off as nonsense. Lady Gaga is no more a part of the Illuminati than Fartman, but her face sells the package.
Evil is fun and non-threatening. It’s witty, the life of the party, the class clown, it generates positive vibes, the motion in the ocean, let the good times roll — party on Wayne because everything is totally awesome. MTV says so.
Let Them Drink Vinegar (Blog Post 2014)
I believe in our Bill of Rights. I believe in the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the right to a peaceful assembly and the right to freedom of speech – even if it’s hate speech. Even if it’s a group of Satan worshipers who mock my spirituality.
Back in May of 2014, a cultural studies club planned on staging a black mass reenactment at Harvard University in Cambridge. It was later cancelled due to public outrage and the New York-based Satanic Temple held its own ceremony off-campus. Harvard professor, Christopher Robichaud, was scheduled to give a lecture on religious liberty at the Black Mass event and expressed his disapproval after its cancelation. He was quoted as saying, “The goal turned from ‘We want to share our discomfort with this,’ to, ‘We want it shut down’. If it happens at places like Harvard, I don’t know what expectations we should have.”
Expectations? News flash Mr. Robichaud, our freedoms are being shut down and silenced all across the country. Our freedom of assembly is non-existent as peaceful protesters are met with police forces decked out in riot gear. They’re sprayed with tear gas, assaulted, fined and taken to jail for practicing their first amendment rights. Our right to freedom of speech has been quarantined to free speech zones that even Google Maps fail to locate. The idea that such a distinguished Harvard professor would speak out about the cancelation of a satanic black mass but remain silent about the mass extinction of our civil liberties is abhorrent yet typical.
I’m a college graduate, not from Harvard, granted, but I’ve been through the scholarly system. Religion is often times looked down upon in higher learning institutions, something to which an uneducated and ignorant class of people cling, something reserved for the superstitious and downtrodden that have yet to reach enlightenment. I’m not saying this happens everywhere in every classroom, but sometimes it seems like Christianity is an open target. Take the Jesus stomping incident, where Florida Atlantic University professor, Deandre Poole, told his students to write Jesus on a piece of paper and stomp on it. The incident outraged the Christian community, but Professor Poole explained he was only trying to start a discussion on symbols in his intercultural communications class. Although the university put the professor on administrative leave, they later reinstated him. What if Muhammad’s name had been on that piece of paper? Would it be considered a form of hate speech against Muslims? I tend to think the media would spin it that way, simply because political correctness has reached neurotic levels in this country. What if a large group of people held a ceremony at the town civic center mocking Muhammad and Allah? Would the Feds get involved? Shut it down? I think there’s a good chance they would. We walk on eggshells when discussing Islam, but Christianity is fair game.
Out of curiosity, I visited the official website for The Church of Satan, founded by Anton Lavey. The site is riddled with pentagrams, upside down crosses and the number 666, well-known symbols associated with Satan and the antichrist. Lavey, however, considered himself an atheist, and most followers of The Church of Satan don’t actually worship the devil – they don’t believe he exists. They don’t abide by any spiritual commandments from above or below and tend to echo Allister Crowley’s creed, do as thou wilt. The only thing they worship, it would seem, is themselves, but their hate for Christianity is evident by name alone. Satanism is not a religion dedicated to Beelzebub, it’s an anti-Christian movement that appears to be growing.
Last Sunday in Oklahoma City, a group of about 40 or 50 people attended a ceremony led by Adam Daniels, a self-proclaimed Satanist. In the basement of the civic center, the group performed a ritual denouncing Jesus Christ by stomping and spitting on a wafer signifying the Communion host. Daniels and his group were forced to tone down parts of the ritual to comply with state law, admitting that vinegar would be used in place of urine during the ritual. Sounds like a real good time, and while I’m tempted to accuse them of hate speech, I won’t. I’m just glad our first amendment right still applies to someone.
Release the Skeletons (Blog Post 2014)
It’s the aftermath you have to worry about, the inevitable explanation, the awkwardness. I’ve opened doors that can’t be closed, but it’s okay, I keep telling myself it’s okay. And it is. The worst thing a writer can do is hold back – it stifles creativity, silences the voice and leaves the reader with a mediocre version of the written word. You use everything: pain, anguish, love, sorrow, trauma, anger – all these emotions are at our disposal waiting for transformation. They long for transcendence, a purpose, an artist’s kiss to turn the frog into a prince.
But I’m still getting the knack for this, honing in on the voice and writing style needed to carry out my agenda. I don’t want this book to be a vague recollection of my unique childhood, nor do I want to scare people away with the material. It’s the Goldilocks syndrome. I have to find balance, which is why I created this blog, to get a feel for it, get a sense of the writing, get used to being out there — the exposed and vulnerable writer in search of an audience, in search of acceptance, in search of kindred souls. What I don’t want is pity. Eggshells, brooms and rugs are officially banned here. I mean to tell the truth, whatever the cost. I mean to become the fearless writer.
Write that Book (Blog Post 2014)
I don’t know what to do with the information. I wish I could just walk away from it, take the blue pill and go back to sleep. I wouldn’t though, as pleasant as it sounds, I could never turn away from the truth. It burns through my pores and disturbs my already disturbed sleep. So where do I go from here? The voice inside my head tells me to just write, but I don’t even know where to start. The beginning was so long ago, and the person I’ve become since then… the person I’ve become since then just doesn’t want to talk about it. The voice tells me again, just write, write that book. Now, I’m starting to suspect that the voice doesn’t belong to me because if it did, I would finish the book that I’ve already started, the one that’s more than halfway finished, but that’s not the book in which the voice is referring. No. It’s the other one, the one on the back-backburner, the one that’s been attempted twice and then sent back to the backburner. It’s the last thing I want to do at this point in my life but if that voice doesn’t belong to me than I suspect it might be God’s, and I should probably listen.
Abandon Your First Born (Blog Post 2014)
I’m not sure I can do it… such a daunting task. I’m always overwhelmed when starting new projects, but this one in particular is already the source for sleepless nights. It feels like starting over, (perhaps because it is) but I’ve got a feeling about this new endeavor. If I step away from my first born, take a breather and let it rest for a year, it’s not abandonment, right? I love my first born, but this second one (the one that’s still in the womb) has been a long time coming. She’s waited patiently on the backburner, too hot to touch, too raw to add flavor and spice, but she’s made progress through the years. I think she’s finally ready to tell her story, and somehow this exhausted writer will have to comply.
The idea of starting a new book excites me on some level, but to be honest, I really am exhausted. I put so much energy into the first one and then lost the drive (or possibly the nerve) to prepare a query letter for rejection. I haven’t even tried to get it published and it took me so long to write! I won’t preach to the choir, but I’m reminded of one of those stupid tutorials I listened to, something about killing your darlings, and while I don’t think they were talking about the entire book, I still think it applies here. When I set out to write a science fiction novel about death, time travel and genetically altered humans, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I just went with it. Three years, three-thousand cups of coffee and three-million cigarettes later, my first novel is a work of art, the best book ever written on the entire freakin’ planet (to be frank), but still in need of editing. It’s okay to step away…these words I keep telling myself, these words that I scoffed at while listening to some published author I didn’t know tell his story. He said what many before him have said: the first book you write is rarely the first one published. As disheartening and frustrating as that may sound, it ups the chances for your second one, right?
I might be breaking the rules by making the jump from fiction to non-fiction, but since I’m an unknown, unpublished writer, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’ve created another blog dedicated to raising my second child. She’s two days old and on her way to becoming the biggest challenge of my life, besides quitting smoking, which won’t happen until this book is written. In fact, I’ll probably increase my dosage, might throw in a little wine to boot.
Her name is A Girl I Used to Know. She’s linked on the right-hand column of my home page.
Stepdad (Blog Post 2014)
Just write man, get it out. Put all those lost years to good use. Save yourself. Save someone else, let them know you’re one of them. Let them know about the aftermath, the nightmares, the anxiety, the failure to form meaningful relationships, the flashbacks, the girl I used to know who loved the monster under the bed. Let them know it’s the ultimate brainwashing. Mind control. Get them while they’re young, feed their need for attention, buy them things, take them places, listen to them, laugh with them, be their confidant, gain their trust and only then, only then do you make the move. Get them while they’re young, become their best friend, that’s how you do it. That’s how you successfully molest a child.
Educate Yourself (Blog Post 2014)
I started this blog with the sole intention of telling my personal story about abuse, but it’s not enough. It’s bigger than me. It needs to offer more than just my own experience. It needs to expose the global problem and speak for those who have been forever silenced. From Hollywood to Capitol Hill to our neighborhood streets, sexual abuse is a virus without a cure, but there’s an underlying source, a hidden layer that rarely gets addressed. It’s a self-serving, turn-the-other-cheek mentality that allows the exploitation of children to flourish in this nation, and while most people don’t know what to do about this growing problem, others quietly nurture the hungry beast. Shows like Toddlers & Tiaras or MTV’s 16 and Pregnant contribute to the sexualization of children while Disney prodigies like Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus send the message that promiscuity is A-Okay. We’ve come to expect this from the entertainment world, but within our government, perched on high-ranking branches with closed-door policies, the hungry beast devours thousands of nameless victims on a daily basis.
I’ve spent many sleepless nights researching this topic. It consumes my free time and stalks my dreams when sleep is finally acquired, but I can’t get it straight in my head. The information, while limited, is overwhelming, and organizing the articles and documentaries I do stumble upon is a never-ending task, but it’s worth the effort. In order to raise awareness and ultimately find truth and justice for the victims involved, these cases need to be heard, but it’s beyond me. It’s beyond my capabilities, my realm of understanding, and that’s how they get away with it. That’s what keeps the beast alive. The allegations are too outrageous, too far-fetched and way too disturbing for everyday people to accept or even consider. The cancer grows.
A conspiracy of silence exists within our government that includes pedophilia rings, kidnappings and ritualistic abuse and murder. It’s a vast cover-up that ultimately leads all the way to the White House and involves politicians, celebrities and elite businessmen. It trickles down into local government and law enforcement agencies. It’s Hollywood’s biggest problem, according to Corey Feldman. It rocked the sports world when Jerry Sandusky disgraced Penn State in the boys’ shower room. It crossed the ocean when numerous victims accused Sir Jimmy Savile of molesting them at a children’s home in Britain’s Haut de la Garenne. It exposed high-ranking politicians as child predators at a Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska, a case widely known as The Franklin Cover-up. It’s a vast conspiracy that truly is stranger than fiction, but the stakes are too deep to ignore.
Storm Clouds (Blog Post 2014)
“Snowman melting from the inside, falcon spirals to the ground, somebody break tomorrow’s clouds.” David Bowie (This is not America)
It’s on the horizon. Slow and steady, cool and collective, it slides through the atmosphere with sly prowess. The hunter in the trees, the shot in the dark, the shadow on the wall that shrinks back into itself when exposed to light — it waits for opportunity. It watches while we eat breakfast, comb our hair, brush our teeth, go to work, come home and fall back into bed. It feeds off fear and exposes our differences, the steel wedge, the dividing force, the professional antagonist, the coal in the stocking, the fine print – it’s the poison rotting the apple.
I know they can see it. When the traffic thins, the children sleep and the television calls it a night, I know they can see its long thick tail before it jerks away and crawls back under the fridge. They know it’s there, thriving in their homes like a pesky mouse or an uninvited guest who sets up camp on the couch. They hear its low growl when the house settles, the crickets give pause and the dogs silence their barks. They smell it in the air, the strange odor that spoils the meat on the grill or sours the tea on the windowsill. They sense it all around them, whispering in their ears, commanding and manipulating and seducing them. They see it through the cracks of their fingers, the image revealed in white noise, the face in the crowd, the message in the stars, the hidden truth buried under teddy bears, plastic flags and comic books.
I know they see what I see, the snowman melting on a perfectly cold day.
The Apple and the birdcage 