“Listen up, girls. A basic knowledge of how to tie a few knots is an essential outdoor skill, just like learning how to cook over an open fire or finding food in the wilderness—and I’m not talking about Jungle Jim’s Wild Market here, you know what I mean?”
Trish was a boisterous woman, bold and assertive. She wore pants, not dresses, and her shamelessly loud personality and individuality made me feel at home when she was around.
“Okay, so what you have here is a three-foot length of sisal rope or sometimes this very thin variety is referred to as twine. This is your basic rope that you’ll find at the local hardware store. Now does everyone have their rope?” Trish surveyed the room, ensuring that the eight girls in the group had the necessary materials.
“We’ve got it, Mom. What next?” Amanda yelped out from the group of girls impatiently toying with their strands of rope.
“Alright there, Amanda. Thanks for the check-in. Now we’re going to start with the square knot. You can use this when you are in a pinch and need to secure a bandage or a sling, or if you need to secure something to your backpack or belt, like your water bottle.” Trish picked up her backpack, which had a Nalgene bottle dangling from one strap by a knotted piece of rope.
I continued to run the rope through my loosely closed fist and nodded in acknowledgment of the knot’s useful qualities. The friction of the rope against the palm of my hand felt calming, like petting a cat. The texture of the rope felt good to my touch. I was still emotionally shaken from the bus ride, and it felt like the rope was purring, a quiet whisper, It’s okay, everything is going to be okay.
“Now, this is going to be easiest if you pair up with someone. Can everyone pair up with a neighbor? We are going to practice securing a bandage with the rope. I have some gauze here in this first aid box. Everyone grab some gauze for your bandage,” Trish said, while passing out precut portions of gauze to the coupled girls after we settled into place.
I listened to Trish and focused on her fingers and how they interacted with and manipulated the rope with such ease. I was paired up with Amanda, who I found beautiful and strong. She had sandy blonde hair and beautiful brown eyes.
I cuffed Amanda’s pants, and, exposing her sun-kissed skin, placed the bandage on her calf. I followed her mother’s instructions for securing the bandage in place with a square knot, and then wrapped the rope around her leg and the bandage. I could sense her body close to mine, and I held her leg in my hands as I circled the rope around it. I avoided looking up at her eyes, afraid I would get lost and keep staring, but I felt her gazing down at me. I braved a peek and found her smiling at me. Her mother’s robust voice dimmed to a faint whisper when the soft-spoken words of Amanda reached my ears.
“Is this your first time using rope?” She met my eyes. “You seem pretty natural with it.” She looked at me the way I imagined a girl looking at me in my fantasies, but in person I was terrified. Instinctively, I knew those urges and desires weren’t safe to live out in the real world.
“Now the rope that is on top stays on top and makes the second part of the knot by tying another overhand knot. Everyone got that? Good, good,” her mother’s voice interrupted my reverie. “We’re going to pull the ends tightly to secure the knot. Great job, girls!”
“Thanks. Does it feel secure?” I smiled up at Amanda, overwhelmed by her body and her smile.
“Yeah, it feels perfect.” Amanda laughed and her hand grazed over mine as she fingered the rope work. I earned my outdoor skills badge.
Later, I waited in a euphoric bliss at the end of Trish and Amanda’s driveway for my dad. I couldn’t wait to share with him what I’d learned. None of the crap that the kids on the bus had to say mattered anymore. I did something that would please my daddy and made Amanda happy. Parents’ cars came and went as night fell and the street became dark except for a single carriage light at the edge of the long driveway. I sat on my backpack, practicing my square knot over and over with a length of sisal rope that Trish let me keep. I focused in on the knot, a full hour passing by without much notice. Finally, Dad’s truck pulled into the drive and I jumped into the cab, silent.
“I’m so sorry, my princess. I ran late at work and I thought your mother was picking you up.” His words were apologetic and convincing. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me, or if he was trying to believe the words himself.
“It’s okay, Dad. I understand.” I focused on my length of rope, repeating the knot over and over.
“Really, I’m sorry, Tina. Can I make it up to you? How does Outback Steakhouse sound? You can order whatever you’d like.” His voice was low with bravado, hiding something.
“Really? Oh Daddy, I love you!” I couldn’t resist an award of adoration or gift of a steak dinner. “Guess what I learned? I learned how to make a square knot,” I continued with excitement, hungry for further approval from my dad.
“Woohoo! Really? Watch out, world, my princess has got her hands on some rope!” He yelped and howled with pride in his little girl, and pride in his own victory of winning back my affection after yet another failure.
We drove down the winding road with the windows down and the night air flooding through the car, laughing and howling at the moon all the way to the steak house. I wanted to believe that Dad really was working, that he really thought that mom was picking me up, but somewhere in the center of my being I felt disbelief in the words that he was saying, but I missed him and I needed to laugh, so this night I continued to believe in Daddy.
My mother’s father left when she was five years old. She doesn’t remember him, but a picture of him in a Marine Corps uniform sat on our china cabinet while I was growing up. Ten years after he left my grandmother, he died in a car accident. My mom raised her four brothers—three younger and one older—in their tiny, two-room apartment while my grandmother worked. My grandma worked into her seventies when cancer started consuming her body and prevented her from washing dishes at the Westin Hotel. She had a strong and honest work ethic: everything my grandmother bought had been saved for and earned over time. If she gave something to you, you knew that it was important to her for you to have it.
There was a story my grandmother used to tell us about going to buy my mom’s wedding dress. She had the money in her purse and had picked up a bucket of fried chicken for the kids before heading to the consignment shop to collect my mom’s gown. Outside of the consignment shop she was mugged. The man tackled my grandma, but she held on tight to the purse strap. The culprit dragged her for a full city block before the strap broke and he got away. She never let go; she returned home with a bucket of chicken and the remnant strap.
My mother was as stubborn as her mother; blonde, beautiful, and smart. As a child I used to wish that I would grow up to be as beautiful as she was. She was a powerful force who commanded attention and, at times, instilled fear in those around her. My mother was a raw circuit of emotions—love and fear and anger sparked out in unpredictable, electric zaps.
Perhaps my dad, or rather, the other women that he coupled with, provided the greatest catalyst for my mother’s tantrums. One weekend afternoon, the summer after my parents separated, my brother and I sat sparsely clothed next to the fan in my bedroom licking melting cherry and grape popsicles and trying to keep cool in the non-air conditioned house in the middle of a scorching hundred-and-three degree heat wave. My mom became aggravated easily in the heat. She was soaking in cool water in our lime-green porcelain claw-footed tub when the phone rang.
“Can you get the phone, Tina? I’m in the tub,” she yelled from the bathroom.
I ran to Mom’s bedroom to pick it up. “Hello, Butcher residence. This is Tina speaking.” My mom had explained to me how she answered phones at the doctor’s office where she worked as a secretary and I wanted to answer the phone like a secretary, too.
“Hi, Tina. Is your mommy there? I have a very important message for her.”
“Who is this?” I didn’t recognize the voice on the telephone.
“This is a friend of your mommy’s. Her dad is very sick and I need to talk to her right away.” the woman’s voice was soft and snickering.
I ran to get my mother. “Mom, some woman on the phone says she is your friend and that your dad is sick.”
My mom, instantly furious, jumped out of the tub and wrapped a robe around her still dripping wet body. Since her dad had passed away twenty years prior, my mom knew that something was wrong. She grabbed the phone off her bed, “Who is this?”
“Hello, Gail. I just wanted to fuck with you! I’m bored and hot and was just thinking, Who would be fun to fuck with? You were the first person to come to mind. I’m fucking with you, just like I’m fucking with your husband.”
“Ex-husband, you bitch.”
“Whatever. I know you still care about him. I’m going to suck him off and then I’m going to suck him dry so you don’t get a penny for your pathetic kids or your pretty little house.”
“You whore! I will kill you! You are dead,” And with that my mom threw on a T-shirt and jeans and stuck my brother and I in the car, still wearing our underwear. I had never seen my mother so angry. She sped down the winding country road and merged onto the highway, her teeth grinding and her eyes glaring, piercing at anything that crossed her path. My brother and I sat still and quiet, trying to disappear. I huddled close to my brother, feeling the urge to protect him from mental shrapnel or flying curse words that were guaranteed to propel from the cyclone that was brewing inside of my mother.
We pulled into an apartment complex and Mom grabbed the crowbar from the trunk of the car. With speed and purpose she stormed the door while I trailed a safe distance behind with my brother. We followed her up a staircase to the third floor of the complex. Could this be where my dad was living?
My mom swung the heavy iron object into the apartment door, “You fucking bastard! Come out here, you coward! I’m going to fucking kill you and your whore. You won’t fuck with this family ever again!” Tears were streaming down her face, which was red and consumed with hate; her anger was palpable and the dent in the door was getting big.
My dad opened the door in a red silk embroidered robe. He nearly received a crow bar to the head.
“What the hell are you doing, Gail?” He grabbed her arms, trying to control her tantrum. His lover peeked her head around the doorframe; she was wearing an identical robe. I could only faintly make out a sliver of a feminine silhouette, with long legs extending from the dark shadow of the doorway. I thought I saw her smile. My mother looked as if she was looking at Satan herself. “Whore! Demon! You want to fight, bitch, I will fight!”
Despite only nearly avoiding injury at the hands of my mother’s fiery temper, my dad was still the only person I knew that was capable of calming her down. He held my mother close in his strong arms, and ordered Cilla to go back inside the apartment and give him some time alone with his family. I saw my mother’s body crumple into my dad’s arms, melting in a fit of hysterical sobbing, snot running down her face and breathing heavily as she nuzzled her face into my father’s chest. My dad continued to hold her close, “It’s okay, Gail. It’s going to be okay.”
After the divorce, and gossip that his newest girlfriend was actually a prostitute, my dad became the black sheep of the Butcher family. Their perspective of him changed and, in turn, they looked at my brother and I differently, too. We were invited to major holiday functions, but we were conveniently passed over for intimate family brunches and weekend gatherings. Our broken family seemed to fit better with the dysfunctional McPenney’s (my mother’s side of the family) and, perhaps because of this, I romanticized Christmases with the Butchers. Living with my mother was about survival, but being with my dad came to represent being coddled, taken care of, and treated like a princess living in a world far away from my daily reality.
In Ohio, Sundays were important for two reasons: God and Dad. Sunday mornings were spent with my mother at Goshen United Methodist Church, and Sunday afternoons were spent with my dad. In the small town where I grew up, the church was right next to the school and the minister’s house; it was our community center, where our larger Girl Scouts functions and ceremonies were held and where I went to bible school in the summer during my preteen years. I liked to sneak sugary, crème-filled cookies and Kool-Aid from the nursery when I helped watch the toddlers and infants. When I got too old for bible school, I was brought out to sit with my mom in the pews to listen to the sermon.
My dad didn’t attend church. While my parents were married he may have, but I was too young to remember. For my dad, Sunday mornings were made for hunting. He said he felt closest to God and was at one with nature when he was in the woods. It made sense to me; I didn’t see why getting dressed up in our best clothes and going to church somehow put us in touch with the Lord. I have always connected with the idea of there being a guiding force, but somewhere around the age of twelve I began to question whether that force was God, and why God would impose so many rules, and why God had a book of rules written by men. I had a lot of questions. My time at church was spent deep in thought: Why am I here? Where am I meant to go? What am I meant to do?
I began to dream of building connections and relationships between people and community. I felt isolated. I wanted to know what it might be like to make a space sort of like a church, where people would gather but break all the rules. In my imaginary community, people would feel free to express themselves, to be themselves, to cultivate individuality and develop human connections. During the minister’s sermon I would make notes in my journal and occasionally look up and nod my head, trying my best to be attentive.
One hot summer morning in Ohio, the summer before eighth grade, I wore a sundress that my dad bought for me the weekend before. Sweat ran down my neck and my thighs were wet, sticking to each other and sliding on the wooden pew. The church was full, and rows of women and men added to the heat and absorbed any little bit of breeze the window fans generated. Our minister was preaching about traditional family structures, and how the sins of nonconformity in our community were rearing their ugly heads in the form of adultery, prostitution, and homosexuality.
“I pray for these sinners. Let us pray for these sinners,” Reverend Thomas pled with his audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are being faced with a major crisis. Homosexuals are now petitioning in the state courts to make marriage between homosexuals legal. This is a precious union blessed by the sanctity of the Lord, and although I will pray that these souls be steered to the path of the righteous, we cannot condone their blasphemous relations in the house of God.”
I was only twelve years old, but something in the tone of Reverend Thomas’ voice sent chills up and down my spine. I had a growing awareness that everyone deserved the same treatment, regardless of how different they seemed; that awareness would soon turn into a deep passion.
Reverend Thomas passed around a petition in support of the church’s objection to gay marriage. I leaned in and subtlety whispered to my mother, “Mom, if two people love each other it shouldn’t matter if they are men or women. They just want to pledge their love to one another in front of God. Because God loves everyone. Right, Mom?”
The petition came down down our aisle.
“Mom please, don’t sign that petition. Please, Mom, for me?” I looked up at her, my eyes starting to water. It felt like my mother’s signature could change the entire world. It felt like she had the power to erase me. I knew that if she signed that petition she would be confirming that my secrets could never be shared with her.
She took the pen, and I saw in her face a loyal, dedicated single mother who would do the right thing. She loved me. She would listen to me. Right?
“Tina, everyone is watching,” she whispered, “I have to sign it.” And she did. For the first time in my life I watched my mother back down in the
face of peer pressure rather than stand up for what she believed. Actually, I could see that she wasn’t standing up for what I believed—and this was the first time I realized that there was a difference between my life and my mother’s.
I refused to return to church after that. I spent my Sunday mornings at home reading library books, especially Shakespeare and Hemingway, and anxiously waiting for Sunday afternoons when I could see my dad.
After my dad left, my mom had set frugal guidelines, which were necessary for the survival of our single-income family. Sunday afternoons and Wednesday evenings were a break from the ordinary coupon cutting and beef stroganoff routine.
Anything seemed possible in the world when I was with my dad: he took us ice skating, rollerblading, bicycling on trails, to matinee movies at the cinema down the street, and dinners out at restaurants. And sometimes our family bonded while gathered around the television together, an activity I would normally forego in favor of a trip to the public library or a family outing on the bike trail.
Sometimes, caught up in homework or in the middle of a really great book, I wanted to read one more chapter. But when Dad came to visit, bookmarks were stuck in place and textbooks were slammed shut. I thought it was funny that my family put television time above reading, but it was our thing—it was something special that we shared. We bonded over sitcoms and melodramas and horror films.
One Wednesday night, the doorbell rang and I bolted from my seated position in front of the television to the front door, where I found a teenaged boy of about seventeen wearing a moss green Nirvana T-shirt that featured a disembodied alien holding a red rose in its severed hand. He held out a steaming hot cardboard box from Angelo’s Pizza.
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