Are You My Father?

by Margo Walter

  First, there was cussing, then yelling, and then I just ran to my room, so I missed what happened next. Yes, it was another happy holiday at the Williams’. The volatility was also the first event that triggered my lifelong coping skill of running away. I took Duke, my only friend, and we retreated to the sand dunes where I had my secret fort.

  I hope every kid is lucky enough to have a top-secret hideaway. Tall sea oats, a couple of very scraggly trees, some sand burrs surrounded the fort, and it had a floor of an old cardboard box that Duke and I had dragged there from the Hambroughs’ trash can. That way, we didn’t get stuck by those awful stickers that were growing everywhere. I was the king of the fort and Duke was the queen. Sometimes we reversed roles.

  ***

  The new neighbors were moving in and getting settled. One girl was a grade above me and one girl a class below and then, there was their good-looking brother who was two heads above all of us. All the neighborhood kids went to public school, including the Pierces. My parents insisted that I go to private school, wear a uniform, not ride the school bus, and be miserably different. It had been so long since I had played and had fun that I forgot how much “fun” could be. The Pierces ate pizza for dinner. They played card games together and went to the beach every weekend to swim and play volleyball. Almost every evening right after dinner, Jane, the youngest daughter, pulled out the Ouija board and took it to their front porch. She and her older sister would sit cross-legged on the cold cement, lay their hands on the plastic board, and wait for answers to the future.

  If they liked the results, they would yell to their mom, who would be inside cleaning up after dinner, or to their dad, who would be watching TV, that according to the magical answer board, they were getting new bikes, or some other great fate was about to occur. It is a kind of game. Jane told me that if she yelled to her parents what letters were spelled out, it was going to happen. It is too bad that you cannot really pick your parents.

  ***

  My parents never went to the beach, and at seven I could not understand why. What was even more difficult to comprehend was why didn’t Carrie, the maid, or Johnny, her husband, take me to the beach? Maybe it was because Carrie was short and fat and would not look good in a bathing suit. Johnny had a mustache and a scruffy beard, but when he wore shorts, he looked fairly good. All they needed to do was walk over the dunes and watch me swim awhile.

  Carrie and Johnny lived in our basement. There were three small bedrooms down there, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a living room area with a black and white television. The extra bedrooms were where my little brother and sister took their naps. The living room opened up to a substantial paved area where there was room for bikes, the swing set, and the clothesline. Carrie did all the laundry and hanged everything outside to dry. There was no dryer, just the washing machine, which made a lot of noise and irritated the hell out of Johnny. “Turn that damn thing off” was his mantra when he was watching TV, which was most of the day. I did not think he had a job because Johnny did nothing but smoke cigarettes, drink Jim Beam whiskey, and irritate Carrie. I was in the basement too much. We had this huge house, and most of it was off-limits to us kids, even when my parents were not home. I spent a lot of time with Carrie and often wondered, what is a maid? She did wear a light-blue dress with a white apron and called it her uniform. She did talk differently, and I had no idea why some of her words all ran together in a sentence and were hard to understand. The washing machine was the “warsher,” and “ya’llgitowside” translated for us to get outside. I loved Carrie. She was always helpful to me, even when she was yelling at me or correcting me when I punched my brother in the arm. We laughed a lot, whether it was something funny on the TV or some stupid thing that my siblings, Hunter or Lynn, had done. Carrie tried to protect my younger brother, sister, and me, but she could only do so much.

  One day the truth would come out, and all would realize what terrible things took place in that basement. In the meantime, I was still pestering Carrie to take me to the beach. She took my hand and practically dragged me out the door, down the driveway, to where the boardwalk to the beach began. She pointed to a sign that I had never noticed and could not read at the time. Carrie told me that it said, “No Colored on the Beach.” Then she said, “We’re colored.” That was the only answer that I ever got back then. It would be years before Rosa Parks defined what that meant and stood up to the challenge of overcoming racial discrimination. I heard the word “nigger” for the first time that summer after the Pierces moved in, but that was not the last time.

  Every Tuesday in the summer, Carrie would babysit her two-year-old granddaughter, Betty. My new best friend, Jane Pierce, and I would take this very precious black baby in my wagon for rides up and down the block. When I say block, I need to explain where I spent my youth. There was the commercial part of the town and the residential part which was divided up into blocks from 31st street all the way to 89th street, and then there was an army base complete with a lighthouse. We lived on 67th street, Rehoboth Beach, in Virginia. Atlantic Avenue divided the residential section into land side and ocean side and was referred to as the North End. Not only did we live on the ocean side, but we lived on the oceanfront, which meant we were supposed to be rich. After all, we had a maid, both parents worked, we went to private schools, and we were terribly unhappy. I grew up thinking wealth meant misery. As a youngster, it was embarrassing to be the rich kid on the block, and I often pretended that I didn’t live in that oceanfront home. However, I loved 67th street, ocean side and land side, and all the people that I knew growing up there, everybody except my family and the nerdy Hambroughs. It would be years and years before I would find out that those folks knew that I had it rough as a kid. Those two matching convertible Bonnevilles in our driveway did nothing to replace the unhappiness and horror that went on inside that three-story house on the dunes.

  Back to the story of this little colored baby. Jane and I would stop off at different neighbors to show off our new tiny playmate and would not understand why some people were less than cordial and not receptive to our visits. Perhaps, one was taught racial prejudice, and it would be years before either of us girls would get that horrific lesson.

  Still searching, I kept asking myself the question, Why can’t Mr. Pierce be my father? Well, the best thing to do was to pretend and join their family whenever possible. I used to hide across the street from the Pierces’ home behind a trash can holder and wait until they finished their dinner. The garbage cans smelled like vomit, but it was the best place to hide out where I could see the Pierce’s dining room. Then, after they ate, I could knock on the door and walk into their family once more. Unfortunately, I had been spending so much time at their home; Mrs. Pierce, whom everyone called Joan, was sending me back to my house when they had their family dinners. Since family time or family dinners did not exist at our house, it was best to hide behind the trash cans and wait patiently for the right time to ring the Pierces’ doorbell.

  ***

  Precocious was another accurate description uttered by my mother to describe me. She could not understand why I challenged her authority and began at an early age to talk back. I did seem to be more curious than most. Since there were rooms in our house where I was not allowed to go, it made them very tempting. The upper floor and attic were pretty much forbidden. Why should I ever want to go up there?

  Everything I might have needed or wanted was taken care of by Carrie and her husband, Johnny, in the basement. In fact, Johnny was always especially nice to me and brought me candy from the Army base a few blocks away. He also liked to snuggle close, but only when Carrie was not around or not watching. Often, Johnny smelled so bad. He reeked of cigarette smoke and some other unknown odor that resembled dog poop. It was right after lunch, when he patted the sofa next to him. “Come, sit with me and watch some television.” Then, he asked me to go into his bedroom and climb into his bed with him. Being very naïve and
starving for attention, I enthusiastically followed him into the small, dark bedroom. It only had one window that was odd-shaped. It ran length wise for about four feet and was only one foot high. That is why the light was poor even in the middle of the day. Johnny flicked on a bed lamp and we climbed on top of the covers. I guess that I felt less lonely. I know how scared I felt.

  That day I was sexually abused for the first time, and no one knew, or no one chose to do anything about it. That incident was one event that confirmed in my mind that Johnny was acting weird and it would be best to keep those encounters as one of the family secrets. Color had nothing to do with what happened, and for a while, I so wanted him to be my father. He apparently loved me and knew that I needed to be touched and held. It indeed was better than nothing. Deep down, I knew that was bad. At my house, things were bad or good. There was no such thing as sick or well. When I was a middle-aged adult, I learned the difference. But at that time, I was just another nine-year-old girl blaming myself for being molested.

  Jane Pierce did become my absolute best friend. We even became blood buddies by sticking our fingers with a needle and pushing our blood drops together, which we had seen performed on TV. The tiny prick seemed disproportionately painful at the time. We only did that ceremony once. Even though she was a year younger, we liked to do all the same things. Jane was willing to share her most important asset, her parents. I continued to live at the Pierces’ whenever possible and avoided my alcoholic hellhole that my family called home. Not to mention, Johnny was still there and drunk most of the time. Making sense of the situation was hard. Johnny’s wife, Carrie, usually threw him out once a month when he was inebriated. On many occasions, she just turned her back, and he stayed in the basement drinking, waiting for an opportunity to sexually abuse me, my younger sister, or my younger brother.

  Johnny used to smoke in bed and still smelled like someone just farted. One day his mattress caught on fire from a burning cigarette. There was smoke, and someone called the fire department. My biggest concern was how to go out to the driveway without being seen coming from Johnny’s basement bedroom. Sirens on fire engines still remind me of that awful day. My shirt was off, and I just ran to my special place in the dunes so that no one would see me.

  ***

  It was in the fort that I used to play house and create the family I wanted. By using broken sea oats as little sticks and building a new family home, I pretended there was a happy mommy, a good daddy, and that my older brother would come home from boarding school. He had been sent there two years ago and only came back in the summers. That left me as the oldest, the accountable one. I tried to take care of and be responsible for my younger sister, Lynn, and my younger brother, Hunter. They got all the attention from my parents, and despite the jealousy, I knew that I was in charge of Lynn’s and Hunter’s safety. I was very envious of how my father doted over my younger brother. One time he came home from work with a miniature car for Hunter. It was bright yellow with a white racing stripe and operated on a battery by pushing the pretend gas throttle. All the kids in the neighborhood gathered around my little brother and his new car for the maiden trip down the driveway and on to the street. I did hate all the attention that Hunter received that day and was especially distraught that I could not take my turn in this new car, as I did not even fit behind the steering wheel. My emotional response was very conflicting. I wanted to see Hunter happy, but I wanted persons to notice me more. That trek through life was very confusing and was on fast forward for the next few years.

  There were some notable occurrences during my childhood and some comic relief for the real-life soap opera that kept getting worse. The slobbering dog who followed me everywhere also liked the Pierce home better than his own. Duke was always welcomed in their home and they had a rust-colored Collie, named Venus, who was his girlfriend. There was the holiday incident of the neighborhood that continued as a family saga for many years. One unforgettable, infamous Thanksgiving, before our family had sat down to eat their big turkey feast, there was a knock at the front door. It seemed that the Pierces were preparing to sit down to their family dinner with relatives from Richmond when Duke jumped up on their kitchen counter, grabbed their twenty-pound turkey, and dragged it into their front yard. After a mad chase down the street, ordinarily patient and kind, an extremely agitated Mr. Pierce knocked on our door and reported the theft. It was too late for their turkey. Fortunately for Duke, he also knew how to hide in the dunes.

  My story does have some good memories as my mother tried to hold together her dysfunctional family. Mother was exceptionally beautiful, always concerned about her looks, and extremely outgoing. She had an average height, was medium-built, and had dyed blond hair. She was always on some diet with a weird name, and the diet of the month was the Mayo diet with 500 eggs, or so it seemed. A visit to the hairdresser was scheduled every Tuesday, and nothing was to ever interfere with that appointment with Miss Florette. Mother wore a lot of makeup, especially red lipstick, and always wore shoes that had high heels. I could not balance to walk in them when I sneaked into my mother’s clothes closet. Many people told me that I looked like my mother. Whatever! I never called her anything but Mother, not Mom or Mommy. It did seem kind of odd, since my friends never called their moms Mother. She talked to everyone she met like she had known them for years but had no close friends. No one ever came to visit my mother, and she spent most of her time at the real estate and construction office. The neighbors said our family was wealthy, and it was because Dottie, my mother, was a brilliant lady and highly active in the man’s business world. What did that mean?

  There were some family vacations and camping trips worth remembering. Mother packed up my younger brother and sister, all the camping gear, and headed for Kerr Dam in central Virginia, also called Buggs Island. It was a beautiful large lake where we kept a boat and had reserved camping sites right on the shoreline. The big house on the oceanfront was left empty, and many people thought it very strange that the Williams would retreat to an inland lake in the summertime when the beach was perfect. Water skiing, hiking, roasting marshmallows, and that is where the good times ended.

  My father was to join us on the weekend. He arrived too drunk to drive across the dam to the campsite, so I was put behind the wheel of the station wagon and told to follow my mother, who would be driving the other car. I had never sat behind the wheel of an automobile before. The terror that I felt that day wiped out all the good times of that camping trip. The insanity of having a ten-year-old drive a car was very typical of our household. But what about Janet in all this? Me?

  It was my first panic attack. The sexual abuse that previous summer rated low on the Richter scale compared to this. My breathing was shallow; my palms were sweaty; my heart was pounding out of my chest; and I was afraid to do or say anything. I could barely see over the steering wheel. I pushed the gas pedal and slowly followed my mother’s car. I imagined myself on a tight wire, and I knew if I turned the steering wheel a half inch either way, I would go right off the bridge. I made it and came down with an excruciating earache the remainder of the camping trip. I could not wait to get home to the beach.

  ***

  No one knew that the following Friday was going to be a day that changed my life forever. We all have those days, some good, some bad. I was so innocent and had totally lost my childhood. It was no wonder that I wanted to rebel, break the rules, and be weird with my friends, to get attention and acceptance.

  It was a typical Friday when my mother and father went off to work. Johnny was missing for a couple of weeks, and Carrie was downstairs, cleaning. That was the other thing about our house. It had to be perfect. In fact, just last weekend, a photographer had come to take pictures of the interior of our house, including my room, for an advertisement that my parents were running to bring more business to their construction firm. My job was to put on a dress with a pinafore and pose in my bedroom as a happy child. Since I never, ev
er wore dresses, it was a performance and not a pleasant one. So, looking and acting the part became another character trait I adopted. It would prove to cause significant problems in my future.

  Being perfect sets an extremely high standard. Some of you can probably relate with that feeling. Always falling short of expectations and still planning the outcomes leads to constant disappointment and self-loathing. I am now seeking approval from everyone that I meet. I was learning incredibly early in life that if I brought home straight As on my report card, I got my father’s attention. He signed my report card and seemed to be enormously proud of me. That 4.0 average was a standard of excellence that followed me into college.

  Let’s go back to the infamous Friday at the Williams’ house. The baggage trunk was brown with reinforced metal on the corners and had a metal hinge but no lock. You only needed to push a button to open the chest. Jane and I were up in the dark attic, a forbidden room. There was an overhead light with a string hanging down. I was standing on a box and yank on the line. No, we did not have permission. But with everyone gone or busy, it was the perfect time to go poking around where we were not supposed to. I did not know what we expect, but a rabbit did not jump out, and there were no mouse traps. On the contrary, we only found lots and lots of papers and several photo albums. One photo was of a man in a military uniform, and there were several pictures of my older brother when he was young, standing next to this man. Bruce King was the name on the photo. Jane was looking through some of the papers and said to me, “Whoa!” She got my attention. We both tried to make sense out of the documents which appeared to be adoption papers with my name on them. And more importantly, they had my birthday listed as the day after I had been celebrating my birthday for all the previous years. That must have been a big mistake, because my birthday was November 24, not November 25. Not fully understanding what I was seeing, I slammed the trunk lid shut, ordered Jane out of the attic, told my best friend to go home, and tried to figure out what to do.