by Robin Greene
When Dennis is in bed, I try to keep these secret, not because I’m ashamed but rather because I believe God wants me to. It’s a private language, after all, and I feel that God requires my obedience.
But Dennis isn’t here right now, so I give myself over to God and His communications.
When the wolf shadow appears, I must go under my covers completely and recite the She’ma three times without stop. When I come out of the covers, God approves by sending the carousel shadow slowly across the wall and closet door. This is the slow shadow, and I’m expected to mentally ride one of the shadow carousel horses. Up and down it goes. I repeat the prayer slowly here because if the shadow stops before the prayer does, I lose and must punish myself by getting out of bed, lying on the cold wood floor and reciting the prayer ten times, one for each of my sinful fingers.
Glancing out my study window, I wonder about God and the play of shame, regret, and guilt that trouble me still. Now, I look at my hands, counting my fingers, as I remember the prayer and speak it aloud. Then the heat pump turns on, and I feel a burst of cool air channel through a nearby ceiling vent. When I return to the page, I’m somewhere else again.
k
I am bad—my brother is right, and I deserve to be punished. I hate myself because much of what I do is wrong, inadequate, unacceptable.
I’m twelve, in the sixth grade, and my best friends have “dropped” me. Something awful has clearly happened, but I don’t know what or why.
Last night we had a sleepover party at my house. Four girls, my best friends—Nancy Gunner, Honey Mazursky, Janie Stein, and Leslie Goldstein—spent the night in my downstairs playroom, spreading their sleeping bags over the multi-colored Linoleum tiled floor. We’d been involved in a game in which we each chose a song to play on my portable record player and then did a dance performance to accompany it. Leslie’s was the best; she danced to “You Can’t Hurry Love.” She did some finger shaking and sexy hip rolling. Leslie has thick straight blonde hair with bangs, and she’s very smart but not very nice. She gossips behind the other girls’ backs, and she’s already caused members of our group to argue.
Honey chose “Born Free” and did a sultry mimed act of loving and then saying goodbye to a lion. Honey has just come out of the full-body scoliosis brace she had to wear for all of last school year. Nancy, my absolute best friend, chose the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” and did a rather animated dance that included moves from the “The Jerk” and “The Swim,” two popular dances we’ve all mastered.
Janie, who’s new to our group and always wears her mousy-brown hair in a ponytail, did a subtle, sort of mime routine to “To Sir with Love,” which was corny but heartfelt. She loved the song and the movie, and carried the single 45 to our sleep-over.
My song is the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black,” and I do a weird sexualized dance to it. The other girls laugh at my performance, though it’s not intended to be funny. I can’t tell what exactly they’re all laughing at, and by the end of the night, I feel hurt. We fall asleep gossiping about another group of girls who want to be cheerleaders when they get to junior high next year.
“Stupid,” Leslie says. We all agree.
By the next morning, however, my hurt feelings are gone, and my mom, uncharacteristically, has gotten up early enough to prepare breakfast. We come to the kitchen to eat a huge stack of French toast made from yesterday’s challah, and it’s delicious. We have orange juice, and there’s plenty of syrup. We’re all chatty and friendly, and everything is fine. Moms are coming in an hour to pick up their daughters, so after breakfast, we go downstairs, turn on the record player—not too loud because Dennis and my dad are sleeping in—roll sleeping bags, put away toothbrushes, and we’re done. Then we go out to the front steps to wait for moms.
But on Monday at school, everything is changed. None of my friends will talk to me. In class, in the halls, at lunch—I’m being snubbed.
I sit down at the cafeteria table where we always eat. “Hi,” I begin. But Nancy and Honey look at me, pick up their trays, and join the less popular girls at the table on the other side of the room. Leslie and Janie come in later, joining Nancy and Honey as if by earlier arrangement.
“Talk to them,” my mother insists when I begin coming home in tears.
“I can’t,” I say. “They ignore me, Mom. No one will say anything. When Nancy sees me, she walks the other way. If I sit by them, they move away. I saw Honey in the bathroom, and I asked her ‘What’s wrong?’ but she shook her head and left. I ended up shouting at her.”
I’m crying again. We’re in the kitchen—my mom is preparing to put chicken in the oven, a casserole, and she has a cutting board out, ready to chop lettuce, make a salad. Potatoes are in the oven already. I’m sitting on the Formica kitchen counter while she works.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Rae. You have to talk to them. They can’t just shut you out. Did anything happen last Saturday when the girls were here? Everything seemed fine at breakfast.”
“Yes,” I say. “Everything seemed fine….”
eighteen
Looking back on my adolescence, I don’t understand why my parents allowed me so much freedom. Were they philosophically liberal—caught in the spirit of the sixties? Or were they just ignoring what was going on, like they did with Dennis?
I often traveled into the city with friends, bicycled alone to Far Rockaway Beach, attended protests in Greenwich Village, or simply walked alone around Manhattan. Sometimes I’d go to the Museum of Modern Art with Russell or with Henry, another boyfriend. I was permitted to do almost anything I wanted. This was especially perilous during the summer of ’69, I now think, remembering Johnny, the young cowboy who stayed an extra week to help break the wild horses and who became my boyfriend after that first social in the rec room.
We never had intercourse, but I willingly took him in my mouth, an act I found repulsive but arousing—and one that made no sense logically. For a week, every night, Johnny and I would go out into the woods by the swimming pond. Our last night together—the day before he and the last of the cowboys left—Johnny told me that I’d better watch it with the boys. That I was dangerous. I liked that idea. In it, I became powerful, not a victim of my desire but a temptress with power to entice, control. Sexual intimacy was no longer an expression of love as it had been with Russell but rather it was power, a political act.
Breaking and riding horses were, similarly, powerful activities for me. I was a naturally good rider and naturally good with animals. I understood their drives and had a nuanced relationship with each of the horses. I could feel a horse’s spirit penetrate its physical being.
At the end of that first week, the afternoon before the cowboys left, I’d been riding Queen Mab around the corral. She was a good gal now, long-legged, sort of flirty, mostly quarter horse, but with a touch of thoroughbred, which gave her spunk. Johnny and another cowboy sat on the split rail corral fence, shouting directions at me as I attempted to run barrels with her. Earlier in the week, when I’d broke her for the bridle, the guys had been there, too, giving me directions, cheering me on.
Then, Queenie—the nickname Johnny had given her—skittish and loosely tethered to a fence post, had pranced back and forth as I jump-mounted her by grabbing her mane and wither hair—quickly, decisively sliding over her bare back from the left. She had a rope halter on, and as I slipped the bridle down over her face, Johnny came off the fence and slipped the snaffle bit into her mouth. Then as Johnny backed away, Queenie began to buck and rear. The cowboys shouted instructions: lean forward, tighten your knees, slacken the reins. My job had been to hold on until Queenie realized that she had no choice but to accept the bridle and bit. When she’d get ready to rear, pulling back to her hind legs, Johnny would hand me a small but strong paper bag filled with water, and I’d hit Queenie gently between the ears with it. As the bag broke, the water ran down her face, making her uncomfortable but not causing any pain. Who knows if such a method would be c
onsidered acceptable today, with horse whisperers and our raised consciousness about animal cruelty.
The day I broke Queenie, I’d been powerful, and I had only been thrown once. But I’d gotten right back on—a badge of courage. I’d earned respect from Johnny and the other cowboys.
This day, I rode with more ease. Queen Mab was beginning to respond to my neck reining, and Johnny and two other cowboys sat on the split-rail fence, egging me on. Some campers had come to watch me, too. I had the Queen in full gallop around the barrels, even as she bucked a couple of times and, at one point, reared up.
Across the corral I went, taking the barrels close, leaning into the turns, holding my seat with leg pressure. My legs were, and still are, very strong.
“Yippee, gal,” Johnny called out with pride, because by now, everyone knew I was his.
“If she can ride that horse, she can ride me next,” another cowboy shouted, and he punched Johnny in the arm.
“It’s them long legs…” the older cowboy said, referring at once to the horse and to me. He had a weathered but handsome face, and the gossip was that he had once been the Marlboro man and had been on TV commercials and billboards.
After a time, I dismounted. Queen Mab and I were becoming partners, beginning to understand and respond to each other. I walked her a couple of times around the corral with the bridle reins, then took her into the tack room to remove her saddle, blanket, bridle, and put on a halter to brush and curry her before leading her out to pasture.
Queen Mab became my horse that summer. I used the same saddle I’d broken her with. But I’d changed from the snaffle to a curb bit, so I used a different bridle.
That day, the last with the cowboys, after I’d ridden so much, my legs were stiff, almost bowed, as I exited the barn. Evening was coming on; the temperature had dropped a few degrees, and the air was cool and moist. The campers who had watched me were now showering, changing, and getting ready for dinner. My group was going to walk the five miles from camp into town the next morning, so some of them were planning to work their leather projects this evening to finish them up since they would be absent from morning class.
Johnny was waiting for me by the big sliding barn door that we always left open.
“Nice job, Rae.” He had his thumbs hooked into his belt. “A real cowgirl.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I like Queenie. And running the barrels was fun.”
“You know what fun I’d like now?” Johnny asked, and slid his thumbs lower.
“Not now. I’m beat.” I had stopped in front of Johnny, but because he didn’t move, I began to walk around him.
Johnny grabbed my arm.
“I’m tired. Got to get back to the bunk. The girls expect me.” I looked at Johnny. I had no fear, no concern.
“We leave tomorrow. Gonna miss me?” Johnny still gripped my arm.
“We’ll have time to say goodbye,” I said. “Tomorrow, before you leave.” I pulled my arm away but stood there, looking out over the pasture where a group of horses galloped across a rolling hill. The sun had dropped, turning the sky magenta and neon orange above the darkening mountains. When I returned my attention to Johnny, he was no longer alone. The two cowboys who’d watched me from the fence had joined him—the Marlboro man and another guy that I recognized as a loner, who rarely interacted with the campers, and worked primarily as the ranch camp farrier.
“Hi, guys,” I said causally, though, truth be told, the way they just showed up made my stomach crawl.
Johnny took a step back, and just as one of the guys began to chuckle—although there was nothing funny—the other Rachel appeared, almost out of nowhere, but I think she’d been grooming one of the horses in a stall and must have come from the barn.
“Let’s get cleaned up,” she said to me, and looked at Johnny, who dropped his eyes. The other two men exchanged looks and also backed away.
“Yeah,” I said. “I feel real dirty.” My heart pounded loud and hard in my chest.
“Nothing a good shower won’t fix.” Rachel linked her arm with mine, and we walked together silently around the barn, past the corral in the direction of the bunks.
I could feel the men’s eyes follow us. Rachel must have felt it too because she squeezed my arm and picked up the pace.
At the bunk, Rachel sat down on her bed and said in a throaty whisper, “Close call. Got to watch it. Boys will be boys.” She dug under her pillow and found a hard pack of Camels. She knocked them against her palm a few times before removing one.
“Do you think…” I began. I stood by Rachel’s bed, leaning against the bunkbed’s black metal frame—we were alone, the girls already gone to dinner.
“Yup,” she said, and placed the unlit cigarette in her mouth. It bobbed up and down as she spoke. “You got honey, and them bees ain’t gonna leave you alone. You’re gonna have to watch it. I seen these guys around you, and…” she struck a match, and lifted the tiny flame to her cigarette, inhaling.
“Thanks,” I told her. “I mean, if you hadn’t shown up….” My words halted. I shifted my weight closer to her and felt tears press from the inside, against my eyes, salty, stinging.
“Yeah,” Rachel said, rising from the bed, forcing a smile in my direction but not exactly at me. “Go shower. I’ll see you at dinner.” She took a deep, long drag that made the tip of her cigarette sparkle. Then, she got up and walked out, the screen door creaking and slamming behind her.
That night I dressed in my oldest jeans and wore a baggy over-shirt. I wore my sneakers, not my dirty, manure-encrusted boots, but I wore my hat low so that it covered my face.
But neither Johnny nor the cowboys showed up for our regular after-dinner get-together. And the rec room was nearly empty, as some of the campers were still in the leather tool room. Sarah, one of the campers who’d finished her project, walked over to the juke box and played “Angel of the Morning.” Then she and another camper slow-danced together to it. I sat by myself, hanging out by the window that looked out over the darkening upper pasture.
The next morning, after breakfast, when most of the campers were getting ready for their long hike into town, one of the older counselors announced that all the cowboys had left at dawn.
k
On one of my many trips into the city during the spring of ’69, I’d gone to MoMA on East 53nd Street, right off 5th Avenue. My mom had driven me to Rosedale Station, where I waited for the Long Island Railroad to take me into Penn Station. There I picked up the F train that let me off across the street from the museum.
Instead of going directly to the museum, however, I’d gone—as I often did—to St. Thomas’s Cathedral, located on the corner. That day, the organist was playing Bach. I sat in a pew and breathed in the heavy, cool, incensed air while sun poured through the three blue-stained glass front panels.
The music came from the Great Organ, located in the church’s chancel. I’d heard that the organ had been damaged by the construction of the museum, and that it recently had been repaired.
I sat midway up the nave, on a center aisle so that I could more fully feel the force of the organ’s enormous sound, more clearly see the stained-glass panels. This was a spiritual practice and a place where body, mind, and soul were welcome.
I sat for almost an hour, listening to a Bach sonata. It had a melodic clarity that moved strangely along the pipes, almost whimsically, unsuited to such a solemn church. Nonetheless, I bowed my head and prayed as the organ flitted up and down the scale, notes colliding, casting vibrating sounds into the stone, troubling the air in resonant but oddly discordant waves.
As a teenager, I’d ceased to have faith, yet prayer felt right—the calling up of one’s deeper self to connect with that which was greater.
At the MoMA ticket booth counter, I paid the $2.75 that allowed me to spend the entire day in the museum and to see any film that might be playing. That day, a Saturday, there was an independent short-film festival, and after I saw my favorite paintings, Guernica and The
Starry Night, I decided to watch a few.
The theater was small and located downstairs. I came in during the middle of a film and made myself comfortable near the front, where there weren’t as many people. I leaned back so as to see the large screen.
I don’t remember many of the films that day, but one has stayed with me and has served as a touchstone for my thinking about God and freewill.
Shot in black and white, and lasting about ten minutes, the film featured two boys tossing a softball back and forth. Wearing baseball mitts, they threw gently and stood perhaps only twenty feet apart, beneath a large, fully leafed tree. The film was shot in summer or late spring, and the boys wore tee-shirts and loose pants. But there was a third boy in the tree, sitting on a thick, extended lower limb. And every time one of the boys tossed the ball, the boy in the tree called out, “I made you do that.”
The boys playing catch never responded to the words that the boy in the tree called out to them. It’s as if they didn’t hear him. The words, “I made you do that,” continued throughout the short film, and the ball tossed back and forth was the film’s only action. The film began in medias res—with the ball in midair—and ended in medias res—with the ball in midair.
After the film, I left, although the festival continued. Out of the small dark theater, I emerged as if night had unexpectedly turned to day. Upstairs, I visited the museum’s cafeteria and spent seventy-five cents for two wedges of Camembert cheese and two packets of crackers. Lunch. The cafeteria was located near the outdoor sculpture garden, where there were tables and chairs. I sat alone at one table by the side of the garden and looked at a Rodin thinker in bronze on a heavy stone pedestal.
k
Remembering the short film, I hear the words, “I made you do that,” and rising from my desk, I pace my small study. Are we “made” to do what we do? And I think of Dennis and his gambling. Is the short script of our lives already written, or do we have agency?