For a couple of hours, I was motionless in the dark. It was hard to breathe and my arms were burning in pain.
Finally, Mom opened the door to find me curled up on the floor. “God damn it, Woody!” she screamed as she pulled me from the room to a chair at the table. “Why did you do this to my daughter?”
“Because she was out of bed before we got up, and I found her eating a cucumber at the sink!” he yelled from the bathroom.
Mom looked at me and said, “Janie, you’ve got to learn not to make him mad.”
With tape marks on my arms and face, I said, “Okay. I won’t upset Woody again. I promise.” I was too terrified to even dream of doing anything that might make him angry.
Later that night, the two of them were arguing. “I saw you flirting with that woman at the bar!” Mom yelled.
“Yeah, I saw you shaking everything you got with that guy on the dance floor!”
I heard a kitchen chair crash against the wall then smack! He hit Mom across in the face. I sprinted to the kitchen and started punching Woody in the leg, the only place I could reach.
He picked up his right leg and kicked me in the stomach, sending me clear across the kitchen into the living room. I hit my head on the edge of the couch and blood spurted from a gash. “Get back to your room you little bitch!” He screamed.
Mom ran to pick me off the floor and without a second thought she carried me to the house across the street, bare feet and all.
We could hear Woody yelling, “I’ll kill both of you when I get my hands on you!”
The woman across the street let us in and her husband went to talk to Woody.
We waited for an hour before the men came over. They were laughing when they entered the room and Woody walked over to Mom, knelt down on his knees and said, “I love you so much. I’m sorry I lost my temper. I don’t know what I was thinking. You are so beautiful and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Mom’s fiery green eyes looked into his and she said, “I will come home this one time. But if you ever hit me again, I will divorce you.”
Everyone shook hands, and the three of us walked home together. He never apologized for what he did to me and Mom never gave it another thought.
One night, I woke up to hear him bragging to Mom that he’d been promoted to senior advisor, responsible for ninety new enlistments at the El Toro Marine Base in California. His orders gave us less than three weeks to report there—by January 15, 1950.
“Does that mean we can move to a bigger house on the base?” Mom asked as she pulled a frying pan from beneath the stove drawer to make breakfast.
“You’re right about that! We’ll have a bigger place, and we’ll hang out with the brass on the base,” he said.
I could smell bacon frying. Mom turned on the radio and I could hear them dancing. When they finished laughing, Mom asked Woody whether we could pick up Dick on the way to California.
At the mention of Dick’s name, I jolted upright in my bed, then tiptoed to the bedroom door so I could hear them better. I peeked through the crack in the door and saw Mom sitting on his lap, face to face, legs apart.
Mom smiled and giggled while he touched her and she rocked herself on his lap. She closed her eyes and smiled and moaned softly.
Then she jumped from his lap to grab the burning bacon off the stove. Afterwards, she took a sip of beer, flashed a glimpse of her right breast, then said, “Can we please pick up Dick and take him with us? I miss him so much and I know he’ll be a good boy this time!”
Without hesitation, Woody replied, “Oh, why not! You sure know how to get your way with me, don’t you?” He smiled.
I saw her smile back, and then I crawled back into bed. I was so happy to hear that Dick was going to come and live with us again! I couldn’t wait to see my best friend, my security blanket, my brother.
A week later we packed our suitcases into the car and headed to Jonesboro, Indiana to pick my brother up. The minute I saw Dick come out of Grandma MoMo’s house I jumped out of the car and ran into his arms. He’d grown a few inches since I’d seen him and he picked me up into his arms and swung me around. I was so happy to see him and looked forward to having him back in my life. I was nine and he was eleven and I knew we’d be the best of friends again.
During the next few days, Mom registered us for school. This was going to be different for Dick—he hadn’t been a “military brat” before.
Like all the other military children, I’d been trained to answer all adults with a “Yes sir, no sir, yes ma’am, no ma’am.” But Dick had yet to learn the ways of the base. For instance, during the sounding of taps, everyone on the base had to stop and face the flag and stand at attention. It was considered appropriate to respect the American flag that stood for our freedom and the men and women who fought for it. That afternoon, Mom took us to the commissary, a food and supply store, and when the base sounded to taps everyone in the store stopped, faced the flag and put their right hands over their hearts—but Dick kept walking.
He started to laugh, and Mom, pink with embarrassment, broke her stance and told him to stand at attention and face the flag. When we got home, Mom made him practice the proper procedure until he got it right. After that, he never made that mistake again and that’s when Dick learned how much shit I had to put up with living with Woody and Mom in our new environment.
One night just before dinner, Woody was yelling profanities about his troop’s performance. When we sat down for dinner he began to edit our dinner manners.
“Jane, sit up fucking straight in that chair.” Woody picked up the plate and took a couple of chops then passed the plate to Dick.
Dick took the plate, selected the smallest chop, and passed the plate to Mom. She served herself a pork chop and passed it to me. By the time the plate got to me, only the largest pork chop was left, so I balanced the plate on the table, stabbed the chop, and handed the plate back to Woody.
Soon everyone’s plate was empty except mine. They patiently waited for me to finish, but I was full.
“If you put food on your plate, you better eat it,” Woody said.
“But I’m full, I can’t eat any more.”
“Okay then, you will sit here until you finish that plate.”
Woody got up and went out the kitchen door. Mom didn’t say a word. I sat there for two hours, picking at my food until Mom came in and said, “Jane, next time don’t take such large portions. It’s better to take small portions and ask for more.”
I learned to take small portions and often left the table still hungry because I was afraid to ask for more for fear of being unable to finish another helping.
On April 11, 1951, the four of us got off the Henry Gibbins transport ship in Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor. Woody had been reassigned and we moved into a Quonset hut near the city of Makaha, in front of Mount Kaala, the highest mountain on Oahu.
After Woody and Mom dropped us off at the house, Dick and I decided to explore the beach.
We scurried through our grassy front yard, across the tar road, and out to the sandy beach to put our feet in the roaring ocean. We hadn’t been there for more than ten minutes when five older Hawaiian teen boys approached us—an intimidating group to anyone younger than them.
“You haoles go home. We no like you here,” they yelled, waving their arms with clenched fists. “You go back mainland. This our island.”
Dick and I didn’t know what to think. Neither of us had ever been confronted with anything like it. We tried to keep our distance by backing away from them as they threatened us face to face.
Finally, the biggest boy rushed up to Dick and pushed him backward. Another boy pushed me down onto the tar road, skinning my knees.
When one of the boys saw me bleeding the whole group got nervous and ran.
When Mom returned, we told her what had happened. She said, “Just play in your own yard for a couple of days, they’ll get used to you soon enough.”
For the next few weeks Dick an
d I didn’t go anywhere near the Hawaiian bullies. We stayed away from the public beach and went with Mom to the private military beach where we could safely swim with other mainland American families.
In September of 1951 the new school year was starting at Waianae Elementary and Intermediate Schools. Waianae Elementary was different from public schools in America. The Territory of Hawaii did not require that children stand at attention and pledge allegiance to the flag every morning. I had to learn the whole Hawaiian educational system and language along with the other foreigners—the Portuguese, Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese children. I did have a slight advantage, as everyone on the island had to learn English—the “universal” language of the school. Most of the kids at school liked practicing their speech with Dick and me. But at the end of the day when school was out, the Hawaiians spoke their own slang, and the foreign kids spoke their native languages. We learned it all, and soon it became part of our everyday vocabulary.
The Hawaiian teachers were humble, gracious, and soft-spoken. They taught with the “aloha spirit”—the coordination of mind and heart within each person, bringing each person to their self. According to the Hawaiian culture, each person must think and express good feelings to others. The teachers taught each lesson carefully, gently nurturing each child toward harmonious living.
We were taught to love and care for the land and to protect the islands. We soon learned that kindness was to be expressed with tenderness, unity with harmony, humility with modesty, and patience with perseverance.
Dick and I grew a little braver about playing on the beach near our hut when we could see that the bullies were out on their surfboards in deeper water. On this beach we watched younger kids bodysurfing on fierce waves twice as big as the waves at the army beach, and yet they seemed to gracefully ride the water all the way to the shore. Lana, a ten-year-old classmate who lived next door, came over to me and said, “Aloha, you like play ocean, ae (yes)?” She had thirteen brothers and sisters, from one to fifteen years of age.
I smiled and said, “Yes, I like to play in the water.”
“You no turn back on wave, ae,” Lana said seriously.
“Yeah, I see. These waves are huge!” I said as I stared at the ocean.
“You like learn body surf, ae?”
“Yes, that would be fun. How do you do that without drowning?”
“First, you must respect moana (the ocean). You never turn back on kai (the sea),” Lana explained.
“Okay. You show me,” I replied.
“When you see wave coming, you swim real fast toward wave, and you dive through wave, and you turn around real quick and ride wave all way to beach.”
I followed Lana out, and we caught a big wave. We both dove into the wave, and we quickly caught the backside of it. The wave lifted me so high I could see our Quonset hut a block away. I had never experienced anything so exciting.
We laughed together and played with the waves for hours. At the end of the day Lana reminded me to show respect for the sea at all times. She looked at me and said, “The ocean is the most powerful and dangerous thing in the world, and you must never turn your back on it. One must always walk out of the ocean facing the sea.”
“Okay, Lana. I will always respect the ocean.”
Lana took me for a walk through her backyard where her family raised pigs, cows and horses and grew vegetables and fruit. She explained, “Aina means that the land is the source of our food. It is our land that gives us our life. We who live on the islands walk upon its earth, breathe its air, drink its water, and eat the food it provides. Hawaii is within us; it is a part of us. If we defile Hawaii, we defile ourselves.”
Lana pointed to her big house and said, “You eat at my hale (house), ae?”
“Okay,” I said, following her into the house.
Lana’s family was warm and caring as they eagerly invited me to join their table. “You are so lucky Lana,” I said.
“Ae, lots of us, we work together. We love and support each other,” Lana smiled.
Later that night I thought about how nice it was to have a best friend with a family so different from my own.
Mom continued to go alone to the private beach and she established some close friendships with three American military wives. One Saturday afternoon, the three couples arranged to get together at our house.
One of the couples brought Wally, their seven-year-old son. Right away we knew Wally wasn’t just an ordinary kid—he ran around our house like a wild monkey. Mom told Dick and me to take him to the beach.
At the beach, Dick and I joined the islanders and Wally stopped at the shoreline and watched us surf the waves. I watched him closely as he toyed with the waves because I knew that Wally didn’t understand that the force of the waves could kill him.
At first he chased the rushing waves, retreating quickly to shore to avoid contact with the water. But each time he went a little bit farther into the water, and soon an enormous wave crashed down and threw him into the sand, rolling him over and over on the bottom. I was glad to see him alive when he washed up to shore.
A lot of kids had gathered to laugh and point at this disheveled, sand-covered kid. Everyone laughed and watched as he stood on the beach, trying to dig sand out of every pocket of clothing and every orifice of his body.
Finally he pulled down his swimsuit and let his penis dangle free while he tried to wipe away the sand. When the girls on the beach started to squeal at him, he began to run around the beach chasing them with his pecker out.
While every other girl on the beach laughed, I couldn’t help but feel a raging moral obligation begin to bubble up inside me. I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing him by the arm and shoving his shorts back on. “Wally this isn’t funny! It’s not right to run around showing everyone your privates!” Even at just eight years old, it infuriated me that young boys were so commonly taught to think this kind of disrespect towards women was acceptable. Even though Wally told me I was “no fun,” I was proud of myself for doing what I knew was right.
When the sun set behind the mountain, we went to the backyard and rinsed the salty sea water off our bodies. Then we helped ourselves to a plate of food and went to bed, exhausted from playing in the ocean all day.
It was about 2 A.M. Sunday morning when everyone finally went home. Mom stumbled to the bedroom and passed out. Woody turned off the lights and crawled onto the floor of my bedroom.
The next day Lana didn’t see me at the beach, so she walked to my house and knocked on the front door. Woody answered the door and told Lana to wait outside.
A few minutes later I came to the door. Lana said, “You come play in ocean, ae?”
I didn’t smile as usual. I just looked down at the porch floor and said, “Yes. But I have to help Mom clean the house before I can come out and play.”
“What’s matter, Jane? Lana asked.
“I’ll tell you later, Lana. I’ll meet you soon, down at the beach. Now you go!” I hurried back into the house.
Two hours passed before I joined her. The waves were unusually high, and there was a red flag waving and a sign: “High Surf—Dangerous Shore Break.” Lana ran from the water to meet me.
“What’s that sign?” I asked
“Oh, high surf means powerful waves started by storms at sea—sometimes thousands of miles away. They make a wave fifty feet high. They’re not safe. The waves can hurt anybody, even those who surf a lot. They hurt many surfers’ necks and backs,” Lana explained.
“I see what you mean!”
“Now you okay, Jane? Why you sad?”
“Yeah, I’ll be okay. I always am.” I tried to smile.
“What wrong, Jane? You looked scared and upset this morning.”
“I can’t tell you Lana!” I choked out as I started to cry.
“Why you so sad? Someone hurt you?”
I cried harder. “I can’t tell you!”
She looked confused. “Me hurt your feelings?”
“No!�
�
Lana put her arm around me. “You come my house. We talk!”
It was mid-afternoon when we got to Lana’s house. We watched her father dig a large pit, then all her siblings and I watched Lana’s father and three of her brothers chase one of the bigger pigs around the backyard in preparation for a luau.
We laughed as the smart pig squealed and dodged the muddy assailants. Finally, after several failures, one of the brothers pounced on top of the hog, forcing it to the ground. Another helped hold it down, and the other two rushed to tie its back feet together. They hoisted it into the air by its back feet as it squirmed and screamed. Then, to my horror, one of Lana’s brothers shoved a knife into the pig’s jugular, killing it instantly.
I turned away, instantly upset again and now a little sick to my stomach. This reminded Lana that she wanted to hear what had been bothering me. She took me back into the house and we went to her bedroom.
“What wrong with you, Jane?” She asked. “You can tell me! We best friends!”
I looked at her sadly and said, “It’s my stepfather, Lana. He…touches me.”
“What you mean?” Lana asked.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. “Last night after everyone left, Woody crawled into my bedroom on his hands and knees. He covered my mouth and rubbed my privates, between my legs. Most of the time it doesn’t hurt, but last night it did!”
“Jane, that wrong,” Lana said.
“He told me that’s how fathers love their little girls.”
Rat Pack Party Girl: From Prostitute to Women’s Advocate Page 2