The Currency of Love

by Jill Dodd

  About an hour later, Scarlett comes in, panting. “You won’t believe what that creep Henri did to me! He attacked me in his car the whole way home! I almost jumped out while it was moving. That guy’s a pervert!”

  “I went through the same thing! He followed me in here! I kicked him really hard and he finally left.”

  “What’s wrong with these people? I’m not going to any more of Pepper’s parties,” Scarlett says.

  “Me either.”

  We barely sleep. I wake to the sound of rain pattering softly on the wood shutters and pull the covers over my head. All I can see are scary flashbacks. I feel him grabbing the back of my head and shoving it down. I can’t stop the visions, so I get up.

  We’re so exhausted that we barely speak over breakfast. I want to talk to Gerald or Pepper about the party, but I don’t know what I expect them to say. Plus, I’m not very good at standing up for myself. That is a skill I never learned. I feel so insanely vulnerable and even blame myself for what happened. Why did I even get in his car?

  It dawns on me how dependent I am on the agency. They’re like a quasi-family I depend on for survival. I get jobs, money, guidance, and moral support from them because I don’t know anybody in this country besides Scarlett, and she doesn’t know anybody either!

  The agency has the power to take me to the top or hold me down at the bottom of the pool to drown. I see new girls come into town and watch as Gerald sends them straight over to shoot for Vogue without even an interview. He’s the most powerful agent, not just in France, but in all of Europe. Magazines and photographers ask him which models they should use. I wish he’d tell them to use me.

  Pepper looks up as I walk straight toward her. “Can we talk a minute?” I ask.

  “Bien sûr, sweet thing, but before I forget, Jill, you landed the La Redoute campaign. That’s good news, chérie. You shoot next week.” I stand, fuming internally with a blank look on my face. “What’s the matter, aren’t you excited?”

  I can’t tell her how I really feel, so I start with “I can’t go to any more parties.” I wait for a response. She stares at me with big eyes, not moving. Gerald overhears and marches over.

  “What’s this, Gilles? You have a problem with my parties?” He is pissed off.

  My face flushes hot. “I don’t feel comfortable. . . .”

  “Oh, you’re not comfortable? Okay. No parties, no interviews!” He throws his hands in the air and storms back to his desk. He turns the music up super loud, lights a smoke, and picks up his phone.

  “Sorry, Jill,” Pepper says. I’m shaking inside. I take a deep breath. I know if I don’t like the way things work over here, there are hundreds of models who would love to take my place.

  Later that day, I call the agency from the pay phone to check in, just like every evening. Pepper answers, sounding distracted. “Hey, no appointments for tomorrow. And listen, you and Scarlett are going back to working only with me. Gerald won’t be booking you anymore.”

  His message is clear.

  “Alright, talk to you later,” I say, defeated. She’d already hung up.

  Wearing Dad’s fireman clothes, Downey, California, 1965

  POLLYWOGS

  1960s, California

  Downey, California, is my hometown. It’s just ten miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, surrounded by the 5, 710, 605, and 91 freeways. Downey is hot, flat, and still.

  I’m specifically from South Downey, which is a different world from nicer, safer, and richer North Downey. My block is close to an area called Dogpatch, named after the gang. Paramount and Compton are close by. My dad is a fireman in Watts, a fifteen-minute drive. In our neighborhood, gang fights, drug deals, and home robberies are daily occurrences.

  In addition to the sketchy area and violence just outside my home, violence is inside too. My parents married at only twenty and twenty-one, and had my sister right away, and me three years later. They both dragged their toxic upbringings with them. My dad’s dad was a violent alcoholic who beat my dad with his fists, and his mother wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. My mom couldn’t stand to be around her own mother, but she loved her dad. Her mom had a wicked temper and could throw an angry tantrum. She always felt that her mother favored her little brother over her.

  Although my dad isn’t quite as violent with us as his dad was, he is frightening and can switch from laughing to hitting in a split second. I never know when it’s coming. He can freak out over just about anything. I tiptoe through my childhood, trying to avoid his wrath.

  When I’m five or six my favorite thing to do is walk past my neighborhood block over to Long’s Dairy. I climb up onto the painted whitewood fences and yell “Mooooo” at the cows, trying to get them to moo back. I gather a handful of hay from under the fence and climb up to feed the cows. I’m always on the lookout for a pregnant one, hoping to watch her give birth. The calf comes out in a big, gooey clear sac that the mother licks until the baby is clean and tries to stand up. I love watching the baby nurse, and it is my dream to milk a cow someday. If I have some spare coins with me, I go to the front of the drive-through dairy and buy an ice cream sandwich.

  Tahitian Village is a motel behind our block. I hop the neighbors’ block wall fence or walk around to the end of the block to Rosecrans Avenue and turn left where a big wooden bridge arches over a lagoon. There are tiki torches and an old ship’s hull with a huge carved mermaid. I walk over the bridge, through the gift shop, and into the open atrium in the middle of two stories of rooms with orange doors.

  There is a tropical garden with palms and ferns and a miniature, algae-filled, fake stream in the center. I am on the hunt for pollywogs. Tiny pollywogs, pollywogs halfway turned into baby frogs with legs, tiny frogs, and full-grown toads all wiggled and jumped around. Sometimes motel guests had squished some of them on the walkway. It’s survival of the fittest. I grab a few pollywogs and baby frogs and put them in my pocket, or in a Tupperware container with algae water, and rush home. I put everything in a glass bowl with some tap water and place it under the elephant ferns in our front-yard planter. Then I go fly-catching. I grab the fly swatter from the kitchen and smash flies on our garbage cans and put them in with the pollywogs and baby frogs.

  Most of them die. But, some grow into full-grown frogs, jumping around in our planter until they hop out, wander into the street, and get flattened by cars.

  I relate to the pollywogs. Those half-formed frogs. I’m just a half-formed girl, between a baby and an adult woman. I’m at the mercy of my caretakers, and just like the pollywogs, I’m not given the environment that I really need to thrive. I need to be nurtured and free to develop and grow in a nontoxic ecosystem. Yet, I’m just as guilty. I take the pollywogs from their homes and feed them dead flies. I try to nurture them but do a very poor job.

  Dinnertime is a nightmare. I survey and check for broccoli or asparagus. Choosing to not eat things I hate is never an option. Washing it down with milk isn’t either. Since I’m still small, the table comes up to my chin. I don’t like sitting on stacks of Yellow Pages anymore.

  I stare at my plate nervously. If I don’t eat fast, Dad will set the timer. My big sister eats in silence, staying under the radar. Mom tinkers at the sink and doesn’t come to the table until we’re done.

  Dad sets the avocado-green kitchen timer and puts it in front of my plate. Five minutes. I sit frozen, watching it tick, and try to get the courage to swallow the damn broccoli. Ding! “Dammit, Jill!” He yanks me out of my chair by my elbow and shoves me onto my bed in my dark bedroom.

  “Pull down your pants!” I obey and sit on the edge of the bed. He slaps me hard on each bony thigh. First they sting, then they burn like fire. I close my eyes terrified, trying not to fall apart, and the pain in my soul hurts more than the throbbing waves of pain in my legs.

  “Go eat your goddamn broccoli!” Red hand-shaped welts rise. Sometimes they’re bruised in the morning. I hold my breath as long as I can, crying silently, so he won’t hit me for
crying. Crying makes him even madder. I control my breathing, taking small, shallow puffs of air so he won’t notice I’m sobbing. I’m broken. My face drips wet with tears and snot.

  I hurry to my plate and sit in a frightened, silent trance—hyperalert and detached. I try to eat the broccoli again as he resets the timer.

  Mom and Dad make so much noise in the bedroom groaning. We have no idea what’s going on, but we don’t like it. I put a glass to the door to listen. I still don’t get it. I climb on my dresser and listen through the heating vent. It just sounds gross.

  They’re obsessed with sex and don’t limit it to the bedroom. Mom walks around the house in a silky robe, naked underneath. She doesn’t tie the tie because Dad will just untie it anyway. He can’t help but grab at her nude body, suck her breasts, slap her ass, and tug her pussy hair. He does it at the dinner table often, where we are not under any circumstances allowed to leave. When I beg him to stop, he laughs like he’s pleased at the reaction he’s getting out of me. He puts Mom’s ideas down with the basic message that she’s stupid.

  Right after, he’ll say, “Girls, isn’t your mom beautiful? Look at her boobs, they’re perfect.”

  Women are for sex, not their minds or souls. Women are loved for their beauty and for giving men the sex they constantly crave. We answer, “Yes, she’s pretty.”

  Dad loves pornography. Porno magazines are all over the house. Penthouse and Oui are in their bedroom, Playboy on the kitchen counter, and a stack of really raunchy ones under the sink in his bathroom. He reads Playboy while I eat breakfast with him. He leaves for the fire station so early and all I want to do is spend time with him. We discuss the centerfold girl’s hobbies over toast and coffee.

  Boxes of porno films are in the garage, but my parents don’t know I know. Wall-to-wall nude centerfolds are stapled to the garage walls like wallpaper. Dad shares his detailed opinion about each woman’s body parts with me. When his friends are in the garage, he talks about each woman on the walls like he knows them. Then he gives them his critique of the girls too.

  At bedtime, I get in my bed and Dad comes and lies on top of me, trapping me. He grabs my bony wrists with his massive fist and throws them over my head, squeezing them so tight it feels like my bones are going to dislocate—a one-handed handcuff. With his other hand, he “tickles” me hard, digging his fingers between my ribs and jamming them into my armpits. While this is going on, he licks me wildly all over my neck, face, and deep into my ears with his hard, wet tongue until I burn with a hot rash from his beard. I lash side to side trying to scream—he covers my mouth. He laughs, enjoying the hell out of this.

  When he finally leaves, I smell like saliva and aftershave, and am so nauseous I want to puke. I cry, but Mom never comes. I sneak into the bathroom to look into the mirror because my neck is on fire. My neck, cheeks, and ears are bright pink, with small red dots of blood breaking through the surface. I put a cold, wet washcloth on my neck to cool it down and wash with soap to get the putrid smell off. My childhood experiences instill a kind of terror and shame in me about sex. It will take me decades to recover.

  The fire station in Watts is like a second home to me. Since my dad’s captain of the squad, he goes there even on days off. He checks on the guys, picks up his paycheck, does paperwork, and because he takes me everywhere with him, I go too. I love the fire station and am comfortable in a room full of firemen.

  They let me climb on the truck, slide down the pole, and even punch the boxing bag in the gym. One day though when I’m in his office with him and another fireman, Dad says, “So, Jill’s developing, you know.” Meaning my breasts. I panic and want to disappear. I had no idea he knew, and why would he tell someone about it?

  As a teen, when I start becoming a young woman, Dad stares at my body and spews sarcastic, sexual comments and critiques of it. It makes me feel self-conscious, like I’m always being watched. One time, while we were on a waterskiing vacation at the Colorado River, he starts talking about my body in front of the other teenage boys and girls. I become so enraged that I take a swing at his face with my fists. He’s so big and strong, he easily catches them midair, proving me powerless. He keeps this shit up on and off for years.

  Years later, after another one of his lusty comments, I vividly remember falling on my hands and knees, alone, on the fireplace hearth and pounding the hard stone until my hands are swollen and red. I writhe my whole body up and down while a soul-wrenching howl escapes from deep within me. I scream out loud to God, “Why didn’t you give me a father I can trust? Why did you give me a pervert?!”

  I actually hear a voice inside me saying, He’s not your father, I am. That gives me something to think about. I write Dad a letter saying that if he ever talks about my body again he will never see me again—ever. He mellows out for a while, but I am on guard forever.

  Mom is emotionally checked out. She doesn’t show affection to her two daughters like she does to her little dogs. She avoids us, hiding in the bathroom or bedroom. I am positive she regrets giving birth to us. I want to play with her jewelry, makeup, and clothes, but I’m not allowed to touch them. When she leaves the house, I study and touch all of her things, careful to put them back where they were. I feel close to her through touching her stuff. I want her love and affection so bad it hurts. I try not to bother her, but it’s hard to leave her alone. She has a wicked temper, but I’m not as afraid of her as I am of Dad.

  The only person welcome in our house is the Avon lady. I’m not allowed to have friends over, which puts me in a weird spot, having to explain why they can’t come over to play, that I can only play at their houses. Eventually, Mom gets a job, I assume, to get away from my sister and me.

  When I was a little girl, my dad was my first hero. He was a fireman in probably the most dangerous station in the country. Battling the Watts riots in 1965, delivering babies, and bandaging stab and gunshot wounds was part of the job. In brushfire season, he’d be gone for weeks. When he’d return home, he would drop his soggy, ashy boots and turnout coat on the porch, and his helmet in the kitchen sink. He’d be limp with exhaustion and smell like a campfire.

  Dad taught me to fix up cars and houses and sell them at a profit. I was his laborer in his house-painting business, and his swimming pool–cleaning job. We even worked cleaning out and boarding up burned-down houses. At home, he showed me how to cook and balance my bank statements. All this made me confident I could tackle any type of work thrown my way.

  My feelings for my dad were confusing, to put it mildly. I loved him, but was afraid of him. He seemed to know everything and taught me so much, but he also hurt me and messed up my view of a woman’s value and role in the world. The wild things we did, like racing cars and riding motorcycles, set me free, but his sexual dominance put me in an internal straitjacket of fear and confusion. He encouraged my sewing and art, but thwarted my inner voice. He taught me to face down fear, yet I feared him. I was scared of him and worshipped him at the same time.

  Modeling for photography class in a dress I made, age fifteen

  THE GIRL WHO DRESSES WEIRD

  1970s, California

  I meet a girl in seventh grade who turns my weird, isolated life inside out. Kelly is my first real friend. She let the kid inside me out of its cage, and that kid is not going back there—ever.

  Because friends are not allowed at my house, I go to Kelly’s all the time. Her home is completely opposite from mine and filled with peace, love, and laughter. Her parents don’t yell, and there’s no creepy sex stuff going on. I can’t believe it’s real. I feel so safe. We talk, listen to albums, mess up the kitchen, and stay up all night laughing. Her parents even say, “Good morning, honey.” Is this for real?

  We run to the cemetery at night and climb the huge oak tree in the middle. Safe, up high in the branches, we smoke a joint and laugh so hard our stomachs hurt. She tells me ghost stories so gruesome we scurry down the tree and run through the creepy granite tombstones (I swear there was fog) al
l the way to her house. I can’t believe my luck—I actually get to do this.

  We climb the trees at Golden Park, up high, away from the gang members below, and carve our initials into the branches. We draw cartoon versions of our teachers and go thrift store shopping. Her creativity fuels mine. I go to church with her family, which is totally new for me. My parents hate religion, and my curiosity about God is not tolerated.

  Besides my grandmother, Kelly was my first experience with love. She totally changed my life and was the first of so many wonderful friends I have today. I think she saved me. For real.

  My parents saved enough money to buy a house in nicer, safer North Downey. It’s maybe four miles away, but a totally different world. I have the choice of two high schools because of the move. I go to Warren High, not Downey High like everyone from junior high. I am over the cliques and peer pressure, and think if I go to a new school I can be who I want without other kids talking about it.

  With the freedom that comes with anonymity, I bounce into tenth grade as a theme dresser. I am totally unaware of the fact that I am a natural-born fashion designer. I have no idea why I am compelled to design and sew new outfits every day for school.

  The hours fly while I sew. I forget to eat and totally lose track of time. Finally, my overactive imagination has a purpose. On Monday I dress as a forties film star, and for the rest of the week it’s a fifties housewife, a sailor, a Norwegian dairy farmer, a glam rocker . . . hair and makeup included. For my Bowie glam rock look, I cover my high-heeled platforms in sequins and glitter using toothpicks and glue.