Raising Myself

by Beverly Engel

  When Steve dropped me off at home, he once again warned me that he would kill me if I told anyone. “We only live a few blocks away from you and I’ll be watching you,” he said ominously. For months after that, I froze in fear every time I saw an old red pickup truck. But I never saw Steve again.

  chapter 15

  I was already full of shame—already felt like there was something very wrong with me—before I was sexually abused by Steve. The abuse just confirmed what a bad person I really was. I was only nine years old, and yet I felt as if everyone could see what an evil, dirty, unacceptable human being I had become. I felt so damaged, so worthless, that I was surprised if someone was kind to me. And because I felt so undeserving of kindness, I either pushed the person offering it away or I sexualized the relationship.

  After the abuse I hated being alone with myself. I hated myself and so I went in search of someone to distract me from me. I roamed the neighborhood looking for anyone who would play with me or just let me spend time with them.

  There were twins, a boy and a girl, who lived a few houses down from us, on the opposite side of the street. They were close to my age and, after a few weeks, I made friends with them and we started playing together after school. They went to a private Catholic school so I got home before they did and would wait for the bus that dropped them off in front of their house.

  The twins’ parents owned a restaurant and their back patio was filled with pots, dishes, and cooking utensils. We could get lost for hours being cooks, waitresses, and customers. Most times their parents didn’t come home until early evening, so we had several hours to ourselves.

  Both the twins were a little overweight, like me, and their mother always had the refrigerator stuffed with sandwich meats and chocolate milk and their cupboards filled with chips and cookies. We took our food outside and took turns being the “customer” so we could get our fill of food.

  Soon I was staying into the evening and having dinner with their family when my mother had to work late. I don’t think it was a babysitting situation—just a way for the twins to have some company and probably something their mother did out of the goodness of her heart.

  I remember sitting on the floor of their living room, watching television and coloring. It felt nice inside their house—cozy and warm. One evening, their mother read to us from a book called Smokey Joe as the three of us kids lay all cuddled together on the couch. I don’t remember what the story was about, exactly, I just remember how good it felt to be cuddled up and have someone read to me.

  The next evening, instead of coloring, I created a book of my own. It had both words and pictures and I especially liked drawing Smokey Joe, a beautiful brown and white pinto horse.

  The twins’ parents had been leaving their kids alone to play on the back patio and in their yard for quite some time. They were good kids and they minded the rules laid out for them, so their parents had no reason to fear they would venture out of their yard; and because it was a safe neighborhood, they had no reason to believe anyone would come into their fence-en-closed yard and harm their children in any way. They also didn’t believe that the cute little girl from down the street, the one who played so nicely with their children, the one with the sophisticated mother, could possibly present any threat to their children.

  But they were wrong. That cute little girl was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  Remember, I was only part child. The other half of me was an adult with an adult’s experiences. My mind was distorted with memories and knowledge I couldn’t control. And I had a compulsion to return to the scene of the crime, but this time to be the one in power—the one in charge.

  I don’t even know how I introduced the game. What did I say—“Hey, I have an idea: let’s take off all our clothes while we play restaurant”? I don’t know if the twins hesitated, either. All I remember is the look on their mother’s face when she came home early one evening to find us all naked.

  At first, she looked completely shocked and horrified. But when the twins told her what had happened, how I had been the instigator, she looked at me with a disappointed look on her face. I’ll never forget that look as long as I live. Here this woman had taken me into her home and made me feel welcome and even loved, and I had repaid her in this way.

  That night, when my mother came to pick me up, the scenario that was to be repeated many more times in the future played out. The twins’ mother told my mother that her daughter—the bad seed—was no longer welcome in their home and no longer able to play with her kids.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Engel but we are a good Catholic family, and as much as we have grown to love Beverly she has become a bad influence on our children,” she said with a serious look on her face.

  “What did she do?” my mother demanded, glaring at me suspiciously.

  “She, well . . . she told my children to take all their clothes off.”

  My mother didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed my arm and literally dragged me out of the house, muttering, “I’m terribly sorry. We won’t bother you again. Thank you so much for being so kind. It’s too bad you got paid for your kindness in this way.”

  Momma was so angry with me that I don’t even remember what she said or did to me. I blanked out like I did when Steve did those ugly things to me. I just couldn’t take one more time of being yelled at, one more time being told what a disappointment I was to my mother, so my mind tuned out.

  I avoided walking past the twins’ house after that. I didn’t want to have to see the look on their mother’s face ever again.

  As much as I missed playing with the twins, I soon made friends with the little girl next door. Her name was Linda. She seemed to have the perfect house and the perfect family. Her mother stayed home all day being a housewife while her father went to work as a plumber.

  Both the outside and inside of their pretty green house were immaculate. So was Linda. Her clothes were always crisply clean and ironed and there never seemed to be a hair out of place on her ponytailed head.

  The only thing that seemed slightly out of place was the fact that her mother looked different from anyone I’d ever seen. My mother said she looked somewhat “Oriental,” although she couldn’t tell if she was Japanese, Chinese, or Filipino. Linda’s eyes didn’t look as Asian as her mother’s, but if you looked closely you could see the similarity.

  In the beginning, Linda came over to my house to play. We jumped up and down on the bed until we broke it. We oohed and aahed our way through my mother’s jewelry boxes, looking at all the rhinestone pin and earring sets, necklaces, and rings. We played a game where we each had to pick out our favorite piece of jewelry. It could sometimes take us hours.

  We also played in my backyard with the Hills’ dog, Tiny. I knew better than to get Linda to take her clothes off. But there was what was called a “stationary tub” mounted to the back wall of our little house, used for washing clothes. Although I don’t remember Steve taking naked pictures of me, it seems he must have because I had Linda get into the tub and pretend to be naked by pulling her top down while I pretended to take photos of her. In other words, I was up to my old tricks.

  I don’t know if Linda told her mother about it or not, but soon afterward Linda was restricted to playing in her own house and yard. It seemed I was still welcome to play with her, however, as long as we did it there—under the watchful eye of her mother.

  “Oh lamb of God, I come, I come.”

  The words of the song seared through my skin and into my stomach, making me feel like I was going to throw up.

  A nice old lady down the street had invited me to this church. She said it was a special time. The Southern Baptists called it a “revival.” I went every night that week. And every night when the preacher invited the sinners to come, I walked down the aisle.

  The preacher’s words—“sinner,” “wash away the sin,” and “redemption”—were so powerful I felt like they formed a large hand that was pushing me down the aisle toward the podium.


  I cried as I stumbled down the aisle, hoping that in fact there was redemption at the other end—something that would take away the horrible cloud of shame that followed me everywhere. The blood of Jesus would surely wash me clean—clean from the stench of sex, secrets, and ugly body parts that clung to my skin. Surely the blood of Jesus was powerful enough to purify me—to make me an innocent child again instead of this strange combination of adult and child, this husband stealer and liar. Surely the blood of Jesus would cleanse me of all my dark thoughts and the strange desire to edge up to door knobs and press my body against them. It would cleanse me of my compulsion to have all the kids I played with take off their clothes.

  The blood of Christ would make me feel clean again, innocent again. I wouldn’t feel like everyone could look at me and see the horrible things I had done.

  As I stood before the podium, silently admitting to the entire congregation that I was a sinner, I felt humiliated, exposed. But just for a moment, as I looked up at the cross and into the eyes of Jesus, I felt loved and forgiven.

  Unfortunately, the relief I felt from having my sins washed away was always short-lived. Usually by the time I got back to my house to face my life with my mother, the shame had returned. Nothing, not even Jesus himself, could take away the shame I felt in the presence of my mother or the shame I felt thinking about the horrible things I had done with Steve.

  Momma didn’t mind me going to the revival every night. She was just glad to get me out of the house. But one day several weeks later she got a large envelope in the mail. In it were lots of small envelopes and a letter explaining that she needed to tithe 10 percent of her income now that I was a member of the church.

  Needless to say, my mother wasn’t happy about this.

  “What have you done now?” she yelled, waving one of the small envelopes in her hand. “Did you tell them I would give them money? Did you sign anything?”

  I was dumbstruck. “No, I didn’t tell them anything or sign anything.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d gotten into trouble with my mother for going to church and repenting for my sins. It seemed I couldn’t do anything right.

  One night, about six months after we’d moved from Ruby’s, Momma and I were watching a movie on TV that had a scene in it about child sexual abuse. All of a sudden, I was overwhelmed with the need to tell my mother about what had happened between Steve and me. I got up my courage and blurted out, “Momma, that’s what Steve did to me.”

  She looked at me cautiously and said, “What do you mean?”

  “He did what they are talking about in that movie.”

  “Do you mean he had sex with you?”

  “Yes.”

  She was silent for what seemed like forever and then she turned to look me directly in the eyes.

  “Are you lying? Are you telling me this just to get attention?”

  I returned her gaze and said, “No Momma, it really happened. Steve really did those things to me.”

  “Tell me exactly what he did to you.”

  I told her about him making me take off all my clothes and how he had taken his clothes off too. I told her about him making me touch his penis. I told her about him being on top of me. And I told her about the bad taste in my mouth when it was all over.

  With that, she turned around and walked out of the room. I felt so alone sitting there. I wished I’d never told her. She hadn’t gotten mad at me like I was afraid she would, but she hadn’t told me she was sorry it happened to me either.

  After a few more minutes, I heard the front door shut. I figured she was going over to Mr. and Mrs. Hill’s to use their phone to call Ruby. I suddenly became frightened again. What would Ruby say? What would she do?

  I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of Ruby finding out. She’d hate me. She’d never speak to me again. I felt overwhelmed with shame. I just wanted to disappear.

  It seemed like a long time before my mother came back into the living room. I was still sitting in the exact place I had been when I told her. I was too numb to move.

  “Well, I told Ruby. She said it’s impossible. She told me Steve is impotent—that he can’t get an erection. He never does. So you see, he couldn’t have done what you say he did to you.”

  I was dumbfounded. She didn’t believe me. But of course she didn’t believe me. And now Ruby would think I was a liar too. Just trying to make trouble. Just trying to hurt her. I wanted to die. To just end it right there and then.

  I don’t remember if I tried to plead my case with my mother, if I tried to get her to believe me. It felt hopeless, so I don’t think I said anything more. I felt completely defeated.

  My mother and I never spoke about it again. But several weeks later she told me that Steve had been sent back to the mental hospital. I never found out why—if it had anything to do with me, but I assumed it did.

  I also assumed that Ruby despised me. Not only had I betrayed her, I was also responsible for taking her husband away from her and leaving her all alone again.

  I never saw Ruby again, even though she lived only a few blocks away and the Little Brown Jug was a frequent stop for us girls many years later when we were out cruising. I always stayed in the car while Florence and the other girls bought Cokes and cups of ice to make our drinks.

  Years later, I found out that my mother had kept in touch with Ruby when she let me know she had moved away to live with her son. Apparently she had bought a horse ranch.

  I never forgave my mother for not believing me about Steve. I’d wanted to confess to her, like I had at church, and be rid of some of the horrible shame I was carrying around, even if only for a short time. I wanted her to comfort me and tell me she was sorry this had happened to me. I wanted her to protect me from Steve. But the reality was that these things were never going to happen. My mother saw me as a “bad seed”—as if I had been born bad from the beginning. And eventually I started seeing myself the same way.

  Around this same time I’d seen the movie The Bad Seed, and that’s where I got the idea in my mind that this was what I was. In the movie, the mother always defended her daughter’s actions, even though it was clear she was really a bad kid. Time after time, the girl did something wrong, and time after time the mother defended her or turned a blind eye to her negative behavior. Eventually, by the end of the movie, the mother was forced to concede that she had a very troubled girl on her hands who was capable of most anything.

  I remember crying during that movie because I wished my mother would defend me like that, or at least give me the benefit of the doubt. Instead, she always assumed I was wrong or that whatever had happened was my fault. And she never gave me a chance to explain myself.

  chapter 16

  As dirty as I felt, inside and out, I had a hard time getting myself to take a bath. Even though I liked the feeling of sitting in the warm water, Steve had ruined the experience for me. I couldn’t take a bath without thinking of how he’d used giving me a bath as an excuse to look at and touch my naked body. Being in the tub made me feel exposed.

  Momma didn’t have enough money to buy curtains or drapes, so most of the windows in our little house only had shades. This left a space between the shade and the window ledge so big I could easily see outside. Momma still had the habit of walking around the house naked when it was hot, and she never seemed to worry whether anyone could see in. But I did.

  The window that bothered me the most was the bathroom window. Not only did it not have curtains, it didn’t even have a shade. When I was lying in the tub, I was looking directly at the window, and I always felt like someone was looking at me from outside.

  When I did get up enough nerve to take a bath, I got in quickly and immediately placed a washcloth over my developing breasts. I figured that if someone was looking, they wouldn’t be able to see the part of my body under the water. I just had to make sure I got in and out of the bathtub really fast and that I got a towel around me as soon as I could when I got out.

  I
couldn’t reach the top of the window so I asked Momma if she could put up a towel to cover the small window, but she just laughed at me. “Don’t worry,” she said, “no one’s going to want to look at a nine-year-old girl in the bathtub.”

  I ended up feeling silly for worrying about it.

  Even so, several times I thought I heard someone outside the bathroom window. Each time, I told Momma about it. Each time, she just rolled her eyes and told me I was imagining things.

  Momma was always laughing at my modesty. I hated it when she walked in on me when I was on the toilet or in the bath and I told her so. But she didn’t listen and continued to come in whenever she wanted. She thought I was silly for always covering up my body when she walked in while I was getting dressed and she made fun of me for always wearing pajamas around the house, even when it was hot. In other areas of her life, Momma was hardly what you might describe as a free spirit, but she certainly was when it came to her body. She always left the bathroom door open when she went to the bathroom and would often talk to me while she was on the toilet.

  About eight months after we moved into our new house, we were awakened one night to sounds of a commotion outside. We looked out the bedroom window to see what was going on. Much to our surprise, Linda’s house was all lit up and we could see her father and older brother, Bud, wrestling on the ground with a man I’d never seen before. Then we heard a siren and saw the police coming into Linda’s yard. The next thing we knew, they’d handcuffed the man on the ground and taken him away.

  Momma got dressed and went outside to find out what had happened. I was bursting with curiosity but she told me to stay inside. I continued to look out the window, but all I could see at that point was my mother talking to Linda’s father and brother.