But as tough as I was, I wasn’t prepared for Janice Drive. While Lake Street had been a quiet neighborhood filled with well-kept houses, manicured lawns, nice little families, and older couples, Janice Drive, located on the edge of town, had a sprawling, country-like atmosphere. Here the houses were mostly run-down, faded, water-stained stucco bungalows, and the yards were often just brown patches of dead grass, casualties of Bakersfield’s hot summers and icy winters. There were no flowerbeds and very few trees. It was desolate, dry, and dusty due to fact that there were few paved roads. Whenever a car drove down the street it left a trail of dust. And there were so many empty lots around us that we were sitting ducks when it came to the frequent dust storms that tore through the area.
Here the people parked their trucks on their front lawns and bare-chested men with beer bellies, sitting in chairs on their front lawns drinking beer while their bare-footed kids ran wild in the neighborhood, were a common sight. Most of the occupants of the houses were renters, and the few homeowners that were in the area had erected chain-linked fences to protect their yard and keep out trespassers.
There were lots of dogs and chickens, and even some horses and goats. The entire area was surrounded by farms, and many of the people who lived there worked in the nearby fields picking cotton, grapes, or corn. In addition to farm workers, there were some welfare families and even some out-and-out criminals.
Even though my life had been full of loneliness and shame so far, I had at least been lucky enough to live in middle-class neighborhoods alongside people with middle-class lives. Moving to Janice Drive turned out to be a huge step down. I’m sure my mother didn’t realize this when she found the place. It must have looked like a normal neighborhood at first glance. But once we got settled it became apparent that we didn’t belong there.
My mother had always stood out from the middle-class housewives in the neighborhoods we’d lived in. But here she was a spectacle with her high heels, coiffed hair, and makeup. I imagined the neighbors were shocked to see her walking to the bus stop every workday; they must have wondered what in the world this woman was doing in this neighborhood.
The overall feeling about Lake Street was that it was safe. The only trouble that had come to the neighborhood had been the peeping tom and a nine-year-old, sexually abused girl acting out her anger and shame. Janice Drive, on the other hand, was a landmine of potential risks.
Our landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Hill, had given me one of their dog Tiny’s puppies before we moved, and I had named him Cubby. I loved Tiny, so having one of his pups made leaving him behind a little easier.
Cubby was a Samoyed and, like Tiny, he had lots of fur, making it difficult to keep him cool in the hot summers. On Lake Street, Tiny had shade trees to lie under, and an enclosed yard. But on Janice Drive there were no such trees for Cubby, and our yard had no fence, so he was as exposed to danger as I was. Both of us had to be on guard for packs of stray dogs who sometimes appeared out of nowhere, barking menacingly as they roamed the neighborhood in search of food scraps, garbage, or the occasional unprotected kitten or puppy.
And there were other dangers as well. Members of the motorcycle gang the Hells Angels lived in a house down the street from us. It was common to see three or four motorcycles parked in the driveway, and periodically dozens of bikers roared into the neighborhood for a Saturday night or Sunday afternoon party.
One Sunday afternoon shortly after moving to Janice Drive, I heard a loud roar outside. It sounded like several airplanes flying too close to the ground. I walked outside to see a group of motorcycles coming down the street. It looked and sounded like we were being invaded by a swarm of huge black insects. I watched as one after another motorcycle pulled into the Hells Angels’ house and parked on the driveway or on the front lawn.
Some of the bikes had women on the back, others just had a single guy. Most of the men looked dangerous, with black leather jackets or vests covered with spikes, scruffy beards, and tattoos all over their muscle-bound arms. Many of the women had pitch-black hair and they were wearing black leather pants and T-shirts or bathing suit tops with their boobs hanging out. Some looked as dangerous as the men.
After they went inside, I heard the sound of loud “whoops” and the blast of rock and roll music. I imagined the chaos that must be going on inside and it all felt scary and overwhelming.
That night I had a nightmare. A dangerous-looking man roared up to my house on a motorcycle, broke down our door, grabbed me out of my bed, and took me away with him. I woke up screaming. After my nightmare, I was even more frightened every time a group of Hells Angels came roaring down the street.
Another thing that scared me in our new neighborhood was hearing about a menacing family that lived down the block—the Storys. Everyone told me to stay away from them. There were eight Story kids altogether: six boys and two girls. The boys had all been in prison or juvenile hall for God-knows what, and the Story girls had a reputation for being as dangerous as their brothers.
One day, right after school had started, I ran into two girls on the way home from school.
“Hey asshole, where are you going?” I heard a female voice from behind me call out. I knew from the menacing, heckling tone to just keep quiet and keep walking.
“Hey, I’m talking to you, stupid. Are you deaf?”
I just kept walking, my heart pounding hard in my chest.
All of a sudden two girls were standing right in front of me. They looked like tough cookies. One seemed to be around my age, the other somewhat older. The older one had hair that was dyed pitch black and highlighted with white streaks, and the younger one had hair shorter than mine, making her look more like a boy than a tough girl. Both of them wore skin-tight jeans and tight T-shirts with the sleeves rolled up to hold a cigarette pack. I was pretty sure they must be the Story sisters.
“What are you doing in this neighborhood?” the older one challenged. “Did we tell you you could walk here?”
Petrified, I decided to try to use my charm on them. “I’m new here,” I said cheerfully. “My name is Beverly.”
My strategy fell flat. “Well, new girl, you have to get past us if you plan on getting home,” the older one said. At that they each took turns shoving me in the chest.
As the younger girl pushed me, something inside me snapped. All the pent-up anger and rage I felt toward my mother exploded inside me and I began to push back.
Faced with this resistance, the older girl hit me so hard in the stomach that I doubled over in pain.
Tears streamed down my face, not only because of the pain but because I felt so alone and so helpless. I wanted to just give up—to sit down on the ground and cry. But then I felt the rage inside me building up again and I rose up and hit the girl back, hard, right in the stomach, nearly knocking her down on the ground. She looked as surprised by what I had done as I was. She stood there stunned for a few minutes, steadying herself, and then she started to laugh. “Hey,” she said, “you’ve got quite a punch there.”
With that, they turned and walked away. They never bothered me again.
I was shocked by the intensity of the rage that had risen up inside me. It scared me. It felt like it had taken me over, and I didn’t like that feeling of being out of control. But I also had another feeling: empowerment. I had stood up for myself; I could have given up, but I hadn’t. I could have felt helpless, like I had with Steve and like I often felt with my mother, but instead I’d hit back. Suddenly I felt less vulnerable in this scary place. If I could stand up to those tough girls, I told myself, I could do anything.
There was yet a third feeling stirring inside me as well: pride. I felt proud of myself for standing my ground and fighting back, and for just a moment that feeling of pride overshadowed the overwhelming feeling of shame I’d been carrying around inside me for so long.
chapter 20
When it came to finding friends in this new neighborhood, I had “slim pickins,” as we said in Bakersfield. My usual pr
actice of trolling the streets for people to visit hadn’t turned up much. There were a few kids whose fathers worked in the oil fields outside of Bakersfield—they tended to be the ones with the chain-linked fences. I didn’t have much contact with the children in these homes since their mothers kept them protected behind the fences, watching them like hawks and protecting them from the unsavory elements in the neighborhood.
There was a strange family called the Hansons who lived about a block away and whose oldest girl had a horse that she kept in a lot next door. My attempts to befriend her were for naught; she was in love with her horse and didn’t have room in her life for human beings. The other Hanson girl was about two years younger than me and I started hanging out with her a little, but she was too boring for me. I was used to hanging around younger kids if I had to, but they needed to be extra fun or be able to tell good stories— something that made them interesting. This girl was so far into herself and so shut down that she had absolutely nothing to offer.
Finally, I found the Embreys. I got to know them initially by babysitting the younger girl, Patricia. She was probably only about three years younger than me, but her mother was desperate for a babysitter and I looked and acted a lot more mature than my eleven years.
I liked hanging out with Patricia. She was sweet and pretty— and she did whatever I said. Patricia’s older sister, Linda, wasn’t around much, and when she was she basically ignored Patricia and me. Her mother always complained that Linda should stay home more and be willing to help babysit Patricia, but Linda was a wild child. She was four years older than me and in high school. She never had any girls over from school, but there were always plenty of boys hanging around her.
I’d been babysitting Patricia for about two months when Linda suddenly started noticing me—asking me questions like she was genuinely interested in me. I was thrilled to be getting attention from her.
Linda didn’t have a pretty face. In fact, she almost looked like a witch with her long, crooked nose and sharp chin. She had long black hair and wore lots of eye makeup, which made her dark eyes even darker. Boys hung around her because she had a knockout body and because she was what they called “fast” or “cheap.” At least, that was the gossip around the neighborhood. There were always carloads of boys driving up in front of Linda’s house and she was always driving off with them.
I don’t know why Linda took a liking to me. But soon I started hanging out with her instead of babysitting Patricia, even after their family moved a few blocks away.
I guess you might say Linda was a bad influence. She taught me how to smoke one day, telling me, “If you’re going to smoke, at least do it right.” And she was the one who introduced me to Richard.
Linda and I were sitting on her front porch one evening when two guys drove up in a convertible. It was Linda’s friend Ronnie and his friend Richard. They both were tall and lean and had long sideburns and pompadours, the way Elvis wore his hair. And they were both good-looking, in a bad boy kind of way. They asked us if we wanted to go for a ride.
Linda ran in the house to freshen up her makeup (she always wore lots of it no matter what she was doing). Richard got in the backseat and directed me to join him.
We drove out to the country—which wasn’t very far away— and parked on a side road of a farm. Within minutes Ronnie and Linda were making out. Richard and I sat in silence for a few minutes and then he slid over next to me and put his arm around me. I loved the feeling of him next to me, the smell of his aftershave. It was spicy and masculine. I wanted him to kiss me, badly.
I’d heard lots of people talk about their first kiss. First kisses are a rite of passage for most girls, and maybe most boys as well. But for most girls, a first kiss also usually happens with a boy close to their own age, and it’s usually an innocent kiss—short and without tongue. My first kiss, in contrast, lasted at least five minutes and there was plenty of tongue. I’d just turned twelve, and Richard was twenty-four.
The moment Richard gave me my first kiss, passion rose up inside of me that was so powerful it scared me. My passion was met with his and we sank into one deep kiss after another—only stopping now and then to catch our breaths. I couldn’t get close enough to him and couldn’t hold him tight enough. I wanted our bodies to merge, to feel relieved of the constant pain of my emptiness and loneliness.
It was romantic and intense and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world at the time. Richard reminded me of Elvis, and I was in love with Elvis. Nothing about it seemed sordid or shameful, the way it had with Steve. We were out in the open air, not hiding away in some dark bedroom. And we were making out right in front of other people.
Several hours later, Ronnie drove us home. Richard and Ronnie stuck around a while and we hung out on Linda’s front porch and talked a little. It was only then that Richard found out I was only twelve.
He was shocked. “My God, girl, you look at least sixteen!” he exclaimed, looking at me in disbelief.
I was furious with Linda for letting it slip. I was sure that I would never see Richard again. But before the night was through we had a plan for all of us to go to the drive-in the following night.
“How are you going to get out of the house tomorrow night?” Linda asked me after the guys left.
I thought for a moment. “I can sneak out my bedroom window,” I said, all confidence. I hadn’t done it before, but I was sure I could pull it off without my mother missing me.
Mom and I put Cubby on the service porch at night so he wouldn’t be in danger of being attacked by wild dogs or get into any trouble. I needed my mother to keep me safe and out of trouble too, but ever since we’d moved to Janice Drive she had pretty much left me alone. It felt like she’d had it with me and simply didn’t care what I did. That suited me just fine, though— I’d had it with her too. At this point we were just coexisting, seldom even seeing each other, much less interacting. So it was as easy as I thought it would be to sneak out of the house. I just went into my room and closed the door like I was going to bed for the night, took the screen off, and slipped out. I knew my mother wouldn’t check on me before going to bed, which meant I could stay out as late as I wanted.
I felt so grown up as we pulled the car into a slot at the drive-in. As the sun started to set, more and more couples pulled up. Soon, as if some kind of silent alarm had just gone off, we all started making out.
That night, as I experienced one long, intense kissing bout after another, I actually felt like my breasts were heaving, just like they wrote about in romance novels. I desperately wanted Richard to touch my breasts. I even moved my breast closer to his hand to encourage him. But when he did touch them, I shrank away in genuine horror. It triggered memories of how Steve had always touched my breasts and how he had made a big deal out of how big they were already.
Richard apologized profusely, but I was traumatized. I slid over to the opposite side of the car, folded my arms over my chest, and look straight ahead, pretending to ignore him. I felt so many feelings. Anger, fear, confusion.
We were silent for what seemed like a long time. Then he slid over close to me and whispered in my ear. “I’m so sorry, I promise I won’t ever do it again.”
I believed him. And I was clear at this point that he was not Steve. We proceeded to make out again, engaging in one long, deep, breathtaking kiss after another. It felt wonderful.
Ronnie and Linda and Richard and I never went out again as a group. But soon, Richard was picking me up from junior high every day and driving me to Hart Park, about twenty miles outside of town. Hart Park was a rambling county park with a small manmade lake and lots of scrawny, heat-exposed trees. On the weekend, it was where all the kids went to cruise. During the weekdays it was quiet, with no one but an occasional park ranger in sight.
At Hart Park, Richard and I would sit in the backseat of his car and make out. We did it for hours. I now knew what people meant when they said they “got lost in someone’s arms” because that’s what
happened to me. I got lost in Richard’s arms, in his kisses.
I don’t know if it was the fear of my mother beating me to death if I got pregnant or the fact that I had already been sexually abused, but I never even considered having sex with Richard. After that first night at the drive-in he never attempted to go any further with me than kissing, either. And that—the fact that we spent so much time just making out and not going any further—made me feel normal, like other girls my age. It was a way for me to turn back the clock and pretend what happened with Steve had never occurred. For me, my relationship was sweet and romantic and innocent. Though he was far too old for me, because he never tried to push me to do more than kiss, my experience with Richard helped me to trust men again.
Later that year, after I’d begged Richard to take me to the county fair for weeks, I went with some friends and saw him there with a woman and two kids. I was devastated.
On the phone the next day, he admitted he was married.
“What are you doing with me if you’re married?” I demanded. It was as if I were thirty years old and had just discovered that the man I had been seeing was married.
Richard didn’t have much to say because there wasn’t anything to say. I saw him a few more times after that, but we never went to the park again. One time, though, he came over to Pat’s house, the girl who lived next door to me, and for some reason the younger Hanson girl was there. We started playing a game where you had to go into the closet and kiss Richard if you lost (probably his idea). The young Hanson girl ended up having to go in the closet with him, and when they came out everything started to click for me. This guy likes young girls, I realized, and he’s moving on to fresh meat.
Richard didn’t really care about me, he was just using me. The thought made me sick to my stomach, just like I’d felt every time Steve molested me. After that day, I never saw him again.
Raising Myself Page 13