Empty beer bottles, overflowing ashtrays and an empty pint of rum and Jack Daniels lay scattered on the floor. Smoke was heavy in the air.
“What?” I asked nervously.
The energy in the room felt dangerous. It was thick with testosterone, although I couldn’t name it. My body buzzed with alarm.
“We want to talk to you,” Dan said. “Don’t be scared, come in here.”
Dan straddled a wooden chair turned backwards. A baseball cap was pulled low to his brow, his long hair tied back at his neck.
I’d seen the men at Tuck’s; they were friends of Aaron and Dan.
I stepped forward and jerked with a start at the sound of the door slamming behind me. The men sat in a circle around me. My heart pumped. I squeezed the dustpan handle and fixed my eyes on the floor. Fear stiffened my limbs. I waited.
Dan started the talking. “Tell me why we shouldn’t take turns fucking you right now? We know that’s what you come here for.”
I couldn’t speak or swallow. His crude words stung me. A distant ringing began to sound in my ears. I kept my head down. Humiliation uncoiled itself and raced through my body. You deserve this, it whispered.
“We’ve decided that, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do, Sugar Drawers. Today. Right now.”
My body absorbed a jumble of thoughts and feelings all at once. I heard the random thoughts of the men in the room. Shit, she’s really scared. Is Dan really gonna do it?
He’s crazy. Look at her ass though, m-m-m-m.
I couldn’t tell who thought what but I felt their mixed intention slice through me. I knew if something sexual started, it would be like a feeding frenzy. There would be no stopping it. I felt like I was surrounded by a pack of wild dogs.
Terrified, my mind jumped. I just come to be with Aaron. Aaron why are you doing this? Please, don’t hurt me. Aaron, please. I know you love me. Why are you doing this? My skin felt like stinging nettles and I was confused. Aaron sat silent among the men, it was a dagger in my soul. The energy in the room swallowed me, suffocated me. Oh God, what should I do?
I lost track of time. I could no longer hear their words. Bile, slick and wet shot from the back of my throat filling my mouth. I swallowed it back, forcing it down. I couldn’t believe Aaron would be part of this. The agony of that truth pulsed like a fever under my skin.
Suddenly, Dan stood up and moved toward me.
I’m going to vomit.
“That’s enough.” Aaron said. “Open the fucking door and let her out.
No one moved or spoke.
“Open the door!” Aaron screamed, standing up.
“Next time, you won’t be so lucky.” Dan promised.
I bolted on wooden legs. Tears blurred my vision. I ran from the house.
After several blocks I collapsed in hysterics. What just happened? Why would they do that?
My body shook with fear and the realization of what had almost happened. I am so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Confusion clouded my mind. Why did this happen? Does it mean Aaron doesn’t love me? Why did he make them let me go?
I sat tucked beside a hedge and cement steps on a stranger’s front lawn. Pain in my gut clutched hard, bending me over. I opened my mouth and surrendered to my sickness.
“Ohhh-ohhh- God,” I roared tipping my head toward the sky. “Why, why? What is wrong with me? Why does everyone hate me?” I cried until I ran out of tears. My body ached as the fantasy of being loved crumbled. I wanted to be numb. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to die.
I didn’t go back to Aaron’s house nor would I see him for months.
The pot I smoked was no longer enough to escape my pain and I began devouring drugs dangerously. Weeks after the crushing episode at Aaron’s, I had my first overdose.
My body lay lifeless face down in the grass like a corpse. Drool flowed freely as I struggled to draw breath. Efforts to turn my head and close my mouth to the dirt and grit that filled it were in vain. I managed to move my jaw up and down like a cow gnawing at the earth. A low ringing filled my ears and while I knew where I was, I realized I might die undetected by the mothers and children playing near me on the swing sets and slides of the park. I felt a presence hover over me like a reverse shadow but I was unable to communicate with it. It reminded me of Maggie’s angel and I held onto the memory for as long as I was conscious, which wasn’t long.
Several hours had passed by the time Maggie found me that day. I had snorted a deadly mixture of PCP and cocaine. When I opened my eyes I was lying on a bed in an unfamiliar room. The curtains billowed inward from the breeze through an open window. Maggie held my ankle tightly and forced my knee to bend gliding my foot toward my chest and out again while she cradled a phone receiver tucked firmly between her ear and shoulder.
“Yes,” she said. “I am doing that. Mm’hm, I don’t know how much she did. Yes, it was definitely PCP mixed with coke.”
Maggie listened intently to the person on the other end. Fearful I would die she’d called the Drug Hotline and was speaking with a nurse. She glanced up and looked directly at me. “She just opened her eyes,” she said, exhaling her pent up anxiety. After another moment she said, “Okay, I will. Thank you.”
She hung up the phone and pulled me out of bed forcing my body upright and walked with me back and forth; tiny bits of grit still crunched between my teeth. I felt boneless, a replica of Gumby dancing a ballet.
“Jesus Christ,” Maggie snarled. “You’re a fucking idiot. You scared the shit out of me.”
We were across the parking lot in another condo in our complex and through the open window we heard a car’s engine and Maggie looked out.
“That’s just great,” she hissed, “Mom’s home.” And as the car door slammed she said, “Come on, Nita, “Knock it off. You better get a grip.”
It took a couple of hours of forced repetitive movement before I began to feel normal, but thanks to Maggie’s intervention I recovered. Much of this period is hazy, but what remained constant and clear in spite of the drugs was the voice in my mind and a light-body that I began to see frequently.
The light-body, or energy, would appear without warning, sometimes multiple times a day wherever I was. It looked like a shadow, only light instead of dark. It wasn’t as big as a person and had no real body shape. It’s like a weird reflection, I thought. It looked like heat waves with a hazy glow the size of a large dog.
It was obvious that no one else saw the light-body. When I saw it hovering, I’d glance around the room to confirm I alone saw the intruder. From my best recollection, I began seeing the light-body between the age of thirteen and fourteen on a regular basis. I don’t remember seeing it before my traumatic incident at Aaron’s house.
Days after my overdose, out of the blue our mother said, “You girls aren’t going to school tomorrow. We each have appointments with a psychic named Boots. We’ll spend the day together and have lunch.”
We all knew that this was an extravagant expenditure and completely out of the ordinary. We rarely had family outings. Money was simply too tight. We skipped Christmas two years in a row because we couldn’t afford it. We had no extras so this was really a surprise. Our mother had become increasingly interested in “psychic phenomena.” I remained unclear as to what the term actually meant and I didn’t share my unique experiences with her because I didn’t know that’s what they were. I had no clue that I might be psychic. Despite the cost, we each had our private half-hour reading which I will never forget.
Boots sat in a dim room Indian style on a giant beanbag chair in a dark office that reeked of incense. Across from her, scattered on the floor, were several vacant beanbags in various colors and sizes. I nervously sat in one and stared at the woman.
Her belly protruded like
a Buddha and her face cascaded into her neck as though she had no chin. Her brown eyes glistened. “Welcome,” she said. “Come closer and let me see you and hold your hands.”
I did as I was told, staying as silent as a monk.
Inhaling deeply, she smiled and said, “Oh yes, you are a mystic, a seer. You will help many people in your life. You are gifted. You’ve suffered a great deal of pain and I’m afraid you have a rocky road ahead of you.”
Her insight surprised me. How does she know if I’ve suffered? What does she see? I knew she was right that I would help people, I’d always known it, but like much of the knowing, I couldn’t fully grasp it. My self-esteem was so low that I couldn’t imagine doing anything good. Still, I hung on her every word. I desperately wanted her to be right. I leaned forward and blurted, “I had an abortion. I killed a soul.” Tears welled and I couldn’t believe I’d told her of my sin.
I’d suspected I was pregnant days after the disastrous incident at Aaron’s and I was terrified to tell my mother. I gathered my courage and approached her one morning while she applied her make-up getting ready for work.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I confessed.
“Oohh, Nita. Jesus Christ.” My mother’s body sagged and then went rigid. “I’ll make an appointment with my Gynecologist,” she said “and we will take care of it.”
That was the end of any discussion. I worried that the light-body and God would be angry but I was relieved that my mother would help me without condemning me. I’d had the abortion only days before our session with Boots.
Boots sat in silence for a moment then she gently squeezed my hands and said, “You are not powerful enough to kill a soul. None of us are. Before we incarnate on this earth plane, we choose our parents, siblings, sex, social economic situation and more because these things best support our life path and what we plan to learn. There are no mistakes. The soul which moved through your body knew you would not keep it. It was the soul’s choice. You helped each other and we cannot know the hows/whys on this level of consciousness and they don’t matter. To know them changes nothing.”
“But I killed it.” I squeaked, openly crying.
“I know that’s what some would have you believe. Souls don’t die, human bodies do. A soul has many choices. Sometimes the soul wants to lower its vibration and prepare for incarnation. They may use your body to do so, moving in and out of a physical form. It’s an agreement that was made before you were born and many will share in the lesson of your experience. The doctor, nurses, you, your family or those touched in some way by your action will have their own lesson. Again, we don’t know. Have you heard of SIDS disease?”
“You mean where babies die in their sleep for no reason?”
“Yes. As long as the soft spot in the crown is open a soul is free to come and go. Sometimes the soul has either previously agreed to leave or they make the choice to leave and try again. We are reflections of God and we have free will. There are very few accidents although they do occur. In your case, it’s doubtful. You agreed to assist a soul and the soul assisted you, there is no blame.”
I felt my body shimmy with goose bumps and I felt the truth in her words. Encouraged I went on. “I see stuff sometimes.” I said.
She didn’t ask what I saw but said, “Of course you do,” and chuckled. “It’ll be alright. Do you know how to meditate?”
“No.” I said. She said ‘of course you do’ like it was perfectly normal. I thought.
“Meditation is the highway to enlightenment,” Boots said. “You should meditate every day to ground your energy and open up to your inner guidance. It will help you.”
Boots instructed me to bring in light through the crown of my head letting it flow down one arm out of my palm and into the other creating a circle of light. I found comfort in the practice and would meditate sporadically throughout my youth. While nothing in my behavior changed at the time, I tucked away the information and would use it later in life. I’d eventually learn countless other methods of meditation until I made prayer and meditation part of my daily life.
I wanted to believe Boots. I wanted to be special. I liked the idea of being a “Mystic” although I didn’t understand what the word meant, but it felt good when she said it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t ready to embrace all she told me. I simply couldn’t allow myself to believe I harbored anything good or special.
On the drive home Maggie chirped, “That was really cool. Boots told me that I will have three kids and, she said I will never be rich, but I won’t have to worry about money, either. Cool, huh?”
And then Isla said, “She said I was an Opera singer in a past life.” We all laughed because Isla was tone deaf and couldn’t sing at all.
“I guess that’s why you can’t carry a tune now, huh?” Maggie teased.
My mother said, “We talked about my past lives, and I remember one where I was an Indian and had such a happy life. Not like this fucked up one. She said I don’t have to come back and reincarnate if I don’t want to and I’m not. After this life, I am done.”
What pure bullshit, I thought. I didn’t believe what Boots said about past lives. Anyone could say that kind of crap. I thought.
I kept my thoughts to myself and said, “She said that I am a mystic, a seer. She said I will use my gift in this life to help people and she showed me how to meditate.” Let’s see what they think of that.
Silence rang in the car and I assumed nobody believed me. Maybe it sounds like such bullshit they think it’s a lie, I reasoned. I had been dubbed the “flakey” child early on in life. My mother would look at me and say, “Jesus, Nita, you’re such a flake, you live in your own world.”
And I did, but it was because of the Clairs, not because I was unmoored or stupid which is how the judgment felt, but no one would know about the Clairs until years later. It would turn out that Maggie’s predictions came true and mine did too. I didn’t tell my family about the light-bodies and voices because I worried I was crazy and I suspected no one would believe me anyway. I didn’t believe it myself. It seemed to be just like the past lives statement, impossible to prove. Still, I held onto the information, burying it in my subconscious.
I felt hopeful after our time with Boots, though I wasn’t sure why.
Maggie and I sold drugs so we could get ours for free. A new type of pot was on the scene called Thai-Stick. It was touted to be better than anything available and potheads wanted it. We were told only one man had it, a family man who lived nearby. He was a friend of an older couple Maggie knew so we went one Friday afternoon.
The man’s name was Roger and he lived in an affluent part of town where the homes were large sitting in neat rows climbing up steep hills. We parked our crappy car in front of his tidy house and rang the bell. We were greeted with the smell of pot-roast and Fleetwood Mac’s “You Can Go Your Own Way” rang from strategically-placed speakers making the carpeted floor beneath us pound with the music’s beat. The matching furniture looked unused and perfectly placed.
Roger stood with his feet apart in the middle of the room - hands clasped behind his back and rocked on the balls of his feet. His head was bald while thick black curly hair covered his exposed arms and legs like an ape. His face was broad with a permanent smile showing perfect teeth.
“What can I do you for?” he asked through his creepy leer. “Whatever you need, I got it, no problemo there.”
He reminded me of a giant cartoon wolf who licked his hungry snout as he spoke through smoke and mirrors. The air tightened around me and the voice said, “He touches his girls. He has sexual intent. See the sadness down the hallway.” I turned my head and peered down the hallway adorned with photos of his family. A large colored image of a young girl missing her two front teeth smiled at me. Goose flesh raced over my skin and I knew. I saw in my mind’
s eye the stolen moments in the dark and I felt the fear and dread that hung there. Rogers’s deep voice brought me back to where I stood.
“We’re havin’ a little part-e-e tonight, if you care to indulge. A little skipidy-do-dah to celebrate the wife’s birthday. It’ll be a good time, if ya know what I mean,” he said raising his eyebrows and smiling like the Cheshire cat.
“I’m gonna wait in the car,” I said and hurried out the door. I felt like I’d been doused in his sickness and wanted to wipe it off. I looked back and watched Rogers’s body energy recede as he spun his tales of a happy home. In that case, I believed what I knew, listened to the voice and got out as quickly as I could.
That same year I was introduced to a man more than twice my age. His name was Angel. He, too, was a friend of Roger and the couple Maggie knew where we scored most of our drugs.
After the traumatic and confusing episode at Aarons, Angel’s flattery was like a delicacy I desperately needed.
Angel had coffee-colored skin and a quiet demeanor and took me down a road of true self destruction, the likes of which I hadn’t yet encountered. Angel was thirty-five and I was fifteen and he showered me with attention. He told me I was beautiful and special, words I desperately wanted to hear. My mother knew about my relationship with Angel and never intervened or restricted me from seeing him. I assumed that she felt he might be a good influence because of his age, but we never talked about it.
One afternoon I learned Angel had a secret habit while we sat in the bedroom of his condo and talked. Angel casually placed a bundle between us on the bed. He unrolled the kit and inside was a two - inch wide rubber band tourniquet, the kind used when drawing blood, a syringe and needle along with a spoon, eyedropper and small piece of cotton. I watched as he mixed cocaine and speed in the spoon and dropped dollops of water to dissolve his tincture. He then dropped the cotton onto the spoon and filled the syringe. He held the apparatus upright and flicked his middle finger against the syringe to force any air bubbles out; he wrapped his bicep tightly with the tourniquet and gently inserted the needle. He first withdrew a drop of velvety red blood which danced in the liquid. He then released the contents into his arm. His eyes fluttered closed.
The Knowing: Awake in the Dark Page 7