WARNING…

Dear Readers, as stated in the last post…I appreciate your empathic eyes, your compassionate hearts, and your thoughtful comments both here and those received via email.

Warning: violence ahead

Take good care and tend to yourself. Do not read this excerpt if you are subject to PTSD. Do not read this excerpt if you are currently experiencing overwhelm.

This is a true story spoken by the nineteen-year-old girl/woman as she navigates a traumatic rite-of-passage into her transformed life. This unfolding does not happen quickly. 

The best thing about being my current age of 71 is having the awareness that nothing in this story needs to be fixed or changed. I have invested years in healing work and yet, each time I would reach a certain point in happiness and sufficiency I would unconsciously trip myself up, hurt myself, stop myself and as a result, find the need to ‘start all over again.’ This has given me an unstoppable quality. And yet. Last year a traumatic injury occurred, a ‘failure in my bones’, and to her credit, it has been the nineteen-year-old, my own Super-Here-O, she has thawed and become my guide out of the Minotaur’s cave. There is no victim here. 

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Henry David Thoreau

Her back is turned to me.

I repeat my request, “Please can I borrow your car? I will be gone for a few hours. I want to visit my friends.” I tell her that they live across town. I tell her I last saw them in February or March. I suggest that since its Sunday she will not be using her car. Please.

I watch her back. She takes a deep breath in and out. Her body stiffly rises and falls.

She turns off the water, dries her hands on the dishtowel that hangs over her right shoulder, and walks past without looking at me or saying a word. She lifts her keyring out of her purse on the stool by the door. She dangles the Dodge key in front of me. She instructs, “Make sure to call your friends first. I don’t want you driving across town unless you make sure they are home.”

I can leave!

I can drive the car!

I dash next door, compose myself, walk calmly through the front room, wave hello to Mr. & Mrs. smoking, and reading the newspaper at the kitchen table. I head upstairs. Last February seems like another lifetime. When I last visited Patti handed me a slip of paper with the new phone number. It has been six months since I sat in the big kitchen listening to Joni Mitchell while sipping tea, chatting art, and, OH! I am so excited to see how the textile dancing doll project has turned out!  

On the third ring, a guy says, “Hello.” I ask for Sandy. He says, “They’re all in the park playing touch football, who’s calling?”

Touch football sounds odd, not like something either of them would enjoy. I wonder about all the large trees in the park, how would they be able to play ball?  I say my name. He replies, “Oh! Donna! Sandy was saying she hoped you would call! Are you coming over? What time will you get here?”

When I tell him that I will be borrowing my mother’s car and will be there by three, he says, “Great! I’ll let Sandy know.”

This is the happiest day in longer than I can remember!

Artists, Patti and Sandy, are a few years older than me. Students at the Cleveland Institute of Art across the street from the Art Museum, they work as waitresses at La Cave. I met them there and I would also see them at the Art Museum ‘Happenings’ where lots of us would gather outdoors for free music around the lagoon.

They invite me to hang out at the big blue house, an easy ride on the train from my apartment, and my work downtown. It is exciting for me to visit the college campus world of University Circle.

I recall my first visit to the house; as soon as I walk past the bicycles leaning against the wooden railings onto the small back porch, I feel my heart expand. I take a deep breath as my fingertips brush over the planter boxes filled with a tumble of blooming flowers and herbs. The windows on either side of the open screen door are animated by white lace curtains billowing lazily up against the screens.  The aroma of fresh herb bread baking and the upbeat of the Yardbirds on the record player creates a successive layer of greeting.

This house is where I come alive!

Here, for the first time, I know the way I want my life to look and feel!

I will be inspired and creative!

I will continue to surround myself with the sound of exciting new forms of music.

I will learn to knead the dough and bake bread.

I will learn about herbs and browning garlic in olive oil.

I will combine vegetables of the most diverse mix of colors and textures into a big gleaming pot of soup simmering all afternoon on the back burner of my stove.

OH! I will have conversations and a lively exchange of ideas! Now I know that I yearn for quick laughs, heartfelt smiles, and new friends coming spontaneously through the backdoor.

I will make Art! I will talk about art! I will dress like, I too, am art! I am hungry for my artful life!

I begin the drive with a smile on my face. I am on the road and heading to see my inspiring artist friends. I look forward to my first day of feeling like my new self after so many challenging months.

I am now free to become the new me.

I fully intend to keep the promise made to the infant whose image I hold close to my heart. Should we ever, in a million years meet, I want him to be proud. My body continues to repair and adjust. My breasts are engorged, tender, and they continually leak, I keep tightly folded Kleenex inside my bra changing it often. My stomach is puffy and slack. Everything is sensitive and I am uncomfortable and embarrassed in my skin. No two-piece bathing suit this summer. My loose cotton shirt over my one-size-too-large madras shorts hides the extra bit of weight that I still carry. I have always been a ‘skinnymalink’ as mom would say. Thin and small-boned. At six months my pregnant belly was easily disguised with a loose top. The young widow gave me my one and only pair of maternity pants when she saw that my jeans were belted with a pair of nylon stockings stretched across my expanding belly because the zipper would no longer close.

The best thing about being with Patti and Sandy is they will be glad to see me. I am beyond excited to see the art that they have been making, I long to hear new music, sip peppermint tea. I drive up Carnegie Avenue wondering if Patti will have made a batch of carob brownies with walnut chunks.

I can feel that this is My Day!

I change the station from WCLV classical to CKLW Motown. It has been almost a year since I have driven anywhere by myself. I lower the window and turn up The Temptations singing My Girl.

This is a perfect day!

Mom had me sit down for Sunday dinner with the family before leaving. I arrive a little past three but will have time for a good visit before I need to follow the agreed ‘be home before dark!’ instructions. Mid-summer dark arrives as the lightening bugs begin to rise in a zig-zag pattern from the lawns.

I enter University Circle and turn the corner just beyond the train overpass. The uneven cobble of red brick Murray Hill Road marks the entrance to Cleveland’s Little Italy section. Just past the small park is the big blue house. The sprawling front porch faces the large trees. True, there is no space for touch football. Anyway, the game is over now. There is no sign of anyone outdoors. I imagine that Patti and Sandy are in the kitchen, brownies coming out of the oven.

I have arrived!

I park the car in the short driveway. I turn off the radio. Quiet. No music drifting out. I see that the windows and the back door are closed, the lace curtains hang motionless. No bicycles leaning against the porch rails or lying on the grassy area near the garage. I walk up the plank steps onto the porch. I turn to look out at the bright sunny day and wave/smile at a dogwalker going by.

It feels so good to be here!

Here. The place where I have felt most at home.

Here. The place where I feel welcome and seen.

I open the old-fashioned wooden screen door turn the round brass doorknob, stepping inside. Glancing past the enclosed stairway directly inside the door, I look to my right into the kitchen. Over the big picnic/kitchen table, I see the empty soup pot sitting on the back burner. No flame. I look to my left into the dining room. No easel standing in the corner. No sewing machine set out on the table. No music.

No air moving.

My body tells me to leave.

I turn toward the sunny porch. I place my right hand onto the doorknob.

From the top of the stairs, a voice bellows, “Touch that door and you’re dead!” An eruption of snarling barks and growls. The voice even louder says, “This dog is trained to attack women! Don’t move!”

I freeze.

The command to climb the stairs is emphasized with a gun pointing down at me. Slow-motion. The German Shepard, held by the collar pulled tight off the landing, front legs violently claw the air, viciously barks. I watch the spray flying.

I stop.

The nose of the gun waves a silent demand: move.

I lift my right foot. I place my hand against the wall.

I stop.

The arm holding the dog jerks back hard and fast. The dog sputters, gags, and coughs. A door opens. Close. No more barking.

I move through quicksand. As I reach the darkened space at the top of the stairs, a massive shadowy hand grabs my upper arm like a vice and yanks me up.  All the doors are closed creating a cave. They surround and tower over me exuding a dense suffocating odor; huge bodies reek a mixture of sweat, motor oil, sickly-sweet alcohol breath. They form a wall enclosing me. They dress alike: dirty, torn, oil-stained, grimy blue jeans, t-shirt, denim jackets with sewn emblems on the sleeves, and a single word stitched over the front pocket. Silver dog leash chains loop through applets hangs from belts, wrap-around heavy leather biker’s boots. One drinks from a bottle inside of a brown paper lunch bag passing it to the next. They laugh. Triumphant. One leans his face close enough to touch mine taunting, “Did you come by for a little game? We want to play.”

I do my best to disappear.

The hallway is a cave of dark wood, a small rectangle of filtered light glows through the transom over the closed bathroom door. Backlit they circle me as massive silhouettes. One of them stretches his arm backward, turns the knob, pulls to open a door. I catch a fast glimpse of the large emblem on the back of his jacket. The emblem. I see a steep flight of steps that leads up to the attic, there is a soft pool of natural light collecting at the very top of the stairs. The one with the gun presses the flat side against my back, cold metal sends a chill through my loose summer-weight shirt. When my feet refuse to move, he uses the gun to push me over to the right and through the doorframe. They follow and squeeze into the tight space at the base of the stairs. A hand pulls the door closed, reaches over my head, fits the hook into the eye.

I am locked inside.

Two of them settle back lounging on the filthy steps. I stand shoulder to shoulder with the third. He keeps the gun flat against my back at the waist. They are laughing. The dirty oil-stained lunch bag that one takes out of his back pocket is unfolded. One by one they stick a huge monster hand inside cupping several black and red capsules. I see four, five capsules flat in a palm before they toss/gulp them back with fast swigs from the bottle.

The gun is removed from my back and stuck back into the waistband of his jeans. They get more agitated with one another, wiping their mouth with the back of their hands, they act as if I am not there.

I stand with my back against the door, pinned. The two sitting on the stair position their heavy steel-toed boots within an inch of my bare shins. They take their time, even as they get more hyped up and aggressive. They have been hatching a plan, talking among themselves. Their tone shifts. Everything is about to change.

They have their strategy. One digs into his pocket pulling out a pocket knife, a joint, and a coin. They light the joint, turn and smile at me, begin a game of quarter toss. A slow, distracted start. Heads/tails. The stink of their bodies mixed with the smoke. Heads/tails. The dust floating in the light at the top of the stair. Head/tails. My knees weak and wobbly standing a long time in one place.

With each toss, the quarter flips, rises, glints in the bit of light coming from the top of the stairs, falls back down, and into a calloused palm. Heads/tails. Hands, black oil and grease-stained, rummage again inside the rumpled lunch bag. Gulp and swallow red and black capsules. Heads/tails. Idle sparring. More restless.

I am ignored again.

My mouth is dry as sand. I cannot swallow. My heart is pounding a fast drumbeat in my ears and against my breastbone. My heart is sinking into my stomach.

I am not invisible. I am here, pushed into this tight and dirty space with these demonic giants. They wear beards and bandanas tied over stringy, oily shoulder-length hair. Dirty beat-up hands with oversized silver rings, one a skull face with red glass eyes, blackened bruises on torn fingernails. One smirks showing an ugly jagged broken front tooth, a hanging coiled snake earring. One has a hunting knife with a carved bone handle stuck into his beat-up black boot. They sneer. They have practice. They know their moves.

They notice that I am still there.

Heads/tails. The odors. Heads/tails. The filtering light.

The game begins.

The call: heads/tails.

Heads.

The two sitting on the stair swivel their knees apart like a gate opening. I am ordered to climb the stairs. The steep risers make it necessary for me to crawl-climb, like a toddler, like a helpless child, past dead insects, parts of wasps and beetles, spiders and houseflies, dust balls, and cigarette butts. They make sounds that taunt and tease, grunts, growls that bounce and echo in the enclosed space.

I reach the tight attic crawl space, afternoon sunlight softly filtering through the leaves brushing against the narrow row of windows facing the park.

The ceiling angle makes the space too low to stand up in. Debris is scattered on the unfinished wood plank floors. Beer bottles and cans, rolling paper wrappers, cigarette butts, matchbooks, hundreds more dead flies, and insects. I see a dead starling lying on its side legs curled tightly against the shiny black feathers: dappled, iridescent. The three square windows between the low slope of the ceiling and the rough floorboards remind me of the three square windows on Linda’s side of our shared bedroom.

He pushes me onto the heavily stained mattress, dirt collected in the depressions made by the button pattern. My long, just shampooed hair, falls over the edge of the mattress onto the floor. I do not want my hair to get dirty. A tear runs down into my right ear.

The voice gives me orders. I obey. My clothes lay off to one side. As he begins the game my body contracts, pulls in like a crab into its shell. Enraged he treats me like a doll of rags tossing and drilling he ignites extreme pain. I bite, I scratch and I claw. He laughs and spit falls onto my forehead, he smacks me fast and furious across the face with the back of his hand. Hard. I lay motionless against the dirty ticking. My face lolls toward the blue sky. Green leaves. A beautiful pair of mourning doves talk to one another on a graceful limb. 

My spirit moves out through the window.

The doves fly. I follow.

The game goes on.

The game goes on and on.