Chapter 6

Winters in New York.  Not Fun.  I can remember always wishing my birthday were in the summer, where I could enjoy it.  Every year on my birthday I would be sick to some extent.  I hate winter viciously! Winter made going to school even harder.  I would have to wait for the J train in the cold, then cram into the car with a bunch of other sick high school kids.  Just being around other high school kids in general gave me anxiety.  I was always so awkward and self conscious.  I was sure they were looking at me, judging me.  Honestly, it wasn't a very far fetched thought, there were times I WAS picked on, even as a teenager.  I remember riding the bus down Queens Blvd, going to the mall with my best friend.  We were talking, minding our own business, both of us were quiet and fairly timid.  A group of girls spotted us and started talking loudly about us, making fun of everything they could.  Naturally (for me), I kept quiet and took the abuse. I was also no fool.  These girls would have destroyed me.  Queens/Brooklyn teenage girls were not to be messed with, especially the type that target other girls and start fights.  In fact, they were down right scary! I had been called many names on that short train ride to high school.  Then there was the walk from the train to the school, in masses that were broken up into clicks.  I didn't have a click.  I didn't even have any friends, aside from one, who was in honors and got to school way earlier than me.  I was ALWAYS late. I was always alone.

January 14, 1991.  5 days before my 15th birthday.  I somehow made it to school this day.  I remember having the classroom with  the windows overlooking the cemetery and just losing it. Between the frigid cold air that had beaten me on the way in to school, then the sight of that dreaded hill where my father was buried only a few months earlier.  I had to get out of here.  Somehow.  Some way.  Soon.

This is the only day that I remember a lunch period. Probably because I was usually out the door by then, or absent completely.  But, this day, I remember this day.  It was a separate lunch room from the rest of the school, it was in the basement.  Ya know, being that we were "troubled truants", we had to be hidden away.  I was sitting at a table looking at one of the boys I had a crush on.  My escape from reality.  He must have noticed me looking at him.  He probably noticed it more than once and on many other days.  Teenage girls can be quite obvious about that stuff.  I don't remember him coming over to me, but I am fairly positive that I did not approach him,  The conversation immediately went to the escape plan.  Something along the lines of:
"You wanna skip the next class?" (which meant the rest of the day, really, who comes BACK?)
"Yeah, how do we get out"
"The door by the west side hallway has no guard"
or something like that.  I don't remember the actual conversation, only that he had an escape route, and I needed an escape.

So, here I am, this awkward and timid 14 year old girl, ditching school with my crush.  I was so excited! He was older than me by at least a year and he was so cute.  Not just cute in comparison to the rest of the program, an actual cutie! He looked like a football player.  Broad shoulders, muscles popping underneath his tight knitted sweater.  Blonde hair, light eyes.  I was living in a dream!

We snuck out of school, my crush, his friend and I.  I followed their lead, they seemed to know exactly where they were going.  We head towards the cemetery,  No! Not the cemetery! I wanted an escape, not another reminder!! They say there is a shortcut this way that leads straight to Myrtle Avenue, which is apparently the way we want to go.  I follow along.  I am so happy when we find a hole in a back fence and finally get out of the cemetery and back to civilization.  We start walking down neighborhood streets. Instead of stores, there are houses on all sides, packed like sardines next to each other.  I soon realize we are heading to his house. He lives with his Mom in the upstairs apartment of a two story house.  The boys lead the way and the next thing I know we are out of the cold, sitting on a warm couch watching skateboarding videos.  They both were skaters and to them this was interesting.  Me?  Not so much.  I was just happy not to be at school.  I was more interested in sneaking glances around his apartment.  It was so clean and neat.  It wasn't big at all, but it was so homey.  I do this any time I go to someones house, even still to this day.  It's like I will always be a little girl in awe of how normal people live and all their "nice" things.

I fall asleep on the couch, laying on my crushes lap, while his friend sits on the floor watching TV.  He nudges me and takes my hand.  He leads me down the hall to his bedroom.  It's a small, cluttered room.  His bed is against the wall on the left, long ways, with the headboard touching the far left wall.  One of the things I immediately notice is how he had such clean sheets.  Pure white, clean and comfy looking.  The bed is disheveled from when he woke up for school that morning.  The rest of the room is just kinda messy-stuff thrown around- boy stuff.  It was all so exciting! We sit on his bed and start kissing. I loved kissing.  I was good at it! It was like the ultimate Calgon bubble bath.  I could just forget everything and lose myself in it.  I had a few kiss-mates by this point, but that was as far as I had ever gone.  We are kissing for a while when he starts to get a little more feely and wants to touch me.  I pull back and say no, without actually saying it. Making it clear I just wanted to kiss.  He wasn't having it.

"Come on, you know you want to"

Do I? I don't think so.  I'm not sure.  I don't even know what he thinks I want.

"You're so beautiful. <kiss> Take your pants off"

Umm...WHAT? No.  OMG.  I feel terror.  I am thinking so many things.  I am dirty.  Are my underwear clean? Why do I have to take my pants off? Can't we just kiss?

"Come on, it will be fun.  It's ok. We won't do anything you don't want to"

Oh, ok.  Well, maybe? I am unsure, yet also kind of excited and definitely nervous. I'm shaking.
I let him take my pants off.   I instantly regret it.  I'm cold.  I'm exposed.  I'm petrified. I kiss him for a minute or so more and try to make my move off the bed to get my pants and go back out to the living room. He is not having it.  He holds me down.  I squirm and now my heart is beating out of my chest.  This isn't fun anymore.  I want to go home.  He is holding my arms up over my head, kissing me, but I am no longer kissing back.  Then he has to let go of my hands to take his pants down and my underwear.  He never gets off of me, I am pinned.  I start saying "No. No. No." over and over.  He doesn't hear me.  I try to push him off, but he is gigantic.  He's too strong.  He puts himself inside me and I don't know if I screamed, but I definitely cried. OWWWWWWWCCCCH.  This is when I start punching him as hard as I possibly could.  In his face.  In his arms.  In the chest.  Anywhere I could. It's like I am not even there.  He doesn't even register my blows.  I'm crying, I'm in pain, I'm confused.  What is happening to me??? This hurts SO BAD.  Then, just like that, he stops.

"Quick, get up! My mom is home! Go out my window and hide on the rooftop"

What? I'm shaking.  I'm terrified.  I look down and there is blood everywhere.  All over me.  All over his once clean, white sheets.  I grab my clothes and try to figure out what is going on.  I put on my underwear and they are instantly soaked with blood.  He is trying to push me out the window! No! I can't go outside, I need the bathroom. I need to get cleaned up.

"Get OUT! My mom is home!"

I get my pants on just as I hear the door to his apartment open.  His mother sees his friend in the living room and storms her way into his room.

"What the fuck is going on here?! Get the fuck out of my house! You whore! Get out of my house NOW"

"Can I please use the bathroom first" I am shaking.

"No! you can leave NOW" ( I believe there was a bitch thrown in there too)

Blood is trickling down my legs. I'm frozen. I have no idea what to do, where to go.  How can I leave like this? Where am I? How do I even GET home?  I'm in shock.

His friend must have taken me out of the house because the next thing I can remember his friend is telling me he will help me get home.  He takes me to the bus stop and gets on with me.  I get off at my stop leaving him on the bus.  I don't remember talking with him at all.  I just know that he saved me that day.  I will be grateful to him forever for his gentle caring of me. There was no judgement in his heart or eyes.

What happens after this event is completely unclear to me.  I can only try to put the puzzle pieces together from my sporadic memories.  I don't remember seeing him in school again.  Is that because I avoid school even more now? I honestly cannot remember.  I must have been in actual shock.  I remember needing to talk to somebody about what happened, so I bring it up to my best friend.  Only, I am unable to confront it just yet, and instead of me telling her about the awfulness of what actually happened, I make up a fairy tale instead.  I gush about how I was no longer a virgin.  How I "did it".  I act proud and puff up my chest, when in reality I am hiding in the basement of my heart.  Once I come out with this fictional story, how can I go back? I am now living a lie.  My friend sees him on Jamaica Avenue and thinks it's great, it's exciting, it's fun and I play along. We had a nick name for him, and for the life of me, I cannot remember how it formed, but we called him Turtle.   We see Turtle skating through the neighborhood. We see him skating in the dark, under the train tracks, down cold, snowy, icy Jamaica Avenue and we play hide and seek with him in the local Five and Dime, all to go along with this lie I created.  I block it out.  I let it go.

Eventually, finally, winter ends.  No longer am I noticing him around as much.  It isn't until almost a decade later that I see him again. Or maybe I do and just erase it from my memory to spare myself the pain.

It is now 2000 or 2001, I can't remember.  It's winter again.  I had moved away from Woodhaven and gotten my own apartment, but have recently moved back to my old neighborhood.  I am walking my dog on a chilly winter night.  My dog, Reggie, would attract everyone,  He was the friendliest, most loving dog ever.  He catches the eye of a young man about my age, he stops to pet him.  I have my head mostly down due to the chill.  I pick it up and make eye contact with the man petting and loving on my dog.  It's Turtle. My heart stops in  my chest.  He smiles at me, tells me how cute my dog is, gives him one last pet and goes on his way.  Instantly, I am 14 again.  I am frozen.  I watch him walk away in shock then scramble for my cell phone.  But, who do I call? What do I say? Should I call 911 and have him arrested?? That's what I want to do. But, of course, I don't. By this time I've shared it with a select few people, my boyfriend at the time was one of them.  I call him.  When he answers, I don't even know what to say or how to say it.  So I just do.  I am now leaning on the nearest car, cell phone in hand, jaw still dropped.  I tell my boyfriend I just saw the boy who raped me.  I think I expected some kind of knight in shining armor response.  I don't get it.  I get barely a reaction at all.  Leaving me alone to deal with these confusing feelings, again.

In the months after running into him it's all brought back to me.  What I start to think about most is how I reacted after the incident.  How I created this fantasy tale of a perfect "First Time".  This tale I created troubled me just as much as the act itself.  I needed to figure out why I did that. I had been walking around with this lie for too long, I needed to process.  I talked it through with my Aunt and she made me realize that it was a defense mechanism.  I was just unable to emotionally deal with the reality of the situation. This is when I start the true healing and forgiveness process.  I begin to accept my reaction and understand that I did the only thing I knew how to do,  I needed to process this and let it go.  When I was done with that, I moved on to him.  I spent a decade making excuses in my head for him.

"I didn't make myself clear enough"
"I should never have gone to his house."
"I shouldn't have gone in his room."
"I should have hit him harder"
"I should have screamed louder"
"He's just a guy".
"I led him on."

Enough is enough.  I did not ask for this.  I begged him to stop.  I punched and hit him.  These were clear signs that I did NOT want it.  But, what now? It's ten years later - - what now? Now, I move on. It's almost like running into him forced me to face this, to release it and find my peace.

Now that I am a grown woman, a wife, and most importantly, a Mother, my perspective shifts.  I think about my son.  I need to teach him to NEVER ever ...I can't even allow myself to think it.   I will teach him respect.  I will teach him love.  As a Mother, I can't help but think of how Turtle's Mother reacted to this scenario.  I cannot imagine speaking such words to a young girl.  This is when I realize that my son could never be like him.  He has me.

Chapter 5

School Days.  The sad truth is, I was NOT in school more that I WAS.  As young as second grade, I was ditching school.  I lived on the first floor of a six-story apartment building and the small space under the stairs became my hideaway.  What makes a second grader ditch school? For me, it was anything and everything.  I remember in fifth or sixth grade my Science teacher made a comment "Oh, look, Robin is joining us today.  So, your fingernail didn't hurt this morning?"  Of course, this comment was made in front of my entire class and they laughed, which made me only want to run out of the building and never return.  Sometimes adults are clueless! 

 I was terrified of being picked on for my dirty clothes, for my dirty skin, and hair.  I have only a few memories of bathing as a child.  Our apartment was cockroach infested, which didn't make for a very pleasant bathing experience.  We lived on the first floor, right above the basement, which meant that we also had water bugs.  If you've never seen a water bug up close (consider yourself lucky!) they are like gigantic cockroaches.  They are terrifying.  And, they FLY. One of my few memories of bathing in that apartment includes a HUGE water bug climbing out of the waterspout as I played in the tub.  I still get chills thinking about it.  So, yeah, the bathroom wasn't my favorite place to be.  

We didn't have a nighttime routine like normal kids did.  So, waking up for school filthy caused me a bit of stress.  Add on top of that the clothes situation.  My bedroom floor was covered with piles and piles of dirty clothes, toys, garbage, and just junk. I would wake up and be told to "find clothes" to wear to school.  I would stand in the middle of my room paralyzed.  Everything was filthy.  Some things didn't fit.  It was pure chaos.  It didn't help that when I would rummage through the piles cockroaches would scurry out from underneath.  When I did finally find something, I would have to shake it out vigorously trying to get out any hiders.  Then came shoes. Water bugs love hiding inside shoes.  Too many occasions I would put my shoe on and feel a lump or crunch, shake it out and a water bug would fall out and run off.  This is how I started my day every morning.  Just waking up caused me stress and anxiety as a child.  I would be "sick" every single morning, my stomach in knots, begging my mom to let me stay home. 

Aside from my morning routine, there was also the knowledge that I hadn't done any of my homework from the night before.  The teachers would constantly pick on me for not having my homework done and the thought of the teacher ridiculing me in front of the whole class was unbearable.  Being dirty, poor, and without your homework in elementary school was pretty unusual.  So, what happened?  I got noticed.  When I got noticed, I was made fun of.  I lived in constant fear of being seen.  I was as quiet as I could be, always.  I never spoke in class, I never, ever raised my hand.  I hid.  I hid from teachers, I hid from other students.  I hid from myself.  I don't remember the first time I ditched school, but I do remember feeling like it was easier to hide alone, under the stairs than in plain sight in a classroom.  

Ditching school at such a young age set the tone for the rest of my school career.  In sixth grade,  when I  was taken away by Child Protective Services, I returned home just in time for Junior High.  I am sure by now you can imagine that a huge change like that was terrifying for me. Miraculously, I was placed in the "Smart" class, one of the top classes in the grade.  Apparently, I had tested well.  This miracle should have set me on a course for success going forward.  A new chance, a new school, new classmates.  But, life at home hadn't changed.  The new school and new classmates only made me feel more isolated.  I was consumed with self doubt.  Why was I here with these smart, normal kids.  I was convinced they were looking down on me.  The word must have gotten to them that I was just a dirty, poor, stupid little girl and I did not belong here.  I tried really hard to fit in, I teased my hair, I experimented with makeup, I even started washing my own clothes in the bathroom tub or sink (usually with dish soap that my Aunt had donated to us, or a bar of Ivory soap), I wanted badly to fit in.  But, deep down the damage was already done.  I was faking it.  Some days I actually did feel like I fit in, but they were few and far between.  I always set myself apart.  Funny thing is, I don't remember any of my classmates treating me any different, it was all in my head.  I had taught myself to feel inferior.  I somehow managed to make friends, but I was quite awkward.  I even went on my first real date that year.  By the end of that year I was starting to feel like maybe I could play this "Normal" game.  As long as I was there.  But, old habits die hard and at any sign of discomfort I skipped school.  Test that day? Nope, won't see me there!  Project due? You better believe it wasn't completed, so, see ya later.  I sabotaged myself.  I didn't allow myself to reach my full potential-- I was frozen by fear and lack of self esteem.  

The summer going into eighth grade is the summer my Father died.  Any amount of optimism I had about school died with him.  My already chaotic life was turned upside down.  My eight grade year was pointless.  I don't remember any of it, I don't remember attending one single day of school that year.  By this time my mother, who didn't do much by way of making me go to school to begin with, had completely thrown her hands up.  I didn't even hide any more.   I just stopped waking up for school.  Once in a while a truancy officer would show up and scold me and my Mother.  I would see how much it hurt and tormented her. I saw how she felt like a failure because of it.  I would go to school for a week to get them off our backs until I graduated.  

Then, High School happened.  Yes, it just happened.  I didn't care one way or another.  I dreaded it. My friends from the apartments were all applying to specialty schools and other public high schools in better areas.  I remember them getting excited about the opportunity, while I just accepted that I would go to my zoned school and left it at that.  I never got excited, it was just something I knew I would have to "deal with" for the next four years. What I didn't realize was my zoned school was SCARY! 

Franklin K Lane, in East New York, Brooklyn.  A enormously intimidating building, that to me, looked like a prison! No wonder all my friends were applying any and everywhere else! The one friend who did go to my school was in the honors classes. Not me.  I soon found out that I was in the SOAR program.  A special program for truants and troubled kids.  It was like two different schools within one building.  The honor students were upstairs, hidden away-- or more like protected--while the rest of the school was downstairs.  The SOAR program, if I remember correctly, had much of it's classes in the basement, or as far down as you could go.  The majority of the school were kids from East New York, Brooklyn.  It was a culture shock, even for me.  Being in with the troubled and truant kids just made it worse.  This was a whole new world of anxiety and dread.  I was not close enough to walk to school, so I would have to take the J train which runs along Jamaica Avenue.  It was terrifying for me.  It was adding new and more dreadful layers of anxiety on an already mile high mound.

I remember that one of my very first days of school, as I was walking up the scary stairs, someone slapped my ass.  HARD! WHACK! I almost jumped out of my skin! I looked back bashfully to see a gang of guys.  They were saying things like "Look at the fine, white girl. You know you want more, baby?"  

I had boys start to pay attention to me in ways I was still trying to understand at this point.  But, this, this wasn't that. This was scary. 

It was much harder to skip school here.  I had to find the cracks in the system,  They were also much more aggressive with the house calls, which meant my Mom became more stern about me going to school.  I found my ways.  I learned that as long as I was in homeroom and marked present, I could sneak out undetected.  Of course, that doesn't last long.  Teachers talk and they were soon on to me.  The teachers had good intentions, they loved me.  Every one of them would pull me aside, usually frantically, not knowing if I was going to return the next day, to tell me about the potential they saw in me.  Every one of them told me I didn't belong there.  That I was destined for more.  That I was too good for this.  Too smart.  Part of me believed them, but who had time? I was too busy surviving to worry about test scores and school work.  

One of my classes, one of the few that were ABOVE ground, had a wall of windows facing a cemetery.  I can't even remember what class it was, I was too distracted by those windows.  It wasn't just any cemetery, it was the cemetery that my Dad was buried in just a few months before.  To make it worse, it faced the very hill I remember going up, that my Dad was buried.   It became unbearable.  My heart would beat out of my chest as I sat in that classroom.  I was consumed by feelings of loss and guilt.  I couldn't get away from my life, no matter where I went.  There was no hiding from my pain.  I felt like I was being punished.  I had to leave, I couldn't be here any more. Someone, please, get me out of this place before I drown.  

Being a 14 year old girl at the time, it's not surprising that the few kids I do remember are the few boys that I thought were cute.  I didn't make friends because my classmates were just like me, whoever was present one week, was not the next week.  The only thing that got me through the classes I went to was oohs and aahs over those boys.  But, just like everything else in my life up until this point, what started out seemingly innocent and sweet - turned into pure hell. One of these crushes would lead me to another very traumatic event.  

At that point in my story it seemed that my life was just full of events. 

Rest assured, I won't always be that scared, hurt, and lost little girl.  

Much love, til next chapter.