ONLY THE NAMES ARE CHANGED

Believing I Had the Power, the Magic To Control

Memoirs 9

Fear. Magical thinking didn’t disappear with the expansion of my world through attendance at school. If anything, the same strategies seemed to be reinforced at school when I heard I would be sent away from the school if I misbehaved or displeased the teacher. Reading and having my parents take pride in being able to read, served to spur me on to try and please them more and more. Reading also opened up a door into another world, a safer and friendlier world.

Our home on Sunnyside was a two level building. My father had painted the inside of the house not long after we had moved in. I was fascinated by the wall along the stairs, a wall painted in two colours with the darker colour at the bottom. I would often touch the angling line separating the two colours.

Along the other side of the stairs was a railing with round, sculpted, wooden dowels, behind which I would perch and watch my parents when I was supposed to be in bed sleeping. I didn’t want to miss out on anything they might have to say, especially if there was company in the house.

On Christmas Eve, 1954, I was sitting in my usual spot on the stairs when I should have been in bed waiting for Christmas morning. Earlier my brother had begged me to stay in bed so that Santa would come. We had been told that he wouldn’t come if we didn’t go to sleep and stay asleep until morning.

Under no circumstance were we to go downstairs in the morning to check out the tree and the presents before we were given permission. Despite the threat, I just had to sneak a peek when I heard a noise downstairs.

Silently, I crept down a few more stairs and stayed close to the wall, away from the railing, the first thing I noticed was the tree. When we had gone to bed, there wasn’t a Christmas tree in the house. Now, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow, magically, a tree had appeared and I could see presents under the tree. Santa must have brought the tree when he brought the presents.

I heard a laugh and dared come a bit closer to the railing. I held my breath in shock. Santa was still in the house and he was kissing my mother. I was terrified that my father would find out and beat Santa up. I was afraid my dad would become so mad at my mother that he would begin hitting her too. And then he would leave us.

As quietly as I could, I snuck up the stairs and hid under my covers hoping Santa would hurry up and leave before my father found out.

In the morning, when D woke up, he had gone down a few steps and had seen the Christmas tree and the presents under it. He returned and was begging me to come with him downstairs and open the presents with him.

I reminded him of the rule — no going downstairs until Dad said we could. So, we sat on the floor outside of our parents’ bedroom and waited. We didn’t have to wait long. Dad was in a good mood and soon we were racing down the stairs to the tree and the presents beneath it.

When I began to write this story, I had somehow thought it was going to be a record of all the trauma I had experienced, a horror story. But as the words began to form, I realised a one-sided story would be more of a lie than a search for the truth as I experienced it.

Life on Sunnyside Street was good for the year we lived there. Those images remain, mostly good ones, in my memory. Life wasn’t only about fear, there were times when fear was replaced with curiosity about the world. There were times of real joy.

It comes as a surprise at seeing myself, a “good boy,” having a shadow that had its own agenda, an agenda that overrode the intent to be good, very good. It was as if there were two of me.

As winter began to shift into spring, my world began to be bigger than just the inside of the house and the school. I would go outside with D in tow to discover the world of our street. We didn’t wander very far, never going so far as to not see our house, but far enough to see all sorts of wonderful things.

D and I would stand on the sidewalk and watch the milkman take his crate filled with glass milk bottles to the doors of neighbouring houses. We would watch as the horses, which pulled the milk wagon, would stand still waiting. We watched in fascination as the horse left droppings on the snow. Sometimes the horses had bags to catch the horse shit.

One day, while our cousins were at our place, my aunt L’s children, I became curious about an old car parked on the street near our house. My female cousin G, my brother D, and I were looking at it. I got curious, so I climbed into the front of the car and sat behind the steering wheel.

G and D soon followed me into the car. The car was at the beginning edge of a gentle incline, a small hill descending into the countryside which lay at the bottom of the hill. While we explored the car, I felt a sudden movement and hurriedly got G and D out of the car.

I followed them out and watched as, ever so slowly, the car gradually began to move, bit by bit. It slowly picked up momentum and then went rolling down the short hill, turning into a slushy pond at the bottom of the hill.

Seeing the car settling into the pond, we rushed into the house and didn’t say anything about what had happened. We knew we had done something wrong even though we didn’t have a clue what it was. We only knew that if the adults found out we were responsible, there would be hell to pay.

My cousin G and her sister came over with their mother often that spring. We often played upstairs in our bedroom, usually under the bed where we could pretend all sorts of stories and scenes. One day, G asked if she could see my penis, telling me that she would show me her vagina if I did. She didn’t know the words for vagina or penis, but for some reason, I knew them.

I knew about vaginas as I had often seen my baby sister’s when my mother changed her diaper, or when we were all in the bathtub together. I also knew that boys had penises as I had one and so did my brother D.

She pulled down her panties and I pulled down my pants. Then we looked at each other closely while under the bed. G didn’t have a brother so she didn’t really know anything about penises. She wanted to touch it and have me touch her. I hadn’t touched my sister B’s vagina, so the idea sounded okay.

However, my interest soon turned into disgust. G hadn’t cleaned up well after going to the bathroom and I got shit on my fingers. With curiosity settled for both of us, we returned to playing which was more fun.

Next

Previously

Thanks to the following for following along with the story this far:

Carrie, Benighted, Patrick OConnell, Adrian CDTPPW, JB The Talker, Maddy Mirza, Block Wife, and katoshi