San Jose. Bluebell Avenue. 1971.

The wind is whipping through my short blond hair. This has to be the fastest I’ve ever gone and I feel powerful as my bare legs pump the pedals of the Big Wheel just to the edge of losing control. The summer sun is rising fast this morning, promising to darken my bronze skin even more. I’m aware of these things peripherally as my focus is on the sounds of laughter down the block.

I’m riding the three-wheeler like I stole it because I did. It belongs to my older brother, Tim. He’s one of those laughing voices I hear at the end of the street. My sisters are up there too, they have to be. Tim is 10-years-old; he’s the oldest, but he’s following them because they’re riding with the girl who lives across the street from us. Yvonne or Yvette or something I can’t quite remember, but Tim has a crush on her and has been following the girls around like a lost puppy.

The fat, plastic tires on the back of the Big Wheel sound like sand paper on the concrete sidewalk, so I don’t notice at first that Tim and my two older sisters, Cindy and Pam, have turned around and are now heading back my way.  In a panic, I break hard, turn around, and peddle faster back towards home.

I don’t get far before Tim sees me on his Big Wheel. Enraged, he cuts me off on his bike. I try to dodge going up on a neighbor’s lawn, but this just makes it easier for him to drop his bike and yank me off the Big Wheel.  Lying on the grass, Tim on top of me, he punches me a few times which I try to block with my arms. Cindy and Pam come to my rescue. I knew they would. This isn’t my first Grand Theft Big Wheel.

Mom is at the door by the time we get to the edge of our yard. Danny, the baby, in her arms. My crying and Tim’s shouting must have drawn her out.  What are you kids fighting about now?

JackstolemyBigWheel! Hekeepstakingmystuff! Tim spits out.

Whoa, slow down. Why’s Jack crying?

He STOLE my stuff! Tim shouts, but slower and more clearly, arms waving around like a mad-man, which, except for his age, he kinda is right now.

So? He's littler than you. You didn’t hafta hit him.  Turning to me, And you! You can’t keep taking his Big Wheel. It's not yours. You need to learn to ask.

Mom makes me come inside, just to keep Tim from attacking me again, but I see it as I’m being punished. I have to be quite though because my father is still sleeping. He gets up about noon, has lunch with us when we’re not in school, then goes to work the swing shift at the General Motors plant in Fremont.

In a few minutes, I’ve forgotten about Tim and his Big Wheel. Mom wants me to keep an eye on Danny while she gets dad’s dinner packed for when he goes to work. 

Later that night laying in bed, I look at the bruise on my arm from where Tim hit me and poke it a couple of time to see if it hurts, before I curl up under a sheet. I fall asleep almost immediately, a smile on my face because I know I get to do it all over again tomorrow.

Next door to us was an older couple. The Johnson’s were retired.  If they had children, they were older and gone, but I never saw them so I can’t say for sure. They had a fence around their front yard which came up to my shoulders. I never was quite sure if the fence was to keep us out, or their little dog in.

The dog was terrier or something like it.  Smallish.  Yappy.  Liked to jump and bark and bark while jumping. I know this because I often ran past the fence taunting the dog.  Sometimes, I’d ride the stolen Big Wheel back and forth until Mrs. Johnson came out and chastised me for teasing the dog.  Her bark wasn’t any worse than the dogs, but it was one that got my mom’s attention and often got me sent to my room.  It took lots of practice, but I think I eventually found the right amount of teasing that would leave the dog hoarse and not get the attention of Mrs. Johnson.

Fall in San Jose was magical when I was a kid.  The days were long and hot. This was all pre-drought and we’d often get late summer thunder storms.  I was always fascinated with thunder storms. I could sit all night watching the lightening dance across the sky, followed by thunderous applause, the smell of the rain. It was fireworks when we were poor– a free light show, a delight to the senses. 

San Jose was still the Valley of Heart’s Delight.  There were orchards and fruit trees all over the place. In our back yard we had a cherry tree. The neighbors had peaches.  After we’d run ourselves tired most of the morning, we’d sit with other neighborhood kids and eat cherries and see who could spit the seeds the farthest.  And the peaches… taking that first bite into a ripe peach, juice dripping off our chins and down our arms. We didn’t have enemies. Tim wasn’t mad at me. Nobody had complaints. We were just a bunch of kids laughing and eating delicious fruit.  Bath was immediately after at the end of a hose and not a one of us was upset about “bath time.”

 

Sunday nights were some of my favorite times during the school year. After a weekend playing with my siblings, we got to curl up on the couch and watch Disney movies on T.V. Even our father was around at this time. Normally he would be working the graveyard shift at the GM plant in Fremont, but not on Sunday nights. He would sit with us quietly, drinking beer or wine or… something else until he dozed off, snoring. Truth be told, after a long day playing, I wasn’t good for a long night either.

This night, he didn’t doze. Or, if he did, it wasn’t long. He woke long enough to tell us all to go to bed as we had school in the morning.  I knew I didn’t have school, so I thought I was exempt. I went and grabbed a pillow and padded back into the living room hoping to watch the rest of the movie.

“What are you doing?” My father stopped me from getting back on the couch.  I just stared at him, hoping he would let me stay. “I told you to go to bed.” Again I said nothing, not sure that I could ask for what I wanted and not sure that he would acquiesce to my silent pleading.

Anger spread across his face in a flash and before I could react, he kicked out at me. My five-year-old body flew backward, crashing into a wall face first. In the hospital later, getting stitches in my face, my injury was explained away as childhood exuberance.

This was the nature of my father that I was too young to understand: gone most nights working; sleeping most of the morning; drunk most of the rest of the time.

Monsters are Real

I woke up Saturday morning to a quiet house. Saturday’s meant cartoons. Super Friends and Speed Racer and so many others. I didn’t know what time it was, but I was too excited to go back to sleep. I lay still for a second, listening for any sounds. There were none, but I didn’t expect to hear anything. As quietly as I could, I crept to the bedroom door. Gently turning the knob, I open the door, and lightly close it behind me, making sure to turn the knob closed instead of letting it “klatch” shut.

Turning left, I make my way along the hallway toward the bathroom. Hugging the walls, I quickly, but gingerly make my way along. I’m only eight, but I’ve learned how to be as quiet as possible. The middle of the hall creaks the boards under the carpet.  Along the walls, with my small frame, socks, and the carpet, I’m like a whisper in the wind. 

I feel like an Indian stalking deer in the forest. I’ve never hunted before, so I don’t know what I would do with a deer, I just know that I have to be absolutely quite to catch one. In my mind, it’s almost like a game, but one with dangerous consequences.

Once I reach the confines of the bathroom, I repeat the process of closing the door, gently twisting the knob so as not to make a sound. I close the door not for privacy, but for the added sound damping it will provide. Privacy is of no concern in this house where my step-father is a nudist and often walks around naked and has my mother do likewise.

I’m less cautious once the door is closed. The toilet seat has a cover that absorbs sound. I can’t be reckless, but I don’t have to be as deliberate and methodical. Once the seat is up, I reach into my pajamas and grab my penis – that’s the word Jim uses when we’re in the bath together – and aim carefully at the side of the bowl above the waterline. It’s a spot I’ve discovered that creates no splash. No splash means no sound. Inside the bathroom, I could barely hear it. Anyone outside the bathroom would have to have their ear pressed against the door, and even then, my excited breathing might be louder. Again, I think to myself, “What would an Indian do?” Peeing out in the forest down the side of a tree so as not to disturb the wildlife.

Billy Jack was an Indian. We have the same name – Jack – but he was tough and strong. He wouldn’t be afraid to make a sound, he’d fight the monster and probably win. I saw part of that movie awhile back, before mom shooed me off to bed. I wish I was more like Billy Jack. I wish I wasn’t afraid of the monster. I wish monsters weren’t real.

As my stream subsides, I’m careful to continue to aim along the bowl, walking it back toward me as it slows to a trickle. Noise is still the enemy right now.  I shake my penis a few times to rid it of the last few drops and tuck it away, then close the seat back down as if I was never here. Of course, I can’t flush. The whooshing water and the old pipes in the house could wake the monster.

I know that somewhere past half way on the bathroom door it begins to squeak, so I’m grateful for my thin, eight year old body and how it can easily fit through with the door less than half open. In the hallway, I retrace my steps, hugging the walls again. I make my way past my bedroom, stopping outside my mother’s room briefly listening for any sounds that they were awake.

Surprisingly, when I reach the family room, it’s dark and empty. It must be earlier than I thought, but I haven’t quite figured out the big hand and the little hand to tell the time. When you have a mother and three older siblings always telling what to do and when, who needs to tell time? I'm anxious about my next steps. If I turn on the TV and sit close, I can keep the volume down. But if that’s still too loud, it could wake Jim. And even though I can’t yet tell time, I already know that commercials are louder than shows and movies.

If nobody else is up yet, I assume that I’m too early so I decide to error toward caution and not turn on the TV. But I don’t want to go back to bed. If I fall back asleep in bed, I could miss cartoons. So, I lay out on the couch, hoping that when one of my older siblings wakes, they’ll come turn on the TV and wake me up.  The other thing I know: older kids always catch the brunt of the monster’s wrath if we accidentally wake him too early.

Laying there on the couch, I think about being an Indian again, making my way through the forest stalking prey. Sleeping outside under the stars. Not being afraid of things like Billy Jack isn’t. As my mind wanders, I drift off to sleep.

Something wakes me. I don’t know what. I can’t hear the TV, or anything else. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep on the couch, but based on the light in the room, it couldn’t have been long. Suddenly, I sense that I’m not alone. I look down my body and panic. The monster has me in his mouth.  I don’t know what to do. If he knows I’m awake, it could get worse. Using all my self control, and all my imagined Indian skills, I pretend to remain asleep.  I try not react to what’s happening. I try not to feel anything below my waist.

The feeling of being watched overwhelms me. I look up and see my mother standing at the end of the couch, above my head. I can’t quite make out the expression on her face.  Not anger. Not disappointment either, but maybe something in-between. I think she might say something to Jim, so I look down. He hasn’t noticed her; he still has me in his mouth.

I expect fireworks. Rage and shouting in 3… 2… 1. But it doesn’t come.

Confused, I look above me again, to where my mother used to be. She’s gone. A quick glance around confirms she’s not in the family room either. I’m alone with the monster again.

Years and years later, I would ask my mother about this day.  Did it happen? Was she there? Did she know? She says she wasn’t there, and didn’t see, and didn’t know until later when a neighbor saw something between my eldest sister and Jim. At that time, my mother would call the police.

Two San Jose officers knocked on the door one night, looking resplendent in their dark blue uniforms and shiny badges. They came to arrested Jim. Mom ushered us kids into a bedroom so we wouldn’t have to see. She thought it would have been too traumatic; I think we would have wanted to cheer.

It’s not a far stretch to think I was maybe still half asleep that morning. But for me it seems unlikely. Could you sleep with a monster attacking you? If she wasn’t there, I think I imagined her there because I wanted her to know. I thought she *should* know. And I was probably a little disappointed that she didn’t. She was my mother and she was supposed to protect me from monsters and instead, she married one and brought him into our house.