6:16 p.m.
"A story idea."
"Pull down your pants and let me see you pee."
Is that what she said? Kids have this natural fear of things they don't understand. I didn't understand much of anything, even for a seven-year-old, but was she supposed to be talking like this to me?
She repeated, "Pull down your pants; let me see your 'pee-pee.'"
I'd misunderstood her, but I still didn't quite understand. Was she talking about my 'down-there'? That's what my mother and I called it, and I thought we were the only two who talked about it. It was my first time staying with Gamma and Papp, and it was traumatic.
Earlier that same day, I had had to discuss my down-there with my mother. I'd awakened with a pain down there that just couldn't be avoided any longer. My mother came to wake me for school. I tried to tell her then, but she continued, "And remember, Papp is picking you up from school today because you're staying with your Gamma and Papp tonight, okay?"
I didn't answer. I stammered. She came close, sat on the bed. "I hurt," I said.
"What?"
"Down there."
I didn't point, didn't motion with my head or even my eyes, I just said the words. She put it together.
"Can I see?"
I nodded, blank.
"Can you show me?"
I lay back on my bed and lifted my middle up and pulled my pajama bottoms and underpants down just enough so my bruised apple-looking "down-there" plopped out.
She jumped up and ran to the doorway. "Phil, could you get me Dr. Delojune's number?" She looked back at me on the bed, still in the hiked up position, fingers cocked at the waistband. "Oh, honey, do you think you can put it away without hurting yourself?"
I shrugged and pulled my bottoms up and collapsed into a crying fit and had my first panic attack. I didn't know that's what it was at the time, but I've had identified ones since, and I know that's what it was. I became confused, out of sorts, and broke out in a cold sweat.
My mother rushed over and pulled the covers over me, and suddenly she became one of those women I'd seen on the church TV. "Jesus, are You with us?" My mother was always asking questions, and I never felt sure whether or not I should answer. I did that time. She stared her question right into me, "Jesus, are You with us?"
I cried out, "Yes!" Miraculously, the panic attack subsided.
At the doctor's office, my mother said, "Can you show the nurse your 'down-there'?" and "Can you show the doctor your 'down-there'?" Everybody was clued in on what we call that. So that's why, when Gamma asked me to show her my pee-pee, I wasn't sure what was going on at first.
But thinking back on it now, why was Gamma wanting to look at my down-there? Touch my down-there?
She did. She gave it a once-over that I felt was a little too aggressive. She told me to undress - and she stood there while I did it! - and she left me in the bathroom with nothing but a bathtub three inches full of scalding hot water and a bar of Ivory soap. She returned with my pajamas and I was crouching over the water, slowly, delicately lowering myself into the water.
She told me to get on in. "I put some salts in it; that'll make you feel better! You'll see. And Papp and me'll pray for you tonight. That'll really do the trick!"
I'd gotten a shot from the doctor, and I don't know if that kicked in right then or if Gamma was right. The second time my balls touched the water, the tingly sting felt good. It sent a shiver down my spine. I spent most of my bathtime looking down at the rippling magnification of my down-there.
Gamma knocked on the door. "Papp needs some time in there. Are you just about done?"
I jumped into action. "Yes, ma'am, just about." I ran the soap quickly down my arms and then rubbed my face hard with my soapy hands and splashed, splashed, splashed myself clean. I forgot about my soreness and put the towel right to it, like always, and boy was that a mistake!
Another mistake: Gamma didn't leave me any underpants to wear. I didn't want her to see me naked, again - or Papp, for that matter - so I put on the pajamas without the underpants (top and bottom) before I opened the door to call out to Gamma that she forgot my underwear.
She didn't respond the way I'd anticipated. She said, "You don't wear underpants with p.j.s, do ya?"
And of course I answered "No," because we were taught not to talk back to our elders. But still, everything Gamma said to me on this night made me nervous. It was the first time Gamma had made me nervous. But not the last time.
Out of the bathroom and to the right was Gamma and Papp's bedroom, uncomfortably small and dead center of the house since the add-on. Out of the bathroom and straight ahead was the air conditioning unit. Dogleg to the left of there a short hallway led to the off-limits living room and the picture of Richie. Out of the bathroom and to the left was the Red Room. It was Richie's room. I didn't know about that then; I didn't know who Richie was - or who that picture in the living room was of- until I was 16 and had my driver's license.
That had something to do with it. I walked in unannounced on a conversation about him. (I'll get back to Richie later.)
Gamma tucked me in. I'd asked her if I could sleep on the top bunk, and she just said, "No, no, we wouldn't want to lose ya." I didn't ask again; Gamma with her Dutch and German heritage was not a force to be reckoned with.
Funny, I was a lot more scared of tall and lanky, couldn't-kill-a-fly-if-he-tried-to Papp. That's how I heard him described all my life, but I never bought it. He didn't do much talking, and I wasn't just nervous about his silence, I was terrified by it. I confessed to Gamma when she hugged me goodnight that I was scared. Not of Papp, just scared. She promised me I had nothing to worry about. "Angels fly around this room. Every night."
I was thrilled. The angels she talked about, as best as I can figure out, were the headlights of cars hitting three of the four walls like a whoosh of angel wings. But the red walls of the bedroom made the spinning lights look more devilish.
And then, there he was, just outside the Red Room door, taller and lankier than ever in those over-long boxer shorts and A-shirt. I just caught a glimpse of him as another car passed. Whoosh.
Sweat beaded up on my forehead. Here comes panic attack #2. Or was it?
The next round of lights showed Papp standing now inside the Red Room door. And the next, a flash of light next to his leg revealed that he was holding a long, sharp knife. I tried to cry, but couldn't. A whiny moan came out of my mouth. But she didn't hear me; she couldn't hear me at that level. I had to moan louder and louder, slowly but surely louder.
"What's wrong?" she called out. Papp slid back into the hallway right outside of the room.
"I'm scared," I said.
"There's nothing to be scared of. Jesus is watching over this house. Go to sleep."
I tried, but he came back. I moaned again. This time, Gamma said, "Goodnight, Rich-- Dickie, shut up and go to sleep."
She wasn't calling me "Rich-Dickie," I know that now. But for the next 11 years from that night, I thought she'd called me Rich-Dickie. I stopped cry-moaning as much because of that as because Papp disappeared. I wasn't convinced he was gone for good so I kept myself awake as much as I could through the night.
Yeah, there were angels. There were swarms of red angels flying round and round my room. I don't know if I fell asleep and woke up later or if I just blinked my eyes, but the angels were gone. The swarming stopped. I lay there on my side, facing the door, watching the door.
The bed springs in the bunk bed over me creaked. I held my breath. For some reason, I knew it wasn't Papp. he couldn't have got past me without me noticing unless he was a ghost, and I wasn't scared of ghosts. I'm still not.
I saw a little upside-down monkey head peer over the edge of the bed. I recognized him right away as one of the toys on the top bunk come to life. I smiled at him, and that's when he showed me his smile, lost his balance, and flung himself into an acrobatic routine on the floor. I leaned up on one elbow and covered my face from dimple to dimple, supressing my laughs.
Gamma had laid out the next day's clothes neatly on the miniature rocking chair in the middle of the room. The monkey put them on, underpants, jeans, T-shirt, in the order Gamma had laid them out, and they fit him. He wasn't my size, but the clothes fit him.
It was a wonderful show. If I hadn't yawned, I think the monkey would've entertained me all night. But as soon as I did, he quickly pulled off my clothes and tossed them on the rocking chair, or at it, hopped up on the top bunk, his little foot coming closer to me than ever when he stepped up on my mattress. I felt a slight indentation. As soon as he was out of sight, he was sound asleep. I wasn't far behind him.
The clothes didn't manage to climb up the chair and refold themselves the way Gamma put them there. When I woke up the next morning, they were still crumpled in a sort of pile in the middle of the room.
8:35 p.m.
such an imagination!
9:18 pm
