By Niyuta
A human birth, some folks, like the believers of the, 'Father, Son, and The Holy Spirit,' call a blessing from the divine. I don't have any opinion about it, but because I don't have iota of faith in the idea of Divine entities managing human life, I think those individuals are, pious but misled people. I don't wish to present myself as a philosopher looking down on the society as a whole, but my opinions are formed and not adopted ones. My atheistic outlook towards creation evolved very early in life, and it's based on the events unfolded each day since my twelfth year of existence.
I don't have a clue, how shaping of my psyche began, but taking stock of the events periodically, become a habit. On my fourteenth birthday, for the first time, I took a hard look at the years spent on this planet. That day it became clear to me that I did not inherit any special skills and had acquired few at best. The most important of those manifested in this way:
From very early childhood, say at six or seven, I became aware of my ability to see things clearly, memorize important events and experiences and recall them without missing any important information. The other crucial abilities that appeared in my teen years were my gift of critically viewing and understanding the environment and measuring the probability of adverse outcomes. The most important and later proved to be useful personality trait, was,-"not get intimidated by any person, events or natural occurrences". It resulted in an impression of me as a witch with some secret power. The inherited display of my stoic nature bothered everyone who had controls over my life. Whatever happened, I never wept, nor begged forgiveness or mercy, or asked for anything, including food or money. From early youth, I got pinned with a badge, -- "Obstinate and Head Strong Child". This is how I grew up with a strong personality since then, and today, at approaching fifty, I am carrying that badge proudly. Let me tell you some relevant parts of my growing up history.
Physically speaking, as a child, and also through my early youth, I remained a non-descriptive, plain female, with a muscular and well stocked solid body that looked stuffed and without the natural feminine softness or that European delicate features. My face is not ugly to look at; it never was, and frankly, it isn't the one that would launch any 9 feet Bass boat anytime of my life; nothing like Christopher Marlow wrote in Doctor Faustus a description of Helen of Troy; a beautiful a face, that supposed to have launched 1000 ships.
My skin is white as per my race, and it is course like the kid skin; soft but course looking. I don't know how acquired my walking style. From the beginning I walked like a construction worker on a high beam of a bridge or a sailor on a skiff. I walked with my feet apart, and firmly grounded to balance my body. To this day, I walk like that, and when in taking rapid strides, I look like marching with the infantry soldiers.
Well, you must have imagined my schooling by now. Imagine me in a physical personality sort of way, and you will know me little more, if you stick around and don't get bored with my notes. I call these notes, because they are periodically penned, randomly selected and have none of those qualities you see in the fiction or in the autobiographies. Besides that, very little of my mundane and insipid private life is revealed in them and I leave it to the experts and readers like you, to build my personality with the bits and pieces I am dishing out in these pages. However, if you had stuck with the reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's, "Notes From the Underground" in translation, until the end, then perhaps you would read mine. Keep in mind that these have come from the 'above the ground' episodes; quiet common in many parts of our country and may have been in front of your nose all the time. Like everyone else busy chasing our own mirages, possibly, you may have seen and ignored them.
Why then I maintained these events and episodes in my diary is a question, which I asked myself many a time, and didn't have answer, instead of that, my alter ego gave me this short analysis of my idiosyncrasies:
"You love to write and hide your soul in penned thoughts and feelings which you could not, or would not, share with anyone."
I think that is an accurate description of it. My note writing habit I think, started in the 9th grade. Then I was living with my Mother and her many- come and go boyfriends. Those experiences of co-existence with her and her male companions, must have made me build a secrete enclave of myself. That enclave became a secret world of my thoughts- sort of a storage of creative impulses of my mind. I wonder if everyone has such a place and don't seem to be aware of its existence. I think in 1865, Lewis Carroll's 'Alice' may have built her wonderland under similar circumstances, but then she lived in a better household than I did, and only thing I could come up with is this: The Notes from Over the Ground.
| Author Notes | This is the first Chapter of my new work titled, "The Notes From Over The Ground". The narrator is a no-name, white woman in her fifties, who lives on the streets of any Metropolitan City of our beloved USA. It's not an autobiographic work but a narration of life many have endured in the Trailer Parks, old vacant buildings and makeshift tents on the beach or back streets. One woman living on the street of Lou's Angles, that I watched for few months, inspired me. I hope I do justice to her pains and sufferings and endurance. |
By Niyuta
August 10, 1985 was my fourteenth birthday, and like all other past birthdays, it has come and gone without any kind of celebration. Reasons for such indifference are many, but most relevant is my arrival and biological father's disappearance from the scene 9 months ago. Mom discovered that her casual sex with a traveling salesman, under the influence of alcohol, and weeds, had resulted in me hanging in her womb, of course, without anyone wanting me, or asking me to do so. I just was getting in shape.
Being what my mom then had been; that is, a 19 year high school drop-out, without money and oblivious of anything important happening to her. Floating in the Cannabis induced clouds and enjoying that La, La, land most of the day and night, it took her three months to realize my presence within her, and then, all options for getting rid of that freeloader me, were gone, and my birth became inevitable. Hi folks; I am here writing these notes. For whom? I don't really know. But it feels good to write and tell myself a story. I doubt, it will be of anyone's interest.
Today, mom learned that she inherited this dilapidated mobile home that occupies a slot on the Marty's Trailer Park on the Taylor Mountain, a part of Kanawha Valley, in the State of West Virginia. I would not describe my early childhood as an abnormal one, if you may imagine. Frankly speaking, I call it a 'normal' one. It is so, because for that part of the country, and perhaps everywhere else, where the population, education, jobs and all other attributes and circumstances are similar, and the mindset and belief of men and women living there, are identical. Obviously, what is a normal life for girls of my age, is depends on what usually happens to them.
Typical low paying jobs in the Fast-Food industry, some high paying jobs in the Chemical industry for the lucky ones with union cards, and then, there are those coal mines with absentee owners, who don't know that there is a population of the gentiles living in the hills, digging black gold for them, and the governments, and dying with Black Lungs, alcohol and drugs. That condition accompanied by the least effective schools, and plenty of Moonshine bars, drugs, pool tables and single women with children and a welfare assistance, completes the picture of the USA, in mid 1970s
There were some rich folks on the other side of the river, up on the South hills, but most people living there were working in the management of the Chemical companies and mostly were the foreigners. We had no business getting up the South Hill community and they too did not know we existed. Let me stop here now that you have become aware of me. In the chapters that will follow, I will share my randomly selected notes with you. They are not going to be in any chronological order and will take the readers back and forth in the different years of my life. When I wrote them, I was not thinking of ever sharing or publishing them.
| Author Notes | A generalized description of life and must not be taken as the real, although it is based on the observations of life in the southern West Virginia coal-mining towns. |
By Niyuta
I don't have much to talk about the school life before I got into the 9th grade. Until then I just moved from one grade to another. I had few friends (if one can call people who say hi and bye when running into you and occasionally sit with you for lunch). Reason for that isolation was my personality.
I could not easily share feelings or talk about things that most girls at that age love to do. Some did try and after few attempts got frustrated and left me alone. I had no desire to make friends, and despite teachers making efforts to get me involved, I remained in my exclusive domain happily. I am a reader, and it was in the 9th grade, my English Teacher, Ms. Marsha Burns recognized my talent as I began replying to her questions about the British Writers of 18th and 19th Centuries. My reading those novels started when I went to live with my grandpa and my mother went to cohabit with a truck mechanics living in another town near Ohio border on Interstate 65.
After arriving, I spent most of days, and also many times, nights, with my Pappy, as I called him. He owned and lived in his old Mobile Home on the Taylor Mountain Road. He was a veteran of the last World War and flew bombers from the British Airbases. During that deployment he read many British Classics, and after my arrival in his life, began reading stories to me. I inherited my love for books from him, I guess. That love for reading resulted in higher level of reading and writing skills than the most students in the English literature class. My proficiency built a close relationship between Ms. Burns and me. Besides that, I think there were some similarities we shared. We both have above average intelligence, and we both are least attractive women from the sex appeal sense. Ms. Burns in her late thirties, was of an average height. With black hair tied in a bun, and a thin body mass and skin stretched over her long face, her visage made an unforgettable impression of a learned professor. I wonder if there is a scholarly face that also was a desirable one. She remained like the Bronte Sisters; highly admired, but alone.
By the time that school year ended, I received plenty of encouraging grades and advice from her. My writing skills evolved under her tutoring, and you know how praises give boost to the self-esteem.
I loved the outdoors and did not miss any opportunity to get out. Grand pappy took me to Summersville and many other lakes in the state. We camped and just two of us enjoyed the Mother Nature. That is the only love I experienced in my entire life and never missed it. Those femininity developing ambiance which the French intellectual Simon de Beauvoir identified in 1949, I never existed and sexual emotions did not arise. I developed unusual attitude of a young man, rather than that of a girl stepping into the womanhood; here I am talking about my psyche, and not the body. Those physical changes were developing normally, but I was subconsciously not aware of them. I wasn't a Tom Boy personality but also had no interest in boys.
In the rear of the school building, there was a large Elm tree with an umbrella like canopy. I used to sit under it and read my novels. Little away from the Elm and facing the building few picnic tables and benches were kept for the students and girls and boys in groups. Mostly the girls used them to get away from the crowd to exchange food and gossip. Boys rarely came there; they hung out around cars in the parking area.
I involuntarily used to hear the conversations. At times, I thought those stories of their lives were deliberately aired despite my presence. Perhaps they wanted me to get interested in their juicy love affairs and open up to them with my personal life outside the school, like how I was managing my sexuality, and the partner preferences; I was an enigma to them. They kept a distance and interacted with me on a need basis and that didn't have any effect on my life. I did not have that socializing needs which I was told, comes naturally. By that rule, I am a loner and always have been one. Then in my teen years, maybe, I created a mystery around me. Both male and females of that time, were sexually active at that age, and I stood out as an odd ball; a Virgin, among the Greek and Roman goddesses of my high school hanging around me for curiosity about my secrete love life.
Then the juiciest gossips and rumors were not related to the normal and routine affairs between young folks; they were about those unfortunate ones, who could not, or would not, let go of their virginity. Boys had their own sets of venues. They were interested in who slept with who etcetera, etcetera. The common subjects favorite to both sexes were the establishment of gender identities, and sexual orientations. In my case, they tried various tricks to entice me into sharing things that I mentioned before. In the beginning, I got a divine name,- 'Virgin- the Holy Mother of God,' and each time I passed the women group, they mocked me with "V" sign made with their two fingers, and giggled. The boys had found another way; they would simply do the crossing of heart symbolism of the Catholic prayer routine.
The common features among girl groups were: White young women, middle class living, and attractive persona, with high popularity. In addition, most were members of the Cheer- leading team or active in the Drama and Music clubs. The colored students, mostly immigrants and Blacks, were two groups, separated from everyone else and mainly they remained within their racial and cultural ethos.
Among both white groups, there were many discussions; all about me and my gender. One thing I extracted from the subtle inquiring talks between them and I, was that they were not sure about one specific item, and wanted to get in my panties to discover, if I was not a female and are masquerading as one. The other not so hot topic as the former was: If I was a 'Hermaphrodite' (as individuals with a Penis in the vagina, then were labeled). This too I learned by listening to their deliberately loud voiced conversations about the subject just to see my reactions. I couldn't imagine what culpable reaction they were expecting. I just ignored them and went about being normal me.
Later when I gave attention to that 'discovery of my sexuality' expedition undertaken by so many folks, I realized that the causes of that intense curiosity about me were rooted in the way my body is built. I am a tall woman with 5' 11'' frame, and have rather strong and manly bone structure. I never was an overweight or with a baby-fat face person. My body is muscular and I have a rough and tough appearance of a sailor. To add to this, I displayed dexterity of a baseball player when I went to tryouts for the girl's baseball team. Here is the account of that morning at the school's playground:
I grew up practicing ball game with my grand pa and played with the kids in the Trailer park. I had a strong hand and would send a ball over the fence easily. That morning I sent into the stand four out of six deliveries from the team's favorite pitcher. Watching that performance, the coach was thrilled, but the parents of the pitcher watching the selection business, were not. They began the questioning campaign about my gender and I should be allowed to participate in the girl's sport. As a result, I was asked to undergo a special medical fitness checkup. At that point, my grand Pappy, refused to sign the consent form and that ended my sport career, and with that refusal, the search for my gender business began in earnest by those two sets of students.
When all attempts failed, the gang's curiosity finally cross the line. Since my childhood, Pappy and I used to fish in the back waters of Kanawha river near the Electric Plant, close to the Taylor Mountain where we lived. Later, when Pappy became weak and bit senile, we stopped fishing. However, I used to go there and sit on the bank and read. I used my bicycle most of the time. One day my hide out was discovered by one of the boys by name, Walter Gaviano. He was behind me and I had not noticed him. Apparently, he saw me turning in to a dirt road that was formed by the traffic of fishing folks a long time ago and was in disuse. Walter followed me out of curiosity of what I was up to.
Summer days get humid in that part of the Appalachia, and on that day when I reached my fishing spot, I was full of sweat. Accustom to the isolation I enjoyed for many years, I took my top off and rest of the cloths and got in the water. I was submerged in the dark gray river water by the time he showed up. I was hidden from his view by the shrubbery bushes and before he advances to my fishing spot, I swam away from him. There is a strong current in that segment of the river because of Elk river coming in and joining the Kanawha to flow towards Ohio river waters. I knew the river currents well because of my fishing activities and watching the line floating away with the currents. I got out of the water several yard away from my cloths and books. From behind the bushes, I watched him. Not locating me in the water, Walter turned towards the pile of clothing and picked up my pantie and bra. Now you know, that for a girl of fourteen, my waist and top were larger than the other girls of same age group. He appeared to be baffled by the size and held my panty up against the sky for a moment and then, quickly, he stuffed it in his pocket and took off.
Next day, he became a hero, and my pantie became his trophy and rumor mill went in the full-steam mode. I did not expect that anyone would be proudly displaying my underwear on the rear-view mirror of a car. The sign of 'V' that I mentioned before, vanished and was replaced with the symbolic, "penetrated vagina" gesture. Walter became the Prince valiant; the Dragon-Slayer of the high school. Then he made a foolish mistake of believing in that concocted myth and began humiliating me with crude remarks about the circumference of my breast and the dimensions of my vagina. What really hurt me was one statement he made, suggesting that he could arrange for me a 'N' on his team, with one-foot dick to get me started.
I wasn't offended by mentioning a Black man; I did not believe in the racial superiority of any race, but what pissed me of was his alluding to their belief that I had a monstrously wide and deep vagina and mountain size breast. That did it, and one week after that incidence, knowing my routine of visiting the river, Walter followed me to my location.
I became aware of his presence, when he jumped on the bicycle, and as soon as he came around the turn on the road on bicycle, I grabbed the handle and jerked it hard. He lost balance and fell on his side. He got up and was livid. Second mistake he made was he came swinging at my face. He was a football player-a fullback. His fist caught me on my chest. I staggered backwards against the mud-wall and then when he came towards me to hit me, at that moment, I slugged him on his face with full force; he took it on the nose and went backward, and stepping forward, I kicked him in his groin and Walter went down in agony.
The years of tolerating humiliations and disgusting verbal attacks had turned me into a human volcano with the plasma of hate and without my Pappy calming me down, that afternoon the lava of extreme vengeance and the bottled-up anger rose to its peak. I beat him mercilessly, until he became unconscious. I left him there and went home.
Well, that night I got handcuffed and landed in the county jail for the aggravated assault and Walter in the hospital with serious injuries. Two lives changed that day. Walter suffered PTSD, and became unsuitable for the football and later dropped out of school when the cruel world of teenage high school students, injured his self-esteem with the barbs and pins alluding to his beating by a woman. It mortified him forever; a return of what, he had dished out to me.
| Author Notes | Keep in mind that the narrator is telling her experiences of her life in 1970s America and society's moral standards were different then. The material presented in this chapter may offend some readers who have different views about the human sexuality and gender issues. I have no intentions to promote any such stands in the debate on this controversial subjects. |
By Niyuta
For the first time I heard the Latin term 'Parens Patriae' when my court appointed attorney was discussing with the prosecuting attorney. The term for no apparent reasons grabbed my imagination. Perhaps I was bored with the monotony of the court proceedings. The building itself was depressingly gloomy. Away from home, the river and my books, I was empty inside. I tried to think about my future. However, I am not given to thinking about future and this was an exception. I instinctively felt that it has something to do with banishing me from the scene, to a somewhere faraway place, where no one knows my name It did not matter where I lived, as long as Pappy went with me, and the place has a river.
As soon as two attorneys took a break from their discussion, I jumped and asked:
"What is this business of Parent something you two are discussing?"
My attorney, Ms. Alice Holland, a black woman in her mid to late thirties answered me:
"It is a 13th century legal term that is applied to individuals declared as of unsound mind and has to do with deciding who gets the custody of a person. When this provision of the law is considered, the possibility of any underage person who has committed a crime that is so egregious that he or she appears to be a danger to the society or self and a judge decides to make that child the state's ward. In simple words, your state becomes your parents and that is the literal meaning of the term."
I did not like that idea of parenting by state; it had a sinister sound like those names of diseases. I hated the school's control over individuals like me and imagined state to be worse. I begged Ms. Holland to explain it in detail.
She waited until the government attorney went away and then, took a long look at me, as if she was searching for a way to measure my intelligence to see if I would understand the legal doctrines and terminology. Then she began with a kindness in her voice, as if her own kid had been in the bad situation like the one, I was in at that moment. In a soft and motherly voice, she began:
"At 14, you are unusually matured child and that's a handicap we both have to overcome. You did a bad job on that boy, and reasons for doing that is not yet properly established by the statements made to police by both of you; they don't have a full understanding of the background scenario and Walter is depressed and under psychological care. Boy's parents are demanding that you must be tried in the adult court. You as a personality characteristic, don't show any remorse, and that is what your school officials have reported. This attribute is often viewed at best, as the signs of lack of empathy and at worst, as an indicator of possible serious mental illness called. 'Border line Schizophrenia'.
The government side most likely will show you as one, but because it is not yet decided whether to put you through a battery of psychological evaluation track to confirming that diagnosis, we have to do our best not to let them take you in that direction. However, without your understanding and cooperation, it will be near impossible for me to do that. They have plenty of resources to bring the experts, but you have very slim chance of getting one without a fee. I am going to speak with some organizations who may step in, but for a white child, raised in the unhealthy environment, there are not as many options as a children of minority communities would have. You are what affluent white community calls, "White Trash" living in the Trailer Parks and the hollows, side by side with the poor blacks.
I am telling you all this, because you, at 14 years, are lot more capable of understanding the gravity of the situation and you display a stoic individuality with a stubbornness written all over your face, and that is not helpful in defending, if you are tried as an adult, and by observing your demure, the Jurors become unsympathetic, and treat you harshly. Remember, Walter is a Full Back and sportsmanship has a favorable opinion in our society. I have to change that in favor of you by showing your suffering filled school life. I have known this phenomenon in my personal and professional life many times.
The legal term you caught from our discussion and wish to know its meaning, and it indicates your higher intelligence than the average female child of your age. Unfortunately, this too is not going well with the juvenile justice systems in our country. Knowing tight and wrong is strictly viewed from a rational point of view, and mental status comes in the case, only if you have a competent and experienced attorney, who brings it as a defense. The lack of reasons why you attacked, is also another problematic issue. You did not give any meaningful statement that would have justified the ferocity of attack.
I have a difficult task of keeping you out of the adult court system. I need your trust and full account of what brought you and Walter together in that isolated boonies. If the young man lured you there and tried to rape you, then I need to know. You are in bigger troubles than you are realizing. Recall every details of that day starting from: Why you went, how he arrived at that remote place, did he invite you, or you always go there? And one more thing; give me some understanding of your general experiences dealing with your peers, administrators and teachers. If you have any person of authority in the school, church etc., that will be on your side if brought in as a character witness; I need a list. Our primary goals is to do everything in our power to get you in the juvenile detention and rehabilitation system, and not let them take you in front of juries.
Again, I am reminding you; be a child of 14, with fear, remorse and helplessness on your face. Don't make my task difficult by acquiring that adult personality when we go in for the preliminary review. It is three days from today; I must have your list of individuals willing to say you were a victim of bullying and injustice, which I suspect you have been. Let the folks conducting the hearing know, how and why so much anger erupted at that moment, let them know what that trigger point of your anger; don't spare any details, if he did go for your clothing then recall the sequence of his actions; think hard and be honest about it; don't invent if you can't recall; I need just the facts . I will see you again tomorrow and I want to hear your statement; I hope you understood what I have told you today."
Ms. Holland left the client consulting room, and a uniformed case worker transported to me to a room in the lock up. So many things had happened in such a short time and Ms. Holland's long speech had overwhelmed me. I felt my mind was dead and brain had stopped working. I fell asleep out of sheer mental fatigue.
| Author Notes | The description of our Juvenile justice system is developed after informal research and some knowledge of general understanding of how it works and how it differs in each state's counties. The fundamental strategy of defense is to keep children out of adult courts and prisons. |
By Niyuta
I had to depended on my memory to I write the notes related to this chapter of my story. I wrote them several months after my returning home. Now, in this continuing narration of the saga of my beating of Walter, the arrest, getting locked up in the juvenile detention center, and the conversation with Ms. Alice Holland, I have used those afterthought based notes, and readers may find bit of disorganization in the chronological sense. However, I did my best to keep it as close to the facts as my memories permitted. I am starting with the end of episode of the first night, that ended in going to bed in the cell, and here is what happened the next morning:
Rhythmic three beat-knocks on each cell door woke me before it reached mine, and that general noise of announcements and orders got me out of bed. The announcement of breakfast told me get ready, and the one of the orders, made everyone in the cells aware of the fact that we were not in our bed at home, and administrative processes were commencing in an hour.
I sat on the age of my bed and took some time to bring my mind into the reality of surroundings. Wee hours of that morning, in a very bad dream, I saw me kneeling in front of a recently dug grave without a head stone. Suddenly tolling of many bells began and I woke up. In reality, the knocking on the cell doors of the facility had terminated that dream.
I ate breakfast in a cafeteria like setting that was similar to one we have in every school of the USA. I ate my last morsel and a warden's assistant came to me to tell me that my attorney has arrived, and I must return to the assigned attorney consultation room at once. I followed her with a thought of how to tell Ms. Alice Holland, that I did not think of anything she wanted me to and had no list ready for her.
To think rationally, there was nothing to think about, and what I could tell her would be nothing more than opening my vault of unpleasant memories. As far as that list of individuals who would support my statements, or give me a shining character certificate goes, the possibilities did not exist. My family never went to church or had a Bible in the house and that eliminated any pastor or a church official, and you know about my student life. Not one soul I imagined would be on my side. Well; that was the reality of that moment.
I entered the room and Ms. Holland greeted me with a smile and a good morning wish. Astonishing optimism surprised me and in a confused way, I returned the greetings and sat down in front of her with hands folded around my torso, perhaps it was a subconscious gesture of tell me what's next, if I don't have what you had asked me to prepare yesterday.
The conversation to my surprise, began with the inquiry about how was my first night's stay: was it good or bad sort of inquiry. Then she spoke in the official tone of a defending attorney:
"I have some encouraging thoughts about what to do with our case. I know you have no list, that we can deal with later. I have a strategy to prevent school folks to push for demanding trial in the adult court. Again repeating, but I need you tell me all and everything from beginning, and this you can do without any special efforts, unless you have a memory lapse or blockage. Use you do that? I would like to record it for preparation of the narrative that would have a high probability of success. Are you ready? If you need time to gather your thoughts, I will leave you here for twenty minutes and return to start the work. We have a limited time and I have to get you out of here as soon as I can with a personal guarantee bond."
After she left, I began my reconstruction exercise. Ms. Burns, my English Literature teacher, the only soul in this wide world who had recognized my talent in the language, and skills of penning my thoughts and had encouraging praises for me, came to my mind. She had gone extra miles in teaching me how to describe scenario, use the adjectives with words and phrases judiciously and effectively by keeping the readers' in mind. Remember to whom you are wanting to impress and want to be interested in going on reading. Be consistent and cohesive in your style.
Well, all that advise I had assimilated in my psyche; it came handy that day. When Ms. Holland returned, I was ready to bring forth all hidden issues-my pains, and sufferings, which had isolated me from the maddening crowd of youthful summers and made me like one of the female writers of the 18th century England and like them the subterfuge I took in the books and on that isolated riverbank.
Methodically and with precision, I gave account of all those taunts of being a virgin-an ogress, untouched by the arrows of Eros, and rejected by any and all males of the earth. Walter's behavior, his accidental discovery and then trailing me to my hiding place and the subsequent stealing of under pant and bra and making a trophy out of them to display in his car. All my emotions and anguishes for the first time I could put in words, as if my ailing soul finally broke the locks of the doors which my stubborn and protective mind had guarded for a long time. In next moment, without control, tears began rolling out on my stoic face. I wept unabashed and without feeling anger towards the world I was thrown into without anyone asking me if I wished to be here.
I don't know how long, but must have wept for few minutes uninterrupted in that silent room. As the surge of emotions subsided, I wiped my tears and looked up at Ms. Holland, I thought she was wiping her eyes, and the recording had ended. Without saying anything, she got up and came around and I stood up. She hugged me and planted a kiss on my forehead. Only my pappy used to do that, and his memories and the dream I had that morning, made me emotional again. I hugged her and silently let the tears role on her bosom.
She recovered from the emotional scene and we began the discussion of the legal matters. She said to me:
"In my twenty years of practicing law in the Juvenile Judiciary, I have not received narrative like you have done today. I am confident now, that your image as an emotionless and mentally deranged brute child, I will be able to replace with a new picture of a you; a sensitive and abused child that acted in the self defense when Walter came at you with the intentions of sexual attack. Your details of that fight are overwhelming, and convincing. It matches the descriptions of aggression displayed by males when denied sex in many other cases. This I believe will force the judge to review the charges more humanely. Before we go to that final step, I am going to let the prosecuting attorney and social services folks hear this taped narrative and ask them to drop the demand of the trial in the adult-court. I think he will have to, unless he wants to see Walter getting charged with attempted rape."
Hearing her legal strategy, I felt uneasy; that was not the case; he simply wanted to play a prank. I couldn't lie about it and I said to Ms. Holland:
"I did not say anything in my affidavit about Walter's intentions and I don't think he wanted to rape me; I am sure of that."
"Leave that to me; no one has accused him yet. We will not have to do that, but I have no idea, nor you have, what was going on in his mind at that time. A young woman available in an isolated place has high probability of getting sexually assaulted is it not? That possibility was present, and all I have to do is to bring it to their attention and that's all. I assure you I have no intentions of hurting him in anyway to save you. You both are victims of our failing education and judicial systems; the changes have come in the incremental ways at a slow pace and that has to come on the fast track. In the areas of crimes and punishments, for the juvenile, women and minority segment of population, there is much discrimination even today, something has to be done to bring reforms and that's what I have made my life's goal. This case may help me in some way. I will get you out this afternoon."
She left the consulting room, and I went back to my cell. Ms. Holland achieved her immediate goal and I returned home to my Pappy that evening.
| Author Notes | This chapter is culminating the Juvenile Justice Center's activities and the defense attorney's strategy to prevent the case going to adult jurisprudence system. Prior chapters reading will make this one meaningful. |
By Niyuta
Around 7 PM, Ms. Holland dropped me at the Trailer Park entrance. We parted with a hug and some legal advice. She said to me:
"We have won a skirmish, and few more battles are coming which we have to avoid at all costs. I hope you have learned your lessons. You have tested your physical strength in that bout with Walter; don't let that go to your head and don't entertain any ideas of punishing any other student who may have tormented you before. You know a suspended student is prohibited from visiting the school and, the neighborhoods or the places where they hang out. There is a fear psychosis afloat in your neighborhood about your exaggerated prowess and tendency to hurt people. You have a hearing with the Juvenile Justice board is set for the Monday, next week. Stay home and read, watch TV but stay safe. I have given you the list of telephone numbers to contact if you need assistance. Don't fall for tricks; there are members of our society not happy with you getting away from the punishment they were hoping for. Walter's family is not likely to bother you, but his teammate may. Don't respond and call Sheriff's office at once and also keep me informed. God bless you child; I hope you will make through this, mine did not. She chose a way out of this cruel world. You I hope will fight a difficult but winnable war with me."
Ms. Holland drove off and I stood there on the Tyler Mountain Road watching her disappear on the highway entrance ramp.
After three decades when memories of my Juvenile Justice Center visit came alive while reading my notes again, Ms. Holland's image appeared in front of me. Today, I understand her quest better than I did then. I felt that uphill task she then undertook in one sense, was consequencethe fight that own child that she lost whose fundamental rights to education and the pursuit of happiness were denied by her school in a racial inequality conditions of sixties.
Through the court battles, which she undertakes without adequate compensations for the unfortunate young children who are victimized by our perfection worshiping society and have resort to the acts of anger that are deemed criminal in the juvenile courts. Here, mental health component is conveniently put aside by the legal profession that makes money from it. Filling our jails with individuals who need mental health before they go on to the acts of desperations that are harmful to the society at large, is not a solution, and this is an exhaustively researched, established and publicized information. Our politicians and exerts are well aware of those studies and researches and yet, the lure of money they get from that flourishing industry of warehousing the misfits like myself, has prevented them from budgeting the alternatives. Tough on Crime influences the frightened society but be Tough on Preventing the causes of child delinquency is ignored in the USA. There is no serious discussion in our media, or in the Power Houses on who the beneficiaries of this commercial enterprise are, and who the victims are. Citizens too at best, are indifferent to the crisis, and at worst, fall into the schemes of elected representatives and congressmen and women, all busy with their personal hold on the power, and giving a lip service to the plights of Americans living in the Trailer Parks, dilapidated ghettos of inner cities. Number of Billionaires are going up also the number of homeless individuals of all shades of skins.
Let me tell you about the events after after I returned to my Pappy's mobile home.
I walked towards the slot where Pappy's Mobile Home was located. Darkness had enveloped the park and in the dim streetlights, I could see the silhouettes of the parked vehicles and the trailer-homes. As I turned into the street my Pappy lived, I was surprised by the darkness in the Mobile Home. My heart sank. Memory of that dream of grave sprung up and I ran towards the unit. Porch light was not on and a steel padlock became visible in the florescent lamp of the street. I couldn't think of anything, mind became numb and just sat on the wooden bench next the picnic table and began to weep in the silence of that moonless summer night. Feeling of desperation began to overcome my stoic mind.
I don't remember how long I sat there, judging by the time, Mr. Roy arrived after his shift ended at the chemical plant, I think few hours had elapsed. He saw me in the truck's lights and stopped at my location. Mr. Roy lived three lots away north of Pappy's, and was an occasional visitor, checking on us for any assistance he could give like taking Pappy to a tavern for a beer or to an errand to nearby stores or medical facilities. He too was a veteran of Vietnam War, and they got along fine. He rarely interacted with me beyond the usual inquiries about school etc.
He got out of the truck and seeing him approaching, I stood up. He opened his arms and I let him hug me. By nature, I avoided people who displayed affections with a personal contact. I was very uncomfortable with that since my childhood. I don't remember my mother hugging me. Pappy used to doit sometimes and that was an exception I allowed, perhaps because he had filled the role of that missing father. That night, unconsciously, my need for comfort overtook the age-old resistance. In a soft voice he said:
"I too miss my friend and advisor; I share your grief!"
In a low voice, I asked him:
"What happened to Pappy? I don't know anything; I just arrived."
"Were you not home when he died? Where did you go?"
Apparently, he had not paid attention to the events and news involving me. He has been doing the nightshift at the plant forever and had a part-time job as a Janitor somewhere. He slept most of the day. Alone and without a child in the school, he probably was ignorant about that episode.
"In the custody of the state; I spent two days the center for beating a bully." I told him as little as possible.
"That's what must have killed him; I died in his chair with a book on his chest. I went to check on him and found him not answering, so shook his shoulder to wake him, but then he was gone. I am so sorry and sad that nobody was there to call 911. I did and then, everything was over and county put him in the Spring Hill Cemetery where he had a plot. I will take you there in the morning."
I was shocked by the news that county had to do the last rites and only Mr. Roy was there for him. Where was his daughter and my mother? There was no time to think about that now; issue was what I could do now. I asked Mr. Roy:
"Do you have a key to this place? If not, can you open the door somehow? I have no place to sleep."
He didn't answer immediately and appeared to be thinking. As a Black man he perhaps was wondering if he could offer a bed in his place to a white teenager female and not create unnecessary scrutiny from the police who he knew were going to visit the next day to do the closing of that case. He simply walked towards the truck and returned with a crowbar.
He yanked the lock and opened the door, went in and lit switched the lights on. I followed him. Everything looked undisturbed and to me it appeared like Pappy was in his bedroom. The book fallen on the ground and the magnifier glass was on the floor. I walked to the armchair and picked the book. It was 1953 novel, "The Bridges at-Toko-ri" by James A. Michener. That was the account of bombing in the Korean war that may have been his last bombing sortie.
Mr. Roy checked all the rooms and said:
"You should be fine here; I will stop tomorrow before leaving for work. Don't hesitate to ask; for now, all you have is me; think if you can, like I am your grand uncle. He was older brother to me. Make sure you lock the door." Then I heard truck moving and I locked the door and moved to my room. My tired body and mind prevented thoughts of future life, dominating my mind and I passed out.
By Niyuta
When I woke up, I did not know where I was, and couldn't remember what that day of the week was. I closed my eyes and lay there motionless, hoping that some miracle would bring my old life together, with Pappy in the kitchen rattling frying pan. I wanted aroma of beacon to wake me up, as it had happened many mornings just a week ago. My soul did not wish to face the reality. I wanted nothing else. Just that old miserable life back; it was tolerable despite the difficulties of navigating the high school and the other unpleasant things which came with it. Pappy, books and the river were three pillars of my life. One and the most important among them has disappeared from my life. What lays ahead I couldn't even imagine.
A faint knock brought me out of that semi-paralyzed stage and then a strong banging woke me up. I had fallen asleep in the same outfit I wore when they took me to the juvenile center. I went out for opening the door and heard a familiar voice; that I had not heard in months.
"I wonder if she's in!"
"I told you; call before driving all the way!" A male voice responded.
I recognized both voices and opened the door and without saying a word, walked back to my room to freshen up and closed my bedroom door behind me. Two individuals were at my door and they were the last persons I wanted to interact with at that moment; my mom and her live-in man. I don't love her today and did not love her since I became old enough to feel the emotions. I don't hate her, and for that matter, hate nothing. Over the years, I have not known anyone worth loving, except my Pappy. I have neither grudges, nor affections for anyone, and must admit, I never get strong emotions about anything. I am just what I am; an unpolished, and raw personality completely indifferent to the affairs of the world. I am totally soaked in the Stoic philosophy of Seneca, one sold on the Dostoevsky's Existentialism, if you know anything about it, you may understand my mindset. You may wonder where the hell I read about this Greek Philosopher's writing? I think read his quotes in one of the works of fiction, and out of curiosity, followed his writings by checking out books from the local libraries of towns I lived in for the past two decades. There I go again, drifting away from story of Taylor Mountain saga.
My attitude towards the arrival of mom turned out to be proper; she had not arrived to see me or to console me, she and her man came in search of money and the inheritance papers. Pappy owned the Mobile Home and the capital lease of land upon which it was parked. It must be worth something to the Park Owners' Association. When I came out of my bedroom, I saw them trying to break the lock of his strong box. Pappy had given me his Colt-38 Revolver-a War Trophy to keep. I went back and picked it from the closet and surprised them with a threat:
"Get away from that box or I will shoot."
They turned around and saw me with the weapon, pointed at the man. I had no fear or panic on my face. Mom had not seen me since Christmas and had no idea what had happened to me to become a resolute woman in just few weeks.
"Honey; put that thing away! We are not doing anything but search for the papers that Dad may have kept in here for the Trailer and land; that's all."
"You can't come here; you are not welcome, and I don't need you. All his papers are in the bank, nothing valuable is here; now get out."
At the same time, Mr. Roy came in without looking up and said:
"I saw door open and stopped to check on...oh my god! What's going on?"
"Nothing, Uncle Roy, I am sending my mother back to where she came from."
"Take it easy child; put that gun aside; I am here now, and we can settle things easy way, don't do anything foolish, you will get in troubles with law again." Roy spoke with some fear in his voice.
"What police troubles? What happened? How did my dad die?"
Mother spoke with some fake concerns.
"Where were you all these months? Did you bother to see if he was alive, that you want to know how he died?"
I was not going to let her to play that role of a grieving daughter.
Things would have gone on to another level of bitterness loaded arguments when the man who had come with her spoke:
"Cut it out both of you. Your mother has certain legal rights, and we will settle this according to the law. Meanwhile, you ought to recognize that you are a minor and your mother has the custodial rights over you. For now, we will leave and return with the Sheriff to see everything is done properly and without anger. Now you don't want to have that gun in your possession if you wish to avoid arrest for pointing it at us; it is a Felony under the law. Give that weapon to Mr. Roy."
After the arrival of Mr. Roy, I was at ease, and I also became aware of the risk involved. I handed over the weapon as told and sat down. Mom and her man also sat down and to my surprise, mom burst out in a loud weeping spell. When she composed and wiped her tears, she spoke to me in a voice I had not heard since I was five or six and had moved in with Pappy. I felt bad for her; and a rare emotion that a child feels for mother rose in me. Silently got up and moved towards me. Watching her I too stood up and in silence she hugged me and kissed me on my forehead and whispered:
"I always have loved you and I know I am not been a mother that you deserved; forgive me. I have changed now. This man, Anton, is a good man; I trust him, he does not need money or this Trailer, he has a house and a garage that his uncle has left for him. He has a union job at the power plant and will take care of us. Please give me a chance to try to be your mother again, I promise you I won't let you down."
"Please leave me for now, and come alone on Wednesday, and we will talk about us and the future. I will fill you in with the details." I assured her and they left. It was eleven o'clock and Uncle Roy was standing there waiting for their departure from the street. He closed the door of the trailer and spoke in a soft voice:
"I mustn't call you 'child' anymore; at such a young age you have become a matured woman. I have some information that I need to give you and also a box that your Pappy left with me for safekeeping. Let me take you to his grave and we can speak there. When things get calm, I will give you the box."
After eating lunch at the local dinner, we reached the Spring Hill Cemetery and to the plot where Pappy is buried. The grave had settled, and the dirt was loose. I bent down and picked some and put it in the jar I had brought with me. I put a small bunch of flowers which had purchased at the Kroger on the way. I placed them on his grave and tried to pray but I couldn't recall one. I just spoke to him instead. Roy was sitting in his truck watching me. I began my conversation in these words:
"Pappy, I am sorry; couldn't come sooner; you saw me going to jail, but I am not sorry for that. I am sure you would have been proud of me for fighting for my honor. Now all that is over, and you are not here, what I should do? Nothing I want from Taylor Mountain. I have to go where life is going to take me Pappy; you know what that means; I won't be coming here to chat with you and tell you what new books I have read and all that stuff we used to do. I won't be able to keep this place clean and all that. I love you and I know you are with me as you were when I was in the cell. I got a message that you had left while I was there, but I did not grieve for you, because I am glad you were spared that pain. I am sure you would have suffered because my being in the jail and you there sitting alone at home. I hope you are at peace like I am. I promise you, nothing will make me unhappy for any reason; I am going to be a Stoic woman just like you were all your life. Well, that's one conversation for now, and I we will speak again and every day. By the way, I have a great attorney looking out for me and I believe everything will be checked and a okay." I made thumbs up sign as we used to do every night.
I stepped back and turned towards the Pickup. Uncle Roy opened the door and stepped out. As I came near, he spoke:
"Let us walk around and I will tell all that need you to know."
I nodded and we walked pass few folks near another newly departed individual's grave. When we reached to an isolated area, he began speaking:
"You may not know I alone had the privilege to come closer to your Pappy, and that's because we both served in the same Air Force squadron, of course in different times. We were bonded by the code of honor and common life experience. He spoke to me about you that he never did to anyone else. This is about your personality developing into a person who is both a male and female. He and neither I, are expert in this area to give opinions but he told me that he had a co-pilot who displayed similar characteristics, you have. I did not agree or disagree with his assumption and today also have no opinion about this. He had made his legal settlement what I think is called, 'Will' and I have the printed copy of that document and it is with the other items in the locked box.
The lawyers who handled that business have the original documents, and their contact information is in the box. I suggest you read the documents in your Trailer and decide what you wish to do or who to trust to act in your place. After that, you may return everything to me after locking the box. I am telling you again, it is up to you. As far as I know he has left the Trailer and the plot to you and I am your legal guardian until you turn 18 years old. I will do what I can as per your wish and is legally and morally right. Your mother may fight for the guardianship and again I will give it up if you think you are better off going with her. I cannot be your mother and will be difficult for me to do anything if you move out of state. So, think about it carefully. I know you will. You know how to get in touch with me when I am not at work."
I was surprised with this information and did not quite understand the legal issues involved in the custodial business. I am in control of my destiny as the poet William Earnest Henley had written in the poem, 'Invictus.' Ms. Marsha Burn, my Creative Writing teacher and I had a lengthy discussion on the central idea of this famous poem. I remember that poem even today after decades; it goes like this:
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstances,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how straight the gate.
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.
Ms. Marsha Burn's explanation and comments of this poem seem to have laid the first layer of foundation of stoicism in me. She had pointed out:
"The poet has taken a stoic approach to the life he was given during the Civil War. He is convincing himself of the strength of his spirit and refusing to be broken by the circumstances and fate. Here he is declaring that his soul-spirit if you will, was 'Invictus'; a word in Latin meaning, "unconquered."
In the class that day, in silence, I vowed that I shall be one Invictus Spirit.
I went home and slept for few hours and when I woke up, it was pitched dark in the room.
| Author Notes | Without reading previous chapters, a reader may not get to understanding of events described in this chapter. |
By Niyuta
A Life is given to every individual by some unknown entity and that, many people think is a Father in Heaven, that is : 'The God', and then, many others who think life evolved by itself and they refuse to recognize existence of that creator. At that time of going through those rapid and unexpected calamities, nothing was farther than the subject of a Creator or who's the Controller of my future, and if is a Man, a Woman or could be like me-a man trapped in a woman's body. I am not a religious person because in our life filled with strife and struggles, there never had a place for a religion. A thought of accepting the unfair God; one who practices favoritism, and gives the wealth and power of unimaginative limits to few, demons, while condemning unfortunate majority of poor and struggling population of the world, did not arise. We all are familiar with this discussion among the humanity and I don't need to repeat it here.
Today, when I look back at the world and my personal life, I am much more comfortable with the idea of fate than was during my youth. Then I had hopes, some writing skills, imagination, and a stoic upbringing to tackle anything that the fate was throwing at me. Now at middle age, I am better educated in the University of Life, and all those teachers, from the Street-life, who were experts in survival skills, deserve the credit for my street smart wisdom. The other self-education also came from my Pappy's legacy of love for the books. After reading the classics, gradually I got interested in the non-fiction works and believe me, many among the homeless were the true philosophers of streets of this country who did mot write one quotable sentence in their life but created volumes of treaties and Gnosis; all that work falls into the 'Oral Teachings' of the unknown Socratic geniuses of the streets. They shared the knowledge and experiences when I too become a citizen of that realm and learned much about European and Eastern thinkers they had read and studied. It's a difficult to believe this fact of life that a person who explained to me Nietzsche's "Amor Fati" was a street dweller in Hollywood, California. The 'Love of Fate' the German philosopher's doctrine became my outlook towards life. Enough of my rambling about my inner thoughts and let me tell you about the exit from Taylor Mountain, my Pappy's resting place.
If you can't recall the past episodes of my brutal beating of Walter, and subsequent brush with the law, let me bring you up to date with the story. Walter discovered my secret place on the bank of Kanawha river behind the Electric Plant, stole my undies and bra, displayed them like a trophy and caused humiliation and pains to me. Next time when he came behind me to same hideout, he and I got into a fight and I beat him unconscious. I got arrested for battery and was saved by Ms. Alice Holland my court appointed Attorney. Instead of facing jurors in an adult court, she got Walter's family to drop the charges out of fears that he could be charged with an attempted rape. After that, I returned home to find Pappy dead and buried and with that his daughter (My mom), came with her man to claim the Mobile Home, and the plot of land.
That night after waking up, I remained in the bed in the pitch dark room. I didn't see necessity to venture out. What was there to wake up and go about except for eating and to performing the necessary functions of body. I hadn't spoken to anyone since several hours and had no person I wished to reach out to. I felt like my world had shrunk to a baseball size and it had closed all doors on me. Unconsciously perhaps, I felt it was my fault for the condition. In the past, I had not taken this path; I had Pappy to unburden myself and get his wise advice. I imagined him sitting out in the corner of living area on his Lazy boy sofa, but knew he was gone for good and with that realization, I began thinking about what he would have said to me. My conversation with his spirit went like it always had:
"Pappy! Are you busy?"
"I am, but that can wait; come on out, let us find a solution."
I used to wonder how did he know what I was going to lay on him? Then I would bare my troubled mind, and he would help me find a solution by directing me towards rationalism and pragmatic decision making. He would either recall an episode from the war and how he faced decisions and what he did under those conditions to take a quick decision and act; some stuff I think he made it up just to show the Zen way. In one way of looking at my education, I think how to be a self-sufficient person when it came to make decisions came from those exercises.
Later I began gathering thoughts to ask him appropriate questions as if he was going to respond in person. When that inquiry became cohesive in my mind, I began with a statement:
"Pappy, my mind is dull, and brain is functioning with impaired thinking. Everywhere I see nothing but closed doors. What should I do; how do I open at least one door that set me free from this nightmare?" I received replies which I of course knew were not coming from him, but I believed it did anyway, came from my subconscious ego. The spiritual aspect of this phenomenon perhaps was all this happened in my dreams and sleep talking stage. Pappy had explained his way in these words:
"Most of the time people create their own nightmares when they are facing the adverse situations. I say so by personal experiences. Getting shot down or shooting down enemy fighters, depended upon individual pilot's ability to avoid adverse situations at all cost, and if forced into one, use all the training and experiences a pilot got and make the decision and act to get out of it as soon as possible. With the skills learned in training, strong will power, and with unperturbed presence of mind, many returned to bases with battle scars. Life is full of dogfights and the survival depends on same skills. Do the analysis of your problem and actions if you have taken before. Study the causes of those effects which you have experienced and seek preventive solutions, if you have a chance; if not, find ways to minimize the damage. Learn from mistakes and adopt the winning processes and make changes in the operating principles for future conflict. Try this first and if you still have unsolved issues, we both can tackle them."
I owe him that calm and collected attitude about life's crisis and yet I dealt with Walter with an uncontrolled rage; caused by the volcanic eruption of emotions. That was a colossal error on my part. For a while, I had put that incident out of my mind, but now, it came back to put more pressing issue of what is going to come with this new living arrangement. Moving with mom and her man meant losing the freedom of independent thinking, and taking decisions. I couldn't imagine a Mother-Daughter interactions and wondered how I would deal with it. The Walter affair had shaken my faith in stoic thinking and it had put me in a self-doubting state. I began the analysis of events, the outcomes and its effects. I was accustomed to do in the past and now I am facing a new challenge of living with two people I didn't know.
The 'what if' analysis I think, should be done after the crisis are over. It has to be for the understanding if another option was available and ignored. The alternative that has a minimum risk of damage and has a corrective action that is simple to adopt for the future conflict of similar nature. Any analysis is totally useless during the crisis because it does not give the urgently needed solution for coming out of the adverse situation and interferes in the escaping plans. Thinking in line with this advice of my Pappy, I started reconstructing the episode. What happened to me physically, was easy to reconstruct, but how and why I reacted in that animal like ferocity, I could not analyze. Why a human, who supposed to be a rational and sapient specie becomes a demon, even for a moment, then I couldn't fathom. After all I was still legally a child and inexperienced in the wide world affairs at that.
Today I am a well-read person in the subjects of human behavior, brain functions and causes of violence. I have, for the first time recognized how the starting of that event must have appeared to my psyche: a crisis that I must stop, and it must have triggered the often-heard phrase, "Flight or Fight" mechanism of the brain. That night sitting alone in the bedroom, I could not have succeeded in resolving the mental crisis. Only possible good came out was I became aware of my physical strength and a tendency of serious violence if provoked beyond endurance.
Well, for moving on beyond that period and concluding the Taylor Mountain saga, I will skip the details of drama that took place and give only the pertinent parts of the event here.
As I mentioned before, Ms. Holland took me to hearing after briefing me about how to present myself as a defender of a possible sexual aggression and the fear of getting hurt, which of course was not the real scenario but a possibility. I performed well, got off with Home Schooling, Anger Management and related counseling trips to professionals of that field. Nothing came out of that because within two weeks we left the Taylor Mountain for good. I had informed Ms. Holland about the issues of inheritance and Mr. Roy's position and involvement in this affair. She declined to take that business as it was not her job but agreed to speak with him and give an unofficial legal advice to him but not to anyone else.
"I am not your personal attorney and cannot advise you under the current contract with the state. As a friend however, I can suggest you what I think is a best option from the multiple are presented to you."
She did that, and Mr. Roy as a Trustee of my property and welfare until I become adult under the state laws, acted accordingly. He advised me to sell the Mobile Home and land and give part of the money to my mom for moving expenses, and rest to be in a escrow account for me until I can handle my affairs independently. It wasn't much to make my life independent, so I agreed, and we moved to Anton's house with a garage. It was waiting for me to begin another phase of my life to begin. At 14, I had become a prematurely grown woman and I did not mind it at all. As it is my body and face had lost the child's personality and I did not miss my childhood; it just wasn't attractive without my Pappy. His little library and the memories were left for me to carry into the uncertain future. Mom was excited with the prospects of a wedding Anton in a Church that neither of us ever visited. The irony in such a desire of using the house of God is, most do not seek His blessings of their union, but do it with an ulterior motive of achieving that appearance that the bride and groom are a part and parcel of the mainstream, respectable and thoroughly commercial society. Mom wished such affair of grandiose nature but then, that Amor Fati, I spoke about before, had to be in favor of her to make her dream come true. I will tell you about all that in my next chapter; I have to prepare it from the notes I made few weeks after we moved.
| Author Notes | The term Amor Fati, literally meaning, 'Love for the Fate', was made by German Philosopher, Nietzsche. It is interpreted as a doctrine of accepting fate as that, one has no control over and has to be accepted with love and worked under its influence as best as one can. Here, daughter sees her mother's dream has less chance of coming true unless, her fate has favored it. |
By Niyuta
County's Juvenile Welfare department took another decision that impacted my future in a predictable manner. Eager to wash their hands of the business of finding an appropriate residency program for me, they took a shortcut and qualified Mom for the guardianship and handed over my rights and me to her. Ms. Holland, the attorney who saved me from going to jail, had gone to rescue another rebellious teenager. Mr. Roy, as I told you in the prior chapter, showed reluctance to take the custodial responsibilities of me and did not object to the arrangement. One more event of not recognizing me as a human being and treat me as a livestock that can be passed on to anyone without consent completed the saga of Taylor Mountain Mobile Home Park and I was on an unknown path charted by my destiny.
I dreaded the thought of living with two strangers and imagined scenarios that were frightening. In one such projected episode, I found myself lying in a meadow surrounded by the standing crops of Corn and Wheat, and facing an azure, cloudless Sky. I wondered if that was my subconscious desire to be free; total freedom from human society. In another moment, I saw myself interacting with Anton and mom in a joyful environment of a County fair. Perhaps, this was my hidden dream of be living in a normal household of a dad, mom and maybe, a brother. But then, those were fleeting moments triggering random and unattainable thoughts.
The loading of our few belongings that included my home-library, and Anton's stuff was completed and yet I did not know where we were moving. I had no input in the selection of town, city, village or the state and I showed no curiosity or interest in knowing the destination and at the moment, it did not matter. The news of moving far away from Pappy and my river, had numbed my soul. What difference does it make where you go when you have no choice of destination? Like the driftwood fallen in the river does not have a choice but to go with the flow, my body was floating, perhaps like the deadwood without my soul in it. I learned that we were heading towards the mountains of Colorado. While on the road, Anton and mom forgot I was in the rear, and began discussing the places to take breaks and other details to set the time for the arrive at the Rio Blanco County of Colorado; Meeker town to be precise.
During that long journey, mom did nothing else but keep babbling about her dream house and settling down. Anton was a strange bird. He said few sentences and neither disrupted mom's chain of thoughts nor expressed his desires or ideas of how he wanted his life to shape. For the most part of that journey, he remained indifferent and uninterested in her plans. From my advantageous observation place, I could watch his face. I am not sure, but I think he is from the Aegean Sea area; a Greek-Egyptian mix race like the Ptolemaic Hellenistic stock. His dark hair and strong jaw persona and a strong muscular body must have attracted my mom to him. He spoke an accented English that made him a foreigner instantly. I think that's why he spoke only when necessary. Mom of course wasn't in the truck; she was floating on the clouds that was taking her to the destiny she must have designed in her heart in her teenage years; about two decades ago.
For the first time I had the opportunity to look at her from a close proximity and listen to her feelings. I then realized that I had no place in her dreamed world. All her thoughts were centered around her life with the man who was, as she was convinced, going to deliver her the life she wanted so badly since a longtime. I was an unwanted product of her one-night stand that happened during that dreaming wild days of youth that nearly derailed her dream of a long time.
Today, I hear heated demands, coming mostly from the male politicians and the preachers, of using force on the women to keep the undesired pregnancies and give births, as their faith dictates. I want to scream at these hypocrites,and their faith. Both don't care to know what happens to those unwanted children who burden their mother's finances and become a clog in the plans of achieving a dream that many teen-aged women live for.
My grandma had a large volume of Jerusalem Bible. Out of curiosity, I opened it and found a section called 'Ecclesiastes,' and read it without understanding. I read it and had asked my Pappy to explain this passage; mind it, them I was just 10 years old. He held me to his heart and said, 'You are a precious gift to me; not a crooked one in any means; don't read that crap again.'
Later in my mature years, I went back and read that part of Bible again. It made me think about my life from that perspective. I am quoting that passage here so you may get some idea about how society looks upon people like me, who do not match its Biblical concept of perfection of a birth that the clergies claim as god's will and a design of two genders. Forcing one to be born is how far their religion goes; life and death after birth is not of their and God's concerns.
I think Koheleth; King of Israel in the Ecclesiastes wrote this with those hypocrites in mind:
"Vanity of vanities, said Koheleth; vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
What is crooked will not be able to be straightened, and what is missing will not be able to be counted...I spoke to myself, saying, "I acquired and increased great wisdom, more than all who were before me over Jerusalem"; and my heart saw much wisdom and knowledge...And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I know that this too is a frustration....For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge, increases pain."
Am I not that soul which perhaps the Son of King David spoke about? To be honest, I did go through a period of instant madness and folly in the last days of living in West Virginia, and I told you about it. My pain did not increase with knowledge since then and in fact, it's the lust for knowledge that redeemed me from the horrors of our criminal justice system; I am sure of that.
I imagined that it was my good luck that Pappy was there, or else, mom would have put me in a basket and let go of me in the Kanawha or Elk river, like Mosses' mother had done. I do not resent her nor blame her because, somehow, I understood her dilemma. At the age of 18 year, coming home three months after running away in search of love and paradise, and that too with a child of an unknown man in the womb. It wasn't exactly a 'return of a prodigal son' scenario of the Bible. My grandparent came from a respectable middle-class Presbyterian stock. Pappy then was in uniform awaiting a retirement in Virginia. Grandma had moved to West Virginia, waiting for his return with my mom and then, all that happened. Upon my mom's returning home, my grandma slammed door and told her to stay away until Pappy came home. A Bible guided mother had no place for the sinner in her heart or in home. Mom managed to survive and right about the time Pappy returned home, I came in the world. Learning the events of returning and my birth; he came and brought me home with him. Grandma mellowed after seeing her grandchild and then, I found a home and with that, mom regained her freedom when the responsibilities of taking care of a child shifted to her parents.
Now while traveling to new home, and watching my mom's joyous visage, I realized that she had some attractive features and at that age of 33, she looked like a matured, delicate female beauty, with brunet silky hair, delicate nose, and full lips, bit rundown perhaps. I wondered, why I did not get the attractive features of her body? Don't they say daughters get father's looks and boys mother's. So much hogwash that is for one with a manlike body and mindset in a woman's body! I felt betrayed by nature that cut off my mom's looks. It sure was a gender confused birth.
In that journey to Meeker in the Rio Blanco County, I had enough opportunities to think about that passage from the Old Testament and do some retrospection. I was sure of one thing that I was not crooked in any meaning of that word. No crooked thought occupied my mind and speaking about my physical body, everything was in its place as per my age; I was just different when it came to feelings and attractions. I did not find any attraction to boys then and also later at adulthood, to men. I was told later that I am, 'Asexual', with mild attraction to women in someone may say a platonic way. I ignored that psychological profiling done by a High School Psychologist during the final assessment before recommending that at home education. By the time we arrived at the destination, I had put all that behind me.
| Author Notes | The protagonist is narrating childhood segment of her life story, which she is writing when she is at the mid-life age. She is using her notes made meticulously through out her life. This is covering her uprooting from the birthplace to new home in the Colorado. In the narration she has included her adult views and opinions which are not necessarily matching the author's. |
By Niyuta
When we arrived in the junction of Rifle and CO 13 state road it was late in the evening. The extended presence of twilight of the summer months helped and we stopped at the truck stop for supper. It was a great relief for all of us cooped up in the pickup truck. We ate a sumptuous meal of steak, baked potato and a pecan pie. There was no conversation except for pass me salt and hot sauce. As usual I had no specific inclination to inquire about our future and then many other items usually crowd our mind when we are moving to an unknown part of the world. Now, I was still holding on to the, 'going with the flow in the river of life' attitude.
Anton and mom got busy with the maps and I slipped outside the diner without a reason as if some mysterious power had taken over my mind and brain was locked into an autopilot mode. There was nothing but a vast open space and few trucks in a resting state. Few streetlights in the parking-lot were giving some visibility. I wandered of away from the entrance area of the dinner. Anton's truck was visible and yet I was walking away from it. I must have reached closer to the road... 13, and suddenly automobile lights came on and blinded me.
"Where do you think you are wandering off?" A female voice came out of the vehicle. I shielded my eyes, and the flashing light switched to a subdued parking light mode. I saw a female trooper stepping out of the cruiser.
"Do you have any ID on you? She demanded."
"No; my purse is in the truck" I said pointing out to the vehicle.
"Get in!" She ordered and I complied.
Looking through her rear window mirror, she chuckled.
"Tourist?"
"No, we moved here to Meeker." I replied.
She drove me to the truck and said while approaching, "You better watch out and don't get out and walk around like you are in a city park. Wildlife is active in this part and that included two legged ones." Then she asked me my name and I gave her.
By the time, Mom and Anton also showed up and then they chatted with her while and I just walked towards the truck.
For some reason, I felt that cop had some special interest in me. You know how I usually reacted to the looks of any other curious individual, Most looked confused when assessing my body and behavior to determine my gender. I contributed to that by living in a natural way my psyche dictated. At that age I did not understand the necessity to wear a mask that society demands you to wear, if one wishes to fit in, and later, I got used to my persona and did not have a society to fit in with. Today, I am what I always has been. However, the looks I received from that female cop, were different; there was some sort of tenderness and friendliness expressed and that confused me. I thought of her for some time but then I got back to observing my mother's face. I realized that her grandiose dream of having a nice home with friends and the long-term relationship etc., Were fading. In the twilight surrounding farmlands without the standing crop appeared to her, like she has arrived to live in a God-forsaken farming Village. Watching welled tears in her eyes, I felt sorry for her for the first time. I too shared her feelings of betrayal by the destiny.
After a long and straight dirt road that linked the farmhouse to Colorado state road 13, we stopped at a silhouette of a structure that appeared like a cowshed rather than a house. The only source of light was the headlights of Anton's truck. No one had imagined a need to have something as a source for light in case electricity was not turned on. Apparently, good number of months had passed since the Colorado authority located Anton in West Virginia and the news of his uncle's death and probate business has reached him. Obviously, the utility got disconnected and that included the water. In short, the large mansion that mom had been imagining, did not look like habitable at that moment. The difference in the breathable atmosphere between our former home on Taylor Mountain and this place was the foul smell floating on the wind. There we lived with the Chemical discharges from several plants, and here, cows and pigs supplied the Methane.
Anton and mom got out to inspect the premises and I watched them trying to enter the building. After failing to open the locked building, they walked around the building to see if there was another way to get inside. At the same time, an automobile turned into the driveway, and flooded the scene. The brightness of light blinded me for a moment and when the light changed to a lower intensity parking light, a young woman came in my view.
I wondered if she had anything to do with the property. In the darkness of night, I could only see her figure as she approached the truck and, in a few minutes, when she reached near the truck, I recognized her. It was the woman in the police uniform that I had an encountered half an hour ago. Now she was in her regular outfit of a Blue-jean and a light jacket. Since I was in the backseat of the truck, she failed to notice me sitting in the dark cab, however, I could see her in the wide mirror of the driver's side. Her untied hair do, and long strands were dancing on the breeze and out the uniform, she appeared as a young and delicately high school senior female.
As she passed by the truck, I called her out:
"Are you the one responsible for this property?"
"Oh my God!" She exclaimed and turned towards me.
"I did not think anyone sitting inside the vehicle in this cold. Where are your parents?"
Before I could respond, Anton yelled to her as he came around the corner of the barn with mom behind him:
"Are you from the Sheriff's office?"
"No; I just stopped by to see if everything is okay; I patrol this area and check the abandoned properties to keep drug dealers from making it a transaction place."
Mom and Anton came forward and then I got ignored and kept out of their paw wow. In few minutes both the parties returned their respective vehicles. Anton turned the truck around and followed the policewoman's Old's station-wagon.
"That's so sweet of her." Mom spoke to her man and that's all I heard about the arrangement.
After fifteen minutes or so, we reached the town, and both vehicles pulled in a driveway of a small house. That's where I learned that the woman had offered to lodge us in her home for the night. That one level cottage size dwelling had a living room, and a bedroom facing east. The common bathroom was built in front of the bedroom. A small utility room at the west side, away from the bedroom, adjacent to a narrow kitchen appeared to be the only place available for my sojourn. I didn't think of her comforts at that moment because she had gone to freshening up. Returning to the room, she came up to me with extended hand to introduced herself:
"I am Candice; people call me Candy."
As a lifelong habit, I did not give her my name but took her hand for a limp handshake. She held it for a longer time than anyone else had done in similar situations. Most barely held my fingers and let go as soon as they grasped it as if they suspected I would give them a contagious disease. Candy held my hand long enough for me to realize how soft and a delicate touch it was. I never had experienced such an unusual sensation that passing through me. I generally avoided eye contacts with people when introduced to anyone unknown. That moment, I looked up to Candy's face and our eyes mate. She was smiling and the eyes had a compassionate look that I had not seen before in anybody else's. I involuntarily smiled and then, to my surprise, she took me inside the loft, without letting go of my hand. In the room I noticed there a queen size mattress without the general bed sheet or a body covering stuff.
"You and I have to share this bed, if you don't mind and I don't snore; I hope you will be able to sleep." She spoke gently.
I shook head in acceptance and let my armor of stoic attitude drop off my persona. I felt things were going to change here in this God-forsaken country home. In my Mobile Home bedroom in West Virginia, nobody came in, and Pappy had an electric bell installed near my bed so he could get my attention if he needed me. Under the circumstances, I got used to sleeping in my underwear and wrapped myself in a bathroom robe if I had to go out to get something from the kitchen. That night I was facing a challenging situation. I had no pajama with me, just the robe. In my life, occasion to share bedroom never came and here, in that cramped quarter, I was to share a bed; a new experience for which I was not emotionally prepared.
Today when I think about that night, I can explain my confused state of my mind and the reaction to the thoughts of the tender physical touches of another female. As a grown woman, I understand that situation better than I did in my teenage years. I am sure it is the lack of prior experience caused that confusion. The first love a newborn experiences, it seems comes from the planting of mother's first hugging and kisses with her holding the offspring to her breast. If this is true, then in my case, I don't think my mother and I went through that bonding experience. I told you about the circumstances of my birth and the ill treatment mother received from her mother--a stubborn woman with the firm belief in Christian view of the original sin of Eve; grandma did not want another Eve with an illegitimate child on the way, to come inside her sanctified home. A child herself, it must have been a natural reaction that my mother looked upon my arrival as a beginning of an end of her immediate problems; now she doesn't have to be dependent on others to provide for her. Grandma had arranged for the delivery with a Black woman who lived on the East end of the river. She was to deliver the child and give it away to someone in one of the Southern States. What a hypocrisy; oppose abortion as a sin, but turn back on the newborn and mother with the righteous fervor, to face a life time poverty and all the pains and sufferings that go with it!
That much for the exalted and admired virtue of motherly love that mustn't have visited mom's tormented Psyche. In some lonely moments of my life, sitting on the bank of Kanawha river, many a times I wondered about what stopped mom from getting rid of me as soon as she knew about my presence in her womb? Perhaps, she was broke, ignorant, or both; perhaps had no one to guide her to a clinic.
"Man survives it all! Man is a creature who gets used to everything, and that I think, is the best definition of him."Wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky in Notes From a Dead House."
The definition applies to all genders equally, if you reflect upon the remark Dostoevsky made about the co-prisoners in the Russian Gulag. We all are prisoners of our circumstances and fate and yet we get used to our life and perhaps, we are indeed defined by what we get used to. I don't know anyone else agrees with it or not, but I know my life, and I know how I got used to everything.
Well, I got sidetracked again; my habit of approaching a subject philosophically does that; let me continue from where I left at the makeshift bedroom and Candy.
I went in the bathroom, finished the toiletry and went under the warm shower. My mind, however, was still trying to understand what Candy was pursuing. No other police of any gender ever took interest in me as an individual, and not even a troublemaker, weird female that looked more like a male. Why sudden, and bit subtle soft feelings on display now? What made her to offer her one and only bedroom to strangers and make herself uncomfortable by sharing bed with me in a closet like loft? I was tired and getting sleepy, so left those wondering thoughts for another day and got out of bathroom in my gown and panty. I never needed bra, because of lack of sufficiently grown mammary glands the other girls of my age had. I used loose tank-top for sleeping in the colder days and nothing in the other seasons. That was the privilege of having a bedroom for yourself exclusively. That night, I did the same by habit and it was quite let, to wake Anton to let me get back in the truck to get my stuff.
I returned to our bedroom and realized, the room was dark, and bed was occupied. I got in the bed and my robe slipped off my shoulders, as it did not have a belt to stay wrapped around. I pulled the cotton bed-sheet up to my neck and realized that I was sharing it with Candy. Despite the unusual arrangement,and her warm body touching mine, I fell asleep in minutes. Soon after that my dream state took over the reality of awake state and I reached the peaceful realm of Mother Nature, and the Raven. I will tell you about this aspect of my hidden world in the next chapter.
| Author Notes | The autobiographical narrative will make sense, if the reader has followed the story from the beginning. This chapter, like all other before it, has a reminiscing tone and some reflective comments. I hope I have succeeded in keeping all together to make a sense and a sense of continuum. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks. |
By Niyuta
Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of violence.
In the previous chapter I mentioned my dreams. I don't remember when dreaming began but I know, until the day I visited the grave of my dear Pappy, my dreams were related to those mundane and run of the mill sort of events. I forgot them upon waking and did not make efforts to recall any of its contents, because most were tied to the issues arising out of my high school life. Then a strange thing occurred during my first visit to Pappy's grave. At that time, I then did not recognize its significance; in fact, it was a message from the beyond and I realized it's importance only after arriving to Meeker, Colorado, and sleeping with another woman on that very first night. Even today, after passing of several years that dream, I vividly remember. Let me describe you that episode of my visit to Pappy's grave and the first dream in the new town that I mentioned:
Let me remind you that scene of my very first visit to the grave with Mr. Roy. He had not accompanied me to the grave. He stayed in his truck and allowed me to be with Pappy in private. I don't know why, but then I just didn't have tears or sad feelings for the dead. My grandma passed away when I was 10 years and despite of her sentiments about the sin and all (that I wrote before), she had taken care of me kindly and thoughtfully. I did not love her as I did my Pappy but was grateful for the care. People came from her Church to express their condolences etc. And during the funeral ceremony also, I remained indifferent to her departure from my life. Perhaps, Pappy's love for me, made her to take the place of my mom rather than a foster mother. I am not sure, but her treatment of my mother may have had some impact upon my feelings towards her. When she died, I behaved as if my caregiver had quit and I was not grieving.
Pappy took over her chores and the life became a routine for both of us. The death of Pappy became sort of a second testing of my idiosyncrasy. Again, I was without a sense of loss of a beloved person who had so much impact on my life and development. High school psychologist had made an attempt to reach out to me as a routine requirement for bereavement of a family member of a student. She came over, tried to make me display my feelings like grief and all that mushy sentiments most normal individuals feel. Not finding any of that, she identified me as a teenage person, with possibility of developing the following:
Bi-Polar, on the Spectrum Autistic, and a Personality Recognition (Former, Multiple Personality) Disorder, in that order.
During my visit to grave, I don't remember praying or saying appropriate things that are generally spoken. I don't know how, but that moment, I felt connected with him as I was used to when he was alive. I had felt his departure while I was in the detention center. That moment at the grave, I entered in a silent communication with him and from nowhere a Raven flew in and landed on the Pappy's grave. Ravens are not common birds in our neighborhood on the Taylor Mountain, West Virginia. At that time, I did not pay attention to the bird's arrival or its meaning.
That night and several other nights following, I dreamt being in the bosom of Mother Nature. In the most dreams, I found myself alone happily wandering in the pristine valleys with wilderness abound and, in each location, I found that Raven sitting nearby. No dream was complete without it, and the bird always hung around me but never upon my person. That bird had a unique personality, and I could identify it with its behavior. It would not eat or drink; just keep its rotating eye on me.
The first encounter of a sexual nature that occurred while sleeping with Candy, which I described in the previous chapter, gave me that the experience of a dream like vision, and it shook my soul. Like all the other dreams I was in the natural, isolated forests and a gentle river flowing passively touching the rocks and the Water Lilies. In that dream, in the midst of the gentle flow, I was standing up to my west, naked and the water caressing my legs and touching Vulva and Labia Majora giving me that euphoric sensation. I stood in that position and from the depth a Nymph like creature rose within inches of me. Her radiant face was half covered by wet blond hair cascading over her visage. Her ample, round and firm breast were contrasting with barely rising spots on my chest. Her appearance in a slim and smooth body depicted a celestial birth of an exquisite female; something like in the painting--The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. In comparison, with a muscular and solid figure, I became a Greek mythological figure.
The dramatic scene appeared like a prediction of a union of a divine man and a woman about to happen in my dream world. Progressing to the next frame of that dream, I, as a Greek Titan 'Memnon', was holding in my arms --her: The Titanesses 'Eos.' and as soon as our lips locked the 'Psychopomps' --The Raven, flew in from the deep blue yonder, descended and landed on my head.
At that moment I woke up and realized that we were in an embrace and it was I who was holding Candy in my arms, and with lips locked firmly. I think her kissing that woke me. That was awakening of me: in a real and also Metaphysical sense. She remained motionless upon me, in my gentle hold. I do not have recollection of how that happened or who initiated it. All I remember that there was a realization of some pleasant and euphoric feeling rising in the lowest part of my spine and traveling through my body, reaching to the inner part of my brain.
There was a spiritual uplifting in the realm of body-less existence; a sensation of floating in the air with a Raven flying with us. Then I was a fifteen-year-old, about to be entering in the sweet sixteen year in few weeks. I already had maturity of a person with awareness of adulthood and a matured sense of what the life of an adult Gender Identity Disorder person going to be. Love! Was that amorous interlude, an introduction to love? An unknown commodity for one who did not get to experience it at birth, nor during the childhood or while going through the puberty, had visited me on that fateful dawn, and that too in a place not of my choosing but that of destiny? Is this what Nietzsche called, 'Amor Fati' in German meaning love for the fate? I did not know then, nor I have found its true meaning yet, and I am at midlife period. I guess, each has to find own meaning about the fate and destiny. No point in discussing the famous former philosophers and the experts who claim they have understood their points of views.
That down of summer, was a new beginning and that moment of experiencing intimacy and the joy of someone wanting me as I was born, was overwhelming. I was neither a child nor a grown person and only way I knew how to handle those feelings was to equate the experienced sexual pleasures with those rise in an adolescent's mind from the events like getting to go to the County fair with Mr. Roy and come home with a satisfaction of enjoying the rides, hot dogs, and the Cotton-Candy.
The dream I alluded to before, I could not understand at that day, but later in life, at a mature age and in another scenario, I recalled that dream and realized my transformation. That very first lovemaking act introduced me to the capabilities of my body and soul's ability to love. It was my rebirth; old me born in a loveless circumstance had disappeared and the destiny had reassembled me. From that day I began the journey like a Monarch does after freeing itself from her cocoon.
Candy and I bonded with deep love and became the bosom bodies, we shared our feelings and thoughts and came to know each other intimately. For the first time I was learning the rules and techniques of relationship building and moved towards my mom in a kind and understanding ways. New me pleased her very much. How ironical it was! We two --a mother and a child, both sharing experiences of rejections, never bothered to make efforts to come near. Mom had her reasons, and mine you already know.
We moved in our home in two weeks after cleaning and fixing that house I called, 'Barn' in a contemptuous manner was completed. I got my own bedroom and a stand-up shower in it and Anton moved in with mom at the other end of the large house, closer to a shack outside, which became a repair shop for the Tractors and other farming equipment. Until then, for two weeks Candy and I enjoyed our love-pad and I learned lot about myself and her and to some extent understood the behaviors of my high school classmates who, perhaps had same feelings about me but did not know how to make me understand.
To me, Candy was like Madam Bovary, Kitty O'Hara, two I was attracted to while reading those novels, both appeared to me as wrapped up in her body, and to Candy, I was Captain Butler and all other fictitious heroes of Barbara Cartland's romantic novels which I introduced to her. At night, we both read those novels together and imagined the time and era of romantic interludes of European origins. We acted out those roles as if we were in those novels. I began to shave of my protective mask and the stoic layers and became easy to communicate person in just two weeks. Amazing fact of life is, one person, an event, or an episode of right kind, makes or mars a personality. I never in my life gave up on the optimism, without losing my logical and practical approach to life; I never forgot Pappy's stories of brave Airmen and Soldiers and their perseverance and courage in face of dangers. I only combined the two and it became a citadel of my values, the sense of being who I am, and acceptance of my role in this world of religion defined gender identifications.
Today, I know who I am, and had been; don't need the politicians and Bible towing other power brokers to tell me who I am not.
After moving in, we three picked up the baggage of individual life from where we had left it before embarking on this journey. I felt light as good chunk of that West Virginia mental baggage I had discarded with help from Candy. Destiny has, as it appears, own plans for all involved in this unfolding story of an outcast individual. Anton being a mechanic, started his late uncle's repair shop right behind his bedroom. The shack perhaps was a storage place for equipment, and it was at the bottom end of the sloping dirt road. At the higher end, away from the broken wooden door of the workshop, there was a man-made mount about five feet tall and it looked like a Mesa, with a flat top.
Mom found a waiter's job at the same diner we eat upon arrival where we had met Candy, the policewoman. It didn't take much time or efforts on her part to find a niche in that rural society and accepted the life given to her.
My papers from school arrived at the Rio Blanco County's Department of Education along with my Personality Evaluation Report from the High School Psychologist. That sealed my fate when it came to how I was to continue my education. Fortunately, I received a new evaluation and by then, with the relationship with Candy and her coaching of how to answer questions for giving a positive impression to authority, I was prepared and did aced the interviews. I impressed everyone with my knowledge of literature and the command on English. It all ended in putting me in the 12th grade again but in a remote learning program for home-bound students. I was delighted to stay away from other students of one and only high school. In a week, my home schooling began and a woman in her mid-thirties started the process of my education.
For a while, my dreams ceased to link me with the wilderness and Raven disappeared altogether. Candy knew my routine and we continued the relationship by sleepovers and going out to the isolated places on the rivers and taking skinny-dips. First time in my life, I was happy and began to laugh and joke. Mom too was happy, and hopeful that Anton will propose her, and she would settle down, happy in a barn looking house, and forgotten dreams of a suburban life.
Six months passed and we were at the end of a harsh winter and farmers were preparing for the sowing and other activities. Anton was making money as he was the only independent repairman in the county and was able to get the repair done quickly. Tractors, Harvesters and the other paraphernalia arrived and left after the repairs. I watched him driving the tractors on the flat top in front of his workshop and park there to load it in the truck parked on the other side of that hump.
Anton never used to look at me as if I was an ugly sight or a nuisance not to deal with. Lately, I caught him watching me discretely. In the beginning, I ignored it and did not think much about it. Then I began to think about the timing of his behavior and realized that he was trying to fish for clues about my relationship with Candy. He did try to seduce her, but it did not go too far when she told him outright to go somewhere else, or....
Her wearing uniform also intimidated him; perhaps he expected that she may have a policeman boyfriend, and they could begin looking at his past and the immigration status. With me in his control, he thought there was a way to get even with Candy, if only he could make me talk. He was suspicious about her spending so much of her free time with me and it didn't escape his attention that on the night of arrival, Candy and I had shared a bed. Each time Candy came to visit me during her day patrol, he would stand outside the workshop to watch her leaving. We both became alarmed by his unwanted attention and became cautious about how we acted when he was around and eventually, she stopped coming over except to pick me up.
One afternoon after my teacher left, I got out my bedroom and went out to take a walk around the house. I had made many changes in my appearance and began wearing sport pants with elastic west band and a lose sweater, rather than the standard blue jeans and a short sleeve top. I was thinking of how to celebrate my 16th birthday coming in two weeks. As I waked towards the house, I saw Anton parking a MacChormick International Tractor on the hump which he had been repairing since morning. He parked the machine facing directly towards the shade. From the spot I was standing, I could see a Harvester sheering plow inside the shade. It was jacked up in the front with two small hydraulic jacks and in the rear, it precariously resting on the cinder blocks. Apparently, he was going to remove the blades for sharpening or repairs. When he noticed me watching his activities while coming towards the house, and when I came within his proximity, he addressed me in a nasty voice:
"What the fuck you are wandering around for? Coming from a licking that bitch?"
I was not prepared for such verbal attack to give him a suitable answer. For some time, I was feeling tension building between us. Over several weeks since Candy told him to go fuck himself, he would get in a bad mood whenever he saw me. In some odd way, he sensed the intimacy in our relation.
Anton never discussed anything with my mom except money and budgets. She too was happy with her life outside the house and didn't care about my life at all. Those two were like business partners working independently for mutual benefits. Mom needed security and stability and he needed a housekeeper and a woman to sleep with. They never argued or quarreled. Just a relationship of convenience, like those of European Royalties. She had shelved her dreams or may have even given them up all together. I never asked her anything and got used to being a non-descriptive person. After Candy coming in my life, I preferred that the arrangement to stays that way. That afternoon things suddenly changed catastrophically for me.
I ignored his remarks about our relationship and started walking toward the house without as much as looking at him. I wanted the security of my bedroom; fear of something going to happen rose in me. I had never seen a vicious face as I saw that moment but did not expect any physical contact. He never attempted that sort of relationship with mom or me since I came to live with mom. I felt safe with him. He was always doing something without as much as throwing a glance at me. I thought, in his mind I was a ghost--a spirit without a body.
My ignoring his crude remark infuriated him and in a swift move he grabbed me by putting me in a body lock and dragged me in the shade. The whole action happened so quickly that I could not prevent it. Next thing he did was pressed my face against the wall, pulled my pants and panty down and before I could realize, I felt a savage jab into my vagina, and I screamed. In that fifteen-twenty minutes assault, I had lost my virginity.
"This is what fucking is; you nasty cunt sucker; it's a man's job; now go, get washed and if you like it, come back, I am here for you."
Then he went back of the shed to clean himself and I walked out and went to my bedroom to clean myself and the dirty underclothing.
There was nothing in that savage act that any female or male could possibly enjoy. In most cases, it generates a deep-rooted fear, sense of vulnerability and an impotent hate; but to many others, it becomes that smoldering anger for forcibly taking the precious sense of self-esteem, and ownership of the body. That's what happened to me.
I went in the house and called mom. I told her what Anton had done. For several minutes, she said nothing. I could only hear her heavy breathing. Finally, I said to her,
"Mom, I am calling Candy and report the crime."
"Oh no; don't do that; we will sort it out when I come home; we can't afford to lose house and be on our own. Did you do something to get him exited? In any case, it was bound to happen sooner or later; at least it is him; better than some unknown person. Let me handle it."
I couldn't believe my ears but then, perhaps she was thinking of her own experience at the same age and how that that has affected our lives. The ground reality of financial dependence has shown again and again that the dependent individuals lose their precious assets-the freedom. They lose control over their choice to choose how should they live. Sadly, often many do it willing and chose to live a defeated and disgraceful slave's life with the tyrants. All out of fear of uncertain future they imagine to be more horrible than the present existence. I felt her anguish and understood the reasons she chose that path.
However, that logical approach failed to reign in the raging demon of revenge in me. How could he dare to use a brute force? Had me made attempt to seduce me and with my permission, taken me, it is possible I may have gone along with it out of juvenile curiosity about sexual act. Most young high school girls and boys did it and bragged around me to humiliate me for no one wanting to take my virginity.
I was punished for an act of excessive violence then should this act of violence go unpunished? I didn't think so. One thing I remembered from my interview with the psychoanalyst after my beating Walter and the attest, was, his remarks about my second personality; one that possesses uncontrollable urge to punish the perpetrator who initiates the attack. That afternoon, sitting in my bedroom, without getting support from mom or any other professional entity, that dormant me began to occupy my thoughts and psyche.
Kali, that Hindu goddess in her terrible form with blood dripping from her mouth and a cut off head of Shiva in other hand, is a metaphoric statement of a divine female power rising for the protection of the righteous virtues of women. Presented in that incarnated form to vanquish the ego-driven world of male dominance and destroy the enslavement of women, and others. Her spirit entered in me and I was the Kali came alive to destroy Anton the demon. Candy's lover had vanished in the depth of same subconscious it had arrived from. The metamorphosis was complete, and I came out of the shower with the volcanic anger. I had experienced it when the fight with Walter happened almost a year ago. That insanity of getting even, came alive. Once the burning lava of vengeance for wrong done begins to flow unchecked by the wisdom and reasoning, there is no stopping or telling what it is going to destroy.
In minutes the new personality took over my recent, loving psyche that was in its infancy. The newly acquired feelings of tenderness and freedom of laughing and joking had vanished, and By the time I went outside and stood on the doorway, that old personality had completely manifested, and revenge became the only driving force.
Does the diabolic personality appear out of some hidden vault of mind when triggered by an event of violence? I don't know, but I believe there is a hidden link to our base instincts that makes a mild and docile human resort to a senseless savagery that does not exists anywhere in the nature.
From the porch I saw Anton sprawled on the shop floor with his right hand extended under the Harvester and head almost touching the inside of the jack holding it about 10 inches higher. I looked at the other end of the road and saw that big MacChormic International parked for loading. With stealth I went and released the handbrake, locked the front wheels and steering straight, then moved behind the tractor, kicked the wooden chalks from rear wheels, and with all my body weight shoved the tractor down towards the shade. The groves formed by the giant wheels of machines on the dirt road, facilitated the straight-line movement.
Before Aron could realize what was happening, the tractor picked up the speed and slammed directly in the rear of that machine. A loud, blood curling scream got muffled by the loud crash of the entire Harvester. From my place, I saw his lifeless arm sticking out of the machine but couldn't see his face as his head was buried in the pile of metal part. I rushed to the shade, climbed up on the tractor, started and moved it back to its original place. I then cut the engine and put the chalks back on the rear wheels. Then I walked to the shade and closed the front wooden door and went back to my bedroom.
Without an ounce of regret or remorse, went to sleep with a satisfaction of teaching a lesson to that creep who was planning to hurt my beloved Candy by raping me and take my love away; I couldn't think of my life without her and with that the new me died with Anton and old me, with the stoic mask of dead conscious stood up. The darkness of that cosmic black hole proportion; a void, that love had no means to fill became my world.
I am not sure how long I slept, but a loud noise from the door woke me up. I went out to answer and found old farmer waiting on the porch.
"Where is your father? He is going to help me in loading tractor on my truck."
I replied:
"He ain't my father and he could be in the workshop. Just holler at him; he may be asleep."
"I did that, and pushed that door in; it is not opening; not budging an inch."
"Well, it opens out, you need to pull, in any case if he didn't answer, then he must have gone to get parts or something." I replied without looking at his face.
"What sort of stupid thing to do; he knowed I have to have tractor before sun set; I can't see very well after dark and I told him that" Old man continued grumbling.
"I don't have time to waste now, sowing has to start, and I haven't even started plowing."
"Maybe I can help you to load it." I offered my services.
With a doubtful look, he agreed, and I reversed the tractor in his pickup. I had watched Anton doing that many times and the old man with his tractor disappeared in the cloud of dry dust.
I went in and began working on the math homework until mom showed up. She came straight to my bedroom and I got out of the chair. Mom hugged me and held me to her heart. Then she wiped her eyes and sat on the bed. I said nothing; I couldn't. The stream of empathy that had begun to flow because of Candy's love, had dried up and the hardness of my heart was completed. Frankly, at that moment I just wanted to be left alone; I definitely did not need her. There was nothing she could offer me that I would want to take and keep it with me for life. Even Candy's image and memories were fading from my fast-closing mind.
I don't know if I subconsciously communicated my feelings to mom. She silently walked out of my room. I heard her walking out of the door and I returned to my bed and fell in the bed with eyes closed. I did not have any idea what was happening around me; I was dead to the world. My love appeared to have evaporated in thin air. It must have been an hour or so and I heard someone entering the house.
In few minutes one deputy came in my bedroom. Quickly he scanned the room and said:
"I am sorry to tell you that your dad has died; it looks like an accident in the garage."
"I acted like a shocked child, and fell back on the bed, pretending to have passed out. In few minutes EMS folks came in and began reviving me. It did not take much for me to come around. They gave me a pill and liquid to drink it with, I took it and pretended to have swallowed but spat it out in a tissue as soon as they left. In a short time, Candy came in and held me to her heart. All others left us alone for doing the police work outside and we were alone in the room. Slowly she let go of me and spoke in a subdued voice:
"Do you have anything to do with this? I know you were pissed off at him because of he made moves on me. Tell me now; I may guide you in case there is a police investigation. Don't hide anything from the law; I have read your psychological profile data from West Virginia. I know how angry you can get."
Listening to her speech, I did what I was told to do by Ms. Holland. I played possum in front of a law officer. I said to her:
"What are you babbling about? How am I going to do anything to him or anybody? I don't know where that accident took place. I have not left the room since my teacher left."
She did not say anything as a reaction to my speech but said:
"That looks like an accident, and it has happened in the shade, and it was discovered by your mother when she went to see if he was still working and found him trapped under the machine he was repairing. There is evidence of impact by something on the Harvester while it was on the jacks and that appeared to have caused it to fall off the rear supporting blocks and that seems to be the cause of death; the autopsy off course will give the final cause, but at this point, it appears to be a possible homicide. There are tractor tire marks indicating someone reversing it from the shed. There will be a full investigation when specialist arrive from the police lab."
My mind had already began preparing an alibi. Knowing that the old farmer may come in the picture, I decided to tell Candy a partial truth about the tractor. I replied:
"Yes, I drove that tractor from the workshop door to the mount for loading in the pickup parked on the other side of it. Anton was not home, and the old farmer began bothering me, so I drove it up the road and loaded it o his truck; does that make me a suspect?"
I was now relying an inquiry conducted by a policewoman and not my lover. Ms. Holland's advice was fresh in my mind. Speak truth that does not incriminates you; you have a protection of the 5th Amendment. Do not volunteer any information that has not been approved by your attorney. I clamped down and closed my eyes.
Candy then moved upon my torso and cupped my face in her hands and kissed me. Then she whispered in my ear:
"Your mom told me what he did to you this afternoon. It was your good luck that she spoke to me first and I stopped her from including it in her statement to anyone. Until a need for a defense attorney arises, this information need not be given. You are not a suspect at this moment. And until that happens, then the accused person's statement will include the details. For now, you are the last and only person who saw him alive. There was no other person on the property. Do not mention you driving the tractor up that mound unless directly asked.
There is another thing; I found a paper towel in the bathroom that has a smell of sperms and seminal fluid protein. Did you wash your cloth? If not, do it now. I am worried about all this. Apart from the criminal problems, there are financial problems arising and your mom is worried stiff what will happen. She is not his wife, and I don't think Anton made a will giving her any resources. I will do what I can; I am also duty bound. Whatever happens after tonight, we will not be seeing each other until this affair is settled. I will avoid meeting you outside my police duties.
Be strong and remember, I love you with all my heart; you must know that and don't let any adverse event that may try to take you back to that personality I found you with when we met the first time. I am recusing myself from the investigation as a family friend. Our love for each other must win; don't leave me. Here, take this pill as soon as you wake up; it's the 'night-after' pill for conception avoidance; a protection from unwanted pregnancy. Don't forget, and do not tell any soul about this talk; your and my life depends on this pill and what happens to you. I am praying for you. Don't let that demon return, we have to have life together."
For the last time she kissed my lifeless lips and walked out of my holographic paradise in Meeker, Colorado.
| Author Notes | With the change of residency, a new sets of events happen in her life and a physical as well as psychological intimacy forms that gives new direction to hopes appears. |
By Niyuta
I remember that episode and its aftermath today as if I am going back in time. When I think about the state of my mind and how I handled it then, I have to give a glimpse of my education and the mentor who installed stoicism in me at early age. About the school education, I have written in the first few chapters, therefore I will skip that and go back to the informal, and experience-based education my grandfather gave me.
Pappy rarely spoke to anyone about his life in the Army Air Corps that operated from the English coast during the 2nd Great War. He served as a Bombardier in the Liberator Bomber Group. I found out about this, when I, accidentally came across his war medals, the citation details and photographs while rummaging for something in his old trunk. He had to tell me about how he got the medals and who the men in the photograph were with him.
He reluctantly narrated the episode to me, as if he did not want to revisit that memory. The story of the last bombing raid that got him those medals must have affected him in a way that disillusioned him about the faith in god and the Church. It was not about his heroism; it was about the courage and the unwavering determination to fulfill the duty and the responsibility of a man in uniform; the Captain of that bomber. It seems, while returning from the bombing sortie and still flying over the Germany, they came under attack from the German fighters and heavy ground flack. The co-pilot was killed, and the Captain's right arm was blown off. Navigator and gunnery Sergeant were unconscious. Taking the plane and its injured crew back to the airbase was almost impossible task. Pappy was the only crew member who was spared and slightly injured and physically functional. Captain called him up from the bombing compartment in the belly of the plane. When he came up in the cockpit, found the Captain wounded badly, and still trying to stabilize the plane with his only intact left hand. Pappy rushed to him to fix him for bailing out of the plane that surely looked like going down, but he found the Skipper, totally unconscious of his dangling right hand and was chanting:
"Got to fly back, everyone must go home safe."
Man was not even aware of Pappy wrapping a bandage and a sling to support and tie his arm somehow to the arm-support of the chair. Semiconscious and chanting that mantra, the Captain brought the plain across the English Channel, landed it on the runway, and collapsed. Pappy sitting in the co-pilot's seat pushed the throttle quadrant to shut and applied air brakes to slow it down. It's undercarriage did not function properly as hydraulic system was damaged. The plane landed on its underbelly and came to stop. Pappy had helped that Captain to fulfil his promise; he could have bailed out but stood with his comrades in arm. He got up from his seat to take the flyer out of his chair, he looked up to Pappy and asked:
"Did we make it?"
Pappy answered him: "Yes Captain; we have reached home."
Captain looked up to him; smiled and thanked Pappy and let the death free him from the pains; he died with that smile on his face intact.
I wonder often about that man's character and action! What force must have taken control of his body and mind? How did a person who ought to have died at least three hours ago, flew that plane? Are there angels watching people like him? If that's true, where are they when indescribable atrocities are committed by the strong and powerful individuals as well as organized societies? These and other similar questions have no answers coming from any sources including the religious powers and also our science dependent civilization. This, and many similar stories and the aftermath of our heroes have gone in the dustbin of our history, but to me, that Pappy's story became a pillar of strength.
"I can't quit no matter what is thrown at me," became my chant and in each adverse situation, I repeat it in my mind again and again.
I call the journey that Captain took on that flight, a hero's journey to freedom. It is an undertaking that has no guarantees of success in the material world but has an assured place in the spiritual world of eternal life. Each person who is subjected to the overwhelming odds, also can take same journey and come on the top of the odds. In this scheme of things set for the living, there are no guiding posts and markers leading us to a safe shelter. We have to carry the weight of that we bring with us. Only way to be free, it seems is to carry it with smile until end.
From Leo Tolstoy 's story which I read when I was studying in high school sort of gave me a message. I am recalling it:
After the first batch of humans arrived on earth, each person was given a burden. After carrying it for a while, all began calling their Maker and complaining to him that He was not fair in distributing the burden among them as it was becoming obvious that all did not have same size baggage. Some lucky ones seems to have a smaller than the others. Tired of their whining and crying the Maker told the lot that He can only do is to let them come to a meadow, put the burdens down for a moment, step 20 paces back, then wait for five minutes so they can view each baggage carefully, and upon a signal, rush and pick one they desired from the lot. They followed the instructions, and each person went and picked up the smallest bag they could find.
The story ends with the result of that exchange. What happened when those humans took that chance is this: Each person found out that the burden each participant so eagerly picked because it appeared smaller, turned out to be heavier than the one they gave up.
When I read that story, I realized that in life we don't really get that opportunity to exchange that burden with others even though we do try to do so. I have to take mine with me as best as I can, until my final resting moment happens. I believe some say that you carry it to your next life but for now I think I will just concentrate on this life for now.
With this background thinking, I made myself ready to face the consequences of my action. My mom on the other hand went into a tailspin motion. My welfare was not part of her concern before and I did not expect it at that time. She took it for granted that I have a prearranged destiny with a savior angel waiting in wing for holding me up as my Pappy in the past and then Candy did it now.
I think mom on the other hand looked upon her calamitous life as similar to the life of Greek mythological dud named Sisyphus. Ordered by the Zeus, this character had to push a huge bolder up the mountain, and as the story says, upon reaching on the top, that bolder would slip from his hand and roll all the way to the base from where he started. He had to keep doing that exercise for a long time until the head honcho Zeus told him to stop. All her life, mom has been pushing her own huge bolder: her life, up the mountain top of poverty, only to watch it rolling back all the way to the bottom of the mountain, for her to go through that pushing it up exercise. Again, and again, she struggled and then came Anton, and her encouraging event that she had hoped would give her a hand in finishing the job of getting over the mountain.
When I thought about all such history of our lives, and the conditions we faced, I became aware of the fact that the child welfare laws had forced her to be my guardian parent, and now had become a huge part of that bolder she was pushing up the hill. A frightening thought emerged in my mind, to avoid that additional responsibility, she may spill the beans about the rape and that would give the investigators a motive for the murder, and if the death is established as a homicide, I ran the risk of becoming a person of interest. Because at the time of death, I alone was at the scene and the cause of collapse was due to an impact on the machine that was jacked in an unsafe manner. It then already been a foregone conclusion as Candy's questioning me indicated.
I understood Candy's mental condition. Her close friendship with me, if not the intimacy, was a general knowledge, and staying away from me was the only prudent option she had. Under the circumstances, she had to limit involvement in the investigation. She also must have recognized the risk to her career and person. She had removed a piece of evidence from the scene of crime and withheld important information from the investigators. Perhaps, she worried about mom's ability to keep information that would attract attention to me, secrete.
With cynicism creeping in my thinking, my mind began playing different scenarios about how police inquiries may proceed. A thought that mom may turn me and Candy with me, in. She would reveal Anton's assault on me with hopes that it would convict me and as a minor, that would make me a state ward. If I would be spending time in the juvenile prison long enough time, then upon release I would have reached the adult age and would not be her ward and be permanently out of her life. So much mistrust between us and no emotional attachment, I had to imagine all other possibilities and settings.
I also had a suspicion that realizing that her hopes of getting out of the drudgery of life dashed to pieces, she would connect my previously displayed violent tendency to hurt others who have wronged me, to Anton's death, and like Candy, would believe that I pushed that equipment with my body deliberately. Exhausted with such mental planning and plotting, I decided to face each hour as it came without saying a word to anyone. I expected a team of those specialist like the group I had encountered after Walter affairs, would take turn to reach at the bottom of my hidden psyche. I had prepared myself to be on guard and uncooperative until I know to which direction the inquiry would be going.
However, that day went without anyone bothering me and I remained locked in the bedroom to continue building my strategies of defense and what next situation I may be facing. That protective mode, I did not realize, in a rapid regression was transforming me into my old personality. During high school days, I wore a mask of a perpetual, 'on guard person' and that person then had ruled over me and caused my actions and reactions. That repressed West Virginian me had freed itself and was working feverishly to kill my recently emerged soft, loving and cuddly persona.
I think, the absence of loving touches and the fear of its permanent disappearing can push a person into the abyss of dark and psyche disintegrating depression. In such situations, a hostile and diabolic monster becomes active and ready to undertake hideous acts of violence. We have often seen it emerging due to such state as I was in. We have seen this specific Avatar emerging in a form of an active shooter who does the mass shootings of innocent school children or kill the very person they love. Remember Ophelia, and her lover Hamlet, suffering from the Oedipus Syndrome, and his torturing behavior towards his lover that led to her death? At that time, it appeared to me that a possibility existed where I would reach to that stage of deteriorating mental conditions. I was calm and collected outwardly but I was worried about my mind engaging in the thinking I described.
I didn't know where mom was and by the time night fell, the area became quiet, night prowlers began their foraging and the nocturnal folks alive, went about usual businesses of their lives; those dead, they had nothing to worry about all this were at peace. Anton's body was removed to the morgue and lawmen had gone home for night.
In that darkness, I diverted my mind to thinking of my independence. I believe you are allowed to become one at 16th birthday. Some lucky young girls I believe, think of how they will navigate their love-boat that they would be launching in the ocean of endless opportunities. I, and people like me, have to think about a different course. We are less likely to have the rights of passage into the life of so called, 'normal' human beings.
Hardest part in doing such exercise of planning one's future is the recognizing one's vulnerability and where from one can get a helping hand. In my case, I already was aware of the negative circumstances, and couldn't think of a source of help. There was no returning possible and path to move forward was invisible in the thick fog on the river of my life. I remember the Captain and my mantra and repeated in my mind: "I am going forward; no bailout." I got up and eat some leftovers and went back to sleep.
My dream returned and once again I reached the paradise; one the Morpheus arranged for me where Somnia, his son took form of my beloved Candy; the one who never visited me in my life. The Raven also went away for good when she left me at dawn.
| Author Notes | Readers should note that the thoughts and mental conditions described throughout this novel are the reflections on the protagonist' past when she is writing them as an adult. However, the basis for that has come from the notes she had written in her journals, immediately after the life changing events have happened. |
By Niyuta
I don't know how they acquire, but some people appear to have the ability to tackle everything, including the proverbial "good, bad and the ugly events of the day and get ready for more to come. To take the stuff like that on the chin, pack it neatly, and tuck it away down somewhere in the labyrinth of the subconscious, requires a lot of inner strength. Hardship in life I think builds a mind that has that capability. In a short span of sixteen years, I seem to have built it in me or maybe I inherited it from my Pappy and mom. Along with that, Morpheus has blessed me with ability to fall asleep regardless of the stressful events I have faced.
That's what I experienced on that penultimate night of Anton affair. I expected interrogation but that did not happen. After waiting for mom to return home, and a call from the police or anyone of authority, I slept alone that night without worries of any kind. In the recurring dreams I visited the familiar scenes of intimacy; I needed them at that hour.
Next morning, I woke up with the doorbell and looked at the digital clock on the side table. It was half past nine. Some impatient person was riding on the bell button. I yelled from my bedroom, that I was coming and asked not to make a racket. In few minutes, I was at the door and found a white woman with a briefcase, standing arms akimbo. Apparently, she was annoyed by the delay and she displayed it on her face with a frown. Seeing me at the door in my pajama and a grown, she spoke in a gruff voice:
"I am Magi Malone; I am a Child Welfare Coordinator from the State of Colorado Health and Human Services; I have to speak with you. Can I come in?"
I stepped back to let her in and said:
"Sure, please come in, and take a seat; I will be back shortly."
She went and sat on the kitchen chair and placed her briefcase on the dining table and I went in to finish the toiletry. When I got back to her, she appeared bit more friendly than before and asked me to sit down pointing to the chair opposite to her. She reminded me of Ms. Holland, my West Virginia Attorney. When I settled in the seat, she began speaking in an official tone without sign of any friendliness:
"I have to tape our session and if you have any objection to that, then I have to write down every word and it will take some time. Do I have your permission?"
I had faced this sort of ritual in the West Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice office. I stated for the record:
"I have no objections to taping the interview."
Then she began with a short speech about the purpose of that visit and what her role was, etc., etc., and began her procedural question and answer session.
"Your mom is admitted to the Rio Blanco county's mental health support facility. She is under observation and a watch because she tried to harm herself. I am here not for any investigation but for your welfare and I have to ask you some questions to collect basic information about you so we can assist you to get through the crisis."
I simply nodded my head. She recorded mainly my daily needs and availability of the personal resources. There was nothing that looked ominous to me at that moment but when she completed the interview, a possibility that I never thought of before, came out in her ending remarks.
"You can't live here all by yourself and you will have to move into the Foster Care System. Someone will be contacting you before the day is over and prepare yourself for moving with a family or in a temporary shelter. Don't open the door for anyone except the authorized individuals who will arrive only after calling and setting a time of arrival. Police are aware of your situation and they will come around on to check on you and patrolling the facility. If you have any questions or need anything, call the telephone numbers on this card."
She handed her card to me, got in her vehicle and was gone.
I sat in the chair for a while in a strange subdued stage. I started to get up from my seat but began to feel lightheaded and managed to stand up in a numbing state but could not react to my surroundings. My sense of being stopped working and everything in the room I was trying to relate to, began appearing like a view you would have of the world when in a Roller coaster car that has stopped moving and is trapped upside down. Somehow, I managed to reach the bedroom and fell on the bed. With a deep sense of loss of physical body, and in a dream like semi consciousness, I began to go down and down in a circular motion and passed out in a comatose state.
Floating in that thick darkness a silver line emerged and took a shape. An outline of a figure kept on appearing and vanishing in front of me. Suddenly, a jab in my left forearm brought back the sensation of being alive. In a blurred vision I saw a bag hanging on a bedside rack and in seconds I began to sense liquid flowing through my arm. It was the fluid from the I.V. Bag passing in my vein. I was in the Emergency Department of the Community Hospital.
It took few bags of fluid to get me out of that near coma stage. I learned what happened to me after I passed out that day. The Events unfolded like this:
I had not eaten or consumed liquid for over 24 hours, causing the dehydration and with that, my blood sugar had dropped to such a level that I lost consciousness. When I did not answer several phone calls, the Child Welfare professionals felt that some untoward event must have occurred, and to avert any emergency situation, they called police to check my house. After all, it turned out to be my lucky day event; Candy was on a petrol duty. She arrived and after not getting response to her banging on the door, opened the door with the key still in her possession. In my semiconscious dream-state and the figure I had seen, must be that of her holding me to her heart until the Paramedics arrived.
To cut a long story to a reasonable length, all went as per the standard operating procedures and I came home next morning. As far as moving me to a safer location goes, the County folks were relieved when Candy offered to house me until a permanent solution was found. That of course did not happen as we know how the management by crisis solution works. They got busy and forgot to find that permanent housing for me. Mom returned home in a week and slowly, without much more drama, went about her business. Anton was buried and with him the investigation also died. No one bothered to investigate an obvious accident cause, and all became well, that ended well, as Shakespeare stated (that is, for Candy, me and mom). The time rolled the year out without as much as a ripple on our pond of tranquil life. I finished my education and graduated with the home tutoring, and with Candy by my side, we began our love filled life with a sense of freedom from the past dystopia.
Then my 17th birthday came closer, and Candy and I were overjoyed with the sense of freedom to do whatsoever we were doing in secret and without the utmost cautions. Now we could love each other openly. My legal adulthood rights were to be granted at the stroke of midnight, on my birthday. We had plans to do so many things and how we were going to come out in open in a profound way. We were going to get engaged to be married despite of, the local prejudices, and the political games of the state. However, an unexpected event brought our plans to a complete stop.
Three days before my birthday, mom called me at Candy's place and asked me to come for dinner. I accepted the invitation but insisted of Candy coming with me. She in a mysterious way said:
"Not to night love; this evening there are some private, and legal family matters we have to deal with only among us."
Reluctantly I went to old place which I had avoided for the obvious reasons. To my surprise, Mr. Roy was standing in front of me with his broad smile and open arms. I was delighted to see him. My past was linked to him in an awkward way and yet, there was a trusted relationship with him. I hugged him and asked him what brought him to that remote part of Colorado? He replied:
"I have an obligation to fulfill on your 17th birthday and be free of a promise I made to your grandfather."
I couldn't understand all that stuff and I said to him:
"Oh; that's great! That mean you will be here for my birthday and that's a great idea; it's goanna be a great day for us. I have announcements to make on that day also and we have to go for Ice Cream like we used to."
I learned about the purpose of his visit during that dinner. According to the Trusty Agreement, he was to handover the inheritance coming from Pappy's stocks and cash to me upon achieving the legal status of adulthood, which was to happen on my birthday. He explained to me the legal procedures and the administrative stuff we had to do on that day.
Mom was dismayed a bit that her dad left nothing for her. However, with a belief that as my mom, she and I would be living together, and somehow, part of the benefits would have to go to her. I was still a baby in her mind and as a parent she had a right given to her by law in the first place. She hugged me and said with some sincerity:
"That's a first good thing has happened to you and I am glad that things look promising for us."
I kissed her on the cheek and said what I knew, she was hoping I would say:
"Mom, it's for both of us; I am going to do my best to take care of you."
That night, I told Candy that story of my coming in with a modest amount of money. She did not show interest in my good news nor was excited about my freedom. I couldn't figure out the sudden change in her demure and happy personality. At that moment, she appeared as indifferent to my good news. Candy simply congratulated me and moved on to the other mundane subjects and then using tiredness excuse went to bedroom.
Stunned with that, I sat in the living room confused and apprehensive about if my receiving money was causing some sort of emotional storm of separation in her. In the year that I spent in her loving and caring relationship, I had changed completely. Happiness of receiving and giving love with the comfortable living, brought positive changes in me. I learned not to be suspicious of people when acceptance of me as I am, began to happen. Since moving with Candy, I learned how to reciprocate to love and friendship. People liking me despite of my male persona was the greatest catalytic event of life.
Now, when things were going in the right direction, I was sensing a sudden barrier rising between us. I couldn't figure out a single cause. I knew, unless I get to the bottom of it, I won't be at peace. I had to find out and decided to get it out of Candy immediately before the night was over. I got up and went to her. Gently, I pushed the bedroom door, and saw her laying on the bed in a fetal position with her face away from me. A muffled sobbing sound alarmed me, and I rushed towards her, put my arms around her and lifted her. She turned her head to face me. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. I wiped them and held her close to my heart and in silence, we remained for a time that appeared like the eternity. I could not even ask her what was wrong. Instinctively I felt, Candy came home with some bad news from work.
The signs of troubles for her at work began brewing since I moved with her. She has been experiencing sexual harassment from other men in uniform ever since she joined the force. However, so far, she had managed to handle that with complaining to her superiors. In the beginning, they used sexist humor and subtle hints, and then some tried to seduce her, and the others made her offers of marriage.
A specific individual who wanted her badly, had taken her refusal to the higher level of hostility. He began spreading rumors about her sexual preferences. My presence in her life gave him more ammunition for developing gossips. I was a minor and he began probing my past relationship in West Virginia. It frustrated him when he found out that I was not involved with any other student in any relationship but those of hostile nature. Nevertheless, he kept that line of thinking and whenever he found Candy alone, he alluded it to her that he has the knowledge and proof of our illicit relationship.
That night, I wanted to hear her story in her words, but the timing was not right; she was frightened and hurt; she needed strength of love and I was there for her. She perhaps felt my inner strength and we slept in same position and without changing cloths. I fell asleep after I sensed her rhythmic breathing. Next morning was to bring me a new vista of life without the yoke of juvenile immaturity dictated by the well-meaning rules and regulations of our Bible influenced legal system. A new day will bring something new and awesome gift to us; is it not Pappy? I silently asked my Oracle and closed my eyes.
| Author Notes | The subject and the characters are controversial to some, however, they represent people and should be taken for what they are--a part of human family. It's a fiction and not created for promoting any special idea or political ideology. I hope it will be read from a prism of human diversity and the plight of individuals in our society that do not conform the Socio-religious norms of the society we live in. |
By Niyuta
When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I realized was the cloths I slept in. From the time I got my own bedroom, that was in my elementary school days, I slept with nothing but my underwear. Why did I then I would have slept like I had to get up and go somewhere instantly. I also realized that Candy had left the bedroom. I sat in my bed and slowly, memory of previous evening and night, returned and I jumped out of bed, rushed out to find her and found her in the bathroom taking shower.
Hearing me entering the bathroom, she moved the curtain and said:
"You sleep well, and must be dreaming when I woke up?"
I did not reply but raised my eyebrows in a questioning way, what she meant.
"You were smiling and mumbling something, and I thought maybe you were having that recurring dream. Come on in, we haven't taken shower together is a long while." Candy invited me.
My mind was still entangled with the emotions of last evening and worried subconscious was reluctant to get into amorous episode early in the morning. I said to her:
"Not a good timing; Mr. Roy will be here in one hour to take me to the Court House. Besides that, we have to deal with the issues between us; the one caused by, what looks like to me, by the new developments at work. We discussed it if you remember."
"Disappointed Candy pulled herself in and said in a lame tone:
"Yes; it did escape my mind. I will meet you in the living area shortly."
I finished the morning routine and came out in the bathrobe and found her dressed up for the duty sipping a cup of coffee.
"Hurry up; I have half an hour before heading out to the station. There is coffee ready on the counter." Candy spoke in a casual voice.
I couldn't make head or tail of her quick recovery from the previous night's crisis at work, that she had narrated to me. I said nothing and went to bedroom and came out in my formal attire I always wore to go to such affairs. Then I walked up to her and took her in my arms, kissed her affectionately and said:
"You frightened me last night; what was eating you?"
"Nothing, just the stresses of working with those assholes, and putting up with the nasty barbs."
I looked in her eyes and she averted them. Instinctively, I recognized that gesture. I had seen that in the eyes of Walter, when I went up to him to shake hand and express my regrets for beating him. That morning, I felt, Candy was worried about something and did not wish to tell me some bad news that would ruin my birthday celebration. I caught her face in the palms and turned it towered me and said:
"This is not working; I have to know now, or else I will be miserable all day, wondering why you have stopped trusting me. Please, let us work it out together."
She broke out of my embrace, turned towards the sofa and sat down with her head buried in her chest. I followed her and sat next her. She in a low voice gave me the true cause of her distress: the plan she learned brewing at the station to put her in a tight jacket and expose her to the danger of lifetime. She received an anonymous tip from a person working in the office of the County's DA. Perhaps it was someone sympathetic to her sexual orientation, and aware of her troubles with the nemesis, one I mentioned previously. It was him who had come to the D.A. with a request to open an investigation of the arrangement between my parents, the Child Welfare Department and Candy for my living with her. The underlying cause was to establish that there was no effects of her gay orientation upon my juvenile adolescence. They were looking for a judge, to obtain search warrant and to get an order for taking me in the protective custody. The danger she faced was the Prima Facie evidence if found then, Candy would be facing a prosecution for Child pornography and myriads of related charges.
By the time she finished telling me these details, Mr. Roy had arrived and had walked up the doorsteps. I rushed to meet him and could not give comforts to my love. I did not want him to meet Candy in that vulnerable state, so I got out of the door and took him directly to his SUV. We must have cleared our long path leading to the paved road and he surprised me with a barrage of questions:
"What is going on? Child pornography charges? Are you involved in something I should know? Am I not your legal guardian until papers are made? Please don't hide anything from me. If you two are in some sort of legal tight spot, we can work on resolving it. Trust me; I will not let anyone get it out of me. It may have impact upon today's business."
I got stunned by his speech. I did not know how much he heard and could not decide how to answer him. I couldn't share details of our private life to him. I did not know his mindset about the LGBT community. I quickly thought of some way to take him off the trail, and at the same time, we had no person of worldly knowledge to turn to. Besides that, it was Candy's personal problem, and I was just a pawn in that nasty business. I finally decided to share with a part of that situation and our impending disaster.
I narrated the story of Candy's jeopardy without describing how we actually lived together in her place. I described the discrimination and sexual harassment with the abusive treatment from the fellow police officers. I explained to him that they were planning to launch an investigation with the allegations of influencing a minor for making an unnatural choice of sexual orientation.
He heard my story and drove for some time, as if he was organizing thoughts and then, asked a loaded question that I did not expect:
"Is there any truth in this suspected offence? You must trust me on this. I know how you feel about sex. I watched you growing up since you were a toddler. Your Pappy had expressed concern at one point when you had stepped in the teen year. He believed lack of woman's presence in your life made you to picked up a Tomboy's male personality. I have dealt with this and other issues of identity mix ups in my life in the army. So, be free to speak how two of you managed daily life for the past year. Your mom told me how much you have changed for better since living with Candy. Did you have independent bedrooms, or you were careful when moving in public? Has any outsider ever come in and noticed anything out of ordinary such as sexual gadgets females use? We will have to find solutions quickly before law enforcement acts and finds the stuff that will bring disasters to her and to you also."
I was surprised by his questioning and told him the truth. By the time we finished the Court Business, and I received my papers, it was past the lunchtime. We stopped at a fast-food restaurant and went to the drive-through lanes.
After finishing the lunch in the parking lot, we went back to our apartment and sanitized it. Took every intimate item and memorabilia I could find and packed it in the boxes. He carried everything to his SUV and help me to set up an independent bed with the mattress I had used on the first day we had arrived and spent the night in that utility room. He made the room look like a bedroom of a teenager in any home. I left a note for Candy which Mr. Roy dictated, telling her that I was returning home and how grateful I was for being one great 'Older Sister' to me and letting me live under her supervision etc.
As a Post-Script message, I invited her to have dinner with my family and asked her to come as per her convenience. It was written in quite impersonal and neighborly invitation language. We headed home without speaking a word. Both of us were lost in own mental issues. I wasn't sure of my life again. The words in the message of that note left behind, had double sharp edges and one of them was cutting my soul. Sisters? I could not envision that role and albeit a deceptive one, and yet it was a strategic move. How do I to behave like a sister with Candy in this selfish male dominated world of powerful people? What sort of freedom I was going to have?
Lost in my thoughts, I did not realize we were in the parking lot of Wall Mart. After pulling in, Mr. Roy cut the engine and turned towards me and said:
"Listen carefully. I have a plan that has a good chance of avoiding all that police inquiry stuff. It will primarily depend upon your behavior and Candy's acting. Common, we have some shopping to do."
I was bewildered with this new approach but did not say a word and followed him. In the store, I began to understand the plan. He told me to choose at least 3 women's suits. I never ever entered women's apparel areas before and selection of female outfits was not my cup of tea. I got lost in the lines and lines of clothing hanging. He must have sensed my difficulties and got hold of a matronly shopper and expressed his inability to help a daughter who can't seem to pick a dress. She was delighted and we picked the desired style of clothing and then moved to the female face makeover section. Same woman accompanied us and picked for me the paraphernalia for the female face makeover stuff. On the way home, he explained the strategy. I had guessed most of the scheme but let him explain it to me.
"Your mom and I are going to host a party in celebration of our daughter's coming of age. You have to call Candy and let me explain to her what she needs to do. We returned home with my stomach in knots. I never learned to act as a female, and here, I have to pretend for other people's benefits to be a real, debonair young woman. How was it possible? I had not a single drop of Progestogen in me; I could not even envision the suggested farce. However, I thought that it was a workable scheme for a short period. One can't fool the Mother Nature and I was afraid my true self would reveal itself sooner or later. What about that possibility? I kept that question with me to worry about.
We must have arrived home for half an hour or so, and phone rang. I picked up as soon as the first ring sounded. In a very low tone, Candy asked me:
"You left me? Not even a goodbye? This note; how could you..." She was weeping loudly, and I intervened:
"Honey, stop, stop please! Nothing has changed between us. Let Mr. Roy explain it to you; just calm down; here he is."
Mr. Roy explained the scheme to her how we are going to take the wind out that police investigation efforts. The plan was that on the party day, Candy was to ask one of the nicer of the policemen in uniform to escort her as a partner. She was to come in and greet little sister, all dressed up and glamorized for the occasion in a manner two closest girlfriends do. Then she has to introduce her to the escorting partner as her adopted sister. The case worker who used to visit her to fulfil the assigned duties of monitoring progress also will be there to witness the human Butterfly emerged from the cocoon. During the evening, we will be creating an atmosphere of a successful transformation of a Tomboyish juvenile me, into a young woman, ready for integration in the society, and the credit of bringing a PTSD suffering child in the adulthood was to be share between Ms. Candice, and the Social Worker with many thanks to the staffs of Child Welfare department. Then the Photo ops and other rituals set up to produce the evidence of a healthy relationship between all parties involved were planned.
The next phase of it was scheduled for the disclosing only to two of us, on the last day of Me. Roy's stay. After that task was over, we ate the supper, and I went to my old bedroom and closed the door. I failed to notice that Mr. Roy had retired with mom to her bedroom. My body was here, but soul was with my love. I did not get a chance to speak to her and see that she had calm down.
Birthday arrived and as per the plan, place was decorated as per customs and norms. My large photos were displayed prominently in a young debutante incarnate pose. With makeup my face appeared more feminine than I wanted it to be, but in the desperate times they say, one has to do everything to avoid the impending tragedy. I practiced walking like a young woman and how to present a fake persona like they teach you in a customer service training class. I was restless and apprehensive about Candy bringing a man as her escort.
The questions and doubts rising out of fear of losing my love was dominating my thinking. What if it leads to a more permanent arrangement, and she sleeps with him and is forced to go in that direction? I had no answers, and we were advised not to contact each other, I couldn't get access to her inner thinking. I endured that agony. Again, and again I visited those feelings to assure myself that this is all a Vaudeville drama, and we were actors performing for fooling the audience.
The evening came and one by one people arrived. I was the queen bee of the hive, sitting on the thrown of nails; unhappy in my female role and surrounded by the worker ants, my life seem to be waiting for the next storm.
Mom had invited her coworkers, and then few government employees assisting me had also arrived. At last, Candy arrived with a handsome man in mid-twenties. He was holding her by hand and watching them enter in that way, gave me a sting of jealousy. I wanted to throw all that game playing and rush to her and grab and kiss her in front of all and announce my love for her. I would have acted on but for Mr. Roy's action I did not. He was watching me, and I think, he had a suspicion of me reacting in a way that two lovers would. He must have spoken to my mom and they may have expected troubled reaction on my visage. Mom, immediately went to Candy and took her away from her escort, and Mr. Roy took him towards the bar. Candy and mom came to me and as coached, she acted in a predictable way. Very former in approaching and giving me a hug. Her escort also joined after getting a beer bottle and watched the performance from a distance.
He also came up and gave me the appropriate wishes and complements. The evening regalia went on like a birthday bash and a passage of a teen into the adulthood supposed to go. When everyone was getting ready to leave, Mr. Roy called attention of the assembled folks and said:
"Please pay attention. I am Roy Brown, a longtime family friend. On behalf of the family and as a former trusty of our beloved daughter, I am thanking you for joining us in this celebration of 17th birthday and the ceremony for welcoming her to the adulthood."
He added few more sentences in the similar genera, and then made a move with an announcement that surprised me beyond imagination. He went up to mom and held her hands and brought her forward to the center of the circle formed by the guest. He then went on his knee and proposed my mom:
"Elizabeth, will you marry me?"
Mom immediately accepted the proposal and then he put a ring on her finger. They kissed. In a way, I had a potential dad whom I loved as much as I did Pappy.
They decided to get married the next day without a ceremony which I learned later they were going to formalize in a church on the Taylor Mountain road in West Virginia. That made sense: our ancestors lived there for a century and mom had few cousins to make it a family affair.
That evening, Candy played her role of my sister and friend efficiently, and while doing that I think, she impressed her escort about our relationship. My eyes were following her, but she was avoiding me. One can imagine the torture of separation and the fears of losing precious person. I had no way to deal with those emotions at that moment and a storm of doubts was ragging.
"What if he takes her to his place? What if she likes heterosexual life better than what we were living with? Thoughts generated by envy and fear have high potential for degenerating into insane anger. Anger towards fate, circumstances, the world, and especially two individuals causing them to spawn in the first place. That night, my resident deity, the Morpheus also went off to visit someone else on the Mount Olympus. I, on that night, felt abandoned again and spent turning and tossing in my bed.
| Author Notes | The subject and the characters are controversial to some, however, they represent people and should be taken for what they are--a part of human family. It's a fiction and not created for promoting any special idea or political ideology. I hope it will be read from a prism of human diversity and the plight of individuals in our society that do not conform the Socio-religious norms of the society we live in. |
By Niyuta
Recently while browsing on the Internet. I came across explanation of this Latin Phrase: "Amor Fati." I have mentioned it in the previous chapters. German philosopher, Nietzsche made it sort of an expression of the unassailable human conditions that even God does not, or cannot change. I am mentioning it here today because it appears that my life on that day faced the situation as stated.
On the 17th birthday, I did not have a computer, internet or a cell phone. We only had the 'Portable' Phones that many of you may remember, walking and talking with it in and out on the porch of your home. The Cellular version had arrived in the market, but we couldn't afford it, nor felt a need to have it.
The Amor Fati means: Love for Fate, is a strange way of telling humanity that life is what is given to you with a predestined fate; one has no option but love it. To that I add our over used phrase-Lump It. That means don't struggle against that, which you can' win, and make best of it. Loving and lumping are two options? The day after my birthday, my mom and Mr. Roy got married in the courthouse, and my stepfather postponed his original returning to West Virginia plan by a week. They did a small cake cutting sort of ceremony with mom's friends.
That evening, after dinner, we three sat down to discuss a plan. In real sense, I was there, just to hear it as I was not a part of their future life. I was a fifth wheel that had no options but to go where they were going. It is an amazing phenomenon that I wonder, if it is set to happen due to being a parent. Here, parent don't give up their rights, duty or whatever one wants to call it, to interfere in the lives of their offspring. In my case, moving plans were all set:
"We all are moving back to Taylor Mountain, West Virginia". This announcement is all I was needed. After I heard them, the first reaction was: "Amor Fati? Hell no; I couldn't accept it at all.
"Who are in this 'we', mom? Have you forgotten I am an adult and have rights and am not your ward? Leaving Candy is a nonstarter and not negotiable." And that's what I announced as my opposition to the plan.
Mom tried different scenario, starting with pleading with me with, the advantages we have and how wonderful West Virginia will be with all our cousins and Pappy's grave nearby.
I refused moving without my love anywhere. I had a small income coming to me and I thought that would keep me afloat and if I move back with her, we could make our life a paradise anon as a Persian poet Omar Khayyam described in: The Rubaiyat. A paradise in Colorado! One utopian dream it turned out to be. I realized this the next day after I rejected mom's plan. My stepdad had not ventured out to make me change my mind. Perhaps, being a prudent thinker, he looked at my unusual relationship and all that comes with it, as another battle with the society; one he was not inclined to get into. Mom on the other hand lived in her own dream world and never really understood that two people of same sex can be in a love-relationship and ardently wish to spend lifetime together. I am not sure if my Bible dependent grandma had impacted some sort of influence on her or she just was a mom not wanting to let go of her only daughter. I assumed that she did not understand the nature of our relationship at all.
"Oh; you make a big deal of a casual friendship; there are family members at home, and your high school friends also. Now you are so much nicer with a changed attitude and all that, you will make new friends honey! What will you do here in this rural and backward place?" This was her view about love between two women; nothing less or more than a buddy, buddy relationship of school days.
I gave up trying to explain the reality of my love-relationship with Candy. I couldn't come right out with details to my mom. I also had not seen Candy in two days nor she answered my phone or returned the calls. I was not sure of if Anton case was put to rest. Candy's behavior also was confusing. I did not know if her at work situation had improved or she was playing safe. Then the other fears of her surrendering to the society's pressures to correct her love-life may have prevailed and she too like Mr. Roy was looking for a safe passage to a conflict-free life.
Sitting in my bedroom, I was dangling on an emotional trapeze waiting for the partner swinging on the other side to reach me and then I could let go of my hold and land in the hands of my partner; a divine union above the ground. The traveling circus of my life with the Jokers, acrobats and the ringmaster, it seems I had no permanent place in this world to pitch the tent in one place and not move again. Can this be the fate waiting for me to love what is given? Who do I ask, that humanity would not struggle and fight against this invisible and powerful entity that shapes individual's and with that, the collective fate of a community? Isn't human spirit an indefatigable divinity that does not allow fate to stop its march towards the ultimate freedom? Today, in my midlife, I am wondering of how then, as an emerging adult, I handled that upheaval. On one hand, I had mom's dream-world life available for me to survive in it, and on the other hand, I had this Amor Fati principle to adopt and wait it out for the fate to act. Safety and some stability was present in mom's plan but then, what I have to give up?
I did not have to wait too long. Mr. Roy had gone to town to see an attorney specialized in the wills and inheritance subject. Listening to his explaining to mom, I learned that Anton's estate may become an abandoned property. If mom could prove that she was his what in the legal jargon called, "Common Law Wife", then there was a possibility that she could get the property transferred to her name if no other relative claims it, there would be an easy way to get the ownership.
Hearing that, I began building the Castles in the air. My thinking was:
"I definitely could make mom to rent the property to me and then, Candy would move in with me and if all goes well, we could get married and live happily ever after."
Mom was determined to return home as she called our former dwelling place.
"With or without you, I am going back." That's how she put her decision in front of me.
I realized that she married Mr. Roy despite 20 years age difference between them for the security he offered. Like a creeper plant that has no place to survive on the ground, climbs up on a strong Oak, she took the only opportunity that came to her to fulfill her destiny. I perhaps will have to wait for mine to arrive if it hasn't already arrived with Candy meeting me on our first evening in Meeker, Colorado, a year ago.
That afternoon, Mr. Roy returned, and he told mom that there was a strong possibility that the place will be hers because, during the transfer to Anton, the state had exhausted the efforts to find any relatives closer to his uncle than he was. None came forward then, and now another coming up had a slim to none, chance. An advertisement was already placed in few newspapers as required by law, but the process would take at least six months.
With that news, I was delighted and kept calling Candy. On the next morning, finally she called me. When I answered the call. The tone and the choice of word she used, at once indicated me of that either she could not freely speak or her feelings towards me had changed. Giving her the benefit of doubt, I accepted the greeting:
"Hay; I am sorry I couldn't call you back; I just got back from a vacation; I was out of town. How are you doing and congratulations for your mom and you for the wedding. You must be excited to return to your family hometown."
What can one say on the phone, when in one breath the apple of your eyes, your every desire of heart, all that one had been depending upon to build a loving and a permanent relationship, was wiped out by no other person but the same partner, who had laid the first brick of that love-nest? I felt crumbling of my dream had begun.
Controlling my tears and sobs, I said:
"I understand; I will give mom your congratulations. I have no plans of returning to my hometown. I am taking charge of my destiny. I am going to live this place if mom gets it."
After a short pause Candy in same manner spoke:
"Good luck; I hope you will find what you are seeking and If I can help, let me know."
I couldn't help saying to her:
"Thanks for your offer; I doubt I will need anything at this time. Hope you found what you were looking for; I have just one thing to say to you:
'Don't pick another person like me to experiment with; I will go on with my life with memories, but a weaker one may not survive, and end of such experiment will scar you for rest of your life. Goodbye and all the best."
With that phone call, another aspect of destiny's experiment with my life got over. "Should I accept Amor Fati, or like that Bomber Pilot of Pappy's WWII story, I should keep flying mortally wounded and find a landing strip somewhere?" He didn't make it after landing, but I will. With that thought, I returned to my original self--The Teflon personality. 'Just wait and see; put the past behind', my old hidden personality advised. This is what happened two days after saying goodbye. An opportunity came unexpectedly. One door closed and another crack appeared for me to slide through to the next phase of my life. The Gulliver's Travels it was to another shore.
| Author Notes | The subject and the characters in this novel may be controversial to some, however, they represent people and should be taken for what they are--a part of human family. It's a fiction and not created for promoting any special idea or political ideology. I hope it will be read from a prism of human diversity and the plight of individuals in our society that do not conform the Socio-religious norms of the society we live in. |
By Niyuta
I had made up my mind about the path I was to travel on the day I spoke with Candy. If you recall that conversation I narrated in the last chapter, you may wonder what sort of person I am. In one moment, I was indulging in a love driven fantasy, and in the next moment, I was free of the ill effects of not knowing the reasons it died when everything was going well as per plans we made. Most individuals of 17 tears of age would have gone to pieces, but not me. I not only did not allow it to damage my mind, and also protected my determination of going forward in the world alone, succumb to mom's pressure on me to go home with her.
Today, at a lot more mature state of mind, I can look back on that day and do some psychological analysis of my idiosyncrasy that was controlling me then. I am aware that a trained psychologist of my high school had opined that I maybe having what then was called, 'Multiple Personality Disorder Syndrome'.
However, I do not consider that diagnosis as an abnormal condition. I believe every thinking being has many personalities and like cloths we use for different occasions vary, we adorn various masks of personalities that are appropriate for the situation at hand. The aging and changes that it brings in us perhaps changes our inventory of the masks to fit those changes automatically.
Over the years, I read many books in the discipline of Clinical Psychology. I was driven to knowing myself. While growing up these questions rose often in my mind:
What makes me to think in certain ways that an average person my age doesn't? Why my choices of clothing, books, entertainments etc., and behavior do not follow that of the gender I am born in? Then I had no access to professional psychologist and no one to be my mentor. I then had to turn to the self-help and acquiring knowledge of humans. we the Homo sapient species. When I look around, and see what humans have done to each other and to our planet, I wonder if we really are sapient?
Development of my personality Itself puzzles me; even today I sometime wonder who I am today, and how I become different in certain situations! In high school, I had so much compassion for animals and could not think of hurting a wasp. I had refused to take Biology to avoid dissecting a frog, and yet, I did beat Walter mercilessly. At 17, I fell in love and I have no doubt about loving Candy deeply and spiritually. It was not just a hormone driven feeling of sexuality; it was something so special that during that ephemeral episode of loving Candy, I experienced a life that many fiction writers and poets have described it as being in a Shangri-La. My life was in a paradise like setting that I dreamt every night with her. There were times, when we would together sprawl on the floor of a meadow, behind our house, hidden in the tall grass, experiencing a body-less union while just holding each other in a naked embrace. A gentle force enwrapping us, would immerse our souls in a primordial pool of tranquility. The rapture of bodies merging to form a single entity, is beyond the conception of any sage of Biblical literature, but I found it described in the Eastern philosophical writing I read here in Hollywood, some forty years later. The incarnation of Shiva in a form of an assimilated man and a woman in a cosmic dance. That sense of equality between the sexes sadly did not materialized in the land of its origin.
I am telling you this part of history now because the story of me at the age of 17, I had written in my journal then and my decision to leave everything that would have protected and comforted me, behind, I believe, may be understood today better. Then I was at the thrush hold of stepping out in the world. I do not want readers to have a distorted view of me as a loser who walked away from the sublime love for Candy without a fight. I love her even today in the same spiritual uplifting way and will continue doing so. I do not regret my decision of letting her go because I loved her so much that making her life as hard as mine was sure to be. A paradise or the hell, after all are conceptual places from where no one has returned to give a factual account, therefore it is better to leave them in the fictitious world of writers and poets; in this reason, logic and practicality supported world of humans, myths are taken with a large dose of grounded reality; the present is all that matters. This subconscious mind probably was behind my decision to take chance with the fate and move on.
Let me take you back to Meeker, Colorado and describe what happened to me on that fateful day:
You may remember that mom and Mr. Roy, my stepfather, had decided to return to their homestead on the Taylor Mountain, West Virginia and I had refused to go with them. I am not sure why but somewhere in my bosom a tiny speck of hope was holding me back. I in my stoic personality, had walked away from Candy. I took what happened between was as an opportunistic endeavor which Candy ended when a better one came up. I had faced similar situations during the final examination period of my school years. Young women and few male students would approach me with a friendly attitude. Because of my top grades in math and science courses, I was placed in the Gifted and Talented Student class; GTS for short. They would smile and dish out greetings whenever we would meet in a face-to-face encounter. Then invite me for small get to know sort of bash. All to learn from me how to do Algebra and Geometry problems. After exams, all that bon homie stuff would dry up. I caught on it much later, but it prepared me for life, how not to let anyone use me.
Candy's relationship with me was not based on any petty gaining plan; I felt her love like you feel falling snow on your face. That feeling for her, somehow did not die and I unconsciously hopped that she would break all the barriers and shackles and be back in my arms. I had to stay back for that moment and nothing, not even thoughts of my safety entered in my decision making the. Anton's rape of me should have put fear of living alone in the same place; it did not.
I lied to mom and Mr. Roy that Candy was moving with me and we will have all protection a policewoman brings home with her. Reluctantly and after a promise of returning to her, if arrangement did not work out in a month, she relented. Two days later, I stood on the porch and watched the U-Haul truck pulling out and with that, she went out of my life for good. I sat on a wicker chair on the veranda for a longtime, not thinking of future, past and unaware of the present.
Aloneness is an emotion that is hard to describe, and more difficult to justify. However, if one learns to be alone, and not become lonely, then it is an unusual gift. What I read in Carl W. Jung's books, which I read most, is this, which I am quoting here from, "The Undiscovered Self", Chapter 4. THE INDIVIDUAL'S UNDERSTANDING OF HIMSELF:
"He knows how to distinguish himself from the other animals in point of anatomy and physiology, but as a conscious, reflecting being, gifted with speech, he lacks all criteria for self-judgement. He is on this planet a unique phenomenon which he cannot compare with anyone else."
At that moment on the porch, I am sure, my subconscious psyche was searching for that illusive Self. Many evenings before Candy came in my life in a serious way, I used to go in the neighboring cornfields and just lay on the ground facing the vast blue yonder above. Just watching birds returning home after feeding some faraway places. In the setting sun of fall, they used to acquire various colors and you couldn't tell what they were.I used to think they are coming from some mysterious island and bring magic that creates unusual creatures like me: a woman-baby in a man's body and psyche. Like many others, same old questions as: 'who am I' and 'where I am going', did not rise in my mind. I somehow always knew who I am, from the age I began thinking beyond the daily needs.
When darkness covered the landscape and a solitary streetlight on distant road came on, I got up and went inside. The bare living and dining room made me realize how empty my life had become in an instant. I pushed that thought aside and went to the refrigerator and pulled out a pot of pasta that mom had left for me. I ate what I could and went to my bedroom. All my stuff was there neatly arranged. All my Journals kept in a lock box were there. I finished my toiletry routine and went to bed without knowing what time it was. In that remote part of the state, there was no TV cable service and antenna had been dislodged from its base. Other than reading and writing I had no other way to keep my mind occupied. At Candy's we had everything but now that all was over.
Mr. Roy had written down instructions about what to do if the lawyers arrive for inspection of property and stuff like that. He also had left a note stating that the Utilities were cut off at the end of the month and if we decide to live then Candy has to get it transferred on her name. Leaving the plans of what to do tomorrow, to the day when it arrives, I went to sleep with a Smith and Wesson 38 service issue revolver that belonged to Pappy. Fear had no place in the minds of folks like me then and it is so even today.
| Author Notes |
The subject and the characters in this novel may be controversial to some, however, they represent people and should be taken for what they are--a part of human family. It's a fiction and not created for promoting any special idea or political ideology. I hope it will be read from a prism of human diversity and the plight of individuals in our society that do not conform the Socio-religious norms of the society we live in.
|
By Niyuta
You may or may not know the story behind this Latin Term I have used for this chapter. Allow me to tell you what I read:
After the crucifixion of Jesus, the apostle Peter was on the road to Rome and the risen Jesus
confronted him. Terrified Peter not believing a dead Lord's presence, uttered:
"Quo Vadis"? Translated as, "Where are you going?
Annoyed by Peter's lack of faith, Jesus sarcastically replied:
"Romam eo iterum crusifigi."
Translated as: "To Rome to get re-crucified."
The term I am using here is to indicate that I am questioning my alter ego, "am I also heading out to that unknown world to get metaphorically speaking, re-crucified?"
Well; that's what happened on that day when I woke up with the sound of doorbell buzzing. I woke up and shouted, "Hold your damn horses; I am coming out."
I splashed water on my face and got into blue jeans and a shirt and opened the door. There was a McDonald's brown bag left on the porch, I got out to see who left that bag and notice the rear of a police vehicle at the end of that long driveway.
My heart skipped a beat and a sliver of hope jumped out of my suppressed emotions.
"Candy! My darling is coming back to me." That was the joyful reaction to that episode. However, it lasted only until I picked the bag and went inside. Eagerly, I tore the bag and found breakfast package with Pancake and Sausage patties with the usual condiments. I was hoping for a message that would have freed my feelings from the tight grip of that stoic personality dominating my psyche.
I checked the bag again but there was no indication that Candy wished to communicate with me. "This is an act of charity and not love." My alter ego brought back the binders upon my psyche. I was hungry and coffee was warm. I ate the breakfast without much ado. As I picked up the bag to toss it in the trashcan, I notice a handwritten note on the bag. It was written is a poor handwriting and I at once realized that the note is not from Candy. She had such a beautiful cursive writing style that her notes with an ordinary message, I saved in my journal and read again and again. When one is in love, I guess the person takes leave of the reasoning and logic. The message was from the Patrolling officer who did not give name. It said:
"I thought you may be hungry and have no ride to the town; I will check on you again."
I wondered about it and felt that Candy must have made sure I am getting the basic necessities to survive. My persona ruling at that moment stopped me plunging into that depressive mode of amorous thinking which is the hope of recovery of lost love generates. It sternly warned:
"She ain't coming back; understand this and plan the moving." I got the marching orders, and I went to my room and began taking stock of the situation.
"Do I have a destination in mind? If yes, what do you know about it? Get this lined up and then we will think about how to get there." That was the conversation between me and the guiding mind. I thought of riding to the library and get help. It was past 11 am and I got out to run the errands on my bicycle. I pulled travel books on places in Southern California and made notes about the cities I had heard about from Candy. She knew the nuance of life in most of the Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco areas. By the time I finished checking out the books, it was 2 PM. I returned home and sat out on the porch. My mind now was thinking of one thing only:
"Quo Vadis."
Repeatedly I evaluated options and the obstacles I may face. Am I going to find what I am looking for; the freedom to discover who I am, or is it going to get a second time nailed on the cross? I must know what to do as soon as possible. In three days, all utilities would be shut off and then what choices do I have other than going back to mom's household?
I was lost in this futile mental exercise, then two vehicles approaching the property distracted me and I got up. From my location I saw a woman and man in the rear sedan and a well-dressed younger man in a dark blue SUV stopping at Anton's garage. The driver of the SUV opened the door and walked to the couple in the rear vehicle to say something. He then walked towards me, leaving them in the vehicle. After reaching the porch he spoke in a well cultivated voice of a professional person:
"Is Mr. Anton Poulous at home?"
I never knew Anton's last name and a silly notion of playing hardball, came over me. I responded in tone that conveyed my reluctance to give information:
"I don't know any Poulous and don't know anyone else in the neighborhood by that name."
He pulled out a paper from his breast pocket and handed over to me and said:
"This is the proof that he lived here."
It was some sort of a legal document with address of the property and other descriptions.
The man said:
"He has to be living here and this is a copy of the land-lease shoeing the property transferred to him." Does your father have a different name than this?
I replied giving him the same information to annoy him:
"Anton Poulos is not my father's name and I don't know anyone with that name lived here in this neighborhood."
Man was bit annoyed as I wanted to by my gaming him, and said:
"You better come out of this nonsense; I will have Sheriff here if you don't want to cooperate."
I got bit alarmed by his tone and thought maybe he is from that expert group that was to join the investigation of Anton's death. I said to man:
"I am not playing game; I don't know you and you have not even told me who you are. How then I am to give you the information?"
He pulled a business card and gave it to me and said:
"You are smart; I should have introduced myself. Now you know who I am then let us get it over quickly. Is there anyone else living here, if Mr. Poulous is not present?"
I decided to tell him what I knew. I said to Mr. Cohen, Attorney at Law:
"I think Anton you are looking for is dead and his wife, my mother has left the state."
"Dead you said? When that happened, and when and where did he marry your mother?"
"He died a month and half ago and my mother was his Common Law Wife of four years." I had heard Mr. Roy saying that to mom when they were planning strategies for claiming the property.
"That makes a whole lot of a difference to the facts of the case."
He spoke to himself, turned around and went back to the couple sitting in their car. I watched them discussing among themselves and then they all walked towards me.
The woman had a gentile and kind face and the man appeared to be a nice person. He smiled and held hand out to me to introduce himself:
"I am Dimitry Popova and this is Molly, my wife. She is related to your father Anton by way of his uncle who owned this property."
I did not say anything about my relationship with Anton and said something appropriate for the occasion to show my ignorance of the issue at hand. Molly came forward and held my hand and said:
"You maybe, you are related to me, and I am delighted to meet you."
I did not blurt out any misleading information as I generally did in the past, to avoid conversations with anyone I did not feel comfortable with. I simply smiled at her and did not take my hand from her grip. She kept holding my hand as we walked in the house. There was nothing to sit on, so they just stood there looking at the interior sections. I remembered Mr. Roy's instructions and gently pulled hand and went in my room to retrieve the business card of firm that was dealing with that business. I gave it to the attorney Cohen. In few minutes he told the couple that he was heading out to the law office of mom's attorney and contact them later and was gone.
They asked me few questions about Anton's death and mom's relationship with him. I gave them as little information as possible and let them assume I was his daughter. After going around the property they came back to where I was sitting on the porch. Molly again held my hand and asked me if I would like to go with them to eat supper. I liked the two seniors and Mr. Popova reminded me of my Pappy. He was a true gentleman of bygone days and appeared like a person who enjoys talking to strangers. I had not spoken to anyone for a long time and felt like chatting with them also. I learned that they were from a small town located in the outskirt of Los Angeles, California. He had recently retired from the government job and they wanted to move out of California because of the stress of living near a mega-city. Now with the loss of income, they did not wish to deplete their savings and were keen on moving to Colorado in Meeker area where Molly's ancestral homestead was a long time ago.
In real sense, as I learned later from mom's attorney that Molly may be the true owner of that real estate property, we were living in. It seems there was an error in the earlier searching for the next of keens of Anton's uncle. When the legal advertisement came out, Molly and Mr. Popova were in Greece visiting long forgotten relatives. It's the information they collected in Greece revealed to Molly that she was the closest relative of Anton's uncle and Anton was a possible relative, and not a confirmed direct relative of the dead uncle. Now that the presumed nephew was dead, the rest of the fight was unnecessary. However, mom's case of being a common law wife would have made a legitimate right to challenge Molly's claim and a cause of a possible delay in the transfer of titles and the legal bills would have made property not worth fighting for. A simple solution to get this settled was to pay mom off with a reasonable sum, get a non-claiming agreement. I believe that was under negotiation on that day. My being considered as a possible, second in line claimant, they perhaps wanted to get more details from me, and the dinner invitation maybe was a way to accomplish that goal.
I went with them to the same Diner where I met Candy. I stood out and looked at the area where police waited in the shadow of the large Oak. Somewhere in a remote corner of my heart, my hopes to see her one more time was struggling with my ego that did not want me to be a weak warrior who was preparing to take on challenges waiting for people like me. The purpose of this resistance movement is to fight for freedom to live peacefully, happily and be protected from those powerful governors of our lives in our country. These are rich and powerful groups, many use Biblical scriptures which they don't really follow but use it selectively, to take away the fundamental human rights. They have assumed that some divine entity has given them the power and rights to dictate to every person who does not accept their ideas of righteousness and the moral codes, which their religion tells them as the only true word of their god. They make rules, pass legislatures based not on the constitutional bases but on the basis of their religion regardless of harm it has historically done to others. These are the people who forced Candy to walk away from true love that was sacred to us.
I pulled myself from that dueling with the unknown entities in my mind and entered the dining area and joined them. I sat in opposite to Popova couple in the booth and, unexpectedly a new venue of opportunities opened for me at the table. After ordering ritual was done, Molly leaned forward, grabbed my hands and said:
"I am not sure why I feel like I have known you all my life. There is something about you that takes me back to my early married days; you resemble my son who was about same age as you are. We lost him in the Vietnam war in 1974."
Hearing those words, my mind that was still lingering in the memory lane and conflicts with the establishments, got such a jolt that I gasped for air, and recovering from that I said:
"I am so sorry! When did he died?"
"October 3, 1974, 11 p.m." She replied.
Molly was still holding my hand and I saw tears welling up in her eyes and felt her hand trembling. I gently squeezed them in a sincere empathy. Suddenly something occurred to me that shook my rejection of the reincarnation theory that I had heard and read about. The subconscious message that popped up: Your birth date is October 3,1974, 11:05 a.m.
I immediately recovered from that moment and did not think much about the matching of the time of death and a birth of a child. However, I couldn't ignore Molly's sentimental and sudden affection for me. The time and place was not conducive for me to pursue that line and I remained somewhat less than enthusiastic to that artificially formed relationship. I must have felt that there may be some link to the property business.
I wondered later in my life if there is any connection between these two events of two individuals: one dead doing his duty, and the other showing up here for a lifelong duty of staying alive.
At the table, when I mentioned that my birth date and the date of their son's death were on the same day, they looked at each other and Mr. Popova exclaimed:
"My god; you were born at the same moment our son died!"
I replied: "Not really; I was born in the day; at 11:05, and death occurred at 11.00 a.m., only dates match."
He replied: "That is the Vietnam time; The US is 12 hours behind Hanoi Vietnam time."
I was too immature then to give much credence to that two events matching and did not react to his discovery. However, at that matching of timing of two events became beneficial to me; it opened a door to my destiny. I felt like the legendary 'Alice' escaping from the room with no doors. We ate dinner in relative silence and returned to my home. The resemblance and that date-matching had a profound emotional effect on Molly, which she displayed without restrain; more than her husband did. Mothers perhaps have a longer attachment to the memories of children and that goes beyond their grave. Psyche of fathers must be forming with less emotions. Is it because they have more practical ways to take death of a child and as a result, don't look for the departed ones in the others who resemble to their offspring?
Molly and I got bonded in a strange way. To me, she replaced mom with more warmth and affection. Mom had hard time doing that. I was not used to that sentimental journeys in the parental affairs. Dealing with Molly on that evening, I had hard time conjuring the necessary emotions suitable for an affectionate reunion, matching that between a mother and a son. At the end, she asked me if I would have breakfast with them as they were returning to their home neat Los Angeles, California. I honestly was getting tired of that opera like episode, but I had no heart to deny her that last pleasure of pretending she is having a meal with her departed son. I agreed to go along, and we set a time for 9 a.m., and I turned in after watching them leave.
It was late in the evening and darkness in the house made my aloneness more depressing. I went to my bed, changed cloths and finished the bedtime toiletry routine and fell in the bed wide awake.
"What is happening to me?' I asked a question.
"Are they hinting at something obvious, or there is a catch to this affectionate hugging and a kiss on my forehead?"
My ever-suspicious ego got on the defensive strategy. How can strangers become your own parents upon an accidental meeting? What is this emotional motif decorating the proverbial magical mansion for me to get in and be locked up for life?" All sorts of thoughts about the danger awaiting me were dominating my mind. I never had to deal with such a personal decision making. What to do with those wonderful and kind people? I couldn't get replies or advice from any source to the question: "Quo Vadis? Where are you going.
Mental fatigue and sleepiness forced me to leave all that thinking to another day and I entered into a dreamless stupor, and dead to the world.
| Author Notes |
Notes. The subject and the characters in this novel may be controversial to some, however, they represent people and should be taken for what they are--a part of human family. It's a fiction and not created for promoting any special idea or political ideology. I hope it will be read from a prism of human diversity and the plight of individuals in our society that do not conform the Socio-religious norms of the society we live in.
|
By Niyuta
I am not a late riser and my body-clock is set to wake up around the rising of sun, Over the years, I had no reason to alter that routine except when on few occasions I slept in late with Candy after prolonging sessions of fun-filled jamborees in the LGBT clubs located in a town away from Meeker. That morning when I was supposed to go with Popova couple, I woke up at sunrise but didn't feel like jumping out of bed as I would have, if the brand-new day was to bring something special and exciting gift promised to me.
Well, I wasn't looking for anything from the couple except pay for my food, there was nothing else to do but prepare for moving somewhere in California: a sanctuary and a promised land for us; the different people; so, Candy had said to me. Then unexpectedly a series of questions related to the motive behind the dinning with Molly and her husband popped up in my empty mind.
"What's the angle in this kindness and love for a stranger like me? Does it really happen in our society? I never experienced it before and could not accept the possibility of such kindness occurring randomly. My cynical tendencies began to work on the subconscious mind, and I could not stop it from bringing my ever-alert personality taking over. The first line of thinking started the conversation like this:
"Why people are kind to someone who has nothing to give back?"
"No reason I can think of! What do I have to worry about losing if they are kind to me?"
"Maybe they think you have half of the real estate property of Anton and that means one more
difficulty to deal with and if they could avoid it someway."
"That's it! I understand the motive now and I will be prepared for the probe or an attempt to lure me into something legally binding."
I settle down with that inner self's analysis and got out of bed. I finished the morning routine and changed cloths when I heard a vehicle pulling in.
When I went out, I found a small envelope on the porch and the delivering vehicle had already gone. I picked up the envelop and recognized the beautiful cursive handwriting. Candy had contacted me at last.I returned to my bedroom and carefully opened the envelop with a cautious optimism that she maybe wanting to return to me. That was not the case; that was a list of places for me to check out to get assistance in the three cities of California. Telephone numbers and names of individuals who could give me assistance. All organizations were dedicated to assist the members of LGBT community arriving from different state. There was not a line that would have given me a glimpse of her personal feelings towards me. I folded the paper and put it away in my collections of letters etc., from her and went out to sit on the porch awaiting the arrival of Mr. Popova and Molly.
I didn't have to wait for long and we headed for the restaurant. Molly held my hand again and gave me kiss of affection. I was expecting it and we moved onto our usual chatting about health and sleeping well topics. When we settle down in a booth, Mr. Popova opened the subject that was on their collective mind. With the first question, I became alert about probing. He asked:
"My dear, are you returning to your folks in West Virginia?"
"I am not joining them, but I am waiting for our attorney to let me know what the final decision will be." I replied without giving any clue about where I stood on the subject of ownership of the property.
Listening to my guarded response, he changed the subject and said:
"Settlement of real estate claims will take few months and that is not our focus; Molly and I are concerned about you living here in this lonely place and that's not safe or healthy for you. Do you have any support and income to live by yourselves?"
I felt bad about having such a suspicious attitude towards kind and friendly people. Today when I think about that episode, I think my behavior at that instant, may have been subconsciously driven by the fear:
I think, life experiences make our attitudes and often we close our mind and become indifferent to the other side of human nature; one that we think gives us the superior status, and which is denied to other species. Kindness, and collective concerns for all creatures is not seen in any other species. Individual herd like that of Elephants, do show same as dominantly, as it is seen in humanity, but among the animals, it is limited to their own kind. However, cruelty, and total selfishness is also seen in us lot more dominantly than the other creatures. This dual nature of our species have made us an enigma and a mystery to ourselves and I doubt if we ever will discover the cause of it.
At that table, I too was at loss how to respond to the kindness of the couple and concerns about my life. I decided to drop my usual protective persona and hear them till end. My delay in response made them bit more businesslike and they fell silent. A waiter had arrived to take orders and left with it. That moment I opened the topic and spoke with apology:
"I am sorry for not replying immediately; I hadn't thought about my needs to live at the house. I really don't have any support at the moment."
Molly reached out to me and said:
"Will you accept help from us? You may stay here until we arrive in few months and we will take care of your needs."
I asked them if they were sure about getting the property and she replied:
"I am not worried about it; until that is settled, we can rent it from Anton's estate currently held by the county. My concern is about your future; we can make a homestead here with you. We don't have children or close relatives and, we would love to have you as our daughter, if you think it is good for you."
I was completely taken by surprise and couldn't even imagine how to believe in the offer; a miracle or another game my destiny was playing with me, I couldn't respond. Fortunately, food arrived, and I got a chance to think about the offer and what will it do to my plans to be free of all and any encumbering relationships.
Silently we ate our food. I had ordered a Bagel with cream-cheese and coffee that did not take much time to finish it off. They were still working on their dishes and I slipped out to go to powder room to do some thinking. On the john, I began evaluating my options. As I began, my alter ego came in the arena:
"Don't think of Candy when you decide; she ain't coming back to you."
"I wasn't thinking of her; you shut up." I snapped at myself.
"Freedom or love and comforts of a doting mother; that offer is the only issue here. Don't use that Latin Cliche' about going again to confuse yourselves."
Until that moment this decision making challenge had not entered in the equation and I did not prepare myself for facing it. A quick decision was warranted and I decided to go with the flow; what ever suppose to happen will happen anyway.
I couldn't stay in that thinking seat for ever; I had to return to the table. They had to catch a plane in few hours. Reluctantly I got up with a leaning towards the 'Freedom' option. I had a list of supporting organizations and I think that's the best opportunity I would have in my life to find who I am and for what purpose I came in this world with such a mixed-up gender in body and mind.
When I returned to the table, they were paying the bill. We walked towards the vehicle and Molly reached for my hand and said: Take your time but be sure of one thing:
"We are here to help you and have no other motive; it is my desire to do something for you."
"I will let you know before you leave; I have my plans to move to California for education if I find money for it. I would like to stay in touch with you if it is OK with you."
They dropped me at my empty home, and I took down the contact information. I felt bad for Molly; she was not going to get her son back through me and I was sure of that.
Popova couple departed from Meeker town Colorado that afternoon and I packed my meager belongings and around 4 p.m. I got a call from mom's attorney and I learned that mom on advice of Mr. Roy decided not to claim the inheritance and Irony of the situation, Molly Popova also saw no benefit in the inheritance. Three years of property taxes and many other encumbrances had made it useless. The property was deemed abandon and went on the auction block. I also learned that I had to leave the premise by next day as Sheriff had to seal the property and everything in it. I asked the attorney if he knew how I could go to Los Angeles for a smallest amount and he suggested and offered to buy a ticket on Amtrak train. I accepted the offer and took my first step forward and let the past bury its dead as poet Henry W. Longfellow wrote in his famous poem, 'A Psalm of Life.' I have quoted two stanza that I often recalled for inspiration:
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life.
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
I stood there in front of that old house one last time and got in the car that the attorney had sent and stepped out in the world with words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in my heart.
Here I end the Part I of my story and I will return to it after some time to write the Part II to share with you the experiences I have had and how my life between 17th birthday and 50th was spent.
Thanks for reading it. I hope some worthwhile messages have helped someone who had to walk in my shoe while taking the journey from birth to end.
| Author Notes |
Notes. The subject and the characters in this novel may be controversial to some, however, they represent people and should be taken for what they are--a part of human family. It's a fiction and not created for promoting any special idea or political ideology. I hope it will be read from a prism of human diversity and the plight of individuals in our society that do not conform the Socio-religious norms of the society we live in.
|
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