Audio, Part 2: The Princess & the Pig..mostly the pig

Preface

“You’ve been through so much Cindi, so much tragedy. How do you keep such a good attitude? Why are you still so optimistic?”

I get this question a lot, and many of you do, too.

All of the stories I write in “I’m not mad anymore” seek to answer this question. Some of my answers may not be what you expect and some of my answers may not be what you want to hear, like the story I share today.

The decision to publish this story was grueling, and even more agonizing to write. 

But I believe that sharing stories, difficult or divine, lets us know that we are not alone and that we all seek answers to the same question: why me?

                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1972 - My Mom and Dad’s house in West Ellicott, New York

I was 17 in 1972, and getting ready to leave home for Denver to be with my boyfriend, Brian Lake.

But I didn’t tell my Mom and Dad.

My Dad had just showered, and the bathroom was hot and steamy, so the door was open. He was shaving, so I stepped in and leaned sideways against the bathroom countertop.

His white silky boxers had a crease in the front from my Mom’s incessant ironing.

As I watched him shave around his mouth, I twisted my lips in tandem with his.

   “Dad, can I borrow ten bucks? Me and Kelly are going out later and-“

   “Oh. So you’re gonna pay me back?” he said.

   “Well, as soon as I get another job, I’ll-“

   “Oh, so you just want me to give you ten bucks, right?” he winked at me.

   “Kinda,” I said coyly.

He continued to shave and I continued to contort my mouth to match his.

His right leg was cocked back, heel up, his toes sprawled out on the heated bathroom tiles like chunky marshmallows, and I could see the top of his thick, white calf. My Dad was built with muscle blocks, all thick and wide. His fingers, forearms, chest, hips, thighs; all thick and dense and wide. Kinda like the Michelin Man.

I’m built a lot like my Dad. In’t that lovely??

I saw something on the back of his calf, like faded hash marks. I thought they were stretch marks, but then I squinted a little more and realized they were not stretch marks.

   “What’s that?” I asked him.

   “What’s what?” he said.

   “What are those little white stripes on the back of your calf? Did Mom tie you up again last night?” I giggled.

He did not respond.

I waited.

   “They’re scars” he finally said.

   “From what?” I asked, alarmed.

Again, he did not respond, and I waited.

I leaned back to look at his other calf; more white marks.

   “Do you need to be in here?” he demanded.

   “Yes, I do. Tell me what happened.”

Another pause, then he said:

   “Dad and maw hardly ever left the farm together,” he said. “I think they went to a funeral. So me and Richie thought they’d be gone for a while so we could try smoking some cornsilk behind the cow barn."

"Well, it was me that thought it was a good idea. Ritchie did pretty much whatever I wanted cuz I was his older brother.”

He applied more shave cream and kept shaving.

   “So we got some dried corn silk from maw’s garden and Ritchie got some paper from somewhere and we rolled it into a big cigarette. We got matchsticks from Maw’s kitchen and when we finally got it lit, we choked and coughed and started laughing like hell,”

I interrupted him:

   “Oh so that’s why you hate smoking so much?” I asked.

   “No.” He stopped, rinsed his razor, taped it off, then looked straight into the mirror.

   “All of a sudden, I look at Ritchie and he’s white as a ghost and staring right passed me. I thought he was getting sick.”

Dad continued.

“I turned around to see what he was looking at and it was Dad. Standing there looking at us. I froze too and I knew we were gonna get it, again. Dad hated smoking.”

He rinsed his razor again, tapped it, looked straight into the mirror and said fast:

   “He went and got the horse whip, told us to take off our pants and underwear and not to move or we would get it worse.”

Dad bent down to the sink and rinsed off the shave cream. Then he grabbed the hand towel next to my head and got pissed when he saw the water falling out of my eyes.

   “Well I don’t smoke, goddammit, so he must have been right!” he yelled. 

He firmly moved me out of the bathroom and closed the door.

My seizures started a few months later.

1967, Celoron, New York

My Dad cut off all my hair when I was 12.

When I was in 7th grade, I was allowed to have a boyfriend, as long as my parents met him first. I was quite mature for my age, I babysat over 20 hours per week to pay off an L-100 Hammond organ. I begged my Dad for an organ for years.

   “If you pay half, I’ll pay the other half,” my Dad told me. “Deal!” I squealed, and we shook on it.

I got good grades, did what I was told, and never got into any trouble.

Until 7th grade. This is when all the sixth graders from Celoron and Lakewood Elementary schools were combined at Southwestern Middle School, a brand new school, filled with brand new boys.

And boy, did I ever like boys!

Early in the school year, before it started snowing (it always snowed before Halloween) I sat alone in the library, at a big round table, reading Charlotte’s Web. A boy came over to my table, pulled out the chair next to me, and sat down, close, like he knew me.

He leaned over and whispered, “Is that a good book?” 

He smelled like Dial soap and his breath smelled like strawberry candy. Goose bumps popped up everywhere, in places I didn’t know they could pop up. I started to shake a little, inside. I was a mess!

I turned to answer him, but nothing came out at first. His face was so close to mine and he was smiling big at me. His dark chocolate eyes matched his curly hair and his dimples were even bigger than mine.

   “Yes, this is a very good book,” I said. “Would you like to read it with me?” I asked him.

He kept smiling and moved his chair so close to mine that our forearms touched. I was a goner.

I had seen him plenty of times because his locker was just a few feet down from mine. He was much bigger than the rest of the boys in my class. And he was so popular! Everyone seemed to stop and chat with him, even the teachers used to kid him about whatever trouble he’d been in.

He lived in Lakewood and was in eighth grade, but I think he was supposed to be in ninth or tenth grade. He wasn’t stupid like “duh” stupid, but I think he preferred doing more adult things than thinking about school.

I flipped through the pages in Charlotte’s Web, pretending I was a fast reader, and enjoying his fresh soapy smell, and the heat from his breath on my neck as he looked over my shoulder.

“Mr. Spring,” the librarian lady whisper-yelled. “Do you need to sit that close to Cynthia?” I chuckled a little, Dan winked at me and moved about two inches away. 

‘He winked at me, ‘ I thought, ‘only my Dad winks at me.”

He wasn’t interested in Charlotte’s Web, though. It wasn’t long before he lightly tapped me on the shoulder with his forefinger, and I turned to look at him.

   “Would you like to go skating with me?” he asked quietly. My eyes flew open and all my fluid-producing glands went into overdrive; this was also new.

   Yes!” I said, “but you have to come over and meet my parents first, Is that OK?” I asked him.

   “Sure, that’s fine with me,” he smiled. As he stood up to leave, I tugged on the sleeve of his blue denim shirt and asked him: “What’s your name?”

“I’m Dan. Dan Spring.”

Dan Spring came to my house and met my Mom and Dad. They both liked him quite a bit. He came to my house many times and we would walk to Evan’s Skateland together. My brother Steve was two years older than me and he already knew Dan.

   “He’s a hood”, Steve told me. “And he hangs out with the high school guys,” he said. “You better be careful,” he warned me. “You better be good.”

Be good. hmmm. I was done thinking about school after I met Dan Spring. I was done going to Sunday school too, and I was done with being a “good little girl”. That was the most important thing in 1967. To be a “good girl”. 

How come Steve didn’t have to be a “good little boy” anymore?

Dan was not like any boy I ever knew. Once we were inside Skateland, he would lace up my skates for me and then we would rush into the rink, to hold hands and talk and flirt and share quick little peck kisses, on the cheeks, sometimes on the lips; but you were not allowed to make out at the skating rink and if you did it where everyone could see you, you were a whore.

“I found something cool outside I wanna show you,” Dan told me. “It’s behind the skating rink”.

“OK, But it’s freezing cold outside!” I said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm,” and he smiled at me. That’s all I needed.

I already knew what was behind the skating rink: old rusty tractor-trailers and snow-covered hunks of twisted junk metal leftover from the old Celoron Park. Steve and his buddies used to mess around back there, they would take scraps of wood and other stuff and build tree forts.

Me and Dan left Skateland a half hour early. He led me by the hand around the back of the roller rink to a tank-sized rusty green trailer with no door. He jumped inside and said “Come on in here and get out of the wind!” So I did.

We huddled close and jumped up and down to try and keep warm and our breath made fluffy clouds between our faces. Then Dan put his hands in both my coat pockets, pulled me in close, and he kissed me. 

This wasn’t the first time he kissed me, but it was the first time we kissed when it was wet.

There were more than goosebumps appearing.

And it went on like this for six months; when I babysat, Dan was there, when I went downtown for organ lessons, Dan was there, under the football bleachers, behind Skateland, under the high school stairwells, me and Dan were there, playin’ kiss, kiss, kissy games.

One day, Dan came to our house so we could walk together to Skateland. “I think you two have the cutest case of puppy love I ever saw!” my Mom said to me and Dan. 

   “Puppy lo-“ I began to protest, but Dan began to bark and howl like a little dog, interrupting me. My Mom just laughed and laughed. And Dan grabbed my hand, pulled me to the door and said “We’ll see you after skating, Mrs. Bush!”

   “Puppy love?” I said to Dan, once we were outside.

   “That’s right, puppy love,” he said firmly. “And that’s just what you want them to think.”

Dan was so smart that way.

I was 12, he was 15, and we were truly, deeply, in love. There was nothing that could keep us apart.

And everything was just fine and dandy and on the up and up. For a while.

My Mom was at the kitchen sink doing dishes. My Dad was at his desk estimating material costs on a new house for Bennett Homes.

I was doing homework at the dining room table and I needed an eraser to undo an error on a rough draft for a writing assignment. 

I walked up behind my Dad, flipped my long hair back, and tucked it behind my ear so it wouldn’t hang in Dad’s face or over his papers and disturb him.

I put my right hand on his left shoulder and leaned over him to grab a pencil with an eraser from his pencil jar. “Excuse me kind sir”, I said. He turned his head to the left to look up at me. He smiled and looked down, continuing his calculations for about one second until his head snapped back like an overstretched rubber band to look up at me again.

   “What is THAT?” he roared at me. “What the hell is THAT??” he thundered. 

He violently pushed his chair away from the desk, jumped up, grabbed all my very long hair in one hand, and pulled it up over my head. Then he yanked my hair and my head to the left with a hard jerk, fully exposing the right side of my neck.

This was the first time I felt like I was going to die, and not my last.

   “WHAT…IS…THAT?” he yelled at me, while jabbing his finger at my neck with each word, but never touched my skin.

   “Hic…key”, I wimpered, instantly blubbering, shaking, and realizing the monumental mistake I had made.

   “What? What did you say?” he said softly, through his clenched teeth.    “Who did this to you?” he snarled, his teeth gritted so hard, I thought they would snap off like dried twigs.

   “It’s from Dan”, I sobbed, trembling.

   “A hickey. Do you know what kind of girl gets a hickey?” he snarled, and he twisted my hair around his wide, thick hand, pulling it tight, away from my scalp. With each word he said, he yanked my head to the left, exposing the quarter-sized mark in the middle of the right side of my neck.

   “No Dad, I just…”

With all my hair twisted around his fist, he leaned over the desk and opened the pencil drawer. 

He grabbed the large black and silver scissors with his right hand, and screamed “BAD GIRLS, VERY BAD GIRLS!”, snapping the scissors in front of my face with each word.

This was the first time I ever heard my Dad scream. And it was the last time I ever heard him scream.

“Little girls who think they’re so cute”, he seethed. “Let’s just see how cute Dan Spring thinks you are now,”

I started to pee myself.

I screamed and tried to pull away, but he gripped and twisted my hair so tight that my feet left the floor.

He opened the scissors wide in front of my face one last time, then smacked the scissor blades down flat on the top of my head, and began cutting and slicing and chopping all my hair off. All of it.

All over my entire head. From my bangs to the nape of my neck, from ear to ear, all of it, until my scalp was covered with nothing but wispy, jaggedy, one-inch hair nubs. Until top of my shoes were covered with my hair.

When he could no longer hold me in place because my hair was gone, he grabbed the back of my shirt at the neck in his fist, twisting it, bunching it up, holding me in position. I could not breathe. I could not yell.

He pushed me backwards into the living room. I was shivering, trembling. He shoved me hard and I fell into the ugly, scratchy green couch. I sobbed and groped at my head with both hands, desperate to find hair. 

I looked up, trying to find my mother.  But she was not there. 

And he was not done.

He began to take off his belt.

“Stand up. STAND UP!” he thundered.

I did.

“Take off your pants and your underpants.” he said, in a monotone voice I never heard before.

I did.

I stood there, half-naked, head hanging, and violently trembling, in front of my father.

“Lay face down on the couch.” He said calmly.

I did.

And he whipped me, over and over and over, and with each belting, I screamed into the couch, gagged and coughed and spit and scraped my face into the scratchy, ugly green couch, I writhed and jolted up with each strike, screaming and pleading for him to stop.

During the beating, he never screamed or yelled. He never said a word, until he stopped.

“Get up. You are never to see Dan Spring again. You are never to go roller skating again. You will go to school, come home, and remain here until I tell you otherwise. Do you understand me?” Monotone again.

“Yes.” I uttered.

But I certainly didn’t mean it.

I grabbed my clothes and ran upstairs to my bedroom. I was sweating and wet and dripping with what I thought was pee. 

It was blood.

My brother was in his room. I think he was probably thrilled.

I was such a thin-skinned, hypersensitive kid, always whining and crying about nothing, and constantly tattling on Steve. I was a blubbering, blabbermouth, tattle-telling little girl.

And now, finally, it was Steve’s time to shine. The Princess had fallen from grace and was now the shameful pig.

I do not know where my Mother was. Every time this happened, I never saw her.

I stayed in my room for the rest of the day and night. No one bothered me. No one checked on me.

I came down in the morning to use the bathroom and get ready for school, but my Dad intercepted me at the bottom of the stairs. 

He was holding a box of 3”x4” Telfa gauze pads and a roll of brown packing tape.

“Stand still”, he commanded. 

He ripped the paper on the telfa pad, shoved my head to the side to expose the hickey, and smacked the snow-white pad over it. Then he tore off a length of the brown packing tape and strapped it over the pad, pressing it hard against my neck with his concrete fingers. 

Then another strip of tape. And another, until the brown sticky tape covered nearly half of my neck, from front to back, with just a fraction of the white pad sticking out of the top and bottom of the tape.

“You leave this on. You don’t take it off. I will check it in a few days to see when your hickey is gone. Do not take it off” he said. He left for work. I cleaned up, and I left for school.

I couldn’t wait to see Dan. I just - could - not - wait.