My world was disrupted in May of 1988. I was 12 years old. My parents told us that they were being forced to sell the house (garage, actually, they never did get the house proper built) because they couldn't afford it anymore and we had to move. They did manage to sell the house before it was foreclosed, and with the little money that was left over they bought a 24' tow behind RV and a conversion van. They put most of our stuff into a self-storage unit and we headed to Kansas, where my mom grew up, to witness the dedication of the new surgical wing at the hospital to her father who had been a surgeon there for years. The trailer had a 3/4 size bed that my brothers shared, the table folded down into a bed for my parents, and above the boys' bed was a fold-away bed that looked like cabinets when it was closed. It was a very comforting place for me. I had all of my 10 million stuffed animals on my bed (which hung only about 2 feet from the ceiling) and the vast majority of my clothes stuffed at the end of my bed. My parents wondered how I could sleep like that, with so little room for me, but it was cozy and snug. Sometimes when I was upset, I would climb into my bed and pull it shut around me, so I was in this little cocoon of darkness, with all my belongings insulating me from the outside world. I wrote of this once when I was a freshman in college, about a time I couldn't stand my brothers anymore and my English professor critiqued it and said that it was impossible that a baby in the womb would have that level of comprehension. She did not believe that it was a true story. I didn't get along very well with her, but more on that later.
So we went to Kansas for three weeks. The trip out there took four days from New Hampshire. We couldn't drive any faster than 45 mph or the engine would overheat. We had a CB radio in the van and could hear all the truckers getting mad at "the suitcase up ahead going so slow." My dad got on the CB and apologized, explaining that if we went any faster, we would overheat and then we would be stopped in the middle of the highway which would slow everyone down even more. Once two trucks pulled up on either side of us and blew their airhorns at the same time. I jumped ten miles. The front of the van had captain's chairs where my parents sat and a spot on the floor between them that was just right for me. (Seat belts? What are those?) I hated my brothers and so I sat as far away from them as I could. My parents and I had a tradition of reading together, and we read mostly fantasy novels. By the time I was 12 we had read Tolkien, Fred Saberhagen, Raymond E. Feist, David Eddings, and all the fantasy novels at the library. I took my turns reading and never had any problem with the "grown up" novels. So on the trip to Kansas I read aloud to my parents, while my brothers argued in the back.
In Kansas I had my first boyfriend. I was 12, and he was 13. His birthday was Feb 13, and he asked me out at the town swimming pool. I found the idea of a town swimming pool rather odd, after all, all I ever had to do was walk to one of the numerous ponds or lakes at home. He also gave me my first kiss. We were sliding down a tornado slide with some friends (one of those slides that goes round and round), and he went down just before I did. When I got to the bottom, he was waiting there, pecked me on the cheek and took off running. I was stunned, then thought, "I'll never wash my face again." I had frequently scoffed at girls who said similar before.
My parents considered moving us there permanently, but my dad had unfinished business in New Hampshire that he wanted to make good on, so towards the end of June, we returned again. We moved into a campground and lived there for the summer. I suppose I should say they lived there for the summer. My friend's mom insisted that I stay with them for the summer so her daughter would have someone to play with while she was working. She was the first single mom I knew. So I stayed in town for the summer, returning home every few weekends to see my folks. I realize now that it was probably more a matter of taking some stress off of my parents. One less mouth to feed, one less child to fight with the boys, etc. I enjoyed myself immensely that summer. That is where I basically started coming of age. I got my ears pierced, I started brushing my hair every day, I started noticing boys, and I got my first bra. I had never cared about my appearance, and my parents usually had to threaten to chop off my waist length hair in order to get me to brush it. I was so proud of my first bra. It was a 36B. Later when I moved back in with my parents, my mom decided to buy me a bra. I told her what size I needed, but she didn't believe me and was shocked to see that the 34A that she got me didn't fit. Duh!
That was also the summer I broke my second bone - my nose. Okay so it's not a bone. I was 12 years old, sitting on a fence at the carnival. It was one of the fences they put up around the rides to keep people out and safe. I had perched myself atop the rail and tucked my feet behind the bottom rail so I could lean back. I forgot where my feet were and leaned forward to talk to someone and flipped right around and smashed the bridge of my nose on the bottom rail. That was a lot of blood. It never blackened my eyes, though. So now I have a ski jump nose pushed into my face. I got teased a lot.
That winter when the campground closed, we moved the trailer into my dad's friend's barn. He had no animals and just used it as storage space. I was so ashamed to live like that and never brought any friends home. I was still being homeschooled, so it wasn't like I had many friends anyway. My dad taught us how to defend ourselves a little bit, for our own safety. I learned how to block a punch, but that was about all he taught us. We were a very violent family, but I don't mean that in a bad way. There was never any abuse, we just played really rough. And we usually didn't stop until someone got hurt. We never learned that enough meant enough. I recently looked at my whole family's charts and I see a LOT of Mars emphasis, and I see that played out here. We did have some quiet pastimes as well, other than reading. That year I learned how to play Rummy. One night we played so late into the night that it was dawn before we knew it, and I had a job to go clean some old lady's house that morning. That was my first experience of staying up all night long.
That fall I started public school. I wanted to be like other kids and my mom didn't feel she could teach me much more, even with the excellent line of textbooks she used. I had asked my dad to teach me some algebra before I went into school and thus I was able to enroll in Algebra I instead of Pre-Algebra when I was a freshman. I was painfully conscious of the fact that I was the youngest in the school. I was only 13 and wouldn't turn 14 until late March. I also had never been in a setting like this before, so it was a major culture shock. The other kids picked up on this and teased me mercilessly. One day in class a boy spit on me when the teacher was out of the room. I complained, and one of the popular girls said, "What? Afraid of the second shower of your life?" I was humiliated. I was subjected to every kind of harassment, including repeated sexual harassment by one of the seniors. My dad told me to kick him in the nuts the next time he asked me to do him in the hallway between classes. Instead I went to the guidance counselor. She told me that boys will be boys, and the harassment just got worse. I was not an ugly girl, and my dad told me that the boys picked on me because they liked me. They just didn't know how to express that like. I didn't buy it for a moment. I couldn't believe that someone would say, "So, was last night as good for you as it was for me?" to someone you liked as soon as they entered class. One senior in particular made my life a living hell. My dad once told me to kick him in the nuts the next time he made a comment to me like that, but I didn't want to get suspended. I was traumatized, and had no one to turn to.
At some point we moved the trailer out of the barn and into the yard beside the house. At least we had daylight again. My dad had not had a job since we got back to New Hampshire with the exception of a couple of short term temp jobs. He was terribly depressed, especially in the winter. It just compounded his normal seasonal depression. We lived on food stamps from the state, and my mom milked a friend's goats twice a day for $10 a day, I think it was. That bought gas, and my dad's cigarettes. That covered the basics. My dad had tried to quit several times I remember, but he had been smoking since he was a kid and it was just too hard. He got *really* grumpy when he tried to quit.
One Saturday morning in April I was sleeping in my bunk. It was around 6 am or so. I heard a strange voice calling "Anyone in there?" and banging on the door to the trailer. I heard the door open and felt the trailer shift as someone heavy stepped inside. I heard them approach the partition from the kitchen to the bedroom and with my eyes still shut, I feigned sleep as I prepared to kick the intruder in the face. Fortunately, I opened my eyes and saw it was a firefighter in full gear. There was a red glow out my textured window. He ushered us all outside and we stood there in our pajamas watching the barn that we had recently moved out of burn to the ground. There had been a Corvette in there, and that was a pretty sad sight to see afterwards, but otherwise I am told nothing really valuable was lost.
I went to school as usual the next Monday, and suffered again at the hands of the notorious senior. But instead of, "Hey Judy, let's get it on right here, right now, you know you want to," it was, "So, Judy, I hear you burned down that barn. Smoking dope were you?" I have never in my life smoked dope. I tried a cigarette once a few years later, but never once ever tried any illegal substance. After a while it died down and they returned to their usual torment.
The fire marshall told my folks that they had to move because the trailer was a fire hazard. Fortunately, my dad got a good job with overtime potential about that same time, and with his very first paycheck, they were able to come up with the security deposit and first month's rent on a two bedroom apartment. We moved in a few weeks later. At first, my brothers and I shared a room. It was a tight fit to squeeze three twin size beds into one room and still have room for dressers and movement.
I can recall sneaking out at night through the bedroom window and going to see my friends. One window had no screen, so I would leave it a little bit open so I could get back inside again. One night, I arranged some dark colored blankets in my bed, leaving some visible on my pillow to look like my head from the doorway (I never pulled the covers over my head, so that would have looked suspicious). I stashed my pajamas under my bed, and slipped out the window, which my bed covered by a couple of inches. I went out and saw my friends and on my way back home again, I saw my mom drive by. Paranoid, I ran the rest of the way home and saw to my horror that the window was shut. Since no one else was up, I slipped in the back door, raced to my bed and shoved the blankets under it. I quickly changed into my jammys and slid into bed, waiting with pounding heart for my mom to come home and chastise me. A few minutes later (it seemed like an eternity), I heard her come back in. But she didn't come to my room. I waited until my nerves calmed down enough that I could walk without shaking, then got up, feigning sleepiness, and went to the bathroom. Then I went in the kitchen to get a drink and see what my mom's reaction would be. I'd rather face the music now, than sleep on it and get it in the morning. "How many times have I told you to keep that window shut? If you need to open one, open the other one. It has a screen." Whew! And my mom's gullibility saves me once again. I did tell her later. Like, after I moved into a place of my own.
It wasn't long before I was fed up with sharing a room with my brothers. I moved onto the couch and was much happier. That freed up a bed and a friend of my brothers who had run away from an abusive family ended up at our house. My parents started foster parenting classes, but the state took him away before they finished. His name was Jeremy Foster, and he was dear to all of us. He taught my brothers that it is okay to have manners and not be rude to everyone all the time. It was a short time he was with us, but he became part of our family, even though I never saw him again after that. Rumor has it that he hanged himself in a motel and that it involved drugs when he was in his early 20's, but my brothers don't believe that. They think he was murdered and that he was trying to clean up his act.
