PREFACE

“It served no comfort to her and turned out to be the biggest slap in the face of her life as a mother when (a whole century later) we were watching the news one evening at her house. A close relative of “Attic Man’s” was on the news for molesting his girlfriend’s daughter. My mom turned to me and said: “That’s [Attic Man’s] brother, did you know that?”

I replied:

“I was going to ask you that-considering the fact that they have the same unusual last name.” 

“Yeah, I think that runs in their family though,” she replied, feeling proud that she dodged that bullet, feeling confident that as close as Attic Man was to her child (me)-that sure as hell did not go down.

She then began to run down what seemed like a list of legendary and hereditary molestation accounts she had known and heard tales of throughout the years about Attic Man’s male relatives such.

Reminiscently, I turned to her and said: “You know what Ma? That must be true because [Attic Man] used to do that to me all the time when I was a little girl!”

I said it merely thinking that she would say: “What? You’re kidding!”

But instead, her eyes got big and like a deer in headlights, she turned to look at my face quickly then averted her eyes; suddenly embarrassed to look me in the face. She swung her arms in a rebuking manner and continued to scold me out of the corners of her eyes, repeatedly yelling out my name as if that was something I should have kept to myself after all these years. I had no idea that she was going to take it so hard because it was so long ago. She shook her head “no” non-stop, as if I was still a child and someone else delivered this news to her about her child. But instead, it was me-an adult-telling her mom, far too many years later, about what happened (with me) back when I was a child.

She was befuddled. She didn’t want to know the details, and at this point I dared not go into detail and tell her everything. It was the most awkward moment and emotion that I had never seen my very own mother show. My mother normally had an answer and a comeback for everything-always. This time however, she was speechless. She felt so sodomized, so victimized and so traumatized, that she kept throwing her hand at me in what seemed like complete and utter disgust:

“Angie! We’ve had so many conversations when you were a little girl about anybody touching you or saying something to you that made you feel uncomfortable-all of that! Don’t you remember me talking to you about these things! And I mean all the time!                  

E-v-e-r-y-day Angie-damn! How could you do this to me! Oh shit!” she snapped back and yelled at me like it literally burned her. She was so disgusted by the news. She yelled like she was trying to convince herself into remembering having these talks with me, as if-she could have, she would have dug her hand into my brain to pull out the recollection of me storing the talk into the palm of her hand, just so she could say: “here’s the proof right here!”

That wasn’t going to happen, because I didn’t remember the talks.

What I did remember were her constant words: “You see a muthafucka fuckin’ with her-just kill him and save me the trouble!” That was something I constantly heard my mother say aloud when she would have friends over or if we were out somewhere. Whomever we would be standing around would look me up and down then whisper something in her ear. Like clockwork, she would always respond aloud: “That’s okay. You see a muthafucka fuckin’ with her-just kill him and save me the trouble!”

It wasn’t until later in years, I learned that the whispers in her ear would be: “Look at her little shapely body and that child’s face-what are you going to do with her?” that made her respond with: “You see a muthafucka fuckin’ with her-just kill him and save me the trouble!” 

My mother always had a way with words and one hell of a mouth.

She was one of a kind with them both.

She could just spit, on cue-a master wordsmith.

She was always very entertaining and the type that would tell you: “fucking with me would be like running through a lion’s den with a pork chop suit on.”

She seemed to almost have a new one every day.

It was nothing for her to tell you: “I’ve been around the world twice while you are working your way around the tea-cup still looking for the handle.”

If you got in her way too much, she would kindly tell you: “let me fuck this cat, if she has any kittens-I’ll give you one.” 

Translation: Mind your business-simple as that.

I couldn’t wait to come home from school the day that I learned the word for her vernacular was called: “idioms.” So the next time someone looked me up and down and whispered in her ear and she responded: “That’s okay. You see a muthafucka fuckin’ with her just kill him and save me the trouble,” I nudged her and said: “momma, that’s called an idiom!”

Yet this time, this moment, this wordsmith-some twenty (plus) years later, she was sitting in front of me: speechless, wordless, “idiom-less” feeling more like an idiot and that it was she who was put in the lion’s den with a pork chop suit on while I was the one who had been around the world twice while she was working her way around the tea-cup…still looking for the handle. Somebody had already fucked with her kitten over twenty years ago, and I was just now giving her one: the one and only conversation about it-finally.

She behaved as if I was the adult that delivered this news to her about her little girl-yet it was me, her grown little girl, sitting there telling her something that nearly set her back almost twenty (plus) years. It felt weird to me to see my mother like this. Tears filled her eyes as she sat there-speechless-shaking her leg while sitting at the kitchen table as if it was me who had raped her of twenty (plus) years of good housekeeping and motherhood right there in a five-minute instant.

I was numb sitting there, just like I had been numb for years. My emotion was misplaced. I hadn’t a clue as to why she was so mad. It confused me-badly. I didn’t feel traumatized then or in the moment of me telling her, so her shock and awe threw me off. My emotion about it was so misplaced-just like it had been-for years.

My mother sitting there in front of me with tears in her eyes is what felt “uncomfortable” to me.  

Don’t cry for me, cry for my mother-for that was the night she died.

Don’t cry for me, I never did. I never felt like I should, or had a reason to.

Even when I say: “happened to me,” and “did that to me,” it feels weird. It feels weird because even though Attic Man was the start of me chasing sensations of [what I would call] my “pee coming,” throughout my busy little childhood life, thoughts played out in my head of me sitting there seducing him and approving everything he was doing to me. I would take his giant face in my tiny hands and kissing it all over as he kneeled in front of me; enjoying it and moaning with pleasure-like two consenting adults would. 

The most “uncomfortable” any and all of it got to me was the day he tried to penetrate me. I quickly sat right up to slap his face so hard-with my tiny hands that I know he saw birds and stars: “That hurt! Don’t you dare do that again!” I yelled and pointed my tiny finger into his big face-facing my little face as he kneeled in front of me and repeatedly apologized in that pathetic child-molester-like whisper that I can still hear so clearly. But he was so apologetic and near tears when I disapproved that I was “uncomfortable” no more.

For far too long, I had grown to like and receive him wiping [what I would call] his “mushroom,” and his lips on [what I would call] my “flower”-repeatedly. When he tried to go in, that was when it didn’t feel right-it didn’t feel comfortable-because it was painful. All else felt pleasurable and was therefore “right,” because it didn’t hurt. So in my mind, everything was okay-nothing was wrong therefore, there was nothing to tell my mom that was “uncomfortable” going on with me. In my mind, I merely had an older boyfriend who looked like Marvin Gaye, and “secrets.” An adult can’t reach a kid by telling them to report what feels uncomfortable or what’s hurt them (in that way-in that place), because it just might feel comfortable and right. Once it’s done right-it feels right and then becomes a “secret.” 

Kids love “secrets.” In hindsight and looking at my mom’s hurting face, twenty (plus) years later, I figured it all out: If you tell a kid that secrets are for grown-ups and not for kids; then a kid would have secrets no more. I probably would have understood that, and told all my “secrets” to her. When I was a kid, I had just as many secrets as I’ve had many conversations about many things with her. She too, would have probably been in the know about all my “secrets” had she (this wordsmith) known the right words to say-to me: her child. Unfortunately, the people who I had secrets with, whispered in my ear: all the right words. And my mom was the one who didn’t have the clue or cue…  

My emotion and thoughts about it were misplaced because it all went so smoothly that it didn’t seem like anything more than a secret. The “pleasure” for my body was way before my mind could understand it, and because there was no pain or trauma; I grew older to question whether or not it was really “molestation” (because of my willing participation). As a full-grown adult (now), and by standard definition-it was. But because I did not feel traumatized at the time and for years thereafter; I grew to convince myself that it was something else. Because of my confusion, I never felt like a “victim” and I never felt “molested” by standard definition any more than I was “virgin” by standard definition-the night I lost my virginity with Santana.

For years, the best way I could make sense of it all was that I experienced some things that I should not have at an early age. As a result-later in life-I just grew older to like to fuck: my oral and phallic stages stuck with me and were much a part of who I was, just as sure as I needed my fingers to feel and my feet to walk.

Even as a child, it seemed like all day my body was tingling inside and my flower was on a non-stop throb. At seven years-old, I learned what to do to control the tingles at the most inconvenient time: at latchkey-afterschool, while napping when the lights went out. That was the day that I learned that balling up my hand to hunch on top of it, would remedy the tingles. The sound of the teaching assistant yelling out at me in a somewhat loud and surprised whisper: “Angie! Don’t be doing that! Quit that!” rang in my head as I lay there frozen; easing my hands from beneath me and lying flat onto my stomach with my chin dug into the blue and white mat-my arms and legs stretched out in position as if I was about to make a snow angel. Outside of the latchkey assistants yell, I didn’t feel traumatized or “uncomfortable” at all.

But later in life, I think as a result of it all-it caused a kind of numbness; the kind that may have presented itself in other ways that carried on throughout my life until I understood and made sense of it all. Making sense of it all, was all a matter of getting to that point in life where I had to train my mind to catch up with my body, because my mind wasn’t ready for what my body was experiencing.

Unfortunately, breakthroughs and answers won’t come from a deep one-on-one conversation from just the “right” people. And often times, those conversations are much needed from those same people who are breaking you in. They are usually the “just the right people”-only they know, because they are the ones sharing secret private moments with you-that shouldn’t be. They won’t talk to you and have that one-on-one with you. They won’t tell it on you, because they are very much a part of it and don’t want to get in trouble themselves. There will be no secret note slips, or messages in a bottle sent to your parents, because when it’s done spinning, the nose of the bottle will point back to them. So, “just the right people” won’t tell on you (for you). “Just the right people,” won’t tell on themselves (for you). 

Other times, the “just the right people” are your peers. They won’t tell on you because they are your boyfriend(s), and to them-the two of you are merely sharing private moments. They do not have the capacity to decipher what’s really going on with highly sexualized teen girls in the bedroom with them. These teen boys can’t talk to you, re-direct you, or go tell your parents on you.

Santana, a sixteen year-old boy, was merely enjoying himself with a highly sexualized and fully developed fourteen year-old girl. The most any sixteen year-old boy can conjure up in the form of any questions to initiate any kind of dialogue is: “were you really a virgin?” (if the highly sexualized girl was a virgin). And if she wasn’t a virgin (but was merely highly sexualized), to him-he just happened to be having sexual relations with the type of girl who gave and received pleasure in ways that his other peer girls (who hadn’t been messed with), didn’t have it in them to give and receive.

For the girl who had been messed with-her delivery and receipt of pleasure is two and three times over the girl who hasn’t been. Their “sexual spirit” is different even if they did no more in the bedroom than the girl who wasn’t messed with. Because of their “sexual spirit,” their delivery and how they receive pleasure thickens the sexual experience, whereas the girl who was not messed with-hers is “thin” and diluted (in comparison).

The most I could get in the form of any breakthrough with a sixteen year-old boy with just as many raging hormones as I had tingles was: “were you really a virgin?”

At age fourteen, I did not have the capacity to share with him-what seemed “natural” to me for seven whole years before him.

To catch a seven year-old girl masturbating is not normal-it’s not “natural.” One thing about little girl’s clitoris’ in comparison to a little boys penis, is that-that lil’ button can be left alone to mind its own business until that very moment that it has been stimulated. A girl can manipulate it (naturally) from merely washing or wiping-day in and day out, but from the moment it is actually stimulated, that little girl’s clitoris is never the same again. And if she starts to masturbate at far to an early age, that’s a problem-that’s not normal. She’s tingling in ways that a seven year old girl has no business tingling.

The “just the right person” would come in the form of that instructor telling it to my mother. Did she ever? That is a question I never knew the answer to. Some parents get to the bottom of it, other’s ignore it as something “natural.” For boys-maybe, for girls-never. I will never know if my mother knew because she was good at talking a bunch of shit and entertaining people with her vernacular, but when shit hit the fan, she would ignore or wipe the problem away; far-far away from her. I remembered that about her, even while looking at her shockedness of finding out some twenty (plus) years later. Now that…I muthafuckin’ didn’t forget. 

Surely, a grown man like Tim, had to think (at least a time or two): “why is this little girl enjoying these moments like this in such a way? It’s not normal.” Yet, he wasn’t going to go pay my mother a visit and tell her what I was doing, and liking, while huddled up and tucked away with him. He got his pleasure-and it was over with. He most probably wiped his brows at the thought and relief that I was enjoying it and was a willing participant, simple as that. Despite the fact he knew it was wrong.

Sure, I almost got my breakthrough good and into my later teen years-from an older “boyfriend” I was seeing. Though I wasn’t a child, I was still too young for him. We had been fucking so regularly until one day he snapped. Grunting like a crazy man, he pulled right out of me, got up, lit a cigarette and walked over to the wet bar at the other end of basement bedroom where we lay, many-a-days. He stared at me lying there. It spooked me the hell out. He poured himself a drink while his hands began to shake. I insisted on slipping my clothes on and getting the hell out of there before that glass was half-full. When he looked up, I was dressed and at the door, on route up the steps and out of that house. I had never seen him in this state of mind. He pointed that cigarette at me and took a sip of his champagne: 

"You stay right there.”

I was startled but I stood still.

He went in:

“You’ve got just as much chance in life as any these motherfuckers up here living in “Woodmond” or “Bensonhurst” (two affluent parts of town where no one but the rich and/or famous lived).

I listened on.

“You’re just as smart, just as talented, just as beautiful, just as worthy as any of those motherfuckers living up there! But you-you’ve got to quit fucking and put your attention on only the right things to get you there!”

I was utterly confused, feeling many ways awkward.

“You say that like I’ve been with a lot of men. I don’t have casual sex. I’ve only had two boyfriends in my entire life,” I defended.

“I know-we’ve talked about that. That’s not what I’m talking about. A woman can have a hundred men and not be ready, but can have the same hundred men and be ready! You are not ready-with two or twenty! Only in bed. And that’s not good for a man who wouldn’t mean you well. Your mind’s not ready to know the difference.” …he asserted:

“You…you…need to stop fucking altogether. These motherfuckers out here would love you for that. Take care of your business,” he said-like he was any different, and totally drew a blank at the fact that I had been too young for him since the day he started fucking me.

He scolded me in ways that began to sound like he cared, but was talking in riddles because he knew that the same person he was warning me about happened to be him, too.

I was confused, so I responded with what I felt was really happening inside of him:

“Are you saying all that because you’re older than me and now all of a sudden you’re getting a conscious about it?”

He shook his head and wiped his face with his shaky fingers:

“You’re not ready-here for the type of shit that goes on: here,” he pointed at my head-first, then the bed-second. The conversation ended up going nowhere, just a little further than the typical. Because “just the right person,” got a conscious about it but then, subconscious as well-and didn’t want to look like a hypocrite. He knew that my mind was ready to comprehend that much.

I kinda-sorta understood what he was saying, but didn’t quite understand what I could do about what was already in effect-having yet not coming to terms with the cause. I would merely say: “Nothing’s wrong with me-I just got started at an earlier age.” 

I never had a one-night stand any more than I’d ever been “easy.” And the fact that I didn’t go on in life to desire and molest kids, didn’t do drugs and alcohol, get caught up into prostitution, or wasn’t plagued with chronic pornography fetishes and other various sexual deviancies and abnormalities; really forced me to think that since I wasn’t the typical case, I had no right or reason to call it what it was.

It’s just that later in life, during trying to make sense of it all, my emotions for some things were misplaced, others-nonexistent. My attraction to and for other things were simply lopsided and I equated “real love” with “making love” as a prerequisite for anything solid and worth committing to, and in doing so-it brought me a lot of pain and a whole lot of pleasure.

I felt like my stagnant phallic and oral stages of loving to rap on the mic and put my needle to a record or two until a muthafucka stuttered and sang opera was never a problem or issue-but rather, an art form. Each and every time, it felt “right” and new. It was something that I treasured, dissected and perfected-then churned it for whomever I felt I was solid with, earned it, and committed to. I couldn’t help myself, and I would lose control of myself while in the middle of it like some outer-body, slash, out of mind experience.

Everything was right about it in my body-to calm my tingles. I just wanted the feeling, and to lose my head at the edge of the bed. Pleasure, love, being in love, thinking I was in love, on my way to being in love, falling out of love, falling back in love-it was all the same to me, as long as I could calm my tingles in between-even despite the hurt and tears that came with it, whether the tears and hurt was mine or theirs.

Truth be told to myself, going through life, I knew I had some issues. Sometimes I’d bleed blood and other times I bleed metal-either way, deep down inside; the only “uncomfortable” I felt was cut-open, hollow and numb during those “trying to make sense of it all” times in my life.

I have issues that I am fighting, and have fought with all my life. Some, I have won-others I still battle.

Life has not allowed me the time to dwell on my past, play the victim or claim victim, but instead-forced me to deal with the hand I was dealt: pokerfaced.  During trying to make some sense of it all, behind my humor, the jokes I’d tell and the sun in my smile and eyes; I had both-tingles and tears going on inside of me.

I know full well who I am just as much as I know throughout my adult life, the problem has been what I feel, and as result; what it is I liked to do.

Yes, I had been broken down, broken apart, come undone and massively hit rock bottom at various times in my life. That being said, just rock with me while grow up, throw up and get to the breakthrough, the bottom, or the end of the situation…"