Growing Up

“I lost my virginity to my father,” she said, “and depending on your definition, I lost it twice.”

This was not what I was looking for when I went out walking. The afternoon was fair. I was home alone, the grass was cut and my other chores were done. I spent most of the afternoon reading and watching movies on TV. The sun was setting hot and bright in the sky, and the air was still. I went walking out of boredom and ended up on “the other side of town.” I was 15 years old.

“My mother was always quiet, part of the shadows really.” she went on. “Daddy never paid her much attention after I finished kindergarten. Oh yeah, she was expected to make dinner, keep the house the way Daddy liked it, but I never heard them talking unless they were fighting.  The fighting always ended with my mother on the floor, bleeding and whimpering. Daddy would throw her a beer from the fridge, tell her the cold can was good for cuts and bruises. She always made sure the can was cleaned before she put it back in the refrigerator.”

“I can't remember my mother being a good cook, either, not that Daddy had much taste anyway. He used to say to me, always in a voice too loud: 'Your momma ain't good for much, much less cookin.'” she said, trying to sound like a man.

“My mother never said much to me, either. 'Get off to school' and 'Mind your father' was about it. I hated her for a lotta years for not saying more, but looking back it wasn't all bad advice.”

Why I knocked on her door I don't remember. We saw each other on the school bus sometimes, but never talked. She was younger than me, not very pretty and not talkative.  There was talk that she was easy, her name was on the bathroom walls, but I had made no plan that day.

“You want a cigarette?” she asked. “I'm trying to give them up. I've only been smoking for five years, but already I wake up with a cough and the shakes. It may not be just the smokes.”

She continued her story.  “My sister ran away a couple of years ago. I didn't know why then, and I don't blame her now. After a while Daddy stopped cursing her, and never mentioned her again. My mother never said much about her. She slipped once, mentioned how my sister was 'better off now', which brought on a whole new round of cursing from Daddy. Momma got out of the way before Daddy belted her again.”

“I still hear from my sister now and then, though nobody else knows that. She's almost 19 now, cleans floors all day and goes to high school at night. She's out in the Midwest, never coming back here.”

I had walked by her house a few times in the fading light. There weren't any cars in the yard, and as the evening settled only one light came on in the back of the house. When I knocked at the front door I heard quick, light footsteps coming toward the door. She opened it, paused for a second, and then asked me what I wanted. The way she looked at me said she had an idea what, and she said: “Go around back.” I sat in an old chair on a formerly screened porch. She leaned against the door frame.

Her voice was soft and quiet. “Sometime during the first grade I came home and it was just me and Daddy. Where momma was during this and other days I never knew. Daddy didn't always work, so I was home alone with him a lot. My brothers, such as they were, raised hell in the neighborhood and at school. They weren't old enough to play with me yet.”

“Anyway, Daddy called me into the TV room and turned off the TV. This was unusual, but even more unusual was that he had no pants on. He usually walked around without a shirt on, smelled a bit, but that day he was cleaned up, even had a clean shirt on. Still, he had no pants on, and his dick was standing straight up.”

Calmly, she went on: “Hell, nobody talked about stuff back then, so when he told me I was supposed to kiss it, well I did. 'Mind your father,' that's what momma always said. After all of that I had to clean his shirt.”

She took a drag on her cigarette.  By now most of the sunlight was gone, and the house light and street lamps cast a soft light over her.  I was stuck in a shadow.

“This went on for a couple of months, not every day, but often enough. Momma and Daddy weren't fighting much. After a while Daddy told me we were going to change things, that I didn't have to kiss his 'thing' anymore.” 

“You know, I didn't know the real name, penis, for over four years after that. He always called it his 'thing,' and Daddy told me that I had a thing too, and that they fit together like a puzzle. We didn't have many puzzles in this house, but I knew what he was getting at. It was that day, in the winter, when I lost my second virginity.”

I had been at her house for over an hour. I would have had to push her out of the way to get off the porch, and I could have, but it was plain she wasn't done with me yet. I was uncomfortable, she knew it and kept me pinned into the chair with her words.

“It stayed like that for a long time. The house was quiet, and I was 'Daddy's special girl.'”

She stabbed at the door frame with her cigarette. “He never hurt me, never hit me like he hit momma, never lay on top of me. Yeah, the first few times there was a lot of pain, but Daddy told me to be strong and to not cry, the pain would go away.  It did too, and he was gentle, really.  He would lie down on his back and help me on top of him.  Balance me almost.”

“Along about the time my chest started to grow and then my hair started to sprout he let my brothers in on it, too. That's when I started to think that all of this was wrong.  I mean, wasn't I supposed to be Daddy's special girl?  The funny part was that my brothers didn't seem interested.

They were old enough, but after a while they complained that I wasn't like 'the girls in school' and they stopped asking Daddy for me.”

“This was okay with me, I thought I'd be 'special' again, but Daddy had other ideas.  I was past 11 by then, and Daddy told me I was old enough to help the family. I thought that with a quiet house and him cleaning up once in a while that I already was helping out. He had debts, he said, and he had to make some money. That's where I came in, and he would be 'proud of his special girl for helping.'”

It was very dark now, no moon, blackness interrupted by pools of yellow light.

“There were lots of men after that. Poker buddies, guys from the bars, men from all over town. I would watch them give Daddy money, and then they would take me into the other room.  I did what I was told. Daddy never let anybody hit me or do any 'weird stuff,' as he called it, but I sure didn't feel special anymore.”

She looked at me, a smile playing around her lips. “By the way, your Dad never was here.  I saw him around town, but he never came around like the other men. You'd be surprised who did 'come to visit,' another of Daddy's terms, but I'm not going to tell you any names. I could see though, when you came to the door, that you were like your Dad, even though I knew why you came knocking.”

I sat accused and guilty, wondering how I could have been so obvious.

“One night it was just me and Daddy, a 'special night,' he said. Anyway, he fell asleep and I started looking around in his room. I had watched kids get a second lunch in school because they had money in their pocket ... watched it for years. I knew that the money the other men gave Daddy was useful for more than just lunches, and I wanted to find where he kept it all.   Daddy was never too careful, neither hiding his money nor keeping what he had. I found his stash quick enough in a drawer full of clean shirts. I took all of the biggest bills and left the smaller ones in the drawer. I figured Daddy wanted his stack tall in size, and I was right.”

“I've been doing that every few weeks ever since, thinning out the big bills and making my own stash. Every once in a while I buy some milk at the store just to break a twenty, then I use the smaller bills for lunch. Yeah, and cigarettes, too, but I'm getting rid of those. Now I've got a couple of thousand bucks, and I figure I deserve it.”

I couldn't disagree with her, didn't say anything at all.

“Now I know what people say about me at school, and what you boys write on the bathroom walls. That's all okay. You notice I don't talk much on the bus, and that I scowl at people a lot. Maybe now it makes more sense to you. And you've listened long enough, so why don't you come inside, my bedroom is just down the hall.”

I sat rooted to the chair. Here was my chance, and I could not move. What I came for was there to grab, but I could not grasp it, and the chance fluttered away.

“I thought so,” she said triumphantly, “I knew you were like your Dad.”

“I told you I hear from my sister now and then. Now you know why she left and why I don't blame her for going. I figure washing floors and going to night school, and I am going to night school, is better than what I got here. I wrote back to her for the first time just last month. I swear her letter back to me came the next day, told me to get to her place quick before I changed my mind or lost my nerve. That is what I was doing when you came knocking, getting ready to walk on out of here. So you wait, I will be right back out.”

She was, and she handed me a red gym bag like all of the boys carried. It was stuffed full, and she carried a purse.

“My first purse,” she said, and held it up for me to see, “and it is ripe with money. You carry the bag and walk with me. It would look funny, me carrying that thing. You are going to walk me to the bus stop, then I am getting out of here. It's very dark out, no one will see us clear, so I want you to hold my hand. I know that sounds weird, but I want to try it one time before I leave this town.”

I stood on the porch steps and watched as she reached into the house and turned off the light. I had the gym bag in my left hand and reached up to her with my right. She took my hand, purse on her wrist, and started down the steps. She stopped halfway down, not letting go of me, and reached into her shirt pocket with her other hand. She turned back toward the house and flicked her pack of cigarettes onto the porch floor.  They bounced against the back door, the cigarettes spilling out of the pack as the porch door slammed shut. We walked down the driveway, hand in hand, and onto the sidewalk, carefully avoiding the pools of yellow light.