When I was between eight and ten years old, through the 3rd & 4th grade, I had become really good friends with Billie (I’m using her name here, because I know she started going by a different part of her name when she hit her mid-teens; hearing her more common name was a reminder of her past). If my memory serves me correctly, she and her brother were under the care of her maternal grandparents because either her parents couldn’t take care of them because of drug/alcohol problems, or they worked on the road.
Billie and I had a lot in common. We were both tomboys who’d much rather climb trees and play in the dirt with Matchbox cars and marbles than play with dolls and make-up. We’d go racing around the neighborhood on our bikes, pretending we were two of Charlie’s Angels. She always pretended to shoot down old men. I would later understand why.
My parents liked Billie; however, my mom never cared for Billie’s manners. It wasn’t that Billie was rude; she always greeted my parents properly and used “Sir” & “Ma’am”, it was her table manners that appalled Mom. I don’t think Billie ever ate at a table the entire time she lived with her grandparents. Food was always put on a plate (usually a paper one), and eaten in some other room. Mom was mortified the one and only time that Billie ate dinner at our house.
First off, Billie had to be asked to leave the table to wash her hands. It was second nature for me to head to the bathroom when dinner was called to clean up. If my shirt was dirty, I’d make sure to put a clean one on before sitting down at the table. It never occurred to me to make sure Billie was cleaned up before we sat down. The next shock to mom was how Billie ate her meal. The only utensils I’d ever seen Billie use was a fork for eggs and pancakes and a spoon for cereal. Since all her family seemed to eat the rest of the day was sandwiches and fried fish, french fries and maybe corn on the cob, knives and forks were not necessary. The meal Mom served that evening was roast with a baked potato and some other vegetable. Billie had never had a baked potato before. She watched me dress mine, and did the same. She didn’t bother watching me eat mine; she instead picked hers up with her fingers and started eating it like a taco. I saw the expression on Mom’s face. She was about to say something, but Dad gently grabbed her hand and shook his head. Mom did her best not to watch Billie eat the rest of her dinner.
I remember the little house they lived in just a couple of blocks from mine. It was typical of the houses in the Southwest…a small, single story adobe structure covered in white stucco. I’ll always remember the smell of this house, and the next one they moved into a couple of years later. Fried fish and potatoes, Pall Mall cigarettes, and booze, both beer, and whiskey hung heavy in the air. There never seemed to be enough light in the place; only the kitchen ever seemed to be well lit. The living room and the bedrooms, especially Billie’s, seemed to be the darkest. Maybe it was the karmic repercussions of the activities in these rooms that gave them their dark pall.
The walls in Billie’s room were a dark pink, at least that’s what I seem to remember. The carpet was a dark green shag…all typical of home decor of the time. Her mattress stank…like old urine. Knowing what I know now…probably from nocturnal enuresis due to the stress and trauma caused by her bastard grandfather.
The back yard was devoid of grass, but not of auto parts, a boat, and a shed. I don’t remember anything of this shed; it would be the shed at the next house that I would end up remembering all too well.
I’ll never forget that short, bald, tubby, smelly son of a bitch. I really liked him when I first met him. So did my parents. He came across as being a great, trusting guy, the typical image of the caring, happy grandpa. If I remember correctly, he was some sort of WWII naval hero. I remember seeing old photos of him when he was in the navy during the war. He served in the South Pacific…probably where he developed and honed his perversions.
I would spend the night at Billie’s several times, often on Saturday nights. During the day, her grandfather would take us fishing. We’d catch some nice, pan-sized catfish, take them home and her grandma would clean the fish and fry it up along with homemade french fries. I never remembered them eating anything different, ever. We drank gallons of Pepsi and homemade ice tea made with way too much sugar. If her grandfather hadn’t met his demise in the manner I’ve been told, I’m sure he’d have died from heart disease, lung cancer or liver disease.
While Billie and her family lived at that little house, only one thing ever happened to me concerning her grandfather and his perversions. Back then, we weren’t told as children that if such things happened, tell someone. It was summer vacation; I’d been invited to go with them on an overnight fishing trip to one of the reservoirs on the river…Elephant Butte, I think.
When I showed up at Billie’s house, only her grandfather was there. Billie, her brother and grandmother had gone to the store to get stuff for the trip. The grandfather invited me in. He was watching TV; I don’t remember what program was on. As I started sitting down on the couch, he told me to come over and sit on his lap, stating that I’d see the TV better from there. I felt weird doing it, but I did it anyway. He lifted me to his lap; I remember the foul, sour smell that came from him…stale cigarette smoke, booze, and sweat…masked by Brut aftershave. While I sat on his lap, which thankfully wasn’t long, he started rubbing my back. I tensed up; he told me to relax. He then started moving his hand around to my chest…he quickly moved it away when he heard the car pull into the drive way. He practically threw me off his lap and told me to go sit on the couch. As I sat down, he put a finger to his lips. Without saying, I knew what he was telling me to shush about. When his wife walked in the door, she did a double-take at me on the couch. She looked at him, then at me, then back at him. He pretended not to notice by asking if she remembered some item on the shopping list. I remember at that moment that I suddenly wasn’t too keen on going fishing or spending the night. My fears were soon forgotten after Billie and I sped out of the house to play in the backyard while the adults and her brother finished getting ready for the trip. We delved into our version of “Charlie’s Angels”. I don’t remember anything bad happening on that fishing trip; in fact, I seem to remember it as having been a great time, with lots of fish caught.
As the next few years in elementary school progressed, I had made other friends and saw Billie on a less frequent basis. By the 5th or 6th grade, her grandparents had moved to a different neighborhood, on the other side of the tracks. Billie was in a different school. We still managed to see each other on the weekends every couple of weeks. I’d either walk along the tracks or ride a couple of blocks through the barrio on my bike to get to her house.
At that time, her neighborhood was on the western-most edge of town. There were cotton, pepper and bean fields only a short walk from her house. We’d sneak cigarettes from her grandparents and sit in the middle of the cotton plants to smoke them (I guess we thought no one would notice puffs of smoke coming up from the plants. Either no one really ever noticed or cared if they did. One of the first things I took notice of was that Billie liked to spend as much of our time as possible walking through the fields and talking. Sometimes we didn’t even talk, only walked in silence. Other time was spent in the back yard, which was much better than the one at the other house. This one was surrounded by a cinderblock fence, and was shaded by a large, old pecan tree. There was a shed in one corner of the yard. THE shed.
The house itself was nicer, yet not too much different from the previous house. I remember it was white, but I don’t think it was adobe, rather a standard, A-frame house. Though the interior itself wasn’t dark, the general atmosphere of the familial environment cast a dark pall over the place.
Three rooms stand out to me. The kitchen was pretty much the same as in their old house; only it seemed brighter, probably because it had two windows; one faced the west and the other the north, which meant that lots of sunlight streamed in. Too bad the light couldn’t cleanse the dark soul of that house.
I have to wonder what drew Billie’s grandparents to the house in the first place…it seemed to have a bad karma attached to it from the get-go. The second room that stands out in my memory is the living room, which one walked into immediately from the front door. The floor was a dark grass-green tile. I seem to remember the walls being painted a very pale, mint green. The furniture in the room was comfortable. The room should have been a pleasant place to sit down in to watch TV and socialize, yet it had a dark sense about it. Maybe it was because of the death that occurred in the room a year or two prior to them moving in. One day, when Billie’s grandparents were out, she moved the love seat away from the window that was by the front door. There was a dark stain in the tiles…more of an outline than a stain. She told me she’d found out earlier that it was a blood stain that no one could seem to remove. Supposedly, a man had been killed there. I asked my dad, who was a deputy sheriff, if he’d ever heard about a killing on that side of town. He said that there had been one in the recent past, and he believed it was in that neighborhood. Billie, her brother and I would psyche each other out by saying we could see the ghost of the man, standing in front of the window and beckoning to us.
The third room that stands out in my memory, of course, is Billie’s room. It was strangely similar to the one in her other house…maybe it was a sign of the times, or just odd coincidence. The walls were pink, a deeper shade, though. I know her family didn’t paint it that way; there were signs of age that proved that. I don’t remember the color of the carpet…it was either dark brown or green, maybe even green and brown. It was low pile instead of shag. The room was crowded because there were two beds, only about 18 inches apart. There was a single nightstand with a lamp and other things crowding it that stood between the beds. The room had the same odor of old piss that her other one did. Heck, the entire house smelled the same as the other one. The only difference between this one and the other is what happened to me the last time I spent the night. I don’t recall how many times I spent the night in that house; I remember the fried fish and french fries, and playing board games in her bedroom.
I guess my subconscious has been trying to protect my conscious memory from the events of that last night. However, whether by fate, recent events, or conscious will, the memory has come forward. I might actually venture to admit that the memory may have actually been haunting me for years in many forms. Perhaps it’s the reason I hate pink rooms, green floors, nagahide furniture, Pall Malls, and Silly Putty. Yes, Silly Putty.
It was early June. The window was open, letting the cool breeze carry the scent of the earth and blooming plants in the fields waft into the room; a pleasant change from the dust, stale smoke, and fried fish that ruled over the air in the house, and the urine scent in particular in the bedroom. I remember being able to see rather well in the room, even though no lamp was on. The light was either from a full moon or a street light. It was probably the latter; I seem to recall a blue hue to the dim light.
Her grandparents had turned in early. Billie, her brother and I stayed up playing board games in the living room and watching TV. We went to bed after Saturday Night Live. I remember falling asleep to the sound of the leaves rustling through the pecan tree’s leaves and crickets chirping. I was awakened by the sound of movement in the room. I looked over to Billie’s bed. Her grandfather was in there, making Billie get up. She got out of the bed, he pulled off his robe, and climbed in. He pointed to the floor and she knelt down. He then took one of her hands and placed it in his underwear. She pulled his dick out and stared rubbing it. I was in shock. My heart started racing. Though no one had ever talked to me about these things, I had the innate sense that what I was watching was WRONG!
I tried to pretend I was asleep by watching with my eyes squinted most of the way closed. I was afraid that he’d know I was awake and make me touch him. The bastard sensed I was awake. He whispered to me, telling me to sit up, and instructed me to be quiet. I sat up. I broke out into a cold sweat. My chest tightened. I was afraid I was about to have an asthma attack. My mind was racing; all I wanted to do was run out of that house. I might very well have tried, but the fact that we three kids had freaked each other out with stories of the murdered man’s ghost in the living room stopped me. I was afraid that the ghost would grab me and do things to me. The mind does strange things in crisis, right?
I must have taken too long processing the bastard’s demand, because I felt a hand grab my wrist and pull me down. At that point, I didn’t feel myself in my body. I knew I was on my knees, facing this man’s penis. It looked weird to me, like something out of a B grade horror flick. Yes, I’d seen penises in porn mags some of my friends stole from their parents, but this thing I was staring at was creepy as hell. Maybe it was because it was wrinkled and limp, or the pale, blue light, or the situation…or maybe all three.
He told me to touch it. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I felt like puking. He told Billie to help me. She seemed to be hypnotized, given the slow, surreal way she took my hand and moved it to his dick. I didn’t seem in control at all of my body as I grabbed the nasty thing. The flaccid, limp, wrinkled thing reminded me of silly putty immediately after it’s been rolled into a log–warm from body heat and a bit limp. He told me to stroke it up and down. As I did, he started getting hard. I started sweating more. I must have made some sort of sound of protest, because he warned me to shut up or someone was going to get hurt. Billie shushed me, too.
What happened next was heinous. After he became fully erect, which wasn’t much, he told me to kiss it. I stared at Billie in disbelief. Her bright blue eyes were sad as she nodded. I let go of his needle dick and tried to back away. The pervert grabbed my shoulder and sat up. He forced my head into his groin, shoving his dick toward my mouth. The stench that emanated from that man’s crotch was sickening. I gagged, loudly. He shoved me away and told me to stay where I was so I could watch Billie do it. She was going to show me the “proper” way to serve a man.
First, he had her jack him off. The sick bastard made me touch his goo. It was sticky and it stank. Then he made Billie suck him till he got hard. That was when he made her lie down and he got on top of her. He noticed me get up; he told me to lie down on the other bed and to be quiet. I did as I was told. I cried quietly as Billie lay there, prone and helpless, while the fucker finished raping his granddaughter. When he finished, he got up and put his robe on. He stood over me, staring my up and down. I flinched when he bent down and stroked my forehead. He chuckled, stood up and left. With tears in my eyes, I looked over at Billie. She just lay there, staring at the ceiling. She felt my stare. Without looking at me, she apologized.
I don’t know how long I lay there, trying to stay awake, but I must have fallen asleep because I awoke to Billie shaking me gently by the shoulder. The room was bright, too bright. I looked at Billie. She was already dressed. I got up and quickly got dressed. I thought about what happened a few hours before. Thinking that maybe I’d dreamt it, I asked her if she was okay. She nodded, and apologized again. That’s when I knew it wasn’t a dream. She told me her grandfather did stuff to her because her grandmother wouldn’t let him do it with her. I don’t recall responding, after all, what the hell was I supposed to say? I’d never been in such a situation, and no one had ever talked about such things, because, after all, only strangers do things to children, right?
We went to the kitchen to get cereal. The bastard was in there, and greeted us like nothing happened. I couldn’t look at the man. It suddenly raced into my mind; I started putting some things together. Like whenever we’d go with him to the hardware store where we bought bait and tackle on the way to go fishing. I suddenly understood what Billie was made to do in the back with those cackling, rabid, old fucks that were her grandfather’s cronies. Understanding things now, I guess he was trying to start a “grooming” process a few hours before, so that I, too, could entertain his fucking friends.
We ate our breakfast, then went outside to the backyard. I wanted to go home, but Billie asked me to stay, saying that her grandfather wouldn’t mess with me anymore. A few moments later, he came out and went to the shed. He was replacing the line on a couple of fishing reels. He called us over to the shed. I obviously didn’t want to go anywhere near him. Billie assured me it would be okay, that nothing would happen. When we stepped into the shed, he lit a cigarette and handed it to Billie. I was shocked that he not only knew she was smoking, but helped her do it. He then pulled a beer out of a small cooler and handed it to me. Did I mention that I was only in the 5th or 6th grade? I was not stranger to drinking; my parents allowed us to have sips of beer and wine all the time, but I knew damn good and well that other adults weren’t supposed to be giving kids booze. I took the beer anyway. As I sipped on it, he apologized for what he did to me, and told me he wouldn’t do that to me again. Fucking liar. Over the next few weeks, the bastard would ply us with beer and cigs, and try to get me to touch and suck his silly putty dick. One time, we heard his wife yelling at him to leave us alone. He had the gall to put the blame on her. There was a final attempt at full out rape on me; it was not successful on his part. I would later find out that he had molested other family members. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d molested other children outside the family.
Over the years, I kept this part of my past buried. It’s funny, though, at how it wasn’t really ever buried; only swept under the proverbial carpet of denial. Snippets of the molestation would seep into my life in different ways, such as a bit of a dislike for silly putty. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s pretty cool stuff. I had fun introducing it to my kids, especially showing them how to lift images from the funny pages with it. I only wish that it was another color other than flesh tone.
