I was 17. I think it must have been January? I was a junior in high school.
Yes, that’s right. I had to step away for an hour just now to work out what year it was when i walked into that pet store. I was suddenly overcome by the memory of how much i hate an oaked chardonnay. Then it hit me as to why. The taste of oaked chardonnay in his mouth was like vomit to me on some night that he kissed me at the ripe age of 17. I hated it. But something in me felt like i had a job to do and the excitement was more than the inclination to swat away this opportunity.
I had returned from Christmas Break at my mother’s house in Ingram, Texas. My adoring dad presented me with a new car upon my return. He had purchased a 1980 Chevy Citation. It was burnt orange on bottom and cream on top. 4 Doors. $600. It had a power steering leak that I lovingly took care of every week. I loved that car so much. It was freedom. And it jumped rail road tracks like a boss.
The gift of the car meant I had to get a job asap to pay for my own insurance. Oh, the days when $120 a month to insure a teenager was a lot of money. I was a straight A student. The grades part was always painfully easy, but I also was a big part of theatre and debate club. I had been in two leading roles in our high school plays and my confidence level was high. That year, I was Corie Bratter in Barefoot in the park and one of my jr high and high school sweethearts played my husband. The next try-outs were for The Nerd and all the boys were excited that I couldn’t get the leading role, finally, because it was a male role. I showed them. I also got the leading male role. One of my best theatre friends was livid, but he is now an actual actor and has gone on to do amazing things. Thanks Juan Gabriel Pareja for literally tangoing with me in the hallways anytime we saw each other, and for playing alongside me despite your valid disappointment.
This is all to say that I was BUSY in high school. I did a lot of extracurricular things and was excited about college. I looked so very normal. I looked so dedicated to my own success. But what we now call imposter syndrome was deeply rampant. I had grown up in an extremely abusive household before I met my dad at 10 years old. I had been molested by my grandfather several times from the age of 5 to 9. My stepfather also repeatedly attempted to molest me and I lived in a state of super high alert during the years I lived in that household – ages 5-9 also. Though his advances, to my memory, didn’t begin until I was about 7 or 8.
Oh, I almost forgot. Because I don’t remember. I was molested in some way when i was a baby. My grandmother accidentally told me one day when I was teenager. We were having some serious conversation about me and who I was and she flippantly said, “I always wondered if that wasn’t because of what happened to you when you were a baby.” This conversation may have actually been about “the Joe Situation” as we called it in my family. I had to probe her and she was horrified that I didn’t know. “Oh no, I thought your mother must have told you about that. A little while after I picked you up from your mother to come live with me, you started frankly talking about penises and vaginas and showing me how sex went. I took you to the doctor right away and he said to just not talk about it and you would forget about whatever had happened. I’m sorry, that’s just how we handled things then. But I thought your mother had told you or that you had remembered by now.” I was a little shocked. No one ever knew who the perpetrator was. My grandmother had taken me from my mom because of her daily drug use at that time, of which i still haven’t been given the full picture. My drunk aunt has occasionally tried to talk about it through slurred speech, but I’m never sure if her memory is correct either. (Also, let us forgive my aunt, it has become painfully obvious that she suffered the major brunt of being molested by her father, the same grandfather who got ahold of me at young ages.)
Perhaps this map draws all of our eyes to the center, where I had been hunted by men from the beginning. The only adult man in my life who didn’t was my father, who I didn’t meet until I was 10. I often think of what life could have been like if i had had a protector from the start. But we cannot go down those streets. They are closed for good. That’s not the life I was supposed to have.
Start this story again…
I was a beautiful 17. Extremely book smart. Very sexually aware, though I had only started having sex that year and with my long-term boyfriend. I thought i was sophisticated and passionate and I loved animals and I was probably going to grow up to save the world. It was 1994 when I walked into the pet store looking for what I imagined to be my dream job.
Joe was wearing a khaki shirt and pants. I thought it was a full body jumpsuit, but he swore years later he has never owned such a thing. He was tall and mostly silver haired with the most dazzling blue eyes. He was 47 years old. He smiled at me plenty, but also feigned some seriousness during our interview. My pass to being hired was that I had been breeding parakeets at home for years and selling the babies. I knew a lot about birds. You’re hired, little girl. You’re hired.
My whole life was about to get fucking weird.
Scarlet Pearl 