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  When the men took off on hunting expeditions into the high country of Colorado or Wyoming, they brought back pheasant, game hens, wild turkeys, elks, and antelope. They fished for river catfish, bass, and lake trout, and my grandfather taught us kids to fly-fish. Daddy Ray was obsessed with teaching us to be self-sufficient, and we all had to learn to tie flies onto the hooks with pieces of carpeting and feathers and shiny wool. Then we were taught to cast a fly rod so we could catch German brown, rainbow, and speckled trout. We also took turns learning to steer the fishing boat through the water.

  Some of the girls said, “I’m scared, Daddy Ray. I don’t know how to steer a boat. I can’t.”

  “You can’t be scared,” he told them, “or you can’t come with me. If something happens to me, you have to be able to bring the boat back to shore.” We also loved waterskiing and we needed to steer a boat for that, too. I was always the first in line to learn whatever he showed us.

  As primitive as life was on this farm, I loved how people treated each other and how we all shared our crops with our neighbors. It seemed like cities were prohibitively expensive because people tried to make money off of each other instead of lending a helping hand. Out in the farmlands, in contrast, no one went hungry because we traded raspberries for cherries, and tomatoes for corn. I learned how many ears of corn usually grew on a stalk, and Daddy Ray showed me how to dig deep down into the soil to determine if it was rich enough for the crop we wanted to plant.

  “The roots of the cornstalks need to be at least four feet in the ground,” Daddy Ray told me, “and the stalk will measure about eight to ten feet high. The longer the roots, the more ears of corn it will produce.”

  We were taught to respect and cherish the earth, something that has stayed with me for my entire life. When I hear the famous Joni Mitchell lyric “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” I nod my head. I may not have been raised like a privileged city kid with a ton of new clothes and toys, but that means nothing, because when I was growing up, I got to live in paradise.

  CHAPTER 2

  Marky and Me

  Pammy. Tudot,” Marky, our grandma Marguerite, called out to me. Tudot was a Native American nickname she called me, and I still don’t know why. “Can you do something for your grandma?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, always anxious to please. I stood and waited. We were back in the city house in Denver now.

  “Did Daddy Ray leave for work yet?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Okay, then. I need you to go to the store for me like a big girl. Can you do that?”

  “I can do that,” I said, puffing out my little chest. I was about to turn six.

  “Here’s twenty-five cents,” she said. “Go ask Helen for a can of Coors beer.” Helen, a Korean woman whom we all loved, owned the deli that was in walking distance from my grandparents’ house. Marky made me repeat the name “Coors” several times to make sure I would remember.

  “But don’t tell Daddy Ray,” Marky cautioned me. “This is between us. It’s our little secret. Can you be a good girl and not tell anybody?”

  “I can do that,” I said. I was getting my first instruction on how to lie from my grandmother. This stood in stark contrast to the other adults, who never stopped reminding us kids about the pitfalls and consequences of telling lies. But I wanted to be a big girl and win approval from my grandmother.

  Today, I understand that Marky, the grandmother whom I so wanted to please, had some deep and troubling issues that she refused to acknowledge. As a farmer’s daughter, she had worked herself to the bone when she was young, and she’d had enough of it. Now, she preferred the life of a high-society woman (even though she wasn’t one). She kept her house spotless and was paying off a fur coat she had put on layaway. And she liked her beer.

  Instead of becoming self-sufficient, which was the focus of most members of my family, Marky wanted to be the helpless female so my grandfather and everybody else would be forced to do things for her. They had married when she was fifteen and he was eighteen. That sounds painfully young for marriage, but the truth was that in the world of farming and agriculture, people married young because they were ready. They knew how to build a home with their hands so they would have a roof over their heads. They had been driving tractors since they were ten, and they knew how to grow food and hunt so they would never go hungry. Out of necessity, they grew up a great deal faster than city folk, and they were ready for marriage and families when they were quite young.

  Rumor has it that my grandmother might have been pregnant at age fifteen when she married my grandfather, but no one knows for sure. She never admitted it to anyone, and we never pushed her to tell us. All we knew was that when Marky wanted something, she made sure that someone else got it or did it for her. She didn’t want for much, and she was pretty good at getting away with her games and manipulations.

  “Why don’t you learn to drive a car?” Daddy Ray asked her over and over.

  “I’m too scared,” was her usual response.

  “But you could be independent and do things on your own,” he said. “Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “I’m too scared,” she repeated. “I don’t want to.” And that was that.

  I began my secret outings to the Korean deli for my grandmother that day, buying beer for her from Helen, sneaking it home, and watching Marky hide it from my grandfather. I knew it wasn’t right, and keeping secrets from my grandfather made me feel bad. But I was torn, because I liked having something special with my grandmother.

  One day, after this had been going on for several months, my dad was away at the air base, my mom was working, the other kids were with friends, involved in summer activities, and I was at the house, sitting on the front porch steps, waiting for Daddy Ray to come home after work. As always, I was delighted to see Daddy Ray. I ran toward him for a hug. After he picked me up and swung me around, he said, “Hey, Pammy, tell me what you did today.”

  We sat together on the front steps, and I said, “Well, I had breakfast and I made my bed.”

  “That’s a good girl,” he said. “What else did you do?

  “Then I went over to the store and bought the beer for Marky and we—”

  “Whoa. Back up,” said Daddy Ray, “What did you just say?”

  I looked into his face, which was appearing more troubled by the second. I felt afraid, but I repeated, “I went to Helen’s and I bought the beer for Marky.”

  “Did you now?” he said. He stood and took my hand. “Where did you get the money?”

  “Marky gave it to me,” I said honestly. “And I gave her the change like I always do.” I didn’t want him to think I kept the change.

  Daddy Ray took my hand. “How about we head over to Helen’s right now and have a little talk with her?”

  “But Grandma is making lemonade,” I said. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong, but heading over to the deli sounded serious.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “We’ll be back before she even knows where we’ve gone.”

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly. When we walked into the store and greeted Helen, Daddy Ray asked her calmly if she had ever sold me beer. She said she had.

  “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

  “A few months,” she said.

  On the way home, Daddy Ray’s silence scared me.

  “I don’t want to get anybody in trouble,” I said.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong.” That was all he said. He patted my head and remained silent until we got to the house. “Pammy,” Daddy Ray told me, “I want you to stay outside for a little while. I’m going in the house to have a grown-up talk with Marky, and I don’t want you to come inside until I come out and get you. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I walked over to the swing set and started swinging while Daddy Ray headed into the house, closing and locking the door behind him. I swung back and forth, letting my feet skim over the earth as I lifted my head to
the heavens, trying to lose myself in the breezy motion. I was scared, and I wasn’t sure why. The next thing I heard was my grandfather’s low, gruff voice and my grandmother yelling back as they got into a screaming fight. I swung higher and higher, trying to reach the sky with my legs and leave everything else behind.

  I slowed down when I heard the back door slam. Suddenly I had to pee really bad. I ran to the house and banged on the front door, but nobody could hear me. Or if they did, they didn’t care. I wished we were up at the farmhouse, where I could get to the outhouse without bothering anyone. I banged louder. Still no one. I was too afraid to go around the house to the back door, where I imagined Marky was standing outside, crying. I sat on the front stoop and crossed my legs. The back door opened again as I heard screaming and more door slamming.

  By the time Daddy Ray got to the front door to let me in, it was too late. I had wet my underwear and my shorts, and I was embarrassed and crying.

  “What’s wrong, Pammy?” he asked. “Come on in.” He looked angry.

  “I had to go the bathroom and the door was locked,” I said through my tears.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” Daddy Ray said, softening up a little. “Your grandma will help you change. Go and see her. She’s in the bedroom.”

  I walked slowly to the bedroom at the back of the house. I stood at the doorway and watched Marky sitting on the bed, crumpling a tissue in her hands. She lifted a swollen, angry face toward me, the tears still spilling down her cheeks. “I told you not to tell,” she said to me through clenched teeth. “I thought this was our secret.”

  “Am I gonna get a whoopin’?” I asked, backing away.

  She reached over and jerked my arm, pulling me toward her. “You’re a bad girl. You broke your promise.” When she felt the wetness on my shorts and realized that I had peed myself, she made a nasty face and instructed me to get some fresh clothes from my room and to change in the bathroom.

  She avoided me for the rest of the afternoon, and I was terrified about what would happen when my mom got home. If I hadn’t gotten a whooping yet, I figured it was only a matter of time until someone laid into me.

  When Mom got home, I ran to meet her, but Marky was right behind me. “She’s a bad girl. She lied to Daddy Ray,” Marky told my mom. “She said I was drinking, and it isn’t true. She’s a liar.”

  “No, she isn’t,” boomed Daddy Ray’s voice. He appeared in the doorway and said, “Pammy told the truth. Marky lied.”

  He was resentful that my grandmother was so helpless and that she acted so entitled, like she was better than the rest of us. I guess that was the last straw for him. That night, Daddy Ray moved out of their bedroom and into the guest room. He never slept in his wife’s room again, but they refused to divorce since they were both Catholic. I continued to get a lot of positive attention from Daddy Ray, but the sense of safety that I had always felt around my grandmother was gone.

  When Marky turned against me, she began to do outrageous things, like hide my homework the morning it was due. Marky was just too insecure to let go of her resentment toward me. I remember having to go to my teacher, Mrs. Oma, and explain that I had finished my homework last night, but when I woke up, it was gone. I was Mrs. Oma’s best student, and she knew I always did my homework. I think she believed me, but my life had become stressful and dangerous living around my grandmother.

  I was relieved when we moved to my aunt Mennon’s house in the projects in Denver. She lived in Platte Valley in an all-black area called the Five Points. This was where the black ballrooms emerged, and people were serenaded by Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, B.B. King, and Count Basie, a veritable mini-Harlem in the West.

  Aunt Mennon’s four children, my first cousins, and our family had a real ball together. I was six, enrolled in Mitchell Elementary School, when my mom found a job as a nurse’s assistant to supplement our income. The older kids watched over us younger ones and kept us safe, but once again, the adult who was supposed to watch us had her own set of major problems.

  Remember the movie Five Easy Pieces? Well, Aunt Mennon, a hot, sexy, smart waitress who reminds me of Karen Black’s character, worked at the local food joint, Buster’s Barbecue. Buster’s secret, which we all knew, was in the gravy, as he slow-cooked spices with honey and cloves. Then he poured in a little orange juice and let it all simmer. When it was done, we dipped soft pieces of white bread into the sauce to sop it up. We called that a “Slap Yo’ Mama”–good barbecue. That meant if she tried to eat off your plate, you would slap your own mama to save it for yourself. And then your mama would slap you right back for your audacious behavior.

  The most popular restaurant in town, Buster’s Barbecue was always jam-packed, with lines of people down the block waiting to get in. The smell of fresh beef, pork, and chicken, swimming in the savory sauces, wafted into the projects at dinner hour, and whenever anyone went to a concert or a club, they always ended up at Buster’s afterward, drinking, eating, and dancing. When Mom got home after a night out, her perfume (Tabu was her favorite) was always mixed with the smell of Lucky Strike cigarettes and the smoky aroma of barbecue.

  I remember many a Saturday night when I was fast asleep and I heard Mom calling, “Kids, come on downstairs. We have ribs for you.”

  We’d run down for the ribs they had brought home for us. We went back to bed and they woke us up bright and early the next morning, ready for church, no matter how late they’d gotten home. Robust and lively, my parents went to church on three hours of sleep, and you could never tell. They liked their partying, but there were no excuses for missing church.

  But my aunt Mennon hardly went to church (she liked to sleep in). She was smart as a whip and had an explosive temper. When she got angry at a woman in a club one night for messing with her boyfriend, she followed her to the bathroom. In the next moment, the unsuspecting woman’s head was stuffed down the toilet and my aunt kept on flushing.

  Aunt Mennon had a pugnacious personality and she was a fierce fighter, especially when she was drinking. When she drank, she became irrational and everyone who knew her tried to stay out of her way. She got so wild and out of control, she would jump on the back of some guy’s Harley, a guy she barely knew, and they would take off. Then the older cousins were stuck with watching us younger kids. It made my mom furious whenever she got home from work and Mennon was nowhere in sight.

  CHAPTER 3

  Keeping Secrets

  It was mid-summer in the projects and I had just turned six. Some of my cousins and my brother had gone to the local public swimming pool, but I didn’t like it there. I once cut my foot on a piece of glass on the bottom of the pool, so I stayed away. The girls in Aunt Mennon’s home—including me, my cousin Krista, and my other cousin, Becky—shared a bedroom. My brother and his male cousins shared a room, too, and Aunt Mennon had her own bedroom. When she stayed at her boyfriend’s house, Mom and Dad took her bedroom. When she was home, they stayed with my grandmother.

  On this particular afternoon, I was home while my mom was at work. Aunt Mennon was supposed to be there, but she’d taken off on one of her wild rides so, as usual, there was no adult supervision. Three boys were in the bedroom when one of them appeared at the top of the staircase. He looked down at me. I was drawing in my coloring book.

  “Come upstairs, Pammy,” he said with a smile on his face.

  I looked up, excited. I was bored and I thought we were about to have a sock fight.

  Sock fights were one of my favorite games, partly because they weren’t allowed. Before these fights were banned, my cousin Krista, my brother, Rodney, and I used to gather some kids from the block and turn the beds on their sides to create a bunker. Then we crumpled our socks into small balls of cotton and put a marble in the center of each bundle. When we tossed the socks over the bunkers at our opponents, if they hit their mark, it hurt. Of course it drove the adults crazy because we turned the bedroom into complete chaos. We weren’t exactly crack shots, so we hit mirrors, lamps, and
windows, often breaking them, not to mention how worried our parents were that a marble could take out somebody’s eye.

  Whenever they left the house, their last words of warning were, “You better not have any sock fights.”

  We promised, kissed them good-bye, and before they were down the street, the beds were on their sides and we were hurling sock bundles with marbles all over the room. I thought that was what the boys wanted to do now, so I ran upstairs, thrilled they were including me.

  I stopped at the door to the bedroom. The beds were not turned over. “Aren’t we gonna have a sock fight?” I asked. “Don’t you wanna wait till Krista and the other kids get home?” There were no girls around at all, and Aunt Mennon had taken off for God only knew how long.

  “We’re not having a sock fight,” one of the guys said. “Come on in, Pammy.”

  “Whacha doin’?” I asked, suddenly feeling shy.

  “We want you to come in here and lie down on the bed. We have something to show you.”

  My face lit up. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Come and find out.”

  I walked into the room and stood at the side of bed. “Why do you want me to lie down?”

  “Just do it,” one of the boys said harshly.

  His voice sounded impatient, so I did as I was told. I smiled at him, until a boy started to pull at my slacks. “What are you doing?” I asked him. “Why are you pulling my pants down?”

  When he got them down, one of the boys climbed on the bed beside me, shifted over on top of me, and started to push my thighs apart with his knees. I felt several hands holding my arms and legs down. I had no idea what was going on, so I just waited. After all, I had no reason to mistrust these boys, but I was starting to feel some pain.