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  I heard the boy unzip his pants. Terribly confused, I felt him probing at my crotch, I saw his eyes squint, I heard him moan, and then the searing pain came. I was too afraid to protest when the first boy moved off and the second one climbed on. I was hurting, and I didn’t understand the feelings. I was sobbing, and all I could see was this boy’s yellow, blue, and green striped T-shirt on my face as he pressed himself inside of me. His chest was cutting off my breath, and I managed to mumble, “Stop hurting me.” He was beyond hearing anything besides his own grunts of pleasure. I could hardly breathe because that ugly striped T-shirt was pressing down on my nose.

  When he was through, someone else was about to jump on when we all heard a noise in the house. Everyone froze. We heard the unmistakable sound of someone running up the stairs. I couldn’t stop crying, and when I looked toward the door, a white repairman pushed it open. Aunt Mennon had forgotten to cancel a telephone service appointment. It seems she had not locked the door, either, and when no one answered his knock, the worker had pushed open the front door and heard my cries of distress.

  “What the hell is going on here?” he bellowed. He rushed over to the boys and pulled them off of me. “Get away from her,” he ordered them. When I saw how upset this adult was, I began to really freak out and cry even louder. I knew something weird and bad had happened, but I didn’t get the full gravity of the situation until I saw the horror and anger on my rescuer’s face. I was six. I knew nothing about sex and I hadn’t even known I needed rescuing. I only knew that these boys, supposedly my friends, were hurting me.

  “Put on your clothes,” he said to me. “Go into the bathroom.”

  I grabbed my pants, disappeared in the bathroom, and shut the door. What had just happened? Why did it hurt so much? And why didn’t any of my cousins help me?

  The repairman called into the bathroom, “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said weakly. I heard him yelling at the boys, and then it sounded like they all left and he went about his business fixing the phone, the real reason he was there. A short while later, he left, too, probably afraid that if someone came home, he would be blamed for hurting me.

  I climbed into the empty bathtub, rolled up into a ball, and sat there for a good hour, confused and crying. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. When all the outer sounds were gone and I was sure everyone had left, I came out of the bathroom. I hurt so badly, I could hardly walk. I left the bedroom and was startled to see one of the boys sitting on the stairs, waiting to talk to me.

  “Pammy,” he said in a whisper. “You better not tell. If you do, I’m gonna whoop you. Do you understand? We all will, and you’ll be really sorry.”

  “I won’t tell,” I said. I knew if I told, he wasn’t the only one who would punish me.

  When my cousin Krista got home, she took one look at my face and asked me what was wrong. I looked back at her a moment, debating what to say. When I finally opened my mouth, I said, “N-n-n-nothing’s wrong. I’m f-f-f-fine.”

  In the space of an afternoon, I had gone from being a lively, self-confident young lady, excited about life, to a shy girl soon to be known as “Quiet Pammy,” a frightened, insecure child who stuttered whenever she tried to talk.

  CHAPTER 4

  Big Horse

  Leave her alone,” everyone said. “She’ll come around. She’s just shy. She’ll stop stuttering all by herself.”

  I didn’t come around. And I didn’t stop stuttering. In fact, my stuttering escalated because when I opened my mouth to say anything, I wanted to talk about the assault. I guess the words were in my mind, but my brain would pull them back and I ended up stammering to get any words out at all. I never told a soul about what happened to me, and I didn’t completely stop stuttering until I turned twelve, with a few reprieves when I was deeply distracted. For the most part, however, I was so afraid and silent after the rape, I hid in my bedroom closet when people came over to visit.

  Krista loved having her friends over, and they all knew me and liked me and would ask, “Where’s Pammy?”

  Krista didn’t know why I was hiding in the closet. She just knew I had nothing to say to anyone. “Haven’t seen her lately,” Krista said. I became known as the quiet girl with no personality. How could anyone understand that my heart and soul were so overburdened from holding on to my painful secret, it was all I could do to stay in a room where a group of people were gathered? If anyone looked at me too directly or gave me the smallest bit of attention, I dropped my eyes and willed the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Or I found a way to make my exit and I’d “forget” to come back.

  No longer the happy, eager, precocious child I once was, I found my only comfort zone was being alone and reading fantasy books like Peter Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland. I liked nothing better than disappearing into my room and diving into a book that featured somebody else’s story and had nothing to do with me and my life. That was a good way to pass the days, while socially, instead of getting better as time passed, I got worse. I was so wounded by what those boys did to me, to this day when I see a striped shirt, I become paralyzed with fright. Since then, I’ve learned that although we find ways to cope, trauma never heals completely, and it seemed to get worse the longer I was in school in Denver.

  As I was already traumatized beyond repair, it was unfortunate when a strange young boy in my class became fixated on me. He had a name that no one could pronounce, his long, thick dark eyebrows curled upward on the ends, and his head was way too big for his body. A stutterer like me (maybe that fueled his fixation), he was mentally challenged, physically unkempt, and highly unattractive, and the other kids teased him mercilessly. They also teased anyone he paid attention to.

  To my horror, he would wink at me and walk up to me in school (we were both six years old) and try to give me things like an apple, a pen, or some other little trinket he had picked up. I wanted none of it; I wouldn’t take his gifts or talk to him. I wouldn’t talk to anyone back then, but this boy obviously took it personally and he pursued me every day for attention and conversation. He got nothing back, but he never stopped trying.

  One afternoon when we were in the classroom waiting for the teacher, he got so frustrated that I wouldn’t pay attention to him, he began calling my name out loud repeatedly. When I wouldn’t acknowledge that he was talking to me, he picked up a steel chair with a wooden seat and hit me over the head with it. I fell to the ground and nearly passed out. The teacher, who had just entered the room, rushed over, and after she made sure I was okay, she asked Strange Boy why he did it.

  He had no idea. He just stood there and shook his head. I understand now that he got violent with me because I was ignoring him and he was mentally unbalanced. But back then, it scared and confused me and made me not want to go back to school. My parents met with his parents, they tried to talk things through, but nothing changed. All I could do was try to stay away from this kid while his fixation gained momentum, probably because it was unrequited.

  On my walk back to the projects after school one Friday afternoon, it seemed that the coast was clear—until Strange Boy appeared as if out of nowhere. He stood in front of me, making me stop short. In the next moment, he slugged me in the head, knocked me to the ground, and sat his big, fat butt on top of me. Then he turned over and began bouncing and rubbing himself against my body, until a white man who happened to be on the street pulled him off of me. I lay on the ground sobbing. What the hell was going on? I never asked for any of this. Why didn’t everybody just leave me alone?

  When my mom explained that this boy probably thought I was cute and that was why he was acting so badly, I made a decision. Being cute and getting attention were not good things, I decided. Cute girls got into trouble with boys. I would make sure I was not a cute or a pretty girl, and I cringed when my parents took me to church functions and I’d hear people say, “Isn’t she a pretty child! Look at her hair.”

  I would mess up my hair and
do what I could to throw off the “pretty girl” label. Pretty girls got all the attention, which made them targets. At the tender age of six, I’d had enough of being victimized because I was pretty and naïve. It never occurred to me to fight back, and I retreated more and more, becoming a scared, withdrawn, stuttering little girl—except when I was on the back of a horse.

  I climbed up on my first horse on the family farm in Wyoming. We went there on weekends, and it felt like every day was my birthday as I walked through the pastures and fields. I loved that farm as much as any place I’ve ever known. Several hundred feet from the rustic farmhouse was a great big barn where my uncle Daniel stayed. Sometimes he let me ride with him in a cart that was led by wagon-pulling horses.

  “C-c-can I ride the big horse? P-please?” I asked.

  “No, Pammy,” Uncle Daniel said, “he’s not a ‘riding’ horse, and there’s a dangerous bull in the next pasture.” I’d seen that big old bull with the ring through his snotty wet nose and I wanted to pet him. “It isn’t safe,” Uncle Daniel warned me.

  I thought the bull looked gentle and safe enough. In fact, I was drawn to the bull partly because of the sweet copper smell of his nose ring. But I did what Uncle Daniel told me—most of the time.

  When we got back to the farmhouse and the horses were grazing in the pasture, we went inside to have lunch. I finished eating quickly, and when the adults excused me from the table, I wandered over to the pasture fence and watched the horses munching on grass. I looked at the tallest draft horse, whom I called Big Horse. He was about twenty years old and very gentle. He was leaning up against the fence where I stood, and I reached my arm toward him and stroked his mottled gray and brown coat, and the white feathering on his legs. He leaned toward me, letting me touch the soft spot on his muzzle. I knew he was responding to me, and I was mesmerized by his hay-scented breath and his huge liquid eyes.

  I started to climb the fence. I looked all around me. I was alone. The adults were still in the house, finishing lunch. I got to the top of the fence and Big Horse stood completely still. I lifted one leg carefully and threw it over his back. I looked around again. No one was coming. When Big Horse didn’t move, I pulled myself all the way on top of his bare back, settled on him, let my other leg hang down, and grabbed hold of his mane. I was sitting astride him now, and I felt the warmth of his body and the energy shooting between us.

  Big Horse took a step and then another as he rocked me gently from side to side. I had no fear of falling as I held on to his mane, feeling like I was soaring with each step that Big Horse took. Rocking from side to side with him, I was sailing through the sky as he glided slowly along. Then he turned his neck to look back at me, as if to say, “I’m gonna show you one of my favorite places.” Entranced with the way Big Horse was moving underneath me, I let him walk me through the pasture and up a small rolling ridge. We passed the old bull, and I waved at him. He looked unimpressed as he swished his tail around, swatting away files. Hawks circled the hills, and wild turkeys and pheasants scratched at the ground, looking for food while a murder of jet-black crows called out their cawing sounds as they hunted their prey.

  Big Horse walked over to a massive oak tree and stopped there beside a small pond. I was amazed when I looked into the water and saw my reflection—a tiny girl on top of a huge horse that stood at least eighteen hands. For anyone who doesn’t know much about horses, that’s really tall for any rider, let alone me, a six-year-old, who reached the horse’s kneecaps when we stood side by side. And I had no saddle.

  Big Horse leaned his head down slowly so I wouldn’t fall off his back, and he took a long, cool drink from the livestock pond. I waited patiently on top of him. Then he walked a few steps to the shaded area under the tree and exhaled. Clearly, he was ready for a nap. But what about me? I looked as far back as I could see, but the fence was out of my view. How was I supposed to get off his back without a fence to hold on to?

  Mr. Horse, I was thinking, you really need to take me back to the fence. It’s a very long way down to the ground. He didn’t read my mind, so there was nothing to do but wait while he napped. I leaned forward a little, rested my head on his soft neck, and began to doze right along with him. I was completely comfortable and must have been sleeping like that for fifteen minutes when I felt a pair of large hands grab me around my waist.

  “Pammy, Pammy,” called out Uncle Daniel and Daddy Ray, who had been searching for me on foot. “Are you okay?” Uncle Daniel lifted me up off the horse and put me safely back on the ground.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Big Horse and I were taking a nap.” I had just completed two full sentences without a stutter. It seemed that when I was with horses, I could speak clearly and directly. It was being away from them that perpetuated my speech problems.

  Daniel led Big Horse beside us as we slowly walked back toward the farmhouse. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said. “We didn’t know what happened to you. You know better than taking off like that.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I told you not to ride that horse, Pammy,” Uncle Daniel scolded. “You could have fallen and hurt yourself badly.”

  They both continued to scold me as we walked across the field, but I didn’t care. Riding Big Horse had made me ecstatic, and all I could think about was the next time I could get back up on his back. Daddy Ray and Uncle Daniel both fell silent, and we strolled quietly for a little while. Then Uncle Daniel asked me, “Were you scared up there, Pammy?”

  “No. I wasn’t scared.” Then I got up my nerve to say, “Can I please ride him again? Please?”

  It was not lost on him that I was speaking without a stutter, but I never expected Uncle Daniel’s answer. “Well, since you weren’t afraid, I’m going to give him to you.”

  I looked at him in disbelief. Did he just say Big Horse was mine? I searched Daddy Ray’s face, but he wasn’t saying anything.

  “That means you have to take care of him,” Uncle Daniel cautioned me. “You need to wash him, groom him, check his shoes, and feed him. Do you think you can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  There was no saddle for Big Horse since no one ever rode him because he was so huge. Daddy Ray and Uncle Daniel gave me a halter for him and they let me walk him and then ride him around the pasture, as long as an adult was overseeing. I washed him and groomed him, and I searched around for pop bottles for refunds to pay my share of Big Horse’s food and care. At this point, my stuttering didn’t show up when I was around the horse. He had healed me temporarily, and I only stuttered when we were back in Denver, mostly around the cousins who had attacked me. In fact, my stuttering flared intermittently when I was around angry boys and striped T-shirts, anything that triggered the nightmarish memories that forced my throat to close off and my speech patterns to scramble. I realized later that my stuttering had also flared when I was angry or wanting to defend myself but couldn’t.

  When we had reached the end of our two-year stay at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, it was time to move again. I was relieved since so many bad things had happened during the past couple of years. Sometimes, being an army brat had its upside, like the move we were anticipating. We began to make plans to move to another town and another school and build new memories, but this time we were moving far, far away to another country and continent altogether—England.

  While we packed up our clothing and got ready for our first cruise on a real ocean liner, I was enthusiastic and ready to start life all over again. When I went to say my good-byes on the day we were scheduled to take to the seas, I realized that so far, my short life had not been that kind to me. As we left the past behind and headed for new horizons, in the end, Uncle Daniel, Big Horse, and the big old bull with the wet ringed nose were all I would miss.

  CHAPTER 5

  A New Perspective

  Bags packed? Check.

  Immunity shots for overseas? Check.

  Train tickets? Check.

  Ocean
liner reservations? Check.

  Passports? Check.

  Pammy and Rodney? Check.

  It was 1956 when we piled into my grandfather’s car and he dropped us at the train station in Denver amid tearful good-byes. Dad was already in England. As a military family, we were accustomed to saying good-bye, leaving places, and moving around the country, but we had never gone this far away. Now we were on the initial leg of the longest journey any of us had ever taken—first a train ride from Denver to New York City. Then we would cross the ocean on the USS Darby, a massive ocean liner, heading for England. Finally we would arrive in Swindon, an English market town adjacent to the air base where Dad was already working.

  When we got off the train in New York and made our way over to the dock, I stared in awe at the huge smokestacks and the length of the massive ship that never seemed to end. I had been revved up all morning, asking if we were there yet, knowing we were heading for an exciting new world. But now, at seven years old, feeling dwarfed and insignificant beside the largest ship imaginable, I was terrified by the loud noises, the acrid smells of oil and smoke, and too many people shuffling around and shouting over each other. I was looking at the sloping gangplank and the murky blue waters between the boat and the dock, when my stomach lurched and I took off running down the dock. I was not getting on that ship.

  Mom asked a few male passengers to run after me as she called out my name, ordering me to come back right now. I couldn’t make my legs stop moving away from the boat until a man caught me. I freaked out, screaming, crying, and kicking as he handed me over to my mother. There was no way I would give in.

  I tried to fight my mom, who grabbed both of my hands and started pulling me toward the USS Darby. I shrieked when we got to the gangplank and looked up to see my brother, already on the ship, waving down at me. I stood firm until my mom put her strong hand on my small back and pushed me up the ramp ahead of her while I screamed and cried like I was being led to my death.