Brother Buddies

   A brother with a bullet hole in his abdomen does not sound fun, but it was exciting. My brother has always been good for a little excitement.
   Like the time he locked out of the house our older brother while my mom was at work, or somewhere. The rage that builds up between brothers is sometimes so intense, that even an otherwise smart person can turn into an incredible idiot. And that's just what happened.
   Craig and I were standing in the house, laughing at Kevin who was turning a dark shade of maroon, when, without any warning, Kevin sent his fist straight through the window in the top of the door. It broke the glass and sent Craig and I scurrying off to some other part of the house.
   Then we heard the scream of pain come out of Kevin.
   With all the courage we could muster, Craig and I carefully crept to the door and found Kevin bleeding heavily from the palm of his hand toward the elbow on the under side, close to the main blood vessles.
   I immediately thought about a nurse who lived down the street a ways and I went running to get her.
   Now, all of the details are blurry from there on out, but the scar that remains on Kevin's wrist and forearm are always a reminder of the outcome of rage, and teasing. I guess it should have taught us all a lesson, however...
   Speaking of injuries, I had my own. It involved a parka, stairs and a pokey-outy stair rail.
   This was again a time when it was just the three of us at home. Kevin was in charge and decided we would have a little fun with the force, gravity, testing its boundless energy on the only indoor labratory we could find - the stairs to the basement.
   We would slide down on our rear ends and then climb the stairs for another run. Well, Kevin, being the brains in our bunch, decided something slick would increase the speed of the run, thus causing more fun.
   Indeed, he was correct. The fun just got better with the increased speed. My turn came and I sat on the parka all ready to go, got a great push from one of the brothers and sped down the stairs with the greatest of ease.
   The baby toe on my right foot ( I remember it was the right one because that night I solidly came to the realization of which was right and which was left) got caught on the stair rail and yanked it back toward the outside of my ankle.
   Now, for any of you who knew me as a youngster of six years, you know that my lungs worked very well, indeed. I utilized the strength of my lungs and belted out for several hours while my brothers managed to get me some ice, tell me to sit in my dad's electric Lazy Boy with my foot elevated. How they knew to do that was, well, intriguing.
   Mom and Dad got home and then came the ER visit and lo and behold - Buddy Tape. A lingering phrase in my life. I guess I was hoping for more drama, but at least I knew which foot was my right one.
   Lesson learned...kind of.
  

The Opportunist

   Now before you start thinking my life was fully of hardship and tragedy, I want to tell you there were times in my young life that were positive.
   Now give me a minute.....
   Oh, yes. Austin Avenue brought much freedom to my young life. South Salt Lake was a place of fun surprises and interesting places of adventure. It was a good place to live for a girl who needed to spread her wings and get her feet wet on this planet Earth.
   My brothers and I (I don't remember much at this time without them involved) were wanderers. We loved to ride our bikes, park them and walk up a stream that ran behind the houses across the street. We would find water skeeters and fresh mint to pick and eat. Mom sent us to pick mint for her mint jelly that we would have with a lamb roast some Sundays. I can still smell that roast cooking and the mint jelly simmering in a pot on the stove. Mom made life bearable. She still has a knack with that.
   There was a little meadow where the water would swell to in the high runnoff time in the early Spring.
   The air was clear and the tree canopy coverage let through tiny bits of sunlight in streaks we would call the "Angel's Road to Earth." I imagined myself an angel. I would "fly" through the meadow with my little five-year-old feet taking me as swiftly as you could imagine. It gave me a dizzying feeling and I would fall to the ground, watching the world go around and around, finally stopping when my breaths became slower. What a wonderful world this meadow was. It was truly a tender mercy of my father and mother in heaven. I was so grateful I had this place.
   Church on Sundays consited of Sunday School and Sacrament Meeting. We met in the old 700 East chapel that has since been demolished and a new-fashioned meeting house built in its place.
   That old chapel was a great place to go. We would sometime walk to church when the weather was good. Sometimes we drove. We loved the enormous ramp that was built for wheelchair access after the building had been in use for decades. The cultural hall had windows the length of it. The primary room in the basement seemed large enough to house a small army of children.
   Mom was a den mother in the Cub Scouts organization so I would go along with her and the brothers to Cub Scouts at the chapel where my other primary buddies and I would have the run of the place. Oh, we found the many pockets and nooks and crannies of that building. Forty years later I can still follow the corridors in my mind. The opportunities seemed endless.
    Then, one Sunday at that church took us all by surprise when a bullet went off, driving itself into my brother's stomach...

"Dad"

   Life with father was ready for phase two.
   Number two dad was a much better bread winner. He actually worked at a full-time job. He actually brought home a reasonably-good income. He actually joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after he married Mom. He actually took care of us.
   He seemed to be the tall, dark and handsome knight in shining armour sent by the sovereign to save us from the world.
   Unfortunately, he hid a very dark side. He is an alcoholic.
   Alcoholic. A word that brings images of hobos staggering with breath that could clean tarnish off silver. A word that brings images of depressed men in a bar bemoaning their lives of unsuccessfull attempts to make their life better. A word that brings images of people who have no hope of a healthy liver. A word that solicites images of brain cells dieing with each ounce of liquor.
   My new dad blew all these stereotypes out of the water.
   He took us under his wing and kept us safe from the world.
   For a while.
   After the "honeymoon" was over, the reality burst onto the scene. His actions seemed a bit stunning at first. He didn't do the drinking at home, so he was usually okay a couple of hours after he was home, but then he got comfortable. He started to bring home the beer.
   One late afternoon, he got angry with me. I am sure I wasn't the only one he was angry with. My brothers, of course, were much more difficult with me, but this is MY blog.
   That is when he broke. He took off his rivetted black belt and whipped me on the bare bottom after he told me to lay down on my bed.
   Oh, it stung.
   I was four or five years old.
   But that night's nightmare would soon come.
   Dad had been drinking more and came into my bedroom sloshing drunk. He woke me up and with a voice reminiscent of the drunk hobo falling in the gutter in an alley, told me how sorry he was he hit me.
   I was so scared I wet myself.
   I wet the bed almost every night until I was 12.

The New Normal

   It's been several months since I have been back on the blog; mostly because I have been busy; mainly because I have been unsure what to write next. It seems as though my latest blog had a climax that really could be the end, but it's not.
    You see, though that little girl inside of me named "Mandy Leigh" was raped, molested and abused, that's not the end of the story. My story seemed to have begun at that time, until I realized what had actually happened. All I knew was the "after" of the "before."
  After the sexual abuse, I needed reassurance that I was okay. I became constipated and depressed. I started wanting to be a boy, not a sweet little girl who had been exposed to a sexual world before my body even developed. Confusion seemed to overshadow me. I don't remember feeling my physical self. All I remember was feeling like my head and skull were my only parts. The food went in my mouth and seemed to get lost, not coming out without severe pain. I was closing up. My irregularity was my new "normal."
   No, this isn't an Activia advertisement.
   Mom wasn't openly aware of what happened to me. Things like this were not common to her. She grew up in a home where "abuse" was siblings relentlessly teasing, but never in a sexual way. But I figure even her upbringing was a means to the evil that lurked.
   Blame it on Elvis, The Beatles, Woodstock, Hippies.
   The "sexual revolution" was in full swing. Mormondome was getting a dose of  "worldly." Our little suburban world outside of "metropolitan" Salt Lake City was getting even more complicated that early Mormon settlers could have imagined, but not more than church prophets had prophesied.
    You see, Salt Lake City is destined become "the most wicked city in the world."
    I guess my incident was one step toward that wickedness.
    However, as a young girl with revenge on the outskirts of her mind, the fight to protect her remaining innocence was far from over.
   Then mom got married, pregnant and we moved to Souix Falls, South Dakota.
   My new little sister was the product of this. She is a beauty in my life that I cannot explain fully with words. But when I was young I remember nothing about her. I am sure I was jealous of this new little being in my family's life, most siblings have jealousy in the mix. I remember, however, that I wasn't sure she was a girl. The style of dressing children must have become more unisex because I remember her being dressed boyishly.
   I got my first physical scar in South Dakota or maybe Phoenix, where we moved just after. It remains on my left hand, reminding me of a bike and my brothers. I remember an orange tree and some cows. I remember some pictures.
   Then it was back to Salt Lake. Back to Austin Avenue. Back to our same house. Back to extended family. Back to time with Grande Anne.
   The good came with the bad. And the bad was not over.