It's a Rez Life, Boy.
The boy woke up and tiptoed his way over the bodies of passed out adults strewn around his living room. He was 6 years old and hungry and was thinking about a bowl of cereal when he walked past his parent's bedroom. He glanced towards their open door and his eyes fell upon three bodies passed out on the bed, his mother, naked from the waist down and his father on one side of her. On the other side of his mother, a family friend wearing only his underwear.
The boy had many other similar and confusing images imprinted in his mind following his parent's weekend house parties. He filed this one away with the other memories and his mind conveniently locked it away. Some of these memory images were worse than others, like the time one of his dad's friends did things to him in the bathroom that made him cry and produced bad dreams for weeks afterwards. After that incident, the boy learned to hide and stay under his bed until the house fell silent, full of sleeping adults reeking of vomit, beer and something musky he could not place. He would awaken at the age of twelve when his first sexual experiences with the girls around the community enabled him to put some pieces of his puzzled memories together. For now, he was a six year old boy and this was a typical Saturday morning in his house.
He climbed up onto the counter, took a bowl from the cupboard and prepared his cereal. He sat at the table with his eyes focused on the couch where the rise and fall of his uncle's chest provided a sense of comfort. He hurried through his cereal so he could leave the house before his father woke up. If he got caught in the house with his dad after one of these parties, the beatings and foul name-callings would rain down upon him, those were the things his mind refused to lock away for safe keeping...
May, 2013
Del Jacko
The boy had many other similar and confusing images imprinted in his mind following his parent's weekend house parties. He filed this one away with the other memories and his mind conveniently locked it away. Some of these memory images were worse than others, like the time one of his dad's friends did things to him in the bathroom that made him cry and produced bad dreams for weeks afterwards. After that incident, the boy learned to hide and stay under his bed until the house fell silent, full of sleeping adults reeking of vomit, beer and something musky he could not place. He would awaken at the age of twelve when his first sexual experiences with the girls around the community enabled him to put some pieces of his puzzled memories together. For now, he was a six year old boy and this was a typical Saturday morning in his house.
He climbed up onto the counter, took a bowl from the cupboard and prepared his cereal. He sat at the table with his eyes focused on the couch where the rise and fall of his uncle's chest provided a sense of comfort. He hurried through his cereal so he could leave the house before his father woke up. If he got caught in the house with his dad after one of these parties, the beatings and foul name-callings would rain down upon him, those were the things his mind refused to lock away for safe keeping...
May, 2013
Del Jacko
Maggie and Rongman
It was messed up beyond reason. That was the legacy of the Residential School system still at work 17 years after the last one closed its doors. It was patriarchy at play in its most evil guise. It was all things related to colonialism and intergenerational trauma, passed on from parent to child in a ripple effect of despair and spiritual and cultural contamination and genocide. The horrors of Rongman's beginning years involved many lies told to avoid the iron fists of his patriarch. The pain of truth-telling was a risk he could not take. Imagine? Perhaps there was much yet to come to light, but right here right now, Maggie was just grateful to have escaped Rongman's warped world.
With the benefit of hindsight at her disposal, Maggie replayed a scene from the movie of her life with Rongman - a healing technique she was introduced to through counseling. The ultimate red flag should have been when Maggie accidentally learned of Rongman’s addiction to pornography. He admitted a preference to Internet porn comprising anal gang bangs and asked Maggie to watch some scenes with him. To her disbelief, Rongman's laughter rang in her ears whenever the women would cry out and their faces would contort from pain and discomfort. He also took pleasure from the final scenes when the men would ejaculate on the woman’s face as she squirmed and tried to catch the mix of semen in her mouth. Maggie questioned Rongman about his addiction to pornography, when and how had this become such a huge part of his life? According to Rongman, as a child he found a stash of magazines filled with glossy images of nude women depicted in scenarios he began to fantasize about. This was Rongman's prepubescent 'sex-ed,' and now, through therapy, Maggie realized how distorted an impression Rongman had of women and why she always felt objectified by his gropings and sexual advances. It was the only form of intimacy he was familiar with and he insisted it was because he thought Maggie incredibly beautiful and desirable. Maggie gagged.
She loved him once. But those feelings, like natural resources had become depleted and destroyed through various instances of Rongman's jealousy, rage, misogynistic expressions and actions, and his overall lack of confidence and sexual incompetence. In all the years spent with Rongman, she heard more apologies in the bedroom for his failure to perform as a young buck should, than she achieved orgasms. It got to the point where Maggie feared initiating sex because she figured his anxieties would best his efforts anyway. He drained Maggie to a point where she hardly recognized herself anymore. Where was her joy? Where was her inner shine? When Maggie woke from that shattered dream, she knew that slamming the door shut, and dead bolting it against Rongman was her only recourse if she intended to salvage a life devoid of full throttled misery.
True, it wasn't supposed to end this way, but the 'happily ever after ending' didn't matter now. Maggie was in a different head space and all she felt was relief. She was now anticipating writing a whole new chapter of her life. Those happily ever afters belonged in fairy tales, in the lives of princesses and knights in shinning armour. Maggie's life was far from any fairy tale she ever heard, read or watched. She looked back on her life and reflected upon the sexual assaults . These memories coagulated under a hardened, secret scab that petrified Maggie to examine. She closed her eyes and picked at it though, she peeled away the toughened layer of outer shell - Mother Nature's band aid. The time had come to bleed out the festering emotional pus of society's imposed feminine shame, guilt, and blame.
June 2013
Del Jacko
With the benefit of hindsight at her disposal, Maggie replayed a scene from the movie of her life with Rongman - a healing technique she was introduced to through counseling. The ultimate red flag should have been when Maggie accidentally learned of Rongman’s addiction to pornography. He admitted a preference to Internet porn comprising anal gang bangs and asked Maggie to watch some scenes with him. To her disbelief, Rongman's laughter rang in her ears whenever the women would cry out and their faces would contort from pain and discomfort. He also took pleasure from the final scenes when the men would ejaculate on the woman’s face as she squirmed and tried to catch the mix of semen in her mouth. Maggie questioned Rongman about his addiction to pornography, when and how had this become such a huge part of his life? According to Rongman, as a child he found a stash of magazines filled with glossy images of nude women depicted in scenarios he began to fantasize about. This was Rongman's prepubescent 'sex-ed,' and now, through therapy, Maggie realized how distorted an impression Rongman had of women and why she always felt objectified by his gropings and sexual advances. It was the only form of intimacy he was familiar with and he insisted it was because he thought Maggie incredibly beautiful and desirable. Maggie gagged.
She loved him once. But those feelings, like natural resources had become depleted and destroyed through various instances of Rongman's jealousy, rage, misogynistic expressions and actions, and his overall lack of confidence and sexual incompetence. In all the years spent with Rongman, she heard more apologies in the bedroom for his failure to perform as a young buck should, than she achieved orgasms. It got to the point where Maggie feared initiating sex because she figured his anxieties would best his efforts anyway. He drained Maggie to a point where she hardly recognized herself anymore. Where was her joy? Where was her inner shine? When Maggie woke from that shattered dream, she knew that slamming the door shut, and dead bolting it against Rongman was her only recourse if she intended to salvage a life devoid of full throttled misery.
True, it wasn't supposed to end this way, but the 'happily ever after ending' didn't matter now. Maggie was in a different head space and all she felt was relief. She was now anticipating writing a whole new chapter of her life. Those happily ever afters belonged in fairy tales, in the lives of princesses and knights in shinning armour. Maggie's life was far from any fairy tale she ever heard, read or watched. She looked back on her life and reflected upon the sexual assaults . These memories coagulated under a hardened, secret scab that petrified Maggie to examine. She closed her eyes and picked at it though, she peeled away the toughened layer of outer shell - Mother Nature's band aid. The time had come to bleed out the festering emotional pus of society's imposed feminine shame, guilt, and blame.
June 2013
Del Jacko
The Vehicle
There is always an obstacle at the intersection of obsession, and possession. In this case, it was her mother, married to the man who went from stepfather to lover on the girl's sweet sixteenth birthday. He insisted they wait, though he'd become more attentive to her when she was eleven, the day of her first period to be exact. Before that, he treated her like a stepfather would his child - they'd play and roughhouse in the back yard. He taught her how to throw a football and how to defend herself from the mean boys at school who teased and pulled her hair. She set them straight, one by one. Her stepfather beamed with pride hearing the stories at the supper table. It boosted her confidence and the boys soon switched from teasing her to wanting them on their teams during phys ed.
Sadie thought back to that special day, the day of her first menstrual cycle, and smiled. You're a young woman now, her stepfather whispered as he hugged her. We will have to do things a bit differently from now on. He gifted her with a delicate gold chain with a heart locket. Inside was a picture of them when she was seven years old, the day her mother introduced them and they became a family. Sadie threw her arms around Lyle's neck and inhaled the familiar scent of his cologne. Lyle squeezed his stepdaughter gently, then he took her by the shoulders, looked her squarely in the eyes and said, I love you little lady, from the moment I first set eyes upon you. Sadie beamed with trust and devotion, she was loved and her heart swelled with happiness. This man who wasn't even her father, but made her feel so very safe, so wonderfully special.
Fran stood smiling warmly at her daughter and husband, she was filled with pride. No, their lives weren't perfect, but they were happy now. Reflecting, Fran thought sadly about that period in her life when she couldn't handle being a single parent. She had to send four year old Sadie to live with her father. The little girl sobbed and begged to stay with her mother, but Fran knew she just couldn't do it. The stress was driving her at high speed towards an emotional and mental breakdown. She just wanted to run away from all her responsibilities. So, she did. Then she met Lyle. He was tall, strong and gentle. He helped get her life back on track. He stabilized her and gave her the confidence to pursue custody of her daughter. It was an awkward transition, but Lyle's presence definitely made it easier on Fran. She assumed by her daughter's smiles and hugs that Sadie was happy, and had adjusted seamlessly into a life reunited with mommy and Lyle. Fran could not have been more wrong.
Sadie loved her mother, of course she did, right? Love and honour your parents, that's what everyone around her said. She tried, but yet she felt rage when she'd look at her mother's smiling face. She wanted to smash it with a stick, a brick, a steel rod. Anything that would crack it into a million little pieces. Sadie would smile when she'd picture the scenario, then she'd quickly hug her mother as hard as she could to try and chase the images away.
Lyle. Well, he presented himself to everyone he met as the good, kind, gentle man who had his life in order. No one knew about the places he'd frequent on his trips to the lands of the rising sun. These were things he could not talk about with anyone, and he certainly did not maintain contact with the other men who paid exorbitant amounts of money to do the things they did far away from judgmental eyes. He would never pursue such activities in the western hemisphere, despite knowing countless venues and underground organizations. He was not willing to take such risks, not with Sadie's life in such delicate balance. He knew the ropes of the east well enough, and had been tending to his needs for over twenty years without consequence. The objects of his affection were not really human, none of them spoke a word of English after all. It would ruin everything if they did. So to be safe, he always insisted that they be brought in with duct tape already covering their mouths. Oh how he loved their wide eyes. He'd keep those eyes open with his thumbs on their eyelashes until he was done. It brought him the greatest joy and made him feel closer to God.
When he met Fran and she showed him the picture of sweet little Sadie on their first date, he fell in love. It was different this time. Lyle did not want to duct tape Sadie's mouth shut, or pin her eyes open with his thumbs. He wanted her to grow to love him, to respect him, to devote herself to him of her own accord. He decided right then and there, that Sadie was his one and only. Fran was the vehicle, the classic car he would hawk, or simply abandon the day Sadie declared she could not live without him.
September 6, 2013
*Inspired by a story watched on HLN yesterday about the 18 year old girl who stabbed her mother 79 times. A far-fetched fabrication of background context. *Sigh. I think I shall have to take a hiatus from the news and t.v. for a while. The media has a way of conjuring bad dreams and inspiring yucky little stories. Now and then, I need to "detox" my mind from all the bad news going around...