UP IN SMOKE

How to produce a trauma-born empath loner.

This method is not proposed as the only method or even the best method. Methodology is limited only by the parents’ and the victim’s imaginations. Remember, they are an integrated team. We’re talking collusion here.

What follows is the confession of a young boy (5 or 6 years old; or 7 or 8, or 9 or 10, or all of those ages ladled one upon another.

Over time, the boy became a trauma-born empath loner and willingly participated in the process. In fact, he felt his own participation was required, in order to make the whole thing work. After all, it was his duty to maintain balance between parents, if there were to be any hope of his surviving. Keep the peace. At any cost. The victim himself was the keystone of this psychological structure.

Now, let’s hear from this kid, as he begins his journey, to trauma-born empath loner. Is it really a journey? A journey implies motion and growth. Or is it frozen-time … that forbids motion and growth. Let’s see it from the child’s view point.

I remember the house being very quiet, as though no one was home. It was a warm spring day. A southwest breeze was blowing in, through the kitchen windows. They were small, cranky windows, difficult to open and near impossible to close. The wind billowed the gauzy curtains. I watched them puff into life, like ghosts, then settle back down only to come alive again with the next puff of wind. I felt anxious. Where was Mom? Where was Dad? I was alone with the wind.

How could I be all alone? No siblings? It would have to be before Paul was born. Or maybe Mom was in the process of having Paul. I recall something wrong with her ovaries. A cyst or something that needed to be removed. Whatever it was, she was not there. I was alone. Not only with the wind, but with my Dad.

I remember a big, old fashioned steamer trunk made of wood with brass fittings. Inside, the trunk was lined with red felt. When closed, it looked like a treasure chest that a pirate might keep his gold in. But there was no gold in this chest. It was packed with women’s clothing. The clothing as old fashioned as the chest. The chest was out of the attic now. I knew it lay on the floor, in my parent’s bedroom. I left the kitchen with its billowing curtains and felt the warm breeze take me down the hallway, to where the great trunk lay.

And there, in the bedroom, was the big woman with thick, red lips and rouged cheeks and a big, straw hat with wide brims. I knew she’d be there. But still, it startled me. She wore one of the drab dresses, from the treasure chest, of old-lady clothes. Her arms and legs were hairy, the hair looking like curlicues, black twisted wires. She sat with her legs splayed, on the edge of the bed, her eyes on me, her red lips pursed, in a repulsive kiss. The painful odor of beer floating from her red-sweetened lips.

Where did she come from? And where did my daddy go? Why does he leave me alone with this woman? Her arms stretched out for me and I ran. Out of the bedroom. Out of the house, the screen door banging shut behind me. Under the trellis that supported the ugly, overpowering twisted-ness of the wisteria vine. Through the spring-loaded wire gate. Into the back alley that ran straight as a railroad track between the rows of bungalows. I ran like the wind, clutching my breath, straining my legs to go faster and faster. I could feel the presence behind me, closing the gap, and then, the powerful arms were around me.

“You little devil.”

My Dad caught me. He was out of breath.

“Damn, you can run. I could hardly catch you.”

My heart pounded, my hands cold with sweat.

“Let me go.”

“Stop struggling. Where do you think you’re going?”

“I want grandma. I want to go to grandma’s house.”

“Later. I’ll drop you off later. You can stay with grandma while I visit Mommy.”

“Now. I want to go now.”

“Stop your screaming.”

He wrenched me off the ground and looked around. There was no one in the back alley. People were at work. The neighborhood was quiet. My Dad smelled like a lipstick stain on a beer bottle. I didn’t want to look at his face. But I did feel an odd mix of affection, at his physical closeness and fear of his power and what was to come. The love relationship of a tortured soul to his torturer.

Was he really Dad? Or was he that big woman? My brain felt twisted into a knot. I struggled to free myself.

Dad said, “Stop it. You do as I say. Right now.”

But I did not stop. I squirmed violently and dropped out of his grip, onto the hard packed gravel, of the alley. I zig-zagged away from him and turned into an adjoining paved alley. Between the tiny bungalows, I raced, making every right angle turn I could till, I lost sight of my Dad, and he lost sight of me. I knew he would not follow me, in the costume of the big woman. He’d have to go home and change. That gave me time. To escape. But escape to where?

I found myself in the tiny backyard of my aunt Georgia. The backyard contained a sand box that was filled with sand and beach stones for her kids, my cousins, to play in. A tall hedge hid the sandbox on three sides. The fourth side faced the bungalow’s back door. I squatted there, catching my breath and trying to still the sickening dread that my belly was so familiar with. The adrenalin fueled fear and anticipation. My bowels threatening to move, on their own, when my Aunt opened the door and smiled down at me. She asked me what I was doing there. Her smile was kind but her eyes were confused. I said I was hiding. She asked hiding from who? I said, my Dad. She said, you’re playing hide and seek with your Dad. I hesitated, then said yes, but I started to cry. The tears were uncontrollable. My aunt went back inside. I knew she would phone my Dad.

I quieted down. My mind froze. I stopped thinking about grandma, or mommy, or anything. It was happening. It was happening to me. I knew I could do nothing about it. I had to accept it. My Dad came and got me.

We were back in the house. The big woman had me. Daddy was gone.

She sat on the edge of the bed, holding me trapped between her knees. She was still breathing heavily from our rapid walk home and her quick change of clothing.

She pulled my head against her and I could hear and feel her breathing. Gradually, her breath came less rapidly.

She pulled her dress up by its hem, over my head, and drew me closer and closer. Under the dress, in that dim, musty recess, I saw … I saw the little man emerge, as if from a darkened shrubbery. Armless and legless. But he had a head and a blank-face was painted on that head, and the knobby reddened head seemed to throb and bob, as though a little heart was beating inside it.

The little man seemed made of wood. Like a totem pole. He stretched closer and closer to me. His frozen smile beckoned me. Closer and closer until his bald head penetrated. I did not know the true meaning of the word weird, but I felt all its nuances, in every fiber of my nervous system. The little bald headed man, without arms or legs, was somehow choking me. Panic rippled through me, wave after wave. I couldn’t breathe.

Then a taste, or was it a smell, within my throat? A pungent odor, at once familiar and strange.

“Swallow.”

I choked and swallowed and like magic, the little trunk-man shrunk away into the bushy darkness, of the dress … and disappeared.

Where did he go? I felt a twisted-ness within my head. Something happened. But what was it? And what kind of Gordian knot was it threading and tying, within my skull. And why did it need to do this … over and over again?

Mom was irritable, when she got home from the hospital. She said, “Get rid of it.” Her face was livid.

Dad said, “It’s my mother’s clothes.”

Mom said, “I don’t care if it King Tut’s. I want it out of my house. Why in the world did you take it out of the attic?”

Dad was silent. He glanced at me. I was silent, frightened by Mom’s anger and the flow of her tears. And Dad’s stern look. I feared for my future. If Mom and Dad hate each other, where would I go to live and be safe?

Mom said, “Take the chest down the beach and burn it.”

Dad said, “I can’t do that.”

Mom said, “Then I will.”

She picked up, one end of the trunk, by its leather handhold and started dragging it to the door.

Dad said, “Stop it. You’ll tear out your stitches.”

She dropped the trunk. “Then you do it. Or I’ll go up to the candy store and hire a couple of teenage boys. They lear at me every time I pass them. I wag my ass at them, they’ll do it for nothing. For nothing … They’ll do the job. They’ll get it done.”

Dad lit a cigarette and stared at the trunk. “I need a beer.”

Mom said, “No you don’t. That fucking beer. It makes you sick. A sick, slimy fucker.”

Dad continued to stare at the trunk, as if he were about to lose something precious.

Mom said, “Do it or I go to my mother’s and take my family with me. You can go back to playing with whatever the fuck you’re playing with.”

“That’s enough.” His eyes hardened. But hers branded him.

Mom said, “Take your son with you.” And that branded me.

I followed Dad like a guilty ally, down the steps, the trunk banging on each sharp cement corner. He lifted it and hoisted it to his shoulder. I followed down the side alley, across the cinder surface of the beach road. He dropped it, over the bulkhead, onto the sand, and I jumped down after it. I felt an unexplainable attachment to Dad, to the trunk, to the fear in my belly that tied it all together. This was life as I knew it and felt it. I had no idea it could be any different. I felt bad for Dad and resented Mom’s anger. She was standing at the edge of the bulkhead, smoking a cigarette, her arms folded across her breasts. Her eyes mercilessly upon us.

The bay had always been my relief. I leaned back against the weathered timbers of the bulkhead and focused on the still, blue water that seemed so peaceful, so calming. Only the bay, the blue sky and the white clouds could douse the coals in my belly. But at that moment, not even the bay soothed me. The tide was low and Dad set the trunk on the damp sand. He ruffled up the clothing and attempted to light the fire. A little smoke rose but the flame quickly went out.

I looked up at Mom. A frantic feeling in my gut and said, “Mommy, let Dad keep one of the dresses.”

She looked puzzled and said, “Why?”

I said, “It means a lot to him. It was his Mom’s favorite dress. The blue one with the gray flowers. Can he keep that one, Mom, please.”

Mom, a disgusted look on her face, spit out the cigarette butt and said, “Take it out, the one he likes, and bring it to me.” She turned on her heel and trotted back to the house.

I ran to the trunk and said, “Dad. Mom said I could save the blue dress.” I reached into the now smoldering trunk and searched the pile till I found the pale blue dress with the gray flowers. It hadn’t been scorched by the reluctant fire.

Dad looked surprised.

I said, “Mom said to bring it to her.”

He didn’t say anything. He squatted down and made another attempt to start the fire. Then he said, “Good boy. Go. Take it to her.”

I felt a great sense of relief. As if I had prevented a war. A little boy preventing a war that was designed, to destroy little boys.

I brought the dress to Mom. She shook it out and inspected it. She said, “I’ll wash and dry it. Iron out the wrinkles. I’ll hang it in the hall closet … with your Dad’s work clothes.”

She looked defeated but calm. She was no longer angry.

My sense of relief increased. I knew now that the war was over. And I had won. But I’d have to be alert, in the future. Another war could be on the way. And I’d be called upon to negotiate a settlement.

Smoke took me out of the fugue, that I was sinking into. My eyes left the bay and watched the trunk, on the wet sand, trying to burn but seemingly choked for air. Little by little the flames gained strength, the layers of cotton clothing turning yellow and brown, with heat. And finally ignited.

Was the little armless and legless man in there? Would he go up in flames and smoke and be no more? My eyes searched the growing flames, but the little , bald headed, trunk man, the little, wood totem, was nowhere to be seen. Yet, I knew I would see him again. I had saved his dress. He lived in that dress. It was like a teepee, for a little totem pole. The peace would hold. If I were careful.

I was the glue that held the family together, the fireman who started the fires and then put out the flames. And the steward of secrets. I had to be forever vigilant. Keep the family together. My survival required it.

Live quietly. Be a nice boy. Love everyone. Disturb no one. Exist within your head. Trust no one. Isolation was safety. People were invaders; placate them. No one must ever discover my secrets. Mom and Dad were my best friends. I had to keep them that way. Forever. Less we all go up in smoke.