The Divine Toxic Feminine

Mom and Dad have a work thing and we’re left with a girl from the neighborhood. She’s mostly fun. No, I shouldn’t say that. I don’t remember. My memories get fuzzy here. Flashes. I stop sleeping here. A creepy little blonde thing staring into the middle distance of the night with ever-dimming blue eyes. 

In her too-young smoker’s voice, the babysitter says she has an idea. She lays Sean down on my parents’ bed and takes me over to the couch. I don’t know if it was just me. I know it wasn’t just her. It ultimately struck like frostbite—something  that hurts you once and makes it easier to be hurt again. “Grooming” they call it. 

What she proposes is not quite a game, but it’s a little like a game—it’s something I do needlessly well to impress strangers. Ensuring my abuser is satisfied. I blame myself for it. For participating in it against my will. Floating in the back of my own mind with the anger of sitting on the bench when I could be off raiding and breaking shit. Anger at myself for following the instructions of those who might see me harmed for the sake of their peace. Only in my memory of it. In the moment, it is but a “game.”

At this age, I am too young to understand the word, “complicit.” I’ve only been told it’s rude to say “no” all the time and that I should follow instructions when given.

She makes me french toast sticks to help get the taste out of my mouth and dies of a heroin overdose twenty years later. I’m a man at about four and a half. I didn’t even like the idea of being a boy. I want to be a mommy. I want a stroller and a baby. I got a doll for Christmas and had never been happier.

I told Grandma Jean last summer that I wanted to be a girl. They keep calling me Steven. Stephanie would make more sense to me. The problem is there’s already a Stephanie and I assume that’s why we’re all stuck with me as Steve. Compromise.

I don’t know Mom and Dad’s names yet. At this point I assume they legally changed them or something. Either way, they know who I mean.

Lord of the Flies.

There is hope in some places. I’m told about heaven and hell. The world is so framed in that kind of talk that even the non-believers speak in its language.

After Granny and Grandaddy died, I remember being so excited for an opportunity to go flying. Evening flight. We’d go up before sunset and land just after.

I was geeked. My family must have assumed it was for the flying. Airplanes do impress a lot of people. I was excited about the chance to see Granny and Grandaddy again.

We would fly our little Cesna 162 up above the clouds and there in the gold-laced, silver city of the Lord I would see them there—the Angel Band. I’d see Grandaddy Ernie and Granny Flora and all the others we’d lost.

I didn’t. In my hope to breach the clouds and ask God himself for the peace everyone promises, all I saw was more sky.

The tops of clouds, like a geography in time. Mountains moved and valleys turned into great planes and disappeared into the great sea of the sky.

I saw a sky so deep blue that the black beneath it was obvious and clear. No grown-ups and we shall have to look after ourselves. 

This fall I start Kindergarten. My first word in German. I will learn to tie my shoes and memorize my phone number. These are much easier lessons than those I just came from.

By six I determine that there is no God and the grown-ups are fucking morons. The panic attacks set in shortly after. The fixation and study of history, scripture, myth, story, suffering. That sets in right here too. 

I start with Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First Thessalonians, Second Thessalonians, First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, First Peter, Second Peter, First John, Second John, Third John, Jude, and Revelation.

Then I read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, Second Kings, First Chronicles, Second Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

Then I read Surahs and Sutras. I read Hermetica and Solomonic musings. I read Gitas and Vedas. I read Ogham and Rune Stone. I read anyone who said they might know something more. I consulted the I Ching. I consulted a Priest. I consulted the Tarot. I consulted a Witch Doctor. 

I consulted Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aurelius, Epictetus, Confucius, Heraclitus, Diogenes, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Voltaire, Kant, Burke, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, Thoreau, James, Nietzsche, Russell, Scheler, Tanabe, Heidegger, Popper, Sartre, and Camus.

I even consulted Hemingway, Vonnegut, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Campbell, Gaimain, Seuss, and then …

After far too long, I consulted myself. I confirmed with myself. I stopped stopping myself.

It was there that I found Jenny. It was there that I found the thing in me that can destroy other things in me. The thing in me that can build new things in me. My source of power. My heart.