Ugly part 12

Woodstock became part of the pop culture real quick. Those who were not there, wished they were. Those that were told the stories over and over again.

In San Francisco, I heard the stories being told over and over again. This is probably why I remember any of it. Joni Mitchell wrote a song, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sang it. The house was always filled with new people who wanted to hear the stories. New hippies, New to California. Some more radical and violent then the ones I was used to.

Oldest father was considered radical, a protester, rallied everyone to go with him. He was basically harmless. His protest stayed to picket signs and anti war slogans. Flowers in gun barrels type of thing. A counter coup. To touch the enemy and never harm him is far more honourable he would say to me. These others. They did not believe in the counter coup. They believed in fire with fire approach. Sometimes they smelt funny. I know, hippies are suppose to smell funny, pactulili, pot and body oder. But they smelt of chemicals. Not like normal hippies.

When we got home things got back to normal. Mother would wake up most days and refer to me as Ugly. Big mother would smile and call me Butterfly ,then make me breakfast. She cooked good. I was glad she came to lived with us. Oldest father would take me to the park or the ocean. One of them was teaching me to write and read. She was taking early child development in school. I caught on quick. I enjoyed making her happy. I felt like I was doing a trick for her. Every time I did it correctly she was happy. This was good. Something I had control over, someone else's happiness came from my tricks.

Oh, the orgies still went on, there were new people in the house, all the time. They put a television in the room. I wrote my stories and watched t.v. while the games went on down stairs.

Days came and went, Halloween came. I dressed up as a witch. We carved pumpkins and put them out on the porch with candles in them. Oldest Father and the woman who liked to teach me took me house to house in the neighborhood. They got as many treats as I did. Popcorn balls, candy corn, candied apples, those were my favorites.

Halloween was always my favourite holiday. I missed it so much.

Soon would come Thanksgiving.

A week before Thanksgiving I saw on the news that the Indians had occupied Alcatraz. an old prison island. People on the news seem to make fun of the fact they were there. People in the house talked about "we should give the whole damn country back to them."


I watched the news everyday to see if I saw anyone I knew. I only knew a handful of "real Indians" but still I knew some.

Thanksgiving came. The year was almost over. We had a big vegetarian meal. Lots of new faces. Afterwords I was retired to my room as the pagan feast of free long began downstairs.

The news had a big feature on the occupation at Alcatraz. And there is was, among all the old and young people I saw a woman with a bay and two boys. It was Suzy and Billy and Joey. The boys were waiving at the camera. There were many children there. I was thinking how nice it would be there with them. They might let me. I had a real Indian name after all, given to me by a real old Indian.

The door opened, I hardly noticed, so into the t.v. I was.

"Hey there, pretty girl." I heard him say. He was drunk or high or something. They always were during these parties.

I turned around he had some jeans on. That was all.

"I was looking for the bathroom. Do you know where it is?" He said staggering closer.

I pointed to the next room on the left.

"Thanks, pretty girl."

He left. He creeped me out.

I went back to the television. I missed Suzie. I want to see more of them.

Before I knew it he was back in the room.

"Hey, pretty girl." He said as he came closer. "You're mama is really a fine lady. I bet you are just as fine."

I didn't like this guy.

"You're mama is really nice, are you?"

"I'm nice."

"Do you know how girls are nice to boys?"

"No."

"They kiss boys in a special place. Do you want to be nice to me?"

"No, go away."

He unzipped his jeans and came towards me.

"Come one, be nice like your mommy."

I backed up and my back came against the wall.

"This is what grown up people do. Don;t you want to be a bride someday? This is what girls do when they are married."

I yelled "I don't want to ever get married!"

"Every little girl wants to grow up to be a wife."

I closed my eyes.

"Ahhh, Man get your fucking hands off!"

I opened my eyes. Oldest father was there naked. He had the creepy guy by the hair and had him up against the wall.

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

"Hey man , be cool, look at the girl, she might as well get good at this. I wasn't going to hurt her."

I heard oldest father yell as he threw him out of my room.

He yelled a lot of curse words. I could hear the guy hitting walls so hard my painting fell off the wall.

I went out into the hall way.

Oldest father was still screaming. Half not even words. Primal. All while he was tossing this guy from wall to wall.

"What are you so upset about, man? Her mom said it was o.k." the creep said with his hands up to defend oldest father's kick.

Oldest father picked him up by his long hair in one swift movement held him to his face. "What am I so upset about, you sick fuck? THAT'S MY DAUGHTER!"

With that he threw him down the stairs.

By now the rest of the people were at the bottom of the stairs. They were wondering what was going on. My mother was there too. My oldest father and I just looked at her with a mix of hatred and the question why. Some of the men were running up the stairs to hold oldest father back.

"Explain yourself, Bobbie Sue!" Oldest father yelled.

"Luke, what is going on, explain what?"

"They guy is uncool, man, Manson type crazy! He needs to go to jail. You saw what he did to me." The creep said as he got up and started staggering to the door.

"He was trying to rape Emma! Told us you told him it was o.k.. I never thought you would hit so low, Bobbie!"

By the time the words got out of his mouth the other men let him go, and started racing toward the creep. The creep was heading for the door.

"NO!" my mother cried, with a look of bewilderment and hurt that we would believe such a thing.

The creep was almost to the door when big mother tripped him. "So sorry, let me help you up." she said as she fell on him. "Hee Hee, how clumsy of me."

Oldest father moved past the men and grabbed him again pulling him up by the hair.

This time the other men held him for father as he punched him, letting out primal screams as his fist reached their mark.

Oldest father tired and turned away. The men let the creep drop to the floor. As they gathered around oldest father around the table.

Most of the women were around me, holding me, some crying.

Oldest father was frightened at how much rage he had inside him. It frightened me too. But I was happy it was there, that night. And both of us did not know what to believe about my mother. It is so easy to believe the worst of someone you know so well. All their little human bad things get blown out of proportions, to monster size. We believe they are capable of anything.

A scream of such pain came out of the creep we all turned our attention to him. It was mother. She had a bloodied kitchen knife in one hand and the creep's manhood in the other. "Never again." she said. Over and over and over again. "Never again."

She did stab him a few more times. Blood everywhere. It took days to clean.

He did end up dying there that night. I guess some sins are too great to forgive. No-one tried to stop her. No-one tried to stop his bleeding. No-one even asked if anyone had seen him after they wrapped him up and dumped him in the ocean.

Any idea's that the creep's words were true died with him. My mother did not send him too me. She never hated me that much. In the end, I decided she was just young but not evil. Nothing is black and white. No-one is simplistic. My mother had depths that even she didn't want to see or feel. One of those depths was her love for me.

The next weeks were strange. A lot of silence.

No more parties.

No more strangers.

Mother and oldest father would argue a lot. I worried he might hit her if she upset him enough. I know he was protecting me, that night. Even so, that rage, that primal rage scared me. That rage was based in his love for me. That scared me. He called me his. In a weird way that scared me. I always felt I belonged to everyone. Now I felt I belonged to no-one. Everyone treating me like a china doll. I felt I did something wrong.

I wondered if I did not scream if everything would have stayed the same.

My scream was what shattered everything.

Christmas came. It was still weird. I had presents. More than ever.

Oldest father kept looking at me as I did when Jimi Hendrix was on stage, like he wanted to make sure he never forgot a note, a song, a look, a laugh, not a thing. Time passes so quickly.

Sometime between Christmas and New Years a knock came on the door.

"Hello. Come on in. No you have the right place." I heard oldest father at the door.

An older couple came in. They looked familiar. But so many people did to me, I had meet so many people in my short life.

Mother came into the living room from the kitchen and dropped her bowl.

"Mama. Papa. What are you doing here?!"

She quickly looked at oldest father, "How could you?"

He look at the floor than back at her. "I had to."

The older man talked "We came to get our grand-baby, Bobbie. You may want to live like this, but it is no place for a child."

"Oh, Papa, it's that baby from the dinner." the older woman said and covered her mouth with her hand trying to hid her disgust how I looked.

"Mama, it's alright, it will get some good old fashion god and country into her back home in Kentucky."

"Luke!" mother screeched. "They are going to take my baby!"

"It's for the best. She needs to grow up safe. She will be fine." Oldest father is now holding my mother.

"I ran away for a reason, Luke."

"Oh mother, she must take after your side, over dramatical." The older man said as he reached down to pick me up.

I felt that I no longer had control of my destiny. The 60's were over.

Shortly after New Years I was at that farm house in Kentucky. Away from all my mothers and fathers. Alone with strangers. In the middle of no where. So far from the ocean. So far from the music, so far from the colours of the hippies, so far from peace and love.

Oldest father has a strange idea of what safe was.

I sat most evenings I was in the tire swing watching the sun set. The sun setting reminded me of my home in some strange way.