In Pieces(16)

Yet, outside of Jocko’s sphere, if I was troubled about something or needed to talk, to work something out, she was endlessly patient and supportive. When I was in the eighth grade I was abruptly kicked out of the circle of girls with whom I had tried to be friends. As soon as I got home from school that day, I went directly to my closet, shut the door, and lay on the floor crying, saying I could never go back to school again. Baa sat on the carpet, talking to me through the crack under the door for hours. She was always like that. Whenever I felt I’d hit a hopeless dead end, she had a way of making me think of alternate routes by suggesting a long list of choices I hadn’t seen. And even though most of them were maddeningly unacceptable, her ability to look for that little bit of sunshine in a situation that seemed pitch black always gave me the sense that if everything went out, I had a backup generator: my mother.


It would have been so much easier if I’d only felt one thing, if Jocko had been nothing but cruel and frightening. But he wasn’t. He could be magical, the Pied Piper with our family as his entranced followers. He had a rule that on Christmas morning we weren’t allowed to get out of our beds until the sky was fully light, so every Christmas Eve I’d just lie there, watching the night creep by. On one particular wide-eyed eve, a big storm had rolled in with a hammering rain that lashed my bedroom window and as I listened to the relentless splashing, I started to hear something else behind it, a very faint pounding that didn’t seem to be connected to the downpour on the roof or the branches tapping against the glass panes. If I stopped breathing and tried to open my ears, I could hear it: a faint slam, a rhythmic popping, and then I guess sleep had its way with me because when I opened my eyes again, the rain had stopped and the color of the night had shifted. Not that it was light, but it wasn’t totally dark either. Five-year-old Princess, whose twin bed stood an arm’s distance from mine, didn’t seem to have any trouble sleeping, and even after I poked her in the side several times she stayed blissfully zonked. But when I saw the dim outline of something sitting at the foot of my bed I let out a small squeal, and that got her up. It was a big stuffed monkey with arms and legs long enough to tie around me in a constant hug, and Princess had one sitting at the end of her bed too. Wrapped in our monkeys, off we went to wake the rest of the family, stopping for a moment in the living room to behold the magic stacked high under the huge illuminated tree.

After much haggling over what color the sky truly was, and what constitutes “light,” dawn was reluctantly declared and the festivities could finally begin. There were presents everywhere: under the tree and hidden out of sight in the branches, turning into a game of “hot and cold” conducted by the grown-ups. When, at last, the cacophony of ripping paper, excited screams, and fleeting words of gratitude had faded away, Jocko said, “Put your shoes on, Doodle,” then took my hand and led me through the den into the backyard, with everyone following. There, a few feet from the big sycamore, was a structure made of pale pinewood—a two-story square with a pitched roof, a front porch, and windows on either side of the doorway. It was big enough for me to walk around in and had an attic-like top floor where I couldn’t quite stand, but almost. Yes, two-by-fours had been nailed to the wall to be used to climb up to the second floor and Jocko had made it, all of it. He had worked all night in the rain. My brother, whose face was now glowing with pride, had spent the night at Jocko’s side, helping him accomplish this feat. A little house and they had both made it… just for me.

I stood there, in that damp yard filled with Jocko’s contraptions, staring at my gift—dumbfounded. Why had Jocko done that? Why was I given a whole house when Princess and Ricky didn’t get anything like it, not in any way? Where was the extravagance usually heaped on my mother? There was only a little house for me.

A part of me still lives in that little raw house. I would lie in the upstairs loft looking out the thick mesh-covered window, besotted by the hot dusty summer air, alone.


All my life I’ve tried to figure out why I didn’t have a constant stream of friends. We lived in a neighborhood filled with children. I’d see them every morning as we stood on the corner, waiting for the school bus. Pam, a girl in my class, lived down the street but I only remember going to her house once, feeling anxious and awkward the whole time.

When I was in the sixth grade, I asked a classmate over to play. I don’t remember her name, only that I was nervous. It was somehow decided that she would come on Saturday at noon, but when that Saturday came around Jocko was home, working in the yard, intent on keeping me near. I felt intoxicated with his attention and forgot all about my new friend. And as we worked side by side—Jocko issuing orders that I dutifully followed—he took his shirt off, then casually suggested I take mine off too. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt with my two-piece bathing suit underneath and though the sun was hot, the air was cold. Leaving my shirt on seemed like a better idea in every way, but I didn’t decline his suggestion. I took my shirt off as if I were happy to do so. When he told me to take the top of my bathing suit off as well, that I didn’t need it, declaring I’d feel better if I were free, I felt the familiar fingernails on the blackboard of my insides. Lord knows I didn’t need it, but at twelve I didn’t want to be free, I wanted to be covered. But as he moved behind me, untying the strings to my top, whipping it off, then stuffing the little wad of pink fabric in his back pocket, I just stood there, wordlessly.