Charlene also lived in Hillcrest, so I started going to her house after school since I could no longer go to Pam’s. Charlene usually didn’t have any time to play because she had chores to do, like cleaning her mother’s big house and raking leaves in the front and back yards before her mother, a single mother like mine, came home from work.
I was used to doing chores, too, but I did them willingly, to help out my mother. It was an entirely different story with Charlene. She had to do them and do them right, or she would be punished. I felt sorry for her, so when I came over I often tried to help her out.
Charlene was deathly afraid of her mother, and as time went by I began to understand why. She was a tyrant. If Charlene didn’t have her chores done when her mother came home, or if she hadn’t done them to her mother’s specifications, she would be severely punished. Charlene never talked about what those punishments entailed, but I often saw bruises and cuts on her face and arms.
I’d been the recipient of my mother’s anger and even rage, but it didn’t come close to Charlene’s mother’s rage. I witnessed it more than once during the time I knew them.
One day, Charlene was cleaning the oven and she’d put on a sort of mask to protect herself from the fumes from the oven cleaner, the way her mother had instructed her. She looked so funny that she made me laugh. We started giggling and couldn’t stop.
All of a sudden, the side door opened and her mother was standing there.
“What’s wrong with you two?” she said, glaring at us. “Why are you laughing? Charlene, you’re supposed to be cleaning the oven, not playing around.”
Charlene tried to explain what had happened, but her mother was on a roll.
“This kitchen is a mess. Look at these countertops—they are filthy,” she said as she passed her hand over the top of them. “And look at the bottom of these pans in the drainer. They need a good scrub. What have you been doing, playing around all afternoon?”
Charlene’s mother was working herself up into a rage. I could see her temples throbbing and her face turning red. Her eyes flashed in a way that made her look possessed. She was clearly out of control.
She pushed Charlene out of the kitchen so hard that she stumbled and fell. She yanked her up and pushed her into the hall, yelling at me to “get the hell” out of there. I knew Charlene was in for a beating.
If you’ve ever seen the movie Mommie Dearest, you have a good picture of what Charlene’s life with her mother was like. After that day, I tried to leave before her mother came home to save us both—Charlene from the embarrassment of having me see her mother in a rage and me from the risk of getting some of her mother’s leftover wrath.
I felt so bad for Charlene. She seemed defeated before she’d had a chance to live. She walked around with her head held down and her shoulders sloped and she always spoke in a low voice, so low that you had a hard time hearing her. And there was an awkwardness to her gait, as if she had been slapped one too many times.
I wished I could save her somehow but I couldn’t even save myself. I lived for the day I could escape from my mother and Bakersfield. I lived for the day I could blossom and thrive away from my mother’s scrutinizing gaze, her unreasonable expectations, and her relentless criticism. I wondered if Charlene lived for the same thing. But somehow I thought I had a better chance than Charlene did.
I was building up a wall—one that not only protected me from my mother but from everyone else. I continued playing with Linda sometimes, but I had a difficult time relating to girls my own age. They still had their innocence and talked about anticipating their first kiss. I had already done things that they could only imagine doing in the far-off future.
Because I no longer felt like a child, I took a liking to two older teens in the neighborhood. Chick and his mother lived on the other side of us and he had a basketball hoop in his front yard. I often saw him playing basketball with the neighborhood kids and I started hanging around, hoping they’d invite me to play. And one day Chick did. From that day on I hung around Chick, and soon I developed quite a crush on him.
One evening, after I’d been playing HORSE with Chick and the neighborhood boys for about a month, my mother called me into our little dining room and told me to sit down. I could tell by the stern look on her face that what she had to say wasn’t going to be good.
“I don’t want you to go over to Chick’s anymore,” she said matter-of-factly.
“But why, Momma?”
“Just do as I say,” she scolded.
“But what’s wrong with me going over there?” I persisted. “Lots of kids do.”
“Well, I don’t want you to be one of them. He’d too old for you to be playing with,” she said. “And that’s final. End of discussion.”
I knew I
