Payback

My Mother was pregnant again. You couldn't tell by looking at her; she wasn't big in the belly yet. My clue was my Father continually telling me to not bother her because she's pregnant.

I could hear them talking at night, when I was supposed to be going to sleep. They talked about how the new baby was a chance to start over and do everything right this time. The new baby won't be damaged. The new baby will be everything Wesley was supposed to be.

I wasn't supposed to play with Jackson again after we were caught sneaking into houses. I was ordered to stay at home or in the yard. For about a week I hung out at home trying to be nice to my Mother and staying out of her way.

I was in deep pain. I was isolated. I felt rejected by everyone. I couldn't imagine killing myself, but I thought of what I could imagine. I thought that when the good baby came to replace me, I would go away. I pictured a hole in the ground, somewhere a long way off, and sitting in it, and never coming out.

My Mother was as cruel as ever. When my father was at work she would regularly lock me in my room. The rapes weren't as frequent as when my Father was in Korea, but still happened.

One day, I think it was in the middle of May, 1952, Jackson found me in our back yard playing by myself, and told me he had an idea of something fun to do, and I should come along. I knew I could only get in trouble by leaving with him, but I thought it didn't matter because I was treated like dirt no matter whether I was good or not. Besides, I'd be leaving permanently to live in dirt, so it would all be over soon.

So I went with him. He took me to a house that had a crawl-space beneath it that was gated and padlocked. The gate consisted of wooden slats. We could see what looked like toys to us through the slats. Jackson talked me into helping him rip away slats so we could take the toys out. So he had escalated his activities to breaking in to places, and he wasn't so concerned anymore about leaving evidence. I thought he was probably in a bad mood too.

When we got the toys out, Jackson recognized them as forming a croquet set. I didn't know what that meant, so he told me I was stupid. Then we left, with the croquet set strewn all over the lawn.

We went into some woods. He talked to me about how mean his parents were. So I opened up to him and shared my feelings about my parents and how they hated me an wanted me dead. He said he didn't blame them, I was a stupid shit, and to prove it he defecated in front of me, and picked up some of his shit and smeared it on me. Then he left.

At that moment I had my first remembered fugue experience. A fugue experience is a period in which you must have been active but you can't recall being conscious during it. It's like sleep-walking, only you weren't asleep to begin with. It's often seen in people who have experienced trauma.

This first fugue experience lasted long enough for me to strip and smear my whole body with feces. When I came out of the fugue I was confused for a second, not knowing how I got that way. Then I had an idea that it had a purpose.

The woods I was in were very close to our backyard, I just had to go down a small hill and across an alley.

When I got to the backyard I started to think that my idea of what to do was no good, and I tried to get the garden hose out to clean myself off. But before I could do it my Mother came out of the house and caught me. She demanded to know what I was doing, and I didn't have any answer but the one I'd already thought of. I said it in Hawaiian first, and then I translated it for her.

"I made a present for Mommy!"