“”I dare you, Billy!” She said, her blue eyes flashing. She stood defiant with one on her hip, dressed only in pink nylon panties. Her chest are arms and legs were naked. He blond curls circled her chubby face. She was giggling. Her girlfriend and her giggled a lot. Her brother younger stood in white cotton underwear, also naked but head down, stepping slowly from one foot to the other, like he was cold. But it was summer. The summer sun shone bright and warm outside. The rays of light slanted between the diagnosable slats of creosote covered facing. Patterns of light and dark marked the bare ground beneath the old building that stood on the corner of Grovenor ward.
We’d come to live there. On the third floor. A walk up with wooden stairs on the outside wall of the great building that had once been a mansion and now was a tenement. My father had work in the north. He’d left my mother and brother and I here in this new place. We’d taken a train from Toronto where my grandmother, grandmother and aunts all lived. My mother’s family. In the east. We were in the west. We’d left the Sunday meals with roasts and turkeys and lots of vegetables we passed around the table after granddad, that great old Irish banking man had passed along. The women were always dressed fine for these occasions and Mom made us wash behind our ears. My brother was four years older. He was my hero and knew so much more than I did.
When we arrived we’d gone to the Trinity Baptist Church that stood down the road, not even a block. Several houses along this great old structure of white and grey rock stood. We sat as a family in the wooden pews. The choir sat on the stage with the baptism pool behind. The Minister in black looking dark and foreboding stood at the pulpit and preached. Thee choir fidgeted. My legs didn’t tough the ground but swung of their own accord beneath me. My mother slapped me still . I tried to distract my brother but he was having nothing of it. He sat beside my father who looked so stern as he struggled to stay a wake. Too often he napped and mother would reach over us boys to slap him. He snored awfully loudly at church and at home. At least he didn’t fart at church. At home he’d always blame it on the dog but we all knew. Mom would exclaim, “Johnny’ . Ron and I would look at each other and laugh. When Mom slapped Dad it was more of a tap. Not the stingy hard Irish slaps that we boys got. She was beautiful. A buxom beauty queen with heavenly face I so adored. Her great head of thick flowing red hair often caught the light and seemed like a hallow. The minister droned on in the heat of the morning. The choir sang. We stood and we sat. My feet didn’t touch the floor. I had to climb up on the pew. Finally it came time for us kids to be released to Sundand Dad had gone off and Mom had let my brother and I go out to play
She walked over to her brother who was standing twisting away looking towards the door. She pulled down his under pants. He was standing naked now with his little penis just like a little white pinky finger bare there. Her girlfriend standing in just her red panties had snickered and covered her mouth eyes wide. The two girls looking at each other and at her brother and me laughing. White teeth and conspiratorial looks
“Your turn,’ she said, commanding as only 6 year old girls could. I was four and standing alone in my white cotton underwear. Maybe stanfields. I was being very brave. I don’t know how I’d gone this far. My shirt and pants lying folded on the ground beside where the girls pretty yellow and white sun dresses were folded in a pile.
“I dare you,” she said, blue eyes staring.
I slid my underwear down my thighs and legs standing up naked now. Her girlfriend had both hands over her mouth and was staring. She was too. I was embarrassed. Then she did the oddest thing. She ran forward and bending quickly kissed my penis. Then she was gone. The two girls giggling and laughing scooping up their sun dresses arms above their heads to put them back on before the slipped into their sandals and hugging each other ran still giggling ran out of our children’s cave to the light of the street. I look at her brother as we both pulled up our underwear and pulled on our jeans. Pulling t shirts over our heads we sat in the dirt to pull on our white socks and lace up our runners. Then we left. He wandered off a cross the road to his house down the street. The girls were outside on the lawn. I returned to my home.
Not long after the girls mothers accosted my mother on the street. My brother and I were with her, standing back when the two big women came at us.
“You keep your boy away from my little girl. Coming into our good neighbourhood with your filth and perversion. “ the blowsy black haired one shouted at my mother..
“I don’t know whatever you’re talking about.” My mother said, embarrassed, ambushed , a stranger in a strange land. She’d instinctively drawn her sons close to her. I always felt safe when she pulled me to her as she did now.
“That boy lured my little girl under the house and stripped her naked and had his way with her,”
“He did it to my little girl too, the other’ meeker skinny one said.
My mother looked at my brother and I and my innocence must have shown or she just instinctively defended her boys like the mother bear she was,
“He’s only 4. He’d never do such a thing. “
Meanwhile my broither was glaring at me. I was always getting into trouble and he was always the good boy and he was always glaring at me.
“He took off our girls clothes .”
‘Who told you this.”
‘My boy.”
“He’s younger than my son.’
“He was there and he said your boy took their clothes. He’s a little pervert and you’re a whore.’ The fat one said.
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that,” my mother said, slipping her purse over her arm so she had two hands free to grab my brother and me. She pushed by these two loud ladies pointing fingers and shouting at her back. My mother’s face was as red as her hair.
We didn’t go to the big store where we were going but only to the little corner store where she quickly bought some milk before taking us right back home. The ladies were no longer on the street in front of our new home.
She dragged me up the stairs. From the moment we’d walked away she’d never let go of my arm except to pull out the change. My brother walked silently behind.
There were birds in the trees. Sparrowss and Robins. Elm trees and oak . The grass was emerald green. Single bungalows and two story homes lined the street. Stucco and wood siding. Not like our red brick home in the east. Our home was all creosote wood and at three stories the tallest on the street. My mom dragged me up the stairs. My brother walked behind.
Inside she almost threw the milk in the refridgerator. Then turning to me , she said.”Now, tell me Billy, whatever went on. Don’t lie to me. Tell me exactly what you did.”
My brother sat there listening. I told her. I told her the truth. I told her everything I remembered.
“It wasn’t my idea”.
Later she’d ask me if I kissed the girl there and I ‘d say no. I know that the first time we’d gone there she’d been with her brother and they’d shown me their ‘real cool place’. It was a hideaway like a fort. A private child’s place. It was the next time when her girlfriend was with her that they kissed.
“I dare you, Billy’ she’d said. And I’d kissed her like she’d kissed her girlfriend. Her brother didn’t want to play. Her girlfriend giggled with her hands over her mouth.
“ I think the taking off our clothes was the next time.,” I said
I was telling the minister. He was sitting in the big leather chair looking down at me. I wasn’t sitting so far below him on those little children’s chairs. The ones we used in Sunday School. My feet could touch the floor. My mother sat in the chair in front of his big oak desk. He’d come around to sit in the side chair to be close to me. My brother was left in the hallway outside. The carpet was thick and red. The leather black. The wood dark. I was very very small. I told the truth. Everything I could remember. I hadn’t learned to lie as yet I think. If I got caught doing something wrong I’d just be silent. It wasn’t till years later I learned to make up stories. I never was good at it. It was hard enough to remember the truth. I don’t think I was a truth teller naturally. Not older. I was lazy and remember one day thinking I couldn’t keep track of the lies and it was just too complicated so I told the truth. I was an efficient child. I didn’t like to waste my mind with stuff like that. But then I didn’t even know to lie. I would have confessed to anything if it would have made things better. I just told the truth.
The minister showed me out of the room and stayed to talk to my mom.
She didn’t hold my arm when we walked back down the street and up the stairs.
My father came home on the weekend.
“I want to go home,” my brother and I heard her say. She was crying . My brother and i were in our bed looking across the gulf of space that lay between our little beds in the little rooms while we listened intently to what our parents said.
“John, I want to go home. I can’t stay here. That woman called me a whore.” She cried.
“What did Billy do?” She told him what I’d said. She told him what the woman had said. She told him what the minister had said. All the while my brother frowned at me and sometime I fell asleep crying too.
In the morning after my mother’s breakfast of toast and sunny side up fried eggs, my dad putting down his tea, said “Billy I want to talk to you.” He got up and I got up and my brother got up to follow but my dad, said “Just Billy.”
Then he sat me down in their bed room. I was on the bed. My feet didn’t touch the ground. He was sitting on the chair. Very stern. Still so far above me.
“Now I told you never to upset your mother. Do you remember my saying that”.
“Yes, sir,” I said looking down at my hands,clenched so tight together.
“I told you that didnt I’ he said again.
“Yes, sir.” I mumbled never looking up.
“What did you say,” my father asked louder. Dad had been in the war. He kept his blue RCAF uniform ready in the stand up closet. I only ever remember him wearing it Remembrance Day but he talked to us boys when we were in trouble like we were in the military. There’s a tone that men use in the military. Especially men who have been in a war. The coaches try to sound like that. Like an imitation. Dad didn’t imitate. He had the tone down pat .
I said, “Yes sir,” looking up before he could say ‘Look at me when I’m talking to you.” He was angry.
“Your mother is upset isn’t she? “
“Yes,”
“Well, whose fault is that?
“Mine, sir.’ Accountability was important to my father. I don’t know if he learned that on the ranch or in the military but things went a whole lot better with him when you owned up. Silence didn’t work like it worked with my mother. His slap was a whole lot harder too. The most my brother and I could do was blame each other but someone had to be at fault. He wasn’t going to blame a girl either. I had no sisters and Dad had lost his one sister and Mom was his angel. In my Dad’s world men protected women and women were alright. My mom was the best and his sons were going to respect girls and women just like his father taught his sons to respect his women. He’d lost his mother as a child. His step mother was all he knew. Northern farming life was tough. The depression was tough. The Air Force was tough. Now Dad did construction and construction was tough. Men had to be tough and protect women.
“Did you touch that girl like her mother said you did?”
“No, sir.” I said tears streaming down my cheeks.
‘Her mother upset your mother. You know that.”
“Yes, sir.” The tone had changed.
“I don’t want you upsetting your mother,you hear me.”
Yes sir.,
I don’t want you playing with those kids. If they come near you you stay away,. I don’t want you playing with anyone without your brother there. You stay away from them and you stay with your brother. You hear me.
“Yes sir.”
“Now tell your brother to come in here”.
I slid off the bed so fast because I’d thought I was going to get a spanking and I’d not got one. Instead I was getting my brother and he wasn’t happy to be called in.
“You stay , Billy.” My father said when my brother I were back in the bedroom , the door left open now some mom could hear.
“Why did you leave your brother,” he asked.
“I was playing with my older friends.”
“I’ve told you your brother is your responsibility. Haven’t I? When I’m not around, you’re the man. You’re supposed to take care of your mother and keep Billy out of trouble.’
I’ve told you that , haven’t eye.
“Yes sir.” My brother stood at attention and looked at my father who he loved.I knew this wasn’t going to go well for me. First born he was my father’s favourite and I always felt I tagged along . My brother was my father ‘s first assistant and he could always help where as I always seemed to mess things up.
“I was a way working and I came home and Billy’s been in trouble and your mother is upset. And all the while you were playing with your friends. Were you keeping Billy out of trouble and making sure your mother wasn’t upset.” my father asked rehtorically. My brother who until now hadn’t been too upset that I was in trouble suddenly realized that the current was changing. No one in a family is happy when the mother’s upset but he was feeling that it wasn’t his fault until just that moment.
His shoulder’s slumped and he looked down at the floor. I was standing looking at the floor anyway and only knew because I was watching out of the corner of my eyes.
“I want you not let Billy out of your sight. I’ve got to be away for work and you’ve got to be the man and take care of your mother and keep Billy out of trouble. Do you hear me?
“Yes, sir.”
“Well then. That’s all.”
Mom was smiling again and Dad got us all to go downstairs and pile into the car so we could go to the zoo and watch the monkeys. I liked watching the monkeys. Dad sometimes called me ‘my little monkey’. Mom and he held hands and sometimes hugged when we walked in Assiniboine Park. It was a warm sunny day with blue sky and fluffy white clouds.
Later when Dad was back up north and Mom, my brother and I were alone at home, Mom took him and I to the store. We were walking along our side of the street, She held my hand but my brother walked a little ahead.
The little blond haired blue eyed girl was walking on the other side of the street with her mother holding her hand. The little girl was looking at me making and face and laughing like she’d won. Her mother shouted over at my mother, “You and your boys stay away from me and my daughter, you whore,” she shouted words slurring.
My mother looking straight ahead speeding up the pace.
“And that’s what you remember, “. He said. He sat at the desk making notes, his chair turned towards me. It wasn’t a couch but more like a big stuffed comfortable chair I was sitting on.
“You never touched her.” He asked.
“No.”
“What makes you so sure. “
“I didn’t have a sister and I’d never seen a vagina till a few years later. I know I saw dogs were different but we were in the city. I remember the first time I saw a girl’s vagina and it wasn’t her.”
“Go on.”
“My brother and I were up north with our Métis cousins and one of the little boys like me said that girls had penis’s just like we did. The older boys laughed at him. I didn’t know and I certainly wasn’t going to say anything. Boys make fun of each other all the time. I didn’t want to be the brunt of the joke. I didn’t know but somehow this other guy said that I realized I didn’t know. My older cousin then took us all, there must have been eight or us ranging from the youngest us ast 6 to him who was may 11 or 12 , just older than my brother who seemed to know though I don’t know how he knew. Why would n’t girls have penis’s . My aunt had had a girl baby and that’s where we went. This whole gang of little boys went as a troop to the house and walked right in.
“Can I show my cousins the new baby.” He said to his aunt. I guessed we were related but I never knew how. My mother’s side of the family wasn’t very big at all and we were very close but my Dad’s side of the family with four brothers and countless kids was a trial to keep[ track of.”
I don’t even think I’d seen a baby before that.
But there we all, 8 little boys all surrounding the crib looking down at the baby when the oldest cousin pulled back the blanket. “See ,” he said.
And we saw. No penis.
It was unforgettable. I knew girls were different but I didn’t know they were that different.
My psychoanalyst drew in his breath. We sat silent for a time.
“How did you feel then as a child.” He asked.
“Scared.”
“And”
“Betrayed”
‘And.”
I thought a while longer.
“Ashamed”:.
Why ashamed.
Well I knew we were hiding in the dark and when she asked us boys to take off our clothes we knew it wasn’t normal. I remember her pink panties and her girlfriends red panties. I don’t suppose I’d seen panties before. I’d seen bathing suits but not panties. It was all very exciting.
‘Yes.”
“Naughty even”.
“You liked it?”
“Kind of but not really. I’d rather have been playing ball with her brother but the girls liked games like this and often as guys we’d be bored. They always wanted to play with us and often they were playing with dolls or with house and clothes and things while we liked to play games. The only game I remember playing with the girls was red rover. And hide and seek. And tag.’
“This was a bit like hide and seek. We were hiding from grown ups. “
Do you remember what it felt like when she kissed your penis.
Yes.
Yes?
I remember it feeling wet and warm.
You remember this.
Yes.
It only happened for a second.
I remember it .
And what else do you remember.
Her eyes after.
Her eyes.
Yes.
What about her eyes.
‘They were smiling at me like we shared a secret.”
But she betrayed the secret.
No she didn’t.
She never told the truth. She said I touched her. I don’t to this day think she betrayed her secret.
Is that important.
I think so . Today I’d think she was coerced. I know what the truth was and a child will tell the truth unless it will get them punished. I think her brother told about the undressing and she blamed me the outsider. I doubt she told anyone what she did.
And you did.
Yes I told my mother , my father, and the minister.
So you betrayed the secret.
I didn’t know it was a secret. I didn’t think I did anything wrong.
But you were ashamed.
After.
“
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