After he brought her into our picture, I had to ride in the backseat of his car every time we all went somewhere. At that time, I believed I was his number three. First came his drugs, parties, and music; second was the girlfriend; and then third, me.
On the back of the living room/bedroom wall was a huge photographic mural of an autumn scene filled with brown-, gold-, and orange-leaved trees and a dusty, winding road in the middle. Sometimes I would stare at it and imagine walking right into the wall and down that road. How I wish I could have done exactly that!
My dad frequently walked around his house naked. I think my mom asked him once not to do it with me there, and he said something like, “It's my house, and if I want to walk around naked, that's what I'm going to do. There's nothing about the human body to be ashamed of.” His girlfriend, at least, was modest enough to cover herself with a thin T-shirt that reached her upper thighs. But every time she bent over to get into a cabinet or pick up something, there to greet me was this horrible-looking thing. It looked like a loose pile of rare roast beef and scared the hell out of me. It was her droopy vagina! In my young mind I was afraid I was going to fall into it if I looked at it for more than a split second. When I grew up, would I have one of those, too? The thought petrified me.
Because he was a professor at a community college, my dad had access to the best audio-visual equipment the '70s had to offer, so in his living room he would put on quite a show for what seemed like an endless and steady stream of his drugged-up friends. Some became familiar around the house, but there were always some new faces. A constant stream of drugs and young people mostly with long hair.
My dad used to say he wanted to “lose his mind” on psychedelics.
I would watch as he and everyone else got high. I remember learning how to pass a joint from one person to another while sitting in a communal circle in the living room. I wasn't in it, exactly, but I was a part of it. A silent witness.
I clearly remember hearing the loud screams of the lady on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and being scared half to death. My dad, his girlfriend, and their friends lay on the floor watching a 16 mm film of pulsating geometric shapes projected on the white sheet my dad put up in front of the mural. I guess they were trying to lose their minds. The music was turned up so loud that my ears stung in pain and my head pounded.
Exhausted, I would go into my tiny bedroom and try to fall asleep.
This kind of scene was repeated every weekend.
I would pull the thin, musky sheet over my head and cry myself to sleep. Sometimes when I couldn't take it anymore, I would find him in the carnage and beg him to turn down the music.
He never did. Not once.
Our Secret Friendship Grows (The Games)—1975: Nine Years Old
There was nothing I could do about my dad's crazy, drug-fueled life or my mom's busy work schedule and the late hours her demanding job required, but I could tap. I could tap, and the chaos inside me would stop—at least for a little while.
I started playing the Tapping game more and more. I tapped in school, at home, anywhere. I tapped on my favorite green corduroy pants, the kitchen countertop, a stranger's parked car, my school folder—no place was off-limits for the game. I even tapped on Angela, my Siamese cat, which was especially hard because she was a living target and rarely stayed perfectly still. It would take me a long time to tap correctly on her soft and smooth fur.
Of course, the Stranger was always there, always judging.
The Tapping game was especially hard if it was at a higher number, like thirty-two or forty-five. Sometimes I would have to chase Angela around the house or pull her out from under a chair or the couch so that I could finish tapping on her back. Sometimes, if she was particularly unhappy with me, she would puncture me with her pointy fangs, but I would work through it. I had to.
A substantial portion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.
DR. STANLEY MILGRAM, IN THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR BY MARTHA STOUT
Eventually, once the Stranger thought I'd gotten good enough at Tapping, he graduated me to some new challenges. By this time, however, he was sounding more like a military sergeant. He spoke with a soft voice, but he was very, very insistent and there was an omnipotent quality about him, too—there to make sure I did everything correctly and to code—and to keep me company like a friend.
Cleaner Is Better for Sergeant and Me (OCD Is Morphing)
As a child, I believed that a pure, good, and perfect life looked something like the household cleaning commercials that I saw on TV. Some lucky kid's mom is so happy and looks so nice. She steps into her sunny kitchen after using Mr. Clean on her floors and counters. She's smiling and relieved. Her kitchen is spotless, bright, and clean. All I could think was that she was so lucky to have met her goal and her kids were equally fortunate. That TV world looked so ideal; it appealed to me on a deep level.
My bedroom was my world, and I had goals, too. I kept it to the maximum clean, just like in a TV commercial: tidy, straightened, dusted, and polished. I controlled this environment. Anything less was just not right. I no longer accepted uncleanliness and disorganization, and, more importantly, neither did the Sergeant, who was no longer soft-spoken at all.
I had a “socks-only” drawer. All of my socks had to be folded exactly the same way, into tight little perfectly round balls. They had to face the same way and line up perfectly, side by side, in color-specific rows. If a sock was not rolled right, I would unroll it and roll it back up again until it was. This felt critical to my well-being.
Under Sergeant's command, I controlled a sterile and perfect environment. I controlled all the objects and all the space between the objects. The lamp had its perfect position on the table. I made the bed the exact same way every day. The sheets were tucked in tight, and the top sheet was folded and creased perfectly to a straight edge. Nothing out of place, ever! Nothing dusty, ever! I lived by a doctrine of complete and utter order, Sergeant Style. Commanding the order of things on the outside made me feel better on the inside. The reward was intrinsic.
My mother didn't seem to notice that anything was wrong. She was thrilled that I was so neat. I was like a waitress in a diner, constantly taking care of her station. Wiping down tables and straightening the salt, pepper, sugar, and creamer; I had to control all the elements. Things started to have to be a certain way or I would feel off inside and uncomfortable.
Keeping up was exhausting, but the rewards made it all worthwhile.
One day, while recleaning my room, it suddenly occurred to me that inside and at the top of my bedroom closet there was a bright and bare lightbulb that I'd never dusted. Sergeant was right there to show me who was boss: “Because that bulb has never been dusted, your room has never been absolutely perfect and clean,” he said as if through clenched teeth.
I sank into disappointment. That was all I needed to hear. My room was no longer perfect. It was tainted, contaminated. Clearly, this disturbing situation would have to be rectified immediately. Thoughts of this impure, dusty bulb way up high in my closet filled my mind. I was edgy and distraught. Nothing was going to stand between me and that dusty lightbulb. Nothing!
This was the '70s and pretend kitchen sets were the rave for little girls. I was lucky to have one. My mini kitchen table set was badass; it had four little chairs with shiny vinyl leopard-print seats—the coolest. When I was in the mood for entertaining, I would often set one of my Siamese cats on one of the chairs and turn on my 45 rpm record player. My cats never stayed too long; they never made it through a whole song. But I was glad, if only for a little bit.
Back to the scene of the crime, I dragged one of the leopard-print chairs over to my closet.