Adventures of Grey Rock

chapter 3: The teens.

Photo by Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash

I kick the chapter off with the fact that my stepfather abused me at various levels for years, until I stood up to him. This was after I left home. After that I think he was afraid of me.

Fifth grade was a bad year. Little did anyone know why. Only me and my stepfather knew the secret. I didn’t tell my mom until I was on my own and living in another state. She felt bad but I told her that it would have been tragic to share it at the time it was happening. I was still afraid of him. I did everything I could think of, to not stay home. Luckily, I had sports and other after school activities.

One of my favorite activities was playing chess. I used to play with my instructor and sometimes he would get miffed when I won. It always made me feel weird. That same year I was approached by my fifth-grade teacher to massage her back at recess. That was weird. I caught a fungus on my nose from using my brothers bath towel and vice versa. My fellow students would call me Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer. That was the same year I had a pity boyfriend.

My boyfriend was very nice, but a dork and I thought I had lowered my standards. He never knew I felt that way, I hope. He gave me a nice ring and I wore it with shame and embarrassment. I was a wreck in fifth grade. Sixth grade was me getting my power back from clueless people in my life. I was much more assertive and calmer.

Sixth grade was smooth. More subtle dysfunction at school. I had started getting angry at a level that was shoved way inside me and may never get resolved. Sports became my life because it gave me self-esteem and confidence. So, seventh grade was a blast, but I felt vulnerable when I couldn’t wear shorts underneath my dress. By the eighth grade I was starting to withdrawal from society. Not accepting roles of responsibility when elected or asked and that was important to me in Junior High.

I was a joker in some of my classes, you get a feel for who will tolerate and who won’t. One of my teachers wore boxer shorts under his pants and when he sat down you could see that he had a very large penis. This offended my sensibilities, so I joked with him a lot. One time I tore up a bunch of paper in little pieces and put them in my hand and coughed. The bits of paper flew all over the place. I got kicked out on that one.

In spite of my bad attitude, I accepted a position that required me to develop a wrestling cheer squad. I think they were trying to keep me busy. I got my friends and an acquaintance to be the cheer leaders and I designed a uniform. Staff did not like my uniform because it was too suggestive of booze. It had an apple and bolt of lightning they said reminded them of Zapple Wine. Go figure. So, we changed it. Our colors were red and white. Look what I was working with. It was to be indicative of my high school drinking schedule. Boone’s Farm at lunch. Bottoms up. Needless to say, drugs and alcohol became familiar to me in Junior High.

The biggest deal was when my stepfather discovered his jar of cross tops (amphetamines) were missing. He grilled me for hours on who stole his drugs. I had never invaded his drawers, so I was insulted. But I had bought some cross tops from the thief that morning and I was high when he slapped me around. He thought I was being stubborn. But I really didn’t know that my acquaintance had robbed our house. That’s when we started locking our doors. It was 1972. Wish I could go back there and redo that one. My milestones got interrupted by drugs and shame.