AIN'T THAT A KICK IN THE... ***names have been changed*** OK, so I was not the kinda kid to make a fundamentalist Christian mother proud. And maybe that's where it all started. When I was 13, I was over the good girl getting nowhere thing. So I decided to have some fun. "Hey Kate, can I have a cigarette? Why don't we play Barbies for old time's sake, and have a little vodka to make it interesting. Pool party or horse farm set?" Since mom was busy yelling about her miserable existence on a daily basis, she didn't exactly have time to notice that it was a rare occasion to find me home in my bed sleeping on any given night. Even if I did make like I was in my bedroom, securely slumbering, there was the draw of the ever-so-easy escape route out my back window that got me every time. Open the hatch-window, slip out onto the laundry-room roof, tip-toe along the beams that supported that potato-chip rippled fiberglass that made the roof of a slapped-up carport, and then down the tree on the far side. Ten minutes walk to find some source of sweet sippable solace from all your troubles. In a small town full of disheartened drinkers, it's never a difficulty for a young gal to happen upon some happily handed-out provisions for a private party. Never. Maybe ends up being a trade-off at times, a little making-out with a man or two, but that's entertainment. 

 There were those two times when she, surprisingly, became aware of my absence. One of those times was when sections of the town were washed away by Hurricane David, and I sat watching the whole thing from an ice-house on the riverfront. I dig watching storms on the water up close, and I didn't think that my invisibility would suddenly become evident to those responsible for my care. The second time was a bit more trouble. It was 3AM, and I was out drinking with the-man-who-called-me-"buddy," because to use any real descriptive terms of our relationship would have landed him in the slammer. His phone rings. It's my best friend, Kate. Turns out mom is looking for me. OK, hop in the blue-with-gray-primer chevy pickup truck we 3, Kate, Dave, and me, had named Alouicious. Of course, we're toasted, and he's kinda scared. So he drops me around the corner from my house. I tip-toe through the neighbor's back yard and up to the back door. All the lights are on. I step inside, and there they are, Kate's mom and my mom, sitting at the table. Kate's mother makes for the door in haste, so as not to witness the wrath that will be unleashed on this ridiculously-drunken girl with signs of naughty all over her neck. Yes, my "buddy" was a rather possessive man, and had unwittingly decided to make his mark on his territory that night. So I had to lie. No, I wasn't with Dave. I was with Duane. Yes, I know I'm not supposed to hang out with Duane, and I'll never do it again. The yelling didn't stop, and soon she had a handful of my hair, and began pounding my head against the wall in some strange consistent rhythm. Her mantra, "Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this?" repeated over and over to the beat of bone against board. So I'm thinking to myself, it kinda feels like this is happening to me, but I'm glad the Jack Daniels is interfering with my ability to feeeeel it. Soon I was in my bedroom, lost in silent slumber. Of course, I had to check in every two hours the following day. Then all was back to normal. Same old routines, same old escape every evening. 

 AIN'T THAT A KICK part 2 

 My drinking buddy, Dave, taught me a lotta things. We would often have some drinks before he would give me driving lessons on Aluicious. He had to yell at me a lot, because the truck was a standard, and I wasn't quite strong enough or tall enough to get the clutch all the way in and shift every time. Three days after my fifteenth birthday, he wanted to celebrate with me in a special way. We had a fifth of JD, went to the fireman's carnival where he won a stuffed animal parakeet for me, and then back to his place. "I want to make love to you," he said. I was still a virgin after all the making out we had been doing. "I want you to, but..." Well, all he heard was the "I want you to" part. So he picked me up and carried me over the threshold, into the bedroom, and we consumated our buddyhood in honor of my birthday. "OOOOOOOUUUUUUUCH! That hurts!" I was pushing him off of me. "It wouldn't hurt if I could help it," he kept moving in and out, and it felt like the pushing of a knife in and out of an open wound. I finally managed to pry him off with my feet. Now I figured I had to marry him. No kidding. I had failed God enough in my opinion, so I was gonna do the right thing at least a little bit. He asked me if I was sure I would be OK walking home on my own at 4AM after all that drinking. "Yeah, sure, you sleep," I said. On the walk back, I did kinda think what about some kind of chivalry here? I'm a young gal walkin home on her own at four o'clock in the morning, after losing my virginity to this man 10 years my senior, and he's snoring. Damn. Oh, well. How to make sure no one sees me arriving home as if I've been out all night. I got it, I'll wait on the porch for a while, walk in like all is well, and tell them I got up real early and took a walk. Yup, it worked like a charm. No problems. Funny, I feel like I could use a nap now... So I was now officially the girlfriend. Word spread around town. It was nice for me. Somebody loved me for a change. That's what he said, and I believed him. He gave me more attention than anyone else ever had. There's your proof. 

Duane died that same week. I couldn't believe it. Drunk driving. I was still bleeding from Dave's making me his woman, and this other guy who I had known as my first Big-Fat-Crush-Obsession was killed instantly when the car in which he had been riding with his cousin Charlie hit a telephone pole. They were both high on coke and drunk beyond functional when it happened. What a loss. He was a beautiful boy, and only 17. Kate and I had this strange inclination to pour Jack Daniels over the grave. At that time, in that town, it didn't seem like there was any link between drunk driving and death, even when it happened. It was as if it were some coincidence. I lived in another town two years later when the same thing happened to our friend Carrie. I got a call from Kate. It was alcohol and cocaine. She went off the road. 19 years old. And engaged to be married. She and her fiancee had gotten in a fight that night, and she had dealt with it the way people do, with a bottle in her hand and something extra to really numb the pain. 

 Eventually, all the DWI's caught up with Dave. He spent about a year in the work-release program of a Baltimore prison. He would go to work during the day on deisel engines, meet me for a quick comforting in between, then head into his prison quarters for the night. When I moved to another state, and we couldn't see each other, he would write to me and send me cards. It was then that I realized the man was basically illiterate. He couldn't spell. I never knew. When he got out of the program, he came to visit. He brought me an engagement ring. I thought it was beautiful. I wore it and watched it glimmer in the sunshine. Mom was worried. She said it must mean that he wants to have sex with me. "Oh, please, don't be ridiculous," was my response. Meanwhile, as she made us keep my bedroom door open while he hung out in my room, we did it against the wall just behind the door, the only hidden spot. I thought we were so creative and clever. Then again in the bathroom, over the sink, then fix ourselves up and walk out just in time to bump into mom on her way in. Everything on the up and up to the observer's eye. 

 I broke up with Dave after one more visit. It seems that I got used to being without him, and now he was making a nuisance of himself. He was once again yelling at me for the way I was driving, and this time I had had my fill. I threw that ring at him and told him to drive himself back where he came from.

REHOBOTH BEACH BETTY 

 Kate and I got into punk rock in the early 80's, even though we had to travel a distance to find the stuff. Looking back, it is a little laughable now to recall the way we spray painted the Dead Kennedy's symbol on our shirts and thought it was really radical. But I really got into the scene after moving to Delaware when I was 15. My brothers and I found this shop at Argo's Corner full of combat boots and other military garments. The owner was a really wacked-out Vietnam Vet who also had a book of photos that he liked to show all the kids. It was horrid. Photos of all kinds of damaged bodies and body parts in an album he cherished. We indulged him by our viewing just long enough to find the right five-dollar boots and a jacket or two. He always had a story about every item. "Yeah, someone got killed wearing that one." In the summer of 1986, a bunch of us kids were living in a trailer in Rehoboth Beach. One girl, Marnie, had managed to convince her parents that she needed to live in their summer place so she could recover from that year's mental anguish, and it quickly turned into a crash pad for all the little punkers. Those days were all about Black Flag playing in the background while cigarettes burned and bottles were emptied, turning already troubled teenagers into even more mischeivous little monsters. Specimen was the worst. His real name was Mike, but nobody called him that. It became shortened to 'Spess' by most of us. He would always get violent after liquor, and one of the hero types among us, usually my brother, Michael, would have to pry him off the latest target of his angst.  

 Then there was the apartment on Highway 1. When some blotters came around, it got pretty interesting at our place. Someone even slipped some of the acid to my albino pet rat, Ian. He was running back and forth in his cage like he was on fire. That was pretty disturbing. But I think they were not intending to cause him harm. A couple of my friends thought they could spread some happiness by slipping blotters to as many people as possible, and maybe even pets. I remember watching my friend Marnie speaking to me as the acid I dropped made her hair look like one of those funky lamps from Spencer's, lighting up at the roots and then color-light shooting out to the tips. That was distracting. 

 I managed to finish high school even while moving around from place to place. They almost expelled me just before graduation for lack of attendance since I only managed to show up about three days a week. But I did have passing grades in all of the college preparatory courses in which they had placed me, and my SAT scores, even after testing with a hangover, were such that they decided to let me stay on to the end. I spent a year living and working in Rehoboth Beach with my boyfriend, Greg. It was a crash pad for all the kids who needed a place to go. It did start to bother me that they kind of treated my place like a cafeteria, and I was the one doing all the work and pay. Then I started to freak out and create problems for myself. I had decided to start reading the Bible again. 

I soon told Greg we shouldn't have sex anymore because it was wrong. So the girl that I had taken in, the one who needed a place to stay, who I told she didn't need to pay me any rent until she had a job, you know, That-Girl? She heard me tell him that. So, after having gone through the routine with all of my other male friends, and learning how to dress and talk and dance like me, she had to fuck my boyfriend. A couple of times at least. And then, because he treated her badly, she told me about it. Said she felt guilty. Yeah, it didn't have anything to do with the fact that he treated her as if he hated her. So, while they were both out of the house, I went into the bedroom I had given her, took all her stuff and threw it into the bedroom I had shared with him. I put all my things in the now-empty room, and put a lock on the door. That-Girl left right away, but I lived there with Greg on his own in the next room like that for a couple of weeks before I found a new place for myself. One night, he just sat outside that door, crying and saying that we belonged together. I didn't even think about what part I might have played in what happened. I just decided I couldn't trust anyone, just like mom always taught me. The opportunity arose, and I promptly moved out of Delaware and settled on 1st Ave and 10th Street in New York City. It was time to start over.  

 DANIEL and the SQUAT on AVENUE D 

 In what I now recognize as a lesson of the extreme conflict between religion and ultimate truth, I came back into the Jehovah’s Witness religion at the age of 18. I'd spent some years in typical rebellious behavior and feelings of shame that accompany rejection of the strict religious teachings with which I was indoctrinated as a child. I felt that I could not live up to the expectations of Jehovah God, and that I was therefore unworthy of life itself. I always had in the back of my mind that everything I had learned was the truth, and that I was simply a bad person for feeling incapable of living up to the demands of the God I believed in. I may have always had, in the back of my mind, some plan to return to the 'flock' if it were possible, but events that took place that year that I moved to New York led me to make that effort with the greatest dedication. It was in the fall of 1988. I was living on First Avenue and 10th Street with a couple of roommates. I had met some of the squatters from Thompkins Square Park area, and I was curious to see more of their culture. I had been in the punk scene and lived on my own for a few years in Delaware, but it was something quite different to see it being done here in the East Village in the abandoned buildings. 

One night when I was locked out of my apartment, I decided to make an attempt to meet up with the squatters in the park and see if I could manage to talk my way into staying in one of their places for the night to check it out. In those days, I would do anything for an interesting adventure. I walked to Thompkins Square and sat down on a bench to wait and see if anyone showed up. It was getting pretty cold, and I was only wearing a cardigan sweater with nothing underneath, a little black mini skirt, and a pair of combat boots. I huddled up to warm myself and thought about trying to get into my apartment again. Maybe my roommates would be there now, and let me in. Just then, I heard someone speaking to me. I looked up to see a man with very long hair. He was on a bicycle that had a smiley face sticker on the front of it. He was handing out flyers for the annual Smoke-In at Washington Square Park. I was curious. He seemed very nice, with a face like the gentle kind of person who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He had a cause, so I thought that was cool. 

I wasn’t really into marijuana, it never did much for me, but I always had some respect for people that had a cause that seemed supported by good intentions. He said that the Smoke-In was a protest to ban hard drugs, but legalize marijuana. He asked me if I ever used hard drugs. I lied because I figured I wanted to keep the conversation going. No, I’ve never used hard drugs, I said. He asked me if I would walk with him and help him distribute the flyers. I thought it would be interesting, so I said sure. I thought this was not the adventure I was looking for, but I was sure it would be an interesting experience somehow. So we walked and talked, and he seemed very intelligent and interesting. I remember spending a lot of time discussing humanity in some analytical way. Meanwhile, I explained to him that I had locked myself out of my apartment. He suggested that he would walk with me to my building so that I could make another attempt to get in. When we went to the front of my building, I rang the doorbell, hoping one of my roommates would be there. I stood far back on the sidewalk to make sure they could see me if they looked out the window. No response. Interestingly, I found out later that my roommate was home, and that she was unable to see me when she looked out the window, so she did not buzz me in. This man then informed me that he had two squats, and that I was welcome to use one of them to sleep in that night, and that he wouldn’t ‘try to mess around with me or anything.’ I was thrilled. I thought to myself, this is almost exactly the adventure I was looking for. I get to stay in the squats on Avenue D tonight. So I said that was cool, and I walked with him over to the other side of the park. 

 We eventually made our way into a shop to buy a Sabbath candle. He explained that we needed the candle to see our way into the building. As we approached the building, we walked around to the side and entered through a hole that had been broken through the foundation. the building had been boarded up some time ago, and this was the only access to the inside. Once inside, the only way to go up to the apartments was to climb the upright fire escape ladders that had been put in by the squatters on the sides of what used to be a stairwell, but that had been removed when the building was condemned. He went up ahead of me, holding the candle. One ladder and another, up a few more floors, then he stepped off into a doorway. I followed. As we entered the space, he turned around and wrapped a very large chain around the door handle, around and around, and locked a big lock. 

 I panicked inside. I glanced around at the slim line of light that came in over the boards on the windows. I could make out that this was a fairly empty apartment that had probably been a housing project building. One of the rooms seemed to have a very high pile of furniture. I could make out the outline of upside-down chairs and other things at the top edge of the pile, near the line of light that came over the window boards in that room. I thought to myself, he has me trapped. I will not behave as if I am afraid, because he will become offended and that will be worse for me. He started speaking as if my staying there with him had been the plan all along. I did not behave as if I was surprised or uncomfortable, just tried to play it cool. His name was Daniel. He started telling me about his not being permitted to return to the state of Texas because people there had a problem with him. He kept repeating that people there hated him because of his religion. I didn’ t really want to know, and I didn’t think it was really a big deal since I had grown up in a religion that made people hate you anyway. But he seemed as if he wasn’t going to let up until I asked him, so ‘What is your religion.’ I’m a Satanist.

 He said it just like that, and I saw three wheels start spinning in my head. He started telling me about having made animal sacrifices to Satan. As he was speaking, I connected with those wheels in my head. One wheel was praying, praying for he first time since I was 14 and I felt I had abandoned God. ‘Jehovah, please let me live. Please help me to get through this experience alive, and I will do anything you ask of me. I will give my life to you. Just please get me out of here, and I will know that you are truly there.’ Another track in my brain was leading my conversation with this man. ‘Find a common ground. Behave as if you are not in fear, and act as if you accept him and his views without hesitation.’ So I spoke to him with understanding. ‘Oh, I had a friend who was interested in that religion. I read part of a book he had about it. It made some very good points about the hypocrisy of Christendom...’ The third wheel in my mind was determining how I might seek exit. I had to urinate. I asked him where I could go. He had mentioned that there was not a functional toilet. He instructed me to use the cat litter box in the corner. That’s when I knew he was not going to open that door for me. I used the litter box. 

He told me that I could sleep on his mattress for the night, and he would sleep on the floor. I insisted that he should not let me take his bed. ‘OK, then we will both sleep on the mattress,’ he said. I was not going to say no. I was still praying all the time. He started to touch me. I didn’t know what to say. Then it came to me. Speak to him in his language. “You know, man, you offerred me a place to sleep, and I reeeaally appreciate it. and when you said you weren’t going to try to mess around with me or anything, I thought that was reeeeeally cool of you. So I would reeeeally appreciate it if we could just get some sleep.” I’m sorry, you’re just soooo beautiful. I slowly pushed his hand away. I woke up the next morning with him still sleeping there beside me. I immediately began to pray. 

In my mind, I saw myself in the very front of the building, where there were people on the street all around, and he couldn’t do anything to hurt me without being seen. I prayed that Jehovah would somehow just get me out of the building to that very spot I saw in my mind’s eye, and I would be safe. Daniel awoke. He was very distracted, and began speaking of how he was going to have me go with him to march in the protest. He spoke of how he would make me his ‘woman’ and I would bear his offspring and raise them in this militant nazi youth party, and that he was going to be the new leader of the church of the 966. I just watched and listened and prayed. He rambled on and on. Eventually, he walked towards the door. He unravelled the chain. We stepped out and went down the fire escape ladders. One by one, each step was bringing me closer to my goal. We walked through the hole in the foundation, into the daylight. As we rounded the corner to the front of the building, and stepped into the very spot I had pictured in my mind, he snapped out of his fog. He stopped rambling. He turned to me with an expression of anger on his face and, in a voice full of venom, said, “I can’t beleive I didn’t FUCKING RAPE YOU. I could have fucking raped you!” 

 You would think I would've made sure the story ended there, but you'd be wrong. I was both fearful and fascinated, and it kept me from managing to make a break for it. We kept walking. Every time I said I needed to get back home, he insisted on joining me, and I would rethink that plan. I actually allowed him to escort me home, but only to prepare myself to leave with him again. While we were in my apartment, he asked me to take a look at something. He held up a piece of white cardboard, on which he had hand-written his own "business" cards. There were 9 cards drawn on the sheet, and each one had a big "966" drawn in the middle in black ink, with "Daniel Rakowitz" at the top, and "Seriously the Most Serious about Seriousness" at the bottom. Now, of course, my first thought was something like 'how strange, pathetic, juvenile..'. He told me to look at the center of the center card, and that four specific images would emerge. He had seen them come out of the ink, and shown the same to others. He claimed that he had many supporters who believed in his power. I looked at the center of the center, and I saw nothing. "Look again," he said. It was a strange voice that came from him, and seemed to go right into my head. Then I saw it. Four images emerged, just as he described, in each of the four directions. I was startled and shook it out of my head. 

Not knowing what else to do, and even wanting to keep the story going, I ended up joining Daniel in the Annual Smoke-In at Washington Square Park. We walked over there, and marched around the park with the other protestors. I kept thinking to myself, how do I get away from him safely? I don't want to make him angry. And still, he continues to insist on joining me if I suggest leaving. Then I remembered. I remembered how it helped to speak to him in his language, from his perspective. "Listen, man, it's reeeeeally important for you to be here right now, so you reeeeeally have to stay. It's so important, what you are doing. But I reeeally have to go now." He looked at me with understanding, whispered "you're right" as if we were discussing national security, and permitted me to wander off on my way back home, alone. 

 He came looking for me. One day, he came by and asked me to join him at Thompkins Square Park, where there is food distributed for the homeless, and have a meal. The strange thing is, I was always curious about the lines of people at the park receiving food. Many of them were squatters, but not all. I wanted to see it up close, and, for reasons I cannot explain, also some strange unshakeable fascination with this person and this story. So I went. When the punk squatters saw me there with Daniel, some of them warned me about him and told me I needed to stay away from him. When he continued to show up at my apartment door every day, I would ignore the buzzer and hope that he didn't have the ability to see through walls. I would sit on the floor and wonder what to do to get rid of this man and stop him from returning every day. I heard from the punk squatters in the park that he was spreading the word that he was going to "destroy" me if I didn't do as he wished, and that he intended to "destroy" my roommate for being part of the gentrification of the Lower East Side. 

 One day while he was once again buzzing at the door, it came to me that I had to do something. I was not going to keep living in fear of this man. I put on my combat boots and walked into the hall and started down the three flights of stairs. Feeling secure in the safety of my steel-toe boots, kick-ready if necessary, I was unaffected when I saw that he had entered the building and was about to approach the first flight of stairs. I knew I had chosen to come down the stairs that day for a reason. It would have been a tough negotiation to get him down from the third floor once he got to my apartment door. I put my arm out, right hand on his chest, moving him backwards out the entryway door. "I'm sorry, you're not welcome here. I don't want anything to do with you or your religion." At this, I laughed inside of myself at how I must be making him feel like a Jehovah's Witness by my saying that. His response, "But, but, I brought some chicken and some beans, and I just wanted to cook some dinner," in that harmless little voice that I had heard from him before. "I heard," I replied, "that you want to destroy me and that you want to destroy my roommate, and I don't appreciate it. Please leave." I shut the door. I returned upstairs, and there was no further disturbance that evening. But, I knew this was not the last time I would see Daniel Rakowitz. 

 I didn't have the greatest schedule or the safest commute in the city at that time. The 14th Street and 1st Ave L train station was rather desolate at 6:30AM, and Times Square at 7 wasn't any better, really. It never occurred to me to be concerned, however, until one day when I took the usual path of entry into the station, and stopped short at the sight of Daniel Rakowitz laying on the wooden bench seats in a slumber. I was sure he was waiting for me. I stood at the top of the stairs, thought about the scene, and decided to stay in that spot until I saw the train pulling into the tunnel. Then I would quickly walk down past him into the first car and escape unnoticed. As I had this thought, I looked up to see the lights of the train pulling in almost as if by my thoughts. I stepped lightly down the steps and across the platform, through the doors on the first car, and turned to check out the window. Just then, the doors closed with the usual BING! of a subway sound, and I couldn't believe what I saw. Daniel Rakowitz, snapped out of sleep by the sound, sat bolt upright and stared straight through the window of my train car and straight through me. It was like a cheap horror film. Then the train pulled out of the station and I was on my sort of merry way to work. 

 I had begun to study again with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Because I had made that promise to Jehovah that I would do anything he asked of me, and I thought they were the ones through whom his guidance was provided. I had been taught that from the time I was born. As a result, I was now attending meetings at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses on 5th Street and Avenue C. It was right around the corner from where I had been in that squat. I supposed I might see him one day in that area, but it still stopped me in my tracks when it happened. I was walking down Avenue C on my way to a meeting, and there he was across the street. I stopped dead in my tracks, first instinct telling me to turn around and make a fast track home. No, I thought, if I can just get into the Kingdom Hall, I will be safe. I looked at him, and something strange happened. He began to stare up into the sky in exactly the opposite direction of where I was standing. Not only that, but as I moved forward down the sidewalk, he continued to turn and stare at the sky in exactly the opposite direction of me no matter where I stood. By the time I reached the Southwest corner, he was staring into the sky in a Northeast direction. He never saw me as I made my way to the hall and stepped inside. 

 It was the fall of 1989. I was still working at the hotel in Times Square. I would often look over the shoulder of Jesse Touron as he read his New York Post at a desk behind me, and this was one of those mornings. I saw in big, bold letters, covering one whole side of the post front page, "CHARLES MANSON HAS NOTHING ON ME". That sounds like that idiot, Daniel Rako...Oh my god, it was him. The entire right side of the front page of the Post was the image of Daniel Rakowitz. I asked Jesse to let me take a look. Murder. Led police to dismembered body of victim in buckets in the Port of Authority Bus Terminal. rumors that he fed parts of her to the homeless people in Thompkins Square Park in a soup. It was the man who had wanted to kill ME. The blood left my head and I walked away in a daze. 

 More strange was that evening. I had to stay in the hotel that night, fire safety director on call. When I went into my room, and switched on the TV, there he was walking towards me on the screen. Newscaster voice in the background. Click! I shut it off before she completed a sentence. Daniel Rakowitz was charged with murder. He pleaded insanity, and was placed in an institution 'until he could be considered safe to himself and to society'. He got a spot on the Geraldo Show with Charles Manson. Must've been his life long dream. So this is how I explain getting tied up with the Witnesses for the next 7 years. 

I was sure that I owed Jehovah for saving my life. I later realized that Jehovah and the Witnesses are two different things, but that is another story for another time. I just call this story one big lesson about manifestation and power of thought. 

 JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS I have heard that Billie Holiday tune. The lyrics, "You don't know how hearts burn for love that cannot live yet never dies." I had one of those. One of those things where you set yourself up to suffer want. I don't know when it happened. That spark that shot down from the stars and hit me in the heart. I only remember that, once it happened, I was inescapably fixated on the fire. It was a battle between me and myself like nothing I ever fought before or after. His glance, his voice, his kisses. They were the thing that almost took me off my track. Or did derail me. On a restrictive diet, one's every thought turns towards food. Especially the really delicious desserts. So it goes when you join a bad religion. Having made the decision to do this thing right, I was determined to eliminate from my life all the unacceptable vices. No more drugs, no smoking, no sex. Two of those sinful temptations were easily shed, the last not so simply. It didn’t help at all that there was John. 

Smooth, smart, and devilishly debonair, John Hood was surely capable of talking the paint off a prewar Plymouth or the panties off a prude. And I was playing the part of the prude trying to hold on to her panties. Problem is, the look in my eyes and the sound of my voice, and yes, the carnivorous kisses he elicited, were betraying my secret self. I wanted that boy like a kid wants candy. I set the whole thing up from the start. I was the Front Desk Supervisor at a fashionworld-friendly funky hotel on 46th Street. I'd been working there since I moved to the Big Apple. John was the Director of Security with whom I had become smitten. It was one of those nights that we would both be staying over in the hotel, I was on fire safety duty and he was doing double-shifts. "Oh, it seems we are short on spare rooms, looks like we have to share," I either delightedly reported or deliberately deceived. Hard to recall the specifics of my manipulation of that situation. My later, "Well, you can have that bed and I'll take this one," with the hope that he would find it impossible not to make a move. 

"Don't you get tired of always sleeping alone?" was the question he posed. My response to that question providing some encouragement, he asked if we could share a bed. "OK," I said without revealing too much anticipation. He tossed himself happily down at my side, and surely knew he would get an affirmative to the request for a goodnight kiss. "I knew you would kiss like that," he said with a smile. We did some mad making out that night. I was still thinking of my plans for a path of purity when I kept it from going any further than that. We slept in a rather affectionate embrace. 

The first note he slipped across the cashier's counter said "Love that Drumbeat Red." He'd sought out my lipstick label in the locker room. The clever in it made me want to give him another kiss. So, when he passed the scribbled "Meet me on the 17th floor," how could I do other than take the next opportunity to dash for an elevator up. "Hey Cliff, can you watch the cashier's desk..." Here's the thing. I wasn't quite figuring on the fact that HE might turn out to dig ME. I thought I'd get some kisses out of it, and maybe a little more, and then he would move on. No harm done. I mean, how would a guy like him get hooked on a country-bumpkin Bible thumpin gal like me? 

I guess I did maintain a sense of style, sporting some quality vintage dresses, classic red lipstick, and even some barely hidden lacey lingerie, that may have played into the draw. And we did look kind of well-suited for one another standing side by side sometimes. But, while I was reading about an interpretation of the biblical book of Revelations, he was doing the door at the latest underground hot-spot for the happening. It was a strange and inexplicable predicament in which we found ourselves. It was many months that we spent stealing about, kissing in dark corners all over that hotel-in-process-of-renovation. We were stuck in a bitter-sweet sunset of nearly-lovers soon to separate. 

The day he showed up at my apartment with a tape recording of a song he had written for me, and even the gift of a cassette deck to play it on, I wanted him to stay there forever, so, of course, I promptly asked him to leave. He was angry and hurt. It hurt me more, but I thought it was what I must do. As he walked out that door, I kicked the wall so hard it made a huge hole. As he walked away, it was too painful for me to watch. And I couldn't even look at that hole in the wall long enough to patch it, remembering that moment made me cry. So I put a piece of furniture in front of the evidence and left it like that for a very long time. While I told myself I had an obligation, I had made a promise to god that day in the squat on Ave D, the truth is no one had given me feelings that frightening in all my life, and I suppose running further into religion was my way of seeking protection. Every time I thought of him it hurt. It was as if I had intentionally ripped my own heart out and thrown it on the floor and stomped on it just to prevent him from doing it for me.

MARRIED TO A MADMAN ****names have been changed*** I was living on 19th Street between 2nd and 3rd, in a beautiful prewar studio apartment. Hardwood floors, high ceilings, lots of light, and acoustics that made good music sound great. I had never lived in a place more beautiful and uplifting. The view from the large, south-facing windows, was a city block lined with trees and a gorgeous townhouse with roof-garden over which the sun shone brightly and filled the space. It was 1991, and I was 22. I was still struggling with my dedication to the religious path, studying every week with an older woman in the congregation so that I might get further with my faith. That is when I met James. He was 32, and an artist from Massachusetts. He was visiting a mutual friend of ours who lived at the Watchtower facilities in Brooklyn. We had some great conversation, and I found him very interesting because I was always drawn to creative people. He spoke about his poetry and his paintings. He also had a broad knowledge of alternative music, which was not something that was typical among the Witnesses that I knew. When we ran into one another again several months later, at the art gallery of another mutual friend in the Hamptons, we both seemed to see it as fate placing us together for a purpose. 

We began dating long distance. It wasn't long before I was dealt a hand that would affect my life for quite some time. It was the Friday before Christmas, and I was walking down a rush-hour crowded 14th Street, on my way to the bank to deposit my paycheck. Before I knew what had happened, I was reeling from the impact of a hard hit to the back of my head. I had blacked out momentarily, but was still standing, slightly slumped, when I came to. I looked up to see two young men on a bicycle whipping through the crowd, on their way towards Avenue A. I didn't realize how much damage had been done. I slowly walked to the bank, rather stunned. People stared at me as if I looked quite strange. I made my deposit with some difficulty, and walked out of the bank and towards my apartment. I noticed that I felt more and more unstable as I progressed up 1st Avenue. By the time I was inside my apartment, I could barely stand. It felt as if I were drunk, fighting hard not to flop down on the floor. The nausea was almost unbearable. Not knowing much about these kinds of injuries, I wasn't sure who to call. My back was also in a great deal of pain, so I decided to call my osteopath. When he saw me, he did not believe that I had a concussion or any serious damage, and sent me home without much concern. While I believed him an expert on such matters, I couldn't ignore the fact that it was quite difficult for me to function. 

After a few days of calling out sick from work, and managing only to eat cereal with soymilk in such a state of nausea, I decided it would be best to stay with James in Massachusetts for a few days. It seemed like it was a bad idea for me to be alone in this condition. He came to pick me up, and we headed North. It was a very strange time for this to happen, but while I was laid out in James's car, still struggling with what had happened, he asked me to marry him. And I said yes. I can't imagine why or how such an exchange took place at such a time, but it did. And I never questioned it. After staying with James for a couple of days, and not feeling much improved, I finally did call a doctor in the city who sent me to see a neurologist. The neurologist was very disturbed that I hadn't seen someone right away, and informed me that the blow to my head was so severe that it would likely have killed me if I had been an elderly person. She informed me that there were a string of muggings happening in that area in just such a manner. Those boys had been intending to take my clutch purse. Because I wore an antique hat and vintage coat, they may have assumed that I was an older woman when they saw me from behind, and that I would have made an easy target. She gave me a prescription for motion-sickness pills, because I found that moving my head even slightly, such as from a computer screen to a paper on my desk, caused great waves of dizziness and nausea. The manager in my office was not pleased with any of the effects of the incident, and did not seem to accept the severity of the damage I had endured. He was quite angry for the work days I had missed, and he rolled his eyes when I spoke of my struggle to manage even the simplest tasks. As time went on, my balance did gradually return, but never to the extent that I was completely recovered. I was left with some permanent effects from the incident. It also seemed to leave me in a kind of fog that could not fully lift. Another result of the injury was that I started having symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had flashbacks of past abuses that I had not previously recalled. I would revert to feeling as if I were a four-year-old child, and I would hear heavy breathing, or become overcome with fear, or mentally reenact having been sexually abused. I was still in that condition when I married James and moved to Massachusetts. He had his reasons for asking me to marry him in such a state. 

He wanted to prove to his family that he could have me as a wife, and he also thought that he could make up for some of his past mistakes by helping me through this troubled time. I learned that he himself had sexually abused other young children when he was a teenager, and was trying to find a way to remove the guilt. But, before very long, the abuser in him came out at me. Within a couple of weeks, he was criticizing me verbally. It was mostly my physical appearance, which had been what he most prized about me when we met. Now I was flawed in every way. My breasts were too small, my ankles were too big, my feet were too big. Then he was angry with me for almost every little thing I did. After three months, he got physically violent with me for the first time. He was quite strong, and it was difficult for me to get away from him. He trapped me in our apartment. When I tried to use a knife to scare him into letting me out, he laughed at the attempt. Eventually, I did escape and drive to the home of a friend. 

Over the next couple of years, I attempted to figure out what I had to do to about our situation. I took marriage vows seriously, and according to the religious teachings under which I had obligated myself, I was to make every effort to make the marriage work. It took about two years of separating and then attempting reconciliation before I accepted that this would never work. He became violent with me on more than one occasion during the separation. Once, he punched me in the side of the head while he was driving the car and I was in the passenger seat. Another time, when I agreed to have a meeting with him in his then apartment on Beacon Hill, he began to speak to me with a rage in his voice that grew larger and louder, and, as I attempted to leave, he trapped me inside. He played a game where he would move away from the door just long enough to watch me attempt an exit, then he would come back and block me again. Finally, he struck me in the head so hard that I hit the wall and fell to the floor. As I attempted to dial 911, he took the phone from me. The only way I was able to get out of that place was to accept his insisted offer of driving me, in my car, back to where I was living. I shortly thereafter obtained a restraining order, and I lived with friends for some time. By 1996, after a final attempt at reconciliation with him, I threw all of my clothes in plastic trash bags and headed back to New York City, knowing that divorce was the only way. At the time, because I was a Jehovah's Witness, that would mean I could not marry or have a relationship with any other man. As a Witness, the only grounds for a legitimate divorce that is recognized by the congregation is a divorce on grounds of adultery. I was prepared to live like a nun if necessary. 

MY SCARLET LETTER 

As soon as I got back to New York City, I was once again working in the accounting offices at the hotel in Times Square. Still in a daze, but able to manage somehow, I was no longer a Supervisor, but just working administratively at whatever job they wanted to give me. I was mostly making collection calls, since that had been a big part of my previous role there. James did not want a divorce. He tried to persuade me to come back, and said it was in my best interest spiritually. I knew that wasn't the case, and I couldn't figure out what to do to get him out of my life. He didn't want to grant me a divorce.

 While I had intended to stay on the path of straight, there were some pleasant temptations presenting themselves. A certain dread-locked doorman at the hotel was going out of his way to express his interest every day as I entered the building. And it didn't take long before I started to strategize that this might be my only exit. The only grounds for divorce for a Jehovah's Witness are when your spouse does the adulterous deed. Although that righteous voice in my head was telling me I absolutely should not, I agreed to meet this flirt for a drink downtown. One thing led to another, and we were in a cab on our way back to his apartment in Brooklyn. Having been near celibate for several years, including those of my miserable marriage, this night was an experience of unprecedented pleasure. Unfortunately, I was still torn between what I believed to be the right thing and what I found myself doing for the sake of survival and sinful pleasure. I reported my bad behavior to the congregation elders, and to my legal husband. I felt guilty for what I had done, but also hopeful that James would finally grant me a divorce. I was reproved by the elders, and lost privileges of participating in some of the activities of the congregation. When I went to Massachusetts to talk with James, he dumped cold water over my head, and threw a dirty towel at me for me to dry off with, saying "this is all you deserve." 

Part of me believed him. I did believe that I had deeply sinned. I found myself unable to end the relationship with my lover. It was so amazing and enjoyable when we were together. I spoke with the elders regularly, each time being reproved by them, scriptures being read, and being told that I must end all ties with this man. I was told that I would have to study a great deal, and avoid listening to any kind of romantic songs or other things that might make me want to see this guy. They explained that he could not possibly love me because he did not know Jehovah and therefore could not know real love. They wanted me to see that I was being used. I broke off with my lover many times, only to find myself missing him painfully and calling him and meeting him again. Each time we met, we both believed it would be the last time, and we made love like it was the last day of our lives. Over a number of months, I had failed to successfully end the relationship, having had many meetings with the elders and finally admitting that they would have to disfellowship me. I explained that I was finding I could not live up to the standards of the congregation, and I did not want to be a hypocrite and call myself something that I was not, a Jehovah's Witness. I hoped that I would eventually find a way to do the right thing and make my way back. 

It was arranged that I would have a committee meeting with a group of elders from the congregation so that they could determine if disfellowshipping was in order. When I stood at that long table of congregation overseers in the conference room and said, "I just don't understand how you can expect people to live without sex!," my fate was farely sealed. It was established that I would have a final meeting with two elders in which I would hear what had been determined that day. At that meeting, I was informed that I was no longer a member of the worldwide "Christian" congregation. I would no longer be able to communicate in any way with anyone who was a member of the worldwide congregation with the exception of limited contact with any family members I might have who were Witnesses. It was explained to me that the elders could have a very limited contact with me in the interest of perhaps brining me back at some point, and that they could now only deal with me with "the most basic human concern." I asked the elder who was speaking, the elder who once said he saw me as almost a daughter, the elder who had performed my wedding ceremony, what he meant by "the most basic human concern." He looked at me with a kind of hatred that comes with religious fundamentalism, and said, "If you were lying bleeding on the sidewalk, we would not step over you." I still saw myself as the sinner. 

Over time, the back and forth routine had grown old for my lover, and he finally made the break and refused to continue those reunions. I attended congregation meetings where no one was permitted to acknowledge my presence. I sat there and listened and sometimes cried about my confusing circumstances. I looked at the people who once were my friends, now unable to say hello. Some of them looked at me as if they were seeing Satan himself. I kept reading scriptures every day, and praying all time, wondering why it wouldn't work. And why did it just make me miss the man more? Finally, in the silence, something snapped. I started to see it all so clearly. They had set me up. Not that they knew it, but they had set me up. I saw that by my believing that a man couldn't care about me, I behaved in a way that made him validate that thought. I pushed him away, and then considered his actions a validation of my belief, or what I had been led to believe. Then I realized that they were doing it with everything. They taught everyone in the group to fear people on the outside in general. That fear led to certain behaviors, and those behaviors brought on the expected results. Distrust generates the expected response. It was like walls came crashing down in my head. I saw the power of our thoughts and how they create our lives. I had been raised from birth with these teachings that instill fear and distrust, and they always proved true because that is how we work in the world, I realized that a different expectation would create a different result. 

On The Power of Thought 

One night, I decided to test my new understanding of the relationship between our thoughts and our experiences. I was working nights at a restaurant on 19th street by Union Square in Manhattan. On my way into work one night with my bicycle, I saw a group of men, the sort that some would describe as "derelicts," gathered across the street. I knew that most folks would assume that these men would steal from them if given the opportunity. I decided to KNOW that these men would not steal from me. I decided to let them SEE that I trusted them completely. I made certain they knew I was there, and that I was aware of their presence. Then, I laid my bike down on the sidewalk. I walked slowly into the front door of the restaurant, and leisurely walked all the way through to the back of the restaurant and around the other side. I came out through the door through which I needed to bring my bike. I walked over to my bike, intending to pick it up and carry it inside. One of those men from the group across the street came RUNNING across the street and picked up my bike for me. He carried it into the room where I was headed, walked, bike in arms, all around the room, asking where I wanted him to put it down.