Here's what I remember about living with the Cherneys.
I remember the big house, the red, cold tile floor, the thick oak table, the courtyard with the fountain. I remember that there were steps in the house, and you had to step down into the living room. I remember the pool and the eucalyptus grove on the hill above. I remember the big fields below the house that rolled down the long hill toward the barn, where Seth had his lair. I remember the breezeway between the houses, the long gravel driveway down the hill, the fences and foliage, the Spanish tile and wrought iron door latches that you worked with your thumb instead of turning a knob. I remember the way the bedrooms around the courtyard were connected to one another by bathrooms which were also hallways, the sink and mirrors on one side of the small passageway, and a pocket door on the other side, which opened into a smaller, private space with the toilet and shower. I remember the bunkbed where I slept below Nick. I remember the basset hound, Clarence. I remember Cheryl with her tinkling glass of ice, her red and purple makeup and affected smile sometimes covering her exasperation and impatience, or something that felt like that. I remember Shiah blustering and sputtering, spraying food and spittle from his mouth, oblivious to the soup and bits of food matted in his messy and unkempt beard and mustache. I remember the mugs, beautiful brown shiny glazed ceramics with the lip dipped in a glorious swirl of blues and cream, somehow the most spectacular things, and a cabinet full of them. And I remember the drinking glasses, octagonal and untapered, varying in size from small to vast. I remember the kitchen had a center island, and a walk-in pantry, and was above the dining room, looking over it across a counter or bar. Everything was different than at home, everything was bigger, fancier, matching, beautiful. The chairs were large and heavy, rough oak and wrought iron that had to be pulled hard to drag them back from the table. I don't remember any cats.
Here are some stories I remember about what happened. I don't remember much about the context, the preparation, the leaving home, the move. I just remember being there, with some vague understanding that this was temporary. I remember that I'd been told to call Auntie Cheryl and Uncle Shiah "Mom" and "Dad", and that my parents were now "Auntie Tarney" and "Uncle Bob". I don't remember ever seeing my parents, any visits or phone calls or cards in the mail. I just existed in this new, strange world, which was large and cold and not very friendly. I remember Seth screaming at his parents, and the screaming back. I remember, "go to hell and die, you fucking a-hole!". I remember, "no shit, Sherlock!", and deciphering sarcasm. I remember Seth's power to hurt you if he wanted to, and his relieving general preference not to be bothered. I remember that his cruelty was of another dimension than Nick's, for Nick was also subjected to it, whereas his own reached only me and left him unscathed.
I don't know where I am. I don't know why I'm here. I don't where I should rather be. I don't know how to find my way home, and I don't know if there's any home left to find, if I did somehow have a way. I'm just surviving now, adrift in the world, pulled in tight to myself, watching, assessing, defended, nothing soft showing.
What's around me is beautiful. I like the oaks dripping rain outside of this window, the bright green of spring on their fresh leaves, the dark green of the older leaves in contrast. I like this kora music playing from the speaker, the beautiful trilling of the African harp's highs over the pulsing thrum of the bass tones. I like this Peruvian poncho I'm wearing, this small desk, this mug of cocoa that someone's prepared for me, and which I've mostly polished off. This little cabin is nice enough, I'm dry and toasty hot with the excesses of the loyal woodstove. I just don't know where I am, whose things these are, how I came to be here or if I'm safe to stay, or if this is where I want to be, where I belong. I don't know how this came to be "my life", or to whom it actually belongs, or where mine really went. My body is sore and aching, and I sense that I long to lie down and just cry, but I don't know if I know how, and there's no one here to hold me, I'm all alone.
I will tell more of the stories, because that's what I came to do. I don't know if it's a good idea, I don't know which ones are true, I don't know where the important ones live, sealed off from memory. But somehow a friend wants me to start with what I know, and I will do that, I'll tell the ones I've told before and see what else may come.
One story is the story of the shower, the shower stall, Home on the Range, the acoustics, my operatic bliss. The story isn't a happy one, however, though it does for a moment see me with all my channels open, in flow with life, and that's at least partially a blessing, I suppose.
At home we had a bath tub, and I bathed once in a while. I think I'd showered a few times and didn't much like it. I had gotten shampoo in my eyes and was therefore afraid of the shower. I was afraid of many things. But I also had many things that I liked, things that were cozy, like cats. The bath was one. I think I'll go out in the rain for a moment and start the bathtub filling on the deck, so after I tell some of these stories I can go have a soak. I always love to soak so much.
I didn't like showering, and at this new Home there wasn't a tub, or at least not one that I was allowed to use. There was a shower in a plastic stall behind the pocket door in the bathroom which was also a hallway. I think everyone there seemed to shower all the time, which seemed really strange to me. I laid low and hid out for about a week or so, until Cheryl let me know that I was stinky and I needed to take a shower. So that was it. I had to face it then.
I remember, perhaps, the feel and weight of a folded bath towel, thicker and more luxurious than ones I'd seen before. I remember, perhaps, going off to face this new aspect of my existence.
Wait, let me go actually start that bath filling now, so I can watch it filling -- it does fill so very slowly -- through the window here, and go to that for comfort and rest when I get tired of storytelling.
Alright, I've put the stopper in and cleared out the oak leaves and started it filling. And I opened the windows more to relieve this oppressive heat. The draft is cooling and comfortable. The woodstove has been tamped down and will hopefully keep me cozy throughout a long day of storytelling, though it's far too hot now to do me much good. I'm writing from the desk in the bedroom, and it's nicer in here.
So back to my story, it was time to face the music, so to speak, to go off and brave the dangers of water streaming down upon one from overhead. Rather an unnatural way to bathe, it does occur to me now.
I don't remember how it began, but what I do remember is singing, discovering the incredible acoustic properties of that closed shower stall full of heat and steam and lather and little boy. I was singing, eyes closed, head thrown back, and I knew this was my life. This is what I was to do with my life. I was a singer, an opera singer. I can't really describe the experience. I was leaning back, eyes closed, heart open, belting it out, and life was streaming through me, my passion, my bliss, fully in flow with this arrival, this homecoming, this discovery. Here I was, in perhaps my first ecstatic experience. I was pouring out, "Home on the Range", and it was reverberating back to me and around me from the close plastic walls, through the steam and the sizzle and the suds, and it was perfection, I was in the expression of it and I was simultaneously receiving the tremendous beauty of it. Here was my spirit, my soul, whatever it is -- my Truth, I'll say -- and what it was giving me was union, belonging, being one with everything, in harmony with the universe, singing and being sung and being sung to. It was a deep, ecstatic experience, flow, I was an open channel for life and spirit. As Teri put it this morning, shifting the language slightly, all my channels were open.
Now I haven't told you yet about Nick, and about Miss Susan, and I guess from the point of view of the story, I'm supposed to have done that. I don't really want to, though, but I do want to be able to tell you my stories. So there's the background that Nick was olive-skinned and lean and beautiful, that he was glorious and powerful and beloved by all, the leader of the pack at school, the one that organized and presided over the bullying and the mockery and shaming and rejection, the one whom everyone followed, looked up to, desired for connection and approval. And I'd have to mention that I was white and pasty and chubby, I'd always hated my body, dreaded the swimming days when I had to take my shirt off. And I'd always been the target of the cruelty, the one who had no social clout or sway, little connection or kindness from the other children, though I do recall there were moments of secret humanity, their kindness and friendship available on covert occasion. And I should tell you that Miss Susan was attractive and young and drove a convertible car that was gold and shiny. I don't remember riding in it, but before I'd been sent to live with Nick I do remember her picking him up from school in that car, and how pretty she was, and how cool, and how she and Nick were cool and beautiful and happy together.
I'm feeling antsy, like I need to pee, though I just recently went when I started the bath. And I'm wanting to stop, to go take a bath, to rest, to not be in these memories. And I do want to tell you, I really need you to hear all of this. But it's not comfortable, and my finger hurts and the knuckle is swollen and I'm also somewhat worried about that.
So anyway, there I was, in my bliss, an open channel, connecting with a stream of beauty and perfection and vibration that was like nothing I'd ever known. An accidental discovery, I don't think I'd even sung much before, and here I'd stumbled upon a mine of pure gold. Oh give me a home!
And then the door opened, and I wasn't sure what was happening in that first moment, and I don't remember what happened next, but there were Nick and Miss Susan, tumbling over one another it seemed, into the small space, just opposite this sheet of clear plastic from my naked, open body. And they were laughing, and they were singing parts of the song, mocking me, pointing at me. And they were clothed, and they were connected, they were friends with each other. And there I was, naked now in the cold silence, quiet, stopped.
I don't know what happened next, and I don't know what's happening to me now. I'm feeling what it might mean to be stopped, stopped up, clogged, shut off. I'm shocked that anyone would do that to a little boy in a strange home in a new shower without his parents or any friends, or even his clothes. And I'm sad that he took it so hard, that he let them shut him down. I'm sure they didn't even intend that, didn't really consider their action to be cruelty. I wish that little boy hadn't been so alone and so exposed that it really did impact him so severely. I wish it had just been all in good fun, and he had known that they loved him, maybe they'd all gotten naked and wet and lathered up together and joined in real song. But that wasn't what it was. It was more a spectacle-making, and that little boy froze.
I wish he hadn't frozen.
That's my first story for you, from the Cherneys. I have more, but I see my bath is full, so I'm going to take a break for now.
And for some reason I'm needing a witness, needing to be held in this, even though I know people often journal and just keep it to themselves.
Please just accompany me, even if it's unusual or even uncomfortable for you to be with young parts of Ethan. I have to start telling these stories, and I don't have a lot of time for editing and planning and figuring out what's the appropriate way to disseminate this. I just need you to know with me, to whatever extent you're willing. And if it's okay with you after hearing the story about the shower, I think there are more stories I'd like to tell you. I don't want to have to figure out what they mean or don't mean, or what they should or shouldn't have meant to Ethan at that time. I don't want to have to defend them or impress upon you their importance. I don't think they have to even be important to anyone except that they are my stories and I need to tell someone and I'm starting to cry now and I'm not sure why. But please just make some room for caring about my stories, if you can. I'm trying to do that for myself, too, and I seem to be a creature of communication and connection, I need to be in contact with another mind and heart to know and feel and move this material, and I do want it to come up and be known.
My bath is nearly flowing over now. I'm going out into the rain to soak.
9:25a
3/29/23
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It felt really good to tell you my story yesterday, and to feel your heart and care. It's nice to know that Big Ethan and his friends love me and want to know what it was like. It's nice to be remembered and to start remembering. It feels like some kind of waking up, and I hope we get to continue with it. At the moment I'm not sure what story to tell you next, but maybe I'll just say some things that I remember that feel important to tell someone. I didn't have anyone to tell back then so I'm especially grateful that you're listening now. I always wanted to be in connection, to share everything I was experiencing and discovering about the world. It's good to be telling you about it now.
There are the stories that I know of, the ones I've heard Big Ethan tell, or that I've told him. There are only a few of them, but they set a certain context, give a sense for what it was like at the Cherneys. I think if I tell you those ones first, I'll start to remember more. I really hope so. I want to come back to life, back to Big Ethan's life, by helping him recover whatever was sealed off and hidden. I think a lot of things happened over those years that were significant and I want to tell all about them, have Big Ethan know, have you hear, too. I want to recover all of that lost life, the buried childhood, because I still have so much life to offer and share, and I want to wake up to that. As I say these things there are parts in Big Ethan that are wondering if that's still my voice, the young boy, or if there are other, older perspectives blending and somehow polluting the purity of my voice. My suggestion to him is not to worry about it. He can trust me to tell my stories.
So there's the story of Christmas. But I just remembered this: "nineteen twenty-seven Goodwin Avenue". That's where I lived, at the Cherneys. It was a big, fancy house on its own big hill, at the top of a long, steep gravel driveway. There were scary dogs at the bottom of the driveway, but I think I'll tell you about them another time. I just wanted to say that address out loud, 1927 Goodwin Ave, because I'd memorized it sometime and it just came popping out. This is a good sign, this is what I'm hoping will happen. The things that I've forgotten will come popping out and I'll start to connect the pieces, my world to Big Ethan's, which is where the action is now. I'm glad to get to be included there, where things don't have to be so hard and I don't have to be so isolated and alone.
Anyway, the story I was thinking to tell is about Christmas, which I think happened not too long after I was there. I don't remember many celebrations yet, but maybe I'll remember more soon. Like, did we celebrate my birthday, which comes two months before Christmas? You would assume so, but this home was full of a lot of its own energies, Cherney energies, and there wasn't that much interest in this new boy. I'm a little sad about the fact that I'm embarrassed about it. I know Cheryl and Shiah didn't ask for me to be there, it was Anne's idea, and everyone did what Anne said. Even my parents went along with it, sending me away and pretending to forget about me, or really forgetting about me. So the Cherneys had to go along with it too, but they didn't like this new boy, I wasn't a Cherney, I was rather an inconvenience. I'm glad that they tried to be friendly and they let me live there without telling me directly how unhappy they were about it, but I knew that I wasn't wanted, and I don't think they gave me much thought that wasn't tinged with a little irritation or annoyance.
So there was a Christmas, at some point. I remember the big, fancy tree down in the bottom room of the house, for some reason I feel like it was in the room off to the left, nearest the big front door, and I kind of think that was probably the master bedroom, I think there was a big bathroom down there that even had a tub. But I'm not sure, because I also remember Cheryl living in a room near ours, through the shared bathroom from Nick and I. I remember that room as closed and dark, without windows, and with a large bed where Cheryl would often be sitting up or lying down. There were big boxes of wine on the bedside table, one red and one white, and they had little plastic spigots that you pushed with your thumb to let it come pouring out. She usually had the glass of ice when she was walking in the house, which I knew was called her gin-in-tonic but didn't know what that meant, but here in the dark room she would fill up from these wine spigots by the bed. I feel bad for what I said yesterday about her smile being forced, or fake, or whatever I said. I think she really was smiling as best she could, but she didn't feel like a smile, and that was probably a hard place to be in.
So in the big master bedroom which was to the left of the big living room there was a tree, and lots of presents. I don't remember stockings or wrapping presents or any of the things that usually happen before and around Christmas, but for now I have one memory, like a photo (but it's blurry and I can't make out much) of that tree. There was a present for me, and I remember opening it, it was a brand new football in a box with a pump, and it was really exciting, it seemed so fancy and good, like maybe it was the kind the professionals used. I thought it probably was. I remember the way the box was smaller than the football, so that the point of the ball stuck way out at one end and some of the fat round part of the ball stuck out through two sides of the box where big openings had been cut. That was really cool, I hadn't seen boxes like that, a box that let things on the inside also stick out, on purpose. And the back part of the box that hadn't been cut away held the red plastic pump, which seemed like a really good idea to put it in there, you had the ball and you had the means to keep it charged up.
I'm thinking now that the ball would only be really useable if Nick had wanted to play catch with me, but I don't remember thinking that back then, I just really liked this new, exciting ball with its clever box. I don't remember if he did ever play with me, but I get the sense that he sometimes did. I know I'll be remembering more as we keep on with the storytelling, so I look forward to finding out about that, but I know at the time I was really excited about the football. I guess I felt like a real athlete, but that's a guess, I don't actually remember that.
So then it came time for Nick's present, and there was a card under the tree with directions to go look outside. So we all got up and walked into that big, dark hallway and opened the large, heavy front doors, and looked outside together. What an adventure!
It was exciting, and curious, I'd never seen a present that was hidden outside instead of being wrapped. But it made sense when we opened the door, there it was, who could wrap such a thing, it had to be presented this way, gleaming in the sunlight.
There was a brand new ten-speed bike there outside of the door, leaning coolly on its kickstand, ready for action. It was very shiny and new, I wonder if there was even a bow or a big ribbon or something Christmassy like that on the handlebars. It had all sorts of controls and levers and gears and chains and things, and shiny black tires hungry to tear up the ground, and perfect, radial spokes and all the other marks of perfection, and it just glittered there in the sun, majestic, muscular, at the ready. Anyway, I don't know about the bow or not, but I know that Nick got on that bike and rode it around the house on the round driveway that passed through the breezeway, and he rode around and around and around, and I watched for a while, holding my football, exciting by imagining what it would feel like to ride a bike like that, to have a bike like that. I think after a while he let me ride it around while he went and had some food, and I don't remember if his parents liked that, but everyone made it clear that it was his bike and I only got to use it when he felt like letting me, and I knew that, I knew the football was mine, too, to share or not as I liked, and that bike was for Nick. And I think that that day he was feeling pretty generous and friendly, I don't remember anything really mean. And when he came back from eating, he took the bike back and rode it some more. I don't remember if I got to ride it again after that, but I think that I probably did sometimes.
It seems strange to me now, now that I can also see through Big Ethan's eyes, that I was given a ball and Nick was given a bike, and that no one seemed to notice that there was something strange about that. I don't think I knew, either, because I was just a little boy, and everything was strange and didn't really belong to me, or make sense, and so this was just a part of that world. But now I know enough to know that that wasn't a very thoughtful way to treat the new boy by the parents, and I can see how I was kind of a lower-class person there, someone no one really wanted around, but whom the grown-ups tried to be polite to.
I could have said "to whom the grown-ups tried to be polite", so that I didn't end the sentence with a preposition -- that's what they call "to", it's a preposition -- but I think it's a little bit strange to take such awkward precautions when you're just telling a story, so I'll leave it like it is.
Another thing about that Christmas is that my brother came somehow and dropped off a present. I remember ever so vaguely the sense of seeing him, someone from my old life, and him having to leave very quickly. He left a present for me, and it was a large box. I remember Cheryl being irritated about it, but I got to open it. It was a big box called "300-in-one electronics kit" and it had a big board covered in all these little springs which you could bend to the side to stick in the end of a wire. The board had all these numbers and springs and electrical connections and different components like a fan and an LCD numeric display and a little key that you could press for when you made the Morse Code transmitter, and a light bulb I think, and other sorts of things. And there was a battery, that was important, everything you made always had to be connected up to the battery. And there were lots of colored wires, the white ones were really short, the red ones were longer, and the blue ones could reach almost across the entire board. Each page in the manual was labeled with something you could make -- a countdown timer, for example -- and there were detailed instructions and a wiring diagram that showed you which electrodes to connect to which other ones, which you did by bending the springs over and sticking in the ends of the wires. When you let go of the spring it kind of squeezed the wire in there and made an electrical connection with whatever was down on the board under that spring. When you had connected all the wires correctly then basically the whole board became whatever thing you had made, so you had this giant, cumbersome thing which was now a timer, or a radio, or a motion detector, or that kind of thing.
And oh man did I love this kit! I just spent hours with it, totally absorbed, wiring up all of these magical things that I had never really known you could just put together with wires and parts. I remember that Nick was mildly interested for a while, he and I played with it together and created several different devices that we proudly carried to his parents to admire, but I don't think his interest lasted long. I didn't care at all, though, I was so happy with it. It was completely eye-opening and exciting, I was engaged in a whole new dimension of reality than I'd ever known. I mean, electronics had always seemed completely magical and mysterious, not something that you could actually understand and create, but here I was creating and understanding what kind of wiring and components it took to make these different products. It was incredibly exciting, and it occurs to me now that I had a deep absorption in this activity. I was really happy there, and completely focused. It was a rich new world and I was really ready for one. I remember being committed to making every single one of the 300 devices that you could make, and I think I made the first six or ten on that very first day. I don't remember any details, I just remember being down on the floor, on the carpet in the bedroom I shared with Nick, and just poring over this kit with total fascination.
The next day Cheryl took it away and got rid of it. She told me that, since it was from my brother, Sam, it was from my old family, that other world, and I was supposed to be in her family now, in her world. Therefore the game had to go, because it was some kind of connection. I think she didn't really like the game, but I don't know why she would have taken it away from a little boy who was so lit up about it. I wonder if it had something to do with the fact that it was mine, and not Nick's or with the fact that Nick wasn't as interested in it as I was. He had enjoyed it for a while but he didn't have the attention or interest to stay with it and really focus to get everything wired up just right. Anyway, I could feel that Cheryl was jealous and hateful, but I didn't understand the context, I didn't know why. It didn't feel like she hated me, but she took the game away and said it was better that way, and I guess for play and fun I probably went back to that little football. I think I have vague memories of learning how to throw underhand so that I could spin it up into the air and catch it myself.
A few days later, Anne herself showed up. This was very strange, I think I'd only actually seen Anne in person a handful of times since she was my kindergarten teacher. I know I saw her at Christmas parties, which were a whole amazing thing that she put on and were a big highlight of the year -- I'll tell you all about those soon, I just remembered about them! -- but I don't think I saw her much besides that. Anyway, here she was at the Cherneys, and she was there for me. She took me in her own car with her, and we drove to Toys-R-Us, and we walked to where all the bikes were for little boys, and together we tried some of them and then she bought me one, a ten-speed, like Nick's. I don't know how she had found out, but I do really feel grateful that she knew that one little boy shouldn't not have a bike if the other one has one. Nick and I rode those bikes all over Penngrove and Cotati in the times that followed, but those first days I just rode around and around the house on that gravel driveway. I wish I remembered more how good it felt to ride it and work the controls, how shiny and fancy and special it looked to examine, and to know it was mine, but I actually don't remember that too much right now. I hope I'll remember more about that soon, because I know I was there, having experiences and all that sort of thing, so I guess the memory is in there somewhere, and I really want to keep finding it, and waking back up.
So that's another story, the first Christmas. I don't remember any other Christmases there, or at least I don't remember yet. I'm hoping that this storytelling starts to bring in more memories, so I'll let you know when I start to find out more about what happened. But for now I want you to know that I really did love that football and the clever box it was packaged in, and I didn't really feel that bad when Nick got his bike, I think the bad feelings were just hiding from me a little bit, I felt generally a little sad and confused and isolated all the time there, and I wasn't supposed to show it.
Yeah, that's one more thing I want to mention, Cheryl had told me that I should look happy and comfortable. I think it was somewhere around the first or second week, she called me down to the living room one day to have a talk. She had that tinkling glass of ice, her gin-in-tonic, and she told me that she'd noticed that when I walked around the house, I had my mouth shut. She told me that people shut their mouths like that when they aren't comfortable, and so when she saw me with my jaw closed like that in her house, it was communicating to her that I wasn't comfortable in her house. But I should be comfortable here, this was my Home now, so therefore it was important that I keep my mouth open to show how I felt at home. This was really important to her and she was acting really friendly, like she wanted to help me be more relaxed and comfortable. I didn't quite understand everything, but I did understand that she wanted to see me with my mouth open when I walked around or did whatever I was doing. So I left that room with my jaw stiffly open, and I tried to remember to just keep it that way, so I'd look relaxed, so she'd feel good about her home and hospitality, and not have any uncomfortable feelings when she saw me.
Okay, Big Ethan is late to a Zoom meeting. I'm glad he let me finish telling that story about Christmas, and I can tell there are a lot more things I want to tell and remember. I hope you'll come back and listen again soon.
Thank you for your kindness and your care. It feels really good to know other kinds of grown-ups and people that really do care about little boys and want to know what it was like, and feel gentle and loving and sorry with me.
Alright, time to go play Zoom now! I'll be back to write down more memories when I can.
8:30a
3/31/23