I listened to her stories with my heart in my mouth and did everything I could to make her like me. I laughed the loudest and shivered the most at her stories. But one day one of her own great-grandchildren came running to her with her dress torn from her neck. She said I had done it. I hadn’t. But the old Indian-fighter wouldn’t believe me, and I was sent back to the orphanage in disgrace.
Most of my troubles were of this minor sort. In a way they were not troubles at all because I was used to them. When I look back on those days I remember, in fact, that they were full of all sorts of fun and excitement. I played games in the sun and ran races. I also had daydreams, not only about my father’s photograph but about many other things.
I daydreamed chiefly about beauty. I dreamed of myself becoming so beautiful that people would turn to look at me when I passed. And I dreamed of colors—scarlet, gold, green, white. I dreamed of myself walking proudly in beautiful clothes and being admired by everyone and overhearing words of praise. I made up the praises and repeated them aloud as if someone else were saying them.
Daydreaming made my work easier. When I was waiting on the table in one of the poverty stricken, unhappy homes where I lived, I would daydream I was a waitress in an elegant hotel, dressed in a white waitress uniform, and everybody who entered the grand dining room where I was serving would stop to look at me and openly admire me.
I never daydreamed about love, even after I fell in love the first time. This was when I was around eight. I fell in love with a boy named George who was a year older. We used to hide in the grass together until he got frightened and jumped up and ran away.
What we did in the grass never frightened me. I knew it was wrong, or I wouldn’t have hidden, but I didn’t know what was wrong. At night I lay awake and tried to figure out what sex was and what love was. I wanted to ask a thousand questions, but there was no one to ask. Besides I knew that people only told lies to children—lies about everything from soup to Santa Claus.
Then one day I found out about sex without asking any questions. I was almost nine, and I lived with a family that rented a room to a man named Kimmel. He was a stern looking man, and everybody respected him and called him Mr. Kimmel.
I was passing his room when his door opened and he said quietly, “Please come in here, Norma.”
I thought he wanted me to run an errand.
“Where do you want me to go, Mr. Kimmel?” I asked.
“No place,” he said and closed the door behind me. He smiled at me and turned the key in the lock.
“Now you can’t get out,” he said, as if we were playing a game.
I stood staring at him. I was frightened, but I didn’t dare yell. I knew if I yelled I would be sent back to the orphanage in disgrace again. Mr. Kimmel knew this, too.
When he put his arms around me I kicked and fought as hard as I could, but I didn’t make any sound. He was stronger than I was and wouldn’t let me go. He kept whispering to me to be a good girl.
When he unlocked the door and let me out, I ran to tell my “aunt” what Mr. Kimmel had done.
“I want to tell you something,” I stammered, “about Mr. Kimmel. He—he—”
My aunt interrupted.
“Don’t you dare say anything against Mr. Kimmel,” she said angrily. “Mr. Kimmel’s a fine man. He’s my star boarder!”
Mr. Kimmel came out of his room and stood in the doorway, smiling.
“Shame on you!” my “aunt” glared at me, “complaining about people!”
“This is different,” I began, “this is something I have to tell. Mr. Kimmel—”
I started stammering again and couldn’t finish. Mr. Kimmel came up to me and handed me a nickel.
“Go buy yourself some ice cream,” he said.
I threw the nickel in Mr. Kimmel’s face and ran out.
I cried in bed that night and wanted to die. I thought, “If there’s nobody ever on my side that I can talk to I’ll start screaming.” But I didn’t scream.
A week later the family including Mr. Kimmel went to a religious revival meeting in a tent. My “aunt” insisted I come along.
The tent was jammed. Everybody was listening to the evangelist. He was half singing and half talking about the sinfulness of the world. Suddenly he called on all the sinners in the tent to come up to the altar of God where he stood—and repent.
I rushed up ahead of everyone else and started telling about my “sin.”
“On your knees, sister,” he said to me.
I fell on my knees and began to tell about Mr. Kimmel and how he had molested me in his room. But other “sinners” crowded around me. They also fell on their knees and started wailing about their sins and drowned me out.
I looked back and saw Mr. Kimmel standing among the nonsinners, praying loudly and devoutly for God to forgive the sins of others.
3
it happened in math class
At twelve I looked like a girl of seventeen. My body was developed and shapely. But no one knew this but me. I still wore the blue dress and the blouse the orphanage provided. They made me look like an overgrown lummox.
I had no money. The other girls rode to school in a bus. I had no nickel to pay for the ride. Rain or shine, I walked the two miles from my “aunt’s” home to the school.
I hated the walk, I hated the school. I had no friends. The pupils seldom talked to me and never wanted me in their games. Nobody ever walked home with me or invited me to visit their homes. This was partly because I came from the poor part of the district where all the Mexicans and Japanese lived. It was also because I couldn’t smile at anyone.
Once a shoemaker standing in the doorway of his shop stopped me as I was walking to school.
“What’s your name?” he asked me.
“Norma,” I said.
“What’s your last name?” he asked.
I wouldn’t give him the name I had—Norma Mortenson—because it wasn’t the name of the man with the slouch hat and the Gable mustache. I didn’t answer.
“You’re a queer kid,” the shoemaker said. “I watch you pass here every day, and I’ve never seen you smile. You’ll never get anywhere like that.”
I went on to school, hating the shoemaker.
In school the pupils often whispered about me and giggled as they stared at me. They called me dumb and made fun of my orphan’s outfit. I didn’t mind being thought dumb. I knew I wasn’t.
One morning both my white blouses were torn, and I would be late for school if I stopped to fix them. I asked one of my “sisters” in the house if she could loan me something to wear. She was my age but smaller. She loaned me a sweater.
I arrived at school just as the math class was starting. As I walked to my seat everybody stared at me as if I had suddenly grown two heads, which in a way I had. They were under my tight sweater.
At recess a half dozen boys crowded around me. They made jokes and kept looking at my sweater as if it were a gold mine. I had known for some time that I had shapely breasts and thought nothing of the fact. The math class, however, was more impressed.
After school four boys walked home with me, wheeling their bicycles by hand. I was excited but acted as if nothing unusual were happening.
The next week the shoemaker stopped me again.
“I see you’ve taken my advice,” he said. “You’ll find you get along much better if you smile at folks.”
I noticed that he, also, looked at my sweater as he talked. I hadn’t given it back to my “sister” yet.
The school and the day became different after that. Girls who had brothers began inviting me to their homes, and I met their folks, too. And there were always four or five boys hanging around my house. We played games in the street and stood around talking under the trees till suppertime.