The last time I was here I was young and carefree. Isn’t that how childhood should be observed? Care. Free. What a concept. This cracked slab of concrete is where I would have boarded the sky ride. I’m certain that I stood exactly here, waiting for the turquoise-blue gondola to coast down. This sky ride was one of the few that Barbara would go on. She’d squeeze my hand in strong pulses as we floated above Lake Erie. It didn’t matter how old I got, her hand was always bigger than mine.
She thinks Laugh in the Dark was my favourite, and she probably remembers what I liked better than I do. But as soon as I was tall enough, I was a Gravitron girl. I liked the ’80s rides. I liked spinning. And Gravitron was the only ride without seat belts or safety bars! I would struggle to reach my arm out in front of me, only to have gravity slap it back down against the vinyl padding. But the best was riding beside Lynn Upper so we could pretend the centrifugal force was pushing our bodies together. We kissed one summer, inside the mirrored room at the Magic Carpet fun house. After that, she got a boyfriend right away.
I search but can’t figure out where the Gravitron stood. Barbara was right, the park is completely torn up. A double tornado would have been kinder. Exposed iron cables try to hook my ankles. Ripped asphalt. Oily ash. Charred grass. Cremated scrap. It smells like I’m about to have a seizure.
I stumble farther into the abandoned ruin. Why did I feel compelled to come here? This place is the last stop before oblivion.
The thought spreads itself across the ruined landscape: I. Want. To. Die.
Suicidal thinking is a paralysis in my body. It begins with a tingle in my fingers and toes, then my knees grow so numb I can’t stand anymore. Why can’t it be as simple as burying my head in the rubble? I can actually remember the first time I willed myself to suffocate to death. I was face down in the sand dune at Sandbanks Provincial Park, begging god to make me stop breathing.
Mr Rossi, our science teacher, pulled me up by my arm to lead me back to the school bus. “Why is it always you who holds up the rest of the class?” he said—the entire field trip waiting for my antics to be over. None of the other students were scolded for throwing sand at my face or pushing me or calling me a “slut.” It’s less trouble to wrist-slap a runt, I suppose. Only eight years old and dubbed a slut. I doubt those kids even knew what they were saying. But I knew. I knew the meaning of slut at an early age.
The first time I heard that word, “slut,” it was spoken by one of my mother’s boyfriends; the one whose beard smelled like a Christmas tree. Awful synchronism: his name was Noël. Pine-scented beard oil and a name like that made a permanent association in my mind. I hate Christmas still. Or, worse than hate, a few times—when I’ve found myself at a shopping mall with a stinking real tree on display—I’ve become miserably turned on. This particular lascivious reflex makes me hate myself, which is much harder than hating Christmas.
The free counsellor at U of T’s student services told me, “Lucky for you this self-hatred, as you call it, doesn’t interfere with your studies. You’ve got a 4.1.” I was a no-show at my fourth or fifth counselling appointment, not exactly sure how many appointments I made it to, and my grades bombed the following semester. After that, being a fuck-up became very regular.
I no longer need to rely on olfactory memory alone to trigger self-hatred. I have proof of Noël right beside me at night. After the first time he visited my room, I drew a little red “x” on the wall, low down beside my bed where the floral comforter meets the floral wallpaper, out of sight. And isn’t this what survivors of childhood sexual abuse want? Proof? Some concrete evidence that confirms we didn’t make this shit up. I’ve read Kiss Daddy Goodnight. I should consider myself fortunate that I have the validation of an x. And another x. Another xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
At a glance (because I will never actually count them), the x’s that still remain on my wall remind me that Noël lasted an unusually long time as one of my mother’s dates. More than two years. Long enough for me to remember the holes in the upholstery in the back seat of his red Datsun. I remember him barbequing hamburgers on our patio. I even remember his corduroy slippers padding around the kitchen in the morning. But once he enters my bedroom, in my memory, he becomes a negative space. I was violated by a silhouette. A silhouette that smelled like pine and had an itchy beard.
I still wonder why Barbara kept a child molester around the longest. Was he extra charming with her, extra patient and tender and fun for her, so he could have ongoing access to me?
Barbara was always drawn to vulture-like men who came on strong and overpowering and insatiable. Men who watched me enter and exit the bathroom. Men who found reasons to sit next to me on the sofa. Men who said, “Are you sure you’re only thirteen?” and “Pretty girls are supposed to smile,” and “I’ll teach you how to mow the lawn/drive a car/mix a drink/iron a shirt/tie a tie,” and “Your future husband will thank me,” and “It’s just a joke, right, Barbara? Tell her it’s just a joke.” And Barbara laughed along, always advising me to “Enjoy it while you can. There will come a day when you’ll be insulted when men don’t pay attention to you.”
I loathe men’s jokes. That’s not a phobia, more of an everyday annoyance. But pogonophobia is the fear of beards. Christougenniatiko dentrophobia is the fear of Christmas trees. I found these phobias in a medical textbook that I bought at the Toronto Library annual book sale. Whenever I think I might actually hurt myself, I spell out these words, like a chant, like right now. P-O-G-O-N-O …
I hate myself for feeling like this, again. I hate being back in my old room. I might hate my own mother. “Losers live in the past. Losers live in the past. Losers live in the past.” I don’t know who I’m quoting, but this motivational-speak too has become a chant.
Except, when I look around, the present is a torn-up amusement park. Every sharp edge and gouged hole shows me a once sure-bet place of joy that is no longer available. All that remains are hundreds of chances to trip and bash my head around this sorry wreckage.
And there is something else. Something that tugs my stomach and weights my head, not unlike how suicidal urges pull and push. But this is a new feeling. Something is watching me.
Or am I making that up? Do I want someone to see me that fucking badly?