Do Tampons Take Your Virginity?: A Catholic Girl's Memoir (4 page)

One night, we were all watching one of those old Mutual of Omaha nature programs. The narrator was busy talking about the sexual urges of flightless birds. I heard the announcer say the word “sex” numerous times, so I asked my father about it.

I asked my father, “Daddy, what’s sex?” Instead of answering, he freaked out. He couldn’t believe that I was asking about S-E-X.

“Turn that television off and go to your room! Christ, there’s nothing on TV except
smut
and
trash!
” he yelled.

So...this made me pretty curious. I certainly wasn’t getting any answers at home.

Every time I had an opportunity to look for sex magazines, I did. I was rarely disappointed. I found nudie magazines in almost every house. And not just vanilla
Playboys
, either. I found juicy, raunchy, nasty, gang-bang magazines.

And here’s the kicker—usually, the houses where the people were the most uptight Catholics were the ones that had the best smut. And the racists always have magazines like
Black Tail
.

Surprisingly, I found a lot of
Playgirl
magazines.

One day, we went to visit my Great-Aunt Rose and her husband Philip. They were well into their seventies. I was a little kid, maybe seven years old. It was late summer, because I remember eating plums from the tree in the backyard. Their house was clean, but it was cluttered the way old people’s homes often are. Every corner was filled with photographs, knickknacks, stacked magazines, etc. It was a goldmine! Lots of potential treasures to discover.

Rose and Philip were the most conservative members of our entire family and they were RICH. I mean, really, really rich. They got lucky in the California real estate market and were millionaires many times over. They had pictures of Ronald Reagan on their walls.

You know where this story is going, right? Yes, of course, I found pornography hidden in their bedroom. Lots of it. Gay porn, straight porn, and bondage porn. A landslide of porn. My heart skipped a beat! I quickly locked myself in the nearest bathroom snuck the magazines inside to read. What fun!

When I was much older, I found out that Rose was barren—she was never able to have any children. But they had two kids—I couldn’t figure that out. It was another family secret that I didn’t learn about until I was an adult. Apparently, Phillip fathered two children by some poor wretch while he and Rose were married and paid this woman a princely sum to forfeit her parental rights. Instant family! Just like that, except much, much creepier.

Years later, Phillip died and Rose became a widow. She never remarried. Rose lived to be over 100 years old, as bitchy as ever. My grandmother and I visited her about ten years ago. Even at her advanced age, Rose was living independently. Ronald Reagan still smiled at me from the living room wall.

1984,
AGE
11

I remember beating my dolls. I would sit in my bedroom and tell the dolls that they had been “very bad.” I would pull down their little frilly panties and beat them. I beat them until my hand turned red. I beat them until my fingers burned. I would also mutilate them, cut their hair, poke them with needles. I tore their heads off and beat the heads against the bedposts.

Afterwards, I felt calm. A wave of tranquility would wash over me, like I had exorcised something evil. Now that I’m older, I know that’s how my father felt after beating me. That’s how every abuser feels after beating up somebody else. It’s like a good kickboxing class—except the practice dummy is your spouse or child.

Eventually, I started mutilating insects. I tortured earthworms, spiders, and other small creatures. I would light a match and hold the earthworm against the match. It would squirm, and a mucous-like substance would come out of the worm. Then I would light another match and hold the earthworm against the flame until it was dead. I did this for a few years. I never graduated to larger animals.

Thankfully, I fell in love with my grandmother’s cats. She always had at least one or two cats living at the house. I loved them. I remember a little gray tabby female named “Princess.” She was so beautiful and affectionate. She purred so loudly that you could hear it in the other room.

I begged my father for a dog or a cat. The answer was always no. I wasn’t even allowed to have a goldfish.

He’d say, “Forget it! It’s more shit for me to pick up!”

I guess I just wanted a friend.

Father wasn’t completely averse to animal ownership. He liked birds. Many people in our hometown had pigeon coops and others kept chickens. My grandfather had about ten chickens in a coop down by the creek. Sometimes we went down to the creek and fed them corn.

I thought the chickens were gross. The coop always smelled like shit and the hens pecked at each other all the time.

Father raised birds when he was a child. He had pigeons and doves, which he trained to eat from his hands and return when he whistled.

Father told me a story about his birds. One day, he noticed that some of his pigeons had disappeared. He suspected a neighborhood cat, so he hid in the bushes for three days, waiting for the cat to appear. On the third day, a scraggly male tabby crept out and started inching his way toward my father’s pigeon coop.

“I didn’t even breathe,” my father said.

“I tiptoed behind the cat and hit it with a stick. It screamed one time only! I kept hitting the cat until there was no cat left! When I was done, it was only a bloody smear on the rocks.” He shook his fist and curled his tongue in his mouth—something that he did when he was angry.

He savored this memory and told it to me often.

We moved to a new house when I was eleven. The house was almost complete, but the lot behind the house was overgrown with weeds and tall grass. One day, my brother and I found a little green parakeet in the grass. It was tame. I caught it with my bare hands and took the bird to my father. He was delighted.

He immediately went out and got a cage for the bird. He bought bird seed and a little white calcium rock for the bird to sharpen its beak. My father’s overall mood seemed to improve. He enjoyed the bird and would stare at it in the afternoon when he was done with his projects.

A week later, my father painted the interior of the house and left the bird inside. It was dead at the bottom of the cage the next day, overcome by paint fumes.

Father was upset. He wrapped the bird carefully in tissue and put him in a little box. Then he put the box in a coffee can. My father buried the can in the backyard. He stood over the bird’s grave site for a very long time. I watched him; he just stood there with his shoulders hunched, a shovel in his right hand.

That was the first and last time we owned a bird or any other pet.

When I finally left home to go to college, several friends and I rented a small apartment. For the first time in my life, I was living with people who weren’t my family. For some reason, we never had pets, but I always wanted a cat.

The first week I was able to afford my own apartment, I went to the county animal shelter. My apartment complex didn’t allow pets, but I didn’t care. I was finally going to have a cat. That was it.

I didn’t make it to the animal shelter in time. They had already closed and it was dark outside. I stood in the parking lot for a long time, staring at the surrender cages outside. The sounds coming from the cages were heartbreaking. I realized that I wasn’t alone in the darkness. An old Rottweiler sat abandoned in the parking lot. His owners had tied him to a fencepost. The poor dog would wait there all night until morning when Animal Control would likely take him inside and euthanize him.

I walked up to the surrender cages and saw a little kitten with giant green eyes and a tiny mouth. His head was a perfect upside-down triangle. I poked my finger into the cage, which was bent at the top, allowing light to enter so I could see him. I spoke to him.

“Little kitty, hold on... because I am coming to get you tomorrow.”

The next day, I was at the shelter when it opened. I lied about the apartment complex’s rules and Kitty came home with me that day.

Kitty was my only companion for many years. I cried into his fur when I was sad. He slept with me at the foot of my bed so I wouldn’t have to sleep by myself. He sat on my lap when I was lonely. He always seemed to know when to come to me. Kitty’s still alive, older, but as devoted as ever. I hope he lives forever, breaking the Guinness World Record for cat survival.

My mental health would have been worse without my beloved pet. He helped me through a lot of dark moments.

I always wondered if my father would have been a better person if he’d allowed animals to live in our home. Father never had a real friend and I suspect that’s part of why he was so cruel. The only time I felt sympathy for him was when I watched him bury that poor parakeet. I saw a glimpse of gentleness and sadness... he became human, even if it was just for a moment.

Everyone should have a pet to love.

CHAPTER 2

1985,
AGE
12

In the Azores, the local magistrate always tried to impose fishing regulations on how many lobsters you could take from the sea. Now, imposing these types of limits on Portuguese fishermen is the same as not imposing them at all. The Portuguese generally believe that the sea belongs to everyone and they have an overall “finders keepers” mentality for everything that comes out of the ocean.

Hey, the fish are out there, right? Well, that just means the Virgin Mary put them there for us to eat. No other explanation is necessary.

I have to admit that I kind of feel this way, too. But then again, I’m not a biologist.

Anyway, the best illegal catch of all is the Portuguese lobster. Everyone is always trying to snag Portuguese lobsters, which look similar to regular lobsters, except that they have a larger, rounder tail with extremely sweet meat.

If a fisherman finds one, he’ll stuff that delicious bad boy in his pants, in his jacket, or any other hiding place he can find in order to get that sucker to a place where he can eat it. A lot of these clandestine lobster parties took place in the
adegas
[ah-DAY-gah], which were Portuguese wine cellars.

I remember one instance in particular. A group of men, which included my father, had been out spear fishing all day. My brother and I went along for the ride. We stayed inside the little boat while they fished in the open water about ten miles away from shore. They found two great little spots that were full of Portuguese limpets (lapas) and lobsters. Lapas are similar to scallops, except with a chewier texture. They also have tiny little heads with fleshy horns (not kidding). Lapas and lobsters were both restricted items, but the fishermen had found their spectacular catch and they weren’t about to let it get away.

They used their diving knives to pull the lapas from the rocks, and they collected them in mesh bags, which were tied to their waists. The lobsters, which were snapping furiously, also went into the bags.

The men all got back into the boat. The deal was made.

“Okay, I’ll go around to the back of the dock and put our bags in the rocks. At night, we’ll come back and collect them,” said my father. He was obviously the ringleader.

All of the men nodded in agreement. My father then looked at my brother and me. “When we go back up to shore, don’t say anything about the lobsters or the lapas. In fact, don’t say anything at all. Just keep your mouths shut.” My brother and I nodded mutely.

The magistrate was on the docks that day, inspecting all the boats that came in. My father and his buddies brought the boat up to the dock and the magistrate walked up to them. “Ho! Ho! What do we have here today?” he asked, arching one eyebrow.

“Oh, nothing much... just a few eels and some other fish.” My father spoke for the group and all the other men nodded solemnly. Here in the Azores, my father was like a little king. Father was a teacher back in America and everyone knew it and respected him for it.

The magistrate didn’t believe them and he searched the entire boat. The fishermen became indignant.

“What, you don’t believe us? Don’t you have anything better to do than to harass the hardworking fishermen of this town?” said my father angrily.

The magistrate frowned and left. He wasn’t ready to pick a fight with this united front. The men walked up to the shore, still angry. Instead of being happy they didn’t get caught, they were pissed that the magistrate had suspected them at all.

“That bastard should mind his own business.”

“They don’t have anything better to do.”

“Useless! The government around here is useless!”

I was puzzled by their anger. I thought they would be relieved that the illegal catch hadn’t been discovered. Instead, they were all annoyed.

Later that night, my father went back to the dock. He crawled down to the rocks and picked up the lapas and lobsters. The bag bulged with delicacies. Father placed the illegal catch in a burlap sack and we walked quickly to my cousin Manuel’s
adega
, where they already had a roaring fire waiting for everyone.