North of Normal- A memoir of my wilderness childhood, my unusual family, and how I survived both

by Cea Sunrise Person

“Okay. Well, it was because of this story he’d made up about your mother. That’s what started it, anyway. But mostly it’s because of you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yup.”

  “But how could I make him go crazy?”

  “You didn’t. But you made him prove to us all just how crazy he was. Your uncle is a very sick man, kiddo. I’m telling you, you need to stay away from him.” Jan exhaled a slow stream of smoke into the air. Then she turned toward me, her pale blue eyes boring into mine. “I think it’s about time I told you a little story.”

  IT HAPPENED JUST AFTER my first birthday, my aunt told me, when we were living at the house in Hills. My grandparents and Aunt Jessie were out one evening, and Mom and Jan were giving me a bath in the kitchen sink. All was fine until Dane came into the room. He stood there, just staring at Mom, and then pointed a finger at her.

  “You!” he barked. “What are you still doing here?”

  Mom ignored him, lifting me from the sink and wrapping me in a towel. Dane had been acting pretty strangely for a while now, but lately he seemed to be focusing more and more on Mom, going on about fake mothers and orphaned babies.

  “What is it?” she asked him finally, holding me to her chest.

  “That baby,” Dane said, reaching for me. “She belongs with her real mother. Give her to me.”

  Mom glanced nervously at Jan and tried to push past Dane, but he grabbed her arm. Mom twisted away from him, and she and Jan bolted down the hall to their bedroom and shut the door. Since there was no lock on it, Jan grabbed a chair and shoved it under the doorknob. Dane hammered his fists against the other side, cursing and yelling, while I screamed in Mom’s arms. Jan ran to the window and looked down, but she already knew it was too high. Mom was just about to shove me into the closet when the chair slipped to the floor with a clatter. Dane stormed into the room, yanked me out of Mom’s arms and took off down the stairs to the cellar. Mom and Jan chased him to the laundry room, but he slammed the door in their faces and slid the dead bolt.

  Through the wall, they could hear me wailing. Mom covered her ears with her hands and slid to the floor, where she curled into a ball. After a few minutes, I went quiet.

  Not too much later, my grandparents came home. When Papa Dick learned what had happened, he removed the hinges from the laundry room door and threw it aside. The room was dark inside. Jan pulled the cord on the bare bulb, and they saw Dane in a corner, rocking with his head in his hands. The laundry sink faucet was turned on, running water onto the floor. Mom, Jan and Papa Dick crossed the room and found me lying in the sink, unconscious. Mom scooped me up and held me, sobbing uncontrollably, while Papa Dick went upstairs and stuffed some clothes into a bag. Then he led his only son to the VW bus, placed him in the back seat and, as the story goes, didn’t stop driving until he got to the nearest mental hospital, almost five hundred miles away.

  AFTER HEARING THIS STORY from my aunt, I wished I could take it out of my head again. It hung around in my mind like a bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from. Now I knew what Papa Dick meant about what went down in Hills.

  A short time later, I was walking by Dane’s tent when I noticed that his cardboard sign looked different. I knelt down in front of it and sounded out the words: Dane’s—I’m watching you SO GO THE FUCK AWAY!

  I jumped up and ran. The next morning, my grandfather came home from his hunting trip. He took one look at Dane, packed his belongings into his knapsack and led him down the trail for the long drive back to the loony bin. I clutched Suzie Doll to my chest as I watched Dane disappear into the trees. All I could think was how glad I was that she was safe in my arms, and that if my Uncle Dane ever came back to visit us again, I would never ever let him hold her again.

  Part Two

  Cracks

  Chapter Ten

  While my Uncle Dane had been busy scaring the crap out of me with lies about my mother, love had blossomed at home.

  “I’ve finally found my mountain man,” Mom told me happily, sweeping me into a giant hug. “And you know what the best part is, sweetheart?”

  “What?” I asked into her hair.

  “He’s an Aries. That means he’s the most sexually compatible with my sign, Pisces. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  I nodded, happy that she was happy. Her eyes looked as shiny as our creek did when the sun hit it just right.

  Mom’s new love was Karl, of course, the man who had moved into our tipi some weeks before. With his perfectly straight white teeth and long, wavy hair, even I could see he was handsome. He wore a thin gold chain around his neck, baby blue bell-bottom cords that matched his eyes, and he liked to stretch his long legs out by the fire while he read a book called I’m OK, You’re OK. Sometimes he would chat with Papa Dick about the world’s most boring stuff, like food preservatives and the crisis of modern progression. But mostly Karl liked to talk about himself. It was grief that had brought him to the wilderness, he told us. As a teen, both of his parents had passed away within months of each other and left him orphaned; to escape foster care, he ran away to the bush and built himself a small cabin. It was a story my mother never tired of hearing. She would massage his shoulders as he spoke, nodding sadly and rubbing her bare breasts against his back. Sometimes Karl would pull her into his lap and fiddle with one of her nipples while he talked, and Mom would stick her tongue into his ear. I thought that was pretty gross, because there was probably wax in there.

  But there was another side to Mom’s new relationship. It seemed that when she and Karl weren’t screwing, they were arguing. They fought about everything: Karl was messy, Mom was lazy, Karl was an asshole, Mom smoked too much pot, Karl should get himself some sensitivity and Mom should get herself a brain. One subject that came up often was where we lived. Karl grouched that he had never intended to stay at our camp longer than a few weeks, and that he had a pot crop back at his cabin that needed tending. Mom reminded him that she had a child to raise and needed her parents’ help doing so. Karl countered that it sounded to him like Mom was picking her parents over him, so maybe he should just be off on his jolly way. Karl won.

  “PAPA DICK,” I CRIED, leaning out the open window of Karl’s green pickup truck. “Don’t let us go! Please! I want to stay here with you. Pleeeeeaaaase . . .”

  I clung to my grandfather, pleading and crying. Beside me, my mother was in tears of her own, heaving great sobs as she reached for Grandma Jeanne’s hands through the window. Papa Dick held me for a moment, and then gently eased his shirt out of my clenched fists.

  “Peanut,” he said to me, shaking his head, “there’s no reason for such tears. Don’t you remember what Papa’s always taught you?”

  “N-no,” I replied, wiping furiously at my eyes.

  “That nothing is real except the moment you’re in. The past and the future are just illusions. Much like a dream—interesting, but useless. People who live in the past are living in a place of fear, and you’re not a fearful girl. You’re a brave girl. Okay?”

  I sniffled and nodded. “But . . . but when will I see you and Grandma Jeanne again?”

  “I don’t know. Someday, probably. But until then, you need to live as if your grandmother and I never even existed. All right?”

  I tried to smile through my tears.

  “Good girl.” He leaned in the window to hug me, and my arms went around his waist.

  My fingers touched something cold on his belt loop, and I realized it was the roach clip I had made him the Christmas before. I unclipped it and hid it in my hand. In the driver’s seat, Karl tipped his hat back and lit a cigarette.

  “Come on,” he grumbled, starting the engine. “Let’s get this crybaby show on the road.”

  We pulled away in a crush of gravel and cloud of dust, Mom still crying beside me. I leaned against her arm and closed my eyes. He doesn’t exist, he doesn’t exist, I thought to myself over and over again, but it was no use; I knew very well Papa Dick was right where we had left him, in fact he was probably wal
king back through the forest to our camp by now. I twisted my head around to look out the back window, but it was already too late. Smooth blacktop unwound behind us, dotted on each side by green and white signs. I opened my hand and gazed down at my treasure, breathing in deeply to stop a fresh flood of tears.

  “Mommy, where are we going?” I asked.

  “Karl’s place. He lives in a house,” she replied quietly, and I felt a stab of excitement in spite of myself.

  After a little while, I fell asleep with my head slumped against my mother’s heaving shoulder.

  I SAT UP AND rubbed at my cheek, cold from being pressed against the window. It was almost dark outside. We had left the highway, and were now on a dirt road with a shaggy strip of grass growing down the middle. Elton John sang “Daniel” on the tape deck.

  “Mommy,” I whispered, rubbing my eyes. “When will we be there?”

  She didn’t answer, so I glanced to my left. She was lying across the seat with her rear end pressed up against my thigh. Karl’s pants were down, and Mom’s head was bobbing up and down in his lap. I turned away. The road was getting bumpier, but Karl wasn’t driving any slower. I snuck another peek at him. He was pumping his crotch up and down under Mom’s face, gripping the steering wheel hard enough to make his knuckles turn white. He reached around my mother’s back, threw the truck into low gear and steered toward the trees. Ahead of us, I could just make out a faint set of tire tracks. Mom’s head was bobbing faster beside me. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Don’t stop,” I heard Karl say breathlessly. “Don’t stop.”

  Branches scraped across our windshield. I opened my eyes again and saw that we were climbing a slope. There were red flags tied to branches here and there, and I wanted to ask what they were for, but I didn’t dare. The engine strained as we climbed over a fallen log, making the beam of the headlights bounce up and down. I heard Karl moan, my mother gag, and a few seconds later she sat up and wiped her mouth. The truck burst through the forest into a small clearing.

  “Now how’s that for timing?” Karl cackled to Mom, stomping down on the parking brake. “We’re home.”

  SO THIS IS A house, I thought when I awoke the next morning.

  There were no windows, so I could only tell it was morning by the crack of light framing the caribou-hide door. I sat up in my bed, scratching at my legs. They had felt itchy all night long. I lifted up the army blanket I was lying on. My bed was made of hay bales, just like Mom and Karl’s across from me. At the center of the room was a woodstove, and beside it a table with two graying tree stumps for stools. Other than that, it was difficult to see any furniture for all the clutter. Shelves built from orange crates held books, curling magazines, tape rolls and tins of food. I could tell that the floor was made of packed dirt, but only because it looked as though Mom had cleared a path through Karl’s junk from the door to the bed.

  I pulled on my clothes, grabbed Suzie Doll and slipped out the door. Bright sunlight hit me square in the face, making me squint. I stood back and stared at the outside of the cabin. It was made from logs, plywood sheets and orange crates, all hammered together to form four walls. The roof was covered in tinfoil. I walked around the building and started down the trail back to the truck. Along the way I found an outhouse, a woodpile, a heap of empty tin cans and a small greenhouse filled with marijuana plants. I hugged Suzie Doll to my chest. Ever since my Aunt Jessie had told me that pot plants were illegal, my belly always jumped at the sight of them. At least Mom had told me that we didn’t need to worry this time; Karl had lived in his cabin for almost six years, and nobody had found his secret garden yet.

  “MOMMY, WHY WOULD A chair have a hole in it where your ass is supposed to go?”

  “Hmm? What was that, honey?” Lifting her basin from the table, Mom crossed the room and pitched the dirty water outside.

  “A chair,” I repeated, swinging Suzie Doll around by the arm. “I found one in the bushes behind the cabin, but it had a big hole in it. I sat down and my ass fell right in.”

  “Oh,” Mom said, giving me a little smile. “That sounds like a toilet. I think Karl tried to install one, but the pipes kept backing up with mud.”

  “Oh.” I sat down and returned to drawing my picture, glad I had made Mom smile. She hadn’t been laughing as much since we arrived at Karl’s cabin, and she said it was because Karl was a slob and she missed my grandparents. We weren’t even allowed to go visit them, because Karl said trips in the truck were for emergencies only. As it turned out, the red flags I had seen on the way here were put there by Karl to throw the cops off his trail. Anyone who followed them would be led on a wild-goose chase, so he couldn’t afford to let the tire trail to his cabin become too worn in.

  I had trouble sleeping. I would lie in my straw bed at night, holding Papa Dick’s roach clip and trying to convince myself that my grandparents had never existed. I even created a new life story for myself: I was born in California, but my father died right afterward, so Mom put me in a canoe and paddled until she got to the Kootenay Plains. We lived in a tipi, just the two of us, until Randall saved me when I tried to die. After that my Uncle Dane found us, so Mom and I got back into our canoe and paddled down the river to Karl’s cabin. But one day, my mother and I would get into our canoe again and move to that concrete jungle Papa Dick always talked about and wear fancy dresses, just like Barbie.

  I spent a lot of time in canoes during my wilderness years, as they were often our primary form of transportation.

  Sometimes, if I focused hard enough on my story just before I fell asleep, I could actually make myself believe it. But when I woke up the next morning, my first thought would always be that my grandparents were right where we had left them, going on about their lives without me. I wondered if they ever talked about me, or if they just tried to pretend that I didn’t exist too.

  ONE DAY, I WAS sitting on the floor drawing a picture of Barbie from memory when I heard running footsteps outside. They came closer and closer, and then Karl burst in through the caribou-hide door.

  “The heat’s on our asses!” he shouted at Mom. “Goddamn it! Get our shit together!”

  Mom jumped up from where she was sitting, looking wildly around the room. She had been butchering a rabbit Karl had brought home that morning, and her hands were covered with blood. She rushed over to the basin and started washing them. Karl grabbed a duffel bag from a shelf and ran outside again.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Mom, who by now was hurrying from one side of the room to the other trying to collect our belongings. She kept picking things up and putting them down again.

  “The police,” she replied distractedly. “I guess they’ve found Karl’s pot plants.”

  My stomach felt as if it had been punched. I swallowed hard and strained my ears. Faintly, I could make out the low rumble of a vehicle engine getting closer. Then I had an exciting thought. “Maybe it’s Papa Dick and Grandma Jeanne!”

  “It can’t be. You know nobody knows where Karl lives, not even them. Come on now, get your boots and coat on.” She tossed them to me and I did as she asked, then slid off my bed and stood uncertainly. Mom glanced over at me. “Get your things together. Suzie Doll, your books . . .” She reached up to a high shelf to grab her backpack.

  “Mommy, are we going to the slammer?”

  “What?”

  “The slammer. Where they put people who do bad things like grow pot plants.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Aunt Jessie. That time when the cops came to our tipi.”

  Mom shook her head as she stuffed a sleeping bag into a nylon sack. “Don’t worry about it. You’re only five, that’s way too young to go to jail.”

  “But what about you?”

  She shook her head again. “Just don’t worry about it. Now come on, we have to get going.”

  Outside I could hear the engine coming closer, joined by the rumble of Karl’s truck starting up. Mom shouldered her pack, took my hand and pulled me
out the door. I broke away from her and dashed back inside to grab Suzie Doll and my Big Blue Book.

  Through the trees, Karl was shouting at us from the truck. “Let’s go, goddamn it!”

  “Quickly,” Mom said to me, pushing me ahead of her on the trail.

  I glanced at Karl’s greenhouse as we hurried by it. All the pot plants had been picked, leaving only a patch of bare stems. Karl was in the cab, motioning for us to hurry. Mom threw her pack into the back of the pickup and we piled in beside him. Behind us, I could hear a low drone.

  “Hang on,” Karl said, popping the parking brake.

  Mom pulled me close while he hit the gas. We lurched forward across the clearing, heading for the trees. Karl veered to the right and slid between two evergreens, tires squealing against the trunks. He crunched through a frozen creek, came up the other side and drove on, looking for an opening.

  “Shit,” he said, stomping on the brake. He turned to look out the rear window, and I did the same. From where we were parked, I couldn’t see the clearing. “We’ll wait them out,” Karl said, sitting back in his seat and crossing his arms.

  “Wait who out?” I asked. “What, Mommy?”

  “Shh . . . the cops. Don’t worry about it, Karl knows what he’s doing.” She pulled me close and cupped her hand around my head.

  “What? What are we doing? Are you going to jail now?”

  Nobody answered.

  After a few minutes, Karl jumped wordlessly out of the cab and walked back toward the clearing. Panic clutched me. Was he leaving us? The cops were less than a mile away, we didn’t know the way from Karl’s cabin to the road, and Mom didn’t even know how to drive.

  “Where’s he going? Mommy. Where’s he going?”

  “It’s okay . . . shh . . .”

  I twisted around in my seat and watched the trees until I saw Karl jogging back toward us. He got behind the steering wheel and slammed the door. “All clear. Cruiser’s still there, but it’s empty. We’re gonna go for it.”