Yesterday, I Cried

by IYANLA VANZANT

  Aunt Nadine ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs, holding the cat by the hind legs. By the time Ray realized what was happening, Aunt Nadine was swinging the poor cat in his direction. Ray ducked and tried to ward off the blow, but Baby’s protruding front claws connected with Ray’s back. The cat started screeching, Ray was screaming, Aunt Nadine was furious, and Rhonda thought it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. Rhonda had been beaten with a lot of things, for a lot of reasons, but never with a cat! Ray stayed in his room for days, refusing to let Rhonda see him. The cat stayed under the bed for days, refusing even to eat or to curl up at the foot of Rhonda’s bed.

  As Ray got older and began to hang out with boys his own age, the distance between him and Rhonda increased, but when he became interested in girls, the distance became incalculable. When Aunt Nadine got sick and had to stop taking care of children, Ray got a part-time job. So, in addition to being silent, he was hardly ever home. When Ray was home, he and his friends hung out in his room, a place Rhonda dared not go for fear of Ray intentionally embarrassing her again. In front of all those cute boys, he’d say, “What do you want, ugly?” or “Take your ugly self on out of here.” His friends found it all very amusing. Rhonda was mortified.

  Somehow, without her knowledge, Rhonda had become offensive to the brother she loved so much. With Nett gone and Aunt Nadine sick and sleeping most of the time, Rhonda felt very alone. Sometimes she tried to figure out what had happened to change Ray. Other times, she ate. She’d sneak sandwiches into her room and eat them all alone. The food helped to fill the hole in her heart left by her big brother.

  Ray was distant and aloof and, at times, oblivious to everyone and everything in his life that should have been important to him. He confirmed the lesson Rhonda was taught by her father. Men are emotionally, and often physically, unavailable. Ray, through his asthma attacks, taught Rhonda that you must put other people’s interests ahead of your own. When he got older and his asthma attacks began to subside, he taught her how to love people despite their mistreatment of you. The one thing Rhonda wanted was to have a normal, loving relationship with her brother, but Ray taught her that it is painful at best, and impossible under most circumstances, to have what you want. Rhonda learned that people close to you could betray you and that they didn’t care what happens to you. At Kings County Hospital, Rhonda learned that being poor was synonymous with being treated like less than nothing. And Ray taught her that, unlike him, she was neither valued nor beautiful. She was, in fact, ugly.

  CHAPTER SIX

  What’s the Lesson When You Are Raped as a Child?

  Every situation with which we are confronted, whether it be in our body or in our outer affairs—every situation—contains somewhere within it the seed of our good.

  Richard Jafolla, in Soul Surgery

  I HAD BEEN SOAKING in a bathtub of warm water for one hour and thirty-three minutes. My toes and fingers were gray and wrinkled. It was amazing to me how much of my life I had remembered. It was equally amazing how much pain I had remembered without experiencing the pain again. You can feel bad and recover without it being hard. I really had healed so many wounds. What I had not done was acknowledge and celebrate my healing. I still panic when things go well. When we do not remember to celebrate our progress, the day-to-day revelations that led to our feeling better, what we do remember is the pain. It is the pain that keeps us stuck in our patterns. The pair is familiar.

  I still panic when things don’t go well. I still beat up on myself when I make mistakes. I automatically believe that I am the one at fault, the one who is wrong, when people get upset with me. I still doubt myself when I am criticized or challenged by other people. I allow them to say too much about what I do, how I do it, and when I do it. And I use what they say as the foundation for why I do it.

  I had to fire Karen. Period! I had to figure out why I had not or could not seem to honor my own personal boundaries when dealing with her. Hell! I knew this was not about Karen, it was about me. It was about new levels of the same old wounds. It was about uncovering them, understanding the influence, and healing them.

  I had to continue, but I could not take another minute in the tub. It was time to get down. And that’s just what I did. I placed four big bath sheets on the floor and lowered my wrinkled body onto three of them, covering myself with the fourth. It was time to “get naked in front of God,” as Grandma used to say. It is hard to believe that as mean as she was and as badly as she had treated me, I could still find some of the things she said to me useful. I guess there really is some good in everything and everyone.

  Uncle Leroy was a mystery to Rhonda. When he was sober, he was silent and brooding. He rarely spoke when he came home from work. He ate in silence, made little comment on his activities of the day, and refused to answer the telephone. He never asked about the children, even when one of them was sick. Rhonda had never heard him mention his family, his job, or even the weather. She did know, however, that Uncle Leroy had a girlfriend.

  But with a few drinks to loosen his tongue and his temperament, Uncle Leroy was a totally different man. He’d tell funny, risqué stories to the children when Aunt Nadine wasn’t listening. He’d pretend to be a wild stallion and let Ray, Rhonda, and Beanie ride around the room on his back while he bucked and tried to throw them off. Sometimes Uncle Leroy would grab Aunt Nadine and dance her around the house, singing off-key love songs loudly in her ear. The children loved it when he’d do his James Brown imitation. He’d use the broom or mop for his microphone while he did outrageous dance steps across the kitchen. When Aunt Nadine told him he was acting like an old fool and scuffing up her newly waxed floor, Uncle Leroy would sing his promise to lay down more wax and paint the whole kitchen to boot. When he was drunk, Uncle Leroy had a need to paint. He painted the kitchen every other month. First it was pink, then yellow. Once he pained it a dark, almost navy, blue. Rhonda, Ray, and Cousin Beanie had to cover it with three coats of paint when sober Uncle Leroy went back to work on Monday morning. The best thing about Uncle Leroy when he was drunk was that he’d leave his money lying around as he slumbered through intoxication to sobriety.

  Rhonda learned how to rob Uncle Leroy early on. The first time, she was scared to death. How would she explain having money? You get an allowance, stupid! How would she hide the things she bought with the stolen loot? Buy things to eat, fool! Ray robbed him, too, but Rhonda never knew how often or how much he took. Rhonda stuck to coins. Fifty cents here. Thirty cents there. As long a she did it when he was drunk, Uncle Leroy never seemed to miss it.

  Aunt Nadine had started having high-blood-pressure problems. She had neither the strength nor the energy to keep children, and she seldom left the house now. One Saturday, Aunt Dora insisted that Aunt Nadine come along to a bid whist card party that was held regularly at a friend’s house. Aunt Nadine loved it. She even won a little pocket money her first time out. After that, Aunt Nadine became a regular. If she won, they’d have pizza for dinner, and Rhonda would get new clothes. Aunt Nadine didn’t shop at the big, expensive stores that Nett patronized, but at least Rhonda would get blouses that matched her skirts and socks that matched the blouses.

  Saturdays became an even lonelier time for Rhonda with Aunt Nadine off playing bid whist and Beanie at dance classes all day. Ray would be at football practice most of the day, and Uncle Leroy—drunk or sober—was no company at all. Rhonda would fill the empty hours sewing, reading, watching television, or playing with her dolls while she waited for someone, anyone, to come home.

  On one rainy Saturday afternoon, Rhonda found herself home and virtually alone with Ray, who had banished her from his room twice already, and Uncle Leroy, who had gotten drunk and passed out in the basement hours ago. Rhonda wanted to sew something, an apron, perhaps, but couldn’t find any material. She had already gotten into trouble with Aunt Nadine for cutting up one of her good sheets. She quickly became bored with television, then with reading a Nancy Drew mystery, and had no new comi
cs to read. Rhonda decided she would go down to the basement and play some records and dance, but the music disturbed Uncle Leroy, and he told her to get back upstairs. He rolled over on his side, drooling on the sofa cushions and snoring loudly. Rhonda saw a wad of bills sticking out of his back pants pocket. She crept over to the sofa and slowly pulled a five-dollar bill from the roll. She backed away from the sofa, then tiptoed back up the stairs.

  An hour later, Rhonda was drying off her rain gear and convincing herself that it was okay to take Uncle Leroy’s money. After all, he’d give her money anyway when he was drunk. She sat on the floor of her bedroom, surveying her loot: a long-necked bottle of Pepsi, five new Archie comics, five candy bars, and a half-gallon bottle of Nett’s favorite bubble bath. Rhonda lined her comics up in a neat row on the floor near her bed. She put the Pepsi and the bubble bath on either end of the row and placed a candy bar beside each comic book. Her plan was to first drink the Pepsi, then read a comic, then eat a candy bar, and so on until she got to the bubble bath; then she’d take a nice long soak in the tub. By then, Beanie or Aunt Nadine should be home.

  She had barely savored the last sweet swallow of soda, when she heard a loud crashing noise from the kitchen. Quickly, she shoved her comics, candy, and bubble bath under the bed and went to see what all the commotion was about. Uncle Leroy was falling down drunk. He had tripped over a chair and lay spread-eagle on the floor, against the refrigerator. He was trying desperately to right himself and the chair, when Rhonda came running into the kitchen. She placed the chair back at the table and pulled Uncle Leroy to his unsteady feet.

  “Where’s everybody?” Uncle Leroy slurred, holding onto the wall.

  “Aunt Nadine’s gone to play cards,” Rhonda said. Uncle Leroy was trying to focus his gaze and figure out why he was in the kitchen.

  “Your brother home?” he asked.

  “He’s watching TV upstairs,” Rhonda answered, anxious to get back to her own room.

  “You doin’ some reading?”

  “Yes, Uncle Leroy.” There was a long pause while Uncle Leroy tried to think of something else to ask. Rhonda fidgeted with the buttons on her blouse and waited politely for an opportunity to escape back to her comics and candy. Finally, Uncle Leroy mumbled something under his breath, then turned and left the kitchen.

  Halfway through her first comic, Rhonda heard Uncle Leroy calling her name. Exasperated, she went to the top of the steps leading down to the basement and saw Uncle Leroy sprawled across the bottom steps, unable either to get back up the stairs or back to the sofa. He looked pitiful, and Rhonda wondered whether he was lonely, too. “Yes, Uncle Leroy? I’m here.”

  “C’mon down here and talk to me, baby,” Uncle Leroy slurred. “And bring me some of them pig feets, I’m hongry.”

  He knows! He knows I took his money. I should have just taken coins. No, I shouldn’t have taken anything. He wants to talk to me about all the times his money’s been missing. How come Ray’s never the one to get caught? What am I going to say?

  Rhonda always tried to avoid looking at the big glass jar of pickled pig’s feet when she opened the refrigerator. Just the sight of the dismembered feet lying in the bottom of the jar in the murky juice made her sick to her stomach. It reminded her of horror movies and mad scientists doing weird experiments in their dungeon laboratories. Maybe she’d make him a salami sandwich instead. No. She was already in enough trouble; she’d better fix him just what he asked for. It might help her case.

  Rhonda removed the huge jar from the back of the top shelf of the refrigerator and placed it on the kitchen table. She got down a plate from the cabinet and put it next to the jar. She got a fork and a knife from the silverware drawer, wrapped them in three paper napkins, and placed them on a wooden tray. Aunt Nadine had made a large bowl of potato salad that morning, and Rhonda put a heaping scoop on the plate. Next, she filled a plastic tumbler with cold water and put it and a bottle of hot sauce on the tray. She saved the worst for last. Holding her breath, she opened the jar and took out two of the smelly pig’s feet and placed them on the plate next to the potato salad. She tried not to breathe until she had replaced the lid and put the jar back behind the milk bottles in the refrigerator.

  Rhonda stood with the tray at the top of the steps, squeezed her eyes shut, and said a silent prayer. She asked God to please not let Uncle Leroy be too mad at her, to please forgive her sin, and to please let her keep the bubble bath. Then she carefully descended the stairs to the basement.

  Uncle Leroy was sitting up on the sofa, leaning hard to the left. He motioned her to put the tray down on the coffee table in front of him. Rhonda did as he indicated, but avoided looking directly at him so he couldn’t see the guilt in her eyes.

  “That’s nice, baby. Real nice,” Uncle Leroy said. He patted the seat cushion next to him. “Sit next to me while I eat. We can talk and maybe have us a little fun, too.”

  Even from across the coffee table, Rhonda could smell the stale liquor on his breath. The last thing she wanted to do was get closer to Uncle Leroy and watch him eat pig’s feet. This was not her idea of fun. But what could she do? She had stolen his money and now she had to pay.

  “C’mon, baby,” Uncle Leroy said, “I won’t bite you. I just want to talk to you.”

  Rhonda walked around the coffee table and sat stiffly on the far end of the sofa. Uncle Leroy picked up a pig’s foot and took a big, juicy bite, letting the juice roll down his chin and onto his shirt. Rhonda was disgusted. The stench of the alcohol plus the strong vinegar smell of the pickled pig’s feet was overwhelming, and Uncle Leroy was making loud, smacking noises as he chewed and talked at the same time.

  “Why don’t you have the other one?” he asked. He shook the pig’s foot in her direction, and it slipped from his greasy fingers and fell to the floor between his feet. “Get that for me, baby. My head hurts too bad to bend down that far.”

  Rhonda slid down the sofa toward Uncle Leroy and retrieved the offensive foot. When she offered it to him, he grabbed her wrist instead, and pulled her to him. The meat fell onto the sofa between his legs. Rhonda instinctively pushed him away with her free hand, but he grabbed that wrist as well and forced her onto his lap. Rhonda tried to free herself from his grasp, but drunk as he was, Uncle Leroy held on fast.

  “You gonna get that for me, baby?” Uncle Leroy’s mouth was at Rhonda’s ear. Her stomach was churning from the foul, sour odor. Uncle Leroy was smiling a drunken, seductive smile. Was he trying to punish her for taking his money by scaring her? The more she twisted her wrists to get away from him, the tighter his hold and the closer he pulled her to him.

  “I can’t pick it up while you’re holding my hands,” she said. Uncle Leroy released one of her hands, and when she reached for the pig’s foot, he pushed her hand into his crotch and held it there. He stuck his tongue in her ear, then gave her a sloppy, wet kiss on the mouth, pushing his tongue against her tightly clenched teeth.

  “Don’t fight me, baby. We gonna have us a little fun, that’s all. Don’t it feel good? Take it easy. Your old uncle can make you feel real good, if you just relax a little.” He let go of her hands and pulled her face to his, but she turned away before he could kiss her again. He stuck his tongue deep into her ear and slid his hands under her blouse, fondling the nipples on her flat chest.

  Rhonda was rigid. She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t move. What was he doing? He told her she could call him Daddy; after all, he provided for her and her brother, he gave her piggyback rides and told her funny stories. Was he so drunk that he thought she was Aunt Nadine? He wasn’t supposed to be doing these things to her. She was sure of that. Did he think he could do the nasty to her because she stole his money? Did he think she wouldn’t tell on him because then he would tell on her? He had torn her blouse and now he was ripping off her panties. He was mumbling about fun and how beautiful she was. He was unzipping his pants. He was forcing her down onto her back and climbing on top of her. She was sorry for what she di
d. She had told God how sorry she was. His weight was crushing her, his rough, callused hands were scratching and bruising her private parts. She’d willingly give up the bubble bath if only he’d stop pushing his thing into her. He was hurting her. He was making her pay. There was nothing she could do but lie there while he grunted obscenities in her ear and told her he loved her.

  The chill of the bathroom floor was coming right up through the towels and penetrating my spine. How many times? How many times do I have to live through that? As many times as necessary, until it no longer makes you sick to your stomach. I was freezing. Get in the tub. Get back in the tub and wash this crap away. Naked, I crawled over to the tub. The bathroom seemed to be filled with the stench of stale liquor on an old man’s breath. I turned on the hot water full blast. This time, I even put the Jacuzzi jets on. Reaching for the lavender oil, I fought the urge to vomit. Just breathe!

  But I could hear Rhonda crying in my mind. I could see her lying there, mute, numb, violated, frightened, and guilty. I forgive myself! I forgive myself! I forgive myself! Why does it take so long for the tub to get full? I could feel Rhonda’s eyes piercing my heart. I could feel her pain in the pit of my stomach. She was waiting to see what I was going to do. Rhonda wanted to know if someone, anyone, was going to help her. To save her. To protect her. I am not a victim. I am not his victim! Not today. Not ever again! The words didn’t help. I was about to have a combination-tear experience. As my shoulders slumped and I lowered my butt onto the freezing tile floor, big, hot salty tears fell from my eyes, streamed down my face, and rolled down my breasts. I felt so bad for her. He had taken her innocence before she even had breasts.

  When a little girl is being violated, her mind will escape from her body and wander randomly. She won’t smell the stench of liquor on her violator’s foul breath, she won’t feel his callused palms on her flat chest, nor will she suffer the pain of his grown-man’s penis ripping the virginal tissue of her vagina. Instead, she might wonder if her mother is really dead; she might wonder why her father didn’t have the time or desire to provide for her and her brother; or she might wonder how she would explain the grease stains on the sofa from the pig’s foot she still held in her hand.