The Zodiac Killer

As the story goes in the summer of the mid sixties a serial killer was terrorizing the Bay Area. We were watching TV in the front of the house. We equalled, at that time, Donny, Claudia, my Grandmother and myself. Everyone else was either at work or just not there. My Aunt Carmen had a small, white toy poodle she called "Hercules". In the days before AC people actually left their doors and windows open to create a breeze. Suddenly, Hercules went down the hall and started barking into the darkness. He would move forward a little and then retreat. This was odd behavior - even for Hercules. So my Grandmother who was born on the Flat Head Indian Reservation in Montana and as tough as nails decided to go investigate. Then she remembered the accounts of the Zodiac Killer. So she grabbed my peg board and a butcher knife and went down the hall to investigate. (This sounds like a cheap thriller but people apparently act this way in real life). She told us that IF we heard anything we should run to the neighbor's house. Why didn't she go to the neighbors with us? Why didn't she call the police? I think that it is because we are all basically stupid, but I digress. She turned on the hall light with Hercules at her feet barking and snarling. She went first to the room were my Granny stayed and checked it out. Then the bathroom beside it. Then to Donny's room on the right with a window open to the street. Nothing. The tension was obviously building because the dog was still freaking out and she had not found anything. There were only two rooms left, my room and her room. My room checked out "safe" and then the creepy sensation dawned on her that the dog was still barking at the threshold to her room. Police? Oh no, that would be too intelligent.

She flipped the light switch and it did not come on . Of course, she had turned it off beside her bed. This meant she had to walk across the dark room to turn it on. Undaunted, she crept forward with butcher knife and peg board as her protection. In the dark she could see the wind blowing the plastic curtains of her open bedroom window. Turnaround? Go for help? Nope. She continued across the room ready to take down anything that moved. When she reached her bedside she expected to see a lurching image and she was ready - but nothing. She check the closet, under the bed and the small bathroom. Nothing.

After her search Hercules stopped barking and simply trotted back to the living room. So my grandmother, followed closing the window and nonchalantly returning the butcher knife to the kitchen and my pegboard to my toy box. She did not search the backyard or even call anyone. At best she mumbled "damn dog".

Fortunately for us all the dog was either on acid or scared away who ever was there and the Zodiac Killer disappeared from the Bay Area for good. Even though my Grandmother was 5'2'' I would have laid money on her taking out anything in her way. She was one tough broad.

The Devil Returns

During the day I would go down the street and was watched by a friend of the family. It may have been at her house, our my own, it was too dark to tell. Donny and I walked into a room holding hands. There were stacks of cloths or something creating heaps of mounds to walk around. It was strange and detached. I felt no pain - nothing. I was numb. All I knew was that the part that was supposed to be on my front and soft and small was not like that at all. In fact, it was precisely the opposite. I looked up at the wall above the door and remember the pictures there. I remember them as grotesque images of Dali-esque baby, bottoms with messy diapers. I was grossed out by the three similar images but not what was happening around me, to me.

Children are amazing creatures. They have an astounding resilience to accept the absurd, detach themselves and move on. That is why I think so many live with abuse. They simply do not know any better and the mind will do whatever it has to in order to survive.

The Back Yard and Splinters in Claudia's Butt

We had a huge backyard. OK it seemed huge to a 4 year old. It was fenced in with a standard swing set and wooden slide. I remember the red berries that huge over the neighbors fence and which a was informed were poisonous. I would walk on the other side of the yard just to avoid them. But in spite of the possible poisonous peril, I would often play in the warmth of the California sun in our backyard. I had a small play tub made of plastic that I loved to fill with water and play in it like a bath tub. That was until Donny got in it and broke it. And then there was the time Claudia and I were playing on the swing set and she went down the wooden slide on the edge and got a splinter in her butt. I remember a great deal of screaming and crying as her mother tried to pull the splinter out. This was also the place I saw the biggest spider in my life. I was walking under a work bench of some kind and came face to face with a spider web as big as I was. So all things considered it was small but is filled my world and in the middle was an ugly black and brown spider almost at eye level. I think I screamed and cried louder than Claudia did!

This is the time in my life where the adult in me asks, "why were Carmen and Claudia with us again?" They seemed to ebb in and out of our lives like a familiar tide. I am sure it was because the needed a place to stay and Carmen needed someone to watch Claudia while she was at work.

Granny

I do not remember when she came to live with us but I do remember that she had the first bedroom on the right beside the bathroom. She had a bird called Sparky that our Siamese cat "Yowler" ate for a snack one day. I remember walking in to her room and seeing the bird cage on the floor and feathers all over the floor. She was nice to me but at 185 she could still pack a punch. OK she was probably closer to 70 but she seemed like the old grannies from the movies. She loved fish sandwiches and sometimes we would walk two blocks to the Dairy Queen so she could get her fix. I loved the adventure and can still smell the deep-fried goodness. She would even read to me sometimes - if she was not asleep - my favorite book. Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear with real felt inside so you could feel the how fuzzy was he and of course Bugs Bunny and the Pear Tree. He was so crazy, cross dressing and putting mud on his face to get those pears... total hilarity.

She loved toast with marmalade and tea. Her room was first on the right mine was at the end of the hall with a door to the backyard.

Little Cornfields and Railroad Tracks

At some point we moved to a small house in Milpitas not far from the rail road tracks. I was still in diapers and have some old pictures of me in front of the house between Donny and Claudia holding me up. I must confess, I was cute - cherubic even. I was chubby with very blonde, long curls and an impish grin. We lived here for a couple years and I have many memories of this place. While her my Great Grandmother came to live with us for the first time. I am not sure that was a good idea. I do not understand the circumstances but although she was kind to me she was a formidable foe in the three-way yelling matches that ensued between her and my Grandparents. It was not every day but when they started going at it - the volume would raise the roof and the adjectives used would make a sailor blush.

All things considered I liked this house. I had my own bedroom in the back of the house with a door to a fenced in back yard with a small swing set and an enormous slide. The house was small but at least we could each retreat to our own rooms when necessary.

The Devil's Bedroom

We lived in the trailer in Union City while I was a toddler - not sure for how long before we moved. I do not remember everything as I was too young but I do remember walking down the hall and being afraid to go into the first bedroom on the left. I later remembered it as where the devil was. I remember being held down on the bed. I could not move. I tried to scream, yell, call for help but I could not. Something was preventing me. It was a cold and dark room and it instilled a general fear of men in me that I did not understand.

I do not know who it was. It could have been anyone. At the time I was watched by whoever was not working and babysitters. Certainly those with ill intent had access.

Second thoughts and first memories

This part is a little fuzzy - I don't actually remember it, but when I was still an infant, Lydia decided she wanted to have me closer and asked her mother to move to the Bay Area. Why not? So my grandmother load up the car and took Donny and I to a trailer park in Union City. It was there that my grandfather joined us. If I have the story right, he was a post man (I know that's not PC but that what HE called himself). Why he was not in Los Angeles with the rest of us? Well, he and my grandmother had a peculiar relationship. She treated him like dirt, would move and then he would get transferred and follow her. Yep, another entire back story here too. So now we had all the trappings of a little family. A married couple with two small kids. It might have even worked out well had my grandparents actually liked each other and that other kid wasn't my cousin who, well - hated me. I am sure Lydia was cozy in here apartment - where ever that was. There is that too.

Nevertheless, due to Lydia's second thoughts my first memories consisted of a foggy vision of the tiny trailer house and playing in the sunshine. Not too bad really, if only that was as crazy as it ever got.

Left with the pack

This next part is hard to sugar coat and even harder to not sound judgemental. So I will stick with the facts. After six weeks of care and recuperation, Lydia decided that she was not ready to be a mother. She was probably right. So she packed up her things and moved to the Bay Area to start her new life. My new life was left in the care of her mother. Who would become my mother. This was not an unprecedented move though. Her sister, Carmen, got pregnant when she was 15 and gave her first child to her mother to raise too. His name was Donny. He was 8 years my senior and although he was my cousin he would become a kinda-sorta brother. So at first, it was my Grandmother, Carmen, Donny and his little sister Claudia and me in the apartment.

Before you judge too harshly, puppies are weaned at 6 weeks too. And besides she really was not ready to be a mother - single or not. So, although her motives were selfish - it likely saved my life so another oddly good move on Lydia's part.

The big day

They say that good things come to those who wait. On that note my mother Lydia went to the doctor for a check up and he confirmed that calculations that she had at least another two weeks before I arrived. So she went shopping after the appointment for a few things and soon discovered that I was not going to wait. At first my mother was concerned that I was premature. I am sure she was also somewhat relieved that the pregnancy was finally over. I know this to be true because I am the father of five children and every mother I know has ever pined for a longer pregnancy. But I digress. In those days, the would administer a saddle block which basically deadened all sensation from the stomach down. This also meant that she could not push. Thus I was born thanks to a large pair of salad tongs or forceps which pinched my head and literally pulled me out. I am told I had a bit of a cone head and black eye - but with no permanent damage. My wife and children might disagree however. Thus upon my birth my mother was told that I was not premature after all and that they had miscalculated my due date by 2-3 weeks.

Uh-oh. If that were really true the date of my conception was 2-3 weeks earlier. More on that later.

Where was daddy?

Good question. According to who you ask he was drinking, yelling, or left out of the loop (his story). One extra salacious account says he threatened to have all his friends testify in court that they all had "been with" my mother so she could not pin child support on him. Alas, this was before they even knew what DNA was, let alone testing. Regardless, he was not part of the picture after providing the appropriate genetic material and paying for the hospital bill. Thanks dad! But if the truth really was not stranger than fiction, his little "contributions" to my life might end here. But you guessed it! There is more - so much more. Oh yea, I guess the shame was too great for all concerned - except me - and his name was put on my birth certificate. So you can keep the story straight, I will refer to this man as my "birth certificate father" or BCF.

Rolling my eyes so far back in my head I think they may actually stick there.

The lay of the land

While my 20-ish mother was coping with her embarrassment and guilt, she still tried to act cool and that it was "no big deal". It was the sixties after all and although love was free - but unfortunately babies were not. So she moved into a small apartment with her mother, her sister Carmen and her two children (different fathers - there will be a back story on that whole sitch soon). Grandma worked odd jobs, Carmen was a cocktail waitress and they traded off watched the kids. I think it was a two bedroom apartment in the low rent side of Long Beach somewhere.

Meanwhile back at the uterus, the the blob of cells was growing and developing - quite well thank you very much.

In the beginning - or barasheet (Hebrew)

Well I am not sure the exact location but I am sure it was "memorable". My parents wanted to believe - like most young people in the sixties - that they could do whatever they wanted without any negative consequences. HA! What a load of manure. It apparently felt good, so they did it and "oops", reality set in about the time my mother's monthly friend stopped visiting. Then their was that crazy little debate between her mind and her heart about the rights of her body versus my rights to mine.

Based on the fact that I am writing this, I am going to go with she made the correct choice.