Humble Bastard: A Memoir

By Onika Pointer

Have you ever felt like a goldfish in a bowlthe way the goldfish seems to be full of anxiety swimming around in circles as if trying to find a way out? In this memoir, author Onika Pointer discusses how she felt like a goldfish in a bowl for most of her life, and she demonstrates how she learns to take responsibility for her own happiness.

Granddaughter and great niece of the famous singing group, The Pointer Sisters, Onika was born at the peak of the groups success. In Humble Bastard, she talks about the privileges and advantages afforded to her as a result of her familys stardom. But this memoir also addresses how some of that privilege came with pain. Abused by her mother both physically and emotionally for seventeen years, Onika reveals the darkness in her lifeweight issues, suicide attempts, homelessness, a tragic accident, and the deaths of those close to her.

Endowed with a sixth sense that allows her to see past time and before time, Onika looks within herself, discovers personal strength, and prevails. Humble Bastard speaks to those in similar situations and demonstrates that hopes, goals, and inner peace are all attainable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450212731

Onika Pointer

Onika Pointer has been writing poetry and short stories for eleven years. She is the first-born granddaughter to Ruth Pointer of The Pointer Sisters. Pointer lives in Hollywood, California, and is now working as a film actress and spends her time auditioning, writing, and volunteering at a homeless shelter.

Book preview

Contents

Chapter 1 the sickness

Chapter 2 Family Ties

Chapter 3 The Rejected

Chapter 4 The Weight of Rejection

Chapter 5 For The Love of Lady Jaw

Chapter 6 A New Beginning

Chapter 7 The First Miracle of Many to Come

Chapter 8 The Adolescent Rebellious lover

Chapter 9 Miss. Defiance

Chapter 10 Fallen Angels

Chapter 11 Life Didn’t Care About My Plans

Chapter 12 Poor Little Rich Girl

Chapter 13 We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes

Chapter 14 The Hardest Part is Letting Go

Chapter 15 Homeless

Chapter 16 Homeless, and Hit by a Car. What would it take for you to Appreciate how Strong You Are?

Chapter 17 HUMBLE BASTARD

This book is dedicated to

My Grandma Sarah, Auntie June, cousin Jada and Auntie Anita, my Nana Ruthy, my cousin Roxie, my mom Faun, Uncle Malik, Mike G., Trisha, Latina,Sandy, Morgan and Brad

Mathew 6:20-21

"Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys,

And where thieves do not break in and steal; for where your treasure is,

There your heart will be also."

Chapter 1

the sickness

When I was 12 years old I began to get these really odd feelings like I wasn’t real, like I was watching myself and everyone around me. I would slip in and out of this feeling, and the only way that I could remind myself that I am real and that my life is really happening and that it’s happening to me. Was to take my right hand and caress it with my left one. Then I would stare directly at my hands and I would say softly to myself but out loud, I’m real this is real I’m not in a dream. My hands are real my fingers are real. If I cut my finger real blood will come out of me because this is a real finger! I would have to do this until that dizzy like weird feeling passed away. What was this odd brain laps that was invading my consciousness? The strangest thing was I remember my sister saying to me that she had the same issue sometimes. And I believed her.

She was the only person accept for myself that could put into words what this brain laps felt like. All I had were my hands and they were, and still are the only thing that can I trust to remind myself that I am real and that I am alive at that very moment. I know my hands and I trust them. But I could not trust my own brain. I Did not know the explanation for this problem when I first began experiencing it. But I would come to learn in my teen years that it was emotional anxiety. I think one of the reasons I had these anxiety attacks is because for people like me that have been blessed and cursed with the gift of prophecy or clairvoyant ability, Everything on this earth that I come into contact with affects me ten times if not more than it would the average person or a person who is not a medium or clairvoyant Wether it be an animal I come into contact with or a specific situation good or bad. My energy level and overall emotional state is affected on a deeper level than most people. I’m what you would call a clairvoyant or spiritual medium. This means that I have a deep sixth sense I and am able to feel the feelings of people and animals around me. I can sometimes see into ones past and see into the near future. The gift comes with the ability to see and often communicate with spirits as well. Now this may sound like poppycock to the average Joe. But if you are reading this book then you are not the average Joe. You know and understand the different dimensions on this earth and the energy and space we sometimes share with those on the other side, the spiritual world.

I was raised in the Christian church, so all of the gifts I have were seemingly ungodly. The whole ability to see past time and before time and communicate with spirits in Christianity is considered witchcraft. But this gift I possessed was also in my blooodline My great grandmother had it, my mother has it, and my great aunt June the abilities as well. So there were some people in my family that had an understanding about what was happening to me. But I was still put in therapy by the age of five because of my odd personality and accurately strange prognostications. I remember the therapy sessions vividly. The head doctor was a nice enough fellow. He reminded me of Mr. Rogers. You know? Super soft spoken and always wore a slight light smile on his face, and moved around like a turtle. He was very inquisitive naturally being my therapist. But I personally felt like he found me to be very odd for someone of my age. I mean there I was five years old and I’m complaining of ghosts and saying specific events will soon happen and then they would happen. It obviously baffled this man. He bonded with me over a game of candy land in every session. We would often talk about the things I would see, and why I believed them to be real. I knew these occurrences that were happening to me were real. yet I also felt that I wasn’t quite normal. I was so vulnerable to human emotion I would just break apart when I saw anyone in pain or emotional turmoil. I never felt like the ground underneath my feet was still for me. I was always on shaky ground.

I experienced so much rejection from my mother starting at such a young age that I began to act out in anger and eat my emotions. While I was growing up my mother Faun was my boogieman under the bed, she was my all-time most feared monster.

My mother Faun was a hardcore drug addict for the first 13 years of my life. I think her addiction was inspired by her feelings of rejection from her mother with a combination of being privileged and sexually abused by a family in law. So Fauns life long struggle with drug addiction’s is not something I want to bash her for. However, when she did use certain drugs she would beat the shit out of me. She never hit my half sister Sadako who is younger than me by one year and six months though. Sadako and I have different fathers you see, our mother Faun loved her father but she hated mine. The way that my mom met my a dad was they went out on a double date with our cousin Jada whom was like a sister to my mom because Jada and my biological mother Faun were born around the same time and Jada is my great aunt Anita’s only daughter.

Apparently my mom had sex with my father for less than 20 minutes while standing up. 8 months later I showed up.

When I was a little kid, there were so many things happening to me that I had absolutely no control over

Because when you’re a minor people don’t listen to what you have to say. I mean sometimes they hear you but most adults won’t take children seriously. Accept for my Grandma Sarah whom took me seriously and never failed me. My great Grandma Sarah was the air I breathed and my reason for living. But my mother was jealous of my great Grandma’s love and adoration for me and so Faun began to treat me like she hated me with a passion.

Faun would come to the house when she ran out of money or ran into trouble. And when she did come to the house, she would do things to me that would destroy my trust in adults for most of my life. The first memory I have of my mom being high was when I was about five years old. She was drunk but under the influence of something else I later found out was a drug called fairy dust or pcp. My great Grandma had been in the hospital so Faun my sister and I were the only people in the house during that time. My sister Sadako and I were sitting on my grandma saraha’s bedroom floor watching the television when our mother Faun came storming through the door with a wild frantic expression on her face.

She immediately grabbed my sister and I by our little arms and dragged us into my great grandma sarah’s bedroom walk-in closet. I remember seeing the door shut and watching the door handle turn as she locked us in. All I could here on the outside of the door was ranting and raving about the house being on fire. She was screaming I know you did! I know you set the house on fire mother fucker get the fuck out get out!!! then I heard more screaming followed by breaking glass noises.

My mother Faun had been so high that she had hallucinated the entire incident. There was no fire, there wasn’t anyone home besides Sadako, myself and our mother who had gone absolutely insane. Being locked in a closet is terrifying for a child. My sister and I were in complete darkness just waiting for smoke to seep through the closet door. But there was no smoke or fire, just madness beyond the closet door. And as far as I was concerned, Sadako and I weren’t safe on either side of that door!

When my uncle fritz brought my Grandma Sarah home from the hospital, the house was a disaster area.

My mother had dangerous frivolous junkies over and my sister and I had missed weeks of school.

In my family the generations start young so we would refer to our grandmothers as Nana, and our great grandmother’s as Grandma. My great Grandma Sarah raised me with such love and patience I know that she absolutely adored me. But Faun and her hysterics was wearing my Grandma out. My Grandma Sarah was a diabetic and high stress levels would cause her to get high blood pressure. I remember giving her insulin shot’s in her arm and stomach when I was just a little girl. I always felt responsible for my great grandma’s health.

but between the friction between my mom and I, and the dysfunctional lifestyle that my she brought into the house. My Grandma sarah became overwhelmingly stressed out and began to get i’ll very often not. So my Nana Ruthy saw fit to have me move into her house in Malibu with her and her youngest daughter at the time my aunt Issa.

I know she had loving intentions towards me when she moved me into her house in Malibu and offered me a taste of the good life. But being separated from my grandma sarah was a huge deal because I was so attached to her that I couldn’t even sleep away from her. I just couldn’t imagine life without her. Grandma was my whole world. She was the most important aspect of my life, and my life evolved around her well being and physical health. I slept next to Grandma until I was 15 years old so that I could make sure her heart was always beating. When I was a little girl like 5 I remember waking up in the middle of the night and asking Grandma to walk with me to the bathroom. I was so scared of being alone and I was having really horrific nightmares at the time. The situation wasn’t that I wasn’t potty trained. I was just so scared of being away from my Grandma Sarah that I wanted her with me everywhere I went and I wanted to be wherever she was. The funny thing is that the bathroom was in her bedroom. I mean it was a master bedroom with a bathroom in it. So I only had to walk 10 to 12 feet from the bed to the bathroom. That’s how attached to my Grandma I was. She loved me so much that she would walk me every time I had to go in the middle of the night and she never huffed or complained about it.

Life is so interesting because after a series of strokes. the circulation in my Grandma’s legs got worse which made it hard for her to walk. So By the time I was 15 years old I was walking her to the bathroom in the middle of the night to make sure she wouldn’t fall.

And I did it with honor. I loved her beyond human comprehension.

I really want to emphasize her importance in my life. She was my life! I loved her so much that when we would travel to see her daughter’s my great aunts Anita, June and my Nana Ruthy perform. I would have no qualms about a possible plane crash because that meant that my Grandma and I would die together. And I would never have to live my life without her. We were so inseparable that when we were separated for a long length of time, one of us would get physically ill.

Still the family discussed it and I was sent to Malibu to live with my Nana Ruthy. I had been attending a French school since I was in pre -school in Tiburon California when I lived in Novato. So when I moved to Malibu, I attended Lycee Francais in Santa Monica on overland. I really did enjoy life at the time even though I couldn’t sleep at night. Being separated from my Grandma Sarah was starting to affect my sleeping habits but I did have some good days.

I attended the Lycee Francais in Santa Monica for a very limited time though. I was soon enrolled into a catholic school in Malibu. It was one of the most popular posh private schools in Malibu.

Our principal was a nun by the name of Sister Mary Margarete. Sister Mary Margarete was perpetually angry. Her face looked like a bunched up ball of crinkled paper and she always had this look on her face like she smelled something awful. She was short tempered and quick to judge people. I mean the woman was notorious for making students to cry over really embarrassing personal adolescent crisis like acne and weight fluctuations among the teenage girls, which were absolutely normal occurrences for teenagers and pre-teens to be going through when their bodies are changing.

I had been living at my Nana’s for almost a year when Mike, grandpa number five showed up. At least he would become grandpa number five. I don’t understand how it happened so quickly, I mean I feel like he moved in on her like a disguised snake in the grass, like a predatory animal in the wild. He was very charming but so sneaky and mean to me. Mike treated me like I was a big piece of furniture that was wedged in the middle of a hallway that he desperately was trying to pass through. When he saw how much my Nana loved me. He realized that he couldn’t just get rid of me by requesting that I be sent away. Like an odd chair that just didn’t fit with the rest of the house but was loved by the lady of the house. He would have to break off pieces of me until there was so little left of me, that I would become easy to remove. He would break me down so much until I wanted to be removed. He would make me feel so emotionally inadequate and unwanted to the point that I would want to leave voluntarily, and he wouldn’t have to be the bad guy.

The house Nana Ruthy had in Malibu made allot of strange noises in the middle of the night. There had been an infestation of tarantulas and mice just before I moved there, so there were still some critters crawling around and making noises throughout house at night. We were in the Malibu hills were there were allot of coyotes, mountain lions and other wild animals that would find their way onto my Nana’s ruthy’s property.

In Malibu the nights would get windy, and my room was not originally built to be a bedroom. It was originally the garage. So the room sounded like a jungle at night because of it’s proximity to the driveway and all of the trees. My Nana Ruthy had furnished and remodeled the space with the bunk beds, a dresser a television and a business desk before i moved in. The whole house was gorgeous including my bedroom. but it was so cold and as soon as Mike moved in the the love that had kept it warm for while was quickly gone the moment his clean white shirts found their way into my nana’s bedroom dresser’s. Before Mike moved into the house I had a loving close relationship with my nana Ruthy. sometimes On the night’s I was to scared to sleep alone I would knock on Nana’s bedroom door hoping she would let me in her room, which she did.

She would open the door with a smile and let me climb into her bed. She would assure my safety in the embrace of her arms and then I immediately fell asleep. But all of that ended when mike moved in.

I’m telling you that this guy had such a dark energy that as soon as he looked me in the eye an told me that he was marrying my Nana, I felt an uneasy chill that made me sick to my stomach. After I was informed that Mike and my Nana were going to get married, everything in the house was adjusted or changed for his comfort because he was a complete control freak.

This part of my childhood is perhaps the most crucial because this is when my eating disorder began to manifest itself.

My Nana Ruthy had a nanny to help take care of my aunt Issa her second daughter 4 years my senior and I. The nanny would take us to school every morning, pick us up from school in the afternoon and make sure that we eat. Issa was adored by Nana Ruthy so I don’t think that any of the nanny’s played the psychological head games with her that they played with me.

I didn’t get along with Issa very well at that time. I think she felt like I was kind of invading her territory by moving into her mom my nana’s house. so she didn’t stick up for me when the nanny treated me like shit, even though I always looked up to her. The first nanny that I can remember was a English woman with wild red wavy hair whom to me, always seemed like she was anxious and pissed off. I don’t even think she liked children! She would eat really fun junk food like chips, or gummie bears right in front of me all the while knowing that I wasn’t allowed to even consider eating anything like that. She would purposely eat these things in front of me while reminding me that I couldn’t have any. Just like a mean bully on a school playground.

Whenever I would get the nerve to ask her for some of what she was eating even if it was one chip. She would say you know you can’t have this and if you ask again I’ll tell you’re Nanna and Mike that you’ve been asking to eat junk food do you understand Onika? I would close my eyes to try not to cry because she spoke to me with such hostility and conviction in her voice that she would make me nervous and than I would have an anxiety attack or that feeling like I’m not real. I would try to block her out of my mind but how can one when the person is always in your face?

That’s why I would close my eyes and try to escape into my imagination. With my eyes shut I would think of a song or make up a story in my head and drift off into a nap in an attempt to escape her evil food temptation games with me. But whenever she saw I was napping in the car even for a few minutes, she would pinch me really hard to wake me up. I knew that her behavior was abusive at the time so I did what any child would do I hope? I told on that crazy bitch with the quickness! And wouldn’t you guess, Mike didn’t believe a word I said. But Nana could tell that Issa was annoyed by her too so she was finally fired. Another nanny would come in to replace her.

When Mike moved into the house all of our eating habits changed dramatically because he was my Nana’s fitness trainer. At the time my nana was obsessed with being thin and with good reason. My Nana had just recently gotten sober off of drugs at the time and when people get sober from drugs they usually gain allot of weight. I felt like this was her new obsession, not getting fat.

So this meant that my life and eating habits were adjusted for mike’s approval. In my opinion his regime was absolutely directed toward anorexia.

For example, my snack lunch for school was lacking in nutritional value. every day during the school week I was given two slices of wheat bread that tasted like tree bark. A slice of ham or turkey between the bread and an apple.

And dinner, dinner was a whole new pain in the ass. Issa wanted shrimp allot and I hated shrimp. And Issa always got to choose what we eat for dinner. I swear sometimes I felt like she would choose things that she knew I hated to eat just to fuck with me, and it worked.

Sometimes I would request something different for myself to eat for dinner but only if I really detested what Issa chose for us. Whenever I did ask for something different to eat. I was sent to bed without dinner, and this happened more often then not! Which brings me to an example of just how twisted that house had become? My Nana and great aunts had a friend named Caroll who used to do their hair and to this day she reminds me of this incident. One day while Caroll was visiting at the house. I was playing in my room when I got thirsty so I came into the kitchen to get some water. When my Nana and Mike saw that I had gotten a glass of water without their permission , they came over to where I was in the kitchen and grounded and reprimanded me in front of the Caroll for simply getting a glass of water in my Nanas home. Which I thought was a place I could call home until that day. Caroll has expressed that she was so disgusted with the entire situation that she couldn’t forget it. She was one of the first people to witness Mikes evil dictation and what a powerful manipulation he had over my nana.

I mean I was blood to my Nana and here I was grounded for a month for getting a glass of water in the middle of the day! After that I was no longer allowed in the kitchen without an adult all because I got myself a glass of water without mikes permission.

A few days after that incident I called my Grandma sarah begging her to tell them to send me back to her. I knew she was working on it because Grandma hated to be away from me as much if not more than I hated to be away from her. I took some comfort in knowing that grandma was trying to get me back. but I began to fear my Nana Ruthy in the way that a child fears a stranger. Because for me, she was becoming a person that I didn’t know and she was behaving like Mike whom was a person I didn’t know or trust.

I began to have reoccurring nightmares about my own Nana Ruthy. In the nightmare I would be lying in my top bunk and I would feel a cold draft of wind come in through the two big glass doors in my room. Then I would try to move but my body was like stuck I mean I even tried to scream and nothing came out of my throat, not a sound. I would be paralyzed in my bed unable to move or make a sound. I would try to close my eyes in the dream but I couldn’t do that either. Then my Nana would come to my bedside and when I looked at her she had these big yellow eyes and wild hair like a lion. Her finger nails were really long and scary. She would slowly come towards me and right before I felt like I was going to die, I would wake up. It could have been mal nutrition or the fact that I felt so unsafe and unloved in that house. My Nana would never put her hands on me and she never has. I just figure I wasn’t able to recognize my Nana for who she was after Mike moved in the house and my dreams were a way of telling me that I was afraid that if she stopped showing me love than she might start to disregard me like my mother and father had which scared the shit out of me.

I suffered with nightmares for my entire childhood. I even had reoccurring dreams that I was fighting the devil or Satan what have you. I would physically fight with him and when I couldn’t harm him I would try to read a verse from the bible but it never worked I always woke up in fear for what the next day had in store for me.

One day while I was at school during lunch I noticed a long line leading into the school cafeteria. It was the hot lunch line. Most of the kids at school got hot lunch from school even my aunt Issa but mike was so obsessed with my weight that there was no way they he was going let my Nana sign me up for hot lunch.

I tried to trade my lunch one day and I was so fucking hungry from being sent to bed without dinner and having virtually nothing for lunch. But no one ever wanted what I had. Which was one apple and an incomplete ham sandwich. I don’t even remember having a bottle of water! I had to drink the school fountain water. I was so desperate and hungry for real food one day that I went and snuck my way into the hot lunch line. I approached the woman who crosses out the names of the students who received their hot lunch. When she asked me where my name was I told her that my Nana would put my name on soon and that she had already paid for the rest of the school year.

I lied, but I lied because I was literally starving.

This is how I managed to eat at least one meal a day during the school week. The bill for the hot lunch would end up being my ticket home. But something more significant happened to me during my second school year there. The private school I attended went from kindergarten to eighth grade.

There was an after school program that I was in at the school that included 2nd graders to 5th graders.

There was this one boy in the 5th grade that used to tease me so badly for whatever reason he could find. His name was Mathew. It was an overdraft day in Malibu and melancholy was in the air. Around 4:00 p.m. A yard duty blew her whistle to bring us back into the classroom, so we all lined up to go back inside. Mathew was walking in behind me. I turned around and made direct eye contact with him then turned back around to continue walking in the line. That’s when I felt his hand slip down the front part of my uniform. Since I felt this from behind me I knew that it was Mathew. He lightly tickled my vagina with his fingers and brushed his hand past the outside of my underwear.

At first I was absolutely terrified by what was going on. We were all bunched up together in a line and know one would have been able to see him touch me like that, and no one did. His 12 year old fingers found their way to my vagina and no one saw it.

I lifted my head to look up at him and all he did was give me this mischievous smile that showed me that he new that what he had just done to me was wrong. Then he walked pass me and got his belongings. As he was leaving he winked at me and smiled again. I wasn’t amused at all and I immediately felt violated. Didn’t realize that what happened was a form of sexual abuse. However I did know that it was wrong and the whole incident made me feel ashamed of myself for some reason, and tainted. I felt like I had done something wrong when I was the one who was violated. It took me like 4 days to figure out how to tell my Nana and Mike about the incident and how Mathew had touched me. When I did tell them what happened, they didn’t believe me as usual. By that point I was starved, violated, I was becoming seriously depressed and I fucking wanted out of that house!

Mike had some obsession with dishing out punishments. I remember an incident in which I was grounded for a month because I helped myself to a glass of water in the middle of the day. I also remember being grounded for needing help with a book report once. I was just learning my academic’s in English because I had been going to French schools since I was in pre-school. I asked mike for help on a school book report that was due the following week because I was still adjusting to English academically and besides. Children need help with things sometimes. I mean excuse me for being a child and not knowing how to read in English because everything I had learned academically was in French! You know what I mean?

Asking him for help landed me 2 weeks of punishment. Mikes punishments were over dramatized I felt and for my personal humiliation.

He would always announce to whom ever came over not to talk to me because I was grounded. I was not allowed to read my books, play with dolls and of course no TV. So basically I had to sit in a room for days to think about what I had done even if I had done nothing wrong. And I was a good kid too. Lying in the hot lunch line was the worst thing I had done and I did that out of desperation. So Nana’s friend and assistant sue started to take me to her house more often to get me away from Mike. Sue was the best though, she really loved me. She had a lovable dog and an awesome apartment. Every morning we would have strawberries and cream for breakfast. We would listen to music and dance around her apartment like free spirits, we would have so much fun together.

I would not have been able to handle dealing with Mike without sue being around to help me. She knew I wasn’t lying about that boy Mathew at school. But when Mike noticed that I was happy around sue and that I was feeling perky as a child has every right to be, he got rid of her. He claimed that she slept in the bed with me without underwear on and that she wasn’t good for me to be around which was a total lie.

And even if she didn’t sleep in underwear. She treated me as if I was her own kid; she treated me like precious cargo. For whatever reason he convinced my Nana to let her go. But there was no legitimate reasons I have ever known for Mike firing sue accept for the fact that he didn’t like her.

Mike wanted to make me so miserable that I would beg to leave but he wanted it to look like I left because I was a bad kid. Bullshit I was not a bad kid, I was however neglected unheard and becoming very angry. I remember being a huge love bug, a chubby cheek insatiable kid before I moved to Malibu. But by the time mike was done with me I was like an abused dog. Ears down face focused to the floor never looking people in the eye.

I developed so many feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy which has taken me almost my entire life so far to conquer.

Now I am not trying to say that I was a perfect child. I had imperfection, I was a kid. I was still learning about life and how to behave. But I was not a problem child.

My Nana had a friend named robin. One time robin came over to pick me up for an overnight at her house. I don’t remember why I spent the night … . … Oh wait yes I do. For my personal reasons, like the fact that she had no idea that I wasn’t allowed to eat fun foods like pizza,cheese especially not pizza. So as soon as we left Nana’s house she took me to one of her favorite Italian restaurants. I will never forget the relief I felt as I bit into the soft buttery pizza dough. Gooey cheese was dripping from the side of the warm slice I held in my hands and it felt wonderful feeling the grease from the pizza lubricate my fingertips.

It’s funny to me now when I think back to how important that pizza was to me. I eat the slice so fast that I got a thick string of mozzarella cheese stuck in my throat. I began to choke so badly that I had to stick my hand down my throat and pull the thick glob of cheese out from the base of my throat.

I eat good that night though. That pizza was the best pizza I had ever had in my life. And I understood why it was so delicious too. It was so delicious because it was forbidden for me to eat by Mike and Nana. for one night I got to enjoy some comfort food and feel like a real kid again.

But the joy didn’t last, it couldn’t last because Mike had an agenda.

He was so sneaky that he intentionally did not tell robin what I wasn’t allowed to eat knowing that I being a child would take advantage of an opportunity to eat whatever I wanted. The foods I had to watch my friends eat at birthday parties and school bake off’s but I never got to taste or indulge in not even once on his clock.

But my ticket home had finally arrived because Eventually Nana and Mike received a letter from school about my hot lunches. Actually, it was more like a bill for my hot lunches. Mike had been waiting for the perfect moment to bring the pizza incident and the bill for hot lunches down on me at the same time,and that time had finally come.

I slowly walked through the big white doors leading to Nanas room. I made sure to keep my head down in case things got physical even though my Nana never ever hit me. Nana was laying on top of her bed Onika come in here Right now!!! when I entered the room I saw that Mike was on the other side of the bed wearing a huge grin on his face that looked very menacing to me. Have you been lying to us? My Nana asked me but more in a voice like she was telling me.

I hadn’t necessarily lied. I just improved the truth so to speak. No Nana I got hot lunch like twice maybe.

Nana looked at mike as he handed her the envelope.

She then held the envelope out in front of me with her hand then what is this Onika! The school said that you’ve been eating the hot lunches! On a tab schools don’t have tabs! Onika this is unacceptable in this house. You’re grounded for three months do you understand why?

I did and I didn’t. And by that I mean I understood her punishing me for not telling her about the hot lunches and lying to her about it just then. But I didn’t understand why she punished me for being hungry. Mike was trying to starve me, I was 7 years old what was I gonna do? I wasn’t going to starve to death and keep getting sick or else who would take care of Grandma Sarah?

So I said nothing. Then as I was about to leave the room she said where are you going? Don’t you walk away from me when I’m talking to you Onika! What did you have to eat when you went to robin’s house last week?

Once again I said nothing and kept my eyes focused on the floor. Then mike came into the conversation.

Onika we know okay!!! We know that you had 3 slices of pizza, garlic bread and soda. You know you’re not to have any of those things while you’re in this house. He then sighed well you’re going to have to be punished for this too okay. So you go to your room and sit there until you’re Nana’r and i figure out what to do with you. He was from Boston and had an accent so he always said words that ended with the letter a as if they ended with the letter r. Then there was complete silence. I waited to be excused and went to my room.

I had not known that something good was going to come out of that day but it did, those series of incidents became my one way ticket back to my grandma Sarah.

Yet The next couple of weeks were miserable for me. At dinner mike would eat two turkey burgers while I had detestable spaghetti squash and an over cooked chicken breast. I wasn’t allowed rice, potatoes or pasta.

His table manner requirments were nearly impossible for a child with a hyper activity disorder to follow perfectly.

I was not allowed to move my leg’s or put any part of my body on the table at any time especially my elbows.

But he would do it all of the time! He would leave elbow stains on the glass table all of the time! And the way he eats his soup oh my gosh. It was like listening to nails scratching across a chalk board because he would slurp his soup. He slurped his soup to the bottom of the bowl. And we all sat in complete silence while he sat like a king at the table regulating everything from our food intake to how we breathed at the table. No heavy sighs and no irritated tones in our voices. All of those things were punishable.

That was it for me!

I called Grandma and I told her about everything. I told her how miserable I was without her, and how I wasn’t welcome at my Nana’s anymore. Grandma understood and was making arrangements for me to come home.

Right before school let out for summer vacation Sue came to tell me that I was due to go to a sleep away Summerstock ranch camp in Fresno for two months. The best news was that after camp I would be returning home to live with my grandma sarah. I was happy to go cause my sister was going too, and I would be away from Mike. That summer my sister and I both received camper of the year awards. I also won second place in the Skylake ranch camp annual activity contest in which I competed in tennis, swimming, horse back riding, and bmx biking. I had one second place of course because first place went to the camp owner’s grand daughter Michelle. I felt like I was in constant competition with Michelle becasue we were crushing on the same boy.

The campers were kind of segregated by age just like in school. So there were age ranges from seven years old up to seventeen years old. God, that was an awesome summer. We played flash light tag at night almost every night, and the camp had a summer stock program I was in which is an acting program for every age range to participate in. I remember filming homemade detailed horror and comedy movies, but I enjoyed making the horror movies the most. The ranch camp Summerstock had put on a production of (the wizard of oz) in which I was casted as a munchkin in the lollipop guild.

We also had a parent’s day but I don’t remember any one coming to see Sadako or I. My sister and I were the only 2 out of four African American kids in the entire camp. But my sister and I were used to that situation not being raised around our own race accept family members. Skylake ranch camp was a very expensive sleep away camp. There was a ranch on camp of course with all sorts of animals from horses to pigs and goats. We the campers, had to learn how to wake up at 5:00 a.m. To feed and care for them all. I developed an enormous amount of respect for farmers and ranchers that summer.

The last stunt Mike tried to pull on me was at the ranch camp. As soon as I arrived at camp, Mike called the camp owner to tell her that I was on a diet. His timing couldn’t have been better for his pleasure. I was just about to dive into a plate of brownies when one of the camp counselors snatched the plate away from me and replaced the plate of brownies with a plate of carrot sticks!

Everyone at camp was eating brownies on the first day and I had to eat rabbit food, I was pissed off!

So I threw a fit like I was a little diva and demanded to be granted permission to call my Grandma Sarah.

After very little timing I was taken to a land line phone in the camp office. I called my Grandma whom was my legal guardian, and I had her talk to the camp owner. After that phone call, I was able to eat whatever the fuck I wanted. I was free, but the dieting and starving tactics Mike put me through damaged my bodyimage and my mind. This is how I got to weigh 280 pounds by the age of 13.

At sleep away camp I had so much cash for the camp store that I bought presents for my friends and candy for myself.

For 3 full months I got to be a kid. Camp was the best thing that happened to me in a long time. We often went hiking through and over mountains to a green lagoon. It was like scenery from a gorgeous painting of something you might see in Ireland. The trees were so colorful with different shades of green in a perfect setting. There was a tree by the lagoon that had a rope for swinging on to jump off into the lake. I loved soaring through the air on the rope while feeling weightless. I felt like a hummingbird in the air making graceful sway’s from flower to flower. I felt as free as the air … … … … … … …

There was a dance at camp and it was the first dance that I had ever been to. The camp disk jockey played one of my family’s song’s for my birthday it was (He’s so shy) by the pointer sisters,

And John the boy Michelle and I were both crushing on had asked me to slow dance. We looked so silly like two sticks stepping from left to right avoiding eye contact fearing a kiss would come about it. I felt so special that night during my birthday party at camp.

I remember Nana Ruthy sending me this amazing puppet show set up for my birthday with 3 intricately detailed Italian puppets. I loved all of the gifts Nana ever bought for me. I especially cherished the puppets she sent to camp for me that summer.

When I first got sent to camp I thought that I was sent because I was in trouble or something.

But Skylake ranch camp and the summer stock there changed my life because that summer I realized that I wanted to be an actress. That summer I fell in love with telling and acting out stories.

My sister Sadako left camp about a month before me. We did fight allot while we were there at the same time. But we learned allot about how to try and get along with each other to. We both received camper of the year awards because by the time she left we had learned to get along with each other. She stopped teasing me because I began to get a pot belly, and I stopped being a cry baby. Believe it or not I almost got sent home for being to much of an emotional person. Sleep away camp taught me to be more independent and athletic. Plus I learned how to have fun again, and that it was okay for me to smile again. At camp I was rewarded for my happiness as opposed to being questioned about it.

Chapter 2

Family Ties

After that summer at camp I came back home to Grandma Sarah in Novato.

After a couple more years in the house on David court, Grandma and I moved from Novato to her eldest son Aaron’s house in Tacoma Washington. My auntie Leona whom is my great uncle Aaron’s wife was a soft spoken elementary school teacher and was very loving and patient with me. My uncle Aaron however didn’t approve of my sleeping in my Grandma’s bed and forbid it. But I did it any ways. I did have my own room but I couldn’t sleep away from her if I didn’t have too. When I had sleepovers even my friends would have to sleep in the bed next to me and Grandma. I know that uncle Aaron never meant to hurt me. But at that time I felt a huge and personal amount of resentment from him.

Sometimes he would get so angry with me for being so attached to his mother that one day he expressed his disapproval of me and that I wasn’t his responsibility. He told me that he shouldn’t have to be taking care of me in a way that to me was a little bit mean, because he was upset about things that I had no control over. I guess he had every right to be. I mean I wasn’t his child I wasn’t even very close to his side of the family. So one day after he and I had gotten into a falling out about my sleeping in Grandma’s bed. I went into one of the family albums and I began to cut his pictures out of some of the pictures in the photos album. I was trying to express my pain but I went about it the wrong way and I hurt my uncle whom I loved very much. Uncle Aaron and i were like oil and water while I was living with him. no matter how much he wanted to love me he just didn’t seem too.

Later that year on a