Scarred: A Memoir

By George Molho

In 1978, seven-year-old George Molho was kidnapped by his own father. For a year, he survived mental and physical abuse to the point of torture. He found it easier to get used to hell than to hope that heaven was around the corner. George eventually escaped, but surviving the aftermath proved to be much more difficult.

This memoir weaves past and present together to connect the pieces of Molhos childhood and adult life that shaped the man he would become. It explores the adage, love conquers all, revealing the inner workings that we all seek to understand. George was lucky to learn how to love from his family before his abduction, before his fathers cruel version of love was inflicted upon his young body and psyche. Later in life, love compels him to divulge all that happened on the mountainside where he left his innocence as a boy.

Its not about how hard we get hit; its about how much we can take and keep moving forward. Scarred is a memoir written by a survivor, intended to empower and embolden all who have suffered, have survived, and are ready to be set free.

This will be known as the book that set the literary genre of memoir free. Scarred reads like fiction while shattering the facade of make believe Molho becomes the victor of his past and his triumph is contagious.

Andrea Afra, Free Press Houston

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781938908354

George Molho

George Molho is a kidnap survivor. He spent fifteen years in the medical community as a consultant before beginning his career as a writer. Molho also speaks publicly on domestic abuse, child abduction, and the healing power of self-reflection. He lives in Houston, Texas.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Part I

Chapter One: Silence Is a Sound

Chapter Two: Cup Number 110

Chapter Three: Innocence

Chapter Four: Learning a New Language

Chapter Five: Cup Number 550

Part II

A Cup Reading: Seeing the Future

Chapter Six: Cup Number 12,945

Chapter Seven: The Cup: The Demitasse of Dark Delight and Desire

Chapter Eight: Cup Number 25

Chapter Nine: The Other Side of Tomorrow

Chapter Ten: Cup Number 11,989

Chapter Eleven: Unconditional

Chapter Twelve: Cup Number 1,525

Chapter Thirteen: Hamburger

Chapter Fourteen: Cup Number 1,205

Chapter Fifteen: Icarus

Chapter Sixteen: The Healing Power of No!

Part III

Chapter Seventeen: Shadows and Light

Chapter Eighteen: Cup Number 1: A New Life

Acknowledgments

In memory of

My grandfather, Charles Asher Molho,

Holocaust survivor, father, and the last man of honor

Prisoner number 11185

February 9, 1921—November 17, 1999

and

Joseph Asher Molho

Uncle, son, friend, and inspiration

September 9, 1951—July 15, 2002

I will always remember my dying king and his prince.

Dedicated to Beatrice Molho

Throughout my life one person has stood out like a sand dollar amongst a sea of silt. She has fostered my dreams, expanded my once-myopic view of the world, and engaged my senses to see through people’s actions and into their hearts.

It was she who taught me that it is braver to love deeply and to be open and vulnerable than to cower in the safety of a shell and live as a voyeur, peering into the unknown through eyes that are as thick as heavy-gauge stained glass windows, frosted over by past pains, regrets, and poor choices.

She sacrificed much during my journey, including two years of comfort and financial stability, in order for me to embrace a vision, turn back the clock, recapture my childhood, and reinvent myself.

She proved to me that as blistering as the sun’s heat is at times, its light is equally soothing. She opened the door so I could write. My book is dedicated to the first word on children’s lips: mother.

I could not have done it without you, Mom. You were right: anything is possible as long as you reach for your dreams.

I realized that I began life as big as a tree, and it took till today to realize that I was planted in the shadow of a mountain.

Part I

CHAPTER ONE

SILENCE IS A SOUND

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1979

M y wrists were wrapped in strips of sheared towels and bound together by chicken wire. Chill penetrated my aching shoulder blades. I was seven years old, trapped in a basement and already used to pain.

A sturdy belt, looped through the restraints, suspended me from a hook in the ceiling. The towels were meant to stop the wire from cutting into skin. Though the banded loops smarted, they never broke the flesh. My hands hurt, then stung, then felt as if they were on fire. My heartbeat pulsating through the swollen digits followed the dissipation of the sensation of scorching heat. In the end, my hands went numb. The cramps in my calves, joints, and bones were what eventually made me pliable to his will.

Four days had passed since I last hung like meat. Worse than the pain of having my limbs constricted was the itching return of a needlelike sensation. The tight strangulation of blood flow left scabrous impressions on my wrists. It being winter, I would hide the uneven circular marks under mittens.

I was stranded on the peaks of a Greek mountainside in a town called Potamos, the River, when Menos, my father, the demon, visited. He immobilized me with his sinister aura, standing at the foot of the bed, towering over my incapacitated form, feeding off of my green panic. Menos would rouse my five senses, demanding I be completely lucid to appreciate the fullness of his menace. My father would affectionately wake me by stroking my temple and my cheeks, lowering my natural defenses with sentimental doting. He would awaken me from my dreams of being back home in Houston, from the desire that he would be the father of every boy’s dream and that he and my mother, Faith, would be the perfect married couple. He would pry me free from my fantasies and I would sometimes scream. It was the one time that hope was my enemy. It was one of the few times I was thankful for him being him, for him forcing his will on mine. For as good as the dreams felt, they felt equally and more so distasteful because I would awaken to the reality of his prison, of the life he had created for me. Even though I had attempted to change my situation and had at times tried to escape, it was easier to get used to hell instead of hoping that heaven was just around the corner.

He mocked my recitations of the Shepherd’s Prayer and refuted my attempts at breaking my bonds. My father beat me, confused me, and altered my perceptions in order to enlist me as a coconspirator in punishing myself mentally. While Menos subdued my body with ferocious strength, he worked his malignancy to pollute my mental sanctuary, turning me loose on myself by attacking my reasoning with simultaneous acts of sensitive silence and passionate thrashes.

As easily as one climbs into bed, I shut the world out and climbed into my head.

He made me love, hate, pity, and scorn him. He made me enjoy loathing him, regret caring for him, and despise myself for pricking his hands with my mental voodoo doll. His questioning madness and perplexing tenderness violated my inner sanctum. It was maddening to simultaneously be on the receiving end of his tender, fatherly caresses to my forehead, kisses to my temple, approving pats to the back, and celebratory statements of pride that I was his son. It was strangling my reasoning because seconds later I would receive the full brunt of his paranoid, insecure rants beseeching me to believe in him and only him, begging me to belittle my family and betray my mother. My refusal to capitulate to his pleas to disavow my mother exposed the depth of his obsession and the fragility of my young body to withstand his bunched up fists and self-bemoaning beatings. I was stronger mentally than I was physically. The more he pressed me to admit that I loved only him and pushed me to loudly declare that I hated my mother, the more I found myself lost. I owned nothing but my will, my heart, and my faith. He had total and absolute control over my physical form.

I had no body and no mind. I had nowhere to hide.

My father’s love was like a painting of the sun that he offered me instead of a thick, warm, fluffy coat on an icy-cold, dark winter’s day. Although Faith was thousands of miles away, her last kisses kept me toasty warm when my father forced daily ice baths on me, on my naked, frozen flesh.

I held onto the fleeting hope that Faith still loved me, and I survived by remembering Yiayia’s vivid stories of captivity and physical torture at the hands of her Gestapo interrogators. My grandmother, like a sparrow that according to legend was at Christ’s side throughout the Crucifixion, taught me how to resurrect my disembodied spirit and triumph over long-endured suffering.

Six, eight … eighteen, twenty … twenty-two. Twenty-two pickled eggs, I counted in my head. There are three jars for a total of sixty-six eggs. A single dim bulb dangled from a flimsy, taped electrical wire. The winter ruffled the blankets sealing the seam at the base of the back door. The air seeped in, causing the bulb to sway, illuminating the shelves built into the earthen walls.

The room smelled of damp clay. Bunches of roots hung on twine above the butter churn. Six clusters of carrots, several stalks of beets, and eight bundles of celery roots. I inventoried the remaining items. There were crates, boxes, circular pine produce baskets with red plated slats, heavy folded quilts, pieces of leather, a sack of chicken feathers, mason jars filled with spices and herbs, and thick-corded strands of garlic. Hanging onto the fading threads of imagination, I fantasized Faith packing a picnic basket and taking me to where the ducks fed in Hermann Park.

Below the solitary boarded-up cellar window was a maroon barrel stuffed with floating olives, a brasslike rectangular container with olive oil, and a plastic drum three feet high with feta cheese soaking in water. The wiry muscles and tissue along my upper back and shoulders twinged. The picnic fantasy comforted me while I was cold and my feet were swollen and my wrists were sore and my soul screamed in silence.

I numbed the discomfort by counting. I had it down to a science: Menos would check in as I completed my sixth tally. Once, I occupied myself by estimating the number of cracks and knotholes in the ceiling beams. I stopped when the task proved frustrating.

The bottom of the inner door to the house grated against the porous cement steps. Its hinges creaked. Menos timed his appearance. A blast of heat accompanied him from the wood-burning iron stove in the kitchen as he entered the root cellar. I was exhausted. It was hard to breathe. I could no longer bear the weight of my body on the balls of my feet. His eyes brushed across the scale adjacent to the footstool I balanced on. He asked, "Mathamai tipota simera, have we learned anything today?"

Menos repeated the question, "Mathamai tipota simera, have we learned anything today?"

It was a struggle to speak. Before I could answer, he scooped me onto his chest. My lungs relaxed as I rested. I answered, Not to sneak … not to steal.

He loosened his grip, and I went into a slump. "Ti eipamai gia englesika, what did we say about English?" Like an acrobat, I held on as best I could, wrapping my spindly legs around his torso.

I was so tired I forgot I was forbidden to think in English, let alone speak it. Only after I replied in Greek did he lift me back up.

At least I gained the freedom to tell the story of that year as I see fit, defying him once again: all he said and did was written in the tongue he so despised.

He kissed my dimple and stated, You know I do not like this. If I do not prepare you for the world, how are you going to survive life?

Hanging me by the wrists was a tool he used to discipline me for many transgressions, chief among them overeating. The scale had thin strips of red tape marking my achievements of his predefined goals. In the month since he placed me on a strict dietary regimen enforced by the cruelty of his violent punishments, I had lost a considerable amount of weight. For my height and age, I should have been fifty-five pounds. At seven years old, I weighed in at a frail twenty-nine pounds.

Despite my leg grip I sagged; my lungs became heavy as Menos let go. I dangled on the wire while he produced a stack of postcards, letters, and a Snoopy autograph book.

As I balanced on the calluses of my toes, Menos waved the autograph book, snapping it open. I am going to put this back in the jeep. I am positive you will not touch it again. Am I right?

Yes, Baba. I won’t. I promise. I would say anything to be released to eat and sleep. He paced a circle around me, divining for my underlying motivations.

I had begun to question everything I thought and everything I said. I had started to question everything I felt and to even doubt right from wrong. Was he right? Was my father right to do what he did for the reasons he proclaimed? There were times when I didn’t know if I was simply being stubborn and he really loved me. I didn’t know if I should stop resisting and listen to his words and his praise and his endlessly telling me, I love you. I do this all for you. I didn’t know whether to accept his words of love and affection and stop being petulant. I didn’t know. So, in the end, however torn I was in my mind, I listened to what his actions made my body feel. I listened to my own howls.

I wheezed, I have school tomorrow. I’m tired. Reasoning had proven ineffective. Sometimes crying changed his temperament, yet appealing outright because I could not bear the punishments definitely made matters worse. Baba, please. I’m not bad. I made a mistake. I won’t do it again. My arms hurt.

From behind me, he interlaced his fingers across my sternum. How much I love you. You do not know how much. I strained as he pulled down, stretching my arms out further. Balance—be strong—balance and force yourself up. My father dragged me down while I pushed upward. His weight was too much. George, I teach you. If you are not strong, then you are weak. If you are weak, then you cannot love and you lie. Why did you lie to me today? Why do you disobey me? My father made sure I was not simply on the receiving end of his tortures; he made me an active participant in causing myself agony.

You know I could have gone to jail. I risked my life for my son. You are my responsibility. He stopped to catch his breath and light a cigarette while my knees wobbled as my toes touched the stool and I labored to inhale. He rambled. I cry inside for what you make me do. I am not doing this. It is because your mother and that fucking Molho whore of a grandmother of yours spoiled you that we work to fix you.

I felt anger at his cursing my grandmother. For the first time in a long time I felt something other than pain or depression; I felt angry, alive, and hopeful. When he walked around the front, I attempted to kick him. "I’m sorry. I did not mean it. I want to hold you, Baba."

Menos was a deranged bird. He did not strike back. Instead, he placed my legs back on the footstool. Smelling the black-eyed peas cooking in vinegar and garlic, I ignored him. As I yelled for his mother—Yiayia!—my father’s features became draped with a hood of contempt. I cowered as he stalked within inches of my nose.

I don’t know if it would have made a difference had I been quiet. Perhaps he would have released me sooner. Making simple choices like whether I should call out, fight back, resist, or explain to someone what I suffered was what slowly ate away at my cohesion. Questioning his every action and my every response drove a splinter through my mind.

I wrapped my legs around his torso as he nestled me against his chest. Why do you call for Yiayia? She is sleeping. The hanging bulb produced a ting as he tapped a fingernail against it. I do not think you understand me. I am your father. Do not fear me. You don’t need anyone but me. He kissed my eyes, which was bad luck according to my grandmother back home. You kiss the eyes of the dead and the infirm. He kissed my eyes, my nose, and snuggled his brow against the ridges of cold sweat dimpling my forehead. I will leave the door open. It’s cold in here. I’ll be back. Give me a kiss.

As my father enfolded himself around me, he acted like he was struggling to break free from my leg hold. He instructed, Don’t let go, don’t let go! Menos rocked mockingly from side to side. Show me how much you need me. Don’t let go. Show me. It was a theatrical farce. He teased me, hunching his shoulders while tugging on the dark circle under his left eye, exaggerating his sadness. I do not believe you love your father like he does you.

My father’s dramatic composure changed in an instant. His sour demeanor engendered an aura of despair. No! You have not learned. You do not fight for me like my son should. He shoved away, and my chin slumped into my collarbone. Even though we were nose to nose, I felt like a worm staring up at him from a pit in the earth. My father, the Crocodile, croaked, Twenty minutes more. Before exiting, he steadied my feet on the stool.

Later in bed, I would hear him profess that I had not cared enough in the basement, that I had been too weak of character to maintain a hold on him. That I had not loved him enough to hold on. He’d whisper insanities till his presence became fixed in my nightmares.

I was not being chastised for being fat. I had been snooping around, imagining myself as one of my plastic green soldiers aiming a bazooka. After I milked the cow, sprinkled feed on the ground for the chickens, and checked for eggs, I ransacked the toolshed as an invading army of one. Underneath the back seat of the broken jeep in the shed, I found a box. Inside were letters, postcards, and the autograph book with Snoopy resting on his red doghouse and Woodstock bouncing on his belly. They were from my mother. I hummed with excitement. She had not forgotten me.

Instead of tallying the inventory in the cellar while I awaited his return, I revisited the messages that I could recall in my head. I imagined unfolding the intricately designed individual notes in the dense book. The notes were folded into complicated forms: there were triangles, double triangles, diamonds, octagons, hexagons, and helixes. Since he caught me before I could memorize all of them, I remembered only a few. My mother’s was the first. As if in a daze, I saw the spiraling helix unwind, and in the center of the paper was a treasure—four lines of text consisting of eleven words:

I love you.

We love you.

You’ll be home soon.

Faith

Next was my second grade teacher’s fancy pyramid.

George, we miss you. The entire assembly prays for you at morning services every day. Our Lord Jesus Christ will not allow harm to befall one of his lambs. Soon you will be with us again. I keep you next to my heart, wearing the silver dove you gave me for my birthday. The whole class misses you, and we placed your chair on top of your desk. No one is allowed to sit in it. I have a special gift for you when you return. As it snowed in Houston, there is a snowball waiting for you in the freezer.

Always,

Mrs. Boldt

I had a crush on Mrs. Boldt. The memory of her was a calming presence to my tattered spirit as I hung in the basement. She reminded me of the Valkyries in one of my favorite comic book series, Asterix and Obelix. It was comforting to know that I was being covered on both sides of the aisle by Papou’s petitions in the Jewish Temple and the school’s requests to Christ. If all else failed, I was hopeful that Jesus would listen to my principal, Mr. Cunningham. It couldn’t hurt having an in with the Son of God since Mr. Cunningham always said he worked for Christ in teaching his students.

The next note I dwelled on was Conan Glickman’s octagon.

When are you coming back, George? I hope it is soon. My dad promised to teach us how to scuba dive in the pool.

Conan

The rest were from classmates like Jason Brewster, who asked what it was like where I was. Each note varied in shape and content according to the individual. Some were scrawled in pencil, some were block-printed in blue ink, and some merely had a sticker pasted next to a signature. Even my principal penned his reflections:

I await the return of my young lion.

Dum Spiro Spero, Dum Spero Spiro.

Mr. William Cunningham

Headmaster

It was my father’s motto. He quoted it often when beating me. My headmaster did not know the weight his encouragement carried or its double-edged meaning. He was unaware those simple words would become my mantra.

Before my father loosened my bonds that evening, I desperately tried to recall what the rest of my family had written. Sadly, even my Uncle Joe’s scribbled sympathy evaded me.

That night was the best of the worst to come.

≈

The last time I saw my reflection in the mirror, I was seven and innocent. What you will see now, what I live with, are the broken remains of long-lost dreams.

I was seven. I was a boy. I was a son. I was a child. I was the world.

The world changed. My family, my country, my father, my parents, even the soul I was born with … for who would I have been? The question is foreign to me because the answer is so alien. Who was I before that day in the basement, before that year? Who was I supposed to be?

I had a perfect little life. Now I am a survivor.

CHAPTER TWO

CUP NUMBER 110

TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1976

J ump! Jump, Yiayia!

"Fronimos, behave."

Here, Yiayia. Here!

Hold on. My grandmother pointed to the freeway below as we crossed the overpass. "Make sure your zoni, seatbelt is tight. Be ready. I frolicked in the car, straining to see above the dashboard before I passed out from the g-forces as she barreled down the freeway in her glossy red Continental. Cover your face."

Jump! I held my breath for what seemed like hours, waiting to float and fly away.

Ach! Goodness, I missed it.

I looked out the window, disappointed to see the car in the next lane rolling on all fours. Yiayia, you did not jump. You promised we would. We were still on the ground.

Next time. I promise. Come to me. I unfastened the seatbelt and inched closer to my grandmother. Yiayia lifted the armrest and nudged me into her bosom. She smelled like gardenias and rose water. "Keep your eyes open. Dond worry. We find another bridge. My grandmother said that her car had wings. Anytime we drove over a bridge, skirted Buffalo Bayou, or looked down from an overpass, I bounced on the springs and spongy leather, spellbound, expecting her carbird to fly us to freedom. How you like to come to my house today? I have some goodies for you."

No. I want to go home and see Faith.

"You mama is at my house shleeping. And dond call her Faith. How many times I tell you that?"

Then I want to go with you. But can we get Snoopy first? He is alone in the backyard. Yiayia had picked me up from day care. I hated that atmosphere packed with strange kids and dry food. I complained enough that my mother was allowed to send me there with my own lunchbox. I frowned and said, Yiayia, maybe it’s better if you take me home because Baba will be waiting for me. I have not seen him all day.

"What’s the matter, you dond love your mother? Huh? Her grasp slackened. Sit back over there so I can drive."

I want to see Baba.

I moved closer in.

So, you still love your Yiayia. She squeezed my cheeks and my shoulders, drawing me back in. "Ooch, I love you like you dond know, aticho paidi, unlucky boy. Whenever my grandmother said that, she sniffled and looked at me like I was dying. Atrogo tin psish. That was a Pontiako saying: I love you so much that I could eat up your sweet spirit."

Me too, Yiayia. But I want to go home and see Baba.

"Quiet! He’s working. So, you come with me. I give you bath, make you fresh and clean. You wear your Papou’s shirt and then we have good food. I made some yummy keftedes mai kremidakia, meatballs with onions, mushrooms, broccoli, potato cakes with skordo, garlic—um-um-um—and cheesecake."

I reluctantly accepted that I was not going home to Carvel Street. On the way to my grandmother’s home, I glued my face to the window as we drove through the neighborhood, remembering how everything had been just two years before.

≈

When I was three and my mother was twenty-four, we moved into our home on Carvel Street, tucked away from the bustle of the inner city. My father worked as a ship chandler for Papou. I was a tempestuous, curious little maverick, daydreaming I was a pirate, a black-bearded marauder, hunting through the coral thickets of life for plunder.

I was immune to the outside world. Home was my sandbox. Life consisted of reading pop-up books that Faith had special ordered naming me as the hero, feeding my fish, giving my frog a hot bath in the crock pot, and roping my dog Snoopy like a cowboy on Rawhide.

My father made sure that we had food on our table and that the utilities were paid. I had cousins I could wrestle, and church. Besides my baptism and one midnight Easter ceremony, Menos never attended a mass.

Menos fawned over my every whim. Bending his knees, he would balance me on the soles of his feet as I stretched out my arms like an airplane, yelping, More, more, Baba, higher! Higher, Baba, higher!

My father would ask with pride rippling across his tense calves, "Pios einai to agori mou, who is my boy?"

Me!

Gripping my arms to prevent me from falling, he would rock to the sides, pretending I had hit a patch of turbulence. He’d make propeller noises—Brrrr-brr-brrrr—and then inquire about my burdened expression. "Ti stenachoriese toso poli, why you worry so much? Hey, your Baba is here. I never will let you fall. My father would lower me to his chest in a firm embrace. Never worry, my son, while I have breath, no one can harm you. Se agapo, I love you. Tora gela, now smile." We’d laugh and rub our noses together like Eskimos.

I spent every summer in the ocean swimming and staining my feet with obsidian-like globules of tar. I fell asleep to my father’s stories of Alexander the Great, Zeus, and the originations of mathematics, medicine, art, philosophy, and war. He taught me those were the gifts of light that our ancient Hellenic ancestors bestowed upon a prehistoric world. My father made time each week for an outing, taking me to Nick’s Pizzeria, where I ate parmesan and pepperoni while he played cards with his friends. On his days off, we dribbled the soccer ball down the fence line and up the center of the backyard. We rolled in the grass till we smelled like wet dogs. Once, I laughed as he ran in circles flourishing a belt while trying to evade an angry blue jay.

My father was the center of my boyhood world. I wanted to be exactly like him.

Against my mother’s wishes, he lit my first cigarette. I took my first puff, watching the tip burn as I rolled the cherry into the crystal ashtray. My father corrected me, saying, "Oxi etsi, not like that. You are smoking like a boy. Kita emena, watch me. Menos exaggerated the drag. Tora, now you try like me." I was proud to be sitting beside him with one leg crossed over the other, spurning Faith’s reproachful looks. After correcting my technique, I smiled, drawing in the smoke. I teared, turned green, coughed up a lung, and ran into my mother’s arms.

Menos and Faith were relentless with a camera. They filled album after album with photos of me—sitting naked in the tub, posing half-clothed in my mother’s turquoise kitchen apron, standing in cooking pots, saddling the old, rickety washing machine, riding the twenty-five-cent rocket ship at the convenience store, jabbing at jellyfish, and a photo finish of my backside running away from winged cockroaches. No matter where we went, there was always a camera present. I had two sycophantic fans tied to me by blood, and I lapped up their attention like a star.

Menos was my friend and protector. He provided everything but peace of mind. I grew up in a child’s fantasy without realizing all along he was tossing my mother the fallen scraps. He would give her the leftovers of his life: at the end of each day he would cripple her with what remained of his emotions. He would have spent the entirety of his kindness and patience either at work or on his friends, leaving my mother with only the shell of his polluted soul, battering her with negativity, and snapping at her over the slightest perceived disruption in his nightly routine, whether that meant his dinner wasn’t what he had imagined throughout the day it would be or that Faith took too long to clean the dishes and sit by his side on the sofa and entertain him with quiet conversation. His most important possession was Faith, and his most valuable commodity his firstborn.

In those days, my mother watched through the kitchen window as I swung in the tire swing encircled by squadrons of mosquitoes, holding her breath as I vaulted from the rubbery tube pursued by a stream of stagnant water and dried twigs, splashing the seat of my pants. After, I landed with a thud onto the compact grass. Frightened that I was injured, Faith pantomimed the story of my impending punishment by expressively mouthing words in some silent alien tongue and banging on the windowsill with a wooden ladle. Bang-bang-bangbangbang. The sun dried my shorts and baked the bacteria onto my legs. I would lie there staring aimlessly into the sky, listening to the chattering transmissions of mockingbirds, red-hooded finches, and blue-blooded blue jays strafing the ground.

Often as a boy I would stand with one foot on the dining table, which was flush against the wall, and the other perched on the kitchen counter, spying on my mother. I would slide across the varnished table through the high-back chairs, landing on the floor just shy of the glass patio door, like Ty Cobb bullying his way through a baseman and sliding into second base, the only difference being my shorts smelled of lemon oil.

My mother spent her time kissing bobos, applying iodine to chafed elbows and unpeeled scabs, and consoling my wounded pride when I fell from the monkey bars. Mostly she chased my wake while I chased my tail.

As the daughter of Holocaust parents, Faith demonstrated her love by keeping me buttoned to her brassiere: clean, well groomed, entertained with laundryloads of toys, and dressed in seasonal, tailored attire fit for a king. However, food was her most enticing depiction of proof. Of all the meals of the day, breaking the morning fast was the most significant. Breakfast was a finger painting. A meal of eggs pictured a melted, spotty layer of cheese against a healthy carroty backdrop. Accompanying the henpecked treats was a bowl of hot oatmeal porridge topped with a pinky-wide slice of butter and brown sugar.

On occasion she would fry lamb’s brains and scramble them into the eggs. She’d say, That is a delicacy. Eat it all down. It will power your mind. The aroma of butter defused shivery mornings.

As the coupon queen, my mom was an intelligence operative sifting through the Sunday Post for hidden codes and thrifty bargains, armed with a pair of orange-handled scissors instead of a silenced pistol. Faith would draft me to cut, organize, and calculate the potential amount of our weekly savings in order to have enough money to spend thirty minutes away at the sprawling open-air farmers’ market. She wanted to ensure that we ate unpolluted vegetables and fruit free of gymnastic flies and had fresh milk with heavy top cream to smear on bread.

Faith loved coupons. I hated them. If I ever see another advertisement for double coupon day, I’ll know I’m in hell.

Faith sowed the seeds that would anchor my being.

At three years old, wallowing in the mud among the burrowing earthworms and battalions of bronze beetles stationed on individual blades of grass and legions of hovering June bugs flying patrol, and rummaging through the mineral-rich dirt underneath a Texas magnolia was paradise.

That was life at three. It passed by with the speed of a summer break. During the wintry bleakness of my fifth year, I yearned for the return of those bygone days.

≈

The first part of ’76 was primitively peaceful. Carvel Street offered the children of the block a safe fairground for their daily circuslike activities. We were safe from strangers and roving transients behind front lawns fortified with thickets of shrubs and manicured flowerbeds smelling of wet mulch. The neighborhood kids rallied in the late morning hours on weekends, sharing secrets on scaling trees, collecting tadpoles, comparing bumps and bruises like aged war veterans, and honoring the fallen who had been quarantined at home in bed with the flu.

We would convene in someone’s backyard, holding sacred peace pipe ceremonies in Indian circles, smoking bubble gum cigarettes and blowing out puffs of sugar, exaggerating the anecdotes of the previous week.

It was a sleepy dreamstate existence.

We found girls awkward at that age and poked fun at their differences. Yet, whenever called upon, we took the charge of noble protectorate.

Every year spent on that block amongst my friends led me to believe that I was special. Fate had landed me in wonderland. Time did not exist in those lazy days.

On the other hand, that was the year I came to understand why Faith had to match the right color base to her skin. She had to hide the bruises.

There is no noise a child can make that can drown out the merciless silence or the focused emotions of wrath and strife that pass between two parents. The lasting ripples of contempt and the bitter echoes of uncontrolled rage stay with you longer than a welt from a balled-up fist. A parent’s yell can deafen the loudest drums and destroy any sense of childhood security.

It was in late August of ’76 that the sound of shattering dishes made me cover my ears and pinned my eyelids open. Fear made me leave the den and wander the hallways between the bedrooms as a small being disembodied by doubt. I felt as if I was split into two pieces. One part of me wanted to protect my mother, and one part wanted to stop my father, but neither side wanted to see either hurt or shed a further tear. I looked out into the den from the shadows. I rubbed my toes raw against the inside edge of the hallway walls as my nervousness at watching my parents manifested as a feeling of ants crawling up my legs. I wanted to do something, but I was racked with guilt as I witnessed her moan in agony. I would step towards my room to reach for my baseball bat so that I could stand as Faith’s protector. Then I would feel another sensation of overwhelming guilt at the very thought that I would hold a bat up to my father. So I would put the Louisville Slugger back in the closet. I did this several times: picking it up and putting it back. I felt completely helpless, wanting to protect my mother and defend her from the evil that had taken hold of Menos, but without hurting him. I was a frozen column of tears, I was a statue fixed in place by my feelings for both of them—I was paralyzed by love.

Because of such violent incidents, my grandmother began picking me up on a more regular basis from day care. Faith and I were spending less and less time at home, and I was staying over more for sleepovers with Yiayia, camping out on the living room floor and pretending to be in the Wild West.

On the drive to her house, Yiayia had passed up an overpass, a muddy, bullfrog-filled bayou, and two respectably deep construction ditches. It was a disappointing beginning to an afternoon, as we missed all four jumps. I wanted to head home to spend time with my father. Instead, we pulled into my grandparents’ driveway where my great aunt Gnosi’s four-door clunker with rusting keyholes was parked.

There were laborers, sheet rockers, and an electrician traipsing through the back door, converting the two-car garage with its Ping-Pong table, barbecue grill, garden gadgets, and meat freezer into a den.

Past the supplies of paint and Spackle, I ran into the old den, lifted the knob of the console television, and launched myself like a missile into my great aunt, who was sitting on the gold brocade couch. Hello! Like a jackrabbit, I nuzzled her fatty shoulder. Testing my Greek, I said, "Ti ka-neis, how are you?"

Gnosi blurted, "Keita Soula emathe to paidi Ellinika, look, Soula, the child learned Greek." She picked up her anodized silver loop earring and motioned jokingly to clip it on to my ear.

Yiayia replied sharply while peeling a cucumber. "What, nomizes, you think he is stupid? He is my engono, grandson. He can’t help being smart."

"It’s rude not to answer me, thea, aunt. Ti ka-neis?"

"I sorry. I no mean be rude. Akou ekei Soula ti me eipe oti eimai rude, did you hear that, Soula, what he said that I am rude? How his brain works. He is a spirto, a matchstick. Gnosi kissed me affectionately on the lips. I am fine, George. How are you?’

With a cucumber slice in her mouth, Yiayia corrected, George, behave! Get off the couch till you take a bath. Through an act of pure legerdemain, my aunt produced a licorice stick dipped in ouzo. Greek parents used the anise-flavored liqueur to numb the gums of teething toddlers. Faith used an eyedropper to plop droplets of it in my milk bottle when I was in pain or when I stubbornly reversed my schedule and started sleeping during the day and keeping everyone awake at night. Gnosi passed me another sugary delight, stroking my glowing cheek. She muttered, This between me and you. I did not withdraw as she planted another gushy smooch. "Take your bath. I will be waiting. Pane, go darling."

The anodyne of her treat made my head spin. I counted her amongst the relatives that cared. During that year, it was important to know there were simple people who displayed affection simply.

On the way to the bathroom, I heard Faith sleeping in the guest bedroom and I tiptoed inside so that my grandmother could not hear me disturbing her. Peeling back the weighty layers of safety-pinned sheets, I lay next to my mother with one foot on the bed. I wove my finger into her soft hair, lightly brushed her closed lids, and touched her cheek as it expanded and contracted. She winced slightly and moaned—Mmmmm—and I stopped dead in my tracks. Faith shifted the position of her head on the pillow and moaned. Mmmm. A heartbeat later, she turned back around facing the window to the backyard. She breathed easier as I blocked out the sunlight from her eyes with my body.

Usually I would have jumped up and down or held her nose till she rose. But I did not make a peep. My mother made funny noises when she slept. In the last year I had come to know that particularly heinous moan all too well. With her face illuminated by indirect light, I made out a suspicious discoloration under her left eye. She must have been wearing makeup, otherwise I would have noticed sooner.

I snuggled as close as I could. Cheek to cheek, I watched my mom breathe for an eternity.

Papou was not there. He would have made both of us feel better. Sometimes I would sit on the arch of his back, and he’d have me shout verbatim, Beware, world, I am George. I am alive, and I catch birds from the sky. On his back I was ten feet tall, mere inches shy of heaven.

I shut the door, allowing the serene sound of air flowing from the ceiling vents to cover Faith in a blanket of cool restorative slumber.

Besides flipping flash cards and practicing on my plastic baby grand piano to awaken the artist in me, I watched television, feasting on the antics of the Three Stooges, eating breakfast with Mister Rogers, and giggling at the slippery tactics of the Roadrunner and the slipshod Wile E. Coyote. I was envious of the stick-to-itiveness of the Leave It to Beaver clan.

My favorites were the black-and-white telecasts of Popeye. My Uncle Joe loved my bulgy-armed, tattooed hero. Sometimes when he was over at our house he would even eat mouthfuls of my mother’s spinach with me in order for us to perform Herculean feats. But that day at Yiayia’s, my uncle sat with me on the carpet watching cartoons as we filled our bellies with meatballs and cheesecake, while Aunt Gnosi was engrossed in her cup reading.

My grandmother intensely peered into the demitasse. "Edo se vlepo, here I see you wearing wide, fat shoes."

Soula, wait—

"Shh! Dond say nothing. I’m concentrating, Yiayia criticized. You might be my sister, but you bring your own bad luck. Inside of you, I see you despair. Like nothing is going to work in life—"

Soula, wait.

It’s right here. You cannot deny it. My cups never lie.

Defensively, Gnosi placed a throw pillow on her stomach. You right, I worry. I’m human.

Stop it. On one side I see you wearing wide, fat shoes. Then on the other side here, Yiayia pointed inside the cup nearest the blooming daffodil handle, "right here you are lost. Dat is okay, but no feel like the world is gone forever. Dat despair inside brings horrable things to your life. You never see good then." My grandmother played with the dried, sugary, sticky coffee grounds that overflowed the sides of the cup.

The apparent evidence linking these two women as sisters was their broken English, height, and memories of their parents. However, they shared no common interests beyond the welfare of their kin. The two could not have been more different. It was like my grandmother was born in a different house. She had an air of aristocracy about her. She was charming and well schooled, spoke multiple languages, and carried herself outside of the relaxed environment of the house like a regal monarch.

Gnosi, on the other hand, maintained a villager’s outlook. She was a woman who would attend a backyard springtime family affair wearing the same garment as she would to a formal with the exception of a strand of pearls borrowed from Yiayia. I adored my aunt and her rustic simplicities.

It was as if they were not related by blood. Gnosi was a follower and Yiayia was a leader. While my grandmother dedicated herself to the Greek Resistance, wholeheartedly defending her village, her family, and hiding British soldiers from the Nazis and their traitorous sympathizers, Gnosi dug her head in the sand. Yiayia had been imprisoned and her sister had not. For years there had boiled an unspoken hostility.

My aunt lost her composure and in a wrinkled tone asked, "Pesmou, tell me. What this means, wide, fat shoes?"

Yiayia straightened her posture. "If I saw your feet in narrow shoes that were too tight, it would mean that something troublesome is coming into your life affecting to spiti sou, your home. I say it this way: if the shoe is narrow, something in life is trying to pin your luck in a box. Because I saw you wearing comfortable wide shoes, prosperity will visit you. Maybe better health, a new opportunity. It is not always clear. More open possibilities will be shown to you."

Uncle Joe went back to his room, leaving me alone to dwell in idleness. I crawled behind the couch, bobbed my head up, and snapped my grandmother’s bra strap. She shot up and blatted, Help! I pawed the floor on all fours and peeked up from behind my aunt, gloating. Yiayia put the cup in her lap and swatted the air as she shouted, "You going to put me in my grave. Diavole, devil!"

Gnosi shifted from side to side, guarding me. Stay next to me. You scare her, she bubbled.

George, come in front of me now.

Unafraid, I stepped within reach of my grandmother. That was funny, Yiayia, how you jumped.

"Funny? I show you funny when I make your popo, bottom, black and blue."

The scowl on her face frightened me. I jumped back, making sure I was out of her reach, and used both hands to pick up the heavy ashtray off of the console and raise it above my chest. My aunt panted, and Yiayia huffed, "What are you going to do with dat, mister? Gasping, I levered it back like a shot put. The cup on my grandmother’s lap bounced into the crack of the couch as she covered the distance between us in a flash and, in a wolfish timbre, ordered, Put dat down now! Now, or I call your Papou."

Our détente lingered as I considered the consequences of disappointing my grandfather. As soon as the block of crystal was back in its place, I received a whop to my rump.

My defensive tantrum was undermined by her superior stature and the dread I would face looking into Papou’s eyes. Under her arm she carried me and installed me on the opposite couch. Yiayia directed, "Settle down or I find a katsarida, a cockroach, and put him on you."

Stricken with panic, I did not move.

Gnosi said, "Paidi einai, he is a child. Don’t be angry."

He could have cracked our skulls with that. Wait till I tell his mother. My grandmother threatened me directly. Wait, I fix you up. Wait till I tell your mother.

"Asto, let it alone. Faith has enough on her plate."

Yiayia shook the cup at me as an extension of her finger. You’re right, Gnosi. I will not bother her. She has big problems. They whispered amongst themselves.

Whispers were often passed back and forth whenever I was present, notifying everyone present to avoid the open debate of my father’s scurrilous treatment of Faith. But people’s body language whispered resentment of my dad. To be clear, any five-year-old can read the body language of people like Yiayia when she would mention my father’s name and simultaneously pull back her lips with two fingers from both hands, stick out her tongue, and roll her eyes till they were white. I wasn’t a prodigy. I just wasn’t blind. When I would sing his praises to secondary members of the family, I would be acknowledged as a dedicated son. Then a cousin or an aunt would pick me up off the floor while whispering affectionate sentiments and empathetic sorrow to my grandmother.

She returned to reading the cup but stopped. Do you think only of you, George? True to form, she adopted the stage whisper. Maybe you want me to take you home to your daddy. You can watch him drink like a crocodile. With her upper lip outstretched, she pressed the transparent water glass against her lower lip, exposing her bottom teeth. The whisper, louder than a shout, described my father with decaying teeth and a black soul.

I shriveled from defending my father and did not know yet how to fight him. I was ashamed to sing his praises in front of my grandmother, as that would set her off for hours. She would berate me with the same tenacity that Menos would in voicing his grievances about Yiayia. There were times when I truly praised my father and felt good about him because I believed in him. And at other points I felt embarrassed for loving him for the pain he caused. I loved him. I wanted him to be the father that I loved all the time. The father that I could praise all the time. I didn’t want him to be the father that made my head hurt and my stomach sick from watching him make my mother cry.

My aunt pulled at her sister’s blouse. Forget it.

"Prepi na mathi ti zo einai o pateras tou gia na thosi dinami stin mana tou, he has to