Speaking for the Child: An Autobiography and a Challenge - Bonus Edition

By Rhonda Denise Johnson

Rhonda's world starts out normal enough. Well, almost. Her family taught her to read before she started school, so in the first grade she is placed in a class for the smart kids. Everything goes downhill from there. As the world of hearing and vision slowly fades, she struggles in a world that refuses to acknowledge her disabilities, but interprets them as a lack of common sense and attentiveness. Her spiritual world is usurped by the Word of Faith movement, which teaches her that prayer and faith will make God heal her and then blames her when He does not. She must ignore what others think is common sense and look inside her Self to remain sane in this insane world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rhonda Denise Johnson
• Release date: Jun 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781958248096

Rhonda Denise Johnson

The writer who paints pictures with words. An idea percolates in my head telling me a story is there, and I must write it. I imagine you, the reader, smiling, laughing, hollering at my characters, or remembering something in your life, and I get a good feeling. It's like when you know what your purpose is in life, and it's something that affects people in a good way.                                                                        

Book preview

Part One

Washington, DC

––––––––

Chapter 1: S Street

mother begins a cycle

Of which she is not the beginning,

But a recipient and a vessel

Of eternities past and present.

Not until I was grown—nearly in my thirties—did I consider the possibility that my mother had a world of her own that was parallel to mine in its experience of femininity and emotion. Before that, she was only a part of my world—sentient yet objectified, nurturing yet unapproachable, and incapable of understanding the nebulous realities of my experience.

True, I’d been given glimpses of her experience, but the life of parents is a horror beyond consideration. The world before birth is like the world after death—oblivious and indifferent to the child’s existence and fully capable of getting along without it. Yet, glimpses of my mother’s life are entwined with mine, so I can’t tell my story without telling some of hers.

One of the things that kept me from seeing the woman behind those glimpses was they were always part of some lesson I had to learn—and always about boys. I should have had tears in my eyes when she told me she’d been abused when she was pregnant with me. But she wanted to give me an object lesson about boys, and I didn’t want to hear it.

She escaped this abuse by jumping out of a cab in the middle of the street. She was alone and strong—a bad, bold, and beautiful girl.

I feel myself in her body

Floating, not walking,

With rhythmic poise.

My hands find the gestures that are hers.

As a child, I thought her wise, beautiful, and strong,

And the vision I had then

Is the way that I feel now.

***

Why are you crying? Marjory asked my mother.

She hadn’t wanted a female boarder, and maybe this was why—or maybe there were other things men did and didn’t do.

But this young woman of twenty years of age came to Marjory’s Victorian row house in northwest DC with nowhere else to go. What could she do?

Lord knew what this child had been through that she had to come here—alone and sorrowful. People who haven’t been through much are always in the here and now. But the object of this girl’s eyes wasn’t always the thing she seemed to be looking at, and the purpose of her hands wasn’t always the thing she seemed to be doing. So, what could she have been through?

I miss my baby, my mother said.

Crying over some man? Girl, don’t even start. Crying over a man, humph. He ought to be crying over you.

No, you misunderstand. I mean my baby—my little girl.

Oh Lord. A baby. You’ve got a baby? A little girl? Marjory rolled her eyes and thought, More women in this world. More women in my house. I didn’t want this. Well, don’t sit around crying. Go get her.

That was the beginning of my stay with Marjory and Jerry, who became my godparents. That stay was at times sweet, at times violent, and always full of huge, nebulous people.

When my father came to see me, Marjory refused to let him into the house. I wasn’t told why. Perhaps she felt threatened. Here was this strange black man. In his face, she could see my eyes, my mouth. In his aura, she could see the flesh and the blood I really belonged to. So, she held me back like a purloined princess. Perhaps because my parents weren’t married, she saw my father as the bad guy and wanted to protect me.

Hell, naw! Marjory stood like a sentinel in her doorway. You say her mama said you could do what? I ain’t heard nothing about it. I don’t care who you are. You get your black ass away from my house ‘fore I get my pistol.

The pistol must not have been very far because next thing she was firing at his feet.

He didn’t run. Rage erases fear—and he was angry. I come to see my daughter, and you gonna shoot at me? Are you crazy? Woman, I will burn your little raggedy house down. He was proud and righteous—full of truth. That’s my daughter.

You hear what that bastard said? Marjory was incredulous. She spun around and back again with raised eyebrows and narrowed eyes for anyone and everyone who was listening. He’s going to burn my house down. I’d like to see you try it. And I know one thing—you burn my house, you sure as hell won’t burn nothing else.

Jerry fecklessly called his wife to reason and passivity. Now, baby doooooll.

Naw. This nigger wants to burn my house down. Go on. I dare you. In fact, I’ll get the matches. You gonna burn my house down? I will get the matches.

That’s not how a woman was supposed to react to such a horrific threat—not in 1965, but that was Marjory. She kept a loaded pistol with a white-pearl handle in her pocketbook. When a mugger stuck a gun in her car window at a traffic light, she rolled up the window on his arm and drove to the police station, while he did his best to keep up with the car.

But Marjory wasn’t a loudmouthed woman, and she was never uncouth in her carriage. She was elegant and graceful with a Southern sharpness that was always ready with a comeback. She gave me glimpses of her childhood.

Ev’rybody knows Marjory’s mama married a white man, some kid would say.

Well, at least they were married, ya bastard, she’d retort.

She loved my mother and fought for her as much as she fought with her. My mother worked as a waitress at a coffee shop. One day she called in sick, but her boss threatened to fire her if she didn’t show up. Marjory got on the phone and told him what he could do with his sorry-assed job.

Marjory loved anybody who could sing, and my mother has a lovely voice. I still have the mental video of her beautiful face leaning down as she sang to me.

There were ten in the bed,

And the little one said,

Roll over, roll over.

So, they all rolled over,

And one fell out.

. . .

There was one in the bed,

And the little one said,

Good night. Sleep tight.

––––––––

I remember as if it were a polaroid in my mind when I used to stand up in my crib, and we’d play patty-cake. She’d smile so wonderfully that when she left, I’d look at the lightbulb shining from the ceiling and imagine it was the embodiment of her smile. Her smile didn’t remind me of the light—the light reminded me of her smile.

Call this a prelingual abstraction, if you will. Babies talk and know what they are talking about. A baby has a name for everything in its world until the huge ones supplant that world with what things are really called. Then comes confusion, self-doubt, and forgetfulness. Is goo-goo universal? Do all babies call that thingamajig a ga-ga? A child’s first necessary pain is the crumbling Tower of Babel—humanity’s natural language.

Do I remember, or do I just remember remembering—passing the memories from year to year and decade to decade like a baton in a relay race? The finish line isn’t marked by a ribbon but by a pencil.

I’ve seen pictures of Marjory, a lovely woman with coiffed platinum blonde hair, fine bones, and big sultry eyes, at the cabaret to hear my mother sing. My mother’s voice fills a room and gives you the courage to delve into those parts of your heart you’ve always feared to go. When she sings about lost love, it’s with the decisive strength of a woman who has faced her truths and survived.

Oh, we must say goodbye.

Cause you seem to keep on making me cry.

The Moonlighters, 1967

Marjory’s house was big, but it wasn’t big enough for two strong women. My room was big, but it wasn’t big enough to shield me from their verbal violence.

I didn’t understand the ugly shouts echoing up from the first floor. Why are they shouting at each other? They’re supposed to love each other. They’re supposed to love me. Marjory, no!

But there was nothing a three-year-old girl could do except stand in the corner crying and screaming when the woman stormed into my room and grabbed a vase or something to threaten my mother with. My young heart reeled inside me to see the two women I loved tear at each other like this. My world crumbled and lurched precariously as the two women I depended on for stability fought.

I dreamed of wolves. I dreamed dark dreams I no longer remember. But toward morning, I dreamed of water. Running water. Falling water. Trickling water. The moment I woke up, I knew that before I even had breakfast, I was going to get a spanking.

Whatever the purpose was of this daily ritual spanking, it was lost on me. The memory of yesterday’s whipping never invaded my dreams to rouse me from sleep, to get up and go to the bathroom.

I became used to the idea that things outside my control could get me in trouble. A few times, I tried to change the sheets before Marjory came in, but she always found them and went straight for the backyard to get a switch, while I stood in my room waiting and crying.

Marjory, let me sleep with you. Please! I won’t pee in your bed. I promise.

I know you won’t pee in my bed, ‘cause you sleeping in your bed.

She kept walking down the hall, and I was supposed to be walking with her. But the distance between us was more from her words than from the length of her legs. It wasn’t so much a distance between me and her but between me and my world—between me and the idea that I was safe, cherished, and not abandoned in my world.

I didn’t know what to do, so I buried my despondency in the wonders of that old Victorian house. There were so many nooks and crannies, doorways and stairways where the imagination could nestle into mysteries and endless exploration.

In a straight line from the front porch to the back porch lay the foyer and a long hallway. To the left lay the living room—mysterious in its forbidden and forbidding formality. Turn right and you’d be in the den. All I remember about the den is the claw-footed couch under which I found refuge.

At the other end of the hallway came the dining room where Marjory kept pretty things on a white mantelpiece above my eyes.

One had to walk around the dining table, past the white sideboard and the china closet to get to the kitchen where Marjory sat at a big table and snapped fresh green beans into a huge kettle. It was where I discovered that I could eat ten Hungry Jack biscuits but not one lima bean, and no one could convince me that there wasn’t an unbridgeable gustatory chasm between hamburger and meatloaf.

Upstairs, I had a room to myself at the other end of the hall from my godparents’ room. Almost all the furniture in Marjory’s house was made of wood and painted white with gold carefully painted into little crevices and engraved curlicues. I traced the swirls with my finger, not knowing that I was taking pictures with my mind’s camera and would one day have a mental scrapbook decades old.

There was a lot to discover when I was alone. In fact, it never occurred to me that I was alone. I never whipped myself. I never yelled at myself or found anything wrong with keeping my own company. In that big old house, I found mysteries that no one explained to me because no one was there. I knew Marjory was somewhere, and that was all I needed to know.

I don’t remember what drew me out of my bed one night and brought me down to the kitchen. I paused when I saw a mouse. Not knowing what I was seeing, I might have been afraid if Marjory had been there to teach me that I was supposed to react with fear at the sight of a mouse. But I was too much in awe of this strange form of life to be afraid.

So, without fear but with plenty awe, I eventually found my way to the basement. But that was Marjory’s territory, and when she was with me, I learned what things were called and what they were for. I could look but not touch her antique sewing machine and seamstress dummy.

Ooh, let me see.

See with your eyes, not with your hands.

She made clothes for her neighbors.

Go on and sing for Miss Mabel, Marjory coaxed me.

I could only stare transfixed at the stately women who came to be measured for or to pick up capes and coats with intricate embroidery and hidden pockets.

Oh, she’s shy, but her mama can really sing. Woo, that woman has a voice. Don’t you want to sing for Miss Mabel? Sing that pretty song you learned from your Disney albums.

She looked at me expectantly. Miss Mabel looked kind, important, and skeptical. I didn’t open my mouth.

Marjory kept a television in the basement so she could watch The Edge of Night or Gunsmoke while she ironed clothes. I sat in awe watching white men in black clothes and slippery-looking shoes run through the night to escape cars and bullets and women.

Most of the basement was actually above-ground in the back of the house. I remember sunlight and air coming through the basement door, which was always open, as Marjory combed my hair. That was a job for Superman. I’ve always had thick, tightly curled hair. It curls so tightly that Pharaoh would’ve caught the children of Israel if Moses had been trying to part my hair. Hold still. Hold still, said the Inquisitor to the little girl on the rack. If the Emotions were singing on the radio while Marjory combed my hair, I’d sing along with them. Show me. Show me. Show me. Show me ho-OOWW!

Of course, sitting in the basement with the door wide open made me curious as to what lay beyond that door. After Marjory took me out, it wasn’t long before I started wandering out by myself. The backyard was big and contained enough mysteries to keep my inquisitive mind in wonder. I stood under the giant oak tree watching the sunlight play through the leaves. This raised fascinating questions for a three-year-old still trying to figure out the way the world works. What are shadows? If they’re pictures, how can they move?

I’d gaze at the black beetles I found under flat rocks and wonder why the rock didn’t crush them. I didn’t know it was inertia keeping the dirt from falling out of my bucket when I swung it around on my arm. If I’d known there was a name and an explanation for what I saw, would I have been any less fascinated?

I stood on my high back porch and surveyed my domain. The world and its mysteries were mine alone. From my porch, I could see across the alley, and I thought that if the houses weren’t in the way, I’d be able to see on forever as far as there was something to see.

I shared this domain with my dog Lobo that my godmother found in the woods. He was a jet-black half wolf with one white spot on his chest. That dog loved me and half raised me. He almost killed my mother’s brother Bobby for standing too close to me while we were playing ball. But Lobo let Marjory’s little grandson Keith play with me. He was a cute little golden-brown boy with long, silky, curly black hair, and we were like cousins.

When I was about three or four, something happened that I think may have shaped the rest of my life, though at that age I didn’t notice anything. I was leaning over the wooden stretch gate that Marjory kept over the top of the back-porch steps so I wouldn’t fall. I was leaning catty-corner, half over the gate and half over the iron railing of the steps. The porch must have been almost a story high in the back because it was only a few steps from the ground to the basement door below the porch. Keith opened the gate to go down into the yard, and I fell right over the railing, bounced off my wooden rocking horse and onto the cement ground. All I can remember is women scurrying around saying, Don’t let her fall asleep. Don’t let her fall asleep.

This would later become one of the events I look back on as a possible reason for my hearing loss. Though I’ve never found two doctors who’d tell me the same thing.

The world below my front porch contained even more mysteries than my house or my backyard. And one strange mystery, more enigmatic than anything I had ever seen or heard—other children. I remember feeling a sense of alienation from the other children in my neighborhood, as if I wasn’t quite a part of their world but only observing it.

There’s the ice-cream truck, Rhonda, Marjory called to me.

Tinks and tinkles of frosty, bright music rang from the truck like all the snow and toys of Christmas coming down the street. Marjory would take me out to get a cup of vanilla ice cream, but she was more real to me than the other children who clamored around the truck.

Being an only child, I played by myself a lot. I liked to be outside in the sultry summer evenings wondering at the stars and the music that floated unbidden through the air. All the other children were huge and seemed to know each other already. They ran up to me out of nowhere, peppering me with questions. What’s your name? Where you live? How old are you? Huge, nebulous questions from huge, nebulous people.

Then a girl came up who was even taller than everyone else. She had deep chocolate skin with bright doll baby eyes, as sultry as the night and belonging to it—belonging to this world where I happened to find myself. I stared at them, not knowing what else I was supposed to do. As if they were all little Miss Mables, I didn’t open my mouth.

She looked at me briefly and exclaimed, Oh, she’s cute.

Then she cross-examined me with the same huge, nebulous questions, uttered some oohs and ahhs of short-lived fascination, and skipped off. The other kids followed her, so I continued playing alone as I always had, as ready to forget them as they were to forget me.

Though my role with the children below my front porch remained a mystery, I found solace in books very early. Marjory took her role as my godmother seriously. She gave me a little children’s prayer book when I was, I guess, three years old and taught me to pray every night before bed and before each meal. After half a century, I still remember the little rhymes.

Goodnight, dear Jesus. The day is nearly through. Thank you for guiding me and helping me, too. I’m going to sleep now. Please bless me this night. And keep looking down to make sure I’m all right.

I remember one night I was lying in bed very troubled about something. I asked the person my prayer book taught me about to be with me. I didn’t know anything about Christianity or the Apostolic Creed. I didn’t recite the sinner’s prayer. I was just a little girl in need and with the credulousness of a small child, I knew that gentle spirit was there. There was no blinding flash of light, no voice booming from the clouds. But the presence was very real.

Marjory went to a church on the corner and would take me to meetings that the women held in the evenings. I look back and wonder if that’s where she got the phrase biggest bitch in the kitchen.

This church also had a preschool in the basement, and when I was old enough, I started going. I still wasn’t used to other children, so when they let us play outside, I mostly played with the wooden blocks and other toys. I did make one friend named Barbara. We would play together and made up a funny walk with giant steps. Now I had two friends, Allen, the little boy next door, and Barbara.

But the other kids weren’t a part of my world, and I wasn’t a part of theirs. I was missing something that was obvious to everyone else. But because there was so much I could hear, nobody knew there were things I wasn’t hearing. And nobody thought to look for a disability when hardheadedness and lack of common sense provided ready explanations for why I didn’t respond as other children did. Twice a crowd of kids followed me home.

Ooh, you did it. Now you gonna get it.

But I didn’t mean to wet my pants. It just happened.

Questions and verdicts, snickers and rolling, narrow-eyed looks swirled around me, in front of me, and behind me in a solemn march toward a waiting switch.

Inside the preschool, the people watching us were just kids themselves—barely teenagers—but they were huge grown-ups to me. One day Allen pushed me down and got on top of me. The watchers watched and laughed, urging him on but fortunately, not in. They were big. I was little. They were in charge, and it never occurred to me that what they did was anything but the way of the world.

Why’re you so hardheaded?

I had no answer, but at such a young age, I was already questioning why I had to obey people who didn’t protect me. Though we were in a church, I didn’t associate that big gothic building or its people with the spirit who watched over and comforted me at night.

At some point, my father made himself okay with Marjory and came into my world. He was another mystery that popped out of some nook or cranny. I began to recognize him as someone who was supposed to be there, but it would be five or six years before I knew he was my father. But at four years old, I began to wonder. Other kids had fathers, so why didn’t I? Was I supposed to have a father? Why? Why not? What is a father? What are they supposed to be? What am I supposed to do with them? Was Jerry my father? But none of the other fathers I’d seen was bald and gray and scraggly like Jerry.

This man looked more like what a father is supposed to look like. Supposed to? How can anything be if it isn’t supposed to? Like Voltaire’s Candide, I made no difference between supposed to be and is.

What is this man supposed to be? Could I ask him? He wasn’t stately. He wasn’t up there. He played with me and had beautiful eyes.

You’re my father, aren’t you?

It was out of the blue for him. For the first time, something I said to him hung in the air between us, and I feared I’d said something I wasn’t supposed to say. It hung there, then clung to his face like a wad of gum he had to remove before he could speak.

Where did you get that from?

It was too late for him to smile. He knew that, but he tried anyway. Kids—so easy to divert their attention. She won’t remember. She won’t understand. But she’ll understand playing. Let’s play.

He told my mother what I’d said, and she jumped on me. I’d said something wrong—something bad. Was it bad for me to wonder if this man was my father? Bad for me to wonder if I had a father at all? Bad for me to have a father? Why? What? Who?

Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about, so just shut up!

I absorbed her rage into my little body and unleashed it on my father when he came again. Why you tell my mother I said you’re my father? I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I don’t want to play with you. Just go away.

I ran into the den and crawled under the claw-footed couch. Alone with my feelings of betrayal and injustice, I just said every cuss word I’d ever heard.

Chapter 2: Rhode Island Avenue

From my earliest memories, I peered through wooden slats at my mother and other huge people who faded in and out of existence as they came to my crib to exclaim over me then disappeared to go about their business. Came back. Went away.