Trust Your Struggle, page 6
‘Cruces is home to one of the biggest high school rivalries west of the Mississippi: the famous Mayfield Trojan vs. Las Cruces Bulldawgs. The two schools are the oldest in the city and many of the families have generations tied all the way back to the schools’ foundations. Only a few have strayed to, what most call, “the dark side” by transferring to the opposite district but, traditionally, if you were south of Main Street and Picacho Ave, you were a diehard Bulldawg and anything North of that, made you a loud and proud Trojan.
The biggest competition between the two schools happened during the football season. Every Fall, Trojan and Bulldawg fans crowded into the local college stadium because it was the only place big enough to seat the 25,000+ fans that attended. Adults made a day-event out of it, tailgating, drinking, and reminiscing, children painted their faces and played a big game of tag with their classmates, while the high school students painted their chests and bodies and snuck off with stolen bottles of liquor and beer. Avid, long-standing generational fans came out to support their team while also doing their best to distract, discourage, and defeat their rival. Tickets were almost always sold out and by the time it was Kickoff, everybody was on their feet, cheering and screaming for a victory. Rumor has it if you weren’t in the stadium for the game, you could still hear the roar of the crowd for miles away. Every game was unpredictable and wild and that’s what made it a competitor’s haven; you could always count on creating a memory on those nights.
I’ll never forget the first time I got to attend the famous rivalry game; it was Fall of ‘94 and I had just turned five years old. It was the homecoming game for both high schools and Judith was a junior at LCHS. Mom had decided to take all of us girls to the game because Judith was being crowned Homecoming Princess and she wanted pictures to capture the moment. I didn’t care why we were all going, I was just excited that I was deemed “old enough” to go. The games sometimes became violent because of how deep the rivalries went, but Mom thought I was old enough to understand the importance of staying close. Even though Jasmine, Angela, and I were bubbling with excitement, Judith wasn’t. She was upset we were all going because she was convinced we would embarrass her somehow.
“But all my friends are going to be there!” Judith practically cried to Mom.
“So what, Judith? We’re your family,” Mom replied with a sharpness that tittered along the lines of being pushed too far.
“But they’re not going with their families! Can’t I just go with them?” Judith whined.
“Judith, you are going to be with them all night after the game, you can spend a couple of hours with us first. Stop your damn whining and mind your manners, you represent more than just yourself, you represent the McGee name and don’t ever forget that, young lady. Now, go get your sisters ready while I finish Jasmine’s hair,” Mom’s demand was the indicator the argument was over.
Judith stomped away, muttering under her breath.
“You’ll lose your curfew tonight if you keep up with that sorry attitude!” Mom yelled after her.
Mom never missed a word or beat with Judith, even though Judith thought she could pull a fast one every now and again. Mom seemed to have eyes in the back of her head and supersonic hearing because right before Judith was successful in any of her attempts to trick Mom, there Mom was, waiting in the shadows with the belt firm in her hand. Judith received the most spankings out of the four of us and Mom said it was because Judith didn’t understand the meaning of “no”; Judith swore it was because Mom blamed her for our parents’ divorce. I never learned who was right, just that Judith never won.
Judith helped me and Angela get dressed in Bulldawg colors - red, white, and blue - and then fixed our hair into matching pigtails. Everyone mistook us for twins, but we were actually thirteen months apart. Angela hated when we matched, but I didn’t really care. I actually kind of liked the attention we would get from adoring strangers.
“Ju-Ju, are you mad we get to go with you?” I asked as she slicked one of my pigtails into a hair tie.
“No, baby girl,” Judith said softly. “I’m just mad I won’t get to sit with my friends, that’s all.”
“Well, can’t they come sit with us?” I asked.
Judith smiled softly and stared at my reflection in the mirror I was facing, “You always find ways around things, don’t you, baby girl?”
I flashed my gapped-tooth smile in return, “I just don’t like to see you upset, Ju-Ju.”
“I’m never upset when I’m with you,” she said before she kissed me on the crown of my head.
I felt so loved and special with Judith and I promised myself to always remember that moment: getting ready for my first Mayfield vs. ‘Cruces football game.
The game itself, however, was an actual blur. Parents and kids screaming their cheers and boos, I was pushed from all sides by fans who had drank too much and were falling over, and Mom was acting like nothing I had seen before - rambunctious and loud. Needless to say, it was not a very good experience. I sat in my seat for most of the game and just watched everyone around me. I saw nothing but red, white, and blue and the Bulldawg mascot surrounding me. It was like I was drowning in a sea of LCHS fans and nobody cared to stop and help. I curled up into a ball in my chair and closed my eyes until I felt Mom’s hand on my back, “Let’s go, Carissa, the game’s over.”
I looked up and saw people around me trying to gather their thrown possessions as quickly as possible, most with an upset expression on their face.
“What happened?” I asked Mom.
“We lost,” she said bitterly. “Let’s go, people are waiting for us to move.”
Stolen Innocence
In the winter of 1994, during the holiday break that year, I learned how uncontrolled persuasion could be extremely damaging. I had just finished my bath and was getting ready for bed when Judith called me into her room.
“Hurry up and go tell Mom ‘goodnight’ and then come back,” Judith instructed me.
I thought we were going to finish the movie we had been watching earlier, a favorite of mine, “The Little Rascals,” so I ran to Mom’s room, kissed her goodnight and ran back, grabbing my blanket and teddy bear, squealing with excitement. In Judith’s room, only her bedside lamp was on, making it difficult to see, but I managed to jump safely onto her Queen sized bed, while she closed and locked her door. I thought she didn’t want to be interrupted again like we had been earlier when Mom told us to turn the t.v. off and get washed up for supper.
“Good idea! Are we going to watch the rest of the movie,” I asked with eagerness.
“Maybe in a minute. I want to try something new first. Will you help me?” Judith asked.
We rarely did new things, so I was excited to find out what she was talking about.
“Yeah!” I exclaimed with excitement. “What is it,Ju-Ju?”
“Well,” Judith sighed, “my stomach is hurting and the pain from it is giving me a headache. I want you to pretend to be a nurse and rub my belly to see if it’ll help with both of the pains. And then when the pain is gone, we can finish the movie. How does that sound?”
“Okay!” I squealed with joy. “I need you to lay down and tell me, where does it hurt?” Mom was a nurse so I felt like I knew what questions to ask.
Judith laid down next to me on her back and I sat at her waist, crisscrossed. I pressed with my little hands on her stomach while asking in my best grown up voice, “Does it hurt here?”
“No, it doesn’t hurt there, it hurts lower,” Judith groaned.
I walked my hands down lower on her belly, “Here?” I asked.
“A little lower… you’re getting closer…” Judith assured me.
I walked my hands down to her lower belly and began massaging, using my fingertips and knuckles. “Does it hurt here?” I asked once again.
“Yeah, right there,” Judith sighed with satisfaction. “Just rub it for a little while. I’m going to turn off the lights because they’re hurting my eyes and it’s making my headache worse.”
Judith turned off her bedside lamp and I felt my eyes adjust to the new darkness. It took a second for them to focus, but I could see that Ju-Ju had taken her pajama top off as well. It didn’t really shock me to see her exposed because we had taken showers together since I could remember, so it wasn’t anything new.
“Does it feel better?” I asked after what seemed like ten minutes of massaging.
Judith had lain still and quiet the entire time and I wondered if she had fallen asleep. “No,” she almost whispered, “the pain is actually moving further down as you rub right there. Rub a little lower.”
I moved my hands down to the edge of her pajama waistband and as soon as my right hand had touched the band, Judith grabbed it and forced it down her pants. She immediately placed my hand on her vagina and I could feel that it was wet. I yelled out in shock and tried to pull my hand out but Judith held on and began to soothe me by stroking my hair with her other hand, “Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay… relax. Be quiet before Mom hears you and takes you away! I’d be so disappointed then and you don’t want that, do you? To disappoint me?”
My mind was frozen and I couldn’t think straight. I knew I didn’t want to disappoint Ju-Ju, I loved making her happy, but she was scaring me at the moment, so I didn’t want to be with her either.
“It’s okay… it’s okay…” Judith coaxed, “this is what nurses and doctors do sometimes, to make their patients feel better.”
I didn’t believe her because Mom never talked about doing stuff like this, but maybe Ju-Ju knew more about being a nurse than I did and she was really telling the truth. I didn’t know what to believe and even though I tried a few more times to pull my hand away, her grip was too strong. I finally gave up and let her have control of my hand, and with that, she showed me how she wanted me to coax her vagina. She told me to keep doing it until she said to stop. I cried as quietly as I could the entire time, while she began to moan louder and breathe harder.
“Yes, baby girl, just like that…” she would say every few seconds.
It made me feel wrong to hear her talking to me in that sultry voice because I had only heard that voice in romance movies and this was not romantic - it wasn’t even close! I started moving my hand faster, in an attempt to hurry up and get it over with, but as I moved faster, Judith started moaning louder,
“Is she enjoying it even more now?” was all I could think.
I hated every second of it and the seconds seemed to grow longer than I had ever remembered them to be.
“Can I go now? I don’t want to be in here anymore, I just want to go to my bed and hide under the covers.”
But Judith wasn’t done. She continued to make me do things to her that night that scared me and made me feel really dirty, things I didn’t understand or like. After she finished, she washed me up in her bathroom sink and then rocked me in her arms as I cried into my blanket. She never explained why she made me do what I did, and I never had the guts to ask, I just knew, deep down, I wanted her to love me. She was the only person I remembered taking care of me, paying attention to me, and loving me, so I stayed with her until I fell asleep.
I woke up just as the sun’s rays started to peek through the bedroom curtains and that’s when I realized - we never finished the movie.
That morning, Judith acted as if nothing had happened and after daycare that day, she took me out to get ice cream and a new dress. She said it was for the new school year because I was finally a “big girl” since I would be graduating from daycare and starting the first grade soon. She sat me down, then looked me straight in the eyes and told me that since I was growing up, I needed to know something about being a big girl.
“You need to know that big girls don’t cry, Rissa,” Judith explained, “and they also know how to keep a secret. Did you know that?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Well, that’s what separates baby girls from big girls,” she insisted. “Now that you know, do you think you have what it takes to be a big girl?”
I didn’t know what to say because I felt like crying right then.
“Why did she want me to be a ‘big girl’ all of a sudden? Wasn’t I supposed to be her baby girl?”
“Do you?” Judith pressed.
She waited until I nodded my head.
“Good. Then let’s keep our secret just between the two of us, okay? After all, we’re both big girls now,” she said with a wink.
She didn’t need to specify which secret she was talking about because she knew I knew which one she was talking about.
“Okay,” I whispered.
She told me she was so proud of me and that she loved me very much, then she gave me a big hug with a kiss on my forehead. I wanted to make myself forget that night because I didn’t want to disappoint Ju-Ju by crying or telling our secret on accident, but a couple of weeks later, Ju-Ju called me to her room again, only this time, she didn’t complain of any pain.
I was never able to forget what Judith made me do to her because she continued to molest me almost every night for the next three years. I never told anyone or complained about it because I wanted to be a “big girl” and big girls didn’t cry and they knew how to keep secrets. So I kept everything we did to myself, thinking I was doing the right thing. I hated doing the sexual things to Judith that she made me do, but I did them anyway because I loved her so much and I didn’t want to disappoint her. I learned how to bottle up my emotions during those times instead, and create a box for the memories in my mind that I never opened. Every time she molested me, I just bottled up the emotions and dumped the memories into the box without even taking a glance at what was in there. I only hoped that neither would become too full because I had no idea what would happen if I ever had an overspill, or worse - exploded.
Series of Random Events
In the summer of 1996, after Judith had freshly graduated from high school, she chose not to pursue college. She was only sixteen at the time and wanted to take a couple years off before pursuing higher learning.
“I want to experience life first, Mom,” Judith pleaded, “not just waste my youth with my head in the books, missing everything that’s happening around me.”
Mom didn’t know what to do and was worried she would push Judith away like her parents did to her when she made independent choices, so she allowed Judith to live at home until she turned eighteen. Mom had rules though - Judith had to pay some of the utilities as her rent, she had a curfew, and she couldn’t bring boyfriends over to the house. Judith happily complied and found a part-time job working in the mall at a shoe store. Life for us seemed to be going smoothly on the surface: Angela and I were in the same elementary school playing basketball, Jasmine was in middle school doing well on the dance team, Judith was honoring her agreements, and Mom was making promotions in her career. Life, on the surface, was once again placid and serene for the McGee family, but then the pattern that later grew into our family tradition finally hit.
Judith was getting ready to celebrate her eighteenth birthday when shit hit the fan.
*RING*RING*RING*RING*
The house phone blared at 2:36 a.m.
“Hello?” Mom groaned into the phone.
“Hi, is this Ms. McGee?” a curt woman’s voice asked on the other end.
“Yes,” Mom croaked.
“Sorry to disturb you ma’am,” the woman claimed even though she didn’t sound sorry at all, “but we have your daughter, Judith McGee, in custody down at the police station. I think you should come in as soon as possible, she’s facing some pretty serious charges.”
Silence.
“Ma’am? Are you still there?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Mom said after a moment, “yes, I’m still here.”
“Okay, like I said, if you can come down to the station as soon as possible, that would be best.”
“What do you mean ‘serious charges’? What could she have possibly done? She’s a good girl, she’s a good child,” Mom insisted.
“Ma’am,” the woman countered, “as of right now, she is being held on several counts of Trafficking and one count of Aiding and Abetting a felon. We might have more charges as the investigation continues but as of right now, her charges have a $10,000 bail.”
Silence.
“Ma’am, are you still there?” the woman asked with less patience.
“Where was she when this all happened?” Mom asked with as much false composure as possible.
“She was attempting to cross the Mexico border when she was picked up. Luckily,” the woman said rudely, “the Border Patrol brought her back here because she’s a New Mexico resident, or else you’d be hearing from the Texas police, and in Texas, she’s considered an adult.”
“Okay, let me get dress and I’ll be down shortly,” Mom had heard more than she could handle.
“Thank you, ma’am, and again, I’m sorry for the disturbance.” the woman said professionally before she hung up.
Mom was frozen in her place. “My daughter? My first baby girl? In jail for trafficking? How can that be true? How could I miss that? What did I do wrong? How have I failed her? What’s going to happen? How can I afford $10,000? What about the girls? Who’s going to watch them while I’m gone?”
Mom’s thoughts were racing a million miles a second with every irrational and fabricated possibility. After about five minutes of this, she snapped out of her dismal state and into her calculated, shell-perfect self, then changed, fixed her hair and went to wake up Jasmine. She needed to explain what was going on and what she needed her to do. Jasmine was almost fourteen, finishing her eighth grade year, so she was old enough to babysit.
