By Heart. Judith Tannenbaum
rule or sin. I am sure my parents based their whippings on the Bible, some verse about sparing the rod. Although I had no concept of God, Jesus, or sin, I understood these whippings for stealing, staying out late, or sneaking out of church services.
People at school never spoke with me about why they paddled or slapped me. No one at school ever showed me they cared. Whereas after a beating at home, my mom was still there, breakfast and dinner still served. My mom never failed to accept me no matter what law of society I had broken. When I got older, and the cops took me to the police station, my mom would pick me up as soon as she could, or she’d have the cops drop me off at home. Sure, I would get another whipping for truancy, or shoplifting, or whatever I’d done, but my mom and dad left no doubt that I was part of a family.
My hopes, my dreams, my desires—the whole world, everything around me—seemed violent: society, school, church, the pigeons, chickens, hogs, and dogs we raised at home. I stood at the pigeon coop and watched the birds battle over box houses, trying to peck each other’s eyes and beaks out. They slapped each other upside the head with their wings and then turned around in a circle dance. The winner got the love and the female. When the dogs fought, especially the semi-wild ones, their fights were long, vicious, and sometimes to the death.
My father moved to California due to the racial violence of the time. My father hit my mom and they both hit me. I fought at school, fought with my brothers, and fought with Crooks Street friends. The teachers gave beatings. I broke my brother Jimmy’s arm with a two-by-four when he threatened to take my money. My brother Jerry went off to war in Vietnam. My brother Arthur was scalded with hot water and stabbed by one of his many girlfriends. Even the Wizard of Oz was violence-filled.
Spoon (left, in cap), age eight,with some of his brothers and River Bottom boys.
FAMILY ALBUM
All of the whippings, at home and at school, only toughened my ass, my resolve, and my resentment. I grew numb. The beatings did not hurt anymore; they made me angry, empty, and sad and further reinforced my wayward ways. They showed me that power, pain, and perhaps even gain, were the way of things and the way of life. All of us tough guys, most of us from Crooks Street, hung out together, stealing and fighting each other and kicking the not-so-tough guys’ asses, taking their lunches or lunch money. I felt nothing inside when we took from others. My sense of compassion was put to sleep, along with my desire to learn and to balance my darker side with my lighter side.
There were no hugs in my family that I can remember, no one ever said the words “I love you.” Sometimes in the summer, though, my mom sat under a tree with me at her knees. She rubbed my head and thought of whatever it was she thought about on shady, warm days. These moments were blessed, even without the words “I love you.” During the summer, she also gathered all of her ice cream making tools and sat on the porch, overlooking the field, the long bridge, the railroad station, and B Hill. No matter where I was, I would come out to be near her and to hang out with her. It seemed like whenever she cooked, snapped snap beans, or made ice cream, I would be the only one there, sharing a silence filled with the making of food. My mom put a little box of powder, some salt, and some ice around the churner. I loved watching her turn a magic wheel until everything thickened. At just the right moment, Mom would look away so that I could playfully sneak a taste.
My oldest brothers—ten to twenty years older than I—were like legends: heard about but rarely seen. My brother Rob was the Hercules of the family, big and muscle-bound like an alpha-male lion. Early Jr. sometimes backed his car onto our land and turned on his eight-track player, blasting Earth, Wind and Fire; Al Green; and Otis Redding. When I caught Rob or Early Jr. on pay day, they would give me some change, and I would run off to the River Bottom store for soda pop or peanut patties.
Another older brother, Jerry, left Crooks Street and became a soldier. When he came back from Vietnam, he dreaded his hair, took up with his old sweetheart, packed up all his belongings, and moved up to northern California. Brother Arthur was too cool. Bow-legged, pimped out, and laid back, Arthur was a player who lived off the ladies and eventually moved to the big city. Garland also went into the service and was stationed in Germany for a while before coming back home with a bunch of fancy musical gadgets. Abe left to go to college in a place called Bakersfield. Not long after I broke Jimmy’s arm, he became a self-made preacher. He hexed me. Terry, Bishop, and Garland were all still at the house, but I knew the rest of my brothers from the family portrait hanging next to the metal bird cage that had a yellow canary in it.
Spoon’s brother, Rob, lifting hog for fun.
FAMILY ALBUM
And there were also my three half-brothers and four half-sisters. Pops rolled around a lot. He never loved Mom, although she loved him and never took up with another man. When I saw my Pops out on the town with other women, he smiled as if he had hit a homerun with a corked bat. I would never tell my mom, though. Her already broken heart did not deserve the enhanced misery.
The summer before junior high blessed me with more height and bulk. So the first time I was sent to see the vice principal, I stepped into his office with my head up, my lips pushed together, my eyes squinting, ready to pounce, run, or hold my ground. Sure enough, there on the wall hung four long, thick wooden paddles; one had holes in it. The vice principal spoke from behind his desk, without looking up.
“Come in and close the door, Jackson.” He played with some paperwork.
I said nothing.
“I see you have been in some kind of trouble ever since you arrived here.”
Again I said nothing.
The vice principal came from behind his desk, rubbed his chin, eyed his paddles, and then looked back at me. He stood a few inches taller than I did.
He grabbed his famous paddle with holes in it and fondled it like he was trying to goose it.
I stood my ground with mad tears in my eyes. I said nothing, but my fists were coiled like rattlesnakes. The vice principal paused and then suspended me.
History, science, math, language: I could not absorb anything from my classes in junior high and believed that it was impossible to learn anything in school. I gave up, remaining silent in class and never raising my hand. I was a teenager, mad and disliking authority. Teachers understood that I would not accept any beatings without a fight. I was too big for whippings now—at school or at home.
By this time, my parents had separated. Despite everything else, each of my parents had a strong work ethic that they instilled in their boys. I loaded and hauled junk to junk yards, and with the Crooks Street boys, went up and down the long roads and highways collecting soda pop bottles to redeem. We sold Desert Dispatch newspapers for a dime on Main Street and at the railroad station.
But we also stole—soda pop bottles and items from unattended cars, rail cars, and trucks. Anything that had value and was not tied down, we sold to get dope and drinking money. I stole in the daylight on the way to school and at night in the darkness of the desert. I stole from anyone, even family and neighbors. I had no conscious idea of conscience, no sense that I hurt the people I stole from. I did have feelings, but they were aloneness, anger, and rage.
The deeper I got into my teen-age years, the more disillusioned and alone I became. I had always liked being alone, but now I thought I was supposed to be like everyone else. I never felt accepted by anyone during my teen-age years because I did not or could not accept myself. I had no idea who I was or what I was doing on this, or any, planet. I did not realize that the objects I stole could never fill the dark pit in my lost soul.
I often hung out with white friends, listening to the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix; smoking weed; popping purple haze, orange sunshine, and window pane acid. I lived on the backside of life, caring about nothing but the next party. I knew I would not be able to make things work in regular high school, as I did not understand any teacher or subject. Besides, they kicked