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Authors: Jessica Valenti
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one ended up.
THERE WERE ALWAYS RUMORS IN OUR HIGH SCHOOL ABOUT AN apartment that three teachers owned together near the school where they would take turns bringing students, but no one really knew if it was true. And even if it was, we didnât care because we thought we were so fucking cosmopolitan that the idea ofteachers conspiring to molest students didnât strike us as criminal, just pathetic and disgusting. So much so that it became a joke among my friends how a teacher who had known me since I was thirteen years oldâa man in his thirtiesâcalled my parentsâ home in Woodstock and asked me to âhang outâ a few days after I graduated. I was seventeen years old at the time. He referred to himself by his first name, which I didnât really know, so it took me a few minutes to realize that the man asking if I wanted to see a movie was the same man who had taught me for years. I donât remember what I said to him in return, just that it was some version of no.
It never occurred to me that school should be a sanctuary from the bullshit that was happening outside, the catcalls and subway flashers, the gropers and perverts. This was just what men were like. This was just what being a girl was.
A few weeks before my first semester of junior year was going to end, I ran into Mr. Z in the hallway, and he pointed at me, smiling. He was wearing a striped shirt that was slightly discolored in spots, and his belly was hanging low over his pants. Iâve been missing you! he said as he walked up to me. He was breathing heavily, as if the walk down the hall had taken effort. He asked if I still wanted a good grade. I responded that of course I did.
Just give me a hug, then, he said, opening his arms. All I want is a hug from you .
I aced the class.
PART II
I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine.
âRosalind, As You Like It , William Shakespeare
THE YARD
MY FATHER HAS A STORY THAT HE LIKES TO TELL ABOUT THE TIME he died. He was working at his fatherâs laundromatâone of a few small businesses my grandfather opened over the yearsâwhen he fell into a vat of cleaning fluids and the fumes overcame him. But before he knew it, he was unconscious and saw a tunnel and light ahead of him. It only stopped, he says, when my grandfather saw him there and pulled him by the back of his shirt out of the container. He says it felt like he was traveling backward until his eyes opened.
My dadâs name is Phil but when heâs in Woodstock, New Yorkâwhere he and my mother built a house from the foundation up, just the two of themâhe goes by Philie. Philie Lama we call him, the Italian-American Buddhist who goes to meditation workshops but might blow up if you ask him to lower the music or go to a different restaurant than the one he likes.
My parents have always left out a lot when they speak about their childhood, but the violence comes out in dribs and drabs. Rumors of my father throwing a man through the window of abowling alley for beating up his younger brother. Of my mother hiding from her drunk father and handsy uncles. Of shoplifting (my mom) and of being beaten near to death by a group of boys from a rival neighborhood (my dad). Of why you shouldnât trust cops. My cousin told me once about my father catching a thief in our house and chasing him down the block with a hammer. I donât know if he caught him or, if he did, what happened next.
My parents married when my mother was seventeen because they were in love but also to get away from their families, who had disappointed them in ways big and small from the time they were young. They moved across the country from Queens to Washington in 1966âtaking a bus the whole wayâso my father could look for work at a Boeing factory. They didnât stay for long.
My aunt, my fatherâs sister, was married and had four children by the time she was twenty-one years
THERE WERE ALWAYS RUMORS IN OUR HIGH SCHOOL ABOUT AN apartment that three teachers owned together near the school where they would take turns bringing students, but no one really knew if it was true. And even if it was, we didnât care because we thought we were so fucking cosmopolitan that the idea ofteachers conspiring to molest students didnât strike us as criminal, just pathetic and disgusting. So much so that it became a joke among my friends how a teacher who had known me since I was thirteen years oldâa man in his thirtiesâcalled my parentsâ home in Woodstock and asked me to âhang outâ a few days after I graduated. I was seventeen years old at the time. He referred to himself by his first name, which I didnât really know, so it took me a few minutes to realize that the man asking if I wanted to see a movie was the same man who had taught me for years. I donât remember what I said to him in return, just that it was some version of no.
It never occurred to me that school should be a sanctuary from the bullshit that was happening outside, the catcalls and subway flashers, the gropers and perverts. This was just what men were like. This was just what being a girl was.
A few weeks before my first semester of junior year was going to end, I ran into Mr. Z in the hallway, and he pointed at me, smiling. He was wearing a striped shirt that was slightly discolored in spots, and his belly was hanging low over his pants. Iâve been missing you! he said as he walked up to me. He was breathing heavily, as if the walk down the hall had taken effort. He asked if I still wanted a good grade. I responded that of course I did.
Just give me a hug, then, he said, opening his arms. All I want is a hug from you .
I aced the class.
PART II
I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine.
âRosalind, As You Like It , William Shakespeare
THE YARD
MY FATHER HAS A STORY THAT HE LIKES TO TELL ABOUT THE TIME he died. He was working at his fatherâs laundromatâone of a few small businesses my grandfather opened over the yearsâwhen he fell into a vat of cleaning fluids and the fumes overcame him. But before he knew it, he was unconscious and saw a tunnel and light ahead of him. It only stopped, he says, when my grandfather saw him there and pulled him by the back of his shirt out of the container. He says it felt like he was traveling backward until his eyes opened.
My dadâs name is Phil but when heâs in Woodstock, New Yorkâwhere he and my mother built a house from the foundation up, just the two of themâhe goes by Philie. Philie Lama we call him, the Italian-American Buddhist who goes to meditation workshops but might blow up if you ask him to lower the music or go to a different restaurant than the one he likes.
My parents have always left out a lot when they speak about their childhood, but the violence comes out in dribs and drabs. Rumors of my father throwing a man through the window of abowling alley for beating up his younger brother. Of my mother hiding from her drunk father and handsy uncles. Of shoplifting (my mom) and of being beaten near to death by a group of boys from a rival neighborhood (my dad). Of why you shouldnât trust cops. My cousin told me once about my father catching a thief in our house and chasing him down the block with a hammer. I donât know if he caught him or, if he did, what happened next.
My parents married when my mother was seventeen because they were in love but also to get away from their families, who had disappointed them in ways big and small from the time they were young. They moved across the country from Queens to Washington in 1966âtaking a bus the whole wayâso my father could look for work at a Boeing factory. They didnât stay for long.
My aunt, my fatherâs sister, was married and had four children by the time she was twenty-one years
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