What my mother didn't understand at the time, is that pudgy and precocious little girl was just at the beginning stage of becoming an addict. At the time, I had repressed all the seedy little ugliness of being molested and was eating all those shameful emotional ramifications instead. I couldn't name the problem because my brain was actively denying there was one.
What I do remember is watching TV on the floor of the den with my family, comfortably swaddled in an old blanket and not understanding why touching myself felt so good and seemed very very wrong. I remember thinking that everyone must realize what I am doing here and a sense of relief that they very clearly didn't…they were all too focused on the television.
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My father was a pilot in the Air Force. A handsome one at that. I cannot think of John Wayne without thinking of my father, and vice versa. He was six foot two, mostly quiet, and from the bottom of his heart he adored me. He was called to duty in Thailand from our tranquil suburban home in Virginia when I was just about thee and a half.
I don't recall the flight to Bangkok. I was too young for that. I have vague recollections of our first hotel. It was huge to me and ornate. I remember being given my first Shirley Temple there and sensing that I was special in some way. It was years later before I realized that my blond hair and blue eyes were still something of curiosity to them, and even in humility I can acknowledge I was a very pretty little girl. I had the most irrepressible smile and innate curiosity of all the people I encountered. Thankfully, I still do.
It was there that I first embarrassed my mother in a way I didn't know then. It has been told as a story for so long now:
There must have been an anorexic woman at the hotel while we were there. I must have seen her about as I used the hotel as a playground. On a flight up in the elevator, she must have been with me and my mother, I exclaimed loudly, "Mommy, Mommy! It's the Skeletal Lady!!"
As it was only the three of us, the poor woman MUST have known I was talking about her. And in my poor mother's head, I can now see all she could imagine was what this woman must have thought about HER. Her poor little narcissistic brain must have been tied in one huge Ol' knot that night as she tumbled around the idea that her darling little baby reflected so poorly of her.
But what happened in Bangkok didn't happen at the hotel, it happened on the compound on XXXXX street where we were all finally moved after our stay there.
Life in a second or third world country is nothing like life in America. There, you are a Westerner, and a Westerner has more money than almost anyone. And if you have money, you have servants. It's just the way it is. So, on our compound we had Wen, the Cook; Marcy our housekeeper; Marcy's two 'tween children whom we name Oy-Girl and Oy-Boy because we couldn't say their Thai names; our chauffer; and our gardener. This is in addition to our family: My father, my mother, my fourteen-year-old brother Whit, my eleven-year-old sister Rebel, and my four-year old self. My oldest sister, Wende, was attending her first year in college in Alabama.
In many ways, life in Bangkok was idyllic. My mother had always dreamed of travelling to far-away countries and exploring exotic lands, so she was living a dream come true. My father was rising in his career teaching the Thai Royal Air Force pilots how to fly, and my siblings and I were enjoying the luxuries of the American dollar in an exceptionally large home with a staff at our disposal. I was fascinated with the frogs that thrived there not understanding that many are apparently poisonous. So worrisome an issue, that our landlord bought me two geese if I would quit playing with them. I don't remember how the first one died, but Giel (which is Thai for Goose!) was mine.
Rebel and I shared a bedroom on the top floor of our home. Whit is an almost forgotten person in my memories there. We must have crossed so little in our experiences there as a fourteen-year-old boy and a four-year old little girl. But Rebel was a constant torment to me, even if she had no idea. So, I built my world around the staff. Especially Marcy and her daughter. All the staff had small apartments in the fourplex that ran along the backside of the carport. Marcy's was on the front left and Wen's was on the front right. On the backside was the gardener, behind Marcy; the chauffeur was behind Wen.
I spent hours in Marcy's apartment watching poorly dubbed John Wayne movies. Every one of the staff believed America looked like the old West. Maybe, I did too. I was too little to recall otherwise. While the rest of my family used the facilities in our home to shower and bathe, I frequently was given my wash in the servant's bathroom. Where instead of a shower-stall or tub - they had a Klong Jar. A Klong jar was a very large earthenware pot, something in the States we would plant a tree in, but there was more like a deep soaking tub. It was short enough that I could keep my head above water if I stood on my tiptoes and it was WAY more fun to have a bath in than a Western tub.
So, of an evening, after a long day of play with Oy-Boy and Oy-Girl or following Marcy and Wen about their duties, I was frequently tossed in the Klong Jar and hung out with the rest of the staff until bedtime.
