Be Impolite Or Be a Statistic?

By Amanda Castro-Crist

My brother’s room is dark. The only brightness spills through the open door from the hallway in a narrow slice that gives just enough light for me to see the outline of my mother’s cousin lying in the bed.

At 10 years old, it was the first time I’d met Angelo*. He was in his 30s and one of the distant cousins I’d only meet because of a funeral or some other tragedy that always seemed to lead to an impromptu family reunion. At this point in my life, I’d only been to a handful of those gatherings, and none Angelo had attended. Weirdly enough, this visit wasn’t because of sadness – he just happened to be passing through town and asked if he could crash at our house for a couple of days. My mom said “of course,” and my brother gave up his bed.

We’d spent the day doing a bunch of things I can’t remember. But I’m convinced the bad didn’t start until he called my name from my brother’s bed, because I didn’t hesitate to stop, and I didn’t hesitate to come closer when he asked me to. I feel like I might have even been smiling.

I did hesitate when he asked for a hug – so much that he had to ask again, cajolingly: “Come on. Give your cousin a hug goodnight.” It felt weird – I’d barely met him and, besides, he didn’t have a shirt on. But I’d been taught to be polite, to respect my elders, and those were the thoughts in my head as I reluctantly leaned down, a 10-year-old girl who would live through what felt like a lifetime in the next minute.

A few weeks earlier, during our afternoon lessons, my fifth-grade teachers had separated the boys from the girls. The boys went to the gym where, the girls later found out, they played dodgeball and tetherball and a bunch of other games. The girls went to one classroom and learned all about our changing bodies and what it meant to become a lady. We also watched a short segment on keeping your privates private. There was an awkward moment when someone seemed to imply that we shouldn’t give anyone else access to those parts, that it was bad, and later, when the boys told us they’d gotten to play games, I wished that I’d been in the gym with them instead of watching an after-school special about periods and bras.

He smelled like onions and armpits and dirt. Of all the things I remember, the smell is the strongest. His skin was clammy, greasy, and as I started to pull away, that awkward moment from the period talk was what flashed in my head. Why were his hands on my butt, squeezing and pushing me toward his hips? Why were his hips, still under the blanket, pushing hard against mine?

I knew immediately that this was what they had tried to warn me about. I knew immediately that this was wrong. I didn’t know what would happen if I stayed, but I knew that it wouldn’t be good.

And yet, still, as I pushed and said no, it wasn’t with a scream and a struggle, but with weak pushes and an even weaker voice.

“Please, no, stop.”

Like I was asking a small child to stop kicking my chair. Like, maybe, if he didn’t stop, that was OK, too.

When he let go, and I was able to stand up and step back, even then, I was worried about being rude. I think I might have even apologized.

He motioned with his hand that I join him on the bed, with a look on his face that said I was being ridiculous. I’ve seen the same look on the faces of boyfriends and even my husband – it’s the look you shoot your girlfriend, your wife, your lover, when you’ve had an argument and you’re on the brink of making up.

It says, “Don’t you feel a little silly making such a big deal out of this?”

It says, “Come back to bed.”

I shouldn’t have learned that look at 10 years old.

Don’t worry. This is as bad as this part gets. Because as much as I tried to be polite, I knew that it was more important for me to get away, and even though it took me much longer than it should have, long enough for him to curse and tsk at me, I shuffled my way back to the hall and into the light and then to my mother’s room, where she and my brother lay watching TV. I didn’t mention any of it to her then, but I made sure to accidentally fall asleep in her bed that night, scrunched on the side of the bed the furthest from my bedroom, which was right across the hall from my brother’s.

I clung to her that week, the entire time he was there. Too late, I was impolite, refusing his candy and his hugs, pulling away from his pats on my shoulders, refusing to be alone with him at any time of day or night. My mother grew annoyed, asking several times what was wrong, but he always seemed to be there, so I stayed mute, beet-red, still sort of polite.

When he finally left a few days later, my mom told me he was going to stay at my aunt-and-uncle’s house. The relief I felt was quickly surpassed by the realization that he’d have access to another kid there. I’d decided that I wouldn’t tell anyone about my ordeal, but what about her?

I made myself sick that afternoon and night, worrying and trying to figure out how to tell my mom what had happened. Why would she believe me? Would she think I’d done something to encourage him? Would she think I deserved it? We didn’t talk about things like this. It wasn’t good manners.

Somehow, I convinced myself that I had to tell my mom. The next morning, I walked through the dark hallway to the bathroom, where my mom was getting ready for work. I stood in the safety of her shadow, illuminated only by the narrow rays that shifted around her as she applied her makeup and fixed her hair. I felt small and dirty and nauseated.

“Momma?”

“Yes?”

“An…Angel…Angelo…my…tou-ti-touched…he…Angelo…ni-night…”

The words choked me. I stumbled over them, gagging on them, forcing them out from behind the knot in my throat in bursts and whispers. Each word exhausted me and felt like a step closer to tears, and maybe vomit, made worse by the fact that I had to repeat them several times until they came out in the right order. Even then, I know I didn’t completely convey what had happened, because I was so embarrassed that this had happened to me that I tried to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal.

My mom understood, somehow. I knew exactly when she did. Her face changed from confusion to stony realization. It’s the last thing I remember from that awful, embarrassing exchange.

Angelo never faced consequences for that night. How would we even prove it had happened? But what I do know is that he never came to our house again. I know my brother and I, and later, my little sister, were never allowed around him.

Later, there would be rumors that he had raped another family member. That, too, passed without consequence for him.

I wonder if she’d had better manners than me.

We still teach our kids to be too polite. I see parents reprimanding their children for not saying hello or for refusing to hug or kiss a relative. If you force a child to give someone a hug when they refuse to, why would they think they can refuse when another grownup does the same? Maybe it will be just a hug. Maybe they’ll be molested in a dark bedroom down the hall.

We need to teach our children that their bodies are theirs alone, and to recognize that they can say no to anything that feels wrong or uncomfortable when it comes to those bodies, no matter how inconsequential the touch seems. We have to stop relying on quick, awkward conversations that use implications and innuendos, and instead focus on direct statements about what is and isn’t OK. And we must give those same warnings to the boys as we do to the girls.

Most of all, we need to teach them that it’s not their fault if something does happen, and that we’ll believe them, regardless of how hard they have to work to tell us about it. We have to show them we won’t give up and, when the time comes, we’ll stand with them against the dark and protect them from future abuse. We have to let them know that it’s OK for them to tell us on their own terms and at their own pace, and that if they can’t, that’s OK too.

We have a duty to protect our children from those who lurk in the dark, whether it’s a stepparent, a classmate, an older sibling or their mother’s cousin. We have a duty to keep them from becoming one of the 63,000 children who are sexually abused each year in the United States alone. We have a duty to teach them that “no” is OK and that, sometimes, screaming it is the only proper way to say it.

Wouldn’t we rather they be impolite than a statistic?

Editor’s Note: The name “Angelo” is a pseudonym. The perpetrator’s real name was changed to protect the privacy of the author’s mother.

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