When I was in junior high, I had this incredible crush on my Uncle Johnny. He's my mother's younger brother, and kind of the black sheep in the family. Johnny ran with a rowdy crowd in high school, and always seemed to be in some kind of trouble--underage drinking, smoking pot, truancy, drag racing; you name a way a teenager could get into trouble and he was into it. He was what they called a "greaser."
Johnny is ten years older than I am; he's twenty-eight, and I just turned eighteen, right before I graduated from high school. I was thirteen the last time I saw Johnny. He had joined the Marine Corps, and was shipping off to Afghanistan. My Mom said maybe the Marines would shape him up and straighten him out. I was afraid for him, because my father had been killed over there ten years before.
It was just Mom and me after Daddy died. Some women fall to pieces and some turn to drink. My Mom turned to Jesus. Big time. She's always gone to church, but when she became a widow, it became her full-time avocation. She switched from a Baptist church, which was conservative enough, to some fundamentalist holy-roller congregation.
She made me go to church with her on Sundays, and I hated it. The preacher would scream at everybody and tell us to "repent" for all our sins. I didn't have any sins to repent, because I'd never done anything wrong; my Mom wouldn't tolerate it. I was the perennial "goody two-shoes."
Both my Mom and the preacher kept railing about "sins of the flesh." I didn't have any idea what they were talking about, and I didn't know who to ask. I went to a Christian high school that didn't have any kind of sex education in their curriculum; all we got were constant harangues about "abstinence." Abstain from what?
I was scared to death when I got my first period. I went to the bathroom and, when I pulled my underpants down, they were filled with blood. I went crying to the school nurse. She told me it was perfectly natural, that it would happen to me once a month, and she gave me a cotton pad called a Kotex.
When I told my Mom about it, she said it's a woman's "curse," and then she told me to always wear a pad, never to use a tampon, because you have to put it in "there." I didn't even know what a tampon was. Or where "there" was, either.
All the girls at my school had to dress "modestly." We didn't have school uniforms like they wear in Catholic schools. I always wore baggy, shapeless dresses that hung down almost to my ankles, so that I wouldn't call "unwanted attention" to myself.
My mother bought me Red Cross underpants that covered my navel, and I wore a bra that was a size too small, so that it would flatten out my "bosoms." It hurt me to wear it. I have really long blonde hair that I wear in a braid that almost reaches my bottom. My Mom wouldn't let me cut or style my hair, because she said that reflected vanity.
I had almost no contact with boys. At our school, our classes were segregated, and the boys met in a separate building. The only time boys and girls were together was at church services, that were held in the auditorium, and even then, the girls sat on one side and the boys on the other.
I was completely ignorant of any kind of sexual matters, even to the proper names for body parts. A man had a "thing," a woman's genitals were referred to as "down there," or the generic term for all of them as "private parts."
I knew about kissing, because I'd seen it in the movies, but I'd never done it myself. Charlie Shoemaker tried to kiss me once at a church picnic, but he had pimples all over his face, body odor, and bad breath, so I pushed him away from me and ran home.
I had always gotten straight A's in school, and I wanted to go to college. My Mom wanted me to go to Indiana Bible College, sponsored by the Lighthouse Pentecostal Ministry. She wouldn't help me with tuition or anything else, unless I attended that school and continued to live at home.
I refused to go to any Bible college, and there began what I call "Zoey's Rebellion."
I hated Indiana. I hated Jesus. And right then, I hated my Mom.
When I was little, my Daddy was stationed in California, and I remember I loved it there. I made up my mind that that is where I wanted to go. Over the years, I had saved up my baby-sitting money, and I had about $2400 there, and since I was now eighteen, I could collect my father's survivor's benefits, that had been held in trust for me. That was another $10,000.
My mother was furious when I took the money out of the trust, but there was nothing she could do about. I figured I could rent myself a room somewhere, find a job, and enroll in one of the community colleges that don't cost a fortune in tuition.
I didn't know where to start looking, but I remembered that I really liked the Bay Area around San Francisco. My Mom had gotten a Christmas card from my Uncle Johnny last year. His return address was in San Bruno, California, which is just south of San Francisco, so I thought I would call him up and ask for suggestions.
It had been so long since I'd seen him, I hoped he would remember me. He was always wonderful to me when I was a kid, bringing me presents and taking me out for ice cream and stuff. I already mentioned that I had a crush on him when I was a teenager. So, I found his number and I called him up.
"Snooky! How are you, baby girl?"
Daddy had hung that nickname on me when I was a little girl, and I hated it, but that's what Uncle Johnny had always called me.
"I'm fine, Uncle Johnny, but I'm not a baby girl anymore. I'm calling for some advice." So I told him my story.
"Well, hey, kiddo, I've got an extra room at my place. Why don't you come and stay with me until you figure out what you want to do?"
"Gosh, Uncle Johnny, that would be wonderful." Then I thought for a minute. "I wonder if I should tell Mom where I'm going to be staying."
"HA HA HA, Old Gracie will shit a brick!" I always loved Uncle Johnny's great belly laugh. "Last time I talked to her, she called me a whore-monger and a spawn of Satan."
"Yeah, well, she told me I'm going to become a wanton woman, a harlot, and a Jezebel, what ever that means."
"I can see why you want to get out of there."
I had decided to take the bus to San Francisco to save money. Johnny met me at the bus station. I was wearing a really loose pair of denim pants and a baggy grey sweatshirt. I thought he probably wouldn't recognize me after all these years, but I spotted him immediately.
When Johnny walks, his shoulder sway from side to side, in this kind of swagger that he practiced when he was trying to be a bad boy in high school. He is so handsome, I almost swooned. His face looks just like Brad Pitt, his dirty-blond hair was long and he wore it in a ponytail. He was wearing a pair of Levi's, low on his hips, a pair of black boots, a Harley Davidson tee shirt, and a soft black leather jacket, open in the front. I probably shouldn't have noticed, but his pants were pretty tight, and he had a big bulge at the crotch.
"Hi, Uncle Johnny," I shouted across the terminal and flung myself into him for a big hug.
"Hey, Snooky. Wow, you sure have grown up."
"You look wonderful, Uncle Johnny."
"How about you drop the 'uncle' and just call me Johnny?"
"Okay, if you'll drop the 'Snooky' and call me Zoey."
"You got a deal," he smiled. Oh God, when he does that, he has these two gorgeous dimples at the corners of his mouth.
He threw my two suitcases in the back of his pickup truck, and we headed down the freeway to San Bruno. Johnny lives up in the hills aways, and he has a ranch style house that he bought and remodeled himself after he got out of the Marine Corps. It was on a big lot and had a kidney shaped swimming pool in the backyard.
We went into the house, and were greeted by this really big shaggy-haired dog, who immediately jumped up on me, put his feet on my shoulders and started licking my face. I laughed and scratched him behind the ears.
