A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 3
It is a hot summer in New Jersey in 1976. Although simply describing it as hot doesn’t really do it justice. Stifling and oppressive sounds a lot more like it. But being just six years old, with the majority of your time spent jumping through oscillating sprinklers and into a pool, you don’t really notice the heat all that much anyway. The heat cannot touch you when you are endlessly wet on the outside while practically frozen on the inside from the constant flow and steady diet of ice cream and popsicles. Frozen treats that you more than likely bought from a man driving a musical truck with a rainbow-sprinkled ice cream cone painted on the side. And you appreciate those frozen treats even more when you climb up to the top of the playground slide and then proceed to feel the burn in spades as you slowly inch your way down the hot, dry metal. So, with your now burned red bottom, you quickly move to the swing and pick up where you left off the day before in your ongoing pursuit to touch an actual real-life cloud with the tip of your finger. But, alas, no matter how far you stretch your arm, you can’t seem to reach it just yet. You spend some time sulking in disappointment as you consider the possibility that it might have something to do with your height. Maybe next year when you are taller and your arms are longer, you will finally be able to touch it. Maybe you just need to be more patient. Or at least that is what you have been told. Having given it a good go, you begin to steady your legs in order to bring yourself back down to Earth and out of the vast blue sky that is filled with those fluffy white and misshapen clouds that you so desperately want to touch. As the swing now gently rocks back and forth, lulling you to sleep like a baby inside its cradle, you lean backwards while holding on tightly to the chains that the swing is fastened to. And with a peaceful feeling of pure tranquility, you instinctively close your eyes. When you reopen them and look up at the sky, you notice that the clouds are changing and slowly beginning to take shape. Like a dream that the universe brings to life in moving performances beneath the shining sun amid a clear blue sky. Becoming imperfect and animated images of those familiar things that are usually found illustrated in a children’s picture book. Like a giant whale swimming through the sky with a monkey on his back who appears to be waving to you. Or a dinosaur standing beside a tall castle of equal measure. Or a pack of snarling wolves on the prowl circling above you from their aerial view. In fact, it is those wolves that jolt you from your sense of calm. You quickly snap out of it and hurriedly get off the swing, daring yourself to look back up to see if the wolves are still watching you. You look around to see if anyone else sees that the wolves are about to attack, but no one else seems to see them. And as you fearfully glance back up towards the sky, it is clear that they are not only watching you, they are following you. It’s time to go inside.
A child, who just ran for her life away from a pack of snarling wolves that were seemingly created exclusively for her by the clouds, cannot be easily convinced that they were not real. Running away with a vivid imagination in tow that is as wild as the wolves she was so feverishly trying to escape. Of course, at six years old your perspective can oftentimes seem to be outrageously distorted, but that is only because you are still in possession of a wonderfully overactive imagination. You can’t help yourself. Yet even while your young mind can wander to unreasonable depths and you are fairly certain that the wolves who were formed by the clouds cannot really harm you, you are still keenly aware of the fact that wolves are far from fictitious. Being well-versed in Little Red Riding Hood’s scary encounter, you know that wolves don’t always disguise themselves in your grandma’s nightgown or shroud themselves in the clothing of a sheep. You also know that wolves are not really found in the clouds where they can magically transform into a harmless puppy with one strong gust of wind. Being young and impressionable, however, it is sometimes difficult to separate literal from theoretical, fact from fiction or real versus make believe. It is through these imaginary episodes that you begin to understand the difference between what is real and what is not. For a child, it is pretty straightforward and simple: either people who you already know well or those who you briefly come in contact with make you feel safe and protected, or they don’t. As Maya Angelou said, “If someone shows you who they really are, believe them.” And the same can be said about wolves, fictitious or otherwise. Sometimes people show you exactly who they are which could very well be a wolf in wolf’s clothing. They are not always compelled to hide or pretend to be someone or something else. They do not watch you from a distance or secretly follow you home. They do not need to sneak into your house through a small crack in a window because they live there and have a key to the front door.
Being six years old in the year 1976 is a significant part of Jenny’s story. It is the year that she first came face-to-face with a real-life wolf. One of many memories that will not be easily forgotten and will haunt her for years to come. Like seeing wolves made of clouds in the sky while the day is bright and the sun is shining. When she frequently needed to remind herself that it was just the voice inside her head that was playing tricks on her. The same voice that repeatedly tried to convince her each night that her favorite stuffed animals were really disguised monsters who would only come out in the dark. Adored dolls and stuffed bears by day who worked in harmony with the moon at night to create oversized shadows that danced upon her bedroom walls daring her to fall asleep. But no wolf in the sky or shadow on her wall could compete with those things that she did not need to imagine at all. Because they were real.
It has been said that children and dogs have a strangely accurate intuition about people. Like an internal alarm that is activated when they encounter someone who causes the hair on their arms to stand straight up while a bolt of lightning simultaneously makes its way slowly down their spine putting them on high alert. Jenny’s intuition was extraordinarily heightened from a very young age. And that’s a good thing, because her survival depended on it. You see, Jenny was accustomed, and had accepted, a life that did not include a father. From the moment she was born, it was all that she knew. But even though Jenny did not have a father to speak of, she still had her brother, Michael, along with their mother. Up until this point, Michael, who was less than two years Jenny’s senior, bore the heavy burden and responsibility of being the man of the house. He was just seven years old at the time. By default, he became the only male figure that Jenny was able to study up close. And through no fault of his own, he was a terribly unrealistic example, because, truth be told, he was far too good. For Jenny, measuring others against her beloved brother proved to be an impossible task because no one could ever measure up to his genuinely pure and unadulterated goodness. Michael always found the fun in every situation and saw good in people, even when they were not deserving of his kindness. And in those early days, the brother and sister duo were inseparable. Whether they were forming a rock and roll band that only performed while roller-skating under a strobe light in the basement or building a fort made of snow on the sidewalk, they were always together like peanut butter and jelly. Having pogo sticks, stilts and a unicycle on hand meant that they could practice longer to become a new brother-sister circus act who, with their motivation and talent, would inevitably land them in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Hall of Fame. And as they performed a homemade scripted and musical Christmas Spectacular each year for their mother, they could undoubtedly have given Donny and Marie or the Carpenter siblings a solid gold run for their money. They developed a surreptitious and covert language that only they understood which required the one shared wall that faced their separate bedrooms along with two flashlights. A silent means of communication that can best be described as Morse Code, only with light rather than dots or sound. Unbeknownst to them at the time, it would be that unspoken code and those flashlights that would save them.
Their mother, for her part, vacillated between extremes of being both tough and jubilantly spontaneous. She was as tough as nails and strict, because, really, what other choice did she have? Remember she too was abandoned by the man who never became her children’s father. Left alone to raise two small children, thrust into the role of both mother and father having literally been stripped of choices. Having to quickly pick up the scattered pieces of her own life and decide if she wanted to endure a life of lemons or if she was going to learn, and teach her children, how to make the very best lemonade. And so, to balance out her strictness, Jenny’s mother was also full of surprises and had an unparalleled knack for fun and spontaneity. She was never one who could look the other way when she saw a basket full of puppies or kittens outside the supermarket to the sheer delight of her children when she unexpectedly brought one home. And she would never hesitate to pack her kids and a few of their belongings in the car in the middle of the night and go on a long, cross country road trip so that she could show her children that there were many more sights to see than just the views from their own backyard. Maya Angelou was quoted as having said, “You can’t know where you are going until you know where you have been”. And that is true in any context no matter which direction a packed, wood-paneled station wagon, or life, takes you. And yet, some people’s stories are too personal and not necessarily meant for public consumption because those are the stories that are not for others to tell. No matter where they went together as a family, with their mutually shared experiences and destinations, Jenny, Michael and their mother likely had different memories and perspectives that were doubtlessly unique to each of them.
Jenny remembers that her mother rarely complained out loud, choosing instead to suffer in silence and alone. She often watched and observed her fatherless children adapt to life without the presence of someone big and strong to protect them as only a fictional and stereotypical father figure can. She wanted more for them, and in truth, for herself as well. And like anything else, we know that when we see a foundational crack or gaping void of any kind, our natural impulse is to try to fill it. So, Jenny’s mother decided to hire a babysitter and endeavored to fill that hole with a father for her children, all the while optimistically taking a gamble on the scientifically-proven theory that lightning would not dare strike the same family twice. She should have taken a different bet or just stuck with the lemon theory instead because this is when Jenny’s mother first came across a wayward wolf and decided to bring him home.
The wolf seemed suitable enough at first with no real noticeable red flags to speak of. He was a semi-talented musician who Jenny’s mother happened to stumble upon while out with friends, and she enjoyed music, so he instantly had that going for him and checked that particular box. Jenny’s mother had a very intense and serious job, therefore, meeting someone less serious and intense, who encouraged her to tap into her more fun and less reserved side, was naturally appealing. It would be for anyone who was given an opportunity to relax and let their hair, along with their guard, down. What Jenny and her family did not know right away, but would later learn, was that he had also previously been an amateur boxer. Having been a boxer might lead one to believe that he had the tools necessary to provide protection to this otherwise unprotected small family, and that earned him another checked box. In appearance, he looked like someone who was ordinary with no specific marks or identifying physical traits that stood out. He would have probably described himself as a mashup of Elvis Presley and Jake LaMotta in both his looks as well as his demeanor. In particular, the Elvis image from the mid-70’s that we all remember when he was already addicted to prescription drugs and became visibly dazed, confused and puffy; in combination with Jake LaMotta, otherwise known as ‘The Raging Bull’, when he was many years past his prime, but still angry and violently temperamental. A real-life wolf in sheep’s clothing had entered the lives of Jenny and her unsuspecting family. Jenny didn’t care for him from the very start and had a strong sense that there was fraudulence afoot. She knew because her intuition told her so. And that was the first red flag. Over time, more red flags were unearthed as he began to slowly shed more articles of the sheep’s clothing until there was nothing left to see except a terrifying and angry wolf.
Meanwhile, Jenny’s mother, having not seen enough of the wolf’s slow reveal just yet, decided to marry him. Michael was delighted to now have a father of his very own. Someone who he envisioned would play catch with him and teach him how to fix the chain on his bike. Someone who would magically and instantly transform himself into the role of a good father. Jenny’s mother now didn’t need to go it all alone. Like a good marriage is purported to be, she genuinely believed that she would have a life partner in every way by filling that empty space of loneliness with what was presumed to be a blissful union built on love and companionship. Someone who would help her to raise her children and ensure that they had what was perceived to be the benefits that can allegedly only be found in a two-parent household. These, of course, were lies that they told to themselves because they were blinded by wants and needs that overshadowed any innate ability to sense danger. Jenny sensed the danger but being just six years old, she was unanimously outvoted. So, the wolf moved in with them, and it didn’t take him too long to begin to unpack the red flags right along with his clothes.
To be continued…..
Disclaimer: All quotes were found on wisdomquotes.com and are understood to be true statements, fictional or otherwise, referenced for the sole purpose of illustrating a point. Quotes have been bolded and italicized to provide a delineation from the author’s perspective.