Jana the Babysitter

Jana was our next door neighbor. She was one of no less than 3 children and I want to say the youngest of them in her home. Their family had worked their way up to our neighborhood. We were always pleasant, genuinely neighborly, helping one another out when needed with rides to pick up a car at the shop, lending items, etc., but did not have much in common. The previous owner Mom was a friend of my Mother's and I remember she had a cool Mercury Cougar. They spent time together. I think my Mom and Mrs."B" might have been on the same bowling team, but that was about as coincidental as their living next door. Mrs. "B" wore polyester (weren't they called "double knit"?) pantsuits from JCPenny. My Mother had never been to one. My Mother shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue and Bonwit Teller at the Somerset Mall.  I doubt she knew either store or where the mall was located. Mrs. "B" didn't care either; just as my Mother could have cared less about having a speed boat (something they had and we argued with them about parking in their driveway or worse, backyard) or camping gear. 

Jana was our babysitter at some point when I was about 10 or 11 Chris was about 6 or 7. I was an early adolescent at best. While I matured early, I definitely wasn't "there" yet. I don't think Jana, who was only about 2 years older than myself (which might also question why she was a "babysitter") was fully developed.  She suggested we played house and I said OK but I wanted to be the girl; that should have said something... That said, I recall enjoying playing with her puss, perhaps because it was prepubescent? I kind of think she might've found my dick into her, but I really don't know; I was wearing a silly powder blue tennis dress of my Mother's and the whole thing seemed surreal. I was sworn to secrecy following. I remained about as true to my word as Jana was to her charge as my caretaker.

I told my Mother about what happened shortly following. She confronted Mrs. "B."  The "Bs" came back as an army. The oldest brother was definitely an adult and a big guy. I vaguely remember that he was going to community college and likely in his mid 20s. "Failure to launch" might be the term used today and back then you launched sooner than later so he was just DOA. I think he lived in their basement. There was another brother and he was at least old enough to drive a car. His hair was as long as Jana's and from a distance and quick glance it was hard to tell them apart especially since Jana was more of a tomboy and dressed much like her older brother. All I know is they stood on their driveway from what I remember as a top of a "hill" (but look at the picture below, that is Mrs. B wagon on the left it is a marginal rise) looking down on my Mother, my little brother and me. They screamed, yelled, called me a liar, called my family names (really, in this case?). There were threats from Jana and her brothers; how they were going to make my life "hell." Mr "B" came down and got in my Mother's face with a finger constantly pointing and his fist otherwise clenched and threatened her to a point where I wasn't sure he wasn't going to hit her. I jumped in front of him and told him to get the fuck away as he went towards my Mother. He clenched a fist at me blurting some sort of derogatory expletives. Chris jumped in and tried to push him away with all his little might. One of the brothers pushed him to the ground, hitting him in the face and bruising him, but then retreated up to his driveway. Today, I would have hopefully captured all of this on video, perhaps had it live on Facebook. Today, they would have all likely gone to jail. Certainly, they would have not been able to turn their story into one of how we were the culprits and they the victims making a few of our neighbors turn on us.

5735 Hobnail Circle, West Bloomfield, MI. 1984. 

My Father was out of town when the incident occurred. This was often the case. He traveled 100 to 150 days a year to escape his unwanted marriage. He didn't comprehend my complaint, I think in part because he did want to comprehend it. I think he was recognizing my homosexuality before I did and was less than accepting.  He said something similar happened to him as a kid. He considered himself "lucky." He tried to patch things over with Mr. "B" but while they played nice none of the rest of either side were having it.

There were nothing but problems for years following. Whether it was our lilacs that were a hedge between part of their yard and ours mysteriously not blooming, my Father's radar detector stolen out of his car or my bicycle being stolen from the garage, we had countless unprovoked and unproveable problems with our next-door neighbors. All this in a community that was supposed to be suburban bliss.

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