My Dad was a teacher at the same school we attended. In fact, we attended that snotty prep school in Bloomfield Hills because he was a teacher there and our tuition was free. I was 8 years old, my sister Cathy was 9, and my brother Barclay was 11, and we lived in Auburn Heights, Michigan, a blue collar town outside of Detroit. Most adults in the neighborhood worked in auto factories of one brand or another and the quality of life was pretty sad. Houses fell in disrepair, kids were unsupervised, and consequently there was a considerable amount of trouble-making. Soon after moving to Auburn Heights, my parents separated. When they separated, we three kids stayed in that neighborhood and in our house with our mother. We never saw her though - after my dad moved out she went back to school to complete her Master’s degree, and she was working two jobs to make up for the fact that our dad never paid child support. She was a door-to-door saleswoman for Electrolux vacuum cleaners, and a psychologist-on-staff at DEHOCO, Detroit’s maximum security women’s prison. My dad’s life took on a mysterious feel after he moved out. He was living in a pool house on an opulent estate of one of his student’s parents. That’s how things worked out for my dad all the time - serendipity seemed to follow him - or maybe it followed his Cary Grant looks, his Oxford University vocabulary, and his British charm. Anyway, he had moved out and we were left in an environment where charm, intellect, and serendipity were absent.
He would pick us up for school every morning and drop us back at home in the afternoon or early evening, and only after he finished correcting papers from that day’s classes. Auburn Heights and Bloomfield Hills could not have been more opposite; they were the epitome of the contrast between 1970’s working class and the budding professional class. White flight had begun to empty Detroit and its suburbs, and the distinction between blue collar and white collar status had started to imprint on the American psyche. I don’t remember being told anything explicit, but my brother, sister, and I must have unconsciously understood that the two worlds did not mix. We never brought school friends home with us and, with kids in the neighborhood, we never talked about where we went to school. They were two different worlds that we implicitly understood were to be kept separate and almost secret.
I had one friend in school, Carol, but none in our neighborhood. At home I either followed my 11 year old brother around, playing matchbox cars in the driveway, mowing the lawn, or jumping off the roof of our garage. When Barclay retreated to his room, playing the Beatles on repeat, I knew I was not welcome company so I’d find my sister Cathy to tag along with. She always had some trouble or intrigue brewing. Cathy was friends with a neighborhood girl, Alice Crank, and Alice’s brother Doug. They were 15 and 14, respectively, and though Cathy was just 9, she seemed to fit in and play on their level. Cathy and Doug flirted a lot and the things that the three of them would do when they were hanging out scared me, but I still tagged along. I had no one else to be with.
The Cranks lived at the end of our street with their dad, Mr. Crank. We had met, more like, run into Mr. Crank on occasion but we understood he was scary and did not like us neighborhood kids hanging around his house. However, the Crank’s house became a kind of flop-house of sorts. We all went there because we knew that, after Mr. Crank left for work, the house was free reign. We never interacted with Mr. Crank and we did not ask questions. We also never knew Alice and Doug to have a mother; no one ever talked about or referred to her. Alice and Doug never met our mother either because she was never home. It felt normal that all of us kids were on our own. Alice and Doug’s cousin, Junior, lived in the neighborhood and he too was part of our ‘pack’.
Cathy and Alice hung out together a lot. The rest of us would gather only when Mr. Crank was not at home. Even Doug avoided being there when his dad was home; Alice, on the other hand, had to do all of the cooking, cleaning, and seemed to be a surrogate wife/mother. Cathy would help Alice, or at least keep her company at her house while she did her chores - whether Mr. Crank was home or not. Doug and Cathy had crushes on each other; - or at least they acted like it. Junior also flirted with Cathy, but it seemed he did that just because Doug did. I had a huge crush on Junior, but I was just 8 years old and the youngest in the group by far, allowed to tag along only because my sister was one of the ring leaders. I recall there were a couple other kids that were always with us but I don’t remember their names or much about them.
We would roam up and down our street on weekends with little to do. We’d pool our money to get submarine sandwiches from the corner store; we’d stop at our house to watch TV for a bit, but would leave when we felt Barclay’s disapproval; we’d ultimately make our way to the Crank’s house, at the end of the street. As long as we stayed away until 5pm, we were good. Mr. Crank worked the weekend graveyard shifts at Ford Motors. He’d usually leave the house at 5pm to work a 6pm - 4am shift, lunch pail in hand, usually yelling at Alice and Doug. Every time I ever saw Mr. Crank he was yelling. We knew Mr. Crank was violent with his kids so we’d avoid being anywhere near him. We’d all seen Mr. Crank chase after Doug with a belt and would hear the stories Doug being beaten while being held by his feet in a rusty barrel. Cathy would tell me stories about how, when she would be at their house, Mr. Crank would beat Doug first and then he’d go after Alice, chasing her into the basement, beating her with his belt and fists. Cathy told me that one reason she would hang out with Alice even when Mr. Crank was home, was because she thought she could protect Alice if her father went after her. I have no idea if that was true, but Cathy was always inserting herself in the middle of family fights - our’s and others’ families. She seemed to appoint herself as the grand mediator, though no one else saw her that way. She really just got herself into terrible situations. I had never seen the beatings but I did not need to to be convinced I should avoid Mr. Crank. And anyway, I actually hated being in the Crank’s house - the stench of the wall-to-wall carpeting we’d sit on and the filth of their bathroom told a pretty clear story of neglect and abuse - even to my eight your self. Not having friends of my own in the neighborhood limited my options.
On one of these many weekend afternoons Cathy and I found ourselves with nothing to do, we walked to the Crank’s house. It was after 5pm so more than likely Mr. Crank would already be gone and ‘the gang’ would be free to gather. His truck was not in the driveway so, more than likely, he had left for work, but we’d wait for a clear signal from Alice or Doug that the coast was clear. Despite the fact that Mr. Crank had four vehicles in his yard, only the truck he drove worked. I always wondered, if he worked for Ford, why he could not get the other three Ford vehicles in his yard working. I thought, maybe because that would mean Doug and Drew could drive away in them - they each knew how to drive.
We gathered in the house, once learning the coast was clear. We swiftly, and predictably, filled a large pot with water to boil a whole pack of Oscar Meyer hot dogs. We had Wonder bread, yellow mustard, and ketchup at the ready. While Alice prepared full meals for her father, she and Doug lived on Oscar Meyer hot dogs. The hot dogs were sheer bliss for my 8 year old self, who never got fed at home. At the Cranks’ house, I would eat as many hot dogs as I could while everyone else went into the living room to play spin-the-bottle, the game of choice for the older kids.
Sitting in a circle, each person would spin the Coke bottle, waiting for it to stop, and to point at their “partner” (or victim, if you ask me). Spin the bottle was supposed to be a kissing game but we took it to the next level. The pairing-off happened, but instead of the kissing taking place in the circle, it was done in Alice’s bedroom, with the door closed. Two people would rise from the circle and disappear behind the bedroom door while the rest of us would just stare at the door and wait. The door was just 5 feet away from us so we could hear the muffled voices, the sound of wet mouths separating, the clank of belt buckles, and giggles. The sounds that came from the other side of that door terrified me and lasted in my memory well into young adulthood.
While I had a huge crush on Junior, Alice’s cousin, he exhibited all the aloofness necessary to make my eight year old self go loopy with love. He was dreamy - one part Bobby Sherman and one part Keith Partridge. He had a shag haircut, wore wide-leg, low rise bell bottom corduroy pants, and he was 14 - a grown man in my eyes. Cathy always told me to stay away from him - that he was trouble. He ignored me anyway - he seemed to like flirting with Cathy. Both Doug and Junior flirted with her, though I thought Doug and Cathy were ‘going out’. When Junior would spin the bottle, my eyes would follow it, willing the bottle to stop in my direction. I don’t recall it ever stopping in my direction and maybe I actually sat on the sidelines stuffing my face with hot dogs - I don’t remember. I do however, remember being terrified by what my imagination thought happened behind the closed bedroom door.
Cathy seemed to love the attention of both boys and she willingly went into the bedroom with either of them. But Doug and Cathy seemed to get the bottle pair-up a lot. They would both smirk as they went into the bedroom and emerge looking self-satisfied. Doug would be zipping up his pants - he wore really low-waisted pants snd a huge belt buckle; the glance he gave to us as he threaded his belt back through the loops was all-revealing. Cathy would not even look at me. In that moment I felt like my sister had betrayed me. We had talked about hanging out with the Cranks, about playing spin the bottle, and about my crush on Junior. We had also agreed we would never let Junior or Doug “do” anything with either of us without agreeing with one another that it was OK in advance. I don’t think I even knew what the “do” was that we were talking about, but I knew we made a promise to one another and her refusal to look at me meant it had been broken.
I withered inside, realizing what separated me from Cathy was my fear - my fear to go along with whatever the older kids were doing behind Alice’s bedroom door. I had failed to attract Junior, and if my eight year old self could not attract the affections of a 14 year old neighborhood boy, of what value was I?
Suddenly, the screen door slammed open, hitting the siding of the house with a big “FWAP”. The latch return on the screen door had long broken off - I had previously noticed that it was broken when we would have to search for it to close behind us. All of us leapt to our feet. Mr. Crank came blasting into the house, storming through the kitchen, and into the living room where we had been sitting in our circle. He never stopped moving as he broke up our standing positions, unbuckled his belt, unthreading it from his pants, swinging and swearing in our direction. He doubled it up and went straight for Doug’s legs. We watched Doug jump over the belt, dive under the belt, and then get smacked squarely on the back as he ran past Mr. Crank. Both Doug and Junior turned into arial gymnasts as we saw them catapult past Mr. Crank and then out the back door. All of ran in the direction of the kitchen and the back door; I ran outside to find Junior. Even though he never paid any attention to me, it seemed the time to join forces. Once outside, Doug, Junior, and I paused, looking back to make sure Mr. Crank was not following us, and then to check that Cathy and Alice were. They were not. From outside the back door, we could hear Mr. Crank yelling about his “whore” daughter and his “useless” son. He was demanding they come to him. He demanded to know what we were all doing in his house.
Doug and Junior took off running down the driveway, turning right toward the high school where they knew they could hide in the woods next to the administration building. Sometimes we we would hang out there - mostly when Doug, Alice, and Junior smoked pot. I waited outside the back door for Cathy and Alice to come out. When Cathy appeared she was not running. In fact, she stopped, turned around, and started to walk back toward the house, going back into the back door that remained open and through which we could hear Alice screaming. I wanted to run after Doug and Junior but Cathy was walking back toward the kitchen door. She did not motion for me to follow; she did not even look at me, she just went into the house. I followed her because, at this point, Doug and Junior were gone, and I was scared to do anything else.
We heard Mr. Crank yelling and we heard Alice screaming. The sound of the belt slapping against her flesh was alarming. It took a minute or two for me to realize that that was what I was hearing but the synchronization of the slapping belt and Alice’s screaming were deafening. Cathy and I walked back through the kitchen and into the living room. When we did not see Mr. Crank or Alice, I begged Cathy to leave, crying and pulling on her arm. But she was driven by an inner force telling her to find Alice. Cathy always butted into everyone’s business.
We stood looking at Alice’s closed bedroom door. Her screaming pierced the air along with slaps, bangs, and thumps. Cathy went to the bedroom door and tried to open it but the door was locked from the inside. On the one hand I was relieved that she was unable to enter Alice’s room, but it also meant that all we could do was sit outside the door and listen to Alice get beaten mercilessly by her father.
Cathy screamed and cried for Mr. Crank to leave Alice alone. The beating seemed to pause and Cathy banged on the door wildly. She yelled at Mr. Crank to leave Alice alone and to come get her instead. I could not believe what I was hearing - my sister was inviting and provoking Mr. Crank to come after her instead of Alice. I had no idea what was going on inside Alice’s bedroom but I knew whatever it was was not something I wanted to have happen to Cathy. As I pulled on her arm and on her waist, begging her to leave, Cathy pushed me away. I was not going to leave my sister’s side though. Cathy collapsed at the foot of Alice’s bedroom door and we sat there for what seemed an eternity listening to sounds that I did not understand until later in my life. The beating, the screaming, the smacking sounds turned to muffled grunts and the sound of bedding being violently tossed around. It was not until my mid 20’s that I connected my repulsion of hearing people having sex with this day at the Crank’s.