This is the second in the series. Whose version to believe is up to the reader.
Upon further cleanup of the basement of the house I am flipping, I found a large envelope with a letter to a magazine publisher and a cassette tape. The envelope was battered and had been forwarded twice by the Post Office, stamped with 'Return Undeliverable'. Apparently the publisher was out of business when this cassette was mailed in 1983. I Googled the publisher and found a few magazine covers, but that was all. The address in Brooklyn is an interstate ramp now. I have been unable to find the actual magazine in question, even a copy online. The typewritten letter reads:
"October 3, 1983
RE: Article entitled
'The Sex Creep and his Crippled Daughter'
- July 1968 Issue
To whom it may concern,
Your company published the above referenced article based on a reel of tape my father sent you in late 1967. I have the complimentary issue sent to him and the check stub for the $27.50 that was paid, along with the returned tape, which I have reviewed. While the events in the article were more or less true, you portrayed him as remorseful martyr. As the 'crippled daughter' of that story, I can assure you that was not the case. I thought the accompanying cassette, which contains the true version of events, prefaced by some background, might inspire another article. Please forward your current terms for payment, etc.
Sincerely,
E. M. V."
Here is the transcript of the tape. The speaker is apparently the same as the one in the graduation speech on the earlier tapes from the sixties. Of course her diction is much more refined after a sixteen year span. She seems to be reading pre-written pages from a notebook or legal pad, with frequent commentary.
START 00:00
"Okay, chapter one.
Call me Bess, short for Elizabeth. I don't use 'Bess' anymore, and only my papa calls me that now. But this is about the past anyway. Now, at least to outsiders, I live a relatively normal life, even if I am thought to be a spinster. I'm still walking with crutches, one of the last victims of polio, but I consider myself lucky, overall.
Mmmm, where to start? I guess the children's home. Ugh. Looking like a medieval castle, it was a rehabilitation orphanage and hospital, more or less. I lived there since I was seven. Mama took care of me when I got sick, but she died suddenly of a heart ailment, and Papa was in Trenton State Prison at the time. Before he met Mama, he had helped rob a jewelry store, and later it caught up to him. So it was like we were both locked up for a while.
The state home got money for each resident, and years later I figured out that those assholes kept me there several years longer than they had to. I was almost a perfect cash patient for them; I wasn't wheelchair bound and incontinent like many of the other kids, and could help with chores in the kitchen and laundry, as long as I could sit while working. Despite the tight quarters, I didn't make many close friends of either gender; they seemed to drift in and out like ghosts in hand-me-down clothes. School, library books and later the television were my escapes. I got visits from my papa every few weeks after he got paroled. He was kind and funny, and brought me candy and Archie comic books. Over the years I grew to really love him and miss him when we separated.
Finally the hospital released me when I turned eighteen in 1967. I was ecstatic. Papa came to get me and we took a train home. As our coach rocked and thumped along, I fell asleep on his arm, something I hadn't done since I was a small child. Papa was a huge man, over six feet tall, and as wide across the shoulders as the door frames he walked through, but not really fat. Despite his 'smiling' brown eyes, he could be quite intimidating. I felt very safe and protected next to him.
Ah, a real home at last! We had the first floor of a wood-framed three story walk-up, a bit run down, but it fit the budget. The neighborhood was a little rough, police sirens were frequent, but to me it was paradise. After sleeping for years in a twenty-four bed girl's ward, I was overjoyed to have my own room, where I could change clothes without other girls snickering about my small breasts and no one would steal my things or wake me up with their screaming nightmares. Little did I know my own nightmares of sorts were just beginning. I unpacked my few belongings, books mostly, a Rosary and Bible, and modest collection of secondhand clothes. My first days were pleasant enough, as I adjusted to daily life with Papa and keeping the house while he was at work.
The first sign of trouble popped up unexpectedly, it could be said. Our house was narrow, and I had to hop down a long hall past Papa's room to get to the kitchen. One Sunday morning on my second weekend home I stopped in his open doorway to see what he wanted for breakfast. I'm pretty sure he heard me approach but pretended he didn't. My father dropped his boxer shorts, picked up his transistor radio and intentionally turned to face me, giving me the shock of my young life.
Damn! I'll never forget the sight of my papa standing there naked, six feet away, muscles and body hair in unexpected abundance. His
wiener
, I called them then, was severely swollen, long and sticking straight out! It was a scarlet, vein-covered monstrosity! I had never seen such a thing! For a second I wondered if he had some disease, like when a hand swells up from an allergic bee sting, but I knew that must have been the form it assumed for...procreation; that's the polite term. There were less scary alien creatures in science fiction movies. He pretended to be tuning the radio and didn't acknowledge my presence. To further ensure he had my attention, Papa stepped the rest of the way out of his underwear, causing his hanging sack to shake, and more so, his hulking, reptilian-looking appendage to gyrate around like it was searching for its next meal.
At this point I possessed absolutely no knowledge of sex at all, other than the schoolgirl discussions of 'morning tents' seen beneath teen male pajamas, and that a boy would 'get stiff and put it in me' if he thought I was pretty enough. I had caught sight of a few bare penises over the years at the home as boys showed them off peeing outdoors, or as mental patients displayed their genitals to us from the windows of the locked wing. I had naively assumed that was the magnitude of what would enter me on my honeymoon, if I ever even married. Evidently I was quite wrong. I couldn't believe my mama, who was nearly as petite as me, ever had that hideous thing of my father's buried
inside
her.
Back to that morning, I stood there, frozen in shock, leaning on the door frame. Finally Papa looked up, briefly proud but then feigned embarrassment, covering his forested groin with an undershirt. Certainly red-faced, I pretended not to have been traumatized and turned around to leave, offering a quick apology as I scooted away, my pulse pounding.
Nothing else was said about it, but all through mass that morning I tried unsuccessfully to rid my mind of the image of that menacing, extended penis. I had no idea why I was forced, more or less, into seeing it. If it was a test of my morality, I definitely failed by not shutting my eyes instantly. Instead, I stood and gawked at its muscular projection in sinful, lurid curiosity. But as my papa proudly introduced me to fellow parishioners after the church service, everything seemed okay, normal. I decided maybe it was an honest mistake, and maybe his hearing
had