Chapter 1
Center Of Attention
At first I was a hero. Not a heroine. A hero. It was hard for other people to see it; I knew that. I didn’t blame anyone for not seeing me for what I was right away. They saw that I was small, and I was a girl. In 1970, most heroes were boys so it was an easy mistake. I didn’t want to be a boy, although it would have been liberating to be able to pee standing up the way I’d seen Chris and Craig do it in the back yard. I learned not to stand too close to the yellow-haired twins when they peed because it bounced off the bark of the Weeping Willow tree and splashed back against my ankles. I had to crouch in a corner of the yard behind the bushes, looking over my shoulder like a cat.
I would have gladly been Superman, Batman, or even Robin over Wonder Woman. Her boobs were too big, and she didn’t run very fast. How could she? She was top-heavy, her legs were freakishly long, and her feet were way too tiny to provide any form of stability.
Recently, I was relieved to read that Wonder Woman was going to start wearing pants. It’s hard to be taken seriously as a warrior if you’ve got to stop hand-to-hand combat to pry your one-piece bathing suit from your butt crack. Male super heroes had the best costumes. Female wonder-suits seemed impractical, tatty, and somewhat garish. Even the men wore tights, like a second skin, under their snappy bikini briefs.
At the age of three, I’d never heard of Dr. William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman’s creator, or gender stereotyping, but I’ve never liked words that end in –ette or –ess, so why would I want to be called anything other than a hero? At this point in time it was still my story and my life, so I could write whatever I wanted to write on the blank slate of my brain. I didn’t need paper and a pencil. I could be whatever I wanted to be. Never mind the fact that I couldn’t tie my own shoes yet. Fortunately, super-boots didn’t come with laces.
Back when I was a super hero, I knew I was entitled to do as I pleased. No one ever told Superman to eat his lima beans or not to eat as many malted milk balls as he pleased from the crystal candy dish. I wasn’t allowed to ride my tricycle across the alleyway that ran behind our house, yet Batman could drive the Bat-mobile down a crowded sidewalk. I’d never heard anyone say, “Keep your knees together and sit like a lady,” to the Green Lantern. In fact, I knew it would have been quite the opposite. Superheroes told other people where to go, what to do, and how to stay safe.
On Easter Sunday my mother popped a purple jelly bean into her mouth and pulled the dress that itched over my head. When she reached in to pull my arms through the sleeves, I clasped my hands tightly against my chest. My mother grunted and chewed and then took one of her long nails and scraped the remaining candy from her back teeth.
”Jesus Christ, “Hold the hell still!” She snapped two plastic barrettes painfully into place against my scalp for the third time and then retied the pink sash around my waist. I ran from her, shrieking and kicking at the shiny black shoes with the thin strap that bit the tops of my feet. A blow-up bunny with an inflated carrot stuck to his paw hid behind a chair in the living room. He held a yellow basket filled with plastic grass, jellybeans, and marshmallow eggs. My mother pried soft, brightly colored sugar from my fist.
“It will stain,” she told me.
I refused to smile when my father brought out the camera. Daddy reached his hand into the bunny’s basket, “Maureen, just give her the candy so I can get a picture.”
My mother slapped his hand away, “I said I don’t want it all over the goddamned dress!”
No one told superheroes to smile for the camera when they didn’t want to wear prickly dresses and pinching shoes or when all they wanted was one purple jelly bean before church.
