Stockholm Syndrome
While living in Markham, I still hadn’t quite figured out that I was a hostage. From the sixth grade on I was the poster child for the Stockholm Syndrome. I would remain, at least at some level, in that frame of mind until my mid-twenties.
At one point, I literally became a wigger. I must have looked ridiculous. I was a 70s jive-talking, twelve year old, white boy. One of my other siblings was worse. He wore pimp hats and platform shoes.
Though I didn’t get into many fights while in Markham, there were certain incidents that, in hindsight, should have been red flags. I got shot in the nose with a BB gun by one of my next door neighbor’s visiting nephews. (Weirdly enough, her name was also Dorothy.) It was very close to my right eye.
This next incident is sure to cause problems, but I’m merely stating facts. You will note a certain lack of adjectives in my writing. I’m expecting the reader to supply those.
My first encounter with a Muslim, as far as I know, was in Markham. Other black kids told me to stay away from the black Muslims. “They hate white people”. Bro, this is black people telling me this. Well, sure enough, I ran into a couple one day walking down a trail. One of them picked up a clod of dirt and hit me in the mouth with it. “The Devil be in yo mouth”. It didn’t cause a permanent resentment against Muslims. They were just more people that didn’t like me.
A while later, I would work at a grocery store for a Jordanian. Though I was underage, he let me work there and drive his Lincoln Continental. He invited me to his house several times and his wife made us great meals. He was a good man. He was Muslim. So…
There was a white, southern Baptist family that lived in the neighborhood. I never really got to know them, but they never seem to have any problems, internally or externally. Eventually, almost everyone in my immediate family would start going to a southern Baptist church. (Details about that will come in a later chapter.) I never converted…to this day.
My mother carried a gun that my stepfather gave her. In Markham, my brothers and I shared a bedroom next to theirs. One night she shot at him and that bullet landed on our bedroom floor. It pierced the wall between two bunk beds that were against it. I was lying in the lower bunk.
At this point I think my mother was beginning to realize what was being done to her children. Trying to escape one prison, she ended up in an even worse one. I didn’t figure it out for quite a while myself. Remember, I was The Stockholm Syndrome poster boy for years.
