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Only three others share this secret, our friends the Sorceress, Man-At-Arms and Orko. Together we defend Castle Grayskull from the evil forces of---oh wait, I just had a HeMan flashback. Seriously though not a lot of people know what I'm about to share. It is our life experiences, environment and level of exposure to sundry things that shape who we are, influence how we behave, and provide a framework from which to draw expressions used in common vernacular. One of my expressions is "I don't hook for free." Let's examine where that came from.

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Lisa was my skinny aunt who was maybe fifteen or sixteen at the time. I was roughly five or six. I wish I had some baby pictures on hand from that age. I was so cute! Anyway, not the point of the story. Actually Lisa wasn't really my blood aunt. She was my grandfather's adopted daughter. Rumor had it that she was actually another man's child but he adopted her anyway. My grandfather and Lisa's mother had three other daughters together, but Lisa was always rumored to the illegitimate child of Deloris, Lisa's and my other aunts' mom. Everybody engaged her like they did everyone else because for sure the four girls were sisters even if her paternity was in question.

We stayed in a small town in southeast Georgia. The population was 702 at the 2000 U.S. Census. That small. There was a set of railroad tracks that separated the "sides" of town. My granddaddy's property was about 2.5 acres and had two houses on it. We lived in one house and he lived in the other one. Since the houses were only yards apart sometimes we ate dinner at either house. It was not uncommon for my mom to cook at our house and then walk down and cook at my grandfather's house. Mind you, he had four daughters living with him, but my mom would still cook over there sometimes. He was particularly fond of her potato salad and pig feet. Yeah, that kinda country.

I don't remember exactly when it happened, but it happened over a period of time. When I would come inside from being outside playing or when Lisa would come outside to get me from playing we'd go "make up granddaddy's bed." That was the name assigned to the deed. What it really meant was we were going to go in granddaddy's bedroom and hunch, at first. Then it progressed to me having to take off my clothes and attempt to penetrate her. She guided me though the process of how to "make a woman feel good." What a foolish proposition to think that a 5-6 year old boy could make a teenager, much less a woman, feel anything.

I knew absolutely nothing about any of the other mechanics necessary to engage in copulation. I can remember her becoming annoyed when it would slip out and she'd have to put it back in. The realism is that you can see how that could happen at 5-6 years old. If I didn't seem into it she also become annoyed. I knew what we were doing was wrong, but I was young.

It didn't always just happen when we were home alone. Sometimes my grandfather would be in the front room asleep. He slept so hard because he worked at a factory and did hard labor. She would usually put the night stand in front of the door to prevent anyone from barging in on us. After a while I began to tell her that I didn't want to do that anymore. Each subsequent time she would tell me that it would be the last time and that she was going to buy me some Ruffles Sour Cream and Cheddar potato chips and a Sprite. These happen to be some of my favorite junk food snacks even now. She even told me that my younger brothers didn't mind making up granddaddy's bed with her and that she had already bought them their chips and soda. In my ignorance I reluctantly agreed to continue with hopes of securing my prize for my obedience.

Like Chinua Achebe entitled one of his books, "Things Fall Apart." We had no reasons to expect anything to go wrong because we had gotten away with it for so long. Notice the pronoun shift. Even though I was young, I knew this was wrong. I did not try to stop it. I could have told my parents, yet I let it persist. The last time it happened my mother came down the hall pushed the door slightly, felt the resistance of the night stand, but was able to peer into the room and see what was going on. I know she got a full eye view because I would see her eyes through the crack. I was scared and nervous as hell, because I knew this wasn't going to be pretty. I'll skip the details on the fall out but I'll say it included a belt, a knife, some blisters and closer monitoring.

To top it all off I still didn't get my chips and soda. When people ask me to do something and I remark, "I don't hook for free," this is where that saying came from. I don't like to be taken advantage of. I like to know what you're going to be able to do for me before I put myself out. Some people might think this extremely crude that I would make light of this situation. To the contrary, I just can't profit anything from dwelling on the past. I allowed myself to be abused for the promise of some goods in return. That's pretty much was hooking/prostitution is. I remember the first time I said it to my supervisor when I agreed to be chair of the leadership team. She was looking at me like she had no clue what I was talking about. For a brief moment I thought I had gone too far, but after I asked her if I was going to get an extended contract, she came back (she looked out of it for a second) and told me yes. I mean, the situation is different because I was a child, but it's pretty much the same. I don't have any hard feelings toward her and I think I'm pretty well adjusted. Prior to reading this, would you have ever guessed?

The subject of child molestation, especially among black families is taboo, but happens so much more often that most care to think about or admit.

Off the subject, but what is it about saying, "This shouldn't leave this room," or "Don't tell anybody," that makes people just run and tell whatever you asked them to not tell? I know that usually when people say that to me, I interpret it as only tell the one person who you always tell stuff. Sometimes though depending on the seriousness of the issue it really means don't tell anyone at all. A situation happened this past week on the job when we were in a meeting and asked to not divulge what had been discussed. It got out and I had people coming up to me on Friday asking about what was said at the meeting--including the building principal. Why can't people keep their mouths closed?