Gibbons June

Yemen black first-born twin. The girls were shy as children, bullied at school as the only black kids in the class. They spoke only monosyllables and by age 11, only to each other in patois. They acted in sync, moving in the same way and walking in a goose step. When the girls were separated briefly on 3/13/1978, they withdrew into catatonic distress until reunited. They stopped taking care of selves or observing normal hygiene. They left school in mid-1979 and withdrew from the family into their own room, leaving notes for their mom. By Christmas they had withdrawn totally. For the next two years they taught themselves the English literary classics and wrote poetry and commentary voluminously in a tiny script in their notebooks. June had her first sex on 6/14/1981 with the same boy that Jenny had coupled with the prior week. They went on a binge of stealing, drinking, sniffing glue, having indiscriminate sex, vandalizing property and setting fires. They were sent to prison 11/08/1981 and from there, to Broadmoor on 6/21/1981 where they were kept largely medicated to control them for the next 11 years. The twins were released in 1993, and Jennie died of a sudden illness, acute myocarditis 3/09/1993, leaving June alone in her silent world. June left the halfway house a year later and moved to her own apartment. She relates that it took five years grieving for her to release the complete identification she had to her twin. All her siblings had married white partners and she wishes that she had a mate and child, "black kids and a Rasta man with Rasta hair like Bob Marley." She talks now, but writes little. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less