My life has been peppered with instances where I’ve felt out of place, even in the midst of my own family. It can be difficult, sharing a home with people that don’t completely understand me, that find the things I feel passionate about laughable or weird. Confiding in them is rare because I hate being mocked or used as a humorous anecdote for their friends – “Look at my daughter, the sensitive blogger, writing in her secret notebook!” It takes something out of me, each time I hedge around the truth to save being heckled or keep a piece of writing I’m proud of hidden because it would make me too vulnerable.
But with each passing year, seven to be precise, I’ve met more and more people that “get” me and I’ve formed a different sort of family. It’s the beauty, and the curse, of the Internet. It says, “Look, here are all these people that you can connect with on every level you’ve been missing! But, oh...they live 4,000 miles away, across an ocean.
You laugh, you write, you talk, you care, but you can’t hug or sit down at a table and look each other in the face. These are real people, flesh and blood and bone, but in most cases they’ll only ever be a friendly voice on the other end of a phone line or a “how are you” email.
In most cases, but no longer in mine. Because two weeks ago I boarded a plane to England and set out to meet, and stay with, four people I already knew but hadn’t set eyes on. Two weeks ago I traveled alone, to a country I’d never been to before, and had the sort of adventure most people will never get to experience.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Monday, May 14, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Mirror image
We sit in a deli, munching on chips and waiting for our sandwiches. I trace the black and white checks on the little table and glance around.
There’s a young couple to our right, good looking and likely aware of it, if their faces are any indication. It’s the look I wear when I’m made up – chin raised a bit higher, a slightly haughty, bored with it all expression. They stare silently at each other across the table and I’d be willing to wager that the only reason they aren’t speaking is because we’re within hearing distance.
To our left is an elderly couple, their bodies curved toward each other like weathered parentheses. I can only imagine what lies in the protected area between them, but that doesn’t really matter because, like most sentences, everything I really need to know is already out in the open. Further explanation would just ruin the effect of their shared side of the table, or the battered ring on his exposed left hand.
A group of teenagers sits, barely visible, around the corner of the counter. They’ve ordered their food to go, talking and laughing loudly amongst themselves while they wait. The crew making our sandwiches seems to find their exploits more interesting than the other patrons do.
And what about the two of us, this final pair? What, if anything, do these people notice about the way we sit and the way we speak to each other? I try to picture ourselves through a stranger’s eyes and it’s difficult.
She recently dyed her hair a dark, chestnut brown and I wonder if it dilutes our other physical similarities. I don’t think I look good as a brunette and prefer to keep as close to our original blonde as possible. Dark versus fair – she calls herself “the good twin”, but we have different opinions on what constitutes goodness. In fact, we have differing opinions on just about everything. Can they tell?
Our sandwiches arrive and, between bites, we continue our conversation. She lowers her voice, while my louder tone mingles with the laughs round the corner. We’re discussing a trip I’m taking soon and, though she isn’t angry as I expected her to be, she doesn’t understand my wanderlust. Everything she wants is right here in her own country, in her own backyard. She thinks everyone should be content with what they already have. It’s only one of the many ways we frustrate each other.
I complement her on the choice of restaurant and she smiles, offering me a taste of her sandwich. I don’t give compliments and she very rarely shares with me. She claims I always take what I want anyway, and perhaps that’s true. But we both seem to be trying harder today, and I wonder if our thoughtfulness seems as new to those around us as it does to me. Like the palpable awkwardness of a first date, can onlookers tell that we are more at home screaming at each other than having a normal conversation?
We’ve just finished wrapping up what’s left of our meal when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up and into the smiling face of the old woman, her husband waiting patiently behind her.
“You look just like your mother”, she says, patting me once.
“Thanks”, I reply.
I glance across the table expecting to see my own face, twenty years older, smirking back at me. But I don’t. This is the moment when she always says, without fail, “Actually, I’m the better looking one” or “She’s the evil twin”.
Instead she says nothing. And suddenly I wonder if what she, and everyone else, has been seeing, is my reluctance to be like her.
There’s a young couple to our right, good looking and likely aware of it, if their faces are any indication. It’s the look I wear when I’m made up – chin raised a bit higher, a slightly haughty, bored with it all expression. They stare silently at each other across the table and I’d be willing to wager that the only reason they aren’t speaking is because we’re within hearing distance.
To our left is an elderly couple, their bodies curved toward each other like weathered parentheses. I can only imagine what lies in the protected area between them, but that doesn’t really matter because, like most sentences, everything I really need to know is already out in the open. Further explanation would just ruin the effect of their shared side of the table, or the battered ring on his exposed left hand.
A group of teenagers sits, barely visible, around the corner of the counter. They’ve ordered their food to go, talking and laughing loudly amongst themselves while they wait. The crew making our sandwiches seems to find their exploits more interesting than the other patrons do.
And what about the two of us, this final pair? What, if anything, do these people notice about the way we sit and the way we speak to each other? I try to picture ourselves through a stranger’s eyes and it’s difficult.
She recently dyed her hair a dark, chestnut brown and I wonder if it dilutes our other physical similarities. I don’t think I look good as a brunette and prefer to keep as close to our original blonde as possible. Dark versus fair – she calls herself “the good twin”, but we have different opinions on what constitutes goodness. In fact, we have differing opinions on just about everything. Can they tell?
Our sandwiches arrive and, between bites, we continue our conversation. She lowers her voice, while my louder tone mingles with the laughs round the corner. We’re discussing a trip I’m taking soon and, though she isn’t angry as I expected her to be, she doesn’t understand my wanderlust. Everything she wants is right here in her own country, in her own backyard. She thinks everyone should be content with what they already have. It’s only one of the many ways we frustrate each other.
I complement her on the choice of restaurant and she smiles, offering me a taste of her sandwich. I don’t give compliments and she very rarely shares with me. She claims I always take what I want anyway, and perhaps that’s true. But we both seem to be trying harder today, and I wonder if our thoughtfulness seems as new to those around us as it does to me. Like the palpable awkwardness of a first date, can onlookers tell that we are more at home screaming at each other than having a normal conversation?
We’ve just finished wrapping up what’s left of our meal when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up and into the smiling face of the old woman, her husband waiting patiently behind her.
“You look just like your mother”, she says, patting me once.
“Thanks”, I reply.
I glance across the table expecting to see my own face, twenty years older, smirking back at me. But I don’t. This is the moment when she always says, without fail, “Actually, I’m the better looking one” or “She’s the evil twin”.
Instead she says nothing. And suddenly I wonder if what she, and everyone else, has been seeing, is my reluctance to be like her.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Lakeside reflection
I spend the winter months praying for summer to come quickly. Spring is beautiful here, but it’s merely a pleasant stop on the way to a more satisfying destination. I watch the trees turn green, white blooms float to the pavement, and I start counting down the days until I can take that first dive into the waves only yards from my door.
As always I am impatient and before the chill has left the water completely, I’m running down those weathered planks at full speed, bracing myself for the shock.
Summer weekends begin and end in the water. Before the sleep can be rubbed from our eyes, Hannah and I are shoveling down breakfast and tugging on swimsuits. She gets coated with sunscreen, dancing impatiently from foot to foot, chattering about jumping off the tall platform.
“I can do it all by myself, mom. I can swim without a lifejacket too! Please, can I?”
From the moment she steps outside, she turns as dark as an Indian. It’s in her blood, in fact. Dark brown eyes, brown hair and brown skin with just a hint of her white bottom peeking from the edges of her swimsuit – the opposite of her naturally fair mother, who has to work extra hard to become nothing more than golden and still burns her nose every other weekend.
Appearances notwithstanding, she’s a summer child just like I was – pouting as the sunset signals it’s time to go home and marching, red eyed and exhausted, up the hill with water dripping from her hair, wet feet squeaking loudly in rubber flip-flops. Stomping up the back stairs and onto the porch, she strips down and hangs her suit over the tall chair, our towels immediately following. Then, with a sudden burst of energy she runs into the house, the white parts of her skin glowing like another swimsuit and, giggling, announces to the household that she’s naked.
After bath and dinner, bed time comes quickly. She’s asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow and, though I no longer run bare assed and giggling through the kitchen (at least when people are home), I copy her night routine down to the open mouthed breathing. The sun can be draining, no matter your age.
And we do it all again the next day.
Instead of doing cannon ball after cannon ball and bouncing up and down on a tube full of other children, I spend as much time as possible floating on a lounger. But now I’m the voice that controls the mayhem rather than the one behind it. Chasing down reluctant children to apply more sunscreen, diving in to rescue this or that float, shooing away the stupid goose, toting coolers and arranging towels, docking boats and giving Jet Ski rides – that’s what I traded (most of) my cannon balls for. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
All grown up, my family and friends surround me like aptly placed buoys, clutching cold beers in colorful koozies. Their children run with mine and we laugh, reminded of old feuds and excitements that are being played out all over again, right before our eyes.
I’ve spent every summer since the age of two on this lake, in this little cove. It’s where I learned to swim, with an old fashioned belt around my waist. It’s where I held my first sparkler on the Fourth of July and where I nearly drowned learning to ski. It’s where I lost my best friend in the world and where I sat and cried every evening, watching the waves wash up on shore, until I found the courage to keep going without him. It’s where I celebrated every single birthday until the age of 16, when I became too cool to have parties.
I’m happy that I get to watch Hannah grow up walking the same banks, making similar but new memories with her generation of our family. I’m happy every time we’re gathered around the gazebo with our Papa, watching him smile and pick on her the way he’s always done, with every grandchild. I feel lucky that I have a place that’s so special to me and I hope that, twenty years from now, she’ll be looking back, just like this, and feeling lucky too.
As always I am impatient and before the chill has left the water completely, I’m running down those weathered planks at full speed, bracing myself for the shock.
Summer weekends begin and end in the water. Before the sleep can be rubbed from our eyes, Hannah and I are shoveling down breakfast and tugging on swimsuits. She gets coated with sunscreen, dancing impatiently from foot to foot, chattering about jumping off the tall platform.
“I can do it all by myself, mom. I can swim without a lifejacket too! Please, can I?”
From the moment she steps outside, she turns as dark as an Indian. It’s in her blood, in fact. Dark brown eyes, brown hair and brown skin with just a hint of her white bottom peeking from the edges of her swimsuit – the opposite of her naturally fair mother, who has to work extra hard to become nothing more than golden and still burns her nose every other weekend.
Appearances notwithstanding, she’s a summer child just like I was – pouting as the sunset signals it’s time to go home and marching, red eyed and exhausted, up the hill with water dripping from her hair, wet feet squeaking loudly in rubber flip-flops. Stomping up the back stairs and onto the porch, she strips down and hangs her suit over the tall chair, our towels immediately following. Then, with a sudden burst of energy she runs into the house, the white parts of her skin glowing like another swimsuit and, giggling, announces to the household that she’s naked.
After bath and dinner, bed time comes quickly. She’s asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow and, though I no longer run bare assed and giggling through the kitchen (at least when people are home), I copy her night routine down to the open mouthed breathing. The sun can be draining, no matter your age.
And we do it all again the next day.
Instead of doing cannon ball after cannon ball and bouncing up and down on a tube full of other children, I spend as much time as possible floating on a lounger. But now I’m the voice that controls the mayhem rather than the one behind it. Chasing down reluctant children to apply more sunscreen, diving in to rescue this or that float, shooing away the stupid goose, toting coolers and arranging towels, docking boats and giving Jet Ski rides – that’s what I traded (most of) my cannon balls for. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
All grown up, my family and friends surround me like aptly placed buoys, clutching cold beers in colorful koozies. Their children run with mine and we laugh, reminded of old feuds and excitements that are being played out all over again, right before our eyes.
I’ve spent every summer since the age of two on this lake, in this little cove. It’s where I learned to swim, with an old fashioned belt around my waist. It’s where I held my first sparkler on the Fourth of July and where I nearly drowned learning to ski. It’s where I lost my best friend in the world and where I sat and cried every evening, watching the waves wash up on shore, until I found the courage to keep going without him. It’s where I celebrated every single birthday until the age of 16, when I became too cool to have parties.
I’m happy that I get to watch Hannah grow up walking the same banks, making similar but new memories with her generation of our family. I’m happy every time we’re gathered around the gazebo with our Papa, watching him smile and pick on her the way he’s always done, with every grandchild. I feel lucky that I have a place that’s so special to me and I hope that, twenty years from now, she’ll be looking back, just like this, and feeling lucky too.
Friday, May 06, 2011
All the world's a stage
I leave work early and stop at the gas station, hurrying inside to prepay. I have an appointment in half an hour and I cannot be late.
There are three people grouped behind the counter – two girls and a boy. They have the look about them that says they’ve just arrived at work and aren’t yet bored with their surroundings. It isn’t a look I wear much anymore, but then...I start my day at 5am.
When someone asks me what I do, not just my title but about my daily activities, I always struggle to explain. I don’t want to sound boring, but I don’t want to lie either. “I process patient and employee occurrences, organize that data into reports and send it out to important people that barely know my name. Something, something, trending...something, something. I also give out parking decals to new employees, process parking tickets and play an exorbitant amount of online mahjong.”
The response is usually a tiny nod followed by a short and uninterested “oh”. And I can’t fault them for it because, if someone delivered that spiel to me, I’d probably react the same way. I receive far better treatment simply by wearing my badge and saying nothing – the corporation I work for generally speaks for itself. “Oh, you work for them! Wow, that’s great.”
I’m wearing dark dress pants and a dark top – colorless but for the light blue photo badge hanging from my neck and the silver sandals on my feet. Dark sunglasses cover my face, masking dark circles. I haven’t worn makeup to work in over a week, nor have I fixed my hair.
“Hey, how’s it going”, asks one of the girls behind the counter.
“Fine, thanks.” I give her my trademark I’m not interested in communicating tight lipped smirk.
“Do you know what yesterday was?”
There’s a secretive sort of smile on her face, one that says she knows a joke that, if I’m lucky, she might just share. The other two edge closer to her, the same smile on their faces.
“4/20”, I say matter-of-factly, handing her my money.
“Yes, but what day was it”, she asks me again, searching.
I wonder if she wants me to say it was Wednesday or if she wants me to lower my sunglasses and prove that I’m one of their brethren. Maybe they’re conducting a survey or trying to find a new dealer.
“Um...”
“National smoke day”, the three of them chorus loudly before I can say anything else.
I can’t help but give them a real smile, simply because they’re so damn happy to be stoned, working in a gas station and conversing with random people. I was like that once. Well, a waitress...but still. I smoked a lot of pot.
“That’s what I said. 4/20.”
They laugh as I walk out the door, delighted. I imagine them making a mark under a tally labeled “Yes” before gearing up for the next customer and I have the sudden urge to actually smoke, to stroll into the dentist’s office with glazed eyes and a cheeky grin and say, “Do you know what yesterday was?” But of course I can’t.
I arrive at 4 o’clock on the dot and am greeted the minute my foot crosses the threshold by the elderly receptionists. It’s a case of they know me, but I don’t know them. Mom works at the pediatric office next door, sharing a parking lot and sometimes a lunch with the crew at the dentist’s. Southerners are a nosy, gossipy bunch so after spending a bit of time with a woman that likes nothing more than to complain about me, they treat me with more familiarity than another office would. And because I often have a “give them what they want and they’ll leave you alone” mentality, I play along, returning their greeting with an equally casual “What’s up ladies?”
“Are you ready”, the tech asks the second I close the door, popping up around the corner.
“Yes.”
“Come on back.”
There’s no check in process, no forms to sign, and I follow her down the hall. She takes her time, even pausing to straighten a frame.
I sit on the ugly brown lounger and cross my ankles while she lays out instruments on the connected table. Her white scrub top is too tight, but the blue bra matches her pants quite well. She’s about my age and relatively new, though I can tell they’ve told her who I am and what my connections are before I arrived. She keeps her head down and avoids making eye contact as she moves about the room, saying nothing. “That’s the slutty, ill tempered one”, I imagine them warning her...and I’m probably not far off.
She mumbles that the doctor will be with me in a minute and leaves, never once introducing herself.
I busy myself with looking around at the décor. I’m willing to bet that nothing has been updated in this office, other than the dental equipment, since the 70’s or 80’s. Hideous brown paneling still covers the walls, floor to ceiling, and the posters are so old they’ve turned color around the edges. The front room is even worse – with an enormously puffy, cream colored leather loveseat that looks like it once belonged to one of those larger wrap-around sectionals. My favorite part though is the shiny wooden clock that hangs by the desk. It’s shaped like a large plaque – the bottom dedicated to the gold numbers and ticking hands, the top dedicated to a glossy photo of a young, big-haired Reba McEntire. It’s completely kitschy, but it makes me smile.
“Well, look here!”
The dentist strolls through the open doorway, grinning. He’s gotten a bit round over the past few years and his thick, wayward hair has gone completely grey. He’s the original church going gossip – knows everyone, talks about them and doesn’t care who knows it. His best friend is Mike, a guy who also happens to have been friends with my parents since before I was born. And because he knows about this connection, Mike is his favorite person to talk about when I come for an appointment. He talks about Mike’s demon redheaded wife, Mike’s brief affair with the nanny (who also went to church with all of them), and most of all...Mike’s lifelong torch for my mom.
But today, before he launches into the Mike stories, he decides to grill me for information. I figure he must be getting low.
“So how old is your daughter now?”
“She just turned six.”
“God almighty”, he says, chuckling. “Haven’t had any more slip-ups have ya?”
I raise my eyebrows at him, more amused than offended. “Not yet. So far just the one.”
“Being more careful, eh”, he asks with a grin.
“I suppose you could say that.”
“Got yourself a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Well why not?”
“I’m not very good at monogamy”, I reply with a straight face. I’m not exactly sure if that’s true anymore, since I haven’t tested it out in a long time, but it’s the sort of thing he expects me to say.
He throws his head back and roars with laughter. “Honesty! Ooh boy, at least she’s honest! I like that!”
He talks continuously while he x-rays my teeth, asking questions and laughing so hard the mute tech pokes her head around the doorframe. He finally gets to Mike when the cleaning begins.
“Poor Mikey Mike”, he says.
I simply blink and wait, since his fingers are in my mouth.
“I bet he’s real upset that your mom is getting married. Poor Mikey Mike. Is he coming to the wedding?”
“Uh hooo ooooh.”
“Yeah, that oughta be something. I wonder if he’s going to bring that redheaded wife. Oh, poor Mikey Mike!”
“Mmm hmm.”
I start to count how many times he uses the phrase “poor Mikey Mike” and by the time I rise from the chair, drained of my information and pumped back full of his, I’m at 18.
He walks me to the front desk, leans against it and crosses one leg over the other. “You take care now, you hear? Behave yourself...get you a nice young man.” He grins and slaps me gently on my back.
“Yeah maybe”, I say with a smile.
He shakes his head and clucks his tongue as he walks back down the hallway. “Poor Mikey Mike...”
Even though he’s nosy, I quite like him. I could go to another dentist, upgrade like a lot of people I know that got tired of the tacky old place and prying questions, but I won’t. When they ask why I stay, I tell them that he waves away payments if I need a cavity filled, simply because he likes me and thinks my mother is pretty. And he does.
But it’s also because, unlike most people, when he asks me how I’m doing I can tell that, all gossip aside, he genuinely wants to know. It’s in his eyes. Of course I’d never take him up on it, never show what he’s telling me it’s ok to show, but it’s nice to know I could.
I haven’t been home long when I get a text message from Claire:
“After midnight tonight, I can’t go back in the house anymore. I’d like to smoke one last cigarette on my porch and I’d love it if you’d join me...if you want.”
A week ago they were my family – Claire and her sister were closer to me than my blood sibling that sleeps right across the hall. But because of things that having nothing to do with me, or with those two really, a rift has opened that I’m not sure can be bridged.
I haven’t heard from her since the day her mother received the papers, when she sent me a message that seemed cloaked in anger and blame, then refused to respond to anything I said.
“Tell me when and I’ll be there”, I type back.
A little after ten o’clock my cousin and I slip on our shoes and walk quietly out the door. She’s just as anxious to see Claire as I am.
We walk briskly, shoulder to shoulder, down the gravel road. When we’re halfway there I see her, standing alone under a streetlight in front of the house she used to call home, with her favorite hippy purse draped across her chest and trailing down her side, platinum hair piled atop her head in a messy bun.
My mastiff, Tank, reaches her seconds before we do and she bends to pet him. I can’t help but think about her dog that’s buried only feet away in a yard she can’t visit anymore.
She straightens and we stare at each other.
“Hey”, she finally says.
“Hey”, we reply. She moves to hug my cousin first and I shouldn’t feel slighted, but I do. Our hug is brief, hesitant, and when we pull away she blows out a shaky breath.
“This is hard. Weird.”
I nod in agreement.
“C’mon.” She turns, walks toward the door and we follow, subdued. “It’s so...empty”, she finishes lamely.
She pushes the front door open, turns on the light and walks to the middle of the kitchen. She lifts her arms and holds then wide, dropping them almost instantly in a gesture of futility. I look past her to the living room, but there’s nothing to see. The house is stripped bare and of more than just furniture. There’s no future here, and the past is colored with doubt and fresh paint.
The three of us move to the screened in porch that overlooks the lake, sitting Indian style in a semi circle on the hard floor. The big cushioned swing is gone and as we each light a cigarette, I realize the tacky giant green ashtray is too.
We talk haltingly about what’s happened on either side of battle lines drawn without our consent. As much as we want to keep ourselves separate from the conflict, it’s clear there are things we simply can’t say to each other...and that speaks louder to me than anything we’re actually saying. No matter how close we’ve been for the past eleven years, the fact remains that our core loyalties lie elsewhere.
A few cigarettes and the bare minimum of small talk later, we rise to leave. Her family doesn’t know she’s here and she has to hurry back...and vice versa.
My cousin walks ahead, but Claire and I pause in the kitchen again, facing back into the house.
“This was my home."
I nod, not knowing what else to say. She sighs and walks away. I move to follow, but something catches my eye. On the glass and gold light fixture that used to hang over the kitchen table there’s something green. It’s one of those rubber bracelets, the kind that have words and symbols etched into them for causes and the like. I turn it over to see what it says.
“Happiness.”
Without even thinking about it, I slip it on my wrist as I walk out the door. It never occurs to me to offer it to Claire.
We say goodbye in the driveway, exchanging another round of short hugs, and promise to call each other soon. I don’t know if we will, but it seems like the thing to say.
My cousin and I walk silently back up the gravel road toward home and I can feel her still standing there, watching. My fingers absently pull on the bracelet, circling round the inside, and that’s when I feel the crack. Looking down I notice the smallest notch in the green rubber and I think to myself, “If you don’t pull on it anymore, maybe it’ll stay intact.”
There are three people grouped behind the counter – two girls and a boy. They have the look about them that says they’ve just arrived at work and aren’t yet bored with their surroundings. It isn’t a look I wear much anymore, but then...I start my day at 5am.
When someone asks me what I do, not just my title but about my daily activities, I always struggle to explain. I don’t want to sound boring, but I don’t want to lie either. “I process patient and employee occurrences, organize that data into reports and send it out to important people that barely know my name. Something, something, trending...something, something. I also give out parking decals to new employees, process parking tickets and play an exorbitant amount of online mahjong.”
The response is usually a tiny nod followed by a short and uninterested “oh”. And I can’t fault them for it because, if someone delivered that spiel to me, I’d probably react the same way. I receive far better treatment simply by wearing my badge and saying nothing – the corporation I work for generally speaks for itself. “Oh, you work for them! Wow, that’s great.”
I’m wearing dark dress pants and a dark top – colorless but for the light blue photo badge hanging from my neck and the silver sandals on my feet. Dark sunglasses cover my face, masking dark circles. I haven’t worn makeup to work in over a week, nor have I fixed my hair.
“Hey, how’s it going”, asks one of the girls behind the counter.
“Fine, thanks.” I give her my trademark I’m not interested in communicating tight lipped smirk.
“Do you know what yesterday was?”
There’s a secretive sort of smile on her face, one that says she knows a joke that, if I’m lucky, she might just share. The other two edge closer to her, the same smile on their faces.
“4/20”, I say matter-of-factly, handing her my money.
“Yes, but what day was it”, she asks me again, searching.
I wonder if she wants me to say it was Wednesday or if she wants me to lower my sunglasses and prove that I’m one of their brethren. Maybe they’re conducting a survey or trying to find a new dealer.
“Um...”
“National smoke day”, the three of them chorus loudly before I can say anything else.
I can’t help but give them a real smile, simply because they’re so damn happy to be stoned, working in a gas station and conversing with random people. I was like that once. Well, a waitress...but still. I smoked a lot of pot.
“That’s what I said. 4/20.”
They laugh as I walk out the door, delighted. I imagine them making a mark under a tally labeled “Yes” before gearing up for the next customer and I have the sudden urge to actually smoke, to stroll into the dentist’s office with glazed eyes and a cheeky grin and say, “Do you know what yesterday was?” But of course I can’t.
*****
I arrive at 4 o’clock on the dot and am greeted the minute my foot crosses the threshold by the elderly receptionists. It’s a case of they know me, but I don’t know them. Mom works at the pediatric office next door, sharing a parking lot and sometimes a lunch with the crew at the dentist’s. Southerners are a nosy, gossipy bunch so after spending a bit of time with a woman that likes nothing more than to complain about me, they treat me with more familiarity than another office would. And because I often have a “give them what they want and they’ll leave you alone” mentality, I play along, returning their greeting with an equally casual “What’s up ladies?”
“Are you ready”, the tech asks the second I close the door, popping up around the corner.
“Yes.”
“Come on back.”
There’s no check in process, no forms to sign, and I follow her down the hall. She takes her time, even pausing to straighten a frame.
I sit on the ugly brown lounger and cross my ankles while she lays out instruments on the connected table. Her white scrub top is too tight, but the blue bra matches her pants quite well. She’s about my age and relatively new, though I can tell they’ve told her who I am and what my connections are before I arrived. She keeps her head down and avoids making eye contact as she moves about the room, saying nothing. “That’s the slutty, ill tempered one”, I imagine them warning her...and I’m probably not far off.
She mumbles that the doctor will be with me in a minute and leaves, never once introducing herself.
I busy myself with looking around at the décor. I’m willing to bet that nothing has been updated in this office, other than the dental equipment, since the 70’s or 80’s. Hideous brown paneling still covers the walls, floor to ceiling, and the posters are so old they’ve turned color around the edges. The front room is even worse – with an enormously puffy, cream colored leather loveseat that looks like it once belonged to one of those larger wrap-around sectionals. My favorite part though is the shiny wooden clock that hangs by the desk. It’s shaped like a large plaque – the bottom dedicated to the gold numbers and ticking hands, the top dedicated to a glossy photo of a young, big-haired Reba McEntire. It’s completely kitschy, but it makes me smile.
“Well, look here!”
The dentist strolls through the open doorway, grinning. He’s gotten a bit round over the past few years and his thick, wayward hair has gone completely grey. He’s the original church going gossip – knows everyone, talks about them and doesn’t care who knows it. His best friend is Mike, a guy who also happens to have been friends with my parents since before I was born. And because he knows about this connection, Mike is his favorite person to talk about when I come for an appointment. He talks about Mike’s demon redheaded wife, Mike’s brief affair with the nanny (who also went to church with all of them), and most of all...Mike’s lifelong torch for my mom.
But today, before he launches into the Mike stories, he decides to grill me for information. I figure he must be getting low.
“So how old is your daughter now?”
“She just turned six.”
“God almighty”, he says, chuckling. “Haven’t had any more slip-ups have ya?”
I raise my eyebrows at him, more amused than offended. “Not yet. So far just the one.”
“Being more careful, eh”, he asks with a grin.
“I suppose you could say that.”
“Got yourself a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Well why not?”
“I’m not very good at monogamy”, I reply with a straight face. I’m not exactly sure if that’s true anymore, since I haven’t tested it out in a long time, but it’s the sort of thing he expects me to say.
He throws his head back and roars with laughter. “Honesty! Ooh boy, at least she’s honest! I like that!”
He talks continuously while he x-rays my teeth, asking questions and laughing so hard the mute tech pokes her head around the doorframe. He finally gets to Mike when the cleaning begins.
“Poor Mikey Mike”, he says.
I simply blink and wait, since his fingers are in my mouth.
“I bet he’s real upset that your mom is getting married. Poor Mikey Mike. Is he coming to the wedding?”
“Uh hooo ooooh.”
“Yeah, that oughta be something. I wonder if he’s going to bring that redheaded wife. Oh, poor Mikey Mike!”
“Mmm hmm.”
I start to count how many times he uses the phrase “poor Mikey Mike” and by the time I rise from the chair, drained of my information and pumped back full of his, I’m at 18.
He walks me to the front desk, leans against it and crosses one leg over the other. “You take care now, you hear? Behave yourself...get you a nice young man.” He grins and slaps me gently on my back.
“Yeah maybe”, I say with a smile.
He shakes his head and clucks his tongue as he walks back down the hallway. “Poor Mikey Mike...”
Even though he’s nosy, I quite like him. I could go to another dentist, upgrade like a lot of people I know that got tired of the tacky old place and prying questions, but I won’t. When they ask why I stay, I tell them that he waves away payments if I need a cavity filled, simply because he likes me and thinks my mother is pretty. And he does.
But it’s also because, unlike most people, when he asks me how I’m doing I can tell that, all gossip aside, he genuinely wants to know. It’s in his eyes. Of course I’d never take him up on it, never show what he’s telling me it’s ok to show, but it’s nice to know I could.
*****
I haven’t been home long when I get a text message from Claire:
“After midnight tonight, I can’t go back in the house anymore. I’d like to smoke one last cigarette on my porch and I’d love it if you’d join me...if you want.”
A week ago they were my family – Claire and her sister were closer to me than my blood sibling that sleeps right across the hall. But because of things that having nothing to do with me, or with those two really, a rift has opened that I’m not sure can be bridged.
I haven’t heard from her since the day her mother received the papers, when she sent me a message that seemed cloaked in anger and blame, then refused to respond to anything I said.
“Tell me when and I’ll be there”, I type back.
A little after ten o’clock my cousin and I slip on our shoes and walk quietly out the door. She’s just as anxious to see Claire as I am.
We walk briskly, shoulder to shoulder, down the gravel road. When we’re halfway there I see her, standing alone under a streetlight in front of the house she used to call home, with her favorite hippy purse draped across her chest and trailing down her side, platinum hair piled atop her head in a messy bun.
My mastiff, Tank, reaches her seconds before we do and she bends to pet him. I can’t help but think about her dog that’s buried only feet away in a yard she can’t visit anymore.
She straightens and we stare at each other.
“Hey”, she finally says.
“Hey”, we reply. She moves to hug my cousin first and I shouldn’t feel slighted, but I do. Our hug is brief, hesitant, and when we pull away she blows out a shaky breath.
“This is hard. Weird.”
I nod in agreement.
“C’mon.” She turns, walks toward the door and we follow, subdued. “It’s so...empty”, she finishes lamely.
She pushes the front door open, turns on the light and walks to the middle of the kitchen. She lifts her arms and holds then wide, dropping them almost instantly in a gesture of futility. I look past her to the living room, but there’s nothing to see. The house is stripped bare and of more than just furniture. There’s no future here, and the past is colored with doubt and fresh paint.
The three of us move to the screened in porch that overlooks the lake, sitting Indian style in a semi circle on the hard floor. The big cushioned swing is gone and as we each light a cigarette, I realize the tacky giant green ashtray is too.
We talk haltingly about what’s happened on either side of battle lines drawn without our consent. As much as we want to keep ourselves separate from the conflict, it’s clear there are things we simply can’t say to each other...and that speaks louder to me than anything we’re actually saying. No matter how close we’ve been for the past eleven years, the fact remains that our core loyalties lie elsewhere.
A few cigarettes and the bare minimum of small talk later, we rise to leave. Her family doesn’t know she’s here and she has to hurry back...and vice versa.
My cousin walks ahead, but Claire and I pause in the kitchen again, facing back into the house.
“This was my home."
I nod, not knowing what else to say. She sighs and walks away. I move to follow, but something catches my eye. On the glass and gold light fixture that used to hang over the kitchen table there’s something green. It’s one of those rubber bracelets, the kind that have words and symbols etched into them for causes and the like. I turn it over to see what it says.
“Happiness.”
Without even thinking about it, I slip it on my wrist as I walk out the door. It never occurs to me to offer it to Claire.
We say goodbye in the driveway, exchanging another round of short hugs, and promise to call each other soon. I don’t know if we will, but it seems like the thing to say.
My cousin and I walk silently back up the gravel road toward home and I can feel her still standing there, watching. My fingers absently pull on the bracelet, circling round the inside, and that’s when I feel the crack. Looking down I notice the smallest notch in the green rubber and I think to myself, “If you don’t pull on it anymore, maybe it’ll stay intact.”
But I know better than that. I won’t be able to stop touching it, testing it, pulling on it. Maybe that’s why it was hanging there in the first place – maybe they knew they couldn’t stop themselves either.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Here's a quarter
I’ve lived in the same small town all my life and, as a result, things are rather predictable.
For instance, I know that the post office is never open after 4 o’clock on a weekday, and even during regular business hours you’d be lucky to get service because of all the gossips taking up space. Every Wednesday and Sunday the restaurants are packed with church goers – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. From 5 to 7, Monday through Friday, most of the county workers will gather at the tiny convenience store just outside of town to shoot the shit and drink beer. And on Friday and Saturday nights, the lakeside bar two coves over from my house has either a live band or a DJ, and the tiny dance floor is always full.
I also know that at every single one of those places, and countless others I didn’t name, someone is going to know who my father is. And they won’t be able to stop themselves from approaching me, no matter how much I discourage it with “don’t talk to me” body language, glares, fiddling with my phone or engaging someone else in conversation. It’s like he’s a communicable disease that they can’t wait to pass on – only for some reason they don’t seem to realize when they’re hacking all over me that I’ve had the pleasure of being infected, straight from the source, for almost 26 years.
I was about ten the first time I really remember it happening.
The old country store a few miles from home was our hangout of sorts. We (my cousins, sister, and I) would swim all morning and then take a snack break in the late afternoon, piling in dad’s truck in our wet bathing suits and bare feet. He had an account there, something they don’t really do anymore, and while he went straight for the beer cooler we would rush to the candy aisle and grab whatever we wanted. I would always get two Slim Jims, one for me and one for dad, saving them to eat together on the ride back home.
Sometimes we’d stand next to him and drink Yoo-Hoos, the white and beige checked linoleum cold under our feet and our hair dripping puddles of lake water. And sometimes, like that particular day, we’d take our spoils outside and spread our towels on top of the tool box of his truck, sitting Indian style in the hot sun and waiting on him to finish “visiting”.
Leigha was a pudgy little thing in her ruffled strawberry one piece, sitting next to me on the box, and Ben was on the other side in his trunks, covered in white flecks from the chest up due to a pack of powered doughnuts. A woman I recognized as a school friend’s mom parked near us and went in, coming out a few minutes later with a bag.
By then I’d remembered her name and called out a greeting. She walked over, looked up and shaded her eyes with her hand. She studied me, her top lip curling grotesquely, and said, “I didn’t know you were his daughter.”
“Um...yeah”, I said, confused.
“Your daddy is a sonofabitch!”
I stared at her and Ben did too, taking a break from licking all the powder off his hands. I knew dad was sometimes mean to me, but I wondered what on earth he’d ever done to Ashley’s mom to make her say something like that.
She said a lot of other things that I don’t remember well, not leaving until Ben flipped her a slobbery bird and said, “Beat it bitch, before I go get Uncle Jimmy and he kicks your butt!” I was too shocked to comment at the time, but later encounters like that would become a regular occurrence.
My dad always made friends easily, so I’d hear nice things every now and then. What he had a lot of trouble with was keeping them, and that’s when the “sonofabitches” would start. Whatever the case, things usually opened the same way. “Hey, aren’t you Jimbo’s daughter?” or “I know you...” or “You’re one of the ______ girls, aren’t ya?”
I learned to say yes and walk away. Lying about it was pointless, especially when I started high school and he suddenly seemed to be everywhere – showing up at the parties I went to and the weekend hangouts. Often times I thought having some old lady come up to me, and yell about how he’d fucked her over, was way better than having the hottest guys in school notice me because my dad was that sucker that acted like he was 17 years old with a fake ID.
When I got pulled over for speeding, the cops knew who I was. When I went to the grocery store, the Budweiser guy unloading his truck knew who I was. When I graduated and moved two towns away, every goddamned mechanic, bartender and waitress knew who I was. My dad, apparently, got around. I got so used to being approached by strangers that I pretty much stopped listening the minute they said his name. I just shrugged, murmured something noncommittal and went on about my business.
It did die down a bit when he moved to Oklahoma. But now...he’s here again, visiting for the longest period of time since he moved away five years ago. And it’s driving me insane.
He’s staying with my Papa, practically next door, and he’s always calling and texting, wanting to know what I’m doing. And worst of all, he’s been hanging out at all his old haunts...which means I haven’t been able to hear the end of it. The occasional stranger or old friend approaching me once every few months has snowballed because of his return home. Now there are also phone calls and picture messages of him around town – it’s ridiculous. For some reason it never seems to occur to people that I already know what he does and I’m embarrassed enough without extra proof, thank you very much.
“Your dad was so drunk he fell off a bar stool!”
“Your dad bought shots for everybody and when the waitress told him that someone didn’t want theirs, he said, ‘so the fuck what, gimmie the goddamned thing and get outta here!’ Then he slapped her ass!”
“Your dad said he was going to move back here and build a house right next to yours!” (Now that one was terrifying.)
I’ve found myself hurrying in and out of places, doing my shopping in the city on my way home from work rather than going to the local, and staying home whenever possible. I feel harassed and irritated and he’s only been here a little over two weeks...with two still left to go.
And after this past Saturday night I’m not so sure I can handle another day, let alone two weeks.
When my friends decided they wanted to have a few drinks at the lakeside bar instead of our usual downtown hangout, I was hesitant. I knew he’d been in there recently, likely more than once, and there was a strong possibility that I’d run into some of his A) brethren, B) enemies, C) women, or D) all of the above. But they promised it would be an early night, no later than one, and I really loved the band that was going to be there, so I found myself agreeing anyway.
The bar has been there forever and, though it’s changed owners and names countless times, it remains the same. I go in maybe twice a year, not counting the times we dock for gas or the like in the summer, because it’s really just not my kind of thing. It’s the trolling ground for some of the funkiest looking redneck cougars I’ve ever seen and the men are even worse.
Ten of us crammed into a corner around two tables, ordering drinks and food. After about an hour of cutting up, listening to the band and drinking the cheapest Jack and Cokes I’ve ordered anywhere, I decided it wasn’t so bad. The people watching was certainly sublime.
Even dressed down, our group looked out of place amid the bikers and the women that, I’d wager, had been ridden harder than any Harley. An older woman with short, dull brown hair danced every song with a man the band kept calling MC Hammer. Her white t-shirt barely touched the top of her jeans and every time she would move her arms it would rise up, showing a disturbing amount of wobbly flesh and the waist band of her white underwear sticking out of her pants. MC Hammer would slouch around her, alternately jumping up then crouching down low to the ground and doing pelvic thrusts at empty air. His eyes were glazed over and he looked like he might start drooling on himself at any minute. When a slow song came on, they would plaster themselves together and move in a jerky circle, occasionally running into the other couples.
There was a taller version of Willie Nelson decked out in silver buckles and plaid, his eyes so squinty and surrounded by wrinkles that I wasn’t sure he had any, dancing with a woman in ripped turquoise that gave new meaning to the term muffin top. There was a younger group of girls, probably late 20s or early 30s, sporting the cropped t-shirt and unflattering flesh trend of MC Hammer’s woman – dancing on each other and whooping when they managed to grab some poor unsuspecting cowboy from the sidelines. A severely thin woman with dark hair down to her waist swayed alone in the middle, with her arms lifted above her head and a beer clutched in a hand adorned with dangerous looking press on nails.
We laughed and drank shots, getting up to dance only once when several couples vacated the floor briefly for a smoke break and, apparently, a make out session on the pier.
“Look you guys”, I said pointing out the window behind our table. MC Hammer was lounging on his side on the railing, one leg stretched out and one bent at the knee, propping his head up on his hand. And his woman was glued to his face; her hands roaming over places I really hoped would stay covered.
Everyone leaned over or turned around to look and even the band members, who were taking a short break, had to peek.
“Ahh, they’re gonna fuck tonight”, half of our group sang in unison, as they often do when spotting outrageous PDA.
It was shortly after, when the band started playing Let’s Get It On in honor of the returning couple, that a girl approached our table. She was tall and heavy set, with streaked strawberry blonde hair cut short. Freckles covered her cheeks and the bridge of her nose – she was almost cute.
“Hey”, she said to the group at large, smiling. “Ya’ll having a good time tonight?”
After a scattered yes, she focused on the girl to my left. “I know you!”
She went round the table establishing family connections and moving past the “do you know’s” with everyone, because that’s the first part of any conversation in the South... “Who are your people?” Then she finally came to me.
“And you. You’re a _______, aren’t you”, she asked, tossing out my last name and pulling a face I recognized all too well.
I stared up at her warily. “Guilty.”
“Uh huh. And you’re Jimmy’s daughter, right?”
“Yes.” I sighed.
Her hand went immediately to her hip and she leaned over the person in front of me, “I’m sorry”, she said without a trace of remorse, “but I fucking hate your daddy.”
I could feel the heat rising up my neck as I stared at her, and everyone else stared at us.
“He’s a sorry piece of shit. No...I really hate him”, she continued, as if I’d accused her of the opposite.
I crossed my legs and leaned forward in my chair. She started to say something else, but I cut her off. “Right”, I said calmly, then turned my back and started talking to the girl beside me.
She walked away a moment later and the chatter started. “Are you kidding? What a dick! So rude! Who does that?”
I was absolutely livid and it was only the antics of MC Hammer that made me crack a smile for the rest of the night. But I wasn’t just angry at her, I was angry with myself too.
I kept thinking of brilliant comebacks hours after the fact, which only made me angrier. I could have said something like, “I appreciate your right to an opinion, but in the future if you have a problem with my father, you should take it up with him and not a stranger. Because that’s what I am to you – a stranger. Not his daughter, in this case, or the head of his complaint department. Whatever sense of entitlement or commiseration you feel spending time with him has granted you, I assure you, you won’t be getting it from me. So why don’t you fuck off.”
Or, “Now that we’ve been properly introduced and you’ve said what you had to say, why don’t you go back to your table, sit down, and I’ll come over and needlessly insult one of your family members in front of your friends. Call it a learning experience.”
Or, “Bitch, you don’t know me. How you gonna come at me like that? I will cut.you.”
Something like that.
And even though I know that responding to her rudeness with that of my own wouldn’t really have been the right thing to do, it still would have felt nice to let off some steam.
After all, I’ve got two more weeks left of this shit. Anyone would be tempted...right?
For instance, I know that the post office is never open after 4 o’clock on a weekday, and even during regular business hours you’d be lucky to get service because of all the gossips taking up space. Every Wednesday and Sunday the restaurants are packed with church goers – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. From 5 to 7, Monday through Friday, most of the county workers will gather at the tiny convenience store just outside of town to shoot the shit and drink beer. And on Friday and Saturday nights, the lakeside bar two coves over from my house has either a live band or a DJ, and the tiny dance floor is always full.
I also know that at every single one of those places, and countless others I didn’t name, someone is going to know who my father is. And they won’t be able to stop themselves from approaching me, no matter how much I discourage it with “don’t talk to me” body language, glares, fiddling with my phone or engaging someone else in conversation. It’s like he’s a communicable disease that they can’t wait to pass on – only for some reason they don’t seem to realize when they’re hacking all over me that I’ve had the pleasure of being infected, straight from the source, for almost 26 years.
I was about ten the first time I really remember it happening.
The old country store a few miles from home was our hangout of sorts. We (my cousins, sister, and I) would swim all morning and then take a snack break in the late afternoon, piling in dad’s truck in our wet bathing suits and bare feet. He had an account there, something they don’t really do anymore, and while he went straight for the beer cooler we would rush to the candy aisle and grab whatever we wanted. I would always get two Slim Jims, one for me and one for dad, saving them to eat together on the ride back home.
Sometimes we’d stand next to him and drink Yoo-Hoos, the white and beige checked linoleum cold under our feet and our hair dripping puddles of lake water. And sometimes, like that particular day, we’d take our spoils outside and spread our towels on top of the tool box of his truck, sitting Indian style in the hot sun and waiting on him to finish “visiting”.
Leigha was a pudgy little thing in her ruffled strawberry one piece, sitting next to me on the box, and Ben was on the other side in his trunks, covered in white flecks from the chest up due to a pack of powered doughnuts. A woman I recognized as a school friend’s mom parked near us and went in, coming out a few minutes later with a bag.
By then I’d remembered her name and called out a greeting. She walked over, looked up and shaded her eyes with her hand. She studied me, her top lip curling grotesquely, and said, “I didn’t know you were his daughter.”
“Um...yeah”, I said, confused.
“Your daddy is a sonofabitch!”
I stared at her and Ben did too, taking a break from licking all the powder off his hands. I knew dad was sometimes mean to me, but I wondered what on earth he’d ever done to Ashley’s mom to make her say something like that.
She said a lot of other things that I don’t remember well, not leaving until Ben flipped her a slobbery bird and said, “Beat it bitch, before I go get Uncle Jimmy and he kicks your butt!” I was too shocked to comment at the time, but later encounters like that would become a regular occurrence.
My dad always made friends easily, so I’d hear nice things every now and then. What he had a lot of trouble with was keeping them, and that’s when the “sonofabitches” would start. Whatever the case, things usually opened the same way. “Hey, aren’t you Jimbo’s daughter?” or “I know you...” or “You’re one of the ______ girls, aren’t ya?”
I learned to say yes and walk away. Lying about it was pointless, especially when I started high school and he suddenly seemed to be everywhere – showing up at the parties I went to and the weekend hangouts. Often times I thought having some old lady come up to me, and yell about how he’d fucked her over, was way better than having the hottest guys in school notice me because my dad was that sucker that acted like he was 17 years old with a fake ID.
When I got pulled over for speeding, the cops knew who I was. When I went to the grocery store, the Budweiser guy unloading his truck knew who I was. When I graduated and moved two towns away, every goddamned mechanic, bartender and waitress knew who I was. My dad, apparently, got around. I got so used to being approached by strangers that I pretty much stopped listening the minute they said his name. I just shrugged, murmured something noncommittal and went on about my business.
It did die down a bit when he moved to Oklahoma. But now...he’s here again, visiting for the longest period of time since he moved away five years ago. And it’s driving me insane.
He’s staying with my Papa, practically next door, and he’s always calling and texting, wanting to know what I’m doing. And worst of all, he’s been hanging out at all his old haunts...which means I haven’t been able to hear the end of it. The occasional stranger or old friend approaching me once every few months has snowballed because of his return home. Now there are also phone calls and picture messages of him around town – it’s ridiculous. For some reason it never seems to occur to people that I already know what he does and I’m embarrassed enough without extra proof, thank you very much.
“Your dad was so drunk he fell off a bar stool!”
“Your dad bought shots for everybody and when the waitress told him that someone didn’t want theirs, he said, ‘so the fuck what, gimmie the goddamned thing and get outta here!’ Then he slapped her ass!”
“Your dad said he was going to move back here and build a house right next to yours!” (Now that one was terrifying.)
I’ve found myself hurrying in and out of places, doing my shopping in the city on my way home from work rather than going to the local, and staying home whenever possible. I feel harassed and irritated and he’s only been here a little over two weeks...with two still left to go.
And after this past Saturday night I’m not so sure I can handle another day, let alone two weeks.
*****
When my friends decided they wanted to have a few drinks at the lakeside bar instead of our usual downtown hangout, I was hesitant. I knew he’d been in there recently, likely more than once, and there was a strong possibility that I’d run into some of his A) brethren, B) enemies, C) women, or D) all of the above. But they promised it would be an early night, no later than one, and I really loved the band that was going to be there, so I found myself agreeing anyway.
The bar has been there forever and, though it’s changed owners and names countless times, it remains the same. I go in maybe twice a year, not counting the times we dock for gas or the like in the summer, because it’s really just not my kind of thing. It’s the trolling ground for some of the funkiest looking redneck cougars I’ve ever seen and the men are even worse.
Ten of us crammed into a corner around two tables, ordering drinks and food. After about an hour of cutting up, listening to the band and drinking the cheapest Jack and Cokes I’ve ordered anywhere, I decided it wasn’t so bad. The people watching was certainly sublime.
Even dressed down, our group looked out of place amid the bikers and the women that, I’d wager, had been ridden harder than any Harley. An older woman with short, dull brown hair danced every song with a man the band kept calling MC Hammer. Her white t-shirt barely touched the top of her jeans and every time she would move her arms it would rise up, showing a disturbing amount of wobbly flesh and the waist band of her white underwear sticking out of her pants. MC Hammer would slouch around her, alternately jumping up then crouching down low to the ground and doing pelvic thrusts at empty air. His eyes were glazed over and he looked like he might start drooling on himself at any minute. When a slow song came on, they would plaster themselves together and move in a jerky circle, occasionally running into the other couples.
There was a taller version of Willie Nelson decked out in silver buckles and plaid, his eyes so squinty and surrounded by wrinkles that I wasn’t sure he had any, dancing with a woman in ripped turquoise that gave new meaning to the term muffin top. There was a younger group of girls, probably late 20s or early 30s, sporting the cropped t-shirt and unflattering flesh trend of MC Hammer’s woman – dancing on each other and whooping when they managed to grab some poor unsuspecting cowboy from the sidelines. A severely thin woman with dark hair down to her waist swayed alone in the middle, with her arms lifted above her head and a beer clutched in a hand adorned with dangerous looking press on nails.
We laughed and drank shots, getting up to dance only once when several couples vacated the floor briefly for a smoke break and, apparently, a make out session on the pier.
“Look you guys”, I said pointing out the window behind our table. MC Hammer was lounging on his side on the railing, one leg stretched out and one bent at the knee, propping his head up on his hand. And his woman was glued to his face; her hands roaming over places I really hoped would stay covered.
Everyone leaned over or turned around to look and even the band members, who were taking a short break, had to peek.
“Ahh, they’re gonna fuck tonight”, half of our group sang in unison, as they often do when spotting outrageous PDA.
It was shortly after, when the band started playing Let’s Get It On in honor of the returning couple, that a girl approached our table. She was tall and heavy set, with streaked strawberry blonde hair cut short. Freckles covered her cheeks and the bridge of her nose – she was almost cute.
“Hey”, she said to the group at large, smiling. “Ya’ll having a good time tonight?”
After a scattered yes, she focused on the girl to my left. “I know you!”
She went round the table establishing family connections and moving past the “do you know’s” with everyone, because that’s the first part of any conversation in the South... “Who are your people?” Then she finally came to me.
“And you. You’re a _______, aren’t you”, she asked, tossing out my last name and pulling a face I recognized all too well.
I stared up at her warily. “Guilty.”
“Uh huh. And you’re Jimmy’s daughter, right?”
“Yes.” I sighed.
Her hand went immediately to her hip and she leaned over the person in front of me, “I’m sorry”, she said without a trace of remorse, “but I fucking hate your daddy.”
I could feel the heat rising up my neck as I stared at her, and everyone else stared at us.
“He’s a sorry piece of shit. No...I really hate him”, she continued, as if I’d accused her of the opposite.
I crossed my legs and leaned forward in my chair. She started to say something else, but I cut her off. “Right”, I said calmly, then turned my back and started talking to the girl beside me.
She walked away a moment later and the chatter started. “Are you kidding? What a dick! So rude! Who does that?”
I was absolutely livid and it was only the antics of MC Hammer that made me crack a smile for the rest of the night. But I wasn’t just angry at her, I was angry with myself too.
I kept thinking of brilliant comebacks hours after the fact, which only made me angrier. I could have said something like, “I appreciate your right to an opinion, but in the future if you have a problem with my father, you should take it up with him and not a stranger. Because that’s what I am to you – a stranger. Not his daughter, in this case, or the head of his complaint department. Whatever sense of entitlement or commiseration you feel spending time with him has granted you, I assure you, you won’t be getting it from me. So why don’t you fuck off.”
Or, “Now that we’ve been properly introduced and you’ve said what you had to say, why don’t you go back to your table, sit down, and I’ll come over and needlessly insult one of your family members in front of your friends. Call it a learning experience.”
Or, “Bitch, you don’t know me. How you gonna come at me like that? I will cut.you.”
Something like that.
And even though I know that responding to her rudeness with that of my own wouldn’t really have been the right thing to do, it still would have felt nice to let off some steam.
After all, I’ve got two more weeks left of this shit. Anyone would be tempted...right?
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Advice
Last Friday, amid my sunshiny errands and trampoline jumping, I was dealing with family drama. It started around 9 that morning when I was sitting in my underwear in the living room, radio blasting, repainting my toenails blood red.
“I said what what in the butt”, sang my phone. Muting the radio, I picked up what I knew would be a long, repetitive call. It was my stepmom.
“Your dad has lost it”, she said immediately.
“I wasn’t aware he ever had it”, I replied. “What’s up?”
“I need advice. Tell me what to do.”
What followed was, as expected, a long winded account of all the things daddy dearest had been up to recently. Some of it I already knew, like the story about him throwing an empty bottle of Crown Royal at her on Valentine’s Day. Who needs candy and flowers when you can give your woman something really passionate...like a concussion?
And some of it was breaking news, like the fact that he was, supposedly, on his way to get a U-Haul to start packing up his things. He was going to take the dog, the horses, and the Harley and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, so there! Dad has a flare for the dramatic and it was apparent that she knew, as well as I did, that he was talking out of his ass and wouldn’t be packing anything.
She wanted to know if she should get a restraining order or if she should wait things out, see if she could get him to leave on a mini vacation to give them some time apart. See, they’re in the middle of a lawsuit with his insurance company and, according to the lawyer, if she filed a restraining order it could jeopardize that.
I heard about how much he’d been drinking and the nasty names he’d called her. I heard “your mother is a saint to have put up with that man for over 20 years” and all the other catch phrases she’s adopted since her knight in shining armor turned out to be exactly what we all tried to tell her he would. I mmmed and ahhhed, and said the same things I always say – that she should have left him when he swayed down the aisle to marry her holding a bottle in a brown paper bag, that he’s crazy, and that no matter what happens between them, she’ll still be my family.
“I’m on my way to work to tell my boss I’m taking the day off to deal with this shit”, she said. “Will you call and talk to him? See what he has to say? But don’t tell him you talked to me.”
I wasn’t the first time she’d asked me to do something like that. I’d tried to explain to her before that questioning dad is an exercise in futility – the man lies so much that he wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him upside the head with a Crown bottle. But I agreed to do it anyway.
He answered on the second ring. “Hey Al, what’s going on?” I could hear the suspicion in his voice already, and I hadn’t even spoken yet.
“Hey dad. Nothing, just enjoying my day off. What are you up to?”
“You been talking to that bitch, huh? She called you didn’t she?”
Ah, paranoia! Signature scent of the guilty.
“No, why would she be calling me? What have you done?”
“I’m leaving. I’m on my way now to get a U-Haul.”
“Ok...why? What are you going to put in the U-Haul, dad?”
“Because she’s a crazy fucking bitch. All my shit, that’s what!”
I was relatively sure that whatever belongings he had in the house wouldn’t fill a large suitcase, much less a truck. If he actually followed through with that threat, he’d probably rob her blind.
He went on to say that he tried to get her to go to counseling (lie), but she’d refused (lie). He was tired of supporting her (lie, the only thing he supports are his habits) and she was turning everyone against him (lie, everyone was already sick of him ages before she came along). And when I expressed my doubt at those statements, and he sensed that he was getting no sympathy from me, he rushed off the phone.
Yeah, I totally called that one.
I rang my stepmom back and relayed the conversation, then attempted to wash my hands of the matter. “I’ve got to get in the shower. I’ve got to get going...errands and stuff.”
Unfortunately it didn’t work that way. Though I didn’t speak to dad again, my stepmom called me with regular reports all day long. She was getting the restraining order, she wasn’t. She was filing for divorce, she wasn’t. She was going to have him removed from the house (because, surprise surprise, apparently he never did go get that U-Haul), she wasn’t. As usual, her indecision was giving me whiplash.
“I don’t understand you women”, I shouted at one point.
That night I passed on all Intel to mom and told her she could handle it from there. She and my stepmom have become quite the pair, gossiping and texting about all of dad’s indiscretions, united by the one thing that initially had them hating each other’s guts.
And so the weekend rolled on. I spent a lot of time doing nothing and every day I put off the phone call I should have made to my stepmom. I heard about the latest happenings from mom, so I knew she was alright. I just didn’t want to deal with the repetition of it all. I hate it when someone asks me the same question over and over. “What should I do?”
The buzz was that she’d spent Friday and Saturday night in a hotel, choosing to leave him in her house rather than deal with him. No one seemed to know what he was up to.
On Monday I was home alone in my pajamas, writing and drinking my weight in coffee. After spending the majority of the day on the porch with the laptop, I suddenly decided my room needed to be cleaned. And around 6:30 when everyone came home dragging the debris of their day, I was still going.
I was unloading the dishwasher, methodically drying cups and glaring at the pile of papers and purses they’d just stacked on my clean dining room table, when mom said quietly, so Leigha wouldn’t hear, “I need your advice.”
Surprised, I simply nodded and finished what I was doing. After I’d seated Hannah at the table with her dinner, I went to mom’s room. She was lying on her bed flipping through a Tupperware magazine.
“Please, tell me you aren’t going to buy more of that shit”, I said, flopping down beside her on my stomach and putting my chin in my hands. “We can’t shut the cabinet now.”
“I’m just looking”, she said, using the tone I call her “little girl voice”, a dead giveaway that she’s lying through her teeth.
I rolled my eyes. “Uh huh. So, what’s the issue?”
“Well...your father called me this morning.” She always says “your father”, like other people say “your asshole dog” or “your snot-nosed brat”. When she talks to me about him, its half gossiping with a girlfriend and half accusation...like it’s my fault that she married him. Which I suppose it kind of was, if you go around blaming fetuses.
I sighed and waited on her to continue. Mom loves a bit of drama with her stories; she’s very good at pauses.
“He told me that he was on his way here from Oklahoma, in Tennessee somewhere, and wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to have him locked up for back child support. (Pause)But! Your stepmom called me and guess what?! (Pause. Pause.)That bastard left two days ago! He’s already here somewhere, hiding out!”
I wasn’t surprised. If he had a signature move, other than breaking shit, it was lying in relation to his whereabouts.
“So”, she continued, “he says that he’ll give me some money on Wednesday if I don’t have him picked up. But I’m fed up with the shit. What do you think I should do? Should I have him arrested anyway?”
I sighed again. She didn’t really want my advice, just like my stepmom hadn’t wanted it either. They wanted to vent, they wanted me to say all the asshole things they couldn’t, and then they wanted to go about business as usual.
“Fine”, I said sitting up. “Supposedly he is getting paid while he’s here, so, if I were you, I’d tell him to have me the money he promised by Wednesday. Then, after I got the money, I’d have him arrested anyway.”
She looked at me, clearly conflicted. “I just don’t know. He says he’ll roll into town early tomorrow morning and swing by to see you girls. He’s still pretending he isn’t here.”
I shook my head and got up. “Well, I suppose you ought to figure it out. But I’m willing to bet you that he’ll be at our door before we go to bed tonight.”
“No, he’s too busy partying.”
I raised my eyebrows, because I can’t do just the one, and shrugged. “Whatever.”
At 10 o’clock on the dot I was sitting on the porch, wrapped up in my robe, reading. I heard a rumble and looked up. A truck with a motorcycle trailer on the back was inching its way down our gravel road, ridiculously attempting to be stealthy. It paused by the garden fence, on the last stretch of road visible before it would disappear around the corner of our house, leading to the driveway. The headlights cut through the dark and I knew he was sitting in the cab, watching me sitting in the chair, the overhead lights making our porch stand out like a theatre stage.
He inched forward and disappeared around the curve. I leaned back in my chair, knocked on the glass door, lit a cigarette and went back to my book, knowing even as I did that it was pointless. I was about to be bothered.
Mom poked her head out the door, responding to my loud rap on the glass. “Told you so”, I said without looking up from my book. I didn’t need to explain. She heard the rumble of the truck, immediately backing up my words.
“You get him out of here before he wakes up Ray”, she said, pulling at her nightshirt.
“He’s here to see Leigha, let her deal with it.”
She made a noise of disgust and turned to stomp off, but Leigha blocked the door. “Alyson, dad says for you to come outside. He wants to see you.”
I glared at her. “You go.”
“Come on”, she whined.
Both of them looked at me expectantly and I knew they weren’t going to leave me alone. In fact, if I didn’t go, he’d probably just come around and climb the porch steps. Resistance, as usual, was futile.
I got up and followed Leigha, defiantly carrying my lit cigarette with me through the house and out the other door. It was my last one.
And there he was, standing in the driveway in his Levi’s and a black pocket t-shirt covered by his signature button up denim, open at the neck and with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his tattooed arms. His feet were planted so far apart that it looked comical. He’s rather short for a man and his stance and demeanor have always reminded me of a rooster. Work boots, ball cap, and a pair of black glasses with a lanyard wrapped around the back of his head completed the never changing ensemble.
“Hey Al”, he said, moving in to hug me. I gave him the sidearm hug, but it was more out of necessity than desire to stay away from him. We were both smoking, but of course he took it as a slight. “Oh, I see how it is”, he said, chuckling. I knew that chuckle and it wasn’t real. He told us that he’d be staying until after Papa’s wedding. On March 19th. A month. Fucking brilliant. I was happy that my poor stepmom was getting a break, but not if it meant a month at my own expense.
However, two days later (last night to be precise), things shifted again.
I was sitting at the patio table with Papa, dad, and my cousin Ashley. I’d come to pick up Hannah and ended up getting dragged into a discussion on my Aunt that ran away from home last week with thousands of dollars and ten cats in a bag. (It’s a long story.) That led into a discussion about vacations.
“I’m taking a vacation just for me, before I start school and get extra tied down for the next few years”, I said.
Dad looked at me in surprise. “You aren’t coming to Oklahoma this summer?”
I stared back at him like he’d lost his marbles. As far as I was concerned, the past week had been the beginning of the end of his marriage to my stepmom. It had never gotten so far as hotel stays and talk of restraining orders before.
“I was under the impression that ya’ll were done?”
He just looked baffled, like he had no idea what on earth I was talking about. Probably because he’d already managed to convince his self that none of it had ever happened. “We’re fine, she sent me a package of things I needed today. I’m going back to Oklahoma this weekend for a quick job.”
“I thought you were staying until the wedding?” I could barely keep the excitement out of my voice. If she was going to be dumb enough to take his ass back again, I wasn’t going to waste my time feeling sorry for her anymore. And I wouldn’t have to worry about him causing any drama here for the next month. Win/Win.
“I’ll be back before the wedding. She’s coming with me”, he said.
Later that night mom cornered me again. “It’s Wednesday and he still hasn’t given me the money. What do you think I should do?”
I’d had plenty of time to think about it by then and I’d decided that there was only one thing I could say to her, and to my stepmom, the next time they asked that question. I had my own vicious cycles to attend to and I was tired of being forced into theirs as well. The tentative relationship I have with him only works because I keep my distance, and I know better than to expect anything more than a load of trouble or a good laugh. I can’t make either one of them stop tiptoeing around him and grow a pair.
I grinned and shrugged. “I have no opinion about that.”
“I said what what in the butt”, sang my phone. Muting the radio, I picked up what I knew would be a long, repetitive call. It was my stepmom.
“Your dad has lost it”, she said immediately.
“I wasn’t aware he ever had it”, I replied. “What’s up?”
“I need advice. Tell me what to do.”
What followed was, as expected, a long winded account of all the things daddy dearest had been up to recently. Some of it I already knew, like the story about him throwing an empty bottle of Crown Royal at her on Valentine’s Day. Who needs candy and flowers when you can give your woman something really passionate...like a concussion?
And some of it was breaking news, like the fact that he was, supposedly, on his way to get a U-Haul to start packing up his things. He was going to take the dog, the horses, and the Harley and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, so there! Dad has a flare for the dramatic and it was apparent that she knew, as well as I did, that he was talking out of his ass and wouldn’t be packing anything.
She wanted to know if she should get a restraining order or if she should wait things out, see if she could get him to leave on a mini vacation to give them some time apart. See, they’re in the middle of a lawsuit with his insurance company and, according to the lawyer, if she filed a restraining order it could jeopardize that.
I heard about how much he’d been drinking and the nasty names he’d called her. I heard “your mother is a saint to have put up with that man for over 20 years” and all the other catch phrases she’s adopted since her knight in shining armor turned out to be exactly what we all tried to tell her he would. I mmmed and ahhhed, and said the same things I always say – that she should have left him when he swayed down the aisle to marry her holding a bottle in a brown paper bag, that he’s crazy, and that no matter what happens between them, she’ll still be my family.
“I’m on my way to work to tell my boss I’m taking the day off to deal with this shit”, she said. “Will you call and talk to him? See what he has to say? But don’t tell him you talked to me.”
I wasn’t the first time she’d asked me to do something like that. I’d tried to explain to her before that questioning dad is an exercise in futility – the man lies so much that he wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him upside the head with a Crown bottle. But I agreed to do it anyway.
He answered on the second ring. “Hey Al, what’s going on?” I could hear the suspicion in his voice already, and I hadn’t even spoken yet.
“Hey dad. Nothing, just enjoying my day off. What are you up to?”
“You been talking to that bitch, huh? She called you didn’t she?”
Ah, paranoia! Signature scent of the guilty.
“No, why would she be calling me? What have you done?”
“I’m leaving. I’m on my way now to get a U-Haul.”
“Ok...why? What are you going to put in the U-Haul, dad?”
“Because she’s a crazy fucking bitch. All my shit, that’s what!”
I was relatively sure that whatever belongings he had in the house wouldn’t fill a large suitcase, much less a truck. If he actually followed through with that threat, he’d probably rob her blind.
He went on to say that he tried to get her to go to counseling (lie), but she’d refused (lie). He was tired of supporting her (lie, the only thing he supports are his habits) and she was turning everyone against him (lie, everyone was already sick of him ages before she came along). And when I expressed my doubt at those statements, and he sensed that he was getting no sympathy from me, he rushed off the phone.
Yeah, I totally called that one.
I rang my stepmom back and relayed the conversation, then attempted to wash my hands of the matter. “I’ve got to get in the shower. I’ve got to get going...errands and stuff.”
Unfortunately it didn’t work that way. Though I didn’t speak to dad again, my stepmom called me with regular reports all day long. She was getting the restraining order, she wasn’t. She was filing for divorce, she wasn’t. She was going to have him removed from the house (because, surprise surprise, apparently he never did go get that U-Haul), she wasn’t. As usual, her indecision was giving me whiplash.
“I don’t understand you women”, I shouted at one point.
That night I passed on all Intel to mom and told her she could handle it from there. She and my stepmom have become quite the pair, gossiping and texting about all of dad’s indiscretions, united by the one thing that initially had them hating each other’s guts.
And so the weekend rolled on. I spent a lot of time doing nothing and every day I put off the phone call I should have made to my stepmom. I heard about the latest happenings from mom, so I knew she was alright. I just didn’t want to deal with the repetition of it all. I hate it when someone asks me the same question over and over. “What should I do?”
The buzz was that she’d spent Friday and Saturday night in a hotel, choosing to leave him in her house rather than deal with him. No one seemed to know what he was up to.
On Monday I was home alone in my pajamas, writing and drinking my weight in coffee. After spending the majority of the day on the porch with the laptop, I suddenly decided my room needed to be cleaned. And around 6:30 when everyone came home dragging the debris of their day, I was still going.
I was unloading the dishwasher, methodically drying cups and glaring at the pile of papers and purses they’d just stacked on my clean dining room table, when mom said quietly, so Leigha wouldn’t hear, “I need your advice.”
Surprised, I simply nodded and finished what I was doing. After I’d seated Hannah at the table with her dinner, I went to mom’s room. She was lying on her bed flipping through a Tupperware magazine.
“Please, tell me you aren’t going to buy more of that shit”, I said, flopping down beside her on my stomach and putting my chin in my hands. “We can’t shut the cabinet now.”
“I’m just looking”, she said, using the tone I call her “little girl voice”, a dead giveaway that she’s lying through her teeth.
I rolled my eyes. “Uh huh. So, what’s the issue?”
“Well...your father called me this morning.” She always says “your father”, like other people say “your asshole dog” or “your snot-nosed brat”. When she talks to me about him, its half gossiping with a girlfriend and half accusation...like it’s my fault that she married him. Which I suppose it kind of was, if you go around blaming fetuses.
I sighed and waited on her to continue. Mom loves a bit of drama with her stories; she’s very good at pauses.
“He told me that he was on his way here from Oklahoma, in Tennessee somewhere, and wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to have him locked up for back child support. (Pause)But! Your stepmom called me and guess what?! (Pause. Pause.)That bastard left two days ago! He’s already here somewhere, hiding out!”
I wasn’t surprised. If he had a signature move, other than breaking shit, it was lying in relation to his whereabouts.
“So”, she continued, “he says that he’ll give me some money on Wednesday if I don’t have him picked up. But I’m fed up with the shit. What do you think I should do? Should I have him arrested anyway?”
I sighed again. She didn’t really want my advice, just like my stepmom hadn’t wanted it either. They wanted to vent, they wanted me to say all the asshole things they couldn’t, and then they wanted to go about business as usual.
“Fine”, I said sitting up. “Supposedly he is getting paid while he’s here, so, if I were you, I’d tell him to have me the money he promised by Wednesday. Then, after I got the money, I’d have him arrested anyway.”
She looked at me, clearly conflicted. “I just don’t know. He says he’ll roll into town early tomorrow morning and swing by to see you girls. He’s still pretending he isn’t here.”
I shook my head and got up. “Well, I suppose you ought to figure it out. But I’m willing to bet you that he’ll be at our door before we go to bed tonight.”
“No, he’s too busy partying.”
I raised my eyebrows, because I can’t do just the one, and shrugged. “Whatever.”
At 10 o’clock on the dot I was sitting on the porch, wrapped up in my robe, reading. I heard a rumble and looked up. A truck with a motorcycle trailer on the back was inching its way down our gravel road, ridiculously attempting to be stealthy. It paused by the garden fence, on the last stretch of road visible before it would disappear around the corner of our house, leading to the driveway. The headlights cut through the dark and I knew he was sitting in the cab, watching me sitting in the chair, the overhead lights making our porch stand out like a theatre stage.
He inched forward and disappeared around the curve. I leaned back in my chair, knocked on the glass door, lit a cigarette and went back to my book, knowing even as I did that it was pointless. I was about to be bothered.
Mom poked her head out the door, responding to my loud rap on the glass. “Told you so”, I said without looking up from my book. I didn’t need to explain. She heard the rumble of the truck, immediately backing up my words.
“You get him out of here before he wakes up Ray”, she said, pulling at her nightshirt.
“He’s here to see Leigha, let her deal with it.”
She made a noise of disgust and turned to stomp off, but Leigha blocked the door. “Alyson, dad says for you to come outside. He wants to see you.”
I glared at her. “You go.”
“Come on”, she whined.
Both of them looked at me expectantly and I knew they weren’t going to leave me alone. In fact, if I didn’t go, he’d probably just come around and climb the porch steps. Resistance, as usual, was futile.
I got up and followed Leigha, defiantly carrying my lit cigarette with me through the house and out the other door. It was my last one.
And there he was, standing in the driveway in his Levi’s and a black pocket t-shirt covered by his signature button up denim, open at the neck and with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his tattooed arms. His feet were planted so far apart that it looked comical. He’s rather short for a man and his stance and demeanor have always reminded me of a rooster. Work boots, ball cap, and a pair of black glasses with a lanyard wrapped around the back of his head completed the never changing ensemble.
“Hey Al”, he said, moving in to hug me. I gave him the sidearm hug, but it was more out of necessity than desire to stay away from him. We were both smoking, but of course he took it as a slight. “Oh, I see how it is”, he said, chuckling. I knew that chuckle and it wasn’t real. He told us that he’d be staying until after Papa’s wedding. On March 19th. A month. Fucking brilliant. I was happy that my poor stepmom was getting a break, but not if it meant a month at my own expense.
However, two days later (last night to be precise), things shifted again.
I was sitting at the patio table with Papa, dad, and my cousin Ashley. I’d come to pick up Hannah and ended up getting dragged into a discussion on my Aunt that ran away from home last week with thousands of dollars and ten cats in a bag. (It’s a long story.) That led into a discussion about vacations.
“I’m taking a vacation just for me, before I start school and get extra tied down for the next few years”, I said.
Dad looked at me in surprise. “You aren’t coming to Oklahoma this summer?”
I stared back at him like he’d lost his marbles. As far as I was concerned, the past week had been the beginning of the end of his marriage to my stepmom. It had never gotten so far as hotel stays and talk of restraining orders before.
“I was under the impression that ya’ll were done?”
He just looked baffled, like he had no idea what on earth I was talking about. Probably because he’d already managed to convince his self that none of it had ever happened. “We’re fine, she sent me a package of things I needed today. I’m going back to Oklahoma this weekend for a quick job.”
“I thought you were staying until the wedding?” I could barely keep the excitement out of my voice. If she was going to be dumb enough to take his ass back again, I wasn’t going to waste my time feeling sorry for her anymore. And I wouldn’t have to worry about him causing any drama here for the next month. Win/Win.
“I’ll be back before the wedding. She’s coming with me”, he said.
Later that night mom cornered me again. “It’s Wednesday and he still hasn’t given me the money. What do you think I should do?”
I’d had plenty of time to think about it by then and I’d decided that there was only one thing I could say to her, and to my stepmom, the next time they asked that question. I had my own vicious cycles to attend to and I was tired of being forced into theirs as well. The tentative relationship I have with him only works because I keep my distance, and I know better than to expect anything more than a load of trouble or a good laugh. I can’t make either one of them stop tiptoeing around him and grow a pair.
I grinned and shrugged. “I have no opinion about that.”
Saturday, February 12, 2011
I just haven't met you yet
I was sitting at my grandmother’s dining room table, relaxed and laughing. The little house was jam-packed full of family, ringing with the sounds of a dozen different conversations.
“We need to go out and do something together, all of us,” I said to my stepmom.
She smiled and showed me a sheaf of tickets, waved them out like a fan. “We’ve got plans for this afternoon. It’s a dance class.” What she meant, she further explained, was that it was a pole dancing class and we would each have our own room and our own instructor.
But before I really had a chance to process that, you called. You called and everything changed. We were going out instead.
I raced to the back bedroom to get ready, but there really wasn’t much to do. I was already dressed, already painted and straightened. I smiled at myself in the mirror a lot, lost in thoughts I no longer remember well.
Time must have sped up because my sister was suddenly at the door, saying you were already there, waiting on the living room couch. That’s when the nerves finally showed up, mixing with the excitement, and I could hear my heartbeat pulsing loudly over the din of my family, still everywhere, still talking. I had to force myself to walk slowly and, rather than turn right and go straight to the living room through the side entrance, go around the long way. I wanted to look at you straight on; I wanted you to see me coming toward you. I just wanted.
They were everywhere – spilling out of the kitchen and into the dining room, taking up so much space. Of course it would make sense that they would be in the living room too, scattered in the armchairs and sitting on the couch, bothering you and asking questions because that’s what they do. But when I turned the corner, I didn’t see anyone but you.
You sat in the exact middle of my grandmother’s faded old yellow couch. The tiny, many colored flowers dotting its cushions looked vivid against your jeans. There was a jacket covering your head and it made me grin and laugh. You were hiding, being funny, and I knew that underneath the folds, you were smiling too. I walked toward you and gently lifted it from your head, tossed it to the side.
Looking at you smiling at me, the nerves left as quickly as they’d come. You didn’t say a word, just held out your arms. It didn’t for a moment bother me that you hadn’t gotten up, that I’d have to climb onto your lap to get to those arms. I put one knee on either side of your body, straddling your lap, chest to chest, wrapping my arms around you at the same time you wrapped yours around me. And my god, it felt good.
For a long time we sat that way – my head nestled in the crook of your shoulder and your face buried in my neck. I could have stayed that way all afternoon, but you finally pulled away. I was a little surprised when you pressed your lips to mine. I wanted it, but I hadn’t expected it. The kiss was long and slow and soft, your facial hair tickling my skin.
When we drew apart again, the sounds of the house finally started to register. “I’ll just go get my coat”, I said, climbing from your lap and hurrying out of the room.
Everything seemed to speed up and everyone suddenly wanted to talk to me. I kept racing from room to room looking for things – my purse, my jacket, my lipstick. It was irritating, but typical. It’s what always happens when I’m trying to go somewhere; I’m unorganized.
Each time I hurried past, in search of one thing or another, I could see you standing impatiently by the door. I wanted to go to you, but I just had to do one more thing, and one more thing, and one more thing.
“Alyson”, you finally said, “let’s go already.”
“I can’t believe you’re skipping our family outing”, my stepmom said from behind me.
I was flustered, but I finally managed to take your hand and walk outside. We made it halfway to the car and I pulled you to a stop. “I forgot my jacket!”
You sighed and gave an exasperated little laugh while the dog jumped around our legs and faces peered out from windows. “Go start the car”, I said, “I’ll be right back.” I watched you get into a red car that looked vaguely like a station wagon before running back inside.
When I returned, you were parking some sort of recreational vehicle with a trailer attached to it down the street. I smiled as I watched you walk back up the sidewalk, getting closer. And then…
I came to, face down in a pile of pillows. Disoriented, it took me a moment to realize what was going on. It was all just a dream.
But somehow I could still feel the imprint of your arms around me and the press of your lips.
I smiled and turned over on my side, rubbing my eyes. I replayed all of the weird elements, of course: my stepfamily being in my grandmother’s house, the pole dancing class, the trailer, the crush of people and the impromptu moment of intimacy in front of them all. But what I kept coming back to, the part that was somehow, against all odds, more vivid than everything…was you. Your lips, your face, your arms, your presence. You were the most unlikely piece of the puzzle – “one of these things is not like the other” – yet you were the part that felt exactly right.
I looked at my bedside clock. It read 7:02am. I would normally never get out of the bed so early on a Saturday, but I was already pushing off the covers and throwing my legs over the side of the bed. I wanted to write it all down before I forgot, before even the silliest details became too fuzzy to remember. I wanted to write it all down so I would remember what it felt like to be wanted, to be with you. And in my head, I’d already picked out the title.
“We need to go out and do something together, all of us,” I said to my stepmom.
She smiled and showed me a sheaf of tickets, waved them out like a fan. “We’ve got plans for this afternoon. It’s a dance class.” What she meant, she further explained, was that it was a pole dancing class and we would each have our own room and our own instructor.
But before I really had a chance to process that, you called. You called and everything changed. We were going out instead.
I raced to the back bedroom to get ready, but there really wasn’t much to do. I was already dressed, already painted and straightened. I smiled at myself in the mirror a lot, lost in thoughts I no longer remember well.
Time must have sped up because my sister was suddenly at the door, saying you were already there, waiting on the living room couch. That’s when the nerves finally showed up, mixing with the excitement, and I could hear my heartbeat pulsing loudly over the din of my family, still everywhere, still talking. I had to force myself to walk slowly and, rather than turn right and go straight to the living room through the side entrance, go around the long way. I wanted to look at you straight on; I wanted you to see me coming toward you. I just wanted.
They were everywhere – spilling out of the kitchen and into the dining room, taking up so much space. Of course it would make sense that they would be in the living room too, scattered in the armchairs and sitting on the couch, bothering you and asking questions because that’s what they do. But when I turned the corner, I didn’t see anyone but you.
You sat in the exact middle of my grandmother’s faded old yellow couch. The tiny, many colored flowers dotting its cushions looked vivid against your jeans. There was a jacket covering your head and it made me grin and laugh. You were hiding, being funny, and I knew that underneath the folds, you were smiling too. I walked toward you and gently lifted it from your head, tossed it to the side.
Looking at you smiling at me, the nerves left as quickly as they’d come. You didn’t say a word, just held out your arms. It didn’t for a moment bother me that you hadn’t gotten up, that I’d have to climb onto your lap to get to those arms. I put one knee on either side of your body, straddling your lap, chest to chest, wrapping my arms around you at the same time you wrapped yours around me. And my god, it felt good.
For a long time we sat that way – my head nestled in the crook of your shoulder and your face buried in my neck. I could have stayed that way all afternoon, but you finally pulled away. I was a little surprised when you pressed your lips to mine. I wanted it, but I hadn’t expected it. The kiss was long and slow and soft, your facial hair tickling my skin.
When we drew apart again, the sounds of the house finally started to register. “I’ll just go get my coat”, I said, climbing from your lap and hurrying out of the room.
Everything seemed to speed up and everyone suddenly wanted to talk to me. I kept racing from room to room looking for things – my purse, my jacket, my lipstick. It was irritating, but typical. It’s what always happens when I’m trying to go somewhere; I’m unorganized.
Each time I hurried past, in search of one thing or another, I could see you standing impatiently by the door. I wanted to go to you, but I just had to do one more thing, and one more thing, and one more thing.
“Alyson”, you finally said, “let’s go already.”
“I can’t believe you’re skipping our family outing”, my stepmom said from behind me.
I was flustered, but I finally managed to take your hand and walk outside. We made it halfway to the car and I pulled you to a stop. “I forgot my jacket!”
You sighed and gave an exasperated little laugh while the dog jumped around our legs and faces peered out from windows. “Go start the car”, I said, “I’ll be right back.” I watched you get into a red car that looked vaguely like a station wagon before running back inside.
When I returned, you were parking some sort of recreational vehicle with a trailer attached to it down the street. I smiled as I watched you walk back up the sidewalk, getting closer. And then…
I came to, face down in a pile of pillows. Disoriented, it took me a moment to realize what was going on. It was all just a dream.
But somehow I could still feel the imprint of your arms around me and the press of your lips.
I smiled and turned over on my side, rubbing my eyes. I replayed all of the weird elements, of course: my stepfamily being in my grandmother’s house, the pole dancing class, the trailer, the crush of people and the impromptu moment of intimacy in front of them all. But what I kept coming back to, the part that was somehow, against all odds, more vivid than everything…was you. Your lips, your face, your arms, your presence. You were the most unlikely piece of the puzzle – “one of these things is not like the other” – yet you were the part that felt exactly right.
I looked at my bedside clock. It read 7:02am. I would normally never get out of the bed so early on a Saturday, but I was already pushing off the covers and throwing my legs over the side of the bed. I wanted to write it all down before I forgot, before even the silliest details became too fuzzy to remember. I wanted to write it all down so I would remember what it felt like to be wanted, to be with you. And in my head, I’d already picked out the title.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Letters to Santa
I don’t remember a lot about the days leading up to Christmas when I was younger, though I have a general idea of what transpired. I spent the entire month of December anticipating – not really doing anything. There was just waiting and more waiting punctuated with Frosty cartoons and a trip to see Santa at the mall. And though I’ve seen pictures, I can’t recall one solid memory of ever sitting on some fat man’s lap. Unless you count my Papa, of course.
But I remember being full of excitement on Christmas Eve – tossing in my bed for what felt like forever and finally drifting off, only to wake a few hours later with the house still muffled by darkness. I’d force myself to lie there for another hour, knowing mom wouldn’t let me drag my little sister out of bed quite yet. Sometimes I’d creep to the living room and squint through my nerdy, round framed glasses at the piles of presents – trying to decipher what they were by the gloomy silhouettes. Santa didn’t leave wrapped presents at our house; he arranged them artfully around our stockings, like a shop window display.
I’d eventually succumb to temptation, still always before the sun made an appearance, and tiptoe to my sister’s room. I’d prod her awake and make her go ahead of me into our parent’s room to soften the early wake up call. Once Lee had done her thing, mom would get up and start the coffee while I danced anxiously from foot to foot.
Dad was always the last to wander out, stretching and grinning in his old blue robe, knowing we had to wait on him to get started. It was the only day of the year that he was always home and sober, no matter what. He loved Christmas and was always so excited to give us our gifts and watch us get excited in turn. I remember wishing it could be Christmas every day – not for the presents, but to keep him that way, smiling and pleasant.
While our parents sat on the loveseat in their robes, sipping steaming coffee and looking very pleased with themselves, we would exclaim over our piles from Santa Claus. Upending our stockings, we’d eye each other’s lot suspiciously, making sure one wasn’t better that the other. Then dad would dig under the tree and hand out the family presents. Paper would fly and squealing echoed off the walls.
When there was nothing left but the presents to take to The Grandmother’s later that day and a sea of brightly colored paper up to our ears, dad would get a trash bag and gather up the debris. And while mom got in the shower and did last minute food preparations, he would put batteries in our new toys. He would sit cross legged on the floor in his pajama bottoms, robe and coffee cup discarded, and the three of us would play. We would wait until the last possible minute to get dressed and pile in the car.
Now I’m a (and I use this term loosely) grown up and, though all our traditions are essentially the same, the players have switched roles. My part is no longer that of the excited, vision impaired child. I’m now the “arranger”. I’m the groggy adult pulled from her warm bed, forced to ooh and ahh over the presents the fat man gets credit for. The person that cleans the mess rather than makes it, and pays out her ass rather than sits on it.
I envy my five year old this holiday season. All she has to do is sit on the couch, stuff her face with cookies, and irritate me with the incessant ping, ping, ping of her Nintendo DS games. She has no monetary worries, no gift giving stresses, and no desire to best anyone in the cake baking arena. She won’t be bothered with crazed shoppers and her Christmas party will be full of laughter, not the ubiquitous sound of ass kissing.
The major difference between my new role and my old one is not that I buy more than I receive (though that is so pitifully true). It isn’t that I get drunk on wine rather than lie in bed counting the hours till someone comes along breaking and entering, or that I stay up chatting about blowjobs rather than reciting The Night Before Christmas. The major difference, people, is that the mysteries of the holiday have now been revealed. The veil has lifted and as a result, some of the magic has been lost.
Ahem. (Shield your child's eyes. I know you let them read this blog.)
There is no Santa Claus. I repeat: There is NO Santa Claus! Presents are not free and they are not made by elves. There are things called credit cards and one nasty event called Black Friday that was created by Satan and Martha Stewart’s minions. Adults do not get piles of presents, they get bills.
It’s not that I’m a complete scrooge or anything like that. Truthfully, even though it usually hurts me in the end, now I love to give presents a bit more than I like receiving them. (I said a bit more.)
I like watching the kid’s little face light up when she sees her gifts. I like buying things for people that I know they’re going to love, and basking in the warm glow of feeling superior. “They like my present better than yours! Ha, in your face!” I’m absurdly pleased when someone raves about something I got them. Receiving is kick ass, but I’ll agree that giving is more...fulfilling.
It’s rather like my views on oral sex – “Oh, that’s nice...” as opposed to “I noh ou ike it, eeeahh!” How many compliments do you get upon receiving something? None. People don’t just go around saying, “Damn, you’re good at taking that gift!” Or, “Thank you so much for letting me give this to you.” No. The receiver is the one that gives the compliments and gushes with gratitude, and honestly, I’m not always good at handing out thank yous. But I definitely excel at swallowing them.
Anyway, I know people that tell their kids right off the bat that Santa doesn’t exist. My cousin and her husband did that with their three boys, and that was their prerogative. But if one of those little fuckers ruins my kid’s magic prematurely – I will light their bible thumping asses on fire. I may not like giving up the credit for the best presents to the fat guy, but I get to experience a little bit of my old excitement through her and it is kind of nice. It helps to take my mind off the grown up responsibilities – if only for a little while.
As a matter of fact, we’ve been working on her letter to Santa Claus and it’s almost ready to go out. Still being the sweet, blissfully ignorant child that she is, the kid encouraged me to write a letter to him too. “He’ll bring you something too, Mama. You’ve been good!” And you know what? I decided I would do it. Did you know there are places you can mail them to and receive an actual reply?
Dear Santa Claus,
Even though I know you aren’t real, my daughter insisted we both write to you. And since I’ve recently drained the last of my wine bottle and taken a Xanax, I suddenly feel as though anything is possible. You could be out there, hammering away in your workshop with a passel of little people, just waiting to hear from me.
I feel I’ve been rather good this year too. I’ve barely slept with anyone at all, comparatively speaking, and definitely with no one underage. I know you’re remembering the Halloween party, but let me just assure you, I would never have acted on those thoughts. Wait...are you even a mind reader? That’s not important! What is important is that I’m morphing into a sporadically responsible adult, and as an almost always irresponsible child that received presents no matter how many times I was suspended from the school bus, I feel it’s only fair that you cough up the goods now too.
So, without further ado, here, sir, are my requirements:
I would like a pony. That’s a vibrator, not an actual pony. And it must be pink.
I would like a gift certificate to the plastic surgeon. What I want it for is none of your nevermind.
Free health insurance, a new car (and while you’re at it, please pay off my old one first), a book deal, and a foreign boyfriend with a huge penis.
And just to show you that I’m not all that picky, if you’re unable to acquire a foreigner with a huge penis, I’ll settle for a mute, or extremely quiet, American with a huge penis. The rest, though, is non-negotiable. Oh, and while I’m feeling generous...why not throw in a little world peace?
In return, I’ll try to leave out some milk and cookies for you. I can’t promise anything, mind. I never know when I’ll get the munchies or a sudden craving for White Russians.
You need not send a reply just in case you aren’t real. I don’t want to be disappointed before I’m disappointed, you see.
Merry Christmas!
I think that should suffice. I wonder if one of these Santa services would actually reply to that.
Well. There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?
But I remember being full of excitement on Christmas Eve – tossing in my bed for what felt like forever and finally drifting off, only to wake a few hours later with the house still muffled by darkness. I’d force myself to lie there for another hour, knowing mom wouldn’t let me drag my little sister out of bed quite yet. Sometimes I’d creep to the living room and squint through my nerdy, round framed glasses at the piles of presents – trying to decipher what they were by the gloomy silhouettes. Santa didn’t leave wrapped presents at our house; he arranged them artfully around our stockings, like a shop window display.
I’d eventually succumb to temptation, still always before the sun made an appearance, and tiptoe to my sister’s room. I’d prod her awake and make her go ahead of me into our parent’s room to soften the early wake up call. Once Lee had done her thing, mom would get up and start the coffee while I danced anxiously from foot to foot.
Dad was always the last to wander out, stretching and grinning in his old blue robe, knowing we had to wait on him to get started. It was the only day of the year that he was always home and sober, no matter what. He loved Christmas and was always so excited to give us our gifts and watch us get excited in turn. I remember wishing it could be Christmas every day – not for the presents, but to keep him that way, smiling and pleasant.
While our parents sat on the loveseat in their robes, sipping steaming coffee and looking very pleased with themselves, we would exclaim over our piles from Santa Claus. Upending our stockings, we’d eye each other’s lot suspiciously, making sure one wasn’t better that the other. Then dad would dig under the tree and hand out the family presents. Paper would fly and squealing echoed off the walls.
When there was nothing left but the presents to take to The Grandmother’s later that day and a sea of brightly colored paper up to our ears, dad would get a trash bag and gather up the debris. And while mom got in the shower and did last minute food preparations, he would put batteries in our new toys. He would sit cross legged on the floor in his pajama bottoms, robe and coffee cup discarded, and the three of us would play. We would wait until the last possible minute to get dressed and pile in the car.
Now I’m a (and I use this term loosely) grown up and, though all our traditions are essentially the same, the players have switched roles. My part is no longer that of the excited, vision impaired child. I’m now the “arranger”. I’m the groggy adult pulled from her warm bed, forced to ooh and ahh over the presents the fat man gets credit for. The person that cleans the mess rather than makes it, and pays out her ass rather than sits on it.
I envy my five year old this holiday season. All she has to do is sit on the couch, stuff her face with cookies, and irritate me with the incessant ping, ping, ping of her Nintendo DS games. She has no monetary worries, no gift giving stresses, and no desire to best anyone in the cake baking arena. She won’t be bothered with crazed shoppers and her Christmas party will be full of laughter, not the ubiquitous sound of ass kissing.
The major difference between my new role and my old one is not that I buy more than I receive (though that is so pitifully true). It isn’t that I get drunk on wine rather than lie in bed counting the hours till someone comes along breaking and entering, or that I stay up chatting about blowjobs rather than reciting The Night Before Christmas. The major difference, people, is that the mysteries of the holiday have now been revealed. The veil has lifted and as a result, some of the magic has been lost.
Ahem. (Shield your child's eyes. I know you let them read this blog.)
There is no Santa Claus. I repeat: There is NO Santa Claus! Presents are not free and they are not made by elves. There are things called credit cards and one nasty event called Black Friday that was created by Satan and Martha Stewart’s minions. Adults do not get piles of presents, they get bills.
It’s not that I’m a complete scrooge or anything like that. Truthfully, even though it usually hurts me in the end, now I love to give presents a bit more than I like receiving them. (I said a bit more.)
I like watching the kid’s little face light up when she sees her gifts. I like buying things for people that I know they’re going to love, and basking in the warm glow of feeling superior. “They like my present better than yours! Ha, in your face!” I’m absurdly pleased when someone raves about something I got them. Receiving is kick ass, but I’ll agree that giving is more...fulfilling.
It’s rather like my views on oral sex – “Oh, that’s nice...” as opposed to “I noh ou ike it, eeeahh!” How many compliments do you get upon receiving something? None. People don’t just go around saying, “Damn, you’re good at taking that gift!” Or, “Thank you so much for letting me give this to you.” No. The receiver is the one that gives the compliments and gushes with gratitude, and honestly, I’m not always good at handing out thank yous. But I definitely excel at swallowing them.
Anyway, I know people that tell their kids right off the bat that Santa doesn’t exist. My cousin and her husband did that with their three boys, and that was their prerogative. But if one of those little fuckers ruins my kid’s magic prematurely – I will light their bible thumping asses on fire. I may not like giving up the credit for the best presents to the fat guy, but I get to experience a little bit of my old excitement through her and it is kind of nice. It helps to take my mind off the grown up responsibilities – if only for a little while.
As a matter of fact, we’ve been working on her letter to Santa Claus and it’s almost ready to go out. Still being the sweet, blissfully ignorant child that she is, the kid encouraged me to write a letter to him too. “He’ll bring you something too, Mama. You’ve been good!” And you know what? I decided I would do it. Did you know there are places you can mail them to and receive an actual reply?
Dear Santa Claus,
Even though I know you aren’t real, my daughter insisted we both write to you. And since I’ve recently drained the last of my wine bottle and taken a Xanax, I suddenly feel as though anything is possible. You could be out there, hammering away in your workshop with a passel of little people, just waiting to hear from me.
I feel I’ve been rather good this year too. I’ve barely slept with anyone at all, comparatively speaking, and definitely with no one underage. I know you’re remembering the Halloween party, but let me just assure you, I would never have acted on those thoughts. Wait...are you even a mind reader? That’s not important! What is important is that I’m morphing into a sporadically responsible adult, and as an almost always irresponsible child that received presents no matter how many times I was suspended from the school bus, I feel it’s only fair that you cough up the goods now too.
So, without further ado, here, sir, are my requirements:
I would like a pony. That’s a vibrator, not an actual pony. And it must be pink.
I would like a gift certificate to the plastic surgeon. What I want it for is none of your nevermind.
Free health insurance, a new car (and while you’re at it, please pay off my old one first), a book deal, and a foreign boyfriend with a huge penis.
And just to show you that I’m not all that picky, if you’re unable to acquire a foreigner with a huge penis, I’ll settle for a mute, or extremely quiet, American with a huge penis. The rest, though, is non-negotiable. Oh, and while I’m feeling generous...why not throw in a little world peace?
In return, I’ll try to leave out some milk and cookies for you. I can’t promise anything, mind. I never know when I’ll get the munchies or a sudden craving for White Russians.
You need not send a reply just in case you aren’t real. I don’t want to be disappointed before I’m disappointed, you see.
Merry Christmas!
I think that should suffice. I wonder if one of these Santa services would actually reply to that.
Well. There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Ray
It was a beautiful summer afternoon and I was sitting in my usual spot – draped across two chairs on the screened-in porch with a book in my lap. Mom was frantically running around getting ready for a date my godmother, and next door neighbor, set her up on. Every few minutes she would stand in front of me, demanding my attention and opinion on the latest outfit change. After the fifth or so interruption I was ready to let her have it, but I thought better of it and held my tongue – she’s very sensitive and I knew that, after her last failed relationship, she was more fragile than usual.
While I cannot sympathize with her decision to stay with an abusive husband for 25 years, I can appreciate how hard it must have been to rejoin the dating world after a soul sucking divorce. And just to add insult to injury, the first man she dated was a complete and utter lunatic. If she ever liked anything about him, beyond the attention, I would rather not know about it.
My father was a difficult man to live with and an even harder man to love. I know what it’s like to love him, to hate him, to crave his attention, to wish him dead – and I’m only his daughter. When I ask myself how she could care for the man, the only answer I can come up with is that I should take my feelings and amplify them times 10 – but that’s really not an answer at all and I know I’ll never completely understand.
So instead of yelling at her to “stop bothering me, I’m reading”, I helped choose her outfit, jewelry, and makeup. I complimented her on her shoes and straightened her hair. I’d done those things for her often enough (sometimes I feel more like her stylist than her daughter), but that afternoon I was nicer about it. I didn’t sigh every time she asked me a question and I didn’t yank her hair and demand she hold still. Instead I asked about their plans and assured her she’d have a good time.
When her date arrived she brought him to the porch for introductions. While mom went inside to finish up, he sat down at the table. My cousin, sister and I grilled him like a cheese sandwich. After the last guy caused such an unwelcome stir I was determined to weed out any psychotic tendencies right away. I was in complete obnoxious mode, but he just sat there smiling, laughing, and taking it all in.
He was a big bear of a guy with a casual smile and demeanor. He talked fishing with my cousin, laughed at my jokes, however inappropriate, and when mom returned he seemed content to stay and chat. They ended up leaving an hour later and I remember saying to the others, “I think I like that guy.” His name was Ray.
Over the next few weeks they went out constantly – we rarely saw her at all. He played in a pool tournament every Tuesday night and she started accompanying him. On the weekends they went to dinner, movies, and parties with his friends. It was a big deal, a huge change from the way her life had been – stuck waiting at home wondering where her husband was, never allowed to do much of anything, not being able to keep friends because of the way he behaved. She was having fun and we were happy for her.
My godmother had known Ray for a long time. He was a quiet guy, never volunteering much about himself, so we gathered our information from her. He’d been in a long relationship with a woman, I think about four years, and they lived together. She cheated and he left her. When he started dating mom he’d been single for a year or so. After leaving his previous girlfriend, his father started having health problems so he moved in with him to help out.
By the time he and mom were a thing, he was ready to move out of his dad’s house again. My godmom was newly divorced and renting the house next door. She needed a roommate and thinking it would be pretty cool to have mom’s boyfriend living so close but not living-in, she asked Ray. He said yes.
Over the next several months it was chaos. Ray couldn’t stand having to share the TV with my godmom’s preteen daughter, and vice versa, so we sometimes found him passed out in front of our TV with the remote clutched in his hand. Football, fishing, hunting, racing, and repo shows – that was Ray’s standard fare.
He wouldn’t sleep over, unless it was on the living room floor, so mom spent a lot of nights next door with him. That suited us just fine as she had the most comfortable bed in the house and we would take turns taking it over while she was gone. He ate with us, he went to Sunday dinner at Grandma’s with us, and he started attending my sister’s cheerleading functions.
After one too many mornings of tripping over his bulk on the way to the bathroom, I finally shouted at him, “No one cares if you sleep in her bed, Ray! For the love of god!” He officially moved in shortly after that.
It was anticlimactic, as most things with Ray are. One day he was sleeping on the floor, the next we were clearing out drawer and closet space, and instead of sports programs being on only in the late evenings, they were on constantly. There wasn’t really a period of adjustment – he just fit right in with our odd, all female, group.
The fights between my mother and I are legendary, especially in relation to the raising of my daughter. One of our biggest issues is that she undermines my authority - undoing any disciplinary action I’ve taken, whispering remarks in the kid’s ear and mocking me to make her laugh, allowing her to do things I wouldn’t normally. When Ray came along, I finally had an ally. He was usually quiet, but whenever he saw mom pulling her shenanigans, he called her down. And though she would never listen to what I had to say, she certainly listened to him. It was brilliant, and though we still have a way to go, I can honestly say things have gotten better because of his support and occasional interference.
He would sit on the couch wearing his standard evening fare – tube socks pulled up as far as they could go, grey sweat shorts, and a Clemson t-shirt – while we screamed at each other across the bar. Without pausing in his patting of my cat Nugget, who’d switched loyalties and became Ray’s most adoring follower, he would shout, “That’s enough!” Then, “Alright, this is the way I see it...” and using his hand palm out like a flight attendant, he’d point at each of us in turn and say who was right, who was wrong, and to what degree. Often mom and I would find ourselves so amused by his simple breakdown of our longest, most trying battles that we’d simply give up and laugh.
He and I bonded long before he and my sister did. We were the ones snickering in a corner at family dinners and making jokes about the men at the recycling center. We’d stand, shoulder to shoulder, in the kitchen and peer into a pot of mom’s latest concoction, look at each other with half smiles and raised eyebrows, saying “huh uh, I’m not eating that” without uttering a word. He’d watch my TV shows, complaining for the first few minutes then forget that he wasn’t supposed to like them and start firing questions – “Who is that? What’s she doing?” In turn, he got me addicted to football in a way I’ve never been – to the point of actually knowing the name of a play or what a flag was thrown for before it was announced. He became my friend.
I can’t pinpoint when he became more like a dad. Maybe it was seeing him wear the parent’s t-shirts to support the cheerleading squad and my sister every single weekend during competition season, showing up to every football game and sports banquet. Maybe it was hearing him shout “Hey Hanny” every time Hannah and I walked in the door in the evenings and watching him help her with her homework. Maybe it was hearing him sing his made up song every morning to wake us up when our alarm clocks wouldn’t (“Everybody! Everybody! Everybody in the house get up!”). Or maybe it was when, after being gone for a week to Oklahoma, my sister and I returned well after midnight and crawled into the bed with him, each of us settling into the crook of an arm. And it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
But of course, like any other family member, there are days when I want to throttle him. Days when he’s eaten the last of the cookies or drunk all the Pepsi, days when we fight over control of the remote because we want to watch our reality shows and he wants to watch the fishing channel, days when he can’t pick up on my bad mood and teases me past the point of sanity, days when he is so stubborn and opinionated and such a...southern man...that I can’t stand to be in the same room with him.
Yet all those things I listed make me smile, because honestly, when I look at the big picture, having a dad that irritates me and hogs the remote is a great deal easier than having one that’s an alcoholic and a borderline sociopath. I will always love my father, but the majority of the reason I do so is, sadly, because I have to...because it’s what my blood dictates. Loving Ray hasn’t just been easier, it’s been healing.
For the past year, of the two Ray and Mom have been dating, everyone kept asking me when they were getting married. I’d asked both of them that question myself, together and separate. Together their answer was, “We’re not”, or a joking, “When the other one asks me”. Separate, their answers were more definitive. Mom definitely wanted him to ask and he seemed scared to death of the idea. While mom had been married for over 20 years, Ray had never been. (He’s actually 34 to her 44, which I’m sure made a difference.) The only answer I could ever give people was, “I have no idea. Maybe they won’t.”
Then, just two weekends ago, they went on a trip to the mountains in Tennessee. They came home that Sunday afternoon laden down with gifts from the outlet stores and restaurant reviews (which, as far as our family is concerned, is the most crucial aspect of any vacation story). Hannah and I sat on the couches pawing through our bags of goodies and waiting on my sister to return from cheerleading practice so we could paw through hers too.
When she got home Ray told us that he’d bought us both Christmas presents and if we wanted, we could have them early. He was visibly excited, while mom was visibly exasperated. Apparently she’d tried to rein him in, make him wait until the holidays, but he simply couldn’t help himself. It was endearing.
“Is it electronic”, I asked.
“No. Why”, he said.
“Because if I open it, it has to be something I’ll want to use a lot between now and Christmas. Otherwise, I’d rather wait.”
He laughed. “No, it’s not electronic.”
“Can I wear it?”
“Alyson”, mom shouted in reproach.
Ignoring her, I soldiered on. “Is it black or brown?”
“Why only black or brown? It could be purple”, mom replied.
“Nope. I have a feeling it’s one of the two.”
“Do you want it or not”, Ray asked, avoiding all of my probing questions.
“Yes!”
He brought them out one at a time, grinning from ear to ear. And they were, of course, Coach bags. Beautiful brown Coach bags (though mine is bigger and more beautiful than my sisters. Ha!).
But while we were oohing and aahing over every zipper and compartment, mom left the room unnoticed. It wasn’t until they were both standing in front of us and Ray said, “And look what I got your mother”, that we looked up.
Expecting to be outraged by a handbag larger than my own, my jaw dropped. She held out her left hand and wiggled her sparkling finger. For a minute there was silence – then utter chaos. My sister and I vaulted off the couch and rushed not mom, but Ray, hugging him and shrieking our delight. I was completely out of the blue and it was clear that though they didn’t expect tears, they weren’t expecting such a powerful response either.
The past two weeks have been full of excitement – telling everyone about the engagement and talking about wedding plans. Mom never had an actual wedding so even though it won’t be a lavish affair, it definitely won’t be another trip to the courthouse.
It didn’t occur to me until just the other day, though, that after it’s a done deal things might change. Will they move? Will Ray act differently? Will mom? I haven’t asked them about their long term plans yet and, even if I did, I doubt they’d be able to give me an answer.
I’m hoping he still plays a large part in my day to day life and if they move, they don’t move far. Because I’ve gotten used to shouting “Hey diddy” when I walk in the door, arguing over who is going to eat the last taco, and getting bear hugs at the most random, yet always appropriate times. I’ve gotten used to trips without drama, fights without bruises, and dinners with more laughter. I’ve gotten used to having the kind of family, and the kind of dad, I always wanted.
While I cannot sympathize with her decision to stay with an abusive husband for 25 years, I can appreciate how hard it must have been to rejoin the dating world after a soul sucking divorce. And just to add insult to injury, the first man she dated was a complete and utter lunatic. If she ever liked anything about him, beyond the attention, I would rather not know about it.
My father was a difficult man to live with and an even harder man to love. I know what it’s like to love him, to hate him, to crave his attention, to wish him dead – and I’m only his daughter. When I ask myself how she could care for the man, the only answer I can come up with is that I should take my feelings and amplify them times 10 – but that’s really not an answer at all and I know I’ll never completely understand.
So instead of yelling at her to “stop bothering me, I’m reading”, I helped choose her outfit, jewelry, and makeup. I complimented her on her shoes and straightened her hair. I’d done those things for her often enough (sometimes I feel more like her stylist than her daughter), but that afternoon I was nicer about it. I didn’t sigh every time she asked me a question and I didn’t yank her hair and demand she hold still. Instead I asked about their plans and assured her she’d have a good time.
When her date arrived she brought him to the porch for introductions. While mom went inside to finish up, he sat down at the table. My cousin, sister and I grilled him like a cheese sandwich. After the last guy caused such an unwelcome stir I was determined to weed out any psychotic tendencies right away. I was in complete obnoxious mode, but he just sat there smiling, laughing, and taking it all in.
He was a big bear of a guy with a casual smile and demeanor. He talked fishing with my cousin, laughed at my jokes, however inappropriate, and when mom returned he seemed content to stay and chat. They ended up leaving an hour later and I remember saying to the others, “I think I like that guy.” His name was Ray.
Over the next few weeks they went out constantly – we rarely saw her at all. He played in a pool tournament every Tuesday night and she started accompanying him. On the weekends they went to dinner, movies, and parties with his friends. It was a big deal, a huge change from the way her life had been – stuck waiting at home wondering where her husband was, never allowed to do much of anything, not being able to keep friends because of the way he behaved. She was having fun and we were happy for her.
My godmother had known Ray for a long time. He was a quiet guy, never volunteering much about himself, so we gathered our information from her. He’d been in a long relationship with a woman, I think about four years, and they lived together. She cheated and he left her. When he started dating mom he’d been single for a year or so. After leaving his previous girlfriend, his father started having health problems so he moved in with him to help out.
By the time he and mom were a thing, he was ready to move out of his dad’s house again. My godmom was newly divorced and renting the house next door. She needed a roommate and thinking it would be pretty cool to have mom’s boyfriend living so close but not living-in, she asked Ray. He said yes.
Over the next several months it was chaos. Ray couldn’t stand having to share the TV with my godmom’s preteen daughter, and vice versa, so we sometimes found him passed out in front of our TV with the remote clutched in his hand. Football, fishing, hunting, racing, and repo shows – that was Ray’s standard fare.
He wouldn’t sleep over, unless it was on the living room floor, so mom spent a lot of nights next door with him. That suited us just fine as she had the most comfortable bed in the house and we would take turns taking it over while she was gone. He ate with us, he went to Sunday dinner at Grandma’s with us, and he started attending my sister’s cheerleading functions.
After one too many mornings of tripping over his bulk on the way to the bathroom, I finally shouted at him, “No one cares if you sleep in her bed, Ray! For the love of god!” He officially moved in shortly after that.
It was anticlimactic, as most things with Ray are. One day he was sleeping on the floor, the next we were clearing out drawer and closet space, and instead of sports programs being on only in the late evenings, they were on constantly. There wasn’t really a period of adjustment – he just fit right in with our odd, all female, group.
The fights between my mother and I are legendary, especially in relation to the raising of my daughter. One of our biggest issues is that she undermines my authority - undoing any disciplinary action I’ve taken, whispering remarks in the kid’s ear and mocking me to make her laugh, allowing her to do things I wouldn’t normally. When Ray came along, I finally had an ally. He was usually quiet, but whenever he saw mom pulling her shenanigans, he called her down. And though she would never listen to what I had to say, she certainly listened to him. It was brilliant, and though we still have a way to go, I can honestly say things have gotten better because of his support and occasional interference.
He would sit on the couch wearing his standard evening fare – tube socks pulled up as far as they could go, grey sweat shorts, and a Clemson t-shirt – while we screamed at each other across the bar. Without pausing in his patting of my cat Nugget, who’d switched loyalties and became Ray’s most adoring follower, he would shout, “That’s enough!” Then, “Alright, this is the way I see it...” and using his hand palm out like a flight attendant, he’d point at each of us in turn and say who was right, who was wrong, and to what degree. Often mom and I would find ourselves so amused by his simple breakdown of our longest, most trying battles that we’d simply give up and laugh.
He and I bonded long before he and my sister did. We were the ones snickering in a corner at family dinners and making jokes about the men at the recycling center. We’d stand, shoulder to shoulder, in the kitchen and peer into a pot of mom’s latest concoction, look at each other with half smiles and raised eyebrows, saying “huh uh, I’m not eating that” without uttering a word. He’d watch my TV shows, complaining for the first few minutes then forget that he wasn’t supposed to like them and start firing questions – “Who is that? What’s she doing?” In turn, he got me addicted to football in a way I’ve never been – to the point of actually knowing the name of a play or what a flag was thrown for before it was announced. He became my friend.
I can’t pinpoint when he became more like a dad. Maybe it was seeing him wear the parent’s t-shirts to support the cheerleading squad and my sister every single weekend during competition season, showing up to every football game and sports banquet. Maybe it was hearing him shout “Hey Hanny” every time Hannah and I walked in the door in the evenings and watching him help her with her homework. Maybe it was hearing him sing his made up song every morning to wake us up when our alarm clocks wouldn’t (“Everybody! Everybody! Everybody in the house get up!”). Or maybe it was when, after being gone for a week to Oklahoma, my sister and I returned well after midnight and crawled into the bed with him, each of us settling into the crook of an arm. And it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
But of course, like any other family member, there are days when I want to throttle him. Days when he’s eaten the last of the cookies or drunk all the Pepsi, days when we fight over control of the remote because we want to watch our reality shows and he wants to watch the fishing channel, days when he can’t pick up on my bad mood and teases me past the point of sanity, days when he is so stubborn and opinionated and such a...southern man...that I can’t stand to be in the same room with him.
Yet all those things I listed make me smile, because honestly, when I look at the big picture, having a dad that irritates me and hogs the remote is a great deal easier than having one that’s an alcoholic and a borderline sociopath. I will always love my father, but the majority of the reason I do so is, sadly, because I have to...because it’s what my blood dictates. Loving Ray hasn’t just been easier, it’s been healing.
For the past year, of the two Ray and Mom have been dating, everyone kept asking me when they were getting married. I’d asked both of them that question myself, together and separate. Together their answer was, “We’re not”, or a joking, “When the other one asks me”. Separate, their answers were more definitive. Mom definitely wanted him to ask and he seemed scared to death of the idea. While mom had been married for over 20 years, Ray had never been. (He’s actually 34 to her 44, which I’m sure made a difference.) The only answer I could ever give people was, “I have no idea. Maybe they won’t.”
Then, just two weekends ago, they went on a trip to the mountains in Tennessee. They came home that Sunday afternoon laden down with gifts from the outlet stores and restaurant reviews (which, as far as our family is concerned, is the most crucial aspect of any vacation story). Hannah and I sat on the couches pawing through our bags of goodies and waiting on my sister to return from cheerleading practice so we could paw through hers too.
When she got home Ray told us that he’d bought us both Christmas presents and if we wanted, we could have them early. He was visibly excited, while mom was visibly exasperated. Apparently she’d tried to rein him in, make him wait until the holidays, but he simply couldn’t help himself. It was endearing.
“Is it electronic”, I asked.
“No. Why”, he said.
“Because if I open it, it has to be something I’ll want to use a lot between now and Christmas. Otherwise, I’d rather wait.”
He laughed. “No, it’s not electronic.”
“Can I wear it?”
“Alyson”, mom shouted in reproach.
Ignoring her, I soldiered on. “Is it black or brown?”
“Why only black or brown? It could be purple”, mom replied.
“Nope. I have a feeling it’s one of the two.”
“Do you want it or not”, Ray asked, avoiding all of my probing questions.
“Yes!”
He brought them out one at a time, grinning from ear to ear. And they were, of course, Coach bags. Beautiful brown Coach bags (though mine is bigger and more beautiful than my sisters. Ha!).
But while we were oohing and aahing over every zipper and compartment, mom left the room unnoticed. It wasn’t until they were both standing in front of us and Ray said, “And look what I got your mother”, that we looked up.
Expecting to be outraged by a handbag larger than my own, my jaw dropped. She held out her left hand and wiggled her sparkling finger. For a minute there was silence – then utter chaos. My sister and I vaulted off the couch and rushed not mom, but Ray, hugging him and shrieking our delight. I was completely out of the blue and it was clear that though they didn’t expect tears, they weren’t expecting such a powerful response either.
The past two weeks have been full of excitement – telling everyone about the engagement and talking about wedding plans. Mom never had an actual wedding so even though it won’t be a lavish affair, it definitely won’t be another trip to the courthouse.
It didn’t occur to me until just the other day, though, that after it’s a done deal things might change. Will they move? Will Ray act differently? Will mom? I haven’t asked them about their long term plans yet and, even if I did, I doubt they’d be able to give me an answer.
I’m hoping he still plays a large part in my day to day life and if they move, they don’t move far. Because I’ve gotten used to shouting “Hey diddy” when I walk in the door, arguing over who is going to eat the last taco, and getting bear hugs at the most random, yet always appropriate times. I’ve gotten used to trips without drama, fights without bruises, and dinners with more laughter. I’ve gotten used to having the kind of family, and the kind of dad, I always wanted.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Are you there God? It's me....just kidding.
I’ve never been a very spiritual person. I can tell you that when I was in my early teens I believed in God as much as a child that has no interest in him can believe. I was far more interested in the activities that believing allowed me to participate in: trips to amusement parks, concerts, sleepovers, softball games (for the boys, not the sport itself), and weekends in the mountains. Sure, I’d wave my hands in the air and sing a few songs in exchange for all that fun time away from my parents.
Forming a relationship with an entity I couldn’t see or hear wasn’t that difficult a concept as I spent half my time immersed in a world of fiction anyway. But I thought about God with the inconsistency of youth, usually when I wanted something that I wasn’t likely to get and prayer was the only bargaining chip left. It was a selfish belief and I imagine completely common among that age group. Going to church gave me a set of friends I wouldn’t have had otherwise and for that I was grateful. I was a strange mix of social butterfly and awkward outsider – sometimes outrageously present in a room and sometimes so in my head that you would’ve thought me deaf. (If that doesn’t scream bipolar, I don’t know what does.)
The summer I turned 16 my cousin Ben died in a Jet Ski accident. I’d had older relatives die – my Nana, an uncle, a great aunt – but Ben was just three months younger than me and there was no grasping that reality. I loved him fiercely. We grew up next door to each other and his absence was so close to intolerable that, in the weeks after his funeral, I recall virtually nothing – my memory is spotted with black holes.
Like everyone that grieves, I became angry. I renounced my tenuous belief in a God that would take away someone so good and so young. There was no one else left for me to strike out at. I left the church and the youth group behind.
However, Ben was still gone. And if I didn’t believe in God at all, how could I believe in heaven? I spent so much time sitting in front of his headstone, talking to the air and tracing his name with my fingertips – trying desperately to figure out a way to believe in the place and not the maker. Instead of imagining Ben within the pearly gates, I imagined him sitting on a low cloud, his ever present fishing pole in one hand. It was the best I could do.
I went through phases over the years – waiting on signs, believing in signs (there or imagined, I still couldn’t rightly say), and avoiding the question of God and heaven all together. If someone asked me, I would say Ben was in heaven. I didn’t want to explain my feelings or debate the bible. Still don’t, in fact. Theological debates interest me about as much as politics – which is to say, not at all. I don’t often think about where Ben is anymore, but rather just remember him as he was. Next month he’ll have been dead 10 years and with each passing season it’s gotten a little easier to let him rest, wherever that may be.
I don’t have any problem attending a church service these days. There’s no more anger or staunch refusals to be a part of it in any way. I can go to church on a Sunday morning with my grandmother and sit quietly in the pew, reflecting on what we’re going to have for lunch or my new handbag. I can hang my head and close my eyes during a prayer, stand up and sing, and warble the sing song “Amen” with the rest of the congregation. Church is just a place, God is just a name, and prayer is just a moment of meditation. It’s safe to say that since my breakaway, I’ve thought about religion as much as I’ve thought about the mating habits of beetles. Until the past few weeks, that is.
Now I have a daughter and I’m supposed to be the person that shapes her into the woman she’ll one day become. That’s difficult enough without the question of religion.
For the first few years of her life I was quick to say that, no, I didn’t intend to take her to church and no, I didn’t intend to have her baptized, and as far as I was concerned she would be free to choose her own spiritual path when she was old enough. This, of course, did not go over well with my family.
My grandmother is, for lack of a better description, a loyal Lutheran. And while I’ve made fun of her sayings and speeches in the past, I don’t actually belittle her faith (Or anyone’s, with the possible exception of a Kool-Aid cult). But honestly, anyone who says to me “Red underwear is the devil” or raises their arm and proclaims in a reverent voice that they hope the drivers of cars with loud “boom boxes” will be struck by the “mighty” arm of God...Well, they’re just asking for it. I will laugh. I’ve exasperated her with my unwillingness to budge on the topic of religion (and politics, but that’s another story).
Recently my mother, unbeknownst to me, signed my daughter up for a week of vacation bible school. Now, she’s been to church before a few times and she’s been told stories about God and Jesus by my grandmother and mother, but I generally stay out of those discussions. I always felt that she was too young to understand anyway, so it wouldn’t make a difference what they said. But this was a first.
Starting last Monday at 6pm, I dropped her off at a church down the road from my house. (One of the doctors that work with mom is a member and invited her.) I walked her inside the fellowship hall behind the church, exchanged pleasantries with some of the women I knew by the door while I made sure she was where she needed to be, and returned home until it was time to pick her up at 8:30.
Each night I picked her up she had a smile on her face and some crafty thing in her hand. I liked seeing her excited about coming back. She was like me when I first started years ago – more eager about the company I was keeping and the fun things I was doing than over the reason behind it all. She asked me a few questions about heaven, but thankfully they were mostly rhetorical or required only an “mmmhmm”.
Saturday night I went with my mother, sister, and grandmother and sat in the sanctuary. I watched and smiled while Hannah sang and did her little dance routines with the other kids her age. Afterward I shook hands with a few of the members, smiled, and participated in the southern chitchat required of church functions.
And in the car driving home, while Hannah sang to herself in the backset, I wondered:
Should I join a church for her, even if I personally am not sure I believe in a higher power? Should I pretend for her benefit, will it be good for her? Will it confuse her when she’s older if I go along with it for now? Should I answer her questions about heaven the way a believer would, rather than a cynic? Should I continue to avoid them? What, if anything, should I do? Isn’t laying the basis of belief the same as telling her what to do? I would love to let her decide what to believe when she’s older, but I’m just not so sure anymore.
I still haven’t made a decision and maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just be the procrastinator I’ve always been and put it off until she’s grown and then the decision will be made for me.
Only God knows, right?
Forming a relationship with an entity I couldn’t see or hear wasn’t that difficult a concept as I spent half my time immersed in a world of fiction anyway. But I thought about God with the inconsistency of youth, usually when I wanted something that I wasn’t likely to get and prayer was the only bargaining chip left. It was a selfish belief and I imagine completely common among that age group. Going to church gave me a set of friends I wouldn’t have had otherwise and for that I was grateful. I was a strange mix of social butterfly and awkward outsider – sometimes outrageously present in a room and sometimes so in my head that you would’ve thought me deaf. (If that doesn’t scream bipolar, I don’t know what does.)
The summer I turned 16 my cousin Ben died in a Jet Ski accident. I’d had older relatives die – my Nana, an uncle, a great aunt – but Ben was just three months younger than me and there was no grasping that reality. I loved him fiercely. We grew up next door to each other and his absence was so close to intolerable that, in the weeks after his funeral, I recall virtually nothing – my memory is spotted with black holes.
Like everyone that grieves, I became angry. I renounced my tenuous belief in a God that would take away someone so good and so young. There was no one else left for me to strike out at. I left the church and the youth group behind.
However, Ben was still gone. And if I didn’t believe in God at all, how could I believe in heaven? I spent so much time sitting in front of his headstone, talking to the air and tracing his name with my fingertips – trying desperately to figure out a way to believe in the place and not the maker. Instead of imagining Ben within the pearly gates, I imagined him sitting on a low cloud, his ever present fishing pole in one hand. It was the best I could do.
I went through phases over the years – waiting on signs, believing in signs (there or imagined, I still couldn’t rightly say), and avoiding the question of God and heaven all together. If someone asked me, I would say Ben was in heaven. I didn’t want to explain my feelings or debate the bible. Still don’t, in fact. Theological debates interest me about as much as politics – which is to say, not at all. I don’t often think about where Ben is anymore, but rather just remember him as he was. Next month he’ll have been dead 10 years and with each passing season it’s gotten a little easier to let him rest, wherever that may be.
I don’t have any problem attending a church service these days. There’s no more anger or staunch refusals to be a part of it in any way. I can go to church on a Sunday morning with my grandmother and sit quietly in the pew, reflecting on what we’re going to have for lunch or my new handbag. I can hang my head and close my eyes during a prayer, stand up and sing, and warble the sing song “Amen” with the rest of the congregation. Church is just a place, God is just a name, and prayer is just a moment of meditation. It’s safe to say that since my breakaway, I’ve thought about religion as much as I’ve thought about the mating habits of beetles. Until the past few weeks, that is.
Now I have a daughter and I’m supposed to be the person that shapes her into the woman she’ll one day become. That’s difficult enough without the question of religion.
For the first few years of her life I was quick to say that, no, I didn’t intend to take her to church and no, I didn’t intend to have her baptized, and as far as I was concerned she would be free to choose her own spiritual path when she was old enough. This, of course, did not go over well with my family.
My grandmother is, for lack of a better description, a loyal Lutheran. And while I’ve made fun of her sayings and speeches in the past, I don’t actually belittle her faith (Or anyone’s, with the possible exception of a Kool-Aid cult). But honestly, anyone who says to me “Red underwear is the devil” or raises their arm and proclaims in a reverent voice that they hope the drivers of cars with loud “boom boxes” will be struck by the “mighty” arm of God...Well, they’re just asking for it. I will laugh. I’ve exasperated her with my unwillingness to budge on the topic of religion (and politics, but that’s another story).
Recently my mother, unbeknownst to me, signed my daughter up for a week of vacation bible school. Now, she’s been to church before a few times and she’s been told stories about God and Jesus by my grandmother and mother, but I generally stay out of those discussions. I always felt that she was too young to understand anyway, so it wouldn’t make a difference what they said. But this was a first.
Starting last Monday at 6pm, I dropped her off at a church down the road from my house. (One of the doctors that work with mom is a member and invited her.) I walked her inside the fellowship hall behind the church, exchanged pleasantries with some of the women I knew by the door while I made sure she was where she needed to be, and returned home until it was time to pick her up at 8:30.
Each night I picked her up she had a smile on her face and some crafty thing in her hand. I liked seeing her excited about coming back. She was like me when I first started years ago – more eager about the company I was keeping and the fun things I was doing than over the reason behind it all. She asked me a few questions about heaven, but thankfully they were mostly rhetorical or required only an “mmmhmm”.
Saturday night I went with my mother, sister, and grandmother and sat in the sanctuary. I watched and smiled while Hannah sang and did her little dance routines with the other kids her age. Afterward I shook hands with a few of the members, smiled, and participated in the southern chitchat required of church functions.
And in the car driving home, while Hannah sang to herself in the backset, I wondered:
Should I join a church for her, even if I personally am not sure I believe in a higher power? Should I pretend for her benefit, will it be good for her? Will it confuse her when she’s older if I go along with it for now? Should I answer her questions about heaven the way a believer would, rather than a cynic? Should I continue to avoid them? What, if anything, should I do? Isn’t laying the basis of belief the same as telling her what to do? I would love to let her decide what to believe when she’s older, but I’m just not so sure anymore.
I still haven’t made a decision and maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just be the procrastinator I’ve always been and put it off until she’s grown and then the decision will be made for me.
Only God knows, right?
Friday, June 04, 2010
She's the ______ to my ______.
I decided not to like her the moment we met.
Her appearance completely clashed with my shallow friendship guidelines. I didn’t want to be seen with a pint sized brunette that wore studded belts with giant mouth shaped buckles and said insanely inappropriate things at inappropriate times. I didn’t want the other servers to dislike me either. I had a lot of bad habits at that time, but being a people pleaser was perhaps my worst. The girls that looked like “my kind” called her weird, though they had no problem laughing at her antics.
She didn’t seem to care that the female staff didn’t want much to do with her. She smiled, did the robot or the worm across the floor, flashed the kitchen boys, and went about her business. Occasionally I would have a section next to hers and watching and listening to her handle her tables was a learning experience. I’d been a waitress before, and I was a good one, but she could wipe the floor with me. By the time a group finished eating they weren’t just her customers, they were her friends, and they would come back and ask for her again and again.
Most of the serving staff was over 21 or damn near, but I’d only just turned 18. There was a bar right around the corner owned by a lecherous foreign guy that would let us in no questions asked. It became a ritual: Work till around 10-12, get off, sometimes change clothes, go to the bar with the others, get wasted, and go home around dawn. She never came with us, though I’m sure the guys probably invited her.
One Sunday morning, after a particularly rough all-nighter at the bar, I decided to call in to work. I was living alone at the time and hadn’t yet gotten a phone hooked up, so I drove the five minutes into town and called my manager from a payphone to beg off.
There were two managers, Brad and Ronnie. Brad was the GM and though he could be fun and had a mouth like a sailor, he didn’t tolerate any bullshit. Ronnie, on the other hand, was a lackadaisical pot head that liked to hide in the staff bathroom and smoke. If we ever needed anything while he was in charge, we had to hunt him down...follow the smell, as it were. They would both go out drinking with us occasionally.
I knew that I couldn’t use the “I’m sick” excuse because they were all well aware that I hadn’t left the bar until 6am. So when Brad answered, I said the first thing I could think of, “Dude, my car won’t start.”
“What the fuck!”
He bitched and moaned at increasing volume and I held the phone away from my ear.
“I had to walk to the payphone to call and tell you.”
After a few more seconds of swearing, he suddenly became quiet. I was terrified that he was going to fire me, but instead he shouted “RACHEL!”
“Rachel, can you go pick Alyson up? Her car won’t start!”
I heard a chirpy “Sure!” and then Brad said to me, “Here! Give Rachel directions to your house, she’s coming to pick you up!”
“But Brad”, I stuttered, “I live over half an hour away...”
“Can’t be that far”, he boomed, and handed the phone to her.
I reluctantly gave the girl I’d pretty much managed to avoid, until that moment, directions to my house. I warned her that it was a “long way”, but she said she was ok with that. I hung up, heaved a great sigh, and drove back home to get ready. In reality it was a 25 minute drive, but I was hoping she’d get lost. Most people did.
She made it in no time at all. I answered the door, said a sullen hello, and plopped down on the couch to put on my sneakers. She stood in the doorway and silently looked around. I was just finishing with the knot on my second shoe when she said, “There’s nothing wrong with your car, is there?”
I stared at her and she stared back, a small smile on her face. It was plainly obvious that I was miserably hungover so rather than deny it, even though I wasn’t yet sure of what she’d do with the information, I simply said, “No.”
Her grin got a little bigger, but all she said was “Ok”.
I grabbed my purse and apron and followed her out the door. She had a black Dodge Neon and I had a blue one, though hers was covered in band stickers and the like. We climbed in, she started the car, and heavy metal came blasting out of the speakers. I winced and she immediately turned it down, but even at low volume the squealing and wailing was enough to make my head pound.
I was trying to decide if I should suggest she turn it off or switch it to a pop friendly radio station, but I was worried that either option would be met with a disagreeable reaction. If we turned the radio off, the silence would be awkward; we’d have nothing to talk about. And the pop station route might make her laugh at me. Whether I liked someone or not, I still didn’t want them laughing at me and I had a feeling she would.
While I was having this internal battle she was pulling out of my driveway. My stomach growled. I hadn’t had time to eat before I left. Some people can’t eat when they’re hungover. I HAVE to. Even if it makes me feel worse.
I don’t know if she heard my stomach chewing on itself or not, but she turned toward me and said, “Hey, do you wanna go to Wendy’s?”
She was smiling at me in a mischievous way and I understood what she meant before she even explained. I grinned back at her. “Hell yes.”
And then we had an actual conversation. We talked about work, my hangover, how hungry we were, and the story we’d tell Brad when we returned. She would claim that she got lost on the way there and as added ammunition I would throw in that I had tried to tell him it was a long drive to begin with.
We went through the Wendy’s drive through and she surprised me again. “Let’s take this to the park.”
We sat on picnic benches, ate our food, and talked some more. She was funny and smart and completely different from what I imagined her to be. By the time we got to work I was ashamed of myself for the way I’d treated her before. I’d deliberately avoided her because of what she looked like and what other people said. I’d never thought of myself as a snob until that moment.
We were so late to work that I think we only had one table a piece before we left again. Poor Brad. We had a good laugh over his exasperation.
I continued to go out with the other people from work, but I started talking to Rachel a lot more. She even started coming to the bar. One of the girls that was supposedly “my kind”, Kelly, moved in with me because I was scared to be alone out in the middle of nowhere. Call it a hormone thing brought on by pregnancy (long story).
And wouldn’t you know it? “My kind” of girl turned out to be a cokehead that threw massive drug parties while I was spending the weekend at my mother’s. I kicked her out the minute I heard about it and found the evidence. (After I, at around 7 months gone, attempted to murder her at work.) Having a father that snorted your grocery and field trip money up his nose has a tendency to make you a little unforgiving in that department.
When I left the restaurant and moved back home, all those girls that I spent my nights partying and hanging out with disappeared. But Rachel didn’t. We talked on the phone and we went to lunch. When they finally induced labor, she was the only person that wasn’t family that I called.
Six years later she’s still the first person I call when anything of importance happens. She’s my daughter’s godmother, a huge part of my immediate family, and the best friend I always needed, yet never knew to ask for.
She is quirky, outspoken, honest, obnoxious, and unfailingly witty. She still wears studded belts with enormous buckles, band t-shirts, and no makeup. She’s shaved her head twice in the six years we’ve been friends – Once because she wanted to and again just recently for a very worthy cause (and she manages to pull it off, like a tiny rocker version of Demi Moore).
She’s an atheist and a self-proclaimed medical research analyst (which is a nice way of saying she’s a hypochondriac that loves Google). Her favorite author is Chuck Palahniuk and she listens to music that makes me cringe. (Yet oddly enough, also loves Britney Spears.) She collects dinosaurs and all of her dance moves are from decades past: the peewee herman, the worm, the sprinkler, etc. She’s pretty much what I used to say was the complete opposite of me.
My mother claims I’ve changed since Rachel and I became best friends, that I’m not myself anymore. She says I’m more combative and less spiritual. She’s only partially right. I have changed, but I’ve never felt more like myself. And she did that for me. She helped me be honest and original again. Being her friend allowed me to show my quirky, slightly shocking side without fear of ridicule or rejection.
Though I realized we have a good bit in common, we each have our own distinct role in the relationship. And, make no mistake, it is a relationship. (There’s nothing sexual about it, though we did make out once when we were shitfaced drunk.) She’s the dependable to my flaky, the rock to my rap, the understated elegance to my over-the-top glitz, and the reasonably grounded to my overactive imagining.
After thinking about it, just this moment in fact, it’s a wonder that I can commit myself to this person even platonically for the rest of my life yet in the past committing to a man would be giving in to the masses. We’ve had our arguments and our disputes, and I’m very much the woman in our relationship. I feel out of sorts when she’s angry at me and set out to fix it immediately. Well, unless she’s in the wrong. Which, because she’s clearly the man in our relationship, she never is. (That’s a joke. Sort of.) It’s strange, isn’t it? That women can form a bond that tight with each other and yet shy away from anything else?
My gawd. This post about my best friend has turned me into a raving lesbo.
We’re taking a trip to Alabama this weekend for her cousin’s wedding. Maybe the five hour drive will be a good time to discuss our gender roles. And that talk will be quite appropriate after I first mention that I wrote about our friendship and receive her response, which I’m 99.9% sure I already know.
She’ll flash me a coy grin and say:
“Lesbian! Wanna spoon?”
Her appearance completely clashed with my shallow friendship guidelines. I didn’t want to be seen with a pint sized brunette that wore studded belts with giant mouth shaped buckles and said insanely inappropriate things at inappropriate times. I didn’t want the other servers to dislike me either. I had a lot of bad habits at that time, but being a people pleaser was perhaps my worst. The girls that looked like “my kind” called her weird, though they had no problem laughing at her antics.
She didn’t seem to care that the female staff didn’t want much to do with her. She smiled, did the robot or the worm across the floor, flashed the kitchen boys, and went about her business. Occasionally I would have a section next to hers and watching and listening to her handle her tables was a learning experience. I’d been a waitress before, and I was a good one, but she could wipe the floor with me. By the time a group finished eating they weren’t just her customers, they were her friends, and they would come back and ask for her again and again.
Most of the serving staff was over 21 or damn near, but I’d only just turned 18. There was a bar right around the corner owned by a lecherous foreign guy that would let us in no questions asked. It became a ritual: Work till around 10-12, get off, sometimes change clothes, go to the bar with the others, get wasted, and go home around dawn. She never came with us, though I’m sure the guys probably invited her.
One Sunday morning, after a particularly rough all-nighter at the bar, I decided to call in to work. I was living alone at the time and hadn’t yet gotten a phone hooked up, so I drove the five minutes into town and called my manager from a payphone to beg off.
There were two managers, Brad and Ronnie. Brad was the GM and though he could be fun and had a mouth like a sailor, he didn’t tolerate any bullshit. Ronnie, on the other hand, was a lackadaisical pot head that liked to hide in the staff bathroom and smoke. If we ever needed anything while he was in charge, we had to hunt him down...follow the smell, as it were. They would both go out drinking with us occasionally.
I knew that I couldn’t use the “I’m sick” excuse because they were all well aware that I hadn’t left the bar until 6am. So when Brad answered, I said the first thing I could think of, “Dude, my car won’t start.”
“What the fuck!”
He bitched and moaned at increasing volume and I held the phone away from my ear.
“I had to walk to the payphone to call and tell you.”
After a few more seconds of swearing, he suddenly became quiet. I was terrified that he was going to fire me, but instead he shouted “RACHEL!”
“Rachel, can you go pick Alyson up? Her car won’t start!”
I heard a chirpy “Sure!” and then Brad said to me, “Here! Give Rachel directions to your house, she’s coming to pick you up!”
“But Brad”, I stuttered, “I live over half an hour away...”
“Can’t be that far”, he boomed, and handed the phone to her.
I reluctantly gave the girl I’d pretty much managed to avoid, until that moment, directions to my house. I warned her that it was a “long way”, but she said she was ok with that. I hung up, heaved a great sigh, and drove back home to get ready. In reality it was a 25 minute drive, but I was hoping she’d get lost. Most people did.
She made it in no time at all. I answered the door, said a sullen hello, and plopped down on the couch to put on my sneakers. She stood in the doorway and silently looked around. I was just finishing with the knot on my second shoe when she said, “There’s nothing wrong with your car, is there?”
I stared at her and she stared back, a small smile on her face. It was plainly obvious that I was miserably hungover so rather than deny it, even though I wasn’t yet sure of what she’d do with the information, I simply said, “No.”
Her grin got a little bigger, but all she said was “Ok”.
I grabbed my purse and apron and followed her out the door. She had a black Dodge Neon and I had a blue one, though hers was covered in band stickers and the like. We climbed in, she started the car, and heavy metal came blasting out of the speakers. I winced and she immediately turned it down, but even at low volume the squealing and wailing was enough to make my head pound.
I was trying to decide if I should suggest she turn it off or switch it to a pop friendly radio station, but I was worried that either option would be met with a disagreeable reaction. If we turned the radio off, the silence would be awkward; we’d have nothing to talk about. And the pop station route might make her laugh at me. Whether I liked someone or not, I still didn’t want them laughing at me and I had a feeling she would.
While I was having this internal battle she was pulling out of my driveway. My stomach growled. I hadn’t had time to eat before I left. Some people can’t eat when they’re hungover. I HAVE to. Even if it makes me feel worse.
I don’t know if she heard my stomach chewing on itself or not, but she turned toward me and said, “Hey, do you wanna go to Wendy’s?”
She was smiling at me in a mischievous way and I understood what she meant before she even explained. I grinned back at her. “Hell yes.”
And then we had an actual conversation. We talked about work, my hangover, how hungry we were, and the story we’d tell Brad when we returned. She would claim that she got lost on the way there and as added ammunition I would throw in that I had tried to tell him it was a long drive to begin with.
We went through the Wendy’s drive through and she surprised me again. “Let’s take this to the park.”
We sat on picnic benches, ate our food, and talked some more. She was funny and smart and completely different from what I imagined her to be. By the time we got to work I was ashamed of myself for the way I’d treated her before. I’d deliberately avoided her because of what she looked like and what other people said. I’d never thought of myself as a snob until that moment.
We were so late to work that I think we only had one table a piece before we left again. Poor Brad. We had a good laugh over his exasperation.
I continued to go out with the other people from work, but I started talking to Rachel a lot more. She even started coming to the bar. One of the girls that was supposedly “my kind”, Kelly, moved in with me because I was scared to be alone out in the middle of nowhere. Call it a hormone thing brought on by pregnancy (long story).
And wouldn’t you know it? “My kind” of girl turned out to be a cokehead that threw massive drug parties while I was spending the weekend at my mother’s. I kicked her out the minute I heard about it and found the evidence. (After I, at around 7 months gone, attempted to murder her at work.) Having a father that snorted your grocery and field trip money up his nose has a tendency to make you a little unforgiving in that department.
When I left the restaurant and moved back home, all those girls that I spent my nights partying and hanging out with disappeared. But Rachel didn’t. We talked on the phone and we went to lunch. When they finally induced labor, she was the only person that wasn’t family that I called.
Six years later she’s still the first person I call when anything of importance happens. She’s my daughter’s godmother, a huge part of my immediate family, and the best friend I always needed, yet never knew to ask for.
She is quirky, outspoken, honest, obnoxious, and unfailingly witty. She still wears studded belts with enormous buckles, band t-shirts, and no makeup. She’s shaved her head twice in the six years we’ve been friends – Once because she wanted to and again just recently for a very worthy cause (and she manages to pull it off, like a tiny rocker version of Demi Moore).
She’s an atheist and a self-proclaimed medical research analyst (which is a nice way of saying she’s a hypochondriac that loves Google). Her favorite author is Chuck Palahniuk and she listens to music that makes me cringe. (Yet oddly enough, also loves Britney Spears.) She collects dinosaurs and all of her dance moves are from decades past: the peewee herman, the worm, the sprinkler, etc. She’s pretty much what I used to say was the complete opposite of me.
My mother claims I’ve changed since Rachel and I became best friends, that I’m not myself anymore. She says I’m more combative and less spiritual. She’s only partially right. I have changed, but I’ve never felt more like myself. And she did that for me. She helped me be honest and original again. Being her friend allowed me to show my quirky, slightly shocking side without fear of ridicule or rejection.
Though I realized we have a good bit in common, we each have our own distinct role in the relationship. And, make no mistake, it is a relationship. (There’s nothing sexual about it, though we did make out once when we were shitfaced drunk.) She’s the dependable to my flaky, the rock to my rap, the understated elegance to my over-the-top glitz, and the reasonably grounded to my overactive imagining.
After thinking about it, just this moment in fact, it’s a wonder that I can commit myself to this person even platonically for the rest of my life yet in the past committing to a man would be giving in to the masses. We’ve had our arguments and our disputes, and I’m very much the woman in our relationship. I feel out of sorts when she’s angry at me and set out to fix it immediately. Well, unless she’s in the wrong. Which, because she’s clearly the man in our relationship, she never is. (That’s a joke. Sort of.) It’s strange, isn’t it? That women can form a bond that tight with each other and yet shy away from anything else?
My gawd. This post about my best friend has turned me into a raving lesbo.
We’re taking a trip to Alabama this weekend for her cousin’s wedding. Maybe the five hour drive will be a good time to discuss our gender roles. And that talk will be quite appropriate after I first mention that I wrote about our friendship and receive her response, which I’m 99.9% sure I already know.
She’ll flash me a coy grin and say:
“Lesbian! Wanna spoon?”
Monday, April 19, 2010
Dancing Queen
Toward the end of my tomboy phase I developed a fascination with ballerinas. Movies, books, posters – I devoured and displayed them all. When my cousin wasn’t using my Barbies to initiate a sex ed lesson, I would drench them in glitter and dance their scantily clad forms across every available surface.
Though I’m sure ballet is a very common interest of young girls, there was something quite sad about my bookish bulk twirling about the room in a makeshift tablecloth tutu. With my round, unflattering glasses slipping down my nose, frizzy uneven bangs plastered to my forehead, and sounds better suited to a buffalo mating ritual – I’d dance my chubby heart out. It’s a wonder my parents didn’t claim I was adopted. Though, in my defense, my mother was the source of the uneven bangs.
Like most things, ballet failed to hold my attention for very long. After several months of insisting my family refer to me only as Madame Nicole (Nicole being my middle name), I turned to a hobby I could really put my weight behind: Karate.
But as I’ve mentioned before, my mother was horrified by my success in combat and pulled me out before I reached my full ass kicking potential. When she told me that I was going to be enrolled in dance classes instead, my thoughts immediately turned to my previous obsession. As loathe as I was to give up my belt and sparring gear, I couldn’t help having visions of Swan Lake finery. My mother had other ideas.
We went to a small family run store downtown that sold all manner of dancing shoes right next to their main selection of old lady footwear. My Nana would take me there every summer to help pick out gold sandals to match her gold bikinis, purses, and the gold case that covered her oxygen tank. So I was quite used to the balding old owner that measured my feet and pinched my cheeks, and he was quite used to my demands for two suckers – one to eat immediately and one to stuff in my pocket.
But my contentment faded when, instead of the coveted ballet slippers, I was presented with a box containing black, soft soled jazz shoes. My mother flitted about, watching as he pressed his thumb down on my big toe, and I scowled – arms crossed and mouth screwed up tight around the sucker stick. No amount of pleading, threats of dying, or arguing would sway her. I was going to take jazz lessons and that was that. “Has her Nana’s temper, doesn’t she”, he commented to mom with a pitying smile.
The studio was small and unassuming, but the dance teacher was another matter entirely. Her name was Deena and she was the most theatrical person I’d ever met. Her hair was a tall, reddish brown thicket that looked like it would have been more at home tumbling across the desert. Her clothing and makeup were bright, her frame thick, and her choices of décor leaned toward the middle aged cat woman with a doily obsession. In fact, she was a single middle aged woman, with no children, that lived right next door to the studio with her parents...who still treated her like the 10 year old child star she allegedly used to be.
I wasn’t even allowed the luxury of private lessons. I had to shuffle and sashay across the room, accompanied by a thin black girl named Brittany, who hated me on sight, and Deena’s sullen nephew Dan who, in the absence of another girl, was chosen to be the stardom hungry family’s whipping post. I felt more pity for him than I did myself and we formed a hesitant friendship built on mutual misery.
The lessons were only 30 minutes long, but my sister was enrolled in a toddler class called “creative movement”, so I had to sit in the lobby and wait. I wasn’t exactly sure at the time what “creative moment” meant, but I knew they got to wear tiny ballet slippers and I was pissed. I also wasn’t too happy when, after a few weeks of classes, I was informed that I would be expected to participate in an end of the year recital.
I didn’t like the idea of dancing on stage to begin with, but when I saw the outfit they intended to shove me into I almost died from humiliation in advance. It was a black spandex affair, all one piece, with gold sequined elastic around the edges of the shorts and sleeves and crisscrossed with silver sequins across the chest. Oh, and of course the gold sequined elastic headband that went “across the forehead, Alyson, not in your hair”.
That first recital was one giant lesson in futility. Crying, reasoning, threatening to “tell Grandma”, and claims of broken legs were pointless. I was going to get up on that stage three times whether I wanted to or not: for the introduction with all the dancers, my routine, and the awards ceremony. The majority of the students were excited about getting a trophy for doing nothing more than shuffling around a room with an ageing diva that talked too much. The only thing I had to be excited about was the celebratory dinner I’d been promised if I cooperated and stopped telling everyone that I was being “forced to perform like a monkey” and mumbling about “reporting this to social services”.
Waiting in the wings of the dark theatre was nerve racking. On our side there were several crew members to make sure the dancers were ready, pull the curtains, and move props. On the other was Deena, dancing each dance with us in case someone forgot a step and needed to glance over. As far as I was concerned she was more of a hindrance than a help, because even if someone remembered all the steps they couldn’t help but look over at her jiggling form and get distracted.
There were video cameras everywhere. It was a rather large community theatre and from the sidelines I could see red and green lights dotted throughout the gloom. Between the photos my parents had ordered from the professional photographer the studio used before recitals and all of the tapes being made that day, it was clear I wouldn’t be able to destroy all evidence of my involvement. The only form of rebellion I had left was to look absolutely miserable while on stage. I was too much of a perfectionist to mess up the steps on purpose, but goddamn it I was not going to smile like a loon.
The curtain was lowered and we took our places, spandex clad asses facing the waiting crowd and fingers splayed out into jazz hands. The stupid sequined headband was digging into my forehead and making it itch, but I couldn’t scratch because of the massive quantities of stage makeup. As they began cranking up the curtain I forgot all about my forehead and silently panicked. My palms were sweating and I thought I was going to vomit. Stage fright was entirely new to me. I’d always been quite the attention seeker, but there was no way in hell I wanted the kind of attention I was about to get.
BAM! A spotlight came on over our heads and the first strains of our routine started to play. We were supposed to wait in place, shaking our behinds for the first 15 or so counts. While I was reluctantly shaking my ass and wiggling my jazz fingers, I heard whoops and shouts behind me.
“GO, AL! THAT’S MY DAUGHTER! WOOOOO! SHAKE IT, AL!”
I visibly winced when my uncle joined my father’s, likely drunken, encouragement. When I turned around to begin the routine I was scowling fit to kill. I step-ball-changed and galloped across that stage with windmill arms without missing a beat, face like a puckered asshole. My family filled up two entire middle rows and even in the dark I could see them: the men in ball caps and cut up t-shirts next to the women in flashing gold jewelry and teased hair.
At the end of the routine we were supposed to move together and have skinny Brittany stand up on our knees and wave her arms. I hated that part because the floor hurt my knee and even though she looked skinny, she certainly didn’t feel like it. Dan and I had let her fall accidentally on purpose in practice a time or two, and I’d briefly thought about it on stage, but in the end I decided that it wasn’t a good idea. My family knew me well and there was the possibility that they’d notice I caused the accident and renege on our dinner plans as punishment.
But as we step-ball-changed toward the center for the final formation, Brittany tripped and went sprawling across the floor. We kept going and had reached our places when she was just picking herself up. The music ended and the applause started as Dan and I kneeled side by side, jazz fingers going in the air with nothing to hold, Brittany standing crestfallen out to the side. I was genuinely grinning for all I was worth and I could hear my dad laughing over the cheers of the crowd as the curtain fell.
Long t-shirt over my glittery chub, I made my way quietly into the auditorium to sit with my family and watch until intermission and award time. I was given a coke and a rice krispy treat, clapped on the back, and praised for my performance. I was marginally pleased with myself until my sister and the rest of the toddler class took their places. They were adorable in tiny Minnie Mouse costumes with tights, tails, and tiny black slippers. While the annoying music played some of them stood shock still and stared out into the black, thumbs stuck in their mouths and eyes as wide as saucers. Some toddled around and chased each other, some cried and attempted to wander off stage, and some, like my sister, actually tried to do the routine. But she was like a two year old Hitler in mouse ears, barking orders, pulling at the others and trying to make them join her in the jumping jacks and heel step, toe point exercises.
The audience was roaring with laughter, my family was cheering, and I was pissed all over again. What was so great about what they were doing? I hadn’t missed one step, had done my routine perfectly, and here they were going all crazy for a bunch of babies that couldn’t even stay in a line. If what they wanted was kids running around in a circle, then why the hell had I spent all that time learning the moves and suffering in embarrassment?
When my name was called at the award ceremony I walked forward, bottom lip poked out, and accepted my ribbon and a gold star. Apparently only people that had been there for two or more years got trophies. Not that I wanted one of those stupid plastic statues, but damn if I didn’t deserve one.
After the lights came up and everyone started pushing out the door, we stopped at the back table to pick up our flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals that family members brought. With arms full of goodies and mom’s promise that we were on our way to dinner, I was happy once more. My sister rode my dad’s shoulders across the parking lot, her balloon trailing behind, and I walked beside my grandparents. “Hey Alyson”, someone called from behind.
I turned and there was Dan, waving, with his family. “See you in a few months! Deena says you’re taking clogging with us!”
Clogging? Clogging? My mouth opened and closed like a gulping fish. I looked over at Deena, who gave me a huge grin and a thumbs up, the gapped up tumbleweed atop her head bobbing as she nodded. I looked at my mom. She smiled, but it looked more like a grimace of determination to me.
“I’m not doing it”, I said defiantly.
“Ok”, she replied automatically. I knew a fake dismissal when I heard one. She wasn’t prepared to argue with me in a crowed parking lot.
“I’m not,” I shouted in panic.
“How about some ice cream, honey”, grandma said.
“Whatcha say, Artist! Want Papa to buy you a pretty new dress to celebrate?!”, my grandpa shouted.
“I’ve got a Yoo-Hoo with your name on it, Al”, dad said.
“Assin”, my sister lisped, “I dance pwetty.”
My uncle picked me up, tossed me over his shoulder and they continued to move en masse toward the cars. “Let them think I’m going”, I thought, “I can milk this for three months.”
Seven years, seven cringe worthy videos, seven plastic trophies, four out of state competitions, and a plethora of sparkly costumes later – I still hated it. I probably could have quit without much argument after a few years, and believe me I often wanted to, but something always stopped me.
I was good.
I knew it, they knew it, and even if it was embarrassing... having my family come together, cheer in the audience and put aside their many differences over the years, for me, was worth a little social suffering. Well, that,
and you wouldn’t believe how much awesome shit I got.
*Due to reader heckling, I've decided to post a photo of my humiliation. Sigh. Enjoy.*
Though I’m sure ballet is a very common interest of young girls, there was something quite sad about my bookish bulk twirling about the room in a makeshift tablecloth tutu. With my round, unflattering glasses slipping down my nose, frizzy uneven bangs plastered to my forehead, and sounds better suited to a buffalo mating ritual – I’d dance my chubby heart out. It’s a wonder my parents didn’t claim I was adopted. Though, in my defense, my mother was the source of the uneven bangs.
Like most things, ballet failed to hold my attention for very long. After several months of insisting my family refer to me only as Madame Nicole (Nicole being my middle name), I turned to a hobby I could really put my weight behind: Karate.
But as I’ve mentioned before, my mother was horrified by my success in combat and pulled me out before I reached my full ass kicking potential. When she told me that I was going to be enrolled in dance classes instead, my thoughts immediately turned to my previous obsession. As loathe as I was to give up my belt and sparring gear, I couldn’t help having visions of Swan Lake finery. My mother had other ideas.
We went to a small family run store downtown that sold all manner of dancing shoes right next to their main selection of old lady footwear. My Nana would take me there every summer to help pick out gold sandals to match her gold bikinis, purses, and the gold case that covered her oxygen tank. So I was quite used to the balding old owner that measured my feet and pinched my cheeks, and he was quite used to my demands for two suckers – one to eat immediately and one to stuff in my pocket.
But my contentment faded when, instead of the coveted ballet slippers, I was presented with a box containing black, soft soled jazz shoes. My mother flitted about, watching as he pressed his thumb down on my big toe, and I scowled – arms crossed and mouth screwed up tight around the sucker stick. No amount of pleading, threats of dying, or arguing would sway her. I was going to take jazz lessons and that was that. “Has her Nana’s temper, doesn’t she”, he commented to mom with a pitying smile.
The studio was small and unassuming, but the dance teacher was another matter entirely. Her name was Deena and she was the most theatrical person I’d ever met. Her hair was a tall, reddish brown thicket that looked like it would have been more at home tumbling across the desert. Her clothing and makeup were bright, her frame thick, and her choices of décor leaned toward the middle aged cat woman with a doily obsession. In fact, she was a single middle aged woman, with no children, that lived right next door to the studio with her parents...who still treated her like the 10 year old child star she allegedly used to be.
I wasn’t even allowed the luxury of private lessons. I had to shuffle and sashay across the room, accompanied by a thin black girl named Brittany, who hated me on sight, and Deena’s sullen nephew Dan who, in the absence of another girl, was chosen to be the stardom hungry family’s whipping post. I felt more pity for him than I did myself and we formed a hesitant friendship built on mutual misery.
The lessons were only 30 minutes long, but my sister was enrolled in a toddler class called “creative movement”, so I had to sit in the lobby and wait. I wasn’t exactly sure at the time what “creative moment” meant, but I knew they got to wear tiny ballet slippers and I was pissed. I also wasn’t too happy when, after a few weeks of classes, I was informed that I would be expected to participate in an end of the year recital.
I didn’t like the idea of dancing on stage to begin with, but when I saw the outfit they intended to shove me into I almost died from humiliation in advance. It was a black spandex affair, all one piece, with gold sequined elastic around the edges of the shorts and sleeves and crisscrossed with silver sequins across the chest. Oh, and of course the gold sequined elastic headband that went “across the forehead, Alyson, not in your hair”.
That first recital was one giant lesson in futility. Crying, reasoning, threatening to “tell Grandma”, and claims of broken legs were pointless. I was going to get up on that stage three times whether I wanted to or not: for the introduction with all the dancers, my routine, and the awards ceremony. The majority of the students were excited about getting a trophy for doing nothing more than shuffling around a room with an ageing diva that talked too much. The only thing I had to be excited about was the celebratory dinner I’d been promised if I cooperated and stopped telling everyone that I was being “forced to perform like a monkey” and mumbling about “reporting this to social services”.
Waiting in the wings of the dark theatre was nerve racking. On our side there were several crew members to make sure the dancers were ready, pull the curtains, and move props. On the other was Deena, dancing each dance with us in case someone forgot a step and needed to glance over. As far as I was concerned she was more of a hindrance than a help, because even if someone remembered all the steps they couldn’t help but look over at her jiggling form and get distracted.
There were video cameras everywhere. It was a rather large community theatre and from the sidelines I could see red and green lights dotted throughout the gloom. Between the photos my parents had ordered from the professional photographer the studio used before recitals and all of the tapes being made that day, it was clear I wouldn’t be able to destroy all evidence of my involvement. The only form of rebellion I had left was to look absolutely miserable while on stage. I was too much of a perfectionist to mess up the steps on purpose, but goddamn it I was not going to smile like a loon.
The curtain was lowered and we took our places, spandex clad asses facing the waiting crowd and fingers splayed out into jazz hands. The stupid sequined headband was digging into my forehead and making it itch, but I couldn’t scratch because of the massive quantities of stage makeup. As they began cranking up the curtain I forgot all about my forehead and silently panicked. My palms were sweating and I thought I was going to vomit. Stage fright was entirely new to me. I’d always been quite the attention seeker, but there was no way in hell I wanted the kind of attention I was about to get.
BAM! A spotlight came on over our heads and the first strains of our routine started to play. We were supposed to wait in place, shaking our behinds for the first 15 or so counts. While I was reluctantly shaking my ass and wiggling my jazz fingers, I heard whoops and shouts behind me.
“GO, AL! THAT’S MY DAUGHTER! WOOOOO! SHAKE IT, AL!”
I visibly winced when my uncle joined my father’s, likely drunken, encouragement. When I turned around to begin the routine I was scowling fit to kill. I step-ball-changed and galloped across that stage with windmill arms without missing a beat, face like a puckered asshole. My family filled up two entire middle rows and even in the dark I could see them: the men in ball caps and cut up t-shirts next to the women in flashing gold jewelry and teased hair.
At the end of the routine we were supposed to move together and have skinny Brittany stand up on our knees and wave her arms. I hated that part because the floor hurt my knee and even though she looked skinny, she certainly didn’t feel like it. Dan and I had let her fall accidentally on purpose in practice a time or two, and I’d briefly thought about it on stage, but in the end I decided that it wasn’t a good idea. My family knew me well and there was the possibility that they’d notice I caused the accident and renege on our dinner plans as punishment.
But as we step-ball-changed toward the center for the final formation, Brittany tripped and went sprawling across the floor. We kept going and had reached our places when she was just picking herself up. The music ended and the applause started as Dan and I kneeled side by side, jazz fingers going in the air with nothing to hold, Brittany standing crestfallen out to the side. I was genuinely grinning for all I was worth and I could hear my dad laughing over the cheers of the crowd as the curtain fell.
Long t-shirt over my glittery chub, I made my way quietly into the auditorium to sit with my family and watch until intermission and award time. I was given a coke and a rice krispy treat, clapped on the back, and praised for my performance. I was marginally pleased with myself until my sister and the rest of the toddler class took their places. They were adorable in tiny Minnie Mouse costumes with tights, tails, and tiny black slippers. While the annoying music played some of them stood shock still and stared out into the black, thumbs stuck in their mouths and eyes as wide as saucers. Some toddled around and chased each other, some cried and attempted to wander off stage, and some, like my sister, actually tried to do the routine. But she was like a two year old Hitler in mouse ears, barking orders, pulling at the others and trying to make them join her in the jumping jacks and heel step, toe point exercises.
The audience was roaring with laughter, my family was cheering, and I was pissed all over again. What was so great about what they were doing? I hadn’t missed one step, had done my routine perfectly, and here they were going all crazy for a bunch of babies that couldn’t even stay in a line. If what they wanted was kids running around in a circle, then why the hell had I spent all that time learning the moves and suffering in embarrassment?
When my name was called at the award ceremony I walked forward, bottom lip poked out, and accepted my ribbon and a gold star. Apparently only people that had been there for two or more years got trophies. Not that I wanted one of those stupid plastic statues, but damn if I didn’t deserve one.
After the lights came up and everyone started pushing out the door, we stopped at the back table to pick up our flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals that family members brought. With arms full of goodies and mom’s promise that we were on our way to dinner, I was happy once more. My sister rode my dad’s shoulders across the parking lot, her balloon trailing behind, and I walked beside my grandparents. “Hey Alyson”, someone called from behind.
I turned and there was Dan, waving, with his family. “See you in a few months! Deena says you’re taking clogging with us!”
Clogging? Clogging? My mouth opened and closed like a gulping fish. I looked over at Deena, who gave me a huge grin and a thumbs up, the gapped up tumbleweed atop her head bobbing as she nodded. I looked at my mom. She smiled, but it looked more like a grimace of determination to me.
“I’m not doing it”, I said defiantly.
“Ok”, she replied automatically. I knew a fake dismissal when I heard one. She wasn’t prepared to argue with me in a crowed parking lot.
“I’m not,” I shouted in panic.
“How about some ice cream, honey”, grandma said.
“Whatcha say, Artist! Want Papa to buy you a pretty new dress to celebrate?!”, my grandpa shouted.
“I’ve got a Yoo-Hoo with your name on it, Al”, dad said.
“Assin”, my sister lisped, “I dance pwetty.”
My uncle picked me up, tossed me over his shoulder and they continued to move en masse toward the cars. “Let them think I’m going”, I thought, “I can milk this for three months.”
Seven years, seven cringe worthy videos, seven plastic trophies, four out of state competitions, and a plethora of sparkly costumes later – I still hated it. I probably could have quit without much argument after a few years, and believe me I often wanted to, but something always stopped me.
I was good.
I knew it, they knew it, and even if it was embarrassing... having my family come together, cheer in the audience and put aside their many differences over the years, for me, was worth a little social suffering. Well, that,
and you wouldn’t believe how much awesome shit I got.
*Due to reader heckling, I've decided to post a photo of my humiliation. Sigh. Enjoy.*
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