Part I: Journeys (Chapter 12)

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Journeys

Westbound at the I-94/I-80 Split, South of Chicago

I was basically a sedate and obedient child. Maybe that’s part of my problem now, why I have difficulties staying within acceptable boundaries, why I embarrass you sometimes, why I’m tempted to–

Oh, it’s nothing.

Really, Sheldon. I’m just running at the mouth.

It doesn’t mean a thing–

‘Cause the fat lady can’t sing!

–Now, where was I?

Oh, yes. Once, I got into trouble for trying to out-cuss my cousin Daniel O’Flaherty–you’ll meet him at the reunion.

I don’t think you’ve ever met him. I haven’t seen him in years.

Please, please, let him be a no-show....Please, God, if you really exist!

Anyway, after Mr. MacIntyre, our old white-haired neighbor, caught us screaming dirty words on Nana’s front porch, I knew I was in deep trouble. I was hoping he’d forget the whole incident, but, of course, he hadn’t forgotten the cuss words Danny and I had shouted for the entire neighbor-hood to hear, shocking words that were now getting back to Nana. And by the time Mr. MacIntyre had decided to snitch, Danny was long gone, so guess who would bear the brunt of the fallout?

I remember Nana and the old man standing on the front porch, Nana’s hands on her hips, Mr. MacIntyre gesturing wildly, embellishing, I’m sure, his side of the story with impossible scenes that never really took place.

Nana called for me and made me face my accuser. As I stood before him, I could feel the old man’s sour breath on my face, his accusations digging in like hot splinters under my fingernails.

When it was over, I ran to my room and threw myself on the bed, burying my face on the pillow, waiting for Nana’s footsteps, waiting for the inevitable punishment, maybe even soap in my mouth, for sure the belt across my bottom.

I thought about running away, far away from Sioux City, maybe even back to California to live with my mother and her new boyfriend, but how would I get there? I had only 75 pennies–money I had extorted from Danny–enough to get me across the Missouri River to South Sioux City and back on the bus, maybe a one way ride to Dakota City.

And Danny was safely away from Nana’s reach, near his bratty brothers, back to Marybeth Andrews, just a dumb girl who liked to play silly games with him.

I think I’m going to be sick, Shel. I think you’d better pull over.

*

I feel better now. I just don’t know what came over me.

Game? What game?

Oh, that. It was nothing, and I don’t want to talk about it, it was just child’s play, not worth mentioning.

Please don’t push me on this one, Shel. It’s not the right time.

Anyway, Nana didn’t spank me or anything like that. Instead, she told me to put on my pink dress and white patent leather shoes.

“You’re going to Confession,” she said, wagging her finger at me.

And then I heard her calling up Father Salvatore to arrange a special Confession.

I wanted to die.

*

I remember climbing the steps to the church, my shoes clicking on the concrete. It was hot, and for the first time in my life, I could feel the sweat trickling down from my armpits. Inside the vestibule, the click, click, click of my soles echoed into clomp, clomp, clomp.

I might have been going to the guillotine.

I slipped into the Confessional, a small trapezoid space crammed into a leftover nook, an afterthought.

Just at the moment Father Salvatore slid open the door, the wind blew through a small window, whipping up the curtain separating my unspeakable sins from the man of Christ on the other side.

He sees me!

We both pretended he hadn’t seen a thing.


“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I disobeyed my parents, I told a lie last week, I took a cookie without asking, I took the Lord’s name in vain, I had impure thoughts–”

“I committed adultery–”

“Adultery? Child, you can’t commit adultery, you’re much too young. Now tell me exactly what happened.”

I don’t want to tell him, he knows who I am, and I’ll never, ever be able to come to church, ever again.

“Tell me, child.”

And if I don’t tell him, I’ll go to Hell for sure, because it’s a double mortal sin if you tell a lie in Confession, and you’ll spend three eternities in Hell, though it sure feels hot in here right now, my armpits are sticky and stinky, the sweat between my legs gluey and yucky. And this is only a small sample of the real Hell, so I’d better be good and get it all right and not miss even one thing....

So I tell him everything, every detail, and I’m reliving the whole thing all over again, and I can feel Danny on top of me–

Please, God, bring on the darkness!

–Then I said my Act of Contrition, and Father Salvatore gave me six “Our Fathers” and six “Hail Marys” as Penance and sent me on my way.

Will I ever forget? I want to forget. I want them all to suffer for my sins.

And that was it.

*

Shouldn’t we stop for lunch now? I’m starving, and I don’t think I can wait until Joliet.

I need to fill that big empty space in my gut.

Part I: Journeys (Chapter 11)

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Journeys

Westbound on the Indiana Turnpike, Exit 49–La Porte

Remember the first time we went to Arkansas to see Ruby? Yeah, it was 1987. I was so scared. Did you know that? I was afraid she wouldn’t like me, that somehow she’d blame me for the Mallorys giving her away. Maybe she’d even blame me for how the wicked witch of the south–Daddy Platt’s sister–abused her. But mostly I was afraid because she was no longer a 22-month-old baby who looked up to me. She had her own life now, one that included me only on a peripheral level. Too many years had passed, and we would never share the banter and the memories that normal sisters take for granted. And then when we pulled up in front of her little rock house and I saw her thin silhouette framed in the doorway, I knew why I was really afraid.

I don’t want to talk about it.

Part I: Journeys (Chapter 10)

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Journeys

Westbound on the Ohio Turnpike over the Maumee River

After my Daddy Platts and Mother split up, I would never see him again, so you know, Shel, how important that phone call was two years ago, just before his heart attack. I’m glad we had that last conversation because I’ve never stopped loving him and thinking of him from time to time. And I forgave him long ago. Next to Pappa, he was my prince, treated me like his own child, never made me feel like a stepchild.

That last day–I was just seven–the mood was unhappy: Nana, Pappa, Daddy, and Mother were sitting around the gray Formica kitchen table. It was the only thing not yet packed up. Ruby was climbing over a pile of suitcases, laughing and carrying on; she was too young to know what was going on.


Mother was crying.

“You know it’s for the best, Rose,” Daddy said. “God knows we tried to make this thing work.”

“The girls will be well-cared for,” Nana said. “We’ll make sure of that. Maybe if you get help–”

“I don’t have a problem!”

“You know, honey, it’s the drinking that tore us apart. I wanted so much for us to be a family–”

“Just shut the fuck up! I’m getting the hell out of here!”

Then she grabbed a suitcase and stumbled out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her.



I wouldn’t see her again for three years.

Ruby and I started crying. I was really scared, Shel. I knew something important in my life was about to happen, and that I would have very little say about what that might be. And I didn’t fully understand the game plan. I thought Ruby and I were going to Sioux City together.

Daddy shook his head. “I still love her, but the drinking and the other men–” Daddy looked at me. “The other problem just got to be too much for me. I’m tired.”

“Well, that’s that, then,” Pappa said, getting up and rubbing his hands together. Then he put his hand on Daddy’s shoulder. “You did your best, Dean. Thanks.”

Then Nana hugged him. “Take care of Ruby.”

Take care of Ruby?

“Ruby’s going with us, isn’t she, Pappa?”

All three adults looked away from me.

“She is! I just know she is!”

Finally, Daddy said, “I’m sorry, honey, but she’s going to Arkansas.”

I picked up my suitcase, the one with Suzette, my favorite doll, and stood by the door. “Then I’m going to Arkansas, too.”


Nana came over and put her arm around me. “You have to go to Sioux City with us.”

“I want my baby sister.” The tears felt hot on my cheeks.

Ruby cried louder. “Sammy! Sammy!”

“You can visit her,” Pappa said.

“We’ll drive down to Arkansas next year,” Nana said.

“I’ll write, princess.”

You can’t take my baby sister away!

But Daddy swooped up a kicking and screaming Ruby, and said, “We’d better go.” He grabbed a suitcase. My sister grew stiff in his arms. “The movers’ll get the rest.”


And then they left, just like that. I could hear Ruby screaming, “Sammy! Sammy! Sammy! Saaaaaaaammmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy–” all the way down the hall and into the street, becoming fainter and fainter.

Then nothing.

I can’t believe it took us 30 years to get back together.

Part I: Journeys (Chapter 9)

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Journeys

SR 53 South under Ohio Turnpike at Exit 6–Fremont

I’ve decided that if I ever do myself in, I’ll choose the best time possible–none of this holiday peak business–and I’ll plan my death carefully. No messy stuff. I’ll arrange it so I look like I’m asleep.

But I’d have some fun first, fucking complete strangers–

Don’t look at me that way. I’ve no plans to end my life anytime soon, but if I do, I’m definitely going out with a bang. Why should I miss out?

I’d go away for two weeks, to Philly maybe, check into an expensive hotel, find a bar that has music and dancing, and wait for someone hot and bothered, probably some horny businessman–probably married–to pick me up. For the first week, I’d pick up a different man every night, each one hotter and hornier than the last. Of course, I wouldn’t worry about AIDS or anything like that. I’d have my fun and then–

Why end it all on a sour note like Mother and her best friend Monique?

I ever tell you about Monique, the rich bitch from Bel Air? What a piece of work, that one. I’ve never understood Mother’s fascination with her, especially since she–Mother, that is–disliked gay people.

Monique lived in a big mansion with Trish, her lesbian lover, and sat on a 50 million dollar fortune, all inherited. You would never guess her wealth by her appearance; Monique looked like a refugee from Skag City. The kind of scum that hangs out at the local bowling alley waiting for Big Red’s Heating & Plumbing team to finish bowling. Leathery skin, straw hair, and a hoarse voice–she cackled when she laughed. Told crude jokes about private parts. Ugh.

I’ll never figure out what Mother saw in her.

But you would’ve loved the challenge of someone like Monique, the possibilities for her therapy. I could see you going off to Esalen–you, Monique, and Fritz jumping into the hot tub, confronting each other in the here and now–

Oh, well, never mind.

And then one day Monique popped 39 Valium, “one for each year of my miserable life”–at least that’s what the note said.


I was just 18 when the phone call came from the dour Trish; I remember how Mother’s eyes went dead. Soon after, her drinking became an obsession.

Mission: death.

Though it would take another six or seven years to kill her liver....

Part I: Journeys (Chapter 8)

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Journeys

Off the Ohio Turnpike, Exit 7 onto US 250–Sandusky

The day Mother died, her liver was puffy and engorged with disease, her skin yellow and waxy, her gut aching–despite the alcohol in her bloodstream. Her mind numbed, her love for me–for anyone, actually–all withered from years of alcohol haze, years of reckless living. What was it like to die all alone while my younger half brothers watched Wile E. Coyote on TV and while Johnny Lawrence sold used Buicks in Canoga Park? What did she think as she closed her eyes for the last time?

Fear?

No. Relief.

Yes, that had to be it.

I remember that day years ago when she died. Fifteen years. Almost a generation away.

My mother-in-law Sarah–-Doug’s mother, that is–-called me long distance. I was separated from Doug for the first time, living down in Red Lion, only no one in Sioux City knew I’d left Doug, and I’d asked his family not to tell. Why I was being so secretive, I don’t know, except that I never told my own family anything important until I absolutely had to, and my relationship with Doug hadn’t quite reached that point yet. But it would, and, yes, the shit did fly all the way from Iowa.



Anyway, Sarah called me up and said, “Samantha? I think I have some bad news for you.”

Stop.

My first thought was that Nicole had been hurt or even killed, but Sarah was far too calm for such catastrophic news. “Well?”

“Your mother died last night.”

“Oh.” She could have told me that the soup boiled over on the stove, and I might have gotten more worked up.

“Samantha? You hear me?”

“My mother’s dead.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, Sarah. Thanks.” And I pushed the button on the phone, held it, and stared at the mouthpiece. I released the button. My mother’s dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.... Deeeeaaaadddddddddddddddd_______

Later, I heard that Nana had called over to Doug’s and Nicole had answered the phone. Her daddy had already left for work, and she was at home alone–

I told you I was a lousy mother.

–And when Nana asked Nik where I was so early in the morning, she lied, saying I was out grocery shopping.

I’m sure Nana sniffed out the lie immediately, knowing damn well I don’t crawl out of bed at 6:00 a.m. to run for groceries, but she’s never said anything. She simply told Nikki straight out that Grandma Lawrence was dead. Of course this didn’t mean a whole lot to Nikki; she’d never seen my mother, so she took the message, and she called Sarah who called me.

Yes, a rotten mother.

What a miserable web.

Aunt Sal didn’t speak to me for a year after I refused to fly out to California for the funeral, only I didn’t even know she was mad because Sal never wrote to me anyway, so there she was, all pissed off, venting all this anger to Nana, and I’m totally in the dark. Talk about a waste.

Not going to the funeral was one of the easiest decisions of my life. Sounds cold, doesn’t it? It’s not that I didn’t love her in my own way, it’s just that–

Well. Mother chose a lousy time to do herself in: finals’ week. I was in my second year of graduate school, probably my toughest year, and I had to do well in my final exams. How could I possibly ask my professors for a break? It would have been a sham, just another excuse in a long line of excuses that students give their professors.

But that’s beside the point. If I wanted to go, I would have gone. Period.

The thing is, Mother died, her daughter refused to go to the funeral, Mother was cremated (which about killed Nana), Sal spent a year fuming, Johnny spread Mother’s ashes over Canoga Park, my half brothers were raised by their father and then a few years later, when he died of a broken spirit, by a kind neighbor lady.

I have not seen the boys since they were small, and I don’t want to now.

And what I remember most about my mother are five simple words, indelibly tattooed on my brain:

You don’t love me anymore.

In retrospect, I’m not at all surprised Mother died at an early age. Maybe self-destruction was encoded on her genes. Or maybe life just got too difficult when so many of her hard-living friends started croaking.

Especially Monique.

Monique’s death really screwed her over.

Part I: Journeys (Chapter 7)

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Journeys

Westbound on the Ohio Turnpike, Exit 10–Cleveland

It’s getting dark, and you look tired. Maybe we should stop soon. Cleveland. We usually go farther than Cleveland. Hmmm. Let’s see. We could always hit the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes....

Just kidding. The Elvis Museum last year was bad enough, but I’m not about to visit a museum that extols virginity as a virtue.

Maybe we can make it to Toledo.


Remember the letters I showed you, the letters to my mother I found in the attic, the ones I never sent? I brought them with me. I don’t know why I’ve saved them after all these years, and I don’t know why I have never shown them to anyone, especially you. I don’t know why I keep reading them over and over....

Oct. 19, 1960

Dear Mama,

Why don’t you write? I never hear from you anymore. Did you remember my birthday? It was last week. I am 10 yrs. old now. Auntie sent me a walking doll with long red hair, just like mine, except Hillary’s hair is straight. Aunt Gwen gave me a teddy bear, it even has a zipper so I can make him fat or skinny. I like him skinny, but when I get mad, I make him fat (ha, ha).

Nana says I should write you a letter even if you don’t write. She says its the polite thing to do. I guess she’s right, but I sure wish you would write back.

I wish you loved me.

YOU DON’T LOVE ME ANYMORE.

I–

You can’t send that letter. I can’t tell you why, you’re too young to understand, just start over, and write a nice letter. Because I’m your Nana and I understand what’s best for you. Because your mama needs to hear from her child and you’re her favorite. Don’t say that, she DOES love you, it’s just that she’s in a predicament–oh, just look it up in the dictionary–and she can’t write to you now. And, honey, don’t mention your birthday. It might make her feel bad, and we don’t want her feeling bad, now do we? Soon, I promise, just as soon as she gets better. No, I haven’t heard anything about Ruby. I’m sure she’s okay, you just have to be patient. Yes, we’ll go and visit her someday, I promise, even if we have to go all the way to Arkansas. It’s a long drive, you know. But it’s not the right time, you’ll just have to wait until she’s older. She’s still just a baby and wouldn’t know you anyway.

Now get busy on that letter, or else.

Oct. 19, 1960

Dear Mama,

How are you? I am fine. School is going good. I’m 10 years old now.

Love your child,

Sam

P.S. Nana says I should send this air mail.

*

Much better, honey, but you’d better get rid of that P.S.–and do it over neatly.

Don’t you REALLY have any more to say than that?

*

Shel, can you imagine? Mother had forgotten my birthday. I was hurting because I wanted the few measly dollars she usually popped into my birthday envelope, along with one of her silly cards. But mostly, it was a long rambling letter I wanted, the kind of letter in which she would mostly talk about Fritz, her German Shepherd. The same dog that snapped at my butt when I was seven.

Just before my grandparents drove me back to Iowa for good.

You don’t love me anymore.

PLEASE HEAR ME, MAMA!

I guess I knew she didn’t really MEAN to forget my birthday. Some-times these things just happened. Most of the time, I tried to understand. Really. But I also understood that sometimes you had to push the right buttons to get what you wanted.

And, then, surely, the money would come.

*

Mama? It’s Sammy. I’m in Sioux City.

Well, no. No one knows I’m calling, but it’ll be okay. I wanted to write you more, but Nana made me hurry, so I couldn’t finish the letter. You get it yet?

I’m glad.

You still sick?

Well, Nana says you didn’t feel so good.

Guess what? I got all kinds of birthday presents–

Two weeks ago, Mama.

It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to....

*

This fantasy conversation still plays over and over. But at 10, I was anything but diplomatic. I didn’t know how to help a wounded person to save face.

Instead, I wrote THE LETTER–I wonder if she ever kept it?

The money came, but somehow, it wasn’t the same: my first hard lesson in the effects of emotional blackmail.

Before we left, Shel, I ran across that birthday card and 20 dollar bill--you know that was a fortune back then. I still cannot bring myself to spend that ancient ill-gotten gain. I can’t even bring myself to pull that card and money out of their yellowing envelope to look at her handwriting, let alone read the raw edge of her words. Though she’s been dead all these years– God, it hardly seems 15 years ago--her scrawl is engraved in my brain, her act of contrition pinching at the core of my psyche.

Maybe someday I’ll read parts of her letter to you, but please don’t ask, I don’t know why I can’t show it to you yet, I just can’t.

I just can’t look.

Not before I edit away the ache.

I just can’t.

You don’t love me any more.

*

I loved her: Mother was the only person in my life who didn’t harp on my weight, at least until I was older. Then it was different, and things changed between us. But in those early days, when I was still living with her, she accepted me for who I was, not as a potential princess who “if only she would lose a little weight she would be okay.”

Mother’s drinking made us comrades somehow, her sitting on the sofa (legs folded under her rear) with the bottomless bottle of beer, endless cigarette, and crossword puzzle book, I sitting in the swivel chair next to her (feet on the floor) with the bottomless box of Cherry Bings, sent Parcel Post by Nana from Sioux City, each of us glomming and glomming on our secret obsessions until we might burst open.

Both outcasts in the family.

Just the same, I was afraid of her. Not afraid in the sense a person is afraid for her life, but afraid that when I opened my mouth, I would say something stupid or insulting to her. Afraid that when she said something to me, I would misunderstand her slurred words and confirm what my first grade teacher had already told her: that I was mentally retarded because I hadn’t learned how to read yet.

I was a mute child.

I wanted to ask her questions, but I was afraid to hear the answers–like why I had so many daddies when most of my friends had only one, two at the most. So I made a list:

The Litany of Daddies

√ My real daddy, Richard Kane, the stranger daddy

√ Unofficial daddy, Dick Roberts, the bad daddy

√ Daddy # 2, Daddy Platts, the King of daddies

√ Daddy # 3, Johnny Lawrence, the saxophone daddy

√ Daddy # 4, (my favorite), Pappa, my grandfather daddy

*

Nana used to tell me how lucky I was to have so many daddies.

You don’t love me anymore, Mama.

*

I know she loved me, but I never knew what would set her off. It all depended on how much she had to drink, I suppose. The Mormon Bible School is a case in point. Did I ever tell you about that? When I was in first grade, she knew I was going to the Bible school every Tuesday afternoon after school and even laughed about it to Daddy Platts, proclaiming what a clever girl I was.

“Young Soldiers of Christ,” Mrs. Robertson, the teacher, called us.

A sweet old lady with a gray bun, luring us into the fold with hot homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Mother thought the whole concept was funny.

But then, when she was annoyed about something (it didn’t matter what–a broken fingernail, a pimple, an argument with Daddy Platts, the baby’s shitty diaper–I didn’t even have to be the cause), she would rage about the Bible school, swearing that “no Goddamn polygamist is going to convert my little girl.” Then she would huff and snort, making a big deal about going over to Mrs. Robertson’s and giving her the old “what-fer.”

And then collapse on the sofa and fall into a dead drunk sleep.

You don’t love me any more.

*

The day Ruby and I were run over by the truck, my whole life changed. My corporeal life stayed the same, of course–that is, until Nana and Pappa took me away–but from that day onward, I have felt this chronic sense of urgency, a sense that it all could be snatched away at any minute.

Thank God Ruby was too young to remember.

We weren’t injured, just a few bumps and bruises, but when you find yourself under an over sized piece of equipment and looking up at belching exhaust pipes and greasy metal, well, even at six, you begin to wonder about God and His infinite wisdom, you wonder if He’s REALLY in control, or if there’s a Superior Being over Him, making Him dance like a marionette, just like He pulls our strings to make us behave, and then cuts them when He’s ready to snatch us away.

It was sometime in the fall–Ruby had a runny nose and the air had a crisp edge–but it must have been before my birthday, because I wasn’t yet seven.

Ruby and I were sitting in an alley, playing with gravel, rolling small stones back and forth when I felt the bumper quietly nudging my back. I’m sure the driver had no idea we were there, but who knows? I turned my head and saw a silver bumper and an orange fender.

I’m gonna die!

Ruby was screaming.

My baby sister’s gonna die!

I don’t remember how I ended up on my back, but there I was, looking up as the underbelly rolled by.

I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but I really do remember the front wheel rolling over my chest, pressing my rib cage against my heart, crushing the breath out of me. It’s difficult to put that moment into adequate words, but I’ll try. Nothing like tunnels or bright lights, though– that’s an 80's and 90's concept, I think.

But I knew I was dead, suspended in that nanosecond–or was it a lifetime?–just before the spirit flees the body for good. I discovered that not breathing has its own set of rules, that I no longer felt the flow through my veins, just a “glow” or aura of being, a warmth without physicality.

No pain at all.

See how words can’t begin to describe the experience?

And I really thought the decision was mine to make:

To go or to stay?

This state of pleasure was so seductive.

Later on, the LSD and weed would approximate this feeling, but never to the extent of that day under the wheel.

Stay! Go! Stay! Go! Go! Go! GO, GO, GO................GO-OOOOOOOO–

Mother!

I would never see my mother, ever again.

NO!

The tire rolled off me, my blood moved again, breath returning.

Just like that–

Look, I’m telling you how I remember it.

I make no apologies for my state of mind, past or present–

“STOP!” Daddy Platts’ voice.

The truck slowed down but did not stop.

Pounding on the truck. “Stop it, Goddamn it! My little girls are under your truck!”

Ruby’s your baby!

I’m your princess!

My ponytail caught under the back tire.

By now, a crowd had gathered, and I could hear Daddy shouting out directions to the driver and ordering me not to move at all.

“Good, good, the baby’s out,” someone said. “And she’s fine.”

Ruby screamed.

The crowd applauded.

A little girl in a lilac dress looked under the truck: “Whatcha doin’ under there? Are you gonna die?”

I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!

It was then I understood that life held no guarantees, that no one, even a child, is exempt from the possibility of dying–

That the choice to stay or go is never really ours.

The filament of being vibrating, Death nearby, his weapon ready–

“Please don’t let me die! I don’t wanna die!”

Mama? Mama? Mama!

And I thought about everyone else in my family–my Nana and Pappa, Auntie–Ruby. I wondered what it would be like not to see my family again.

*
Sometimes, I think I should have died that day–you and Doug would be better off, I’m sure. Nikki would have just remained in the cosmos, a better place, I’m sure, than the Circle of Love.

I just can’t explain away the slight ripple of fate that spared my life.

What would have Death been like?

Part I: Journeys (Chapter 6)

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Journeys

Westbound on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Exit 6–Monroeville

You sure the air conditioner’s working? It’s awfully hot in here, and I’ve got the knob turned full blast. It must be at least 100 degrees outside. I’m sweating like a pig.

Whoops. My purse was blocking the vent. That’s better now.

Smells funny in here. What IS that, anyway? I swear, we have a phantom who plants bad onions in here.

You leave any food out? It’s a mess in here, but I can’t seem to find any old food.

Monroeville. Is that all the farther we are?


The Miracle Mile. Suburbia personified. Split levels. Urban sprawl. Road construction. New traffic patterns. Shifting lanes.

Doug and I drove here once. He wanted to see Tyrone, a really cool kid who was still in high school. I was about two months pregnant with Nicole and living in Pennsylvania just a few weeks. I was horribly depressed because, deep down, I knew I was knocked up, and Doug already had one foot out the door. And Tyrone was a really foxy guy, tall with red hair and green eyes. The funny thing is, Tyrone’s holy-roller mother hated Doug–hated all hippies, actually–but, for some unfathomable reason, decided my soul was worth saving.

This strange woman made the guys sit out on the porch, and tried luring me inside the house with cookies and milk. When I refused, she started quoting Bible verses, stuff about fornication and all that begetting mumbo-jumbo. Real horny stuff.

“Ignore her,” Tyrone said. “I do.”

That night, Doug and I fucked out in her backyard, but I really wanted to roll around in the weeds with Tyrone.

For the rest of the visit, I found it more and more difficult to ignore Tyrone’s mother.

Finally, I just got sick of her tirade, so I said, “Look, lady. I wanna fuck your son.” That shut her up, but it was also the truth. I really wanted that guy in the worst way, but it never happened.

We could always stop and look him up....

About another hour, and we’ll be in Ohio.

*

I’m always falling in love with the wrong men. It seems like I always want what I can’t have.

Like Ian. I know I’ll never really have him.


I was six when it first happened. We’d just moved to Yuma from Santa Barbara. Mother and Daddy Platts seemed to move around a lot in those days, but here we stayed almost a whole school year. I know we spent Christmas and Easter in Yuma, but I had started school in Santa Barbara. We were there, now let’s see, through Halloween. So we must have moved to Yuma sometime around Thanksgiving.

Jackie wasn’t exactly a boyfriend–he lived down the street with his parents and older brother, and we went to O.C. Johnson Elementary School together, where I learned to read The Jungle Book in one day. We were both in first grade.

I’ll never forget the first time Jackie and I met. It was the day Daddy, Mother, Ruby, and I were moving into the neighborhood. My parents were busy lugging our furniture and clothes into the house.

I was unhappy because I had no friends yet and mad because I hadn’t wanted to move in the first place. I was bouncing a rubber ball off the tar paper shingles and muttering “life’s so unfair” when Jackie showed up and stood on the sidewalk watching. Eventually, he sauntered into the yard and shyly offered his hand. No boy had ever offered his hand to me before; I just stood there mute, hands by my side. He gently took my left hand and examined it. He said, “I’m Jackie.” Then he held his palm against mine. “Your fingers are longer than mine.”

It was then I noticed that he had no thumbs, just four fingers on each hand.

“So what happened to your thumbs?” I blurted out.

He shrugged, and said, “I was born this way. But it don’t really matter.”

And we never spoke of it again. Still, when Jackie wasn’t around, I would fold and squeeze my thumbs into my palms so that I couldn’t see them and pretend I had no thumbs either.

Other than that, Jackie seemed normal enough to me: he had a black buzz haircut and liked to play family–husband, wife, and baby.


He always wanted to be the wife, dressing up in my mother’s silk slips, blouses, long skirts, and high heels. I can still see him modeling in one of my mother’s outfits, just like a model, jutting his hipbone out, walking down a runway, Mother’s skirt swishing back and forth.

It was the only time during my childhood when all my dolls had shiny, curly hair–styled just so–because Jackie was forever styling with their hair–hairpins all over my bedroom. Even without thumbs, Jackie was good at fixing hair, always brushing mine with Mother’s black bristle brush. Once, to Mother’s horror, he styled my hair, piling it on top of my head in loose, frivolous curls. I felt funny in such a fancy ‘do and combed it out as soon as he went home.

I didn’t mind playing the husband because I could play construction worker on the real site across the street and stack bricks in the sand; in those days, everything in Yuma was about sand–maybe it’s different now. When I returned from “work,” Jackie would have straightened up my room and organized my dolls in a line against the wall, my hairpins stacked on the dresser.

Once, when I came “home,” Jackie had stuffed a towel under his blouse. “I’m pregnant, honey,” he said in a sing-song voice.

“Well,” I said in the deepest, gruff voice I could muster, “I’ll ask my boss for a raise.”

He told me a secret and made me swear I wouldn’t tell a soul: “When I grow up, I’m going to let my hair grow and dye it red so it looks just like yours.”

“But your hair’s straight.”

“Then I’ll go to the beauty shop and get a permanent wave.”

I had never heard of a boy getting a perm.

But I didn’t think too much of it. I just liked Jackie because we played together well–he let me boss him around like a real husband–and when we snuggled together on my bed, I got to get on top.

Another time, he told me he was going to have an operation to become a girl.

I just laughed. “Boys can’t be girls, dontcha know that?”

“Well, they can, and that’s a fact.”

But Jackie never got the chance: one day, he was rushed to the hospital with appendicitis and never came back.

After the funeral, Mother said, “It’s just as well, honey. He was a junior drag queen.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, you’ll learn about that stuff soon enough.”

I never told anyone about the girl operation.

Part I: Journeys (Chapter 5)

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Journeys

Westbound on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Exit 12–Breezewood

Sheldon Weiss, I don’t want to talk about Nicole. It’s too stressful, and this car’s too small for this discussion. I didn’t tell her to join that cult. That child’s incorrigible, a real pain in the ass. She didn’t ask my opinion, and even if she did, she wouldn’t listen to me, anyway.

At her age, I wouldn’t have listened either.

I hate this part of the trip. I hate winding around on this turnpike, I feel half sick all the time, and my ears pop. Maybe I just hate Pennsylvania.


Good ‘ole Breezewood. Look at that billboard. “City of Motels.” Tacky motels, I’m sure. When my Pappa died, I traveled by bus to Sioux City for the funeral. The bus stopped here at a humongous cafeteria, where they served greasy vegetable soup and stale bread. I don’t know why I’d remember that detail, except that I was very thin and sad then, and nothing looked good.


I bet Breezewood’s a great place to have an affair–maybe we could stop and knock a quick one off at one of those places with mirrors and water beds? Oh, there’s the exit. We could just–

Oh, never mind, I know we’re on a tight schedule. Our lives seem to be all about rushing around. Who has time to think about sleazy motels?

Not that I would know anything about tacky motels in the middle of nowhere–

I know Roger’s too old for Nicole. God, he’s older than I am. Pond scum. A real snake.

Snake Bodine! Old wounds...

Jesus. And he even looks older than 45, but that’s beside the point. If only he’d bathe once in a while. I can tolerate a lot, but not men who don’t wash. Nicole says it’s against God’s wishes, that God loves their natural body odor.

Right.

I don’t see how Nikki stands him. But she’s old enough to take her bumps. “Responsible for her own actions” as your hero Fritz Perls would say if he were still alive and dispensing psycho-babble from a hot tub.

Okay, okay, I’ll stop with the snide comments. You have your opinion, I have mine.

Still, that pregnancy doesn’t thrill me a whole lot.

I know Roger treats her like shit; he has other women on the side, and she has other men. Nikki told me so. It doesn’t matter WHEN she told me, just that she’s told me. She says having sex with the others in the cult is a rule. That everyone has to love everyone else.

I must admit, even I’m shocked, and I thought I’d seen and done everything, but this is beyond anything I could ever imagine. I don’t know why she tells me these things. I don’t remember going out of my way to tell Nana about my sex life. God forbid.

At least when I screwed around, I wasn’t doing it in the name of God.

I didn’t even BELIEVE in God.

Nikki says I must be getting old. Can you imagine? OLD!!! Just because I can’t understand their fascination with group sex.

Still, if she can live with it, then so can I. It’s like Nana always says about Mother, “I had to put her shenanigans outta my mind, or I’da gone crazy.” Still, if Nikki doesn’t get some strange disease–

Unthinkable!

–I’d be surprised.

I don’t believe in abortion–and I’m not getting into that discussion with you right now–but I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be best for Nikki, especially if the kid’s going to be born sick anyway....

Anyway, it’s not my decision.

I know you’re concerned about her, but you’re not her dad, and she’s not going to listen to you. Especially you.

I wish Doug would talk to her. She won’t listen to me, but she might listen to her dad. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking about, lending ROGER money to buy a motorcycle. Can you imagine? A pregnant girlfriend, and HE’S out buying motorcycles and beer and dope while Nikki sits at that compound with other pregnant women, puking in the toilet.

Roger’s the most disgusting human being I’ve ever met, I just don’t know what Nikki sees in him. I swear, he smells like grease and stale cigarettes. Nikki’s too young and pretty to be stuck with an old man with a beer gut and a gray beard. I mean, I don’t want you to think I’m prejudiced against someone just because he’s old enough to be Nikki’s father and works with his hands–God knows I work with mine–but I just think old men who chase after young girls like my Nikki have got to have a screw loose somewhere. Don’t you agree?

Well, it doesn’t matter what we think.

Maybe if I’d been a better mother. God knows I tried, but, somehow, I just kept missing opportunities to develop a real rapport with Nikki. I guess some people aren’t meant to be parents, and I’m one of them.

It’s true, Shel. I was a lousy mother.

I didn’t even go to the doctor until I was seven months along. Did I ever tell you that? I guess I felt that if I didn’t acknowledge my condition, it would just go away on its own–maybe the child would wither and die in my womb.

Or find another mother.

And when I could no longer ignore my ballooning belly, I would pat it and say, “You poor little sucker, what have you gotten yourself into?”

Then when the doctor confirmed my condition (as if there were any doubt by then), I thought, “Doug’ll have to marry me now.” Can you believe that? Not “Oh-my-God-you’re-knocked-up; what-have-you-gotten-yourself-into-for-the-next-18-or-21-years-of-your-life?”

Never mind that parenthood goes on forever.

I had to find out the hard way that getting pregnant does not necessarily mean getting married for the long haul. I wanted to get married so badly, but Doug kept dodging the issue. Said he wanted to wait until after the baby was born.

I told him that’s what I wanted too.

Did you know that during my pregnancy Doug had another girlfriend? She lived in Cherry Hill, came from a nice Jewish family. He said she was just a friend. Made a big deal of her being a virgin.

I think Dougie boy was just hedging his bets, just in case I had a miscarriage or decided to have an abortion, after all.

I think he should have dumped me and married his Jewish princess because that’s what he really wanted to do. What else could I expect from a guy I picked up in Hollywood, in front of Wallich’s Music City yet?

By the time we DID get married, I already knew it was a big mistake....

I just know Nana’s going to wonder why Nikki’s not coming to the reunion.

God, she must never find out about what’s going on. I want Nana’s last days to be peaceful, not full of Nikki’s bullshit.

I told Nik that under no circumstances was she to show up at the reunion. She knows I’ll disown her if she does. And I will, you know.

I’ll think up some lie to tell Nana, like maybe Nikki had to work and her boss wouldn’t give her time off? HA! As if Nikki’s ever held a real job.

You’ve got to promise me you won’t tell anyone in the family, not even Sal, about Nikki’s situation.

Especially Sal.

Part I: Journeys (Chapter 4)

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Journeys

Nicole’s latest letter arrives just a few days before Sheldon and I leave for Sioux City. How does she expect me to answer? I just don’t understand her, this brown-eyed child of mine, this child who has demanded her independence from day one.

From a distance, you see this lovely 20-year-old girl, with long black hair, long legs, slim body. When she sashays into a room, she makes an entrance. Heads turn. Men drool. Women round up their men and cling to them.

You wonder how she slides through life so effortlessly.

But when you meet her up close, you notice that her eyes are glazed, her hair not quite clean, her teeth gray, her skin bad, her mind dulled from years of drug and alcohol abuse.

Not the willful child who struggled out of my body.

She’s quit the alcohol and drugs now, after having overdosed on crack cocaine last year. I almost lost her. Now it’s the cult. The Circle of Love. Everything revolves around that strange sex cult.

As if in my day we needed to find an excuse to fuck.

I hear through the grapevine that she and Roger have really gone around the bend. I really don’t want to know about these things, but the community is small. Word gets around fast.

Did this alien child REALLY live in my womb for nine months?

I try to put it all out of my mind, but Nikki can’t seem to leave it alone– her letters come about once a month now.

I will hide this last one from Shel:

June 10, 1990

Dear Mom–

Why don’t you write? I never hear from you anymore. I miss you. Don’t turn away from me, Mama. I could have lied about things, but I chose to tell you the Truth. I don’t expect you to agree with everything I believe in, but can’t you accept me for who I am?

I just don’t believe in the same things you believe in. What do you believe in, anyway? Everyone (except poor old Shelly, the fool) knows you’re screwing your OB-GYN on the side. At least I’m not a hypocrite. I’m up front about everything I do. Besides, God put women on this earth for two purposes: to please men and bear children. And I like pleasing men, and Roger likes pleasing women. Sometimes we like pleasing them together. Is that so wrong? We love each other, but we are bursting with so much love we want to share it with others.

And does it really matter who contributed the seed for my child? As long as we all love each other, no one cares. Every child belongs to every man and woman. By the way, I think I’m about 5 months along now, but I might be 6. I don’t know if that last period was really a period. I figure God will tell me when the time is right.


I no longer drink or smoke. God tells us that Receptacles of the Seed must keep their bodies healthy & strong for childbearing. And Roger’s very careful not to smoke around me. But I don’t begrudge him his few pleasures. As Bearers of the Seed, men have special privileges. Why do you think that is so bad?

I really wanted to go to the family reunion. I know Nana’s really sick and is not expected to live very long, and I would like to see her one last time, but Roger says I must obey you in this matter. He says that as long as you aren’t interfering with our doctrine, I have to listen to you because you’re still my mother, and you know best.

I don’t know why I should start now; I’ve never listened to you before, but that’s the Rule according to Love.

Why won’t you give me your permission? I promise I wouldn’t say anything about The Circle. I understand that Nana comes from another era and wouldn’t understand our ways. I won’t lie to her, but maybe I could just give her the impression that Roger and I have gotten married? And Roger says he’ll stay away. I just want to see the Mallory part of my family one last time. You know, once the child is born, I won’t be allowed outside the compound any more. It’s God’s Will.

We’re doing okay. Roger’s got a job painting houses and gets paid good money. Finally, we’re able to help pay for our share of the building of the compound.

Please call me, Mama.

I want to go to the reunion.

Love, Nikki

How does she expect me to answer this, anyway?

Every year we drive to Sioux City, but this year is different. We’re still driving, of course (I hate airplanes), but on this trip Sheldon gets to meet the entire family.

Family reunion.

Lucky Shel.

We used to have fun on our road trips, I telling impossible puns with trick endings, Shel singing silly songs:

“Oh, what a time I had with Minnie the Mermaid/Down at the bottom of the sea/I lost all my troubles/Down by the bubbles/Whenever Minnie made magic with me.”

Normally, Shel is wound up so tightly that he twangs like a taut rope. But while driving, he becomes this unfamiliar loose, frivolous creature.

The first time I saw this trait–we’d been married only a few months–I thought he’d gone off his nut. But then, once we were off the road, he was the same old Shel. So I’ve learned to enjoy these spurts of spontaneity.

This time, though, it’s different. I just want to talk about my life, sort some things out before I have to face my entire family, especially Danny.

Danny O’Flaherty. Aunt Sal says he’s really looking forward to this reunion and has asked about me, how I’m doing. I haven’t seen him in years, and I’m not anxious to see him now. Father Dan. What a joke.

I just don’t want to talk about him right now. But I have to talk about something; otherwise, I’ll spill my guts about the grant. I’m not ready to tell Shel about that until I have made my final decision.

I MUST KEEP MY COOL!

Your mouth must remain in mindless motion, just keep talking, you must never stop, Samantha Anne Mallory, not once, until you hit Iowa.

I might as well take advantage of the fact that I’m married to a shrink–a Gestalt shrink, maybe, but I can handle that confrontational side of him. He’ll listen to me ramble for hours, plugging in an occasional “How do you feel about that?” just to prove he’s listening to me.

I have written two letters to Inez Shorb–both are stamped and ready to go–and I have hidden them in my suitcase, wrapped in my white cotton Jockeys–

Letter #1: Reject the grant and stay with Sheldon–stagnate. Suffer for the rest of my life from a chronic case of the “what ifs”? Wither. Kill any chances for a real career as a painter. Die an old unfulfilled woman.

Letter #2: Accept the grant and run off to France for a year–will Shel divorce me while I’m gone? Will he find another woman? Worse yet, will he go through my things and find out about Ian?

Ian, how dare you love me when I don’t know how I feel about you?

I’ll have to decide sometime during the reunion. About the grant, I mean.

Meanwhile, we’ve decided to stop along the way, see some sights, snap some photographs.

As we merge west onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike from I-83, I ask the ritual question:

“Are we there yet?”

Part I: Journeys (Chapter 3)

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Journeys

---------------------------We know a thing by its opposite corollary;
---------------------------hot by having experienced cold;
---------------------------good, by having decided what is bad;
---------------------------love by hate.

----------------------------------------------------------Sylvia Plath

(Music. Theme to “The Twilight Zone.” Spotlight, beginning as a pinpoint of light and broadening into a tight circle of light, comes up. Samantha, the fat woman, about 40, vivid red hair falling to her waist, steps into the spotlight. She wears summer clothes: a Prussian Blue knit top, white shorts, scruffy sandals. A striking woman, she stands straight and places her arms akimbo. Spotlight broadens to encompass the entire stage, which is bare, except downstage left: a car, a red Jetta, obviously well-used, is parked, its trunk open. Several suitcases, duffel bags, etc. are stacked behind the car. Music fades.)

Samantha: I begin my journey alone. A journey that begins and ends as part reality, part psychodrama. I think it’s the only way I can navigate my way through this reunion. I suppose this is nothing new, really. I have lived much of my life through the color of my mind, my actors manipulated like pieces on a game board, like paint strokes on a canvas.

I want, I want, I want...I win!

Sheldon teaches group psychodrama to his students and patients–-I mean clients; he says it’s a way to act out one’s life without risking, well...risk. It all sounds so silly, and I tell Sheldon so, at least twice a week. Besides, who takes that silly hot tub guru Fritz Perls and his psychobabble seriously? It’s SO 70's.

Hello. Sheldon needs to embrace the here and now.

Besides I just can’t imagine acting my life out in front of strangers, whacked out ones, at that. I can’t relate to dysfunctional people.

But I must admit: moving characters around in my head appeals to me; I control their actions, their hot buttons.

God knows I don’t control them in real life. The truth is, they sing and I dance.

For once in my life, I want to be the singer.

(Sheldon Weiss, Samantha’s husband, enters stage right. Tall, with a full head of well-styled blonde wavy hair, he is very handsome in a classic square jaw and angular kind of way. He moves around regally, wearing crisp khaki slacks, a green Izod knit shirt, and matching athletic shoes. Carrying a brief case and a backpack, he walks behind Samantha to a Volkswagen Jetta where he opens the back passenger door. Muttering, he tosses these items in the back seat and roots around, rattling papers, etc. He appears not to notice Samantha.)

Samantha: Yes, Sheldon’s physical self is with me, but he cannot know what awaits me.

Sheldon: (Looking all around, he calls toward offstage right.) Sammy! Blah, blah, blah, blah...! (Shaking his head, he exits stage right.)

Samantha: I see his mouth moving as he barks orders at me, but I can’t comprehend what he’s saying. (Goes stage right, picks up a suitcase, and hoists it into the trunk.) And, yet, I find myself stowing complicated suitcases– Shel’s theory of geometric packing at work–grocery bags, books, and travel stuff into the trunk. Pieces of my life.

(As Samantha continues to speak, Nicole, Samantha’s daughter, a beautiful young pregnant woman, with long black hair, enters unnoticed stage left, and shuffles over to Samantha.)

Samantha: I offered to pack up the car, which kind of surprised Shel. It’s not that I’m so thoughtful and kind; he mustn’t know about the paintings I’ve rolled up and stashed into a tent bag. Last night, as he slept, I hid the bag behind a rug that’s been rolling around in the trunk for two months. He’ll never suspect. I’m not sure why I’m dragging my artistic failures to the reunion, except that maybe I see some successes here, too.

(Nicole walks up to Samantha and hugs her.)

Nicole: Mommy?

Samantha: (Surprised. She disengages from Nicole.) What are you doing here? This is MY psychodrama. You don’t belong here.

Nicole: You can’t keep me away. I am part you.

Samantha: You have no right...

Nicole: It was the only way I could get your attention.

Samantha: Oh, Nikki...

Nicole: I mean it, Mama. You never answered my letter.

Samantha: (Evasive.) Well, you know how it is...

Nicole: No I don’t. I want to go, too.

Samantha: (Looks away from Nicole.) It’s not practical–you might pop that baby somewhere in Ohio.

Nicole: I’m only five months.

Samantha: It just isn’t right.

Nicole: I want to see my family.

Samantha: You should have thought about that before...

Nicole: Oh, Mother. It’s not like you’re so lily white...

Samantha: At least I didn’t shove my pregnancy down Nana’s and Pappa’s throats. I handled it all on my own.

Nicole: You were ashamed of me. (Pats her stomach.) I’ll never be ashamed of my child...

Samantha: Oh, Nikki. It’s not that...

Nicole: It isn’t?

Samantha: Of course not!

Nicole: If you loved me, you would take me with you, no matter what. I have the right to see my people.

Samantha: We have to think of Nana. What would she say if she saw you this way?

Nicole: She’d wag her finger at me. Then she’d hug me.

Samantha: It would kill her.

Nicole: Just like it killed her after I was born.

Samantha: That was different. She wasn’t old and sick then.

Nicole: That’s just an excuse. This is about you. You ALWAYS put your feelings ahead of mine.

(Samantha turns away from Nicole.)

(Sheldon enters stage right.)

Sheldon: (Yells.) Samantha! Time to go! (He gets into the car and starts the engine. He honks the horn.)

Nicole: (Pulls Samantha to her and clings to her.) Please, Mom. (Begins to weep.)

Samantha: (Pulls away from Nicole). I’ve got to go. (Walks over to the passenger side of the car and opens the door. Pauses.) Bye, sweetie. (Gets into the car.)

Nicole: (As the car pulls away:) Mama, why are you doing this to me? (As the roar of the engine fades, she collapses to the floor, folding like a bloom closing its petals).

(Light slowly fades into until darkness. The crying continues until it becomes an echo, and then it fades out. The spotlight comes up and shines on Samantha. The spotlight broadens to encompass the entire stage. Nicole is gone. Samantha goes center stage, to the edge of the stage.)

Samantha: (To the Audience:) How dare that kid do this to me? I fought hard for her–if not for my stubbornness, she’d be the ghost of fetal cells, rotted away in some landfill.

Lord knows I can’t ever tell her this; I swear she’ll never know how unhappy and shocked her dad and I were when we found out... (Shakes her head and exits stage right.)

(Music:“The Twilight Zone.” Then fadeout and darkness. Curtain.)

Prologue: My Other (Chapter 2)

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My Other

The acceptance letter and the invitation to the family reunion arrive on the same day, an unseasonably hot day in late April. My past and my proposed future stuffed into the mailbox, a tiny dark space, pulling me in different directions.

I’ve been dreading this invitation, knowing it would be arriving soon. Now that the card, a sentimental thing with a collage of mothers, fathers, and children, is in my hand, I’m almost relieved that the waiting is over, and, yet, those echoes draw me in...

WHO: The Mallorys, Bacons, O’Flahertys, etc.
WHO: Danny O’Flaherty!

WHAT: Family Reunion.
WHAT: Command performance. Be there.

WHEN: June 20, 1990, from 10:30 a.m. to ????
WHEN: From the beginning of your existence to ????

WHERE: The Lake.
WHERE: Wherever you go, wherever you live.

COST: A favorite dish, plus $25.00 per couple, $7.50 per child, to help defray the cost of renting The Northwest Quadrant of the Winnehaha Pavilion.
COST: More than you’ll EVER be able to afford.

RSVP: Sally Millhouse, (712) 555-1234
RSVP: Or ELSE!

SPECIAL NOTE: We’ll be sitting for family portraits!
WHY: We want to dig out the secret spaces in your memory, we will make you face your past.
Typed on the “Directions” sheet:

THE REASON FOR THIS GATHERING IS BECAUSE THE LAST FAMILY REUNION WAS BACK IN 1972 WHEN PAPPA MALLORY, ROSIE, AND AUNTIE WERE STILL ALIVE. LET’S GET TOGETHER & SHARE MEMORIES!! PLEASE CALL OR RETURN THE ENCLOSED R.S.V.P. AND INCLUDE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES FOR THE FAMILY HISTORY. 250 wds. ADULTS, 100 wds. KIDS.

No excuses. Aunt Sal has been orchestrating the reunion for at least a year and has carefully picked a date most suitable for the one hundred people related to the Mallory family.

Most of whom I no longer know.

And I can’t figure out why she has chosen Lake Winnehaha; back in 1988, she and Uncle Phil fought against the Native American developers who eventually claimed–and won–the lake area as part of their reservation, forcing people like my aunt and uncle to give up their small lake side cabins for a settlement paid out by the federal government–in short, next to nothing.

“You can’t fight progress, even in Siouxland,” the Tribal Chief told The Sioux City Journal after lake side owners had presented 10,000 signatures to the reservation governing board.

I am tempted to call Sal and remind her that she has sold out to the “enemy,” but she would probably deny all allegations. It just isn’t worth the trouble.

You can’t fight progress, period. Nana, always the pragmatic matriarch– and my surrogate mother, off and on, from birth to age five and then for good from age seven until 17, when I graduated from high school.

I, myself, am charmed by The Lake, as everyone in Siouxland calls it, even though the premise of a Native American indoor theme park and a casino strikes me as being slightly hokey, but people love the complex, which also offers a shopping mall for hanging out, Siouxland’s version of Mall of America. The Winnehaha Quadrant, a glassed-in park with Olympic-sized swimming pool, is where the reunion will be held. Temperature control year round, protection from the sub-zero cold in winter and the suffocating heat in the summer.

Siouxland is not known for its temperate climate; rarely do the thermometer and humidity readings hit the happy medium of 75 degrees.

A metaphor for my life.

Which reminds me of the unexpected acceptance letter:

___________________________

CIES

Council for International Exchange of Scholars
Eleven Dupont Circle, N. W. ● Washington, D.C. 20036-1257
Affiliated with the American Council of Learned Societies

April 15, 1990

Ms. Samantha A. Mallory
127 Tanglewood Road
Knighton, PA 17777

Dear Ms. Mallory:

It is a pleasure to inform you that the Council for International Exchange of Scholars has awarded you a nine-month grant under the 1990-1991 Fulbright program with France.

Your application to study painting overseas has been approved, and you will receive a nine-month stipend of $25,000, living expenses (for you, your spouse, and/or children), and studio space. You will receive additional information under separate cover.

Please sign the enclosed letter of intent and return by July 1, 1990.

Sincerely,

Dr. Inez V. Shorb
Executive Director

Enclosures

___________________________

I fold the letter and hide it in my underwear drawer. There is no way I can go to France right now. What would I do about Ian? Maybe next year....

Besides, I forgot to tell Sheldon I had applied for the Fulbright. Why bother? He’d never close up his successful practice and follow me to France on one of my whims. He’s worked hard for his standing in this community–for him to take off for an entire year, well, it just wouldn’t happen.

So why did I apply for this grant, anyway? Maybe just to see if I could do it. Yes, that’s it. But who would ever think they would take my application seriously? It’s a good thing they didn’t require a photograph. I would have been turned down for sure; I hardly fit the image of starving artist.

Still, I wonder what Sheldon would say if he knew about the grant? Or how I used an old artist boyfriend for a reference?

Evan must have really written up a killer recommendation....

What difference does it make? I’m not going to tell my husband. So I’ll never know his reaction. I’ll just have to turn it down.

And so that’s the end of it.

Finito.

Back to reunion details.

So Aunt Sal wants everyone to write a short autobiography.

How can I cram my life into 250 words or less? I suppose she just wants an outline, a thumbnail sketch of our successes, our silence about our failures, our silence about our deepest fears.

How can I possibly give her what she wants? I’m still editing my life. As long as I’m alive I’ll always be fine tuning my vision, staring at those concrete blocks that some higher power–I’m still trying to figure out who that might be–seems to place in my zig-zag path. No matter what turn I take, that no-good being finds it and plunks down another barrier.

Still, for Nana, I’ll write something short and safe. She’ll be dead soon–maybe even before the reunion, but I doubt it–and then I can write anything I want. If only I could remember something significant about my life. Not much there, really: I was born, went to Catholic schools, was graduated (if not with distinction), did the typical rebellion thing, had a child, got married, got divorced, went to college and graduate school, remarried, taught Intro to Psych courses, took up painting–in that exact order. If I change the order slightly and delete “rebellion,” I’ll have the sanitized version of my autobiography.

But I wish I could tell Nana how I really feel about my life and myself:

*

I wish I could tell you that I have discovered the right way to live and that my story will serve as an inspiration for God-fearing souls, you worshiper of Our Lady of Fatima and Mother Theresa. I wish I could tell you that I attend Holy Mass once a week, but the truth of the matter is, the Unitarian minister is lucky if she sees me twice a year, and then she has to ask my name. I consider myself lucky if I experience any kind of epiphany in my life–like finding my long-lost laundry list–and the only kind of rapture I know occurs between my legs. I still pray to St. Anthony when I lose something that must be found, but my pleas are sprinkled with intermittent swear words. By now, I have certainly worn out my welcome with the saints. I still love St. Christopher–though, like me, he has fallen out of favor, receiving a bum rap from Mother Church who doesn’t seem to understand him. All I know is if I needed help across the Winnehaha pool, St. Christopher would carry my 200-pound body without complaining. No fat jokes, either. On the other hand, part of me is still afraid of loving him too much and then being shunned as a heretic, afraid of what you would say.

I wish I could let you know how angry I am that you allowed my baby sister to slip out of my life for 30 years. I know that you had good reasons for not adopting her when you adopted me, but knowing them does not fill the hole in my life, the empty space that I sometimes try to fill with food. I wish I could tell you about the last time I saw her as a baby, how I cried and begged Daddy Platts not to take her away from me. I’ll never forget the despair in his eyes as he took Ruby away. I can’t tell you these things now–you’re too old and sick. I should have told you how I felt back then when it might have made a difference.

Now it’s too late.

And then there’s that time when Danny...well, I don’t really want to talk about that.

I want to tell you about the pain I felt when I got pregnant with Nikki, why I couldn’t tell you about the baby until after she was born. I wish I could commiserate with you about how Nikki and I don’t talk anymore, but, then, we’ve never really talked either.

I want to tell you that I should have never married Sheldon Weiss, the only living Jew in your estimation to qualify for sainthood. Would you be shocked if I told you about Ian, my new lover, how he gives me the psychic energy that Shel sucks from my soul?

You lied to me, Nana: men DO love fat women after all, especially if they have big tits. I’ve been fighting boys and men off all my life, and now I’m tired of fighting. I was never meant for monogamy, I’m afraid, not even serial monogamy.

Just like my mother, your daughter.

I want to tell you the details of my liaisons, some of them serious, most of them frivolous: Jackie, P.J., Andy, Darryl, Tom, Rob–

Snake. Snake Bodine.

–Doug (how you hated him when he had the audacity to marry me after calling you and Pappa “Uptight Hoosiers”); Evan, the artist; the drummer whose name I can’t remember; Tyrone, Doug’s best friend; George (I don’t know if I can count him–I’d never actually met him); Sheldon; Brian; and, now, Ian. But if I told you these things, you might not be shocked, and that would shock me....

I want to tell you that I’m now a slinky 5 foot 4 inches, weigh 105 anorectic pounds, have short saucy black hair, a creamy complexion, and slanted green eyes, but it would be a lie–except for the slanted green eyes. I could also tell you that I glide through life, blessed with a glib tongue and effortless ways, having become the granddaughter I never was but wanted to be, but that would be the biggest lie of all.

High self-esteem still does not come easily.

So, then, this is my other story, a story that even as you read, changes color each time I draw a breath, a story that zigs and zags as I stumble willy-nilly from point A to point God-knows-what.

*

Instead, I jot down the standard bio information: married to Sheldon Weiss–I don’t mention husband #1–has adult daughter Nicole, teaches nebulous college courses, such as “Painting and Psychology,” “Van Gogh and Jungian Theory,” “Freud and the Blue School.” Amateur oil painter. Main obsession: portraits.

Has painted over 100 geometric self-portraits in various shades of Prussian Blue.

Hides grant letters in her underwear drawer!

Never makes waves.

Prologue: My Other (Chapter 1)

Is this your first visit? If so, please click here.

My Other

I first became aware of my fat when I was two. Yes, I think that awareness came first, that moment when a blob of fat jiggled into memory, unblocking Jungian canals of prehistory.

It was only after fat-consciousness that I became aware of me as an entity in and of itself. In an instant, I went from nothingness to a wiggling amoeba to a suddenly complete human being sitting on a horse on a merry-go-round.

My breath caught me by surprise, almost as if someone had jumped from behind and frightened me into existence.

Now, what?

Colors, sounds, smells, touch, and taste flooding my body. Feelings– wild and random and terrifying, like a sea of voices screaming in tongues, pushing me under.

I can’t breathe!

Then, something–someone?–moving through the canals of my brain– organizing, filing, and deleting.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....AIR! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...!

I wasn’t feeling dizzy as the merry-go-round spun around and my horse pumped up and down, like a wave ebbing and flowing and ebbing and flowing....Carrousel music! David Rose’s “The Stripper.” Yes, I’m quite sure of the Da-Da-Dah, DAH, Dah, Da, da!, but I couldn’t know that then. But the memory knows what it knows.

Around and around and around we went, and something comfortable, a huge pink amoeba with red hair and three chins that jiggled, laughed, leaped onto the carrousel, latched onto a pole, and hopped side-saddle onto a horned horse. The platform sagged and groaned, but, still, we kept whirling around and around, this new presence singing from the depth of its guts, its words grooving into memory, “You can’t love me, I’m big and fat,” to the carrousel music.

The amoeba climbed off the horse, and leaped from the platform, disappearing beyond.

Where are you?

It was almost as if the merry-go-round were stationary and the rest of the world were spinning out of control; all I could see on the outside was a spin-art menage of people, tents, balloons, vivid colors curving around and around, enfolding me.

More color! Yet that blur was confusing, my world was here, and I was not yet ready for the beyond. Someday, I would find it, my amoeba.

I barely had language, but one word was all I needed:

Why?

I remember the awe of touching my cheek and feeling something elastic there, something soft and warm, something giving way gently to my fingers, something that, in turn, mirrored my touch.

What is it?

Then I noticed my legs. Again, a warm, elastic surface, but when I touched my leg, I could now see, for an instant, a white circle as the pink gave way to my finger. That is when I saw a fold in my leg, just below the thigh. It was just a curiosity, a place where I could poke my finger, a place where the skin could hold the tip of my finger captive. I liked this place, it felt real, somewhere I could hold onto without pinching and hurting, for the flat places of my new self pinched when I tried holding onto them. This fold, then, became my comfortable spot.

And then I noticed a surface unlike the pink one: my sun suit. The suit, yellow with brown and purple dots, ballooned at the belly. I patted this surface, but it was different; indifferent might be a better word, for it felt rough, flimsy, cool, and it didn’t mirror my touch–no me on me. Yet, it was obviously a part of me, and it too had folds like the ones in my leg.

This was very puzzling.

Then I noticed the horse beneath me.

Is this me?

What was me, anyway? When I touched the creases in its head, I recoiled: it was inelastic, cool, uncomfortable. Not me.

Otherness.

I began to get an inkling that when I touched some things, they were not feeling back, that some surfaces existed independently of me, and I was afraid. Then I noticed something familiar sitting in a sidecar next to my horse, its hands in its lap, my mother? She wore black. Her blunt-cut platinum hair blew stiffly in the wind.

I kept my eyes on her.

One other in an ocean of otherness.

She was now my other, an other who could stand up and walk away from me. I started to cry. She cooed something back to me, and I felt a little better, but not entirely. I still had a vague fear she could leave me on the horse, for–since I couldn’t remember getting on–I had no idea how to get off the merry-go-round.

Mama!

More soothing sounds. When I was sure my other wasn’t going to leave me, I wanted to know more about this other otherness, to know why I was.

For an eternity, I spun around and around and around and around, fat-consciousness coursing through prehistorical tributaries, my other now a certainty.

The last certainty I would ever know.

Quillery Home

What Happens When the Fat Lady Sings

So if Quillery is an online press, what is a nice editor like me doing publishing my own work? Doesn't that fly in the face of conventional wisdom?

I'll tell you why I am posting my novel on this site:

------1. Charity begins at home. Besides, if I don't believe in my own work, who will? I do believe in Samantha, my sexy fat lady, and she will get her day in cyberspace.

------2. Apparently no one else is going to publish my novel, and why should years of work languish in a drawer?

------3. Conventional wisdom is vastly overrated. Who says self-publishing isn't a real publication?

------4. Most small presses are simply variations of self-publishing anyway; If I start a small press and publish your work, you start a small press and publish my work. That's the way it works--a dirty little secret in the writing biz. A "publishing co-op" is simply a euphemism for subsidy publishing, all dressed up to look good for the colleges and universities who are looking to hire published MFA'ers. I simply refuse to play that game. I'm self-publishing my novel online, so there.

------5. Some distracted editor or agent might stumble upon it and actually like it. I could also win the Powerball Lottery (No, I haven't done that either).

A Short History of The Fat Lady

I wrote What Happens When the Fat Lady Sings as my creative thesis project for my M.F.A. program at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont.

Shiny new M.F.A. in hand, I, 43 years old, graduated in February 1994. At that time, the internet was still rudimentary and mostly a fearful place, filled with strange computer codes and even stranger geeks. It wasn't a place I ever expected to inhabit. Obviously, I was wrong, but I'll come back to this later.

A copy of my thesis novel resides in the Eliot D. Pratt Library Thesis Room, gracing the same room as David Mamet's undergraduate thesis, which, I must admit, I have perused.

I knew my novel was rough around the edges, so I set out to revise it. From 1994-2001, I revised it several times. In between revisions, it was rejected several times by various agents and publishers--a familiar story for most writers.

A few agents liked it but didn't feel they could take it on because it wasn't a mass market kind of book. Besides, it was "too long." And I was an unknown writer.

In 2001, What Happens When the Fat Lady Sings came very close to being published by a small press. But in the end, the editor felt that the novel was too long and unwieldy, and we couldn't agree on where to cut and other terms. So we parted ways.

In 2003, I decided to lift some of the chapters from the manuscript and develop a thematic short story collection. I carved out a 249-page collection, which retained some of the flavor of the original, but lost much of the tour de force. Thus, it was a muted version of the original with lots of gaps. But to make up for for that, I worked on creating individual stories that could stand alone. I believe I was mostly successful.

I sent it out the collection, facing yet again a round of rejections. My favorite one: "I can't sell this."

I'm not sure what she meant: in her mind, did the book simply stink or was a fat middle-aged woman not likely to appeal to a mass audience?

Well, it doesn't matter; she wasn't about to represent my work.

I seethed for about a year (well, not continuously), but in 2004, I decided to self-publish the collection. After doing a thorough search of self-publishing companies, I chose Infinity Publishing, mostly because the company didn't retain my copyright, and that was (and still is) important to me.

Are You EVER Going to be Thin? (and other stories) was released in July 2004 and is still available on Amazon.


The book has sold in the low three figures; I'm just a poor marketer of my own work; I'd rather write and work on the computer than go out to hustle book sales. It's my fatal flaw, I'm afraid.

The summer I published my book, I also discovered blogging; my first blog Ask eFatLady still exists, but I haven't posted much there lately.

Last year, I branched out into domaining (learning enough tech stuff to set up blogs with real domain names and add neat features, like Feedburner and StatCounter, but not enough to earn a living), and now I am in the process of developing Poets.net into a forum, which exists solely because some poetry sites would rather censor unpopular viewpoints rather than engage in constructive debates.

I'm not a poet, per se, but I like reading it. However, I'm finding that I'm not liking much modern poetry, which seems pretentious, boring, and self-aggrandizing. Anyway, that's another story.

But I started to think about the writing field in general; I have concluded that, overall, the literary gatekeepers, more interested in profit, haven't been doing all that well discovering great literature. Three recent great books come to mind: Angela's Ashes, The Kite Runner, and A Thousand Splendid Suns--a pretty pathetic record.

A few weeks ago, an idea popped into my head: why not simply post my novel? Create another blog, slap some ads on it, and I'm good to go. Publish a chapter or two a week and forget about offending some unknown gatekeeper. Instead, become a queen of my own domain.

I'm not going to go out on a limb and say that my work is great--it's not. I just want a break, but if I wait around for someone else to give my work a chance, I'll grow very old, and What Happens When the Fat Lady Sings will remain in the drawer for my heirs to toss away after I die.

At least here in cyberspace, perhaps someone will find my novel and read all or parts of it; a small audience is better than no audience. My work will be out there.

One thing I have learned as a domainer:

Fresh content, even ordinary content, is king.

And What Happens When the Fat Lady Sings IS 750 pages of unused content--a domainer's heaven.

So, for better or worse, each week I'll be posting (from the 2001 version) a chapter (or two) per week--until all 175 chapters have been posted, the cyber version of a serial.

I will not be revising (except to run the posts through a quick spell check), so it may be be a wild ride, indeed. Since 2001, my style has changed somewhat.

Check back here for new chapters.