My Life in Clothes

by Summer Brenner

  As the MTA slowed for Central Square, the girls rose and stood at the door beside me. They patted their sprayed beehived hair and chorused, “Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!”

  I stiffened.

  The subway wheels echoed. “Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!”

  We rocked our way into the station and stopped. As the doors opened, the taller girl balled her hand into a fist and slammed it down on my arm. One punch and they were gone.

  Through the window, I watched them skitter on their spike heels across the platform, giggling and pointing back to the car where I sat, my tears spilling onto my beautiful spring coat.

  Monkey Suit

  After six weeks in the Yucatan, Simon and I hitched a ride from Merida with a lepidopterist who insisted on stopping every few miles (on dangerously narrow roads) to dash about with a net until he succeeded in trapping and pinning an exquisite specimen of butterfly. I watched as he exercised the superiority of our species, the principle (inspired by science and religion) that man will always have inferior beings to kill, eat, convert, and kick around.

  Our trip transpired over a couple of days through backwater Mexican towns (Chable and Catazaja) filled with beggar children whose ingratiating smiles were dingy, black nubs. “Where are their teeth?” I asked with alarm. They had no proper teeth because during pregnancy their mothers had overdosed on antibiotics (available at pharmacies without a prescription along with codeine cough syrup, a favorite of gringos).

  We arrived in Palenque, high in the Chiapan jungle. Our sole intention was a visit to the temples of the Mayans, and after spending a night at a local campground, we set out in the morning by foot. A friendly American couple in a VW van stopped and offered us a ride. They knew nothing about pre-Columbian splendor. We were equally ignorant of the crop of psilocybin mushrooms, flourishing in local pastures. When they dropped us at the ruins, they handed us a jar of honey dotted with discolored nubs (the size of children’s teeth). Honey, I would discover, was the best way to preserve, disguise, and transport illegal mushrooms.

  We trucked up the road on an unmarked path into the mist-drenched rainforest where a pyramid appeared in the clearing like an hallucination (who needed mushrooms?). The near vertical ascent up the temple steps was terrifying. Climbing down into the interior even more so.

  An ancient guardian of the site, reminiscent of Charon himself, held me firmly with one twisted hand while he tapped the stones with his staff. The narrow passageway of steep steps was slick with humidity and haunted by gloom. We descended slowly into the deep tomb. Dating back to 222 BCE, the tombs beneath the pyramids (unearthed only in 1952) once contained giant pearls, jade and obsidian masks (since removed to the Chapultepec Museum in Mexico City).

  Palenque was a small, off-route town, quickly familiar. In one of its two cafes, we met a young Mexican (dressed like a college student) who attached himself to us. “They’re federales,” he whispered, his eyes sweeping across everyone in the room. “They arrest mushroom hunters. You like mushrooms?”

  We weren’t sure. However, we agreed to drive with him into the countryside of rolling emerald-green pastures, violet mountains in the distance, fields enveloped by soft moist air, and a canopy of cloudless blue sky.

  Around us, a herd of Brahmin cattle munched happily except for the silvery bull who eyed us sideways with a proud, wild look of dominance. Briefly, he let us admire him, then lowered his candelabra horns, and kept them lowered until we turned around.

  We retreated to the far end of cleared land where pasture met rainforest. There was no shortage of clusters of small mushrooms, the color of twilight, cheerfully poking their caps above pods of steamy bovine feces.

  It crossed my mind that our companion intended to arrest us, but instead he eagerly began to devour mushrooms (unwashed). We followed suit. Promptly, I was communing with even greener grass and ungulates whose language I now intimately understood.

  We were there for hours. Or minutes? The light deepened, and time passed irrelevantly. Our only timepiece was an approaching storm which signaled late afternoon. The clear sky was swept from sight and replaced with masses of boiling black thunderheads.

  As we rose to leave, it began to pour. Simon retrieved a plastic raincoat from a packet the size of a postage stamp. Our Mexican amigo pulled out a battered poncho. I, however, was thoroughly unprepared. Wrapped in a cotton house dress (purchased for a few pesos in Merida), browned the color of a raisin, barefoot, with long braids entwined with florescent weeds, I trudged behind the two well-equipped men.

  Immediately, I was soaked. The thin cotton clung to me like tattooed skin. My face lifted to the warm rain. I opened my mouth and swallowed. I was deliriously happy (like a child) to be wet and surprised.

  Remember the diagram of Man’s Evolution? From ape to Homo sapiens? We were that picture of evolution. Blond, upright, and ever-prepared went first. Third-world brother trotted dutifully behind, ever second. And impervious to the downpour, I slipped backwards on a rain-soaked hillside that separated the divine emerald patches from the car.

  In my state of enhanced consciousness, I identified with creatures who had not yet invented plastic raincoats. It would appear I had barely advanced beyond the moment when cousin Lucy climbed down from the trees.

  * * *

  From Palenque, we journeyed by bus to San Cristobal where we lolled around for a month, visiting remote Indian villages and scribbling profound thoughts in our notebooks.

  We continued south to the Guatemala border. Like all foreigners (with long hair, blue jeans, and backpacks), we were suspected of conspiring with Che and subjected to a police search. Finally, we were allowed to cross. A rattling, smoking, crowded contraption carried us through the wondrous mountain landscape, jagged and compact. The indigenous highland peasant families, attired in glorious huipiles, traveled with us, getting off and on, with their livestock and large, loose bundles. Or standing by the road, frantically waving for the bus to stop as the driver indifferently sped by.

  Our destination (along with other young vagabonds) was Panahachel on Lake Atitlan, surrounded by volcanic peaks and twelve small villages named for the Apostles. Warm days, cool nights, swims in the clear, deep volcanic lake. For pennies, we swung in a hammock hotel and feasted at the beach side vegetarian restaurant.

  The earthly paradise was marred by bank guards with machine guns; oblivious hippies (especially men), sunbathing nude at the lake where the native women washed themselves (dressed in slips); Simon’s egregious flirtations; the theft of my favorite jacket (red-wine velvet with a peplum and grosgrain frogs); and my own bouts of nausea.

  We found Guat City filled with soldiers, foul smells, and indigents displaced from the impoverished countryside into sordid slums. On New Year’s Eve, the military (in training for death squads) goose-stepped their way across the city’s silent and deserted central square. No one was celebrating.

  Night and day, my nausea increased, triggered by the smells of sewage and cilantro. I searched out a clinic, stumbled through a few words of elementary Spanish, and pointed to my belly.

  They took a urine sample, and a few hours later when I returned, I was greeted by shouts from the clinica staff, “Positivo!”

  “Positivo sí?” I had to clarify. “Or positivo no?”

  “Positivo sí!” they cheered.

  “Positivo con niño? Or sin niño?”

  They embraced me, “Con niño! Con niño! Con niño!”

  Not only nauseated, I was now ambivalent. Unmarried with few practical skills, I was in a complicated relationship, possibly alone, nearly broke, and far from home.

  We turned around and headed north, stopping to rest in Oaxaca (where I was able to satisfy my craving for Corn Flakes); and again in Mexico City (where I was waited on by servants in the mansion of Simon’s former student).

  Two months later, as our train neared the US border, it separated (like a worm) in the middle of the night, his half wiggling its way towards Nogales, while I continued north to Tijuana.
Buses, trains, cars. I only wanted to lie down and curl up.

  * * *

  I was totally unprepared to start a new life in California. I had a hundred dollars cash, a small sum of travelers’ cheques, and the address of a friend in the Haight-Ashbury who let me settle on her couch.

  During my first week in San Francisco, I made my way to Union Square, the city’s elegant epicenter. Ten years earlier, my mother and I visited the city for the first time, shopping at I. Magnin, having our hair styled at Vidal Sassoon, dining on Nob Hill. Now, my hair hung in braids to my waist, and I dressed in second-hand huipiles, dyed in coffee by the Maya to cover the stains of wear.

  The American Express office was not far. I submitted a claim for traveler-cheque theft (valued at $500). The clerk processed the order for replacement and informed me that the new cheques would be available at the end of the day.

  By noon, I had qualms. I didn’t want to start my new life with a new baby in a new place with a scam. I returned to American Express and stammered to the clerk, “It was a mistake. A friend took the cheques.”

  “You said ‘stole,”’ she recalled, reaching for another set of forms. Apparently, I would now be required to press charges.

  “May I speak to your supervisor?” The question of choice when all else fails.

  “I don’t want them!” I cried as I confessed my pregnancy, my marital status, my lack of resources, and my impractical liberal arts education. The supervisor listened sympathetically. He would not call the police.

  Outside again, I was elated to have avoided both crime and punishment. With the guidance of a friend and the largesse of the State of California, I was soon provided with food stamps, medical care, and a modest monthly sum.

  Despite the emotional love storms (whipped up by Simon blowing in and out of town), I grew into a fat, contented animal. A fondness for my primate cousins was confirmed. I looked to them to remind me that existence itself contains all meaning.

  * * *

  I settled into a cheap flat in Oakland. For a short while, Simon settled in with me. My two closest neighbors were also pregnant. Every morning, we met to walk (slowly) and talk (distractedly) about our strange physical sensations, our weird frightening dreams, and our misshapen bodies performing at peak.

  I was invited to appear in a pregnant pin-up calendar. When the photographer asked if I had any nude fantasies, I suggested he photograph me in my 1957 Chevy wagon. I thought it was a classic, but for March, he selected a shot of me collapsed in a rocking chair. The collapse was no exaggeration. I was nearly three weeks past due.

  The evening I went into labor, I had spent the day at Muir Beach, lying immobilized on the sand. In fact, Simon had to push me up the flight of steps into our flat (he couldn’t have possibly carried me).

  Labor started while I was playing cards in the kitchen with my midwife. For several hours, the contractions were bearable. When they grew unbearable, I hunched naked on my knees on a mattress on the floor, my posterior lifted in the air. Embarrassment briefly prevented me from groaning. But embarrassment, along with other inhibitions, vanished.

  Once I began to utter animal sounds, I felt better. The midwife accompanied me. Together, we moaned and groaned for hours. By dawn, I was convinced the baby was about to be born. I was wrong. Seven more hours were to pass before the wet, bloody, mucous-covered creature was spit out between my legs onto the floor.

  The baby lay on my chest, and thankfully, I lay on a bed with clean sheets. From time to time, I yearn to recall the animal sensations of pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing, long engulfed by the troubles and pleasures of child-rearing. Occasionally, I find their reawakening in the pictures of apes whose expressions look familiar while all around me is a world of human strangers.

  White-Collared

  At first, I worked like a plow horse. I stayed late. I volunteered for extra assignments. Although unaccustomed to getting up early, battling traffic, and fretting over proper business attire, I was happy to have a job.

  By week six, my fatigue had resolved, but everyday ended with a headache. All day, I squinted at the computer. The work aggravated my eyes. Not only did I need a screen shield from the computer glare and overhead florescent lights, I also called for an appointment for glasses.

  Month three, my nasal passages ran like a sewer. I sneezed, wheezed, coughed, and spewed all day. “It’s normal,” my manager said, assuring me I would soon adjust to the poorly ventilated building.

  During week ten, my scalp started to itch. I couldn’t stop scratching. I suspected lice, contracted from the kids, but the diagnosis was severe dandruff from stress. The doctor prescribed tar shampoo and a metal comb.

  By the fourth month, I had some relief. For a few days, I actually felt well. Then, one morning, I awoke with a pain between my atlas and armpit. I couldn’t raise my arm above my elbow. A purse strap was unbearable. Sleep was only possible with a heating pad and pillow to hoist my torso. In short, I was crippled. I took high doses of anti-inflammatory drugs and made appointments to see a physical therapist, acupuncturist, and spiritual advisor.

  Twenty-four weeks on the job, fatigue, stuffy head, neck tension, and dandruff were behind me. However, for a split second every quarter-hour, I gasped for air. I assumed it was anxiety over a deadline, but the deadline passed, and the breathlessness did not. Eventually, this malady simply subsided, and I inhaled at a normal rate.

  In my seventh month, I was really managing. A paycheck came reliably every two weeks. Medical benefits were secure. The children had grown accustomed to afternoons without me. In fact, the days were fine. It was the nights that were untenable. Nightmares!

  As one ailment resolved itself, it was replaced by another, more ominous than the predecessor. Hydra had reared her ugly heads, and they were all inside my own.

  I didn’t have to look far for the cause. No doubt, the building was designed by a sadist. The ceilings were low and the few window slits reserved for a dozen executives. The interior walls, industrial carpeting, desks and file cabinets were uniformly battleship gray. Privacy was a ludicrous concept in the tiny cubicles that served as offices. Taps, buzzes, grinds, hums, burps, nail clippers, coughs, curses, and conversations dispersed into the open space above us. Sadly, even filled with human noise, the atmosphere was profoundly lifeless.

  Our building, located in a premiere industrial park, had paved over the premiere agricultural acreage that had once thrived with orchards. Traveling a few blocks in any direction led to four identical mini-shopping centers, each with a grocery store, a restaurant of ethnic cuisine, an athletic shoe store, and a nail salon.

  Inside my half-portion of cubicle, I tried beautification. I stuck my children’s drawings and a poem by William Blake on the carpet-like wall. Other employees also exhibited their personal touches, recalling who they were and informing everyone else who they might be if they didn’t have to work at the Data Center. Our efforts reminiscent of rituals in which the dead are buried with their prized possessions.

  In my ninth month, I was pleased to report all signs of physical ailments had eased and nightmares ceased. I had successfully joined the American workforce.

  * * *

  My next job was more convenient. I didn’t have to drive on freeways or worry about what to wear. No one complained if I left early. If the kids were sick, I could lay them on a pallet on the office floor. Although I was not paid much, I preferred being close to home.

  When a lawsuit forced the company to cut back staff, I received a pink slip, indicating income and health insurance were now terminated. Pointlessly, I remained in my office, tidying, emptying, dusting, packing. Most of all, I was waiting for a reversal of fortune. By closing time, the position of telemarketer had been rejected by six other employees. I was next in line.

  Whatever the job at hand, I exceeded expectations. Management found me cheerful and capable. During the second round of layoffs, the new Mr. President informed me he had personally saved my job.

 
“Personally,” he emphasized.

  Now, it was understood I owed him. Payback came a week later when he asked if I had time to help him pick out a suit at Nordstrom’s Semi-Annual Men’s Sale.

  “I never make the right decisions when it comes to clothes,” he smiled sheepishly. “My wife always chose them for me.” He was in the middle of a divorce.

  I found the courage to be blunt. I did not hold back. Shopping for men’s clothes was not in my job description. I had children to attend to after work. I couldn’t spare the time. In the next round of layoffs, I expected to lose my job. As it turned out, Mr. President lost his.

  * * *

  At the new job, there were just two of us. “My one and only” was how Herr Director described me to his astrologer. Our office was a renovated Victorian storefront a few blocks east of San Francisco Bay. We worked for a non-profit that did good work. Beware! The last time I was hired by a non-profit (an organization like David v. Goliath that battled nuclear arms), I was tyrannized and belittled by my celebrated humanitarian boss.

  In the new job, Herr Director used au courant terms like “non-hierarchical” and “empowerment” to let me and everyone else know he was not really a boss. He was a facilitator, guide, expediter, and friend. Although I did ninety percent of the work, whenever it was successful, he took the credit, and with his smooth, sententious manners, made us all feel gloriously connected to the process. His favorite pastime was spouting ideas. They were as prolific and ephemeral as gas and erupted every time he stopped by the office on his way out for a latte.

  The only time his casual, slovenly style (rooted as much in numerology as policy reform) reversed dramatically was the day before our monthly board meeting. Then, he was inspired to rush around, preparing reports, his mood altering from carefree to cruel.