I snatched the sanitary pad
she offered,
hurried to the privacy
of the bathroom,
and muttered to myself,
“Damn it, Mom!
What good are you?”
Notebook
I wish Carol was here. Every time I ask Mom why not, she coughs up junk about “red tape.” If Sis was here, I could ask her about stuff. Like periods.
I hate these lumps on my chest. They’re making my undershirts stretch, and when I run, I can’t keep them from jumping up and down. It’s annoying.
I don’t know why girls want boobs. What a stupid word. I wish my body would stay the same. Boys at school are starting to look at me funny. And so is Peter. And so is—no. I must be imagining things.
I’ve been watching Mom. I don’t like what I see. She’s started talking to herself, again. Damn it!
God, I hope this stuff isn’t in me.
Paranoid schizophrenia.
The words alone let you know
there’s something wrong.
On the surface,
my mother looks normal,
but she lives in a world
occupied by people
no one else can see.
Me, I’m just fighting to survive
Sick-Mom’s roller coaster ride till
Sane-Mom hops off at the end.
Sweet peace until that climb,
that loop, that fast drop
begins again.
DELIVERANCE
Desperate for stories
of outrageous adventure
to ferry me far from
my world and my mind,
I reach for my stash
of library offerings
where I’m fortunate to find
a weathered volume,
blue as the sea,
bulging with Viking lore
suited to me,
tales that can
sail me away.
NUTS
One late December, I woke at 3 a.m.,
teeth chattering and body shivering beneath
three blankets, which made no sense,
so I hopped out of bed to investigate.
My bedroom window was sealed tight,
radiator hot as an oven on kill.
I hustled into my robe and sprinted
first to the bathroom,
then downstairs to the kitchen
to double-check the windows there,
but found no draft sneaking in from either.
Next came the living room,
which was as far as I got.
The bay windows gaped wide,
inviting minus temperatures inside.
Sofa and chairs, smothered in vinyl,
were pressed against the walls, and
twelve painted saints smiled from glass jars
illuminated by burning candles placed
in a rough circle on the floor.
Flames licked the sides of each jar as wind
whistled through the room, sucking the
gauzy curtains half out the windows,
then blowing them in again. Pieces of
newspaper flapped and fluttered against
the polished top of the coffee table.
An eerie drone rose from the center of the room
where my mother stood humming and
swaying her body in a semblance of dance.
She whirled round and round in
her filmy peignoir, her eyes flecked
with wildness, her bare feet silently brushing
the floor, her mind in some private galaxy of thought.
I’m certain she didn’t even know I was there.
I clutched a handful of flannel to my throat,
shivering as much from fear as cold.
Jesus, I thought. What now?
One by one, I slammed the windows shut,
then ran to Mom, hooked her around the waist
and forced her to stand still, though not for long.
She shoved me aside and went right back to dancing.
Clark was useless when Mom was sick.
He never got her help.
Daddy wasn’t much better.
What is it with men?
Maybe this time I could get Daddy to step in.
I raced to the kitchen,
wrenched the telephone from the wall
and started dialing. Two rings down,
and my mother’s strong fingers
dug into my shoulder from behind.
“Hang up,” she said, her voice a steel trap.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled, not wanting to set her off.
“What were you doing?” I took a deep breath,
stiffened in case she had a mind to smack me.
“I was calling Daddy,” I said, turning to face her.
“Look,” I said, “I’m worried about you, and—”
“It’s okay, honey,” she interrupted, her voice
suddenly soft, purring almost. “I’m all right.
There’s no need to worry. I’m just doing this for Him.
You’ll understand some day. They’ll all understand.”
I didn’t ask who “They” were, or “Him” for that matter.
I just let her pat me on the head, and I went back to bed.
Come morning, on my way to school, I stopped at
the nearest pay phone, jammed a dime in the slot
and called Mom’s mother. I may have little to say to Mac,
but Mom’s still her kid, after all.
When I described the candlelight,
the dancing in the freezing cold,
Mom’s loopy language,
Grandma sighed, and muttered,
“Lord help us.”
She agreed it was past time
to call the men
in white coats.
Notebook
Who needs to see the movie Psycho?
Just stop by our house.
Don’t ask for popcorn, though.
We’re fresh out.
DETAILS
Not yet old enough
to sign commitment papers,
me getting Mom into a hospital
could be a roundabout affair.
On the rare occasion
when I was on my game,
I’d ring up the local gendarmes
as Mom was busy trying to, say,
burn the house down with
roomfuls of lit candles,
while winter winds blew in.
Then they’d take her for
a seventy-two-hour psych-eval,
no signature required.
But if I missed that window,
and I had Carol’s number,
I’d call her. She always knew
exactly what to do.
She’d find a grown-up,
sometimes Daddy,
but usually Grandma,
who’d do in a pinch.
We’d take Mom to
New York Hospital or Bellevue,
the loony bin we’re all too
familiar with.
If no adults could be found,
Sis would sign the papers and say
she was eighteen.
(She looked it, anyway.)
Sometimes, it took two tries
to get the hospital
to keep my mother.
She could’ve won
a dozen Oscars
for convincing doctors
she was lucid as you or me.
Only after she started
spouting off in mangled Yiddish,
or responding to voices
no one else could hear
would they finally decide
to take another look.
Sometimes, the three-day hold
was the most we could get,
then Mom was out again,
until the next time.
Are those details enough?
On this particular occasion,
I’m home alone with Clark,
shut up in my bedroom every night,
happy to have books for company.
Weeks passed before
the doctors let Mom go
so the awful cycle
could begin again.
Every damned episode
wore another hole in my soul.
Of my mother’s trips
to the madhouse,
you insist I recall details,
as if all I’ve done is casually forget.
You’ve yet to comprehend
the necessary truth:
I wadded up each episode
like toilet tissue, flushed it
as far down the drain as
memory’s septic system would allow.
Don’t ask me to remember
those details now.
COMMITTED
The Snake Pit is only entertainment
if you’ve never lived it,
never walked the halls
of a psychiatric ward,
squeezing past bug-eyed strangers
in oversized pajamas,
grabbing at your shirt cuffs
as if to pull you into
the psychic abyss they’re in.
It’s no place to have to leave
somebody you call Mother,
even if what connects you most
is pain.
Notebook
I hate hospitals. I hate visiting Mom in one.
The patients there all give me the creeps.
I still go, at least once or twice.
I have to, just so she knows
I’m not throwing her away.
THE VISIT
She slouched in the corner
near the gated window,
casually draped in
my mother’s perfect skin.
My much-rehearsed grin
and tremulous hello
elicited the usual
drug-induced spasmodic twitch
routinely followed by
the catatonic stare.
Although, while this was rare,
now and again, my studied patience
amounted to more than
its own reward:
a moment of clarity,
the startling presence of someone
there behind the eyes,
a total recall lasting all of maybe
ten or twenty seconds,
but, my God!
It was heartbreakingly beautiful
to behold.
Notebook
A few weeks in the psych ward, and Mom is back home.
Good thing I didn’t wait for Clark to get Mom to the hospital.
The last time she had a breakdown, I caught her running down
the street naked, and Clark wouldn’t even call the police, which
left it up to me. He was too busy being embarrassed that she’s
his wife. Leave it to him, Mom would never get the help she needs.
Thank God, this hospital stay was a short one. She seems to be okay.
For now. Naturally, she swears she won’t stop taking her pills
this time, won’t go back to the bottle. Old song. Same verse.
REUNION
By and by,
Mom got better and
Carol moved in after
more than a year.
Mom’s “red tape” excuse
had grown pretty thin.
It never made
much sense to me,
but so what?
Sis was finally there.
Every day,
I got to watch
Mom and Sis
do this dance:
One would retreat,
the other advance.
Neither agreed
what mother love
should look like.
I’d imagined us
sharing a room,
laughing and talking
late into the night.
But Mom said
a big girl needs
her own space,
so Sis, aged sixteen,
slept down the hall
all by herself.
Mostly, though,
I didn’t care.
The missing piece
to my puzzle
was here.
Two months in,
on Mom’s February birthday,
after Clark had gotten her
good and drunk,
I heard some
sort of ruckus
and ran into the hall.
Next thing I knew,
Carol was being
rushed out the door
by Mom
with no time for
explanation,
only my sister’s
whispered goodbye.
GONE
She must have a wand.
How else could my mother make
people disappear?
Notebook
Carol called today. She’s staying with Aunt Edna for a while, over in Manhattan. She still won’t say why she left, says one day, she’ll tell me, face to face, whatever that means.
Mom won’t tell me what happened, won’t even mention Carol’s name anymore. One minute Sis was here, then, poof—she was gone. What did she do wrong? I better watch what I say and do, or I might get kicked out, too.
There’s something about the way Clark stared at me last night—made me shiver. Wish I knew why. I know one thing: I was glad when he stopped.
Mom’s drinking again.
I saw her sitting up in bed, reading To Kill a Mockingbird,
a half-empty glass of dark liquid in her hand,
and a bottle of blackberry brandy on her nightstand.
I slipped into her room when she was at work and
poured what was left down the drain.
I don’t even care if she gets mad.
GRANDMA SALLY
There’s no checking your color
at the door when you’re
encased in black skin.
I caught Mom reading about
the Freedom Rides
and was well-versed in the
horrors of lynching
long before puberty.
The ghost of Emmett Till hung heavy
from the time I was five.
So, at age eleven,
when Grandma Sally,
my mother’s grandma,
asked my mother to send me South
for a visit, I flat out refused to go
even though it meant a break
from the madness that was home.
I was all for getting to know family,
but visions of me mouthing off
to the wrong white person,
or failing to step off a sidewalk
if ordered, or being dragged
off a bus because
I dared to sit up front
were recurring nightmares.
So, no, Mom, I told her.
Not going. Not ever.
Don’t send me there unless
you seriously want me to die.
I never got to see Grandma Sally.
I’ll just have to meet her
on the other side, where racism
has been excised
and justice is
common as dirt.
Notebook
Clark quit another job, the third since I moved in. When I came home from school today, he was walking around the house with a robe on and nothing underneath, unless you count that flagpole he was pointing in my direction. Ew!
I told him to get that thing away from me. He laughed.
Carol and I don’t talk much. It’s like we’re a million miles apart. Sometimes it feels like we were sisters in another life. When we’re in the same room, no one could be closer. When we’re in different places, it feels like distance is all we have in common. It’s a different kind of normal, when the foster system splits you up. You’re connected, but not. Doesn’t mean I don’t miss her.
SIX O’CLOCK NEWS
Stomach growling,
I walked into the living room.
“Mom, when’s dinner?” I asked.
She put a finger to her lips,
pointed to the TV.
A young man named James Meredith
flashed across the screen,
hedged in by snarling white men,
women, and even children,
celebrating their communal hatred
by pummeling this brown man-child
with eggs and epithets
I wasn’t allowed to use.
Only National Guard troops
got him through the doors
of Ole Miss.
And what was all that
ruckus for?
Somebody colored
wanted to enroll
in a white university!
Deep inside,
I felt a burning
send my appetite
up in smoke.
Notebook
I’m black.
You don’t like that, do you?
Liar.
Who’s that I see
lying on the beach
with suntan lotion?
Is that you?
Yeah, I’m black.
But you like it.
Can’t have it though.
It’s all mine.
CLANDESTINE CHRISTMAS
Ordinary Hazards Page 7
