Her Own House

by Kim McCoy

  matilda yawned and mammy who stood smiling in the window didn’t realize that Abe had slipped out of the room until she saw him standing behind his father pulling on his coattails.

  “Daddy, Daddy,” he said.

  “Boy, what you doing out here?” Master Beauregard said. “Can’t you see this is grown men’s business? Go on back to your mammy ’fore I kill you and her both.”

  At that, mammy ducked out of the window, but kept her ears open.

  Abe stood still, and his father noticed that he had gotten taller since he’d seen him that morning. But he figured that couldn’t be the case, and assumed the gin had gotten to him.

  “Alright I’ve had enough of this,” Master Beauregard said. He grabbed Abe by the arm, and Abe clamped his free hand around his father’s elbow.

  “What the hell?”

  Master Beauregard didn’t realize his child’s own strength.

  “I can’t move! I can’t move!” he shouted. A group of five men seated at the table closest to Beauregard approached them. They each grabbed a different part of the boy’s body. One man per leg, one man per arm, and another at the waist. And they pulled. And they pulled. After several minutes they popped the boy from his father who turned a bright shade of red. Master Beauregard reached for his rifle and took his place among his men.

  matilda came outside, not knowing if she ought to believe what she was seeing. The boys followed, filing from mammy’s house into the yard, the biggest ones holding onto the littlest ones. And it seemed like they kept coming and coming, some mammy and matilda didn’t even recognize. The boys, who seemed older with their new teeth and freshly shed baby fat, started shouting incoherent words at the men--their fathers and uncles and grandfathers. They walked forward, a little faster with each step, as if they might just run the men over. The masters didn’t like this at all. They raised and cocked their rifles. A few cowards sneaked off to their horses and carriages.

  mammy’s smile started to grow bigger. Something in her was changing. The smile was real this time. From somewhere, a loud bang, as if a mighty bull had fallen from the sky and crashed into the ground. A gun had been fired. The bullet raced through the air and found a landing pad on the tongue of 20-month-old Peter McNab. He had jumped out of his brother’s arms and opened his mouth wide to catch the treat. He swallowed it whole, and opened his mouth again, starving for another. A trickle of blood oozed from the corners of his lips. He tried for another and it missed his mouth and ricocheted off his chest thanks to the pancake hidden in his breast pocket.

  Bullets zipped along invisible highways in the air, and the boys jumped to reach them. They poked out their chests, and laughed as they watched the bullets bounce off of them. Until then, they never suspected pancakes were good for more than eating.

  mammy stood in the middle of it all, smiling, bullets bouncing off her big butt and big red lips. The babies that usually clung to her were trying to catch bullets instead. matilda stood nearby, bullets swirling around her but never hitting her. She was trying to keep everything straight, so she would be able to tell her sister exactly what happened.

  As bullets continued to fly, the boys’ started to grow tired. The pancakes that had been safely tucked away were starting to give. They were becoming flimsy and pliable and making it harder for the boys to fight the bullets. mammy knew she had to make her move before it was too late. As the final bullets flew, she whispered into matilda’s ear, “I’m going to follow a star.” matilda’s blue eyes looked dazed. mammy wasn’t sure if she had shocked matilda or if matilda was too captivated by the bullets to hear her. mammy slipped back inside the house, grabbed a satchel of pancakes from the pantry, and walked out the back door into the woods.

  The battle of the boys and bullets went on until 34 hours had passed. All the boys were laid out on the ground, still alive, but exhausted when it was over.

  Master Beauregard put down his rifle. Abe had fallen asleep.

  “Abe, boy, wake up,” he said.

  He shook and shook his boy who slowly opened his eyes.

  “Boy, you crazy and don’t know nothing. But I’m proud of you. You’re a man alright.”

  Abe nodded his head, and stood up, shaking some shrapnel from his trousers. Something seemed different to Abe. He always thought he wanted to be like his father when he grew up, but now he wasn’t so sure if that was a good idea.

  He walked away from his father and into mammy’s house. matilda was munching on some pancakes mammy had left behind for her in the pantry.

  “Where’s mammy?”

  “She gone.”

  “Where she go?”

  “To make pancakes far from here.”

  “Makes sense. She makes the best.”

  Mammy made her way through the woods, smiling and taking a bite of pancake every now and then. She didn’t even stop to rest. Nobody chased after her with a dog and a rope. She was safe. Just walking, walking, walking in a straight line northward.

  What she left behind turned out to be just the first battle. There would be four years of it. Mammy’s house made it through, and still smells of pancakes.

  Diary of a Video Honey’s Daughter

  1.

  I don’t know what to get her for Mother’s Day. So I think and think and think and decide to give her some advice. Even though I know Mother’s Day is one of those holidays where you’re supposed to get something you want, not something you need.

  I use a template on the computer to make a card and I write:

  Thank you for taking care of me all these years. You’re a good mother—and smart, too. That’s why I want you to know something very important. Your body is a temple. Stop abusing it. You’re beautiful. You could do better. I love you.

  I give her the card, and wait for the tears to roll. She reads it and throws it on the coffee table.

  “Everything I do is for you,” she says.

  I don’t know if I believe her. But I stand there, hoping for a thank you. She goes in her room and closes the door.

  2.

  I didn’t know her breasts were that big—not that there’s anything wrong with big breasts. I just don’t advocate exposing them like that. They don’t look anything like mine. Mine are more like two peach pits buried beneath the skin.

  Her Sears bras are good quality, much better than those cheap paper things clinging to her nipples now. They remind me of those little umbrellas that sit on the lids of those frozen, fruity drinks.

  I wish she’d stop turning this way and that way, and squeezing her breasts together in front of the mirror.

  She looks gross. She embarrasses me even when we’re the only ones around.

  She says she’s going to be in another rap video and that I should be proud, but I can’t when those are her work clothes. Lisa says her mom dresses office casual for work. I like the way that sounds. I picture an enchanting sea of button downs and khakis.

  3.

  She makes me come with her on another video shoot. It’s almost like she’s trying to prove something to me. This time I see him up close. I hate to say it, but he’s hot. The number 69 is on his baseball cap. They all look the same. Wife beater, muscles, tattoos, bling. I guess nobody really wants to be different. The Goth kids at school all look the same even though they say they don’t want to be like anyone else.

  The door to his dressing room is open and she steps in. I’m in the break room across the hall and I see they’re talking but I can’t figure out what they’re saying. He runs his fingers through her fake hair and I cringe. The door closes, and I worry. I’ve only taken one bite of a chocolate doughnut and I throw it away and stare at the door. Another video girl comes by and offers to take me to lunch. She knows. I’m sure of it. I shake my head and keep staring.

  Ten minutes later Mom comes out of the room. She looks the same except her bright red lipstick has disappeared.
He’s close behind her. He pats her butt, and then looks up and winks at me. I turn away. She brushes past me and checks out her snack options on the table.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she says.

  “What were you two talking about?”

  “Business.”

  “I thought business talk happened in offices.”

  “You’ll thank me when you’re wearing designer clothes to school.”

  But I’m not into labels. That’s not my style. My eyes start to water.

  “It’s not worth crying over,” she says not looking at me.

  I breathe hard, holding back the tears.

  4.

  She comes into my room and sits down on the bed next to me. She looks around at the posters on my wall…Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou. I expect her to laugh, but she doesn’t.

  “Nice,” she says.

  She unfolds a crumpled piece of paper.

  “I read it,” she said. “The birthday card. Thanks for calling me smart.”

  I nod my head. “No problem.”

  I jump on my bed when she leaves the room. Up and down on the creaky mattress like a little kid. Yes, I shout. A breakthrough.

  5.

  She looks at her butt in the mirror in her bedroom.

  “I think I need ass implants. That’s what matters most these days, the ass.”

  “You’re big enough.”

  “It’s never enough.”

  “Why don’t you go to college? Then you don’t have to worry about it.”

  “Worry about what?”

  “How you look.”

  “It’s always about how you look.”

  I could see that, but I didn’t want to believe it. I’ve only seen one ugly female newscaster in my life. Her hair was stringy, her crow’s feet needed Botox, and her skin looked dry and sun damaged. I couldn’t believe they put her on the news. I changed the channel. It wasn’t fair, but I did it.

  6.

  So I decide to try something. Wearing a white bra and my best jeans, I go stand on the sidewalk in front of our apartment building, which is sandwiched between two strip malls. It’s a Sunday morning, so the street isn’t as busy as usual. A car goes by and the driver ignores me. Another one goes by and the driver, a man, does a double take, and keeps going.

  Another car goes by, and there’s a honk. It sets off a chain reaction. There’s car after car and honk after honk. Boys had never paid me much attention. Now men, real men, eligible to drive are noticing me. I consider running into the house, but decide to strike a pose instead. I bend my right knee and stretch my left leg behind me as if I’m doing a lunge, and I stick my arms straight out, parallel to the ground. Warrior pose. A yoga move I’d seen on TV. There is some power in this, but it doesn’t lead anywhere. No one is stopping. No one offers me a job or offers to take me out or asks for advice. They just look and keep going. It’s like I’m an object at the museum, except I don’t know if I belong in the Met or Ripley’s.

  Then a car screeches to a halt. It’s a woman wearing a big straw hat. She leans out the window.

  “My god! Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Does your mother know you’re out here like this?”

  “No. But she wouldn’t mind.”

  “Get back inside the house before you’re raped!”

  I just stand there.

  “If you don’t get back inside the house, I’m going to call the police and have them take your mother away.”

  I turn around and go inside. I wonder where this lady is coming from and where she’s going. I wonder if she’s got connections in the police department, or a daughter who shares secrets with her. I’m not sure if this lady is real. She seems like the kind of moms you see on TV, all worried and concerned.

  I decide not to tell Mom about this. But I wonder what she would have said if she knew a woman stopped for me and the men passed me by.

  7.

  Today she’s supposed to get her big break. That’s what that rapper guy promised her. I’m not excited that she’s going to be the lead girl. The one that he lusts after. Not just some extra.

  “This is it,” she said this morning. “It’s all about to start now.”

  “What?”

  “Fame and fortune.”

  When we arrive at the shoot, they tell her there’s been a change. They’ve found a replacement. The lead will be a girl from Venezuela, that’s what the 18- to 35-year-old male is into these days. They like their women muy caliente, not ghetto fabulous like her. Keep quiet and take your spot in the back, the way back, they tell her. Her bright expression from this morning falls and she doesn’t look me in the eye all day.

  The video is for a single called “Candy in the Club.” The Venezuelan, wearing a bathing suit made of Sweet Tarts, is portraying the best, raunchiest stripper in the club. She slides down a pole upside down, and the rapper tosses fifties and hundreds onto the stage, a sick twist on love at first sight.

  Other girls strut down the stage wearing candy canes, Snickers bars, and the like. Except her, she doesn’t get to wear candy. She’s somewhere in the background wearing a basic black bikini and I can’t see her most times.

  The video ends with the Venezuelan sitting in the rapper’s lap as he starts gnawing away at the Sweet Tart bikini top. She looks away, hurt. I put Sweet Tarts on my list of candies to avoid. I’m glad it worked out this way. Now she’ll learn her lesson. Now she’ll stop embarrassing us.

  8.

  Today she does nothing but complain. She’s going to get an agent and stop trying to do this by herself. She’s ready to move up in the world. She searches the Internet all day, looking for someone who can help.

  I’m less hopeful. Less hopeful that I’ll be able to make her see things my way. I go stand outside, waiting for that woman to drive by. This time, I’m fully clothed. I hope that she’ll stop.

  Somehow I’ll make Mom get in the car. We’ll drive away to a place where videos don’t exist. A place where you strike the warrior pose for yourself, not for a man.

  Freak

  Bella Alta wasn’t sure about her job anymore. She wasn’t sure if it was really what she wanted from life.

  Her office, as the carnies jokingly called it, was along the midway. The three, eight-foot high sheets of plywood with plastic bars across the front reminded Bella Alta of an upright coffin without the lid. It had enough space for a folding chair, but Bella Alta stood for several hours most nights so that people could witness her magnitude. The tops of grown men’s heads barely reached her elbow. Women could fit both feet into one of her shoes. Children developed crooks in their necks as they gazed up at her.

  When Bella reached seven-feet, ten-inches at the age of eighteen, the Guinness Book of World Records declared her the tallest woman in the world. Being a freak finally made her proud. She read about other record holders who joined circuses and fairs and made motivational speeches. Life finally had meaning.

  Bella Alta was a stage name that her manager, Joe, thought of. But most people called her Bella. She liked that her stage name was a mix of tall and beautiful. She had been called tall plenty of times, but no one had ever called her beautiful until she met Joe at the grocery store the year before. The grocery store was where Joe liked to scan for hidden talent. Bella was thumping a watermelon when he commented on the rare beauty of her large hands. He spoke to her about travel to exotic locales and making a respectable amount of money by just sitting and having people admire her like she was a work of art. Bella had just graduated from high school, and was easily swayed. Her parents didn’t protest because they didn’t know what else a girl like her was supposed to do.

  But after six months, Bella wasn’t sure that she was happy. She thought there had to be more to life than sitting around while people gawked at her. She
usually did her best to make a show, to pretend like she was a model in Paris, not a freak in the backwoods. But it didn’t always work. One time an old man who said he used to be a photographer started snapping pictures of her. And Bella struck poses like the women on magazine covers. She thought she looked pretty when she pouted her lips or leaned forward to show off just a little bit of cleavage. The old man’s son told him there was no film in his camera. And the crowd started laughing. Then the old man started laughing. And Bella wasn’t sure who the fool was—herself or the old man.

  No one could see Bella until they handed Joe a dollar. And Bella could not see anyone until they rounded the corner. She kept bottles of water and pain pills on hand because the sweet fragrance of funnel cake interlaced with the heavy scent of farm animals sometimes gave her headaches. Despite her low tolerance for odor, she loved to hear the piercing screams of children who braved the makeshift rides.

  Fairgoers often did not know what to make of Bella as she looked down upon them. Bella usually wore dresses to make her manly body appear more feminine, but for the most part she felt like a man in drag. Most of her dresses were handmade and Bella always felt out of style. She usually wore a little bit of eye makeup and lipgloss, and kept her black hair in a long braid down her back. She liked to smile and wave and blow kisses, figuring that the gentle-giant persona made her more approachable.

  She made eye contact with a handsome man in a business suit, and wondered what he was thinking. Rob tried not to look interested as he traced Bella Alta’s boyish curves with his eyes. He wanted to know more about her breasts. He couldn’t figure out if they were small in general, or just small looking because of her otherwise gigantic proportions. He thought that the only way to know would be to see her naked, but that made him feel guilty. He looked at his wife who seemed lost in her thoughts. She had one hand beneath her chin and her eyes were focused on the fine details of Bella’s face, her nostrils, the almost invisible hair above her upper lip and the tiny moles on her cheeks. Rob was glad. That way she wouldn’t be trying to figure out what was going on in his mind. Rob considered leaving and heading off to another attraction. That’s one thing they talked about at his support group—removing yourself from a potentially negative situation. Removing yourself may seem difficult at the brief moment when the decision must be made, but later it would be worth it. But there was no reason to leave, he decided. There were too many people around for him to fulfill his desires with Bella.