What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  “That’s right. I could never look Kade in the eye again if he saw my vagina, especially with a head coming out of it. I mean, I love my husband, but Kade is, well, Kade is Kade.”

  “Got it. Never fear. If I have to push your dress up and take your underwear down on the first day we meet to help you get Watermelon-Head Baby out of you, I’ll do it.” She was clearly hurting. I wiped my forehead.

  “Thanks,” Bajal exhaled. “I think we’re gonna be friends. Do you like to play Scrabble?”

  “No.” I was bad at Scrabble. Truly bad. I only used Scrabble letters in my collages. “How about if I take you to the hospital?”

  “Not yet. I hate hospitals. They make me get the willy-jillies. Make sure you sign that application. I’ll tell Kade you offered to help me give birth here. That’ll help you. Shows initiative. Helpfulness. Courage. I mean, what woman truly desires to see a strange woman’s vagina?”

  “It’s not first on my own personal list, but I would do it for you.”

  “You’re a pal.”

  “Thank you.”

  Later that afternoon, I reached inside my glove compartment, pushed my gun aside, and pulled out a ceramic, shiny pink box with three dark pink roses on the lid. The gold clasp was in the shape of a heart. I had bought it for three dollars at an estate sale when I was twelve. It was in the home of a ninety-nine-year-old woman. I opened the box.

  I called it the lily bracelet for the simple reason that there were lilies—purple, pink, and red with green leaves and a fake crystal in the center of each one. Each flower was surrounded by gold and clasped together.

  When I was a little girl, my mother gave it to me. I remember the day clearly. My parents and I were at a lake, near a mountain. We had hiked in, leaving our VW yellow bus at the entrance. This was what we did most days. We camped. Often in a tent; sometimes in our bus. We stayed in different state parks and national parks and often in the middle of nowhere. In the winter, we drove to California and lived near the beach. My dad sang in bars and my mom sold her paintings out of the back of our van.

  After we went swimming, my mom braided my hair and said, “I love you so much, Grenadine, and so does your daddy. We want you to have something special.” I called her Mommy, but other people called her Freedom.

  “It’s your mother’s, hummingbird daughter,” my dad said, strumming his guitar, “but she wants you to have it.” He liked to call me the names of animals and birds he loved. I called him Daddy, but other people called him Bear.

  My mother took the lily bracelet off her wrist and wrapped it around my wrist three times. “See how it sparkles?”

  “Hang on to it, unicorn girl,” my dad said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t lose it.”

  That night we located the Big Dipper as we always did, unless it was cloudy, and ate pink cookies.

  I knew later, as a young adult, that it was a pretty piece of costume jewelry, probably picked up at a street fair or a drugstore, but it was all I had of them.

  I touched each lily. They had weathered well over the years. I loved the bracelet—it was my most treasured possession—but what I remember most about that day was my parents’ love for me. Their hugs, their kisses on my cheeks.

  I heard their voices again.

  Run, Grenadine, run!

  What happened to them?

  Run, Grenadine, run!

  I had not enjoyed my stay in the downtown jail at all.

  The FBI came to arrest me at my home, Covey’s home, handcuffs and all, and I was read my rights. They were polite but firm. They put me in the backseat of one of their nondescript cars and tried to talk to me in a conference room downtown. I have a low trust level for the police and authority figures, and I asked for an attorney. Twice. My exact words were, “If you think I’m talking to you without an attorney, then you are stupider than you look.”

  Then I went to jail.

  I spent ten days there because of a small fighting problem.

  It felt like a claustrophobic lifetime. A lifetime I had lived before, although technically I had not been in jail before, only Juvenile Hall, which is its own sticky, black, dangerous nightmare.

  The intake area was light green. Think of a slimy light green. That is the color. Walls and floor, with a darker slimy green around doors.

  I arrived in handcuffs. I was told to remove my jewelry and valuables and check off what I left there on a long yellow sheet. I took off the $10,000 wedding ring Covey gave me and checked off “ring.” I checked off “earrings” for a pair of diamond studs. I also had silver bangle bracelets with tiny rubies, and my lily bracelet, which I wanted to kiss before I dropped it in the envelope but didn’t because I didn’t want to appear insane.

  There was a white ribbon running through my white lace shirt, and I was told to take that off so I wouldn’t use it to kill myself. Same with my belt with a silver buckle.

  I signed the paperwork.

  Another set of paperwork was filled out by one of the officers who brought me in. It listed all my vital stats: name, age, address, vehicle, height, weight.

  I was fingerprinted. There’s something about the way they roll your fingers that makes you feel like you’re giving up on yourself right there. I was led to a small table by a sergeant with brown curly hair and gold hoop earrings and told to look straight ahead for my mug shot. I was then photographed after being told to look to the right at the red X.

  While I had my photograph taken I listened to a man in one of four tiny cells screaming the f word every third word while he demanded his “American rights.” I later learned those cells are for people who are flipping out; are filthy, as there’s a shower in one cell and used by many homeless people; or have a contagious disease like tuberculosis.

  I was then led to a person who was called “Medical,” who asked many questions: What medications are you using? Have you ingested any drugs? Have you ever taken drugs? Were you raped or assaulted on a previous visit here? Is there someone we need to keep you separated from while in jail? Did I have any injuries or health issues?

  While I answered questions, two gangbangers came in yelling, mostly at each other, and were forcibly separated. A woman was brought in with pink and blond hair and a bird tattoo on her neck. She was humming and wouldn’t stop.

  A man was dragged in front of me, head back, voice on full throttle, hair matted, vomit down the front of him. It was obvious he’d been out on the streets. They dragged him into the tiny cell with the shower. “Come on, Jeffy,” one of the officers said, kindly. “Ya need a shower, dude, ya stink. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Jeffy didn’t want to get cleaned up because he knew the water was poisonous. He struggled again, then started crying and asking if his mother was here, and if not, could they call her. “Her name’s Nance. Nance. My mom.”

  It was sad and pathetic.

  I could not believe I was here.

  I was told by the sergeant in charge of me to follow the black stripe on the floor to a large closet where they stored prison clothes. I was led to an open cubicle and told to strip. She was a no-nonsense, don’t-mess-with-me sort of woman.

  I took off all my clothes, my hands trembling so hard I could hardly manage. I was given a dark blue bag with a black zipper to put them in. She examined me front and back, then I was told to bend over, spread my butt, and cough.

  I hesitated for a second, and she told me, again, “Turn around, bend over, spread them, cough.”

  It is impossible to describe how demeaning and vulnerable it feels to be naked, bent over, pulling your butt cheeks apart, and coughing while someone watches, so I won’t try.

  “People put all kinds of things up their human suitcases,” she muttered.

  Swing me a cat! “Up their butts?” She allowed me to turn around again.

  “We see it all the time. Sometimes they hide it behind a tampon. That’s why we don’t allow tampons here.”

  Oh, gross. I hoped the curse would hold off another week. She gave me
prison-issued light blue clothing, a top with a V, and pants. They looked like scrubs but were heavier, rougher. I also received a pink T-shirt, a pair of beige rubbery sandals, pink socks, pink underwear, and an ill-fitting pink bra. All had clearly been used a thousand times.

  Each piece was stamped with the word JAIL.

  When I was dressed like an inmate, she handed me a baggie with a toothbrush and toothpaste, paper, a flexible pen so I couldn’t “use it as a weapon,” deodorant, shampoo, and maxi pads.

  She gave me two beige blankets, a bedroll, two sheets, a towel, and a pillowcase.

  “Do male guards do this with women inmates?”

  “Nope. Gender to gender. Let’s go.”

  We walked back out. A TV was on. Men and women, inmates like me, were sitting in chairs, waiting. There were officials everywhere, in beige, in uniform, with stun guns and pepper spray containers. There was little air flow. No windows. The whole world was now gone.

  There were cameras covering each inch of that building. You could not fart without someone knowing.

  We stood in front of a steel, light green door. It did not open immediately. We had to wait for someone else to buzz us through. I heard the buzz. The door opened.

  I thought about how much I hated Covey, then I put my shoulders back, put my tough lady face on, and gathered up my alpha personality. Jail is like the jungle. The weak are preyed upon.

  I would not be weak.

  I would not be prey.

  My divorce attorney, Cherie Poitras, called me.

  “How are you, Dina?”

  “Not joyful.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you are.”

  Cherie wears four-inch heels, animal prints, and black leather. Men fear her. She likes it.

  She rides a motorcycle and currently has four foster kids, which made me like her from the start. She has an edge and had a lousy childhood. We got along.

  I met her when she commissioned a mural from me. I showed her a design I thought she might like. It was a woman holding a bow and arrow. The bow and arrow were authentic. I’d attached it to the canvas and to the plywood under the canvas. Surrounding the bow and arrow were flowers I’d made out of beads, as if they were flowing gracefully through on a wind stream. The whole ethereal effect was an interesting juxtaposition to the man running in the distance, away from the bow-and-arrow-shooting woman.

  Most of her clients are divorcing women, and they are unhappy. Perhaps that explains the collage best.

  She put the collage on the opposite wall from a sign stating her company’s motto: Poitras and Associates: We’ll Kick Some Ass For You.

  Cherie told me about her strategy to “rack Covey’s genitalia.”

  “I will get this done for you, Dina. This is gonna be fun. You know, fun like you and I have when we go to target practice. Shooting fun.”

  Shooting fun. I knew who I wanted to shoot.

  On Saturday morning, jittery, anxious, I grabbed my sketch pad and a black charcoal pencil and drew a girl in a closet, her arms over her head, semiburied behind clothes and shoes, a rat in the corner.

  I drew another picture of her with a leash on her neck, being dragged.

  I drew her alone in a forest.

  I drew her in the hospital, unconscious.

  I drew quick, angry, panting, biting my lip.

  When I was done, I felt like there was nothing left in me.

  I have tried burying my past.

  It doesn’t work.

  This is how I push it back.

  They had all called and e-mailed many times.

  “It’s our Grenadine!” I heard her shout when she picked up the phone. “On this here telephone, by hell! That Covey is a sick possum, and I want to run over him with my truck. You come on home to us. No one can come and get you here. We’ll hide ya. Right, boys?”

  I heard them shoot off their guns in the background, yelling their agreement that Covey was a “dead man” and a “skunk-shooting loser” and “By shots and by fire, we’re gonna smash him with the tractors when he’s not lookin’!”

  I made the second call after the first. She cried when she heard my voice. “I love you, baby. Come here and live with me.”

  I told her I couldn’t. I needed to be out of town, and I didn’t need her, or them, harassed by the press. It wouldn’t look right for me to hang out with felons, either, unfortunately.

  I bent my head and sobbed. Love will do that to you sometimes.

  There were a lot of martinis and daiquiris ordered on Monday night at The Spirited Owl. Plus beer. Rivers of beer.

  Two men hit on me. I actually saw one eye me up and down, smile, then, when I turned away, he took off his wedding ring and slipped it into his coat. I saw what he was doing via the mirror behind the bar. What a jerk. When he said to me, “How about dinner, Miss Green Eyes?” I said, “Get your wife on the phone. Let’s ask her first. If she says yes, my answer is still no, because I find you sneaky and weasel-like, but I am curious about her opinion.”

  The men around him laughed. He weaseled off that barstool.

  The other man was polite, asked to take me to coffee. “Ah, coffee,” I said. “So you don’t think I’m worth dinner?”

  He backed up, asked me to dinner. I smiled. “Thank you, but no. And remember, if you want to impress a woman, ask her to dinner. And pay for it.”

  It’s degrading to be hit on all the time as a bartender. It’s not flattering. It doesn’t boost my ego. These men, for some asinine reason, think that a bartender is easy game. Probably because I serve them drinks and listen to them. To them that equals, for some ball-knocking reason, that I must be attracted to them.

  Men are so clogged in the head sometimes I want to bang their heads together and let their brains crawl away.

  I also heard the usual complaints from various men:

  One slug of a man said, “Women are so picky. If you don’t look like Brad Pitt or you’re not rich, they don’t want you.”

  I said, “No, they don’t want you, Marley, because you look like you have a baby in your stomach, you’re unshaven, you drink too much, and all you want to do is talk about yourself and whine in that whiny voice of yours. Would you be attracted to you? No? Then why would a woman be?”

  He stared at me, eyes wide in his big, bald head, then said, slowly. “By God, you might be right, Grenady.”

  “I am right.”

  The next complaint was a ringer, to which I showed a boatload of compassion: “My wife’s always complaining because she don’t get no free time cause of the kids.”

  “How many kids do you two have?”

  “Five.”

  I slammed a pitcher of beer down. My anger is always simmering. “You’re here every night and you’re complaining about your wife because she says she needs free time? You must be joking, Selfish One. What do you think you’re doing here? Working?”

  “Uh. No.”

  “You’re having free time. I dare you to let your wife come sit at this bar and you go home and take care of the kids.”

  “I don’t want my wife here! There’s a whole bunch of men here.”

  “Why don’t you go home and love your wife before she discovers there’s a whole bunch of men here and chooses one to live with who is not you?”

  His face paled.

  “You think she won’t do that? You think she won’t fall in love with some other man simply because she said ‘I do’ to you years ago when she was young and not thinking rationally? She said a vow and you think that will keep your wife from leaving some jackass husband who goes to a bar like a liquor leech and talks behind her back?”

  “Uh.”

  “Uh yourself. Ask yourself an easy question: What are you doing to keep your wife in love with you? What?”

  “I’m her husband!”

  “Big deal. I can assure you that part is not impressive. All you have to have to be a husband is a marriage license and a dick. Yours is probably small, but she signed the paper, poor woman. Yo
u should do what you can to prevent her from signing another piece of paper saying you are now her ex-husband because her life would be easier without you. Now, good-bye.” I took his beer. “Tip first, Selfish One.”

  He gave me a five and scuttled on out.

  Tildy came up behind me. “I believe you’re teaching the men some life skills.”

  “Never too late to learn.” I took a deep breath and buried my flying temper.

  “I grew up on a ranch, and I’d call some of the men we deal with in here Buzzard Kill.”

  “As in buzzards would kill them?”

  “As in that’s about what they’re worth.” She knocked on the bar with her knuckles. “You know, Kade Hendricks made this bar for me. It’s my most prized possession. Kade himself gave me a deal on it because he likes my Blue Stallion Crunch. I always make his burger myself, to thank him for this.” She bent and kissed the bar. “Exquisite.”

  “I hope he hires me.”

  “Betcha he will, Grenady. You work hard.” She crossed her arms and laughed. “But do not try to cut that man down to size like you do with some of the men in here. That man’s a man, and he would not take kindly to that.”

  “Thanks for the insight.”

  “My pleasure.” She got her gun out to clean it again.

  That night, buried under my blankets and sleeping bag, I thought about my little green home, the house I owned before I met Covey. I sold it after we were married, when he pushed, because I was in love and grossly irrational.

  It was small, maybe a thousand square feet, in a Portland neighborhood that was somewhat edgy, on the poor and ramshackle side here and there, but many of the houses were being remodeled and repainted, and new shops were going in nearby, so it was up and coming.

  My home was about eighty years old, with old-fashioned built-in bookshelves, a built-in dresser, and a white fireplace surrounded by shiny, emerald green tile. When I ripped up the stained, gray carpets I found untouched wood floors.