“Let go.” She said in my mind. “Let go.” But in my ears I heard her say, “Let me go.” I could not do that. It is not safe to do that. I sat tangled with voices, things seen and unseen, fighting with me and against me, of me and beyond me. I struggled immensely to keep it together.
“Let go.”
I did not want to let go but she parted my fingers as if I could do nothing about it. The atmosphere turned blurry, sporadic and out of sorts. Something otherworldly emerged from the earth’s foundation in a spirit form of earth and nature, wisps of wind. It snatched the leaf crackle from my aching fingers leaving me void. My aching fingers. Her aching fingers. Our aching fingers. The leaf crackle emerged with the invisible entity, the phenomenon of kinetic power that swept up particles of earth, dust, debris, twigs, and leaves to form an obscure phantom.
It was here, then gone. I review the scene in my head over and over as if I’ve been there before. But how? And when? The tempest grabbed the leaf like a frightened parent embracing a lost child and held it with aching tenderness in a long gripping hug, while they danced around the yard as if time did not exist. Just the sight made me weep for reasons I didn’t understand. Everything in me, shifted, pieces of me rattled to life, waiting for acceptance, acknowledgment.
Disturbing things—joyful things—both alive and dead. My heart began to hurt. My gifted ears hear the brutal splintering of a crushed crackle shell. The pain brings the shadows out in groves and they squeal in pleasure. The adult Willodean could not take the pain. I shrank inside the house. The little girl took over. She closed my eyes and whispered my salvation. She made lovely my losses and gave me room to breathe.
Pink Elephants
Mag and I went to the skating rink every Saturday night. We’d get home around eleven thirty, just in time to change clothes, cook a bowl of popcorn and lay a quilt on the floor to watch The Midnight Special, followed by the infamous bad girls of Roller Derby. There is something in me that garners an ebb of satisfaction when a chick on rollers skates is shoved and sent flying over a three foot partition till her teeth chatters. My favorite girl is Midge Mayhem, queen of the penalty box. She made her mark as a Bay City Bomber in the early days and will mess a girl up in a hot second. She doesn’t play nice—it’s all hard ball for Midge. Rumor is, her hip bones were made of steel and insured in the millions which is why her famous move is called the hip whip. She played dirty and threw in some illegal moves which garnered her a change of namesake, queen of the penalty box. Mag, on the other hand liked Princess Lay-you-out. Come on. I mean, really? Those two words don’t even go together. It’s like peanut butter and lettuce. Little Ms. Princess in her roller skates wears a tiara and pink embellishments on her God awful uniform, looking like tinker bell on wheels. But don’t let her looks fool you. She packs a pink punch that leaves the others seeing pink stars. She had the Jekyll and Hyde complex, where she’s nice and lovely and then in an instant, rip your head off and feed it to swans. It’s ironic because I feel the same way about Mag. Don’t turn your back on Princess lay-u-out and never, ever, turn your back on the storm, especially, Maggie Storm.
The sand man would make an appearance sometime during the shows and sprinkle us with sleep dust leaving us to fall asleep on the pallet with the volume blaring. I’d dream that I was Midge’s co-partner in a round of hip whips and then she’d blare a horn in my ears, making me deaf and I’d awaken to see it was only the national anthem playing on the television. I’d slip back to sleep only to dream that I was wrestling in a frying vat of oil with the likes of Princess Lay-you-out. She had me in pink scarf headlock when I woke up to see it was only the crackling noise of static because the TV station went off and the pink scarf was Mag’s arm around my neck. I winched her off and fell back asleep only to slip right back into the pan and fried for what seemed like forever. Shusssssshzzzzzzzzz-crackle-shusssshhhhhhzzzzz-crackle-shuussshhhhhzzzzzz.
Princess Lay-you-out would kick, gnaw and grill me the whole night. Sometimes, I’d sleep crawl through the thick oil trying to find the way out. In the morning, I’d wake up with my body half under the television, my head lodged in the popcorn bowl, kernels scattered across the quilt and Mag’s feet jacked up around my neck, while the television blared its awful static sound.
When I got bored, which was often, and Mag was out gallivanting with her rich friends, I’d search for evidence of pink elephants. We had one somewhere, I just had to find it. It started at the skating rink when I overheard Janet Corbin’s mom, Eloise talking to Sue Fletcher and Linda Latham. I was on the other side of the deli partition adjusting my wonky skates when Sammy Stewart rolled up on me like a smooth talking sailor. Ugghh, just what I need.
“Wanna skate darling?”
“No. I’m busy.” I said harshly. I shushed him away with my hands and besides I was busy listening to the gossip on the other side of the wall and it was just now getting to the juicy part. Sammy shrugged and skated off only to spin around and come back.
“Come on Willodean.” He had a sad puppy dog face.
“I. Don’t. Like. You. Go. Away.” I said like the devil. What an imbecile. I shushed him away four times but he was an insistent shit. I had missed a ton of information. Apparently, he was used to dealing with the devil because he kept hounding me to skate as if his pleading was going to get me to cave. I was on the verge of screaming. Sammy wasn’t my type, all legs and lanky, and he had the biggest and straightest teeth I’ve ever seen on a guy, enlarged white chick-lets inserted in his gums. Plus he showed off and talked about what he had all the time, new clothes, new hat, new jewelry, new skates, his parent’s house, swimming pool, blah, blah, blah. He wore his fancy patent leather skates every Saturday night. They were slick black with dice on the laces. One of a kind, made in France by a veteran shoe maker, he told everyone, over and over again.
I simply ignored him in hopes he would go away but after the fourteenth plea, I went straight up Midge Mayhem on him. My hips whipped him a swift cut to the side. It hurt like the dickens but I reckon the roller derby queen would have been proud. Last I saw Sammy, he was rollicking across the rink like a rickety old cart. The hip whip must have traumatized him because he lost his balance, crashed into a line of people and landed on top of June Blackburn. It was a perfect love collision. June’s crop hair was as black and shiny as his pristine skates. Sammy never bothered me again. Who knew I was a matchmaker.
I went back to listening to the women gossip at the booth. I had missed a backlog of information already, so I had to fill in the missing parts with whatever I could come up with in my head. I came in on the middle of the story, when Betty, such and such, I didn’t get the last name but anyway, she had a dark secret but in reality it wasn’t a secret at all because the whole town knew about it and if the whole town knew about it, then it was a pink elephant. This is how I learned of those pink secret keepers and it’s also how I learned women had potty mouths worse than men. Shocked Betty found out her ten year marriage was a sham because Ralph, her lying, no good for nothing, cheating, sonsabitchen husband had been sleeping around with the town whore. Betty was a traditional Baptist martyr who refused to confront the two timing bastard with tiny brass tacks for balls, because of submission or something to do with the law or God, I don’t know, but come to find out, she just pretended it never happened, drowned herself in a bottle of bourbon and spent all his money in revenge. That’s when Sue Fletcher said three words. Addy Mae Henderson. Uh. Oh. According to the gossip mill, Addy was the secret behind the secret, behind other people’s secrets, and the secrets no one dared talk about. Lord, I was getting in on the good stuff. My ears were nearly on fire. Even I knew, that the mere mention of Addy Mae Henderson’s name would turn women heated and a little crazy. Tonight was no different. The conversation turned to men who are bastards, men who cheat, men who drink, men who are sorry, no good for nothings and the final curtain closer—one day that whore is going to get what she deserves.
What does she deserve? Why? What? Right
when I thought I’d get my answers, I got slapped in the side of the head with a two by four that left me seeing pink stars until I was sure Princess Lay-you-out had found me. I sat up slowly, my eyes envisioning a multitude of prismatic colors. I looked down to see a wallet lying neck to me. In my head I replayed the montage of events that transpired simultaneously.
The charismatic DJ on the microphone said, “All skate. All skate.” Lights flickered and the disco ball in the center rink spiraled in a cosmic glow of colors and lines. Bangs, clangs and loud shrills came from behind the partition. The music blared from the speakers and a mob of skaters entered the rink. The particle board partition was like a rubber band pop to the face. It knocked me clean on my back. I felt a leering dark shadow over me. It was Sue Fletcher. Her slanted eyes told me she knew I was snooping and likely heard every word. To save face, I grabbed the wallet and jumped up, “This must be yours” and I skated away. Evidently, a group of boys were speed skating where they shouldn’t have been and careened into the table of women gossipers, and knocking the partition off its stand.
That’s okay, gossip fest or not, I had all the information I needed for now. I skated around the rink and pondered it. Every family has a pink elephant, imagine that? It’s a secret that’s not really a secret, per say. A secret behind the secret but everyone refuses to talk about the secret because the secret is in plain sight for everybody to see but no one wants to talk about it, so it’s really not a secret but a pink elephant. It’s confusing but made total sense to me. I couldn’t wait to start searching. Would our pink elephant be big as Texas, as big as Baptist churches, as big as Texas hairdo’s?
Lena picked us up from the skating and I didn’t hesitate. As soon as the door slammed I asked her where I should start looking for our pink elephant. She almost had a wreck pulling out on the highway. I grinned and took this as a sign I was on the right track.
“Where on earth did you hear such a thing?” Lena said in a snippy tone. “Have you been hanging around that girl again?” I rolled my eyes. Not again. That girl is part of a white trash family who lived down the road. I learned real quick-like growing up in a small southern town that families are labeled and white trash is only one of the nicer ones. Lena forbid us to have anything to do with the likes of white trash. That girl she referred to is Bonnie McAdam's. Bonnie is Mag’s age and a freckled redhead with matted hair and impetigo from top to bottom, a skin condition that came from being unclean, so sayeth Lena. Bonnie’s mother reminded me of Natasha, a cartoon character on Rocky and Bullwinkle, pale skin, toothpick figure and oily black hair. Her name fit her perfect too. Lucinda Pearl’s paper skin contrast with her black eye liner and it made her look like a vampire. Lucinda was having an affair with a married man which didn’t seem to bother folks in Pine Log, it was more his skin color that drove folks nuts. His coal black skin matched her coal black hair and that made women nervous and bite their nails and made men load their shotguns and hide their daughters. Oh, but worse than that is the offspring the affair produced. Which according to town gossip is an abomination. The child was a little boy name Nathaniel, a half breed which is another label. We just called him Nat for short. He was two years old with tanned skin and olive green eyes. Looking at him was like staring into a miniature God, the way his eyes just sparkled with an intensity that stilled me.
Lucinda Pearl and her family get the same reaction all over town. Stares, back talk and hushes. People scatter when they walk in, afraid they’ll have to speak or talk or address the elephant in the room. I never understood the way people acted towards them. It actually made me angry. Why are people scared of pink elephants? Mag and I ignored our parent’s warning and did what kids do. We interacted. We played. We laughed. Our parents weren’t home half the time, anyway. Mag and I had free reign to come and go as we pleased. About the only time, we got uncomfortable was when the brown Cadillac pulled up in the driveway. When the engine shut off you could have heard the dead speak. He was tall and big boned, the whites of his almond eyes stood out like two chalk drawn circles. He walked with a certain swag to one side, a hitch every step and when he seen us, he upturned his chin as if to speak without speaking. No one said a word. No one barely breathed. He would stay a few hours or so. When strange noises made their way out the open windows of the bedroom Bonnie became embarrassed and would always start to sing real loud. I knew what she was doing. We all did. She sang the same song every time. Bad Moon Rising by CCR. At first, we were like, “What’s happening?” but then we just joined in with her. I felt sad for Bonnie sometimes but she never talked about it. I’m pretty sure it was her pink elephant.
I thought my family was poor until I went inside Bonnie’s house. Come to find out, we were living high on the hog in comparison. It was a run-down plain, white frame house, loose shutters and a dirt yard with not a blade of grass. The inside was as barren as standing in the middle of a rock canyon listening to the eerie swirl of the wind howling. The only furniture was a ratty old loveseat and a few scattered pillows pushed up against the wall. The floor was unfinished concrete and scattered with Nate’s broken toys. Lucinda and Nate shared a room with one mattress draped with purple sheets and a black bed cover. Bonnie tried to make her room homey with what she had. The walls were lined up with library books at the baseboard across one whole wall. A single twin mattress was draped with a faded purplish sheet and a flat pillow with a peace sign pillowcase. It was neat and tidy. The bathroom dripped with death from every rusty pipe. What struck me most about the hollow house, was there didn’t seem to be any attachments to personal things or relationships for that matter. No personal items, no pictures on the wall, no rugs, no knick-knacks, no comfort items—just nothingness. I feared for a second they were common squatters who had found an abandoned house. I don’t remember a time when they actually had electricity. During the daylight hours, they kept all doors and windows open. Crumbs of food were scattered everywhere as if no one had swept in years. Or maybe they felt sorry for the roaches and left them the crumbs. No oven or stove top, just a Coleman’s camping stove on the cabinet and a squat refrigerator from the forties with a hum so loud it sounded like the ring of a gong that was stuck. There were rat traps in corners, on cabinets, mixed in with toys, and stuck inside holes in the wall. No air conditioner and no heater. Dead bugs littered the floor, cabinets, everything. I was in a state of shock when I got home. Then in gratitude, I went through our house touching each precious item as a gift. From that moment onward, I looked at my parents differently. I saw dad’s callous hands from working two jobs and moms tired feet from standing all day at the department store. And that night, when I laid in my comfortable bed with expensive comforters and bed sheets, I felt a tinge of overabundant thankfulness, but at the same time, I felt sorrow. It was hard to sleep that night, but once I did, I dreamt the wind howling in a fury through empty canyons and it would turn into a scream, Bonnie’s scream, and then my screams, and then both our screams. I woke up in a pool of sweat.
I heard those screams all over again, ricocheting in my head, inside the car, on the way home from the skating rink that night, when Lena had the nerve to blame Bonnie for me asking a question about pink elephants. Of course, I freaked out.
“No. Mother.” My tone was a smidgen away from getting side slapped. When I call Lena, mother; I’m pretty much done anyway. She didn’t like my backtalk and gave me a glare. “Bonnie can’t afford to go skating.” I said hearing the wind howl in my ears. “They barely eat. So no—I didn’t hear it from Bonnie or while hanging out with Bonnie.”
She cut me another glare that melted into concern. Mentioning food rationings or lack of, always concerned her. “Well, that’s probably her mother’s fault and that…that …man.” Her lips twisted so hard she could barely finish her sentence. Lena proceeded to ramble on and on about nothing, until it made no sense whatsoever. I never heard a peep out of Mag in the back seat. She was content to not stir the nest. I was pretty sure I was fixing to be a fledging and own my own
.
The cab was filled with the sound of the wheels turning down the highway and the hum of silence. At each intersection, the street lights lit up the flare of Lena’s blue eyes of steel. I’ve learned to read them over the years. DON’T REVEAL IT. DON’T DISCUSS IT. SEAL IT OFF. DENY. DENY. IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this whole car reeked of pink elephants. I was on to something.
***
Mag and I grew up on Royal Pine Road in a three bedroom, one bath modest home. Dad’s parents, William Henry and Dell lived on the street too, as well as Papa Hart’s father who lived in between our house and theirs, and down the street a distance, but not far enough, according to Papa Hart, was Dell’s mother, Maw Sue. This communal housing gave me plenty of time to figure out our barbaric ancestral tree roots which I was sure had a few pink elephants hanging on the limbs. I tried to acquire the help of Mag but she scorned my request and acted as if she originated from a line of nobility only found in a jeweled oak tree, some scandalous fifteen-minute affair in the back room of the white house, JFK meets Maid Merry kind of shit. From what I can remember, her efforts at obtaining royal status began at a young age when she learned of her precious namesake and then snubbed off everyone, except old money. She learned to smell greenbacks like a blood hound. While she was punished temporarily to live in squander, she believed a royal knight was going to drive up in a Mercedes. Out jumps a squat chauffeur driver wearing a stuffy white suit and holding a ruffled pillow, and in the center sits a sparkling rhinestone baby rattler with Mag’s name inscribed and other documentation to prove her theory of a royal bloodline. Then she’d high tail it out of here, leaving us rednecks to our pig sticking. I’ll give her this much. She has a vivid imagination when she uses it. I just find it hard to believe that we are related. We are so different. I mean, I bleed the south so much it’s like thick pine sap flowing from cut tree bark and according to our dad, that’s a true blue southerner. I’m simply southern sap through and through. Mag straddled fences from the get go which I consider a travesty of the worse kind. I mean, just pick a side—for or against—it’s not that hard. At home she pretended to be content with our life style, but we all knew she wasn’t. And when she left the driveway and hung out with her rich friends, she always brought it home with her until it just became a part of her permanently. One day I just snapped and knocked her off that high and mighty fence.
WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) Page 7
