I'm Down: A Memoir

by Wolff, Mishna

  “Hey,” I said, “I went skiing this weekend. I took a couple of runs down Bonanza.”

  “Did you see my moves?” he asked.

  “Skiing?” I was confused.

  “No,” he said as though I was the stupidest girl who had ever lived. “Um . . . break dancing. I think I’m gonna really try to practice and get dope.”

  “I’m sorry, Chaim,” I asked, “did you just say ‘dope’?” That’s when I realized I had just gotten my lunch ticket, and Chaim was watching me palm it.

  “Hey,” he said, pointing, “why is your lunch ticket a different color?”

  I deflated and said, “I’m allergic to raisins.”

  Seven

  ARE YOU STUPID?

  “ARE YOU STUPID?” Zaid asked as I walked into a room full of goblins without putting on my cloak of invisibility.

  “No,” I said, and it was then that I realized what I had done wrong. “Uh-oh.”

  “Oh well,” Zaid said. “Guess it’s my turn.”

  “You did that on purpose!” I screamed.

  “I made you stupid on purpose?” Zaid reasoned. “Do you have any idea how illogical that sounds?”

  “Well . . . you have stupid hair!”

  “My hair doesn’t have a brain at all, it has style.”

  “I’m going!” I threatened. But a threat has to scare someone. And Zaid, unfazed by a potential lack of me, just grabbed the game controller and ignored me as I stomped out of his room into the living room—right into an argument between Dad and Jackie.

  “All I’m saying, John, is that there are some ways you aren’t really taking responsibility.” I stopped in my tracks against the hallway wall.

  “Jackie,” he said. “Are you in my head? No. I don’t think so.”

  “John. You aren’t listening.”

  “Just get off my back already,” he whined. “Let’s just be where we are at, okay?”

  I didn’t know what Jackie wanted, but I wished he would just give in to the woman who had only hours before made us dinner.

  “But, John,” Jackie said, “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Well,” he snapped, “when I need your help, I’ll fucking ask for it.”

  “Please, John . . . ,” Jackie started, but then she saw me in the hallway and stopped. I tried to pretend like I wasn’t eavesdropping and, instead, acted like I was just walking into the living room unaware there was a disagreement in effect. I summoned all of my courage and plopped down nonchalantly on the couch. Dad just watched, baffled.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to act casual. “What are you guys talking about?”

  “Stay out of grown folks’ business!” Dad snapped, adding, “I think it’s time for you to go back into Zaid’s room.”

  “But he doesn’t even want me in there.”

  Dad waved his hand as if dismissing me. “I don’t care. You got to go.” I nodded my head and got up to leave.

  “Well,” I added, turning in the doorway, “I really hope you guys can work it out.” At which point Dad removed one of his shoes and threw it at me.

  The rest of that night I was worried about Dad and Jackie. They had been dating about a year now and I had seen them unhappy with each other before. On the car ride home I tried to do what I could to assure Dad that Jackie was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  “Dad,” I said. “Jackie’s house is sooo nice, huh?”

  “It’s not all that.”

  “I mean,” I adjusted, “she keeps it really clean.”

  “Well, if you and your sister could organize yourselves a little better, and learn how to do a complete job on that kitchen, our house could be that clean.”

  “I just think,” I said, “it would be super cool if you married Jackie.”

  He looked at me next to my sister, who had fallen asleep on my arm, and said, “That’s my business, not your business! Dang, why can’t you be more like your sister. Not so nosy!” He said it so loud, he actually woke Anora up.

  As we pulled into our driveway that December night, I felt my sister’s drool cooling on my shoulder. I also saw the Christmas lights shining in our window, and I knew why it was so hard for me not to be nosy. In the months since Dad had started seeing Jackie, our lives had seen a lot of improvements. For one it was mid-December and we already had a Christmas tree, and the sight of those lights through the window was a sign to me that we had our shit together. Not just the tree part, it also meant our electricity was on. And on top of that we had a full fridge and Dad had even bought me tickets to the symphony! I also just liked Jackie. She was a nurse, she was sweet, and she taught Dad stuff. Like she knew that if you got cut you should clean and dress the wound. She knew that there were three meals in a day. And she knew that kids had homework every night not just to inconvenience your shit.

  Christmas break came, and Dad and Jackie seemed to be doing better. The week before Christmas, they even went Christmas shopping together, leaving Zaid in charge at our house. Zaid, who was working on a project for science extra credit showed us how to take the motors out of most household things and use them to make a really lame car, or a crappy paper electrical fan that works about a quarter as good as a really cheap one you didn’t need to destroy an electric can opener to buy.

  And that afternoon Jackie and Dad came home laughing and smiling, and Dad didn’t flip out when he saw Zaid in the living room desperately trying to put a can opener back together. Dad was also carrying shopping bags, which, even if they weren’t for me, were just so exciting. I drooled over the glossy paper of the fancy bags. It was like Dad dating Jackie made us richer, and I made a mental note to snoop though them later.

  That night when everyone was upstairs watching TV, I said I needed to put wash in the dryer and crept down stairs to Dad’s basement office, convinced that’s where the shopping bags had gone. Dad spent a certain amount of time in his office, but we were strictly forbidden to enter. He said he had some very sensitive projects going on and that he needed us not to be fucking shit up in there. But seeing Christmas bags from real stores come into our house was too much for me. If I got punished for the rest of my life, it would be better than not knowing what was in that Toys “R” Us bag. I knew I had to be quick, and I past the washer and dryer to the pressboard door of the makeshift office that my dad spent so much time in.

  As I cracked open the door, I was immediately blinded by bright light. And when my eyes adjusted I saw that the floor of the “office” was a forest of marijuana plants. Thirty or more marijuana plants in perfect rows with grow lights poised over them like it was time for their close-up. Whatever I thought of my dad’s parenting abilities with us, he certainly knew how to daddy some weed.

  So that’s why Dad’s so happy and everything is taken care of, I thought. It wasn’t because Dad had gotten his shit together at all. He’d just gotten better at selling drugs. I thought about a series of items that had been around the house for as long as I could remember. The scale in Dad’s bedroom. The plastic baggies everywhere. The fact that we always had extra electronic equipment lying around that people had brought over. How many people had a Betamax, a VCR, two Walkmen, and three stereo receivers? God, I felt so stupid. The anger welled up in my feet and worked its way up to my head, which I thought might pop off. And I started to cry. I stood there crying for a minute.

  And then suddenly I stopped. It was as though I realized I wasn’t really sad, I was fake sad. I didn’t really care where the cold cuts and the lift tickets came from. I cared because I was supposed to, but I didn’t actually care. I was glad there was heat and food and Christmas. And I wiped my eyes on my sleeve, walked out of the grow-op and closed the door. It was then I decided to forget I had ever been in that room and I went back upstairs and sat on the couch, cuddled up with Dad and Anora and watched the end of The Cosby Show.

  Christmas Eve, we spent with Dad, and we were to go to our mom’s for Christmas Day after presents. So Christmas morning Dad made a fire, and when we came
up to the living room we found our stockings filled with candy from See’s. Dad got so happy watching us take down our stockings and fill our mouths with junk, maybe because our mom didn’t like us having sugar, or maybe because he ate half of it. But either way, he was stoked. And as he made his coffee, he called Jackie to wish her a Merry Christmas and I felt reassured in every way.

  While Dad was on the phone I had a weird moment. I looked down at my stocking and imagined it filled with pot. Not literally—I wasn’t hallucinating. But I wondered how much candy one plant could buy and if anyone ever bought candy that way. And when my dad hung up the phone and returned to the living room, I cleared my mind by stuffing my mouth with caramel.

  At gift-giving time I had a certain amount of apprehension—mostly because Dad had a habit of harshly judging his gifts if they weren’t good enough. This year, my sister and I had gone halvsies on a shirt from Frederick &Nelson. The shirt was on sale and not particularly nice, but it was in one of their pretty boxes with tissue paper. And this was very important, because if it wasn’t in a good box, Dad would think we had gotten the shirt at an off-price store and call us selfish.

  Dad smiled as he peeled back the wrapping paper to reveal the department store box. “Let’s see what we have in here . . .” and Anora and I watched in anticipation as he lifted the shirt out of the box. But the smile slid off his face as he saw the shirt and then turned it around to see if the back side was any better. “I guess you ladies aren’t really doing a good job saving your money,” he said. And, as though physically repelled by the shirt, he stood up and went to the kitchen for another cup of coffee—and, I guessed, to decide whether his selfish daughters were present-worthy after giving him that shitty shirt. After an ungodly amount of time, he reentered the living room, sat down on the sofa with his coffee, and took a sip. Then he silently handed Anora a present.

  She tore though the wrapping paper, her eyes bugging out of her head as she revealed a spanking new Cabbage Patch Kid. She squealed and jumped up and began running in circles with the box over her head.

  “I can’t believe it! I’m a mother!” She jumped up on the couch. “I’m a mother!”

  Dad finally smiled, letting us off the hook, and joked, “So I did okay?” And Anora ran up to him and started kissing him all over his face. “Thank you, Daddy! Thank you! This is the happiest day of my life!”

  I was super jealous at this point and sat on the couch sulking. I knew we couldn’t both get good gifts. There couldn’t be that much pot. I didn’t even see anything for me . . . Bah, humbug.

  “Well,” Dad said, looking at me, “aren’t you a sulky little baby.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said, “I was just resting my head.”

  “Well . . . I’m afraid I didn’t have time to get you anything. I hope that’s okay.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I understand. Don’t worry about it.” Then he started laughing and laughing, and Anora, who was tearing the Cabbage Patch box open with her teeth, looked up and laughed at me, too.

  “What’s your problem?” I said, embarrassed. “Stop laughing at me!”

  But Dad just walked into the other room and when he emerged, he was holding the most beautiful pair of K2 skis wrapped in a big red bow.

  I

  Was

  Floored.

  “Wow!” I said.

  He handed me the skis to examine. “Did you really think you weren’t gonna get anything?”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. Then, examining my skis, I said, “These are long!”

  “I think you can handle them,” Dad said, slapping my back. I didn’t know if he was right, but I was sure as hell gonna find out. Or just ski like a pussy till I got used to them.

  “Wow!” I said to myself again. “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” he said, rubbing his stomach and smiling. “Maybe next time, you all won’t be so selfish at Frederick and Nelson’s.”

  ______

  We spent the day at our mom’s having a Christmas dinner and opening her little presents, but I couldn’t wait to get back to Dad’s house where my skis were. And I spent the majority of the afternoon trying to remember details of what they looked like. And that night, I lay in bed with my ski poles, thinking that things might actually work out okay for us. I hugged my poles close to me. Maybe Jackie will keep being a good influence on Dad, and he won’t mind so much that I’m not down. He’ll stop trying to make me be like him, and just be happy with the person I am. And at that moment if there was a God, I thanked it for bringing Jackie and weed into our lives. . . .

  A few weeks later, Dad introduced us to his new girlfriend, Yvonne.

  I had no idea what had happened to Jackie. She was just gone. Poof.

  Damn, I thought. I guess she finally wanted a man who was more like her. I tried to accept it, but I just couldn’t believe she didn’t say good-bye to Anora and me. Or at least just to me.

  Yvonne arrived at our house on a Sunday. I watched from the window as a tall beautiful black woman got out of a seven-year-old Honda with an air that made the car seem like a loaner while her Rolls was getting fixed. Her rayon blouse was tucked into a matching pair of rayon pants, and her hair was french-braided into a clip with a bow on it that matched the rest of her outfit. Her features were so delicate, she looked like a doll. And as she got out of the car she looked up at the ten-foot drop from our front door before helping her two kids out of the car. Then she walked them directly to the side steps that led inside, letting me know she had been over before.

  Yvonne walked into the house and took it all in and then smiled—not a thoughtless smile that comes out to meet you, but a controlled one that if she were a baby might be mistaken for gas—before saying to my sister and me softly, “Hello, I’m Yvonne.”

  Dad pointed eagerly. “This here is Mishna and Anora.”

  And in an even softer voice she said, “How do you do?” I thought we might be in a movie or something. Yvonne then introduced us to her kids as though they were wines. She pointed to a four-year-old boy and said, “This is my son Andreus. . . . That’s Russian for ‘Andre.’ He’s four years old and very playful.” Then she pointed to the most beautiful two-year-old girl I had ever seen and said, “And this is Yvette. Her name is French and she’s two and a little shy at first.” Her kids clung to her as we all enjoyed a super awkward moment. But Dad was beyond excited as he held Yvonne’s hand and led her by the arm to the breakfast bar in the kitchen, the only room that was done being remodeled.

  Within the first few minutes of meeting Yvonne, I found out that she was a dental assistant studying to be a dental hygienist and that’s why she was so sophisticated. She was crazy beautiful, and spoke very softly and laughed at almost everything Dad said. But something seemed off with her, and no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t feel like we could connect, not like I could connect to Jackie anyway. It was like there was no her there, just this young feminine thing that had too much mystery to mother me.

  But her kids seemed normal. And the four of us were thrown out into the yard of hazardous materials to get to know each other. As we sat down next to the pile of glass Dad bought two years before to build a hothouse, Andreus immediately put his arms around me and lay against my side. I was amazingly flattered and put my arm around his four-year-old shoulder as Yvette and my sister picked at building materials in the yard.

  Yvette picked up an old screw and made a face at how dirty it was before throwing it toward the house. “S’up, moose!” Yvette said. And Andreus broke free of my side and laughed.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “W’sup, moose!” Yvette repeated, giggling to herself. She was clearly aware of how cute she was.

  “Oh!” Andreus said. “Uncle Frank calls Mom that ’cause she was fat.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “I dunno,” he said. “Mom hates it.”

  “S’up, moose,” Yvette repeated.

  “What’s up, homey!” my sister said to Yvette slowly
. “What’s up, homey!”

  Yvette looked at Anora for a second before trying it, “S’up ooohhh-meee.” And Andreus, Anora, and I laughed and laughed. This game was a little bit too much fun and a little too tempting. And I decided we’d save the curse words for later.

  When Dad and Yvonne came back out, Dad said, “Mishna you watch the kids for a couple of hours while I take Yvonne for a drive.”

  “Okay,” I said. And Yvonne leaned down and gave her kids a little kiss before saying, “You guys listen to Mishna,” and got into Dad’s van.

  As Andreus grabbed my waist and Yvette said, “I’m hungry,” I quickly got a sinking feeling.

  The next day when Dad and Yvonne took off for the evening and left me with Anora and the babies, my worst fears were confirmed: just when I thought my life was about to get easier, it was getting harder.

  Later that evening, I woke up in what felt like the middle of the night but in actuality was only like eleven thirty. I heard voices coming from upstairs and got up hoping that they had restaurant leftovers with them. I padded up the cement stairs toward the kitchen, and from the landing I could see the scene in the dining room.

  Jackie was back and she was arguing with Yvonne. And as I listened I realized they were fighting, OVER MY DAD!

  Dad explained, “Jackie, you gotta understand . . . I’m with Yvonne now.” Then he looked at Yvonne to see how he was doing.

  Jackie did not look like Donna Reed that night. In fact, she was wearing a lot of makeup and a tight red dress. And Yvonne stood there looking unimpressed, but mad as hell at Dad.

  “John,” Jackie said. Then she wrapped her leg up around my father’s waist from the front. “This . . . girl can’t make you happy. You need a woman. I can make you happy.” It was like something out of a soap opera.

  “I think it’s time for you to go home,” Yvonne said sweetly, “before you embarrass yourself any more.”