Buffalo Gal

by Laura Pedersen

  ***

  Though it can be hard to pinpoint the exact causes of a divorce, I’d say that my folks split on grounds of irreconcilable healthcare and sanitation differences. For my mother, there seems to be a divide between having a man in her life and having a man in her house, a chasm that cannot be bridged with Lysol. Whereas she has no interest in anything that can’t be thoroughly vacuumed, my father’s going to be cremated wearing a T-shirt depicting the surgeon general with a big red line through his face.

  Dad’s a marathon smoker, champion caffeine consumer, and hasn’t seen a hospital bed in over forty years. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that if he were to modify his habits, the stock prices of companies that sell coffee and tobacco would plummet. If he ever gets his cholesterol checked, I’m sure that instead of numbers there’ll be just one word: pastrami. In fact, when Dad is cremated they’ll have to secure the area just so no one dies from secondhand-smoke inhalation.

  Dad’s philosophy about doctors is, essentially, that if he doesn’t go, then there’s no chance they can find anything wrong with him. His

  theory on cleansing agents might be called the Ganges Principle, referring to the fact that people who bathe in the Ganges River every day, amongst the detritus of garbage and dead bodies, experience no ill effects, because their immune systems are accustomed to it. And that the best way to build a formidable immune system is to surround oneself with a certain amount of pollution and let it build up over time. At the end of the day I suspect that Dad doesn’t really believe in germs at all, for the same reason he doesn’t believe in ghosts and gods: because he’s never seen one.

  No matter his reasoning, it turns out that Dad really was ahead

  of his time. Just recently medical science has given us the hygiene hypothesis to explain the rise in asthma and allergies. This theory states that households in developed countries have become so clean and sanitized that our bodies’ immune systems aren’t receiving the early training they need to fend off allergens later in life. While Mom displayed guest towels that the family wasn’t supposed to get dirty (I perfected wiping my toothpaste-covered mouth on the inside where she wouldn’t find the evidence), Dad saw total disintegration as the only sign that a towel needed replacing.

  Dad is the kind of guy who, when his shoes start to wear out, wraps them a couple times with duct tape. He’s convinced that the spick-and-span crowd, with all that constant scrubbing at mold and dirt and dust, is just asking to get struck down with the first viral infection that comes along. Next stop, polio. He’ll tell people that it’s not wearing clothes that ruins them, but all the washing and drying in between. Dad believes good health stems from living in harmony with the natural world, and therefore spiders have as much right to live in a person’s bedroom as a person does. In fact, they may be the only thing between the person and a fatal case of malaria. Once, when I asked why he didn’t remove the cobwebs taking up a full third of his wall and ceiling, Dad said that they helped to control the mosquito population. (Apparently he was just short a water table of having his own private ecosystem in there.)

  If I had a truly untenable entomological situation in my room as a child, such as a cigar-sized centipede, the most I was going to get Dad to do was perform a shoe-box capture and then relocate the creature to a nearby forest. I think bumblebees and carpenter ants must have pictures of him hanging in their hives and entrances to their hills, the way Buffalo Democrats used to have photos of JFK and the pope in their front hallways, framed by enough decaying palm fronds to start a bonfire.

  People said that Dad was never the same after the Korean War. People said he was never the same after the brain aneurysm. As I got older, I realized what they actually meant was that Dad had always been an interplanetary traveler who communicated with the stars and possibly other galaxies. Dad could go out for the mail and nine times out of ten come back without it. And we’re not talking about walking to the post office. The mailbox was right across the street.

  He is so forgetful that he’ll often say, “I think I’m going senile—I walk into a room and can’t remember what I went in there for.”

  I’ll reply, “Going senile? You couldn’t remember anything forty years ago.”

  And he’ll say, “Really? I don’t remember that.”

  It’s obvious that Dad was not meant for war. In retirement, he spends a good portion of his time capturing animals in Havahart traps and returning them to the wild. Dad is looking for a catch-and-release flyswatter. Now, if Attila the Mom had been sent to the Korean peninsula instead, it’s doubtful there’d be any of this 38th parallel inanity dividing the haves and have-nots. Everyone would own a bar of soap, scrub brush, and vacuum, and be expected to use them with regularity. There’d be three vegetables a day, laundry detergent with bleach, and a dry, white cotton sock on every foot. Arms akimbo, she would have told Kim Il Sung, “Stop all the nonsense, mister.”

  By the time the eighties arrived, the hippies had gone to law school and there was little tolerance for people communing with nature. Only the quick and the cleansed survived in Nurse Ellen’s ward. As a preemptive strike, she had already said no to secondhand smoke by quarantining Dad’s room, which looked like the place where pawnbrokers go to die. This was achieved by taping up the door—so effectively that when Dad managed to pry it open, there was a tremendous sucking sound, as if a tornado was ripping through the hallway.

  Now in fairness to Dad, part of the problem (I like to think) was that he’d lost his sense of smell after a brain aneurysm in his late thirties. Okay, he’s not what one would call extremely observant to begin with. His was the car coming around the corner with the briefcase on the roof and the coffee cup on the hood. And my mother loves to tell the story of Dad lying unconscious in the hospital and how he’d get out of bed and roam the hallways searching for cigarettes, sort of like a smokewalker. Now there’s a spokesperson for big tobacco—right on death’s doorstep, his only concern a final puff. Dad was rewarded, though not in the heavenly way. The only permanent affliction from the aneurysm was a loss of smell—smoke away. And since scent is somehow connected to taste, he no longer had that either, for food or clothing.

  One afternoon, I was standing in the kitchen with my mother when she poked her head up like an alert prairie dog and barked, “Smoke! There’s a fire!” She ran to the taped-up door and saw smoke wriggling through the crack where the shag carpet had interfered with her plastic barrier. Mom quickly unstuck the door and barged in to find my father calmly puffing away and typing while his curtains blazed orange and blue directly above him. Though I’m sure Dad determined that the fire was good for his ecosystem…more like a controlled burn.

  Twenty-Six

  Home at Sweet Home…

  Class Clown…Dressing Down

  On a typical school morning, Mary would arrive at seven and let herself in using the key we cleverly kept hidden under the doormat. She knew to be very quiet because my mom worked all night and we never wanted to wake her up, for a lot of reasons.

  As the youngest of nine children, Mary had been assigned the bathroom slot of 6:10 to 6:20 am. If for any reason she missed it, or if an older brother or sister went into sudden shower overtime, Mary was basically soap out of luck. Sometimes she’d arrive before seven to shower and wash her hair at my house. Mary was also guaranteed hot water at my place, which was another big attraction, especially in the wintertime. In fact, that’s why I took a bath the night before, because I couldn’t face the cold in the morning. When it was really frigid outside, my hair would freeze into long icicles.

  I allowed twelve minutes every morning to go from being in a complete coma to having my body on the bus. This involved choosing an outfit (whatever was on top), changing into the clothes (if I hadn’t slept in them as another step to avoid the cold), and then wrestling my hair into some sort of braid. However, it looked as if I’d spent only five minutes. I’ve always been a fashion fatality, usually resembling someone rescued from a flood and dr
essed in donations from kindly villagers.

  A copy of Vogue never made it into our home. Mom’s fashion philosophy was as follows: If it needs to be ironed or dry-cleaned, don’t

  buy it. If she liked a sweater, she bought it in every color. Dad’s personal style statement is any shirt with two pockets, one for each pair of glasses with room left over for his cigarettes and lighter.

  The way I timed my morning routine throughout all four years of high school was by switching on a record player in my room the moment I awoke. Gordon Lightfoot’s album Don Quixote was on the turntable, and I knew that by the time he finished the title song, I had to have my face washed, teeth brushed, and be dressed. When “Christian Island” began I’d better be working on hair and then grabbing any stuff I needed for school. Quick glance in the mirror: bad-human day, good-cockatiel day. When the third track, “Alberta Bound,” came on, it was time for breakfast. As that ended I should have been heading out the door. If “Looking at the Rain” started, then I’d probably missed the bus.

  Mary fixed her hair and makeup in the Truth Mirror and then made breakfast while I went through my Gordon Lightfoot regimen. She must have learned to cook from her mom, because Mary was a regular one-woman Denny’s and could make any breakfast item, but chocolate-chip pancakes and cinnamon French toast were her specialties.

  I threw back some of whatever Mary had cooked while we listened for the big yellow bus to chug down the street like clattering thunder. One could hear the old double-clutch dinosaurs with a top speed of forty miles per hour from the next state.

  Mrs. Thompson, the bus driver, would honk if we weren’t at the bus stop. If Mary and I came flying out the door, she’d wait for us to run the hundred yards from my house to the corner. If we were too far behind schedule, I’d step onto the front porch and wave, signaling that we’d take the shortcut and meet her at the last stop before she left our neighborhood. In this situation, we had to dash a quarter mile at top speed in clogs on a full stomach.

  If only one of us caught the bus, Mrs. Thompson always asked, “Where’s your sister?” The first two years of high school we insisted that we were not sisters. We told Mrs. Thompson the entire story: only child and youngest of nine, coming over to shower and cook, and so on. She didn’t buy one word of it, thought we were lying through our syrup-covered teeth. After a while we forgot about it and just said the other one was sick or playing hooky, or whatever the case was. Inevitably someone would overhear the conversation and give us a hard time, saying, “You shouldn’t lie and tell Mrs. Thompson that you’re sisters. One day she’ll find out the truth!”

  Mary continued to be popular with the boys. As we dashed toward the bus, young guys driving Mazda RX-7s would go into a skid while yelling stupid nothings out of their car windows at her. I was still being mistaken for a boy, and I’m sure my wardrobe didn’t help on

  that front.

  Mary was generous in giving me her used boyfriends. Oftentimes her current beau would have a brother or a friend who needed fixing up, so I never had a strong incentive to get myself all gussied up in order to attract guys. Mary was also a fount of relationship knowledge. Between having eight older brothers and sisters and a steady stream of admirers, she knew everything.

  Mary used to switch boyfriends the way other girls changed their outfits, leaving me a nice selection of sloppy seconds. Whatever Mary was casting off was better than anything I could have reeled in on my own, even with a makeover by Elizabeth Arden herself. She’d find someone more interesting, and we’d have a quick summit in the restroom. A transfer time and place would be decided, the bowling alley or a local bar. (In the Buffalo of the early eighties, a thirteen-year-old girl with a bit of makeup could stroll into any bar and order a drink. The owners wanted women for the guys to spend their paychecks on. As for underage guys, forget it; they still got carded into their twenties.)

  We never explained to the guys that a switcheroo was in progress. Mary would just say she was going to make a phone call and never come back. I’d remain with the castoff, not exactly telling him that Mary was the past and I was the future, but after a few hours and a few beers he got the drift. They didn’t seem to mind all that much. I suppose they never really imagined that a beauty like Mary would be their girlfriend in the first place. At the end of the evening, she’d stop by with her new man, and the old one seemed happy enough that by being with me he’d still get to hang around with her. In addition to being attractive, Mary was always a lot of fun.

  Occasionally we decided that both guys were yesterday’s news. Then we’d head for the ladies’ room, mindful to bring along our purses and jackets, climb out the window, and head for happier hunting grounds altogether.

  Mary had access to her oldest sister’s CB radio, which was basically the AOL Instant Messenger of its day. It was where people met and even married, the way Mary’s oldest sister had. On the flip side, I imagine there was an amount of misrepresentation on the CB similar to what one gets with Internet dating, especially since we couldn’t send photos.

  As teenagers we’d sit in her sister’s car, which was parked in the street out in front of the house, put our “ears” on, and use the radio to flirt with truckers. Mary knew some of the lingo from her sister, and I knew a bit from my dad, who had a CB radio in his cave, and the rest we picked up from listening. Buffalo was Nickel City, a reference to Indian nickels, the pre-1938 five-cent coins with a buffalo on the back. A bear in the air was a state patrolman in a helicopter or a light plane that spots and clocks speeders. A bear bite was a speeding ticket from a cop who may have been a Smoky the Bear in a brown wrapper (unmarked car) until he stuck his disco ball on the roof. We made up handles and after signing on were quickly asked if we were YLs (young ladies) with nice seat covers (legs). The truckers wanted to know what cash register (toll booth) we were near on the thruway, what panty-hose junction (coffee shop or truck stop) was near the chicken coop (weigh station for trucks), and if we were going to stop for motion lotion (gas or diesel fuel) soon. We’d be asked to meet for black water (coffee) or barley pop (beer) in order to eyeball each other.

  We didn’t have cars, but if Mary wanted a ride all she had to do was walk down the road in whatever direction she was going and one would magically appear. She rarely had a bike, though when she did she hardly used it. If we were walking to the mall, it would only be five minutes before some guy would pull over and offer us a ride. However, Mary knew that I wouldn’t get into a car with strangers. Like any other city with high unemployment, the Buffalo area had its share of psychos, bunco artists, and disgruntled former factory workers cruising around. So when a car pulled up Mary would say, “It’s a friend of my brother.” With as many siblings as she had, and the fact that the area was not that big, this was entirely possible. We’d get in the car with a couple of guys. Mary would start talking, and I’d suddenly realize that she didn’t know them from anywhere. But they’d seem nice enough and usually asked us out later, and we’d go. Afterwards I’d complain, “You told me you knew them!” She’d always say that she thought it was so-and-so but she’d been mistaken, that it was hard to tell from the side of the road.

  Another thing I once caught Mary doing during our walk to the mall on a very cold day was hitchhiking without my knowing it, her thumb down near her waist and trailing slightly behind us where I couldn’t see it. That’s when it dawned on me that she must have been doing it for years. I suddenly recalled all the snowy days when cars had screeched to a halt beside us and a guy leaned out and said, “Hey, girls, need a lift?” Mary would just look at me as if to say, “Well, there’s a happy coincidence!” In frigid weather, a teenage girl can’t exactly strut her stuff wearing a ski jacket, boots, ski mittens, and a Buffalo Sabres cap. It was a challenge to attract drive-by pickups dressed like a hazmat worker with snot frozen to the upper lip. And quite frankly, when the windchill factor made the temperature ten below zero, I was just as interested in finding a ride, even if I suspected that Mary’s “frien
d of her brother” might be a new acquaintance.

  Mary always seemed to know of a party, or could find a party, or find some people who knew of a party. She’s the only person I know who belonged to a ski club and rarely brought along skis; she’d usually spend the night drinking mulled cider and socializing in the lodge or on the bus.

  The ski club had a good system for returning everyone alive. They put a tag around our necks and drove us in a Greyhound bus to Kissing Bridge, Bluemont, or Holiday Valley, the local resorts, where we could get as drunk or break as many bones as we wished. At 11:00 pm the lights were turned up and ski patrols whizzed around on snowmobiles, digging the bodies out of ravines and gullies. They looked at the ID tags and dumped people onto the correct buses, which were by now veritable honky-tonks on wheels.

  People often ask if I ski. I’m from Buffalo. Of course I can ski. In fact, I learned back in the days of runaway straps, heavy metal skis, and wool outerwear. For those of us who grew up with mailboxes across the street, on some days we had to cross-country ski just to reach them. Maybe that’s why I now view skiing as a job I should get paid for. Sort of like my friend who loved radios—after becoming an electrical engineer, he complained that he’d ruined a perfectly good hobby.

  If a person can ski the areas south of Buffalo, then she can ski anywhere. We’re talking nights of about twenty below with the windchill factor and sliding down a mountain of sheer ice. We sharpened our skis the way other people sharpen their skates. When Buffalonians first attempt Colorado powder, they topple over face-first.

  However, most Buffalonians have a terrific time skiing. Resorts are not far from where we live, there’s usually plenty of man-made snow (translation: ice), and there are good mountains. At first I belonged to my high school ski club, but then Mary and I discovered that because we both had family members at the University of Buffalo, we were eligible for its ski club. It was less expensive and went out three times a week, instead of just once, like the one at our high school.