by Diane Munier
I must of said it a million times. We weren’t doing anything wrong.
And it’s sort of exactly what happened. But it’s a point of view thing. My point of view being different from Granma’s and May’s. If something happened they didn’t approve of, well I approve so get off my case.
It was a day of firsts—mostly good. But I’m not sure what is to follow. I do know this, they can’t separate us. So they better not try. We didn’t get lost in sleep. We got lost in what we shared and then we went to sleep. It was peace. We fell asleep in God’s hand, not that they will believe it.
Last night, I dreamed of my mother. We sat around Granma’s table and I told her about Easy. I said Granma wouldn’t let me see him for a week. I said it was so unfair and I wished she was alive and she said, “Life is moving. It keeps moving Georgia. It goes from one thing to another, one place to another, but it’s never over.”
I told her I didn’t know.
She said there is a lot I don’t know. A lot. But whether I know it or not, it doesn’t make it any less real or true.
Then I woke up and stared at my ceiling. I may be in prison, but my mother, of all people, got through.
I got out a notebook and turned to a clean page and wrote myself a note before I forgot.
Life keeps moving. One…thing…one place to another. Never over.
We know it on the inside. We know. We’re too special…too special to die. You can kill a body…but not their soul. The soul can’t die.
Easy is going away but he’ll keep moving, until he moves back to me. If he stays in this world, we’ll be together again. If he’s killed, he goes to another…level. That’s all. He goes to another realm. I won’t be able to follow until I’m done here, whatever it is I’m meant to do, but he’ll just be far away…like upstairs. He’ll keep living because Mom told me and she knows. She’s there too. And for the first time I face that. I don’t have a mother. And for the first time I can see some good come out of it. She’s done something for me besides given birth. I’m thankful for that. But she’s reached out and let me know.
I write this. “I’m a free thinker. They can lock me in my room but they can’t stop my mind. I love Easy and we can’t die.” Georgia Green, February, nineteen hundred and sixty-eight.
I feel stronger then. I feel patient.
I hear what Easy whispered in that loft—all of it. I feel the mysterious move into me.
Darnay Road 55
It’s Monday and I hear her come up the stairs presumably with my lunch. I look up from where I sit on the floor listening to Jefferson Airplane on my record player. I am feeling very, very sorry for myself.
“Granma…,” I say turning down the volume. I am going to tell her again how unfair this is, how she can do anything at all to me that she wants once Easy is gone, just please, please let me see my own boyfriend.
“He’s here,” she says. She isn’t holding the tray like I thought.
“Can…I?” I’m already on my feet, my heart slamming just thinking Easy is here, in this very house and she is going to have some mercy on me. Us. Did I brush my teeth? I don’t even care.
“Your father, Georgia. He’s downstairs.”
“What…why did you call him?”
“The school called him. He wants to see you.”
“You called him.”
She looks down at the floor, my betraying jailor, keeping her hand on the doorknob. She’s not sorry, but she’s not angry either. She’s rattled. He’s her son and she hasn’t seen him in a long time.
“Mother Superior, Sister Baptista, called him,” she says.
“She has no right. I don’t want to see him. It’s been…two years.” I’m indignant.
He came right after the wedding. The new wife’s idea. She was with him of course. They had a doll and upstairs in my room, when they came in fact, I’m secretly reading Aunt May’s borrowed/stolen copy of Elizabeth Elliot’s, Let Me Be a Woman. The doll sat on the living room floor until Granma finally put it on the pile for Good Will.
“You can say no and I’ll tell him, but I think he’ll come up here,” she says. “I understand it’s not what you want. But he’s here now…and he’s your father.”
She’s always understood most things. But she doesn’t seem to understand now. It’s like we split. Like an atom. I love her, but I’m looking at her and I feel alone. She is no protection. She’s not stopping this.
“I barely know the guy,” I say.
It hurts her. Because it’s true.
“You have to show respect. Even if you don’t like it. We do the things we have to do,” Granma says and she looks old. I’m sorry I’ve given her so much trouble.
“He doesn’t have a right….”
“Right? Don’t be foolish. Brush your hair and come down.”
She leaves me then like we’re strangers. Like she’s the maid giving me a message, and not my granma, the one who would be the first to tell me I didn’t have to go down if I didn’t want to. But she hasn’t seen him either and I think it hurts her and I think she misses him even if she wants to strangle him.
But not me. I don’t want to see him. I just want Easy.
She’s with him—the wife. I come in the kitchen where they sit at the table, but not Granma. She is making coffee. I was going to learn how—for Easy. Now I stop in the doorway.
Stanley looks at me like I’m a ghost. “Well I’ll be damned,” he says.
I guess that’s as good as hello. I lean in the door and fold my arms.
He stands up and jars the table, the salt and peppers. Granma has poured steaming coffee into the good cups carried home from the grocery. She turns holding these. I expect her to tell me to come in the room, but she doesn’t. I know her and I see a flash of sympathy in her eyes, in her mouth, the first since before I got in trouble.
“You’ve grown,” Stanley says.
“They tend to do that,” Granma says. I know she’s on my side.
“Looks more like Renee,” he says to his mother. Then he looks at his wife as if he’s not allowed to say the name—Renee.
“She is my mother,” I say pushing off and going for an apple which I make enough noise biting into.
“She likes apples,” Stanley says to no one in particular.
“You remember Stanley’s wife Marsha,” Granma says setting the cups before each of them.
I shrug. “Yeah.” I mean—the doll she must have picked out for me sticks. She didn’t know me then either.
“Georgia,” Marsha says as though coming to life, “I have some pictures of your…of Troy and Sandra.”
I take another crunchy bite of my fruit. Fruit. Funny.
Grace Slick breaks out in my head, “When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies.” I’ve been listening to it over and over. I want somebody to love. I have somebody to love. So why am I stuck in the kitchen with these people?
“Well, the school called me,” Stanley cuts through my music. He sits, keeping his hands in his pockets.
Marsha has found the envelope with the pictures in her big fat purse. But she’s holding them now, in the opening, and she’s looking at Stanley like she could kill him. Maybe she wanted a smoother landing, but the pictures are worse than Stanley cutting to the chase.
“Yeah, Sacred Heart,” I tell him.
“I know the name of the school Georgia,” he says morphing into the cop right before my eyes.
“Oh,” I say.
“I wanted to make sure,” and he turns his attention to Granma, “that things were…,” he doesn’t say what, just nods his head at her.
“I have some tuna fish…,” Granma says.
“Oh…no Ma, that’s okay,” Stanley says.
Marsha cuts in, “We were wondering if you and Georgia would like to go out for a meal?”
“I’m a…grounded,” I say, pitching the rest of the apple into the trash. It lands so solidly and wastefully I have to remember not to smile. Do they even imag
ine I would want to go to dinner with them?
Stanley whistles. “Good job, Ma.” He means, good job Ma for grounding my daughter’s ass.
My temptation to smile is officially over. “So you go,” I say to Stanley, to all of them. “You all go. I’ll be fine here.”
“Do you really think we’re going to fall for that?” Stanley says.
I don’t answer.
“Where is that boy? The one they found you with?” he asks.
“Why?” I say.
“He’s a good boy, just had it hard,” Granma says going to the fridge and digging out the little bottle of cream.
“Federal prison is full of guys who’ve had it hard,” Stanley says. He’s sitting straighter, mostly looking at Granma, but every now and then, me.
“You don’t know him. He’s a soldier. He’s only got two weeks here and then I may not see him again for years!” I yell this. I hadn’t planned to, but it came out that way. He doesn’t know Easy. He doesn’t know anyone like him.
I see Marsha’s hand move on the table and grip Stanley’s arm. Does he need restrained? I am not afraid of him.
“You’re fourteen,” Stanley says loudly.
“I know how old I am! It doesn’t matter!” I yell.
“Really?” he shouts.
Marsha’s hand falls away and he stands up. “He going to pay your way in life because I’m not going to fund a…..”
There is gasping. Granma and Marsha.
“Go on,” I say. “Go on.”
“What am I supposed to think when I get a call…found with a boy. A soldier. That’s worse. That means he’s too old for you, he’s been around. Do you have any idea what a boy is after, especially one like that?” He looks at Granma, “Have you taught her anything about it?”
He looks at me. “Or we don’t have to. She already knows,” he flings his hand at me. “Just like her mother.”
“Stanley,” Granma says weakly.
“You heard me right,” Stanley defends himself. “Her mother….”
“Stanley Green,” Granma says more strongly, “not another word. Not another one.”
“All I am is a check every month,” Stanley says. “That’s all her mother wanted, and she’s the same.” He’s making his way around the table. “She gets knocked-up,” he says to Granma, “I’m done.”
“I hate you,” I tell him. I’m not waiting around to hear any more of this.
Granma is asking Stanley to leave and I am running upstairs. I get in my room and slam the door and go to my record player and put the needle on the forty-five and Jefferson Airplane starts up. I turn the volume even louder and throw myself on my bed.
I scream into my pillow and there is hard knocking on my bedroom door and it comes open. I roll quickly onto my back. I didn’t dream he’d follow me up here, but he has. I can hear Granma and Marsha speaking sternly to one another behind him.
“You will not run out of the room when I am talking to you,” he says. He marches to my record player and turns the volume down. I am starting to feel a little wary of him.
“You will go back to school and you will not see this boy again. Ma said he goes back to Fort Ord. If I have to I’ll call the base and complain to his commanding officer and make his life a living hell. They can’t ship him to Nam fast enough to suit me. With any luck they’ll blow his damn head off as soon as he lands.”
I am up on my knees, facing Stanley. “Don’t you…he didn’t do anything. I’ll never forgive you if you make trouble for him.” I’m trying to push away the picture of Easy getting shot as he steps off a plane.
“Ethan Caghan. He’s that white trash kid whose white trash old man died on the tracks in sixty-three. I remember that case. He’s scum. Did you have sex with him?”
“I hate you,” I say quietly. It’s so true in that moment it’s one of the most powerful things I’ve ever said. Certainly to him.
He blinks like I’ve slapped him. I’m surprised I said it and surprised he felt it but it’s terrible and satisfying and I don’t take it back.
“I’ll live,” he says nodding but I know he’s talking to himself.
I almost say, ‘too bad.’ I almost do.
“Did you?” as in did I have sex with Easy. “I can have you examined.”
My insides explode. He can have me examined? It’s beyond me. I can’t keep up with my outrage.
“No you won’t,” I yell.
I’m just now realizing what I’ve been spared from being raised by Granma. I had no idea my father was this much of a maniac that he’s threaten to ‘have me examined.’
Granma is there calling his name, demanding he listen.
“Get out of my room! Get out of my life! I hate you!” I yell with such feeling, such truth.
He rears back his hand, threatening to slap me.
I fall back and roll off the bed, crouching on the other side of it. “Get out!” I’m screaming like he’s already having me ‘examined.’
“You think you can talk like that to me?” He puts a knee on the bed and lunges across it, landing on his stomach and reaching for me. I move backwards on my elbows and scream and kick at his hand.
Granma moves for Stanley, hitting him with both fists.
“You will not do this! You will not touch her!” she yells, and the sound of her voice is terrible. I’ve never heard that sound…in her voice. I’ve never seen her hit anyone.
He pulls back off the bed and stands. “Stop, Ma.” He’s breathy and worried.
“You will not do her that way. I know you learned it from him, but you will not lay a hand on her.” I have never heard her voice like that, deep and terrible. She is breathing so hard she reaches a hand to the wall to steady herself. Some of her bun is streaming down.
“Georgia, it’s all right,” she says to me in-between hard breaths. I have wanted her protection and finally it’s here, but it’s taking everything, too much. Now I want to protect her.
I get on my feet, one eye on Stanley, one on Granma. My bed separates me from them.
“Stanley maybe we should…,” Marsha begins, two hands gripping her pocketbook. She is still standing in my doorway and she is a scared rabbit.
“You all right Granma?” I ask. My granma looks so pale nothing else matters as much.
“I’ll be fine. Stanley you need to leave,” she has a hand over her chest.
“What’s the matter?” he says. He’s worried. It’s the first sign that he might be human, might be her son, might care, if this is caring. I don’t know. I don’t know him.
“You’ve upset…Georgia. You need to go,” Granma puffs.
“Here Ma,” Stanley says leading her two steps to my bed. He helps her ease down. “Do you want to lie down?”
“Heaven sakes leave me be,” she says waving him off. “You can’t barge in here and try to take over.”
“I’m trying to keep something worse from happening,” he says, but not like a cop, not like a crazy father. He says this more like a son.
“Are you all right, Granma?” I say crawling on the bed to sit beside her even if it brings me closer to Stanley.
“I’m fine,” she puts her hand on my arm but I can see she’s not fine.
“You should go,” I say to him. He has come in here and upset her. I’m so angry at what he’s done, what he’s threatened.
“Don’t be telling me to go. This was my home long before it was yours,” he says. “I’m still your father.”
“Get out,” I say more firmly. I don’t know where it’s coming from, this nerve. But I’ve changed since Friday when Easy came to my school. It’s changed me.
Marsha’s heels sound on the floor and she rounds my bed and steps to Stanley. “Come here for a minute,” she says to him. “We’ll wait downstairs.”
Stanley is looking at me and Granma. “Go,” Granma says.
Finally he listens.
“We’ll be right downstairs,” Marsha says, as much to Stanley as to me and Granma.
I am sitting beside Granma holding onto her arm.
“I didn’t call him,” she says to me.
“What’s the matter with you? Are you sick?”
“I get short of breath sometimes. Asthma.”
This is the first I’m hearing of it. “Can you die from asthma?”
“No,” she scoffs.
“Well I didn’t know about it,” I say.
“Why would you need to? It’s just troublesome sometimes.”
“Well you should tell me these things!”
“Oh my. So grown up.”
“I am growing up, Granma. But…I’m sorry about…all this.”
She pats my leg. “I know. I just…you worried me,” she says. “I know you’re good. You’re….”
I turn to her and we hug one another. I am crying right off.
“I know it has to be hard to raise me.”
“I never meant that. You’ve been my greatest joy.”
“I have?”
“Of course you have,” she says smoothing my hair back from my face.
“Please don’t be upset with me. Easy didn’t mean anything. He’s the best boy I’ve ever known.”
She just holds me, or tries to. She pulls back to breathe. “Georgia…you’re so young. And he’s going away. I know he’s a good young man. I know that. But he’s not had….”
He’s not had. He’s not had anyone to love him.
“I love him, Granma.”
“My Lord,” Granma whispers. “I know you do.”
“And he loves me,” I say. “I’m…I’m waiting for him.”
“Georgia Christine,” she says. She nearly groans it.
“I didn’t…we didn’t do anything in that church but talk. We haven’t seen each other in four years, Granma. He’s traveled and we were just worn out I guess. But Granma…we were telling each other our hearts. And now we’re being punished for it and Stanley is threatening…and it’s always been Easy who’s done more for us…he doesn’t even know Easy and he comes here like he’s…I don’t care if he is my father. I don’t even like him.”
