If you know you’re never going to fit in, why continue to try, right?
Queen Clementine’s mother died in the seventies of mental illness. To deal with the love she never received, I made the chair huge. I took off the old legs with a band saw, then cut legs four feet high and reattached the seat and back. I used a scroll saw to inlay a flower design, then painted the whole thing in a tie-dye pattern with a red heart in the center.
Maya Lopez, the rocking chair, missed her sister. So, I took out the spindles, put in a full back, and painted red poppies with green stems and yellow centers in a swooping design. I went to the craft store and bought fake red poppies and attached them around the legs and handles. I painted the base black.
Obviously, I have a lot of personal problems I address in my chairs.
How many have I transformed? How many chairs now have green wings or yellow spotted tails or claw feet or stripes or cheetah prints or seem as if they’ve sprouted from Alice in Wonderland or some futuristic world? How many sport giant teacups or pink crows or Picasso-style angles? How many are sprayed gold or silver or are superbig or miniature?
I’m afraid to count.
I am so, so ridiculous.
But I can’t help myself. When I’m with my chairs, I am not with the world.
When I rejoined the world, that night, on my deck, I thought about Jake. What kind of chair would I make for him? A throne. A throne shaped like a giant heart with hearts all over that chair.
He had been so kind when he drove me home while I dripped on his seat.
“What are your plans for today?” he asked.
Ahhh. He has such a low, gravelly voice. I basked in that voice, so nervous I could barely process what he said. Speak, throat!
“Are you going to work?”
Low and gravelly and sexy. Speak!
Naked Jake.
He looked at me expectantly, that smile hovering around the corners of that mouth, that mouth! What could that mouth do? I bet he had a girlfriend. I knew he wasn’t married. Nancy had told me. “You work downtown, don’t you?”
Speak, utter something!
“Yes,” I said, my throat constricting while I dripped.
“I’m working down there for a while, too.”
I nodded.
“We should ride in together sometime.” He smiled.
Ride in together? In the same truck? Me and The Mobster and Jake?
I inhaled too loud. It sounded like a cannon going off.
“I mean, not if you don’t want to,” he said, hurried. “If you’re not comfortable with it….”
Oh, I was uncomfortably comfortable with it, I was…I inhaled again, and another cannon went off. Naked, warm Jake.
He pulled in front of my house. “You have a nice home. I could see it used in a kids’ book.”
And then I displayed my wisdom and brilliance once again. “You’re welcome,” I said.
And then he, with another smile reaching ear to ear, said, “Thank you.”
“I mean,” I flustered, “thank you for driving me home. That was nice of you.” I had been struck by lightning in the brain, that was a given.
“You’re welcome.”
“I like your truck. It’s very big.”
“Thank you,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
“It’s a nice, uh, powerful, truck.”
He grinned.
“I’m sorry I’m wet.”
He chuckled.
“Usually I’m not. Usually I’m dry. I don’t drip like this.”
He laughed and then said, low and soft, “Well, Stevie, you’re welcome in my truck, wet or dry.”
“Right. And you…” I coughed because my throat was still constricting me as a boa would around my neck. “You can come in my truck anytime, too.”
“I would definitely like to do that.”
“You can come in my truck and I’ll drive.”
“Or I’ll drive. I like to drive.” He chuckled again. Such a nice chuckle.
“Yes. You can drive, or I’ll drive. I don’t like to drive so much, I’d rather be driven.” And then I blushed, because he laughed, that musical, manly laugh of his, and I quick as a lick scuttled right out of that truck before I sputtered out anything else flamingly stupid, then leaned back in and said, “Thank you for letting me ride your truck.”
I heard his laughter as I ran into my house, truly dying of embarrassment, then slammed the door and huddled into a blushing ball. I am so ridiculous. I am.
Naked, warm, cuddly Jake.
5
Ashville, Oregon
My earliest memory is being snatched in the middle of the night from my bed by my momma.
“You can’t have her!” Momma yelled to the star-filled sky as she ran out of our Schoolhouse House with me in her arms, my pink princess nightgown flowing behind me as I screamed in terror. “You can’t have her! Get away from us!”
She sprinted by our barn and cornfield as if the devil himself were on her heels, then down a hill. She jumped into our shallow stream, with both feet, and sat down with me on her lap, as the water flowed over us. “Don’t let go! Don’t let go!”
I clutched at her shoulders, petrified, her blond hair swirling all around. I thought someone was after me, after us. Maybe it was a monster! Maybe it was a bad guy with an ax!
She splashed around in the water with both hands, then started kicking it with the sparkly pink heels she wore, as if she was trying to smash something in it. I screamed and clung to her as a white phantom raced toward us. Soon the devil was behind the phantom, in black. I could see them up on the hill by the house charging down toward us.
Momma was right! They were after us! “They’re coming! They’re coming, Momma!”
She splashed more water, soaking us both as I shook and continued my high-pitched wail.
Momma shouted, low and deep, in a voice that wasn’t her own, “Hide! Hide! Get under the bridge!”
I didn’t know what she meant by this because there was no bridge. “Run, Momma! Let’s run!” I struggled to get off her lap, but she held me fast and wouldn’t let go.
The phantom and the devil were closing in on us, and who knew what they would do to us then!
“They’re taking over the world! We have to get out of here! They’ve been watching us!”
I felt hot water leak between my legs as I lost control of my bladder. Momma felt it, too, because she whispered, “They’re burning us! They’re burning my legs!”
The phantom and the devil got closer and closer, and I heard them calling my name. “Stevie, honey! Stevie, it’s okay, honey! We’re coming! Hang on, sweetie!” I had no idea how they knew my name, which scared me more, and I screamed again, as loud as I could.
I tried to get out of the stream, to pull Momma out, to run run run, because we were surely going to get murdered, but she wouldn’t have any of that. She pulled me down into the stream, and we rolled through the water. I sputtered and shook and choked on the water, Momma’s body over mine, and suddenly Grandma and Grandpa were there, and I was in Grandma’s arms, Grandpa trying to haul Momma out of the stream, too.
Momma cried, “Watch out! I’m gonna kill them, kill them! They’re trying to poison me! Listen to that poison.”
Even after Grandma hugged me close and I realized that she was the phantom running from the house in her white nightgown and Grandpa was the devil in his black robe and cowboy boots, I could not stop screaming. Grandma called my name again and again, pleaded with me, then finally ran to the house with me in her arms. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. Even my own ears hurt from my screams.
I turned around and watched Momma, still in the water. She slugged Grandpa in the face once, the second time he ducked, the third time he grabbed her wrists, yelling her name. Grandpa was a huge man, almost six foot six, with a chest like a bull, and white hair that went past his collar, but he was the gentlest man I’ve ever met.
“You won’t get me! I have my rights!” Momma said, so
tiny and helpless next to his strength. “I am a legal alien of the United States of America, and the government does not own me! You hear me, the government doesn’t own me! You can’t have my body!”
I reached out my hands for her, wanting to help her, lost and panicked and confused, as Grandma hurried me back to the house. By the time we got there, the Ashville police were there. “Help Albert,” Grandma said to them, breathless. “He’s down by the stream.”
The two policemen, both friends of Grandma and Grandpa, ran on down to the stream. Grandma took off my soaking pink princess nightgown, wrapped me in a blanket, then held me close, rocking me back and forth in the kitchen of our Schoolhouse House as my teeth chattered, my knees knocked, and I dissolved into hiccupping sobs.
I didn’t see my momma for a long time after that. Grandma told me that Momma had gone off to get some rest. “She has to sleep for a while, and see a few doctors. She has a sickness in her head, honey. It’s not going to go away, and we’re trying to help her.”
Grandpa hugged me to his huge chest, his cowboy hat shading his blue eyes. “Now, you come on outside with me and let’s go tease the chickens.”
Grandma made chocolate and pinwheel cookies and pink cupcakes with me; Grandpa and I made omelets and pastas. I ate to assuage my fear and my loneliness. Relatives and friends descended with platters of fried chicken, salad, desserts of all sorts, whipped and baked and smothered in icing, and I ate with them because their laughter and chatter helped me to forget that my momma wasn’t home and had rolled with me in the middle of the night under the stars in a stream.
I saw Grandma crying when she swung on the porch swing with Grandpa late at night. Grandpa started bringing Grandma flowers every day, and Grandma made Grandpa his favorite dinners every night. Grandpa said, “Glory, give me a glorious hug,” all the time, and they slow danced outside on the deck, their cowboy boots toe to toe. They were so tired their faces were sagging, like sugar cookie dough.
I learned that my momma did not want my hugs when Grandpa brought Momma home weeks later.
I saw her getting out of Grandpa’s truck when Grandma and I were cutting out gingerbread men on the cutting board in our white and yellow kitchen. I dropped the cookie cutter and ran to the car. I ignored Grandpa’s call to be careful with Momma and wrapped my arms around her tight.
I grinned into her face as she stared down at me. She did not hug me. She did not kiss me. She did not respond. Nothing. She studied me, tilting her head this way and that, but her eyes, as blue as mine, were blank.
She was wearing a blue dress I’d never seen and flat blue shoes. She was not wearing her necklaces, scarves, tin foil hats (the tin foil, she believed, kept the voices away), beige trench coat, bikini, or cat pajamas.
“I missed you, Momma.”
She blinked. She shook her head. She blinked again.
I finally let go and took a step back, my stomach clenching with pain. I could feel the hot tears bubbling on up. My momma does not want to hug me.
“Do you want to say hi to Stevie, Helen?” Grandpa asked, touching her arm.
Momma rolled her lips together, three times, I remember that. I watched her mouth, waiting for her to smile, to say hello, say she missed me, normal things a momma might say to her daughter. “No. No, I don’t want to say hi.”
No, she does not want to say hi to me.
I leaned into Grandpa, crushed.
“Helen,” Grandpa said. “Stevie’s missed you.”
She rolled her lips in and out again, then cocked her head and leaned in close.
“I don’t know that girl kid. She looks like the place with all the singing.” That’s what Momma called New York—“the place with all the singing.” She poked the dimple in my cheek. “I’ve seen that before. That dent. Bye, girl kid.”
I felt my body start to shake.
“I think they’re watching you,” she hissed. “Watch out. They have eyes everywhere.” She pointed to her eyes. “Eyes everywhere.”
Grandpa gave me a squeeze on the shoulder and a wink, and said, “Helen, no one is watching us. Remember, we’re out on the farm. There’s Bessie the cow, and see the chickens? The lambs are over there near the pigs.”
My momma peered around. “It’s in the fence post. That’s how they spy on us. And I don’t like the barky animals. Big or small. No barkies.”
I watched my grandpa’s face drop, then he smiled at me again, but I knew he was making himself smile.
I tried to take Momma’s hand, but she snatched it away and made a growling sound in her throat.
My momma is not happy to see me. She does not want to hold my hand.
I put my hands in the pockets of my dress and stared at the ground. Grandpa reached in my pocket and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.
I peered up at my momma. She was staring at me, unblinking. What do you do with a staring, unblinking, blank Momma?
“Helen,” Grandma said, smiling, hustling toward us with her yellow apron. “I’m so glad you’re home, honey.” She reached out her arms and wrapped them around my momma.
My momma did not respond. She did not move. For some reason, it didn’t make Grandma cry as it did me. I quickly wiped my tears away.
“Come on in, sweetie. How are you feeling?”
It did not take us long to figure out how Momma was feeling.
“They’re still watching us!” She made a fist and smashed three of the gingerbread men that me and Grandma made for her. Bang bang bang. “You can’t take my mind away from me.” She smashed another one. Bang. “I’m not going to be tied down to that chair! No tying!”
I bent down to look around the kitchen, under the table. The people were watching us? They’re going to tie us down? Where? When?
I heard a cry slip out of Grandma’s mouth, like a hurt bird, before she covered it. Tears formed in Grandpa’s eyes.
“It’s okay, Momma,” I said. Almost four now, and I wanted to help. “It’s gingerbread men. We’re going to eat them. They’re good. Here. You wanna eat one?” I held one out, then I bit the head off. “Yummy!”
She snatched it from my hand, lightning quick, and threw it against the wall, then grabbed another one and threw that, too. “Die! You will not get my brain waves again! Die! And I’m not wearing the white jacket! I won’t wear it! No more shots, either! No more cups with candies in it that make me sick and dizzy and sleepy!”
After she grabbed the bowl with the batter in it and heaved it across the room and through the window, Grandma and Grandpa grabbed her. She fought both of them, her blond hair flying out of her bun, her blue dress ripping on the right sleeve as she tried to hit Grandpa, who ducked. She swung at Grandma, but Grandpa moved fast and took the hit in the chest.
She fought against Grandpa, who held her wrists loosely so as not to hurt her. When she head butted him in the chest, he did little to stop it. When she tried to kick his legs, he moved them as best he could, all the while talking to her gently, softly. “Sweetie, it’s Daddy. I’m here. I’ll protect you. Now, don’t you worry….”
“Oh, no! I will not be on that bed with the jump rope straps. You are not drilling a hole in my head, you are not. I am a singer and you are not going to drill the hole. They’re trying to poison me. I can hear them.” She turned to me. “Girl kid, don’t you hear that poison from the voices?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, unsure, scared.
“No, sweetie, Stevie doesn’t hear the voices,” Grandma soothed. “We don’t hear the voices, and we’re going to help you turn them off.”
Momma shook her head, her shoulders slumping. “You can’t. You can’t turn them off. They’re here to stay. They told me that. They’re never going to leave me. It’s me against them. It’s a battle. Bad battle. I lose. They win.”
“Oh, my goodness, yes, honey, they’ll go away,” Grandma soothed.
“No. They’re attached to me.” She sagged against Grandpa. She looked so small next to him. “Leeches. Black leeches suckin
g my brain. Suck, suck, they’re sucking Helen. Helen’s going away and they’re eating her up. She’ll be gone soon. Only a leech left then. It’s a bad battle.”
Grandma and Grandpa kept talking to her, their voices like honey or warm marshmallows, but they couldn’t hide their tears from me.
They both helped Momma to her room, up the stairs, a beautiful room, next to mine, with a pitched roof and a pink flowered bedspread.
While they were doing that, I picked up the pieces of the gingerbread men and women and girls and boys and I tried to put them back together. I used the icing for glue and put their heads on their shoulders, patched up their arms, and got their legs back on the right places. I used all the icing to fix them up.
When I was done, I couldn’t eat any of them. I sat at the table and didn’t move.
Soon the voice of a male opera singer filled our home and my momma quieted down. Whenever she heard that voice it calmed her, although sometimes it made her cry. I didn’t know why.
I didn’t know why my momma acted that way.
I didn’t know what she would do tomorrow.
I didn’t get what was true and what was imaginary.
But what I did know was that my momma didn’t want my hugs.
It was after that incident that I started calling my momma by her given name, Helen, unless I was speaking directly to her. I think I did it because it separated me from her, and it separated her role as Momma from me. If Helen didn’t hug me, that was one thing. If Momma didn’t hug me, well, that hurt like holy heck.
So she became Helen in my head.
It is amazing what young children will do to save themselves.
6
Portland, Oregon
I could never go back to Ashville. Too many memories.