What Was That? Was That Me?

There were a series of events that collected to create the angry girl I was that day. There are facts, dealings as they occurred without judgment or filter, and there are memories, like a record or a copy of a record that gets more and more faded over time. What brought on my vengeance? A complex, nested history:
1. The wooden bars of my crib. Lime green walls, lilies framed in oval beside a small window that let in foggy, jagged shadows. The yellow call of morning. A great sighing breath into night, fogging the dark windows into new: bright, day, light.

2. Childhood. The unadulterated sense of things—the smell of rain on blacktop, the yellow curl of dried maple leaf crunching beneath bare feet, my mother’s rich black coat splashed with white. Memories like overplayed, overwhelming songs mixed in alongside red stains, white shirts, yellowed armpits, nightstands with stubbed-out Luckies on smeared glass, dark with leftover life.

3. A young mother. One that started out young but aged fast and hard. I still remember something of what she was early on. In the beginning, we were like two souls washed up on a beach together, found after a long parting. She taught me like a child teaching a child, like games, and I helped her with everything. Some days she had no strength, and I did it all.

4. There are gaps in what I know. I know that I once could draw a picture for her that clearly showed a family just like ours was: father, mother, two sisters, all in crayon, black clothes with pink cheeks and hands. All our arms and legs there under the clothes, in single lines. I feel soothed to think of it, as if by her hands, when I was too small to remember. There was always something between us, like a roof that kept rain from touching me.

5. The way I see it is this: my mother is a giant icicle clinging to the gutter where the robins make their nest in spring. I can’t keep myself from touching it. I test it with my finger—what makes it hold? It cracks and plummets, piercing the snow without a sound. I stare, powerless at the rippled, broken weight going down.

6. She had me at the age of 18 and then, 20 months later, my sister, Sophie. We went through it all together. We were opposites and we were equals. Once, I made her mad just to see her that way. She lunged at me, her small jaws set, a vein standing taut on her baby-bird throat. Syllables spilled out in a tangle she made no attempt to smooth. Then it got physical. Pushing down, pulling hair, falling to the ground. I grabbed her pudgy arm, my sister’s soft flesh, the one I love most of all. And in that touching we both were proven real. Blameless, faultless as a dancer’s moves: from the bone. Me: courage in my mouth, trying to slow down and manage to stay out of harm’s way. Sophie: gentle and placid as a pond, dandelions crushed in her hair.

7. Sophie wouldn’t talk to anyone but me until the age of five or six. My mom didn’t even believe that she did talk and tried to test her in various ways. When Sophie was five and I was seven, we were playing in the sprinkler in the back yard when my mother came out and asked, “Sophie, what color popsicle do you want, red or green?” Sophie looked at me and I answered, “She wants red.”
“No,” my mother shook her head, “Sophie, you talk to me. What color popsicle do you want, red or green?”
“Mom,” I threw my hands in the air, “I already told you.”
“No, Jane, I want Sophie to answer me.” She kept her eyes on Sophie, who was still looking at me. “Sophie, what color—”
It went on like that. My mom might have thought I was making Sophie’s choices for her, but I always knew what she wanted. For verification I caught the sparkle in her eye confirming I had answered correctly, comforting me with a kind of praise, like the unexpected music when an empty glass is hit unintentionally. We shared a brain sometimes, it seemed. We agreed without speech, without looking at each other, wearing identical bracelets, my hand swallowing hers, the air between our fingers joining us like petals, signaling our position to the world. We discussed things with our mouths closed, yet left nothing to the imagination. Everything I discovered about the world I taught to Sophie.

8. My dad. The world looked its worst through his eyes. He was the heavy, musky smell of arm hair in full growth, strong and thick. He was years surviving on stealth and pure dumb vegetable will. He made me feel safe and unsafe. He preferred my company to Sophie’s. Maybe it was because I was older. Maybe it was that I was a tomboy even at the age of four. We spent hours together playing video games, wrestling in the living room, watching cartoons and baseball games, riding his bike, me up on the handlebars wanting him to go faster, thrilling at the feeling of my hands just loose, ungripped enough to pass for letting go.

9. I was walking with Sophie and my Aunt Grace when my dad rode by and stopped to talk to us. I eyed the bike and he offered me a ride home. He set me on the boy-bar sideways, telling me to keep my feet lifted. We sped through the streets, the ground a blur, almost flying. Rounding the last turn before our house I pulled in my left leg, abruptly halting the front wheel and sending the bike flipping, airborne, downside-up, tossing my dad’s solid body into the pavement as if by a bucking horse, while I went flailing―a blur of limbs, hair, chrome, and red metal.
I looked at once for my dad. Was he hurt, angry, laughing? My eyes found his face. Following his gaze I lowered my eyes to my own body. I saw my foot tangled in a jumble of thick, bent metal spokes, a violent cut along my ankle oozing thick and quick into a bubbled puddle on the concrete.
My dad untangled my ankle and lifted me. He rushed me to the house, my sister and my aunt running toward us, their eyes wild with alarm. My dad laid me in the bathtub to keep me from bleeding all over the cracked brown linoleum. My mother ran in from the kitchen with pink rubber gloves on, saw my foot nearly dangling at the ankle half-attached, registered the blood, turned white, and vomited into the toilet. I heaved at the sight and smell of my mom retching. My aunt wrapped my ankle in towels and held me in her lap while my dad sped us to the emergency room in our orange Toyota Tercel, the broken hatchback door, loosely tied, rattling and clanking all the way.
They did the stitching though I remained painfully lucid, unanesthetized, kicking and screaming, sweating from the tender, shocked skin being pierced by the needle, then the peculiar friction of the yellow fiber threading through, pulling it closed, stretching and bunching the inflamed, purple tissue.
“It’s almost over. Just hold on, sweetheart; I know it hurts,” the doctor said, his eyes never leaving the careful motions of his latex-covered fingers.
The sound of Aunt Grace crying just outside the room echoed against the room’s steel surfaces while my dad stood at my side, a vault of held breath, his white shirt red with blood.

10. During my recovery, we worked side-by-side, painstakingly piecing together an enormous Star Wars jigsaw puzzle and then gluing the pieces in place. The day was too rainy to play outside, so we sat on the living-room floor with the furniture pushed back and the pieces spread out, concentrating on what fit where while my mom wrote in her journal in the kitchen and Sophie sat on the couch watching Scooby Doo. My dad mounted the finished puzzle on a piece of cardboard and hung it in their bedroom. It stood for all that was good in him.
We lounged on the living room floor with blankets and listened to the Doors. Dad smoked his Lucky filters, drank his Old Styles, got high, and listened to music with me. Sometimes, he retreated into the basement where I instinctively knew I couldn’t follow him, where he had his guitar room. He played his guitar down there.

11. I dropped my notebook down the stairs and went down to get it. I didn’t hear the guitar so I assumed nobody was down there. Curiosity drew me to the forbidden door. I approached cautiously, gripping my notebook against my chest. Five steps away, the door opened. I dropped my notebook and stared into the wild eyes of my dad, white powder on his nose. He looked behind him, glanced up the stairs, darted toward me so fast that I jumped. He picked up my notebook and handed it to me. I ran up the stairs, slamming the door closed behind me. I heard him coming so I ran into the bathroom. He exploded from the stairwell and looked frantically around. He spotted me in front of the medicine cabinet and froze, just staring at me. I knew he wasn’t right and I didn’t know what to do. I opened the cabinet and took out my toothbrush. I applied paste and started brushing my teeth. I looked at the soiled clothes in the gaping laundry hamper, studied the white spots on the countertop where toothpaste or soap had dripped and left a mark. All this time I saw him from the corner of my eye, still standing silent and straight looking at me. His sky-blue t-shirt was ripped at the neck and his eyes were desperate. He was looking at my shoes, my shoelaces, I was sure.
I was still little, maybe five years old, and he had just taught me how to tie my shoes. Instead of the slender bunny ears he taught me how to make, I had created knotted caterpillars, bound larva, repulsive insects with two plastic tipped antennas. He rushed toward me and fell to the floor. I shuffled back and almost fell over the side of the tub before managing to regain my balance. He grabbed my ankles and steadied himself. He started unknotting my laces. I gazed at the back and top of his head, dumbfounded. The white paste and my saliva swirled in my mouth and dripped onto the back of his head. I slapped my hand across my mouth. He stopped, reached back, snaked his thick fingers through his dark, scraggly hair and felt the toothpaste. He looked at the substance on his hand for what seemed like a long time in silence.
I could hear my mom getting Sophie dressed in the other room. I knew she would come out soon and see him like this. I knew she would be mad. My dad looked up at me and smiled. My mouth was filling fuller and fuller with minty liquid. I leaned over the sink and spat.
“What’d we say about the bunny ears?” he said in a deeper voice than usual. I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth, gaped at him. He didn’t look the same. I was afraid of him.
“What’d we say, Janie?” he asked again quietly. I wiped my mouth again, looked away from him, listened for my mom.
“What did we say?” he shouted. I jumped, almost fell back.
“Make two loops like a bunny’s ears and tie them together,” I said.
“Why didn’t you do it like that?
“I tried, I…”
My mom appeared in the doorway with Sophie. She looked down at him crouched on the floor before me, looked up at me.
“What’s going on here? Why are you yelling?” she asked. My dad jumped to his feet and whirled on her.
“I got it, Christine!” he yelled.
“Are you high?” she asked, her face turning red.
“I got it!” He pushed by her and headed back toward the basement. She ran ahead of him, slammed the basement door, turned and leaned her back against it. She crossed her arms and glared at him.
“Get outta my way,” he growled.
“You’ve been doing that shit again,” she said, her voice shrill. “You bring that around our kids now?”
“I just had a little to smoke,” he said.
“Lie. You still have it on your nose!” She grabbed his nose hard and twisted it. He grabbed her arm and wrenched her away from the door. She backhanded him with her free arm, her knuckle catching his cheek bone in a way that cracked, like a twig snapping. He grunted, fumbled back, whirled on her and grabbed her left breast, squeezing and twisting it so hard that she cried out in pain. I grabbed Sophie and pulled her to our room when they fell to the floor wrestling and screaming.

12. He drank himself tough, clumsy, and rough, setting his mouth in a long, lipless minus sign, then watched cartoons in his chair until he dozed off or passed out. I came in from playing outside and saw him asleep in the chair. I knew what to expect, but I approached him anyway as if nothing had changed. An ashtray full of butts balanced on the armrest and Old Style cans littered the floor around him. Wiley Coyote was in fervent pursuit of the Road Runner on the TV. I touched his arm and said, “Dad, we’re building a fort outside and we need your help.” I must have spoken too softly because he didn’t stir.
“Dad!” I shouted and pushed on his shoulder. He jumped and his rage flew out with his hand, knocking the ashtray off its perch, spilling the black, sooty contents all over his lap and into the chair.
“God damn!” He jumped up. I backed away, shoulders stooped. He came after me, pushed me toward the door and out, shouting at me through the screen: “Go play with your sister and leave me the hell alone!” The door slammed closed and the lock slid into place with a soft click.
Eventually, he passed out and there was silence. I listened to traffic; the faint, distant sirens of Chicago. Listening hard enough to those sirens, I could stop the echo of his drunken voice in my head. Usually, my dad had a nice, warm, deep voice until he drank too much and it blurred. It was that voice that I could stand the least about him: bored hostility, loud and smug, alternately anxious and preening. These things I knew would go on and on. They were parts of my life without any distinguishable beginning or end like the cycle of routine. It was not something I could stop, prevent, or wish away. Certain things cannot be rejected, as if the catalyst for acceptance is necessity mixed with impenetrable repetition. Another siren, this time close by, lulled me with its circular whining, close then far, close then far. Like an unbroken horn on a merry-go-round, it was always going away and coming around.

13. Mrs. Dalby. She came into my life by way of a fight that started while we were at K-Mart. Sophie and I were playing with an Etch-a-Sketch in the toy aisle and we had lost track of time. Finally, I looked up and didn’t see my mom and dad, so I grabbed Sophie’s hand and dragged her along to go and find them.
“You’re not always gonna be right, Christine, so don’t act all high n’ mighty with me. You know I’ll knock you right out.” They were in the toilet paper aisle. My dad had my mom pinned against a shelf with the cart full of cleaning supplies and fluffy blue towels. My mom shoved the cart into him and stormed away, grabbing me by the hand as she went. We walked fast down the aisle toward the front of the store. I had to skip to keep up. I pulled at her grasp, but she wouldn’t let go of my hand. I looked up at her anger-chiseled face and stopped resisting. Her lips pursed together, nostrils ablaze, eyes stone, unblinking wrath.
“Where are we going?” I asked. She didn’t as much as glance down at me. I gave up and blindly followed along. We entered an El station. She let go of my hand and pushed me ahead of her on the stairs climbing up to the platform. We rode the train in silence. When we got off, we waited what seemed like hours for a bus only to ride on it what seemed like miles to where we got off only to walk what seemed like a hundred blocks to our house. My dad and Sophie beat us home; the car was parked crooked on the street when we walked up. I found Sophie on the bathroom floor, crouched over the toilet, crying, staring into the water where her teardrops rippled away her reflection.
“Sophie, what’s wrong, what happened?” I asked her. She looked up at me wide eyed.
“Jane! You’re here!” she yelled and threw her arms around me.
“Of course I’m here. Did you think I wasn’t coming back?”
“Daddy flushed you down the toilet!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“When we came home, I looked for you and couldn’t find you. Dad was in here peeing and I asked him where you and mommy went to and he flushed the toilet. Said he flushed you down there and walked out.”
“Oh, Soph,” I said and hugged her close.
“It’s not possible; don’t you know that? How could daddy flush things as big as mom and me down that little toilet?” I asked. She just held her arms tight against my back and sniffled. I heard my dad start to raise his voice and then my mom’s voice even louder, talking over him.
“You don’t know anything! You barely graduated high school! You can’t just quit now! What will we do for money? Your janitorial career won’t cut it, Bobby!”
“Keep your voice down, goddammit!” my dad yelled back. I heard a crash, a painful yelp from my dad, a fist connecting, a series of grunts. I hurried Sophie into our room and locked the door. Sophie ran to the back of the room and crouched against the wall, jamming her fingers in her ears. I pushed a chair against the door and sat down on it. My mom was screaming: “Get away from me! Help me! Somebody!”
I got up and ran out of the room, down the hall to where I heard her screaming. She was on her back on the floor, my dad over her, grabbing and twisting one of her ears, pinning her arms down with his free hand. I gasped at the blood on her and when my dad looked up at me I saw the gash on his forehead, bleeding freely. As soon as he saw me, he let loose of her hands. She swung wildly, punching his face and knocking him down on his side. He landed on his elbow and reached for her hair. She scrambled to her feet and kicked him hard in the face. He went down and I screamed.
“Get Sophie and get out of this house!” my mom yelled at me. I ran to our room. Sophie was humming and rocking on the carpet with her fingers still in her ears. I shook her and dragged her to her feet. She got up and started running with me. We ran out of the house and down the street into the 7/11 on the corner. There was a big, dark-haired lady with heavy breasts at the register. Items were scattered along the counter while her customer was leaning over with one hand in her purse and one hand on her daughter’s stroller, frozen in this position as she stared at us. I stood there silent for a moment and looked back at them, breathing hard and clasping Sophie’s hand, our fingers laced together tightly enough to cut off all blood flow.
“Someone call 911!” I barked. I heard the panic in my shaking voice. The woman with heavy breasts dialed the numbers, no questions asked.
“Jane, are you OK?” asked the woman with the baby. It was Mrs. Dalby, the guidance counselor from school. I didn’t recognize her in jeans and a t-shirt.
“Mrs. Dalby!” I said, surprised. I looked down at her baby. A beautiful little girl, maybe 18 months old.
“Jane, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“My dad’s hurt. He’s unconscious!”
“Oh my goodness! Where do you live?” she asked.
Heavy Breasts called out to us: “Girls, tell me what happened and where.”
“My dad’s hurt. Just down the street. 3309 Avers,” I called back. Sophie cuddled close to me, letting go of my hand and burying her face in my armpit. I wrapped my arms around her and watched Heavy Breasts repeat what I had said into the phone, reciting my address twice before hanging up the receiver. I looked back at Mrs. Dalby; she was coming toward us, pushing her baby ahead of her.
“Would you like to come to my house until things get settled, girls?” she asked. Sophie looked up at her and nodded.
“I don’t know if we should,” I said.
“It’s OK, Jane, I don’t live far. I won’t ask any questions. I just want to make sure you’re safe until the ambulance comes to get your dad, OK?”
“OK, we’ll come,” I said. Her offer to withhold questioning me made me feel like I could trust her. We walked in silence away from the store in the opposite direction from our house.