Girlchild (16 page)
I
f I drew pictures of the Calle families, this is what they would look like. Not family trees, more like weeds really, just as simple, stubborn, and unwanted:
f I drew pictures of the Calle families, this is what they would look like. Not family trees, more like weeds really, just as simple, stubborn, and unwanted:
| Buck | Hendrix |
|---|---|
| Emma d | Shirley Rose |
 | |
| Carrie d | Johanna Ruth |
| |
| Vivian d | Rory Dawn |
The little
d
’s that bud on some folks’ trees are round and ripe as
d
aughters but here they all hang withered to let us know who’s
d
ied. Some folks, like Viv, have long been dead but make appearances for the living, and some, like Mama, can’t seem to get that little
d
added fast enough,
d
eaf to those they’ll leave behin
d
.
d
’s that bud on some folks’ trees are round and ripe as
d
aughters but here they all hang withered to let us know who’s
d
ied. Some folks, like Viv, have long been dead but make appearances for the living, and some, like Mama, can’t seem to get that little
d
added fast enough,
d
eaf to those they’ll leave behin
d
.
The Bucks live in history books written far from the Calle, and their lives were spent in the wet Old South, not the dry Old West, and in the Roaring ’20s not the boring ’80s, but I count them as neighbors. As family, because Viv came through for me when no one else could and because our families’ patterns are so alike we might’ve been run off on the very same Singer. This way: Vivian belonged to Carrie, Carrie belonged to Emma, and all three of them belonged to the State. The Bucks, like the Hendrixes, were
passed from the arms of one social service agency to another their whole lives. By virtue of being a Buck, Vivian’s fate was predetermined, and by virtue of that, the fate that comes with a name, Viv was just like me. Except that her story’s told and mine isn’t. The Bucks’ history lies flat and fading between the pages of my
Academic American Encyclopedia
, only paper and ink now, but the Hendrix story isn’t finished yet.
passed from the arms of one social service agency to another their whole lives. By virtue of being a Buck, Vivian’s fate was predetermined, and by virtue of that, the fate that comes with a name, Viv was just like me. Except that her story’s told and mine isn’t. The Bucks’ history lies flat and fading between the pages of my
Academic American Encyclopedia
, only paper and ink now, but the Hendrix story isn’t finished yet.
Buck and Hendrix. We are each three generations, a trifecta, but don’t lay your money down just yet. Both our mamas’ and grandmas’ races have already been run and while Viv and I barrel along, neck and neck, we are still third-generation bastards surely on the road to whoredom. Dirty, white, and poor. We’re pure as the driven slush.
There’s no way out of the trap of your own blood, short of spilling it, science said so and Justice Holmes agreed. Regardless of Viv’s small achievement, that she made the honor roll the spring before her death when the wisteria that grows strong and stubborn in Southern gardens was just blooming, by that time, science and the State had already moved on to other business and no one noticed either her accomplishment or her passing. Viv died from a stomach ailment when she was eight years old, or so the encyclopedia tells me. Its authors are as unalarmed by this piece of information as by all the atrocities that have come before and spare no surprise for what comes after: that at the publication of the fourth edition of the
Academic American
, in 1984, Holmes’s ruling still had not been officially overturned. The encyclopedia may have learned not to hold its breath for justice, but I’m getting blue in the face.
Academic American
, in 1984, Holmes’s ruling still had not been officially overturned. The encyclopedia may have learned not to hold its breath for justice, but I’m getting blue in the face.
Viv and I share this history. These are our mothers and the beliefs that touch us and the words that judge us and like the entries in the encyclopedia, there’s no keeping just the good parts and separating the rest. Mothers and grandmothers might align Viv and me but the Man does the rest. We’re like shoes tied tight together
and thrown over electrical wire; every pulse going through that wire goes right through us. The rain makes us heavy the same way, the sun dries us out and then hardens us, cracks us where we used to bend, the wind sends us swinging. The only way to get free, of our families—of this place—is to tear our very selves apart, to say good-bye and go on alone, so we hang here and wait for the County to send someone out to clean us up.
and thrown over electrical wire; every pulse going through that wire goes right through us. The rain makes us heavy the same way, the sun dries us out and then hardens us, cracks us where we used to bend, the wind sends us swinging. The only way to get free, of our families—of this place—is to tear our very selves apart, to say good-bye and go on alone, so we hang here and wait for the County to send someone out to clean us up.
I’m pretty sure that Viv never got to be a real Girl Scout, coming as she did from a place like the Calle, where patches are for mending and oaths are only muttered underneath the breath. But if Vivian Buck, feebleminded daughter of a feebleminded daughter, herself the product of feebleminded stock, if that girl had lived, she’d be in my troop, and with three fingers raised in Promise we’d show them just what the third generation can do.
S
ome of the things that belong to Scouts and Guides of the whole world are: the Promise, the Laws, and the Handshake. These fall under the heading “International Guiding and Scouting,” and the distinction must be made and notice taken that excepting these basic tenets, we Girl Scouts of the United States, even those wasting away troopless in the deserts of Reno, are very different from them, the Scouts of the Philippines and Czechoslovakia, for example, who await our used books and toys, and those who, if the
Handbook
’s illustrations are on-their-honor true, lie abed in sanitariums in France. Excepting the oath taken and the laws followed, excepting the ways we must partner for safety, the way Viv partnered with me, the miracle of our palms creasing each into each as we looked both ways before crossing Calle streets, excepting this brief sisterhood of our held hands, complications of which the
Handbook
never discusses, one thing is made perfectly clear: there is no lasting fellowship here. We connect through its pages but close the book and we become just what we were. Alone.
ome of the things that belong to Scouts and Guides of the whole world are: the Promise, the Laws, and the Handshake. These fall under the heading “International Guiding and Scouting,” and the distinction must be made and notice taken that excepting these basic tenets, we Girl Scouts of the United States, even those wasting away troopless in the deserts of Reno, are very different from them, the Scouts of the Philippines and Czechoslovakia, for example, who await our used books and toys, and those who, if the
Handbook
’s illustrations are on-their-honor true, lie abed in sanitariums in France. Excepting the oath taken and the laws followed, excepting the ways we must partner for safety, the way Viv partnered with me, the miracle of our palms creasing each into each as we looked both ways before crossing Calle streets, excepting this brief sisterhood of our held hands, complications of which the
Handbook
never discusses, one thing is made perfectly clear: there is no lasting fellowship here. We connect through its pages but close the book and we become just what we were. Alone.
This, from the Intermediate Program of the
Girl Scout Handbook
. Girl Scout being among the most impermanent of titles, its fleeting description marches across the page with no concern for its mortality. Capital letters stand stiff and proud like the future leaders they beckon, through chapters on propriety and promise only to be abandoned on page 504 under the heading “How to Become
a Senior Girl Scout.” We are left suddenly in uniforms grown too small, our wrists stretching from their cuffs as bare as the page.
Girl Scout Handbook
. Girl Scout being among the most impermanent of titles, its fleeting description marches across the page with no concern for its mortality. Capital letters stand stiff and proud like the future leaders they beckon, through chapters on propriety and promise only to be abandoned on page 504 under the heading “How to Become
a Senior Girl Scout.” We are left suddenly in uniforms grown too small, our wrists stretching from their cuffs as bare as the page.
Girl Scout describes child, female, who holds the book first with both hands. Hands that are too small to bend the spine and crease the page alone, they bear the weight together until, grown up now, one hand is enlisted to twirling wisps of hair around an index finger, while its mate loses her place against the margins when the shouts from the boys’ camp filter in through the trees. She raises her eyes from the page, better to hear the deep newness of Boy Scouts’ voices promising they’ll grow up to be Eagles, and her voice, her words and oaths and promises, to “do a good turn daily” and “do my duty to God and Country,” fade into the past while she moves forward on a future Eagle Scout’s arm. These girls’ sashes will be put away and preserved for the next generation, or sold at thrift stores, or used to tie up curtains at daybreak, to flood sunshine into a room and reveal dust as it floats by the hard-earned patch that says “Cookie Champ 1977,” the patch that says “Eager Reader.” These specks call the once-future leaders to attention. Hands that imagined finer tools and greater work, young hands that saluted straight, now curl to their housework. Broom and duster are secured by hands flecked with gemstone and silver, spotted with age, and worn with the care of little scouts of their own.
M
ama allowed me to be in danger, and the kind she most feared. As she would say, and she would say sadly, and to no one named Jack, “That’s the fact, Jack.” It’s confusing and outrageous and it is a fact and it’s starting to make sense. It makes sense because Mama was in danger once too, and when she was, she lost true north. Maybe if she’d gotten help, joined a Girl Scout troop for example, memorized the “Compasses, finding directions without” section in the
Handbook
, it wouldn’t have taken her so long, too long, to get it back.
ama allowed me to be in danger, and the kind she most feared. As she would say, and she would say sadly, and to no one named Jack, “That’s the fact, Jack.” It’s confusing and outrageous and it is a fact and it’s starting to make sense. It makes sense because Mama was in danger once too, and when she was, she lost true north. Maybe if she’d gotten help, joined a Girl Scout troop for example, memorized the “Compasses, finding directions without” section in the
Handbook
, it wouldn’t have taken her so long, too long, to get it back.
Mama’s compass spins round and round, lands Mama in strange lands, and me with her. Santa Cruz for starters, Reno next, we might land anywhere. Next stop, Vietnam, where the mopeds and motorbikes run like salmon up a stream and the riders wear few helmets and there are fewer upheld laws and even fewer traffic lights. The families ride together along with their groceries and livestock and Mama and I ride right beside them, just like Grandma did, all her daughters on board. It’s dangerous to ride without a helmet, a little girl on the handlebars, but it’s the only way we know how to get around. How can Mama explain to me what safety looks like? How does a woman raised on the handlebars of a speeding moped explain a seatbelt? It seemed a safe perch to Mama, the handlebars of the moped of our life, her compass spinning like the speedometer as we barreled through.
But what do I know about Vietnam and its circus of bikes, anyway?
What old copy of
National Geographic
did I pull that out of? It’s just that I’m starting to realize how in the dark Mama was, so much so that even if she’d known that Carol left me alone with the Hardware Man, she wouldn’t have stopped it. She looked at Carol, who seemed okay, who put on the same show I tried to, and saw exactly what she never saw in herself, confidence, and so she thought Carol’s dad a safe dad, just like everyone on the Calle did. Until they didn’t. Until they realized the stranger bringing the danger was right next door, a man they hardly knew they didn’t know. Mama couldn’t read the signs, not by herself, her sign-reader got jammed up way too long ago, and instead of hating her for it, this tour of Vietnam is my attempt at finding a light to forgive her by.
What old copy of
National Geographic
did I pull that out of? It’s just that I’m starting to realize how in the dark Mama was, so much so that even if she’d known that Carol left me alone with the Hardware Man, she wouldn’t have stopped it. She looked at Carol, who seemed okay, who put on the same show I tried to, and saw exactly what she never saw in herself, confidence, and so she thought Carol’s dad a safe dad, just like everyone on the Calle did. Until they didn’t. Until they realized the stranger bringing the danger was right next door, a man they hardly knew they didn’t know. Mama couldn’t read the signs, not by herself, her sign-reader got jammed up way too long ago, and instead of hating her for it, this tour of Vietnam is my attempt at finding a light to forgive her by.
A
man with 9 fingers has 4 times as many male grandchildren as female, and 3 times as much regret. The amount of regret is equal to the number of times his shoulder has been dislocated from the recoil of a shotgun blast at 21 foot-pounds of force per bullet multiplied by the number of times he has been called a dirtbag to his face. Given the number of shell casings littering the bedroom floor and the number of shells ready in the box, how many of his original 4 daughters have been deafened by gunshot?
man with 9 fingers has 4 times as many male grandchildren as female, and 3 times as much regret. The amount of regret is equal to the number of times his shoulder has been dislocated from the recoil of a shotgun blast at 21 foot-pounds of force per bullet multiplied by the number of times he has been called a dirtbag to his face. Given the number of shell casings littering the bedroom floor and the number of shells ready in the box, how many of his original 4 daughters have been deafened by gunshot?
(Show all of your work.)
a.
The jar holds 5 times as many pennies as nickels.
The jar holds 5 times as many pennies as nickels.
b.
Each team will need to load 12 bags of dirt.
Each team will need to load 12 bags of dirt.
c.
The mother will purchase 22.4 yards of gingham fabric.
The mother will purchase 22.4 yards of gingham fabric.
d.
The shotgun blast echoes for at least 3 generations.
The shotgun blast echoes for at least 3 generations.
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