Girlchild (5 page)
I
n the fairy tales there’s only one Big Bad Wolf and the little girl takes only one trip through the Dark Forest and fights only one fight for her life before the story ends in happily and ever after. But life on the Calle is real, not make-believe, and every Calle girl knows that once the My-What-Big-Paws-You-Have fall on her skin, Little Red will carry that scent no matter how hard she scrubs. From that point on, every wolf in every forest of her very real life will recognize her and they’ll do their Biggest and Baddest to get into her basket anytime she drops her guard. So be prepared. We’re not out of the woods yet.
n the fairy tales there’s only one Big Bad Wolf and the little girl takes only one trip through the Dark Forest and fights only one fight for her life before the story ends in happily and ever after. But life on the Calle is real, not make-believe, and every Calle girl knows that once the My-What-Big-Paws-You-Have fall on her skin, Little Red will carry that scent no matter how hard she scrubs. From that point on, every wolf in every forest of her very real life will recognize her and they’ll do their Biggest and Baddest to get into her basket anytime she drops her guard. So be prepared. We’re not out of the woods yet.
I
start my walk to school and Viv is waiting for me at the edge of the driveway. She salutes and says, “Are you ready for the spelling test today?”
start my walk to school and Viv is waiting for me at the edge of the driveway. She salutes and says, “Are you ready for the spelling test today?”
I almost drop my books saluting back to her, I’m so excited that we’re walking to school together, but I don’t remember about a test or even about making a plan to walk to school. Yesterday feels like it happened in pieces, it flashes between recess bells.
“Did Ms. Hyatt say we were having a test?”
“Well, Mrs. Tucker did, so I figure y’all are too.” Mrs. Tucker is Viv’s teacher. We’re in the same grade, but not the same class, and I’ve never even seen Viv yet at school because our recesses aren’t at the same time. By the time my class is coming out to the playground, Viv’s is already lined up to come in, so I haven’t been able to catch her yet and salute hello.
Tired of waiting for my answer, like always, she goes ahead, “That’s okay, R.D., I know them by heart!”
Viv recites our spelling words in a chant as we walk. She chants rules too, “
i
before
e
except after
c
,” and doesn’t get tired of going over and over them. Her books are all tied together with a belt and she swings them forward with each word, “
i
—before—
e
—except—after—
c
,” and “the—principal—is—your—pal.”
i
before
e
except after
c
,” and doesn’t get tired of going over and over them. Her books are all tied together with a belt and she swings them forward with each word, “
i
—before—
e
—except—after—
c
,” and “the—principal—is—your—pal.”
At the entrance to the school, she says, “Do your best, Rory,” and salutes even though we’re only feet apart. Then she runs off to the far gate, her books swinging beside her.
B
oys eat bugs in the schoolyard. Newborn caterpillars crawl all over a tree by the kindergarten building. Boys dare each other to eat them whole, fuzzy, green, and wiggling. Girls don’t dare or eat.
oys eat bugs in the schoolyard. Newborn caterpillars crawl all over a tree by the kindergarten building. Boys dare each other to eat them whole, fuzzy, green, and wiggling. Girls don’t dare or eat.
T
he Hardware Man has a counter, not a bar, but he does his share of listening. Men come in to pick up new saw blades and caulking, spackle and sealant, but they get something else at Ace. A daytime medicine like the one they’ll get later at Hobee’s or the Truck Stop. What the Hardware Man offers isn’t that different from what Mama serves up, a friendly face and willing ear and one eye on their money hand.
he Hardware Man has a counter, not a bar, but he does his share of listening. Men come in to pick up new saw blades and caulking, spackle and sealant, but they get something else at Ace. A daytime medicine like the one they’ll get later at Hobee’s or the Truck Stop. What the Hardware Man offers isn’t that different from what Mama serves up, a friendly face and willing ear and one eye on their money hand.
When the regulars come in, Sonny, the part-time guy, shrinks back from the counter, the Hardware Man moves forward, and the talk begins. Sometimes the order’s been called ahead but that doesn’t hurry anything and the conversations follow the same direction, starting with the weather. There are only two seasons in the desert so that doesn’t take long. Next is work, and work is always a bitch. Which leads right to the last thing, women. And no women are off-limits except for wives, and then only if the husband is in the room. Everyone else is fair game. When the Hardware Man still had his arm around Timmy’s mama, I heard all about it, but now that that’s over, the customers’ eyes fall on me. “Ain’t that Jo’s daughter?”
The Hardware Man shrugs, like he doesn’t know and doesn’t care, and says, “Just keeping an eye on her while Carol’s off letting her boyfriend feel her up.” And the men’s replies are always the same. They can’t believe that Mama and the Hardware Man don’t
have something going by now, that she isn’t his secret girlfriend. It’s the only thing I can imagine feeling dirtier than the truth and I want to tell them she wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot extension ladder, but instead I shrink up against the far wall with Sonny, our backs cushioned by silver rolls of duct tape.
have something going by now, that she isn’t his secret girlfriend. It’s the only thing I can imagine feeling dirtier than the truth and I want to tell them she wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot extension ladder, but instead I shrink up against the far wall with Sonny, our backs cushioned by silver rolls of duct tape.
T
he bell rings the signal for inside dares. Boys sit at their desks and count how many seconds long they can rub their skin raw with the erasers on their Number Two pencils before they bleed. Boys grow up with scars from erasing their skin.
he bell rings the signal for inside dares. Boys sit at their desks and count how many seconds long they can rub their skin raw with the erasers on their Number Two pencils before they bleed. Boys grow up with scars from erasing their skin.
I
’m not very good at it. I can’t catch the ball inside the flipper, I just send it faster down the hole, another quarter gone, another trip back up to the bar to measure the number of quarters left in our stack, the number of sips left in Mama’s beer. And this is my last quarter no matter how much she’s got left, she already said. I’m praying for the ball to cut me a break when a hand puts three quarters along the edge of the glass, and even though I know it’s one of Mama’s stupid boyfriends giving me more chances at pinball so he can have more chances with her, I turn to say, “Thank you.” But it isn’t one of Mama’s boyfriends, it’s Marc, my neighbor, looking almost as surprised as I am when he says, “No, dummy. That means I’m playing next.”
’m not very good at it. I can’t catch the ball inside the flipper, I just send it faster down the hole, another quarter gone, another trip back up to the bar to measure the number of quarters left in our stack, the number of sips left in Mama’s beer. And this is my last quarter no matter how much she’s got left, she already said. I’m praying for the ball to cut me a break when a hand puts three quarters along the edge of the glass, and even though I know it’s one of Mama’s stupid boyfriends giving me more chances at pinball so he can have more chances with her, I turn to say, “Thank you.” But it isn’t one of Mama’s boyfriends, it’s Marc, my neighbor, looking almost as surprised as I am when he says, “No, dummy. That means I’m playing next.”
Marc is my desk buddy this year. Ms. Hyatt says that even second-grade girls will chitter-chatter if they sit together and our whole classroom, except for Stephanie Harris and Jena-with-one-n, sits at two-person desks in a boy-girl, boy-girl pattern. And she’s right. This is already more than Marc’s said to me ever. Ms. Hyatt already held Marc back one year, and maybe she thought sitting him next to me would help him do better but Marc can’t understand the directions, or doesn’t want to, and I hear his stomach growling all morning and he falls asleep at our desk after lunch. He never remembers his homework or to raise his hand before he shouts out the wrong answer, like he always does, and every day my papers come back with smiley faces, plusses, and stars and he
gets his name on the blackboard for a million things, like picking his nose and rubbing the boogies under our desk. He has to stay after and pound erasers and his papers come back with checkmarks and SEE ME in big red letters, and every day I’m the only one embarrassed because he’s the only boy I like. I try not to like him but it doesn’t work, just like it doesn’t work when I try too late to catch my last ball before it rolls down between the flippers.
gets his name on the blackboard for a million things, like picking his nose and rubbing the boogies under our desk. He has to stay after and pound erasers and his papers come back with checkmarks and SEE ME in big red letters, and every day I’m the only one embarrassed because he’s the only boy I like. I try not to like him but it doesn’t work, just like it doesn’t work when I try too late to catch my last ball before it rolls down between the flippers.
“Too bad,” he says. “You better stick to playing Girl Scouts with your new friend.”
I look around for Viv, but we’re the only kids here and he laughs. “Oh, she’s not here, huh?” he says, as he puts his quarter in. “Too bad.”
Marc rode past me and Viv on our walk to school together and I made sure he heard us talking about the Girl Scouts by saying extra loud how everyone will want to join our troop. He finally knows something about me, he remembered it, and I almost feel proud, but the way he says “friend,” like Viv’s a big joke, makes me even more embarrassed than I was before. It’s because of her clothes, I know it, because she wears the same dress every single day, but Marc wears the same thing all the time too and I can smell cologne coming off the collar of the leather jacket he’s wearing. It’s his dad’s, and I know he takes it without asking because I’ve heard his dad hollering from the porch for it, watched him through my kitchen window as he stands at the railing in a T-shirt and curses at Marc when he rides his bike up the driveway and throws it at him. The jacket’s sleeves hang so long on Marc that I can’t see his fingers as he presses into the machine’s buttons, already racking up a bigger score on his first ball than I did in my whole game.
W
hen we get home, Mama heads for the couch before I’ve got the door locked, and I’m reaching for the chain when there is a quiet knock that just about gives me a heart attack. I look over at Mama and she is out, her good ear in the pillow and the ear that doesn’t work so good turned to the room, so I know she didn’t hear. I stand on my tiptoes and peek out the window, scared to burst. At first I don’t see anyone, I think it was my imagination, but then I see a head jumping up to see inside and I recognize the curly hair.
hen we get home, Mama heads for the couch before I’ve got the door locked, and I’m reaching for the chain when there is a quiet knock that just about gives me a heart attack. I look over at Mama and she is out, her good ear in the pillow and the ear that doesn’t work so good turned to the room, so I know she didn’t hear. I stand on my tiptoes and peek out the window, scared to burst. At first I don’t see anyone, I think it was my imagination, but then I see a head jumping up to see inside and I recognize the curly hair.
It’s Viv.
I open the door quiet, and she comes inside like she’s been there a million times before. “Viv, you scared me to death,” I whisper, and point to the couch and Mama there.
“She’s got her shoes still on!” Viv laughs when she sees Mama curled up in her coat with her boots still on but fast asleep. When I shush her she just laughs harder. “I thought your Mama was a mute.”
I’ve never heard anyone use that word before. “She has a bad ear,” I say, and I don’t want to add that she’s drunk so I ask, “What are you doing out?”
“Uncle went out and so I ran over to say hi!” She’s so loud, like the loudest thing that’s ever been in our house, and I’m worried about her waking Mama, when sure enough, just then Mama rolls over and sits up.
“Freezing in here,” she says, before she realizes we’re there, and when she finally looks over at us, she blinks. “R.D., what are you doing standing there with that door open?”
Viv says, “Mrs. Hendrix, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Viv Buck.”
Mama looks from Viv, where she stands in front of our open door, to me, her forehead crinkling enough to let me know that if she wasn’t drunk I’d catch it for having a friend over after dark and talking in the doorway. But tonight she just reaches for the end of the couch where her quilt is folded up and says, “It seems like it’s time for all little girls to be tucked into their beds, safe and sound. We’re not heating up the whole damn Calle.” She turns back over onto her good ear and pulls the quilt up. Her coat and boots are still on, and Viv still thinks this is funny, and I’m glad she does, since Mama was just rude in a way I bet Viv’s family never is.
Viv smoothes it out, makes it easy like she does everything. “I better run on home then,” she whispers this time. “See you tomorrow morning!”
She salutes and I salute back. I lock the door after her, and as I’m pulling off Mama’s boots, for the first time ever, I laugh at how silly she looks.
2 October 1989, 10 o’clock on a Monday a.m.
Morning Pretty Lady!
Bright & sunshiny here in Portola—hope it stays that way—we can sure use it! Warm up the old bones &
maybe
keep the old hands working! Many times when feeling old & tired & “what’s the use-ish” I remember & take heart from your Ma’s spirit. She gave much of herself to
many
. Even her old Ma! Jo is still with both of us, Child. She gave you your
self
—by giving you
her
self. Strength, determination, courage to do. I know you’ve got these best parts of her and a thought strikes me—being her mother & yours once-removed, so to speak, I remember her earliest years & then her teen yrs. & I remember her struggle with the whole concept of “Mother.” The 2
1/2
years of our initial (& the most important) bonding was greatly “muddied” by the event of our being separated & the sudden replacement of me by a “father,” at that oh so dependent age of three. In the space of a few courthouse hours, John Gunthum took over as both father and mother, almost beating us home from city hall to get the few of her things he would deign to take. I became history to her & as time passed I became “his story” of me—
almost
! At eleven she underwent another sea change, when by the grace of God and the State of California, I got her back. Still dependent & insecure about what “mother” meant, in four years’ time she entered the irrevocable state of becoming mother herself. Fifteen years old, only a few months younger than you are now and one grade behind. I would & could tell you much of those times, but want to see you settling first into this age with no one’s problems on the table but your own. You need to figure out where you’re going from here first and what of this history is coming
with you. Now it’s enough remembering Jo mothering four boys, clumsy at first, Lordy so was I, like a bright five-year-old dusting the furniture. Each time she prayed for a girl—
her
own little girl! Maybe to give that child what she had missed? From this advantage of time, it seems likely. You, Ror, were her dream & you
fulfilled
it—you are still doing it—you always will! Know it, Child & be glad & proud (a little!) & happy! When it is time for you to hold your own child you will automatically—
maybe
keep the old hands working! Many times when feeling old & tired & “what’s the use-ish” I remember & take heart from your Ma’s spirit. She gave much of herself to
many
. Even her old Ma! Jo is still with both of us, Child. She gave you your
self
—by giving you
her
self. Strength, determination, courage to do. I know you’ve got these best parts of her and a thought strikes me—being her mother & yours once-removed, so to speak, I remember her earliest years & then her teen yrs. & I remember her struggle with the whole concept of “Mother.” The 2
1/2
years of our initial (& the most important) bonding was greatly “muddied” by the event of our being separated & the sudden replacement of me by a “father,” at that oh so dependent age of three. In the space of a few courthouse hours, John Gunthum took over as both father and mother, almost beating us home from city hall to get the few of her things he would deign to take. I became history to her & as time passed I became “his story” of me—
almost
! At eleven she underwent another sea change, when by the grace of God and the State of California, I got her back. Still dependent & insecure about what “mother” meant, in four years’ time she entered the irrevocable state of becoming mother herself. Fifteen years old, only a few months younger than you are now and one grade behind. I would & could tell you much of those times, but want to see you settling first into this age with no one’s problems on the table but your own. You need to figure out where you’re going from here first and what of this history is coming
with you. Now it’s enough remembering Jo mothering four boys, clumsy at first, Lordy so was I, like a bright five-year-old dusting the furniture. Each time she prayed for a girl—
her
own little girl! Maybe to give that child what she had missed? From this advantage of time, it seems likely. You, Ror, were her dream & you
fulfilled
it—you are still doing it—you always will! Know it, Child & be glad & proud (a little!) & happy! When it is time for you to hold your own child you will automatically—
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