Mom read some of my book to me, but she was too emotional to finish it. I needed her to be strong that day but she wasn’t capable. Where was my beautiful, perfect mother, the one I had idealized in my head for well over a year? I had never forgotten what she looked like or smelled like. But I needed her to be strong so I could feel my feelings. I was full of sadness, longing, and disappointment but it wasn’t safe to let those emotions out. That day I realized only Mom could have the feelings. I decided to stuff mine down and be strong for her.
Chapter 6
I don’t recall much about the day my sister Franky was born except for how round her head was when she was brought home. It was a perfect sphere, kind of like those candlepin bowling balls we bowled with in those days. Mom tried out several nicknames but Pumpkin stuck, which later was reduced to Punky. Mom told me she wanted to name her Christy Ann and would even write it on the back of her pictures but Frank insisted she be his namesake. I guess Mom finally gave in.
Mom called me Sparrow most of the time but she had also given me a nickname—Puppy. She said it was because I had a puppy-dog nose. At first I kind of liked it because when Mom used my nickname it felt like she loved me. She never yelled it like she did my real name. When she called me Puppy her voice was soft and sweet and felt like a hug.
“Are you my puppy girl?” she asked.
“Yes,” I always replied, smiling, and panting like a dog with my tongue hanging out and my hands up to resemble paws.
One day Mom was having coffee and cigarettes with Aunt Patty, who was married to Frank’s brother Artie and I overheard part of their conversation. I don’t know who they were talking about but Mom said, “That woman is so ugly. A real dog.” My heart sank and I could feel my face getting hot as I ran to the mirror. Oh no! Tears welled up in my eyes. Mom calls me Puppy because I’m ugly too! Puppies are just younger dogs, after all. I was devastated. At five I already knew how to do lots of things. I could sing and dance, I could tie my shoes, and I could do my own hair. I could even take care of my little brother and sister. But I didn’t know what to do about ugly. The next time Mom called me Puppy I explained that I knew where the nickname had come from and that I was a five year old with a dog face. She tilted her head back and laughed for what felt like an hour. Why is my being ugly so funny? I wondered. Once she collected herself she explained to me that I wasn’t ugly at all, I was cute like a little puppy dog. I wasn’t buying it. I had already discovered the truth. I was ugly. A dog—just like that woman I heard them talking about. My life was over before it had begun. Andy Gibb, my first real crush, would never want a dog-faced girl. How could I go on? I always thought he and I would get married and dance the Hustle together. Mom had taught it to me and I even had a cute red sweater that said Do the Hustle across the front. Not to mention, I couldn’t remember one time that someone had said I was pretty. People were always telling Mom how gorgeous she was, but no one ever told me. Not that I could recall, anyway.
I repeatedly asked Mom to stop calling me Puppy but she did not honor my request. She was oblivious to the fact that I cringed every time she said it, so I learned to live with it.
We were living with Frank’s parents, Arthur and Lorraine, in New Hampshire when Punky was born. Arthur had a remarkable resemblance (in looks and character) to Archie Bunker with slightly more hair on top and Lorraine was his platinum-blond Edith. Both had that thick, New York accent and Lorraine even screeched a little when she talked. She waited on Arthur like a good Edith, and like a good Archie he never seemed all that appreciative.
They lived in an eighteenth-century farmhouse that had peeling white paint and forest-green trim. It was drafty and the floors creaked when you walked on them. The floor in the kitchen sloped quite a bit so everything looked and felt a little crooked. The house was in a tiny town in the mountains so there wasn’t much around. The one place we frequented was called Slick’s.
Slick’s was a biker bar not far from the house. I don’t remember Frank ever having a bike but he dressed the part and all of his friends were bikers. I’m sure Mom didn’t want him anywhere near a motorcycle with his drinking. Mom mainly wore the pants in our home which isn’t saying much because she freaked out any time she had to make a decision. Mom had two modes: freaked out or checked out. I’m still not sure which one I liked better. At least when she was freaked out she was semi-present. She might yell or cry or point her index finger in your face. She might chase you with a wooden spoon. When she checked out there was no one home. She stared off into space and smoked or curled up in the fetal position on our 1960’s-style red floral loveseat with the plastic on (custom plastic, I believe) and faced the wall. Sometimes she slept, and sometimes she masturbated, until one time I called her out. She was lying on her stomach and rubbing her vagina area with both hands over her pants. Then she began moving her butt up and down like she was humping her hands. This made her breathe heavily.
“I know what you’re doing, Mom.” I was irritated. I knew she was being inappropriate and I was mad that she wasn’t being a good role model.
“I’m not doing anything,” Mom said. I don’t recall her doing it again after that.
We went to Slick’s nearly every Sunday. It was our church, I suppose. There were pitchers and pitchers of beer and everyone would tell wild stories and laugh. I used to beg for money for the juke box and played anything by my beloved Andy or the Steve Miller Band. My first real performance was on a table at Slick’s when I was five. I sang and danced to “Jet Airliner” which is a huge deal for a shy kid. I’m sure I had some liquid courage now that I think back since my parents never seemed to mind me having sips of beer.
I never did get close to Arthur and Lorraine. I was intimidated by Lorraine’s bright red lips and drawn on eyebrows that had a high, round arch that would have reminded me of Marcel Marceau if I had known who he was at the time. Clearly Lorraine was a fan. She was into ceramics and let me paint ornaments and figurines from time to time. I still have one ornament of a mouse in a stocking with my name at the top. I hang it on the tree every year. It irks me that it never made it into the kiln.
Punky was the best little sister in the world. She never cried, whined or threw fits. Even as a baby she was a dream, always smiling. She didn’t talk much but she always knew what was going on. She was typically up for anything and she could always keep up with Mikey and me, first crawling and then running behind us. Everybody loved her.
When it was time for me to enter kindergarten we moved to the next town so we could be closer to the school. It would have taken almost an hour to get to school on a good day from Arthur and Lorraine’s house. We moved to a small duplex right in town. We were in the upstairs unit and there was a little girl my age and her mom in the downstairs unit. The girl’s name was Hope and she was okay but I didn’t really enjoy playing with her. I wasn’t used to playing with girls my age and much preferred my new best friend named Morris who lived across the street.
* * *
Every little girl wants to be beautiful for the first day of school and I was no exception. In actuality, I didn’t think I could be all that beautiful. I just wanted to look like a human and not a dog-face when meeting my new teacher and classmates. Mom was pissed that I was supposed to start kindergarten because I could already read so she had the school test me and they agreed to let me skip kindergarten altogether. No one knows how I learned to read, not even me. Mom was rather shocked when we went to see Star Wars and I read the beginning out loud. “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” “What? You can read?” she said, more than a little surprised.
I was five when I started first grade and was not emotionally ready to be with the older kids. Not because I threw tantrums or ate paste, but because I was so painfully shy. Mom didn’t see that, or if she did it didn’t matter. I think she was excited to have me out of the house all day.
The morning of the first day of school I went into the bathroom to see if I could use some of Mom’s potions to make
myself presentable. Since Mom was beautiful I figured if I did what she did I could be a little like her. I always saw her putting this goopy stuff that came in a metal tube in her long, black hair. Luckily she had left it on the sink next to the toothbrushes. I quickly squeezed the whole tube into my hands and started rubbing it in all over. It didn’t take long before I had saturated my whole head. As soon as I looked in the mirror I knew something was wrong. I didn’t look a thing like Mom. Instead, I looked like I had just washed my hair with olive oil.
I was nervous but confident that Mom could fix this since Mom did hair for a living. Our apartment was small so I found her in a matter of seconds smoking and having her morning coffee in the living room. I recall having the brief thought that I wish she would stop smoking. It was stinky for one thing, and a few nights back she had accidentally set the couch on fire because she was smoking and removing her nail polish at the same time. I hadn’t heard Mom scream that loud since I had been kidnapped. It wasn’t a good evening.
“Mom, can you help me?”
“Oh, Sparrow! What did you do?” Mom said, oozing with disappointment.
“I wanted to be pretty like you for school.”
“Come on, let’s wash your hair.” She grabbed my arm and led me back into the bathroom. Mom had me stick my head under the sink as she shocked me with cold water before it warmed. Being a hair stylist she was typically an ace at washing hair. This time she wasn’t successful, though I’m not sure how hard she tried.
“God, Sparrow! I can’t get this shit out. You’re just gonna have to go to school like this. I’ll say something to your teacher. Come on, we need to leave soon.” Mom sighed and left the room. She needed to finish her cigarette before we went.
When Mom and I walked into my new classroom she bee-lined it to the teacher, dragging me along like a rag doll. I think it would have been better if we had pretended nothing was wrong, because as she was speaking a few kids overheard. Mom clearly wasn’t an on-the-spot problem-solver; looking back she should have put my hair in a ponytail and called it good. But she didn’t and instead told my teacher how I had used her entire tube of Alberto V05 in order to make myself beautiful like her.
My teacher had a pained look on her face as she checked out my greasy “do.” I felt the embarrassment blossom on my face and work its way down to my toes. To be fair no one made fun of me, though there were a few whispers and some finger-pointing.
I made it through that day and afterward decided I would never like school. Ever. That was one decision I remained stubborn about for a very long time.
The only good thing about going to school was that I could stop by Morris’s house on the way home. He lived in a light blue ranch-style home directly across the street from me. When we met I liked him instantly and wanted to spend all my free time with him.
Morris Goldmann was an older Jewish man who my mom later told me survived the Holocaust. He lived with his younger sister Deborah who didn’t look younger but he was ninety-something and she was eighty-something so it made it tough to tell. I’m not sure if either of them was ever married or had children as I was too young to ask about those things.
There was a lot to like about Morris. He had the whitest hair I had ever seen and he was hunched over so he could be right up in my face when we talked. We would go on walks and find random things to look at under the red magnifying glass he gave me—bugs, leaves, and once some broken glass. His house was filled with trinkets, artifacts and tchotchkes. Morris gave me an English penny that barely fit in the palm of my hand it was so big. I used to hold it and dream of all the things I could buy in England with it. I figured since it was so big it must be worth a lot.
When my birthday rolled around that fall Mom asked who I wanted to invite over.
“I want to have Morris over for dinner.”
“Don’t you want to invite any kids from class?” I didn’t have any friends at school being the shy new kid so the answer was no. I just wanted play time with Morris.
Mom made baked ziti and Morris came over that night with wine for my mom, and flowers and a gift for me. It was the first time anyone had ever bought me flowers and I was elated. For my gift Morris had made a giant tic tac toe set out of wood. I was excited and wanted to play immediately. “Okay, okay let’s play,” he said with a smile. Turning six felt like a big deal. Not only was it my birthday, but it was also my first official date. I had never felt so special, well not in a long time, at least. It was intoxicating.
That spring Mom told me we were moving into a new house. I was excited at first. My own yard with a swing set and everything. It sounded like a dream until she told me it was far away and I’d be changing schools. Of course my first thought was Morris. We’d grown close and I saw him nearly every day except on the days Deborah answered the door and told me he was napping and couldn’t play, but that wasn’t very often. Before I could control it tears were streaming down my face. I knew a lot about loss and missing someone so I knew exactly what I was in for. “Don’t worry, Sparrow, we’ll come back and visit.” I knew we wouldn’t. Of course I was right.
Our new HUD home was magnificent. Everything in it was brand spanking new (except the furniture) and I got my own room. I picked the smaller room but it had a Smurf-blue carpet that reminded me of Grandpa’s Pacer so it was the winner. We had a yard and plenty of room to play. Mom said we were able to get the house because Daddy Frank was a veteran. We lived quite a ways from town and were nestled in the trees. Our street had six houses, actually four houses and two trailers. I was glad we were in a house and not a trailer. Mom said to be grateful our house wasn’t on cinderblocks like the neighbors’ and I was.
Chapter 7
Summers were a mixed bag for me because on one hand I had to go visit Dad for nearly the entire summer, but on the other hand I usually got to spend a week or two with my mom’s parents first. My grandparents were my two favorite people on Earth. Of course at that time I had no idea they were partially responsible for my abduction. I’m glad no one told me.
Even though Johnny and Frances spoke perfect English they were still old school Italian. They yelled, cursed, and threw things at each other, yet they doted on me. I was the first granddaughter and could do no wrong in their eyes. I divided my time between them equally, spending endless hours in the kitchen with my grandmother making various forms of pasta and countless other hours in the front yard with my grandfather. He sat on his bench and listened to AM radio while I climbed trees, discovered bugs and organized my baseball cards.
Grandpa got me into baseball at a young age. He taught me how to throw a curve ball and a knuckle ball and told me all about the Mets. He also taught me about the music he loved. Liza Minelli, the Rat Pack, and his favorite: Bossa Nova. I can't tell you how many times we sang “Girl from Ipanema” together.
On one of those languid summer days I was fairly high up in the maple tree in the front yard while Grandpa was sitting on his bench humming away and reading the paper. A little girl on a cute pink bicycle stopped in front of the house. She had those fancy braids I always liked with different colored hair ties holding them in place and a wide, innocent smile.
“Do you wanna play?” she asked politely.
“Sure,” I replied as I quickly made my way down the tree. I was excited to see someone my age because typically there were no kids in my grandparents’ neighborhood. Before I made it to the bottom my grandfather bellowed, “Get outta here, Aunt Jemima! You’re not welcome here!” He waved his newspaper wildly as if he was swatting at a swarm of hornets. The little girl burst into tears and turned around to ride away before I could even get a word out. I was stunned.
“Grandpa, why can’t I play with her? She was being nice!”
“You don’t play with negroes,” he muttered as he put his newspaper back in order.
I felt the most overwhelming sadness wash over me so I darted into the house to look for my grandmother.
“Grandma, you’re not gonna believe wh
at Grandpa just did!” I told her, tears streaming down my face. As I recounted what happened I fully expected her to go outside and give him the what-for like she always did when he did or said something ridiculous. To my surprise, she didn’t.
“Your grandfather’s right. You don’t need to play with them.” With that she went right back to stirring and humming softly.
Even at seven years old I knew there was something really wrong with that moment. My heart felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and my whole body hurt. I ran into my bedroom and dove head-first into my pillow sobbing for a long time. Mom had always taught us that people come in all sizes, shapes and colors and to never judge anyone by those things. “It’s what’s inside that counts,” I remembered her saying as she pointed to her heart. Why didn’t my grandparents see it that way? I wasn’t exactly sure, I just knew that how they handled the whole thing was deplorable. I hadn’t even noticed what color she was.
We never spoke of that incident but I think that’s when I began to pull away a little from my grandparents and realize they were far from perfect. I couldn’t name it at that age but I had lost some respect. I still loved them, I just no longer wanted to be like them, which was a problem because I didn’t want to be like my parents either.
* * *
Sometimes things happen that seem so outrageous you ask yourself, Did that really happen? You could have misinterpreted the situation, although deep down you know you interpreted it correctly but to admit that to yourself might induce a seizure and what good would that do?
One sweltering summer day in Alabama Dad told Mikey and me to get in the car, because we were going for a ride. Mikey and I both climbed into Dad’s two-door Ford Bronco. It was tan with navy accents and Dad kept it super clean on the inside and out. That truck sparkled. I kept asking where we were going because any time I was in the car with Dad I was a little apprehensive. Either I remembered the kidnapping or I was worried about his drinking. Dad had no qualms about driving after a lot of drinks and probably had an open beer between his legs about eighty percent of the time. Coors Light, mainly. I’m certain he was drinking on that day. Drinking and smoking with the windows rolled up and the air conditioner blasting, which may explain my still frequent asthma attacks.
Riding Standing Up Page 3