Trials

by Marion Dess

  In Florida, we feel the need to maintain cleanliness on the beaches. In Florida, the sun shines so hard and hot, it makes you happy, not weep. In Florida, you don't see baby diapers, logs of human shit, and hypodermic needles washing ashore--well maybe in some places. In Florida, I'd silently proclaim in my skull. But I wasn't in Florida, and repeating it didn't change anything -- not the city and not my outlook. Buzzed, I laid in the sand, eyes closed, unable to sleep, afraid that someone would steal the last vestiges of my life. I let the beer dissipate in my bloodstream, felt a little giddy, and smiled in the cool and distant sun of the northeast. I was in New York! I lived in Brooklyn! I made rent! I made it!

  Moons have waxed and waned many times over since my arrival to New York City. Nowadays, I still walk to Bryant Park and admire people who think this is Nature. I've accepted that this is artificial to me but provides a level of comfort and normalcy seldom encountered in the city. Humans are incapable of generating the randomness that occurs in nature. It is as if our brain unconsciously inventories and sets parameters.

  Carefully planned or leftover refuse from burgeoning development. How is it that this city duped me? No, I realized it's that I have duped myself. How have I convinced myself into thinking a city has control over anyone? Today, I see the green from the trees in Bryant Park and it washes over my eyes and cleanses me. Though I am desperate for nonhuman constructions, I am comforted by the few trees that tower and shelter me from the oppressive skyscrapers. I drink in their beauty. Quenched, I scurry back to the vacuum of concrete and asphalt. Convenience alongside massive amounts of inconvenience bind me here but how long can I sustain it?

  Coming Up Next

  One of my mother and my favorite bridges is the old concrete bridge that looms above the Banana River connecting a long thin island named Merritt from mainland Florida. From the top of this bridge anyone can see that the island merited nothing more than its proximity to the beach. Long summers darted in bearing bright blue skies right after April. Forget the showers, forget the flowers. Ma and I knew this meant the island would swell up with sweaty tourists. The heat and extra traffic made her upcoming move to the Yellow House more urgent.

  Ma had lived on the island most of her life, but I could never remember where she had been born. My father, who had custody of me, lived just over the bridge on the mainland. Each Sunday, after spending the weekend together, Ma would return me to my father's house. After the divorce, she moved around quite a bit, in and out of rehabilitation centers until my brother, fifteen years my senior, built her a house. I was thirteen when I helped her move in to what was to be her permanent residence; The Yellow House.

  On move in day, the infinite Florida sky was the same pale-around-the-edges blue. The sable palms cut it up with their thousand hand dancing in the salty breeze. With a cig in her mouth, Ma carried her last cardboard box of things up the stairs and dropped it on the veranda against the siding by the front door. She took the cig out of her mouth and let out a sigh.

  The house sat on stilts and was painted yellow the way Florida houses often are, but in a neighborly yellow, standing out yet blending in with the rest of the lots on the street which were pastel coral, lavender, and iris. These were typical tropical if not mandatory colors of the island. A small run-down marina was just across the street. Ma didn't have a boat but my friend Anna, who never failed to wreak of diesel fuel, lived there on a 32 foot navy houseboat with her mother and dying German father.

  The inside of the Yellow House was spacious and it opened all the way through to the backyard save for the bathroom and a pair of French doors that closed my mother's room. It was there in her room, moving things around the bed, where I found a small black vibrator under her mattress. The moment I clicked it on, I came to understand something I didn't know I wouldn't want to know about my mother. I shoved it back under her mattress and tried to forget its existence.

  My brother had laid large black and white tiles across all the floors and painted the walls a light buttercream to Ma's delight. She and I carefully set the couch in the living room, the last of the what was to be moved. Satisfied with finishing so early, my mother snuffed out her cig into a glass ashtray with a picture of a macaw drinking a margarita with the words "Key West." She made her way to the kitchen to prep sizzle burgers for an early dinner. I ran outside to avoid anymore work related to the move. I watched her from outside the large front windows. She was chopping a large white onion.

  My favorite thing about the Yellow House was the climbable maple tree that grew smack dab in the middle of the tiny front yard. The yard was mostly sandy and bordered by a thick old rope from some shipyard. My legs dangled off the edge of the branch. I supported myself by planting my hands on either side of me. The sun was past its xenith. A hot wet wind blew across the river, sweeping up and tangling my hair. I made my way down the trunk, hands sweating and slipping. l was ready for a burger. Ma was back outside smoking a cig and yapping on the phone by the time l pushed myself up the wooden stairs to the front door.

  "You said you'd do this for me," she said directly into the receiver.

  Silence. She took another puff and I grabbed the front door handle slowly and turned my left ear.

  "I don't give a damn-whatever Mike."

  Silence again. She took a puff. I pushed the door open against the breeze that came off the river and stepped inside.

  "Ok-alright. Fine. Love you."

  She dropped the phone on the table and returned her cig to her mouth. The burning tip of the cig cast a cherry glow against her lips. She looked out towards the boats bobbing up and down in the marina. The river was white-capped. Out-aways a small skiff slammed against a wake. She stabbed the cig in the face of the macaw on the ashtray and headed inside.

  She was back at the kitchen counter chopping up the rest of the onion when she turned to me.

  "Mommy needs you to do her a favor," she said. She pu]]ed the paper skin off the second half of a brown onion. l stood behind her gulping down another glass of tap.

  "Yap, ma." l heaved a sigh of relief.

  "You love mommy right?" She looked at me with her serious face.

  I nodded.

  "Duh."

  I looked into the bottom of the glass to see specks of dirt swirling, and pass that, my blurry toes.

  "Mommy needs you to pee in this cup for me."

  She pointed with a chopping knife towards a used Styrofoam coffee cup, her mauve lipstick still visible on the rim. She continued chopping as if the question was never asked.

  "Don't worry I washed it-just can't get the lipstick off," She chuckled. "Wait-what?" I stopped staring at my feet and turned facing her. "Mommy needs you to do her a favor, and you love mommy right?"

  She was now rubbing the end of her nose with the back of her hand. Her eyes were watery.

  "Yeah but why?"

  "Get Ma a tissue will you?"

  I ran to the bathroom and scrunched up a bunch of toilet paper and brought it to her. She blew her nose. Bright red blood bled through to the other side.

  "Oh boy, what's this? Mommy must be having a nose bleed again," she said. "You ok Ma?"

  I handed her a wad so thick I was sure it'd stop the bleeding. "Yeah honey. Ma's alright."

  She stuck the twisted end of the toilet paper in her left nostril.

  She picked up chopping again, this time with her left nostril stuffed with toilet paper. I looked for more blood with the rest of the wad in my hands.

  ''It's important-Mommy will tell you later. Please will you just do it this once?" "But you're taking me home later. It's Sunday, remember?"

  The microwave's black and green screen pulsed 4:02pm. I looked again at the Styrofoam cup sitting on the counter stamped with a mauve bottom lip. It was Sunday. I hated Sundays. Sundays were mini Mondays. I never felt time's awkward and cumbersome weight so gaudily except on Sundays. I felt nauseous. Tomorrow was Monday. Tonight I'd have to go back home.

  "I kno
w Angelbug, but tomorrow is school and every Sunday you know you go back to Daddy's. I gotta get you home before eight. You know that."

  I sulked down into the sofa in the living room. It sat kitty corner facing the giant windows that led my eyes to the Marina. Amanda's house bobbed up and down slowly. Was she home?

  "It's important, please, don't make Mommy ask again."

  "But what's it for? Tell me. I wanna know. I can keep a secret."

  The phone rang. She grabbed the kitchen towel. The knife handle caught the side of her jean skirt and dropped on the floor. Stray pieces of onion bounced towards the stove that stood opposite the sink. She walked outside. It must be Mike.

  I watched her sit down on the iron chair and light another cigarette. I picked up the knife and rinsed it under the tap. I pushed the pieces of onion around on the counter with its tip. I looked up out the window and back at the cup. Like a fingerprint her lipstick mark showed the vertical lines in her lips. I swore I'd never wear Iipstick when I got older. Outside dusk was settled in and the palms grew to a navy blue against the orange horizon. Ma blew a column of smoke towards the nascent stars. She laughed and then squinted in the window at me. She waved me over, and ashed her cig. I opened the window and looked at her through the screen. The smell of cigarette smoke gently blew m.

  "Angelbug could you cook the onions for Ma?"

  "Yap."

  "And say hello to Mike."

  She held the phone up towards me and I yelled a noncommittal 'Hey Mike.' A distant male voice crackled in the receiver but I couldn't make out what was said. "Don't forget to butter the pan," She shouted across her shoulder.

  "I know ma."

  I pulled down hard on the window.

  The onions had browned by the time she came back inside. I tossed them around in the pan, spilling a few on the side of the stovetop. I remembered a picture I'd seen from a Miranda July book. It was a photograph taken of a clean white stovetop, most likely never been used. Smack dab in the middle of the stove top someone wrote 'It's been a year since I last wrote on this stove.' Why would anyone think to write on a stove. I glanced in the kitchen drawer for a Sharpie.

  "Mmmmm-smells good," She said opening the front door. "Ma, can I cook the sizzle burgers?" I said.

  "Yeah sure thing, Angelbug. Let Mommy get something."

  She slipped through the french doors into her room. I pulled a plate of defrosted hamburgers out of the mostly empty fridge. It was spacious. You could crawl in it. There was a new jar of mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup in the door with a pack of Kraft singles. In the bin below half a head of lettuce wrapped in seran wrap. On another shelf next to the hamburgers was a bottle of hazelnut Coffeemate. Other than that, it was virgin fridge, the cleanest it would ever be. I felt uneasy about an unused fridge. What was its purpose?

  When I closed the fridge door, Ma was in front of the stove with her palm hovering over the pan. Satisfied with the heat, she slid one sizzle burger I pulled out of the fridge into the frying pan, then another. The grease popped and sizzled around the gray edges. We stood in uneasy silence listening to the popping and crackling of the burgers in their own grease. I thought about the cup and hoped she had given up.

  '"Ok, so go to the bathroom and pee in this cup for me. Do it quick now and come back and turn the burgers. Dinner will be ready soon."

  "Ma, just tell me what it's for. Why can't you tell me."

  She sighed and put her hand on her hip. She thought for a minute as if she were about to confess a secret. I leaned in closer.

  "Ok-Mommy got a call today from the doctor. They need Mommy's pee so I have to bring it in before they close at 5. But Mommy doesn't have to pee right now."

  We both glanced at the clock on the microwave. 4:23 pm. "Why you gotta bring it in today? Why not tomorrow?"

  "I don't know, Honey ... you know how doctors are, they need things now to do their job."

  "But why my pee? Don't they need yours?"

  "I told you, Angel bug, Mommy can't pee right now but I have to take it to them, you're my baby so we have the same pee, he'll never know."

  "Isn't that illegal? Why don't you drink a lot of water now?"

  "What? Illegal? No. Don't be silly, besides how will the doctor know?" "DNA testing. We saw it on Law and Order."

  I responded staring into her brown eyes. What was she hiding? She started to look desperate.

  "Honey, the doctor's not going to DNA test-they do that for bad guys. He's doing routine stuff to make sure Mommy is healthy."

  My stomach growled. I hated Sundays. I wanted a burger and the sun to never set. "Can we eat? I think the burgers are done."

  "Don't change the subject damn it! Just do it for Mommy and we can eat already."

  She looked at me quizzically. Her eyes darted back and forth looking into each of my pupils. I stood there analyzing-the lines in her face, around her eyes and mouth.

  Would I have the same lines? Caked blood lightly rimmed her left nostril. She gave me that same nose but I had the blue eyes of my father. I averted my gaze, feeling her still staring down on me.

  "I don't wanna Ma, I'm sorry. It doesn't feel right. You told me to follow my gut.

  It's not feelin' right."

  I couldn't look at her anymore. The clock shone 4:29 then the 2 and 9 blinked to 30. You have 60 opportunities per hour to see this and l happened to always look at a digital clock when it changed a new minute. She flicked off the burner and angrily pushed the handle of the frying pan but it tilted and lost its balance on the stove. The grease sloshed upwards against my right temple and the pan fell on a black tile in a loud clatter. The backsplash dripped down my calf. l jumped up and out of the way.

  "See look what you made Mommy do!" she said angrily.

  I flicked on the tap and stuck a towel underneath it. I dabbed my temple. Pain only intensifies with burns and getting your finger crushed in a car door. The pain increased and my head started to pound. The cold water felt like a hot knife on the blister that formed on my temple from the grease. The two burgers lay on the cold tile. Specks of onions had flung out as far as the edge of the kitchen and dripped down the cabinets. Ma disappeared. The Styrofoam cup remained unscathed and stood like a statue on the counter.

  She returned with a wet white washcloth and grabbed my jaw and wiped my temple off, then stuck her finger in a tub of petroleum jelly and slathered it over my burn.

  "Don't worry, It won't leave any scars on that beautiful face," She said.

  She kissed my cheek and I nodded. l hoped her lipstick hadn't stuck to my skin. "Where else did it burn?"

  I just shook my head. The burgers were no doubt unsalvageable. Once she finished she overturned the pan and slid the burgers back in it and set it in the sink. She went to the utility closet and produced a wet mop. I grabbed some paper towels and began scooping up the onions. I wiped down the cabinets and sink while she mopped up the rest of it. She rinsed the mop out in the sink. We didn't speak for a good twenty minutes. Once finished clearing the scene, she grabbed the phone and a Pizza Hut magnet from the fridge.

  “I’ll order us a pizza, how about that, Angelbug?” She winked at me. Someone answered in a scripted tone on the other side. She got us a medium pepperoni with jalapefios and ranch on the side.

  I laid down on the couch and pushed lightly against the blisters that formed on my calf. She'd gone in the bedroom and came out to the living room with her purse strapped around her left shoulder. She sat down next to me gave me a half-hearted smile and sighed.

  "Look, I'm sorry baby for yelling but you gotta listen to your mother sometimes. I need you to pee for me. It's almost time, by the time you do it and I go drop it off at the docs' the pizza will be here. I'll leave you the money."

  She dug through her purse.

  "Mom, listen-I-I don't want to do it. You can't make me do it."

  "Listen here, little girl, you know nothin. If my mother, your Nanny, asked me to do something I wo
uld have done it in a heartbeat. Christ, children are just not the same today. I would have done anything for my mother."

  "Don't guilt trip me," I said and sat up.

  "Don't I always do shit for you? Doesn't Mommy always look out for you and lie to Daddy when you need me to?"

  "Yeah ... "

  "Well, then I don't fuckin understand. Just DO IT. I gotta go NOW."

  She stood up and went over to the cup, picked it up and brought it over to me. "Now, just go in there and pee as much as you can get into it. It's ok if it doesn't all fit."

  She went into the kitchen and opened a drawer. She set a box of quart sized Ziploc baggies on the counter.

  "Now I gotta call Mike back. Keep an eye out for the pizza man. Please do what Ma asks, just this once."

  She left and went back out on the veranda and sat down in the iron chair and lit up another cig. I pulled myself off the couch and made way for the kitchen. Dusk penetrated the house and the air had cooled off. I flicked on a lamp and opened the kitchen window. A cool salty breeze wrapped around me. I took the cup, the lightest cup in the world with its red emblem etched in the form of my mother's lip and headed into the bathroom.

  The window in the bathroom was my favorite window in the house. It was big enough for a fourteen year old to crawl through. It wasn't opaque and gave a full view of the back yard which was small and lined and fortified with dense pepper trees.

  Dusk was the part of the day my fourteen year old soul could grow in. I could feel being tied to a string of fate to someone, another me perhaps, somewhere else. I felt someone whom I was destined to meet looking out that window into the blue haze and orange edged sky as I did. The sun was low on the horizon. The palms and pepper trees became two dimensional black backdrops. I kept the curtains open. Pulled down my jeans and green and yellow striped underwear. I squatted over the toilet, my right hand holding the cup.