The girl moved slowly into the entry hall. Her purse strap slid off her shoulder. She had brushed away the outside off her coat and had extended her hand to the wall for balance while she toe-pushed the UGGs off her feet.
Looking up at the landing's rail, the girl saw her mother, standing in a chenille robe and wearing a glorious pair of Valentino turquoise pumps. Her hair was pinned and pressed down in parts like a pancake. At the top of her head, a heavy blue hairnet delicately sat on its side, proper-like, adding a French foreign accent to her appearance. Under the robe, one could see that the girl’s mother was completely dressed in church clothing and appeared fully prepared at a second's call to attend any event or service that she possibly forgot. But for now, a tied flowered apron kept everything she had together and gathered at the waist.
The mother rubbed the back of her hand on her apron leaving breadcrumb prints in its ruffles.
"I'm so glad you’re here. I was worried. I said to Jesus to listen to me and bring my daughter home safely." Without taking a breath, she changed her tone and added, "Where's your driver? Where's Jaidee? I got some candy for him."
"He's... He's gone, mom."
The mother paid no attention to the girl’s words and dangled a small plastic bag over the railing. The zip-lock was filled with silver wrapped candies, hard candies with chocolate mint inside. There were cases of these candies in the basement. The girl filled 142 bags with those candies during her previous visit.
"Go see if he left the driveway. He needs to turn around. Hurry, go catch him."
"Mom, he's gone already. It's snowing and freezing cold out there. He's not going to turn around anyway, even if he..."
The house was warm and sunny. The mother could only appreciate her own generosity at that moment. But even those concerns about the candy or the driver didn't stay long in her head.
"Are you hungry? I have the Jello you love with the baby oranges stuck inside." The girl loved that style of Jello... when she was five.
"Come, come. I'm in the middle of making my cabbage horns." Fingers with flour and breadcrumbs stuck to the tips, twirled themselves in the air with the mother's directional instructions. It was all in the wrist.
The girl followed her mother into the kitchen, a small corner section of a larger room. Her mother's walk and talk were synchronized and centered in her course. The cooped-up odors of onions, cabbage and olive oil lay around lazy-like in the air.
"I couldn't sleep. I kept on thinking about...” the mother stopped for a moment; her thought lost its way and sunk out of sight like colored glass chips in a kaleidoscope.
"Mom... Mom." She just moved on, oblivious to her lost thought and to the girl.
Off to the side was an aisle kitchen area. A long counter sat under an uninterrupted line of windows. Only two had the power to be opened. Old paint from old painters held the others shut.
On the counter was a radio with oversized knobs that moved its needle easily from station to station. It kept the mother company; kept her informed. The radio voice inside the black box would tell her the locations of all the backed-up traffic jams and accidents in Chicago. When she wasn't home, the voice would talk to prospective burglars outside the house and tell them not to come in.
The room was cooking-warm and disheveled. The girl looked for someplace to plop down her purse. The counter was cluttered with thick-rimmed bowls filled with half mixed ingredients from family recipes. Flour and powered sugar dusted the counter from one end to another. The crushed nuts, cabbage slivers and poppy seeds found themselves in each other's mix.
"The pharmacist lady at Walgreens, her name is Evelyn something… she's always so nice to me; well her husband is gonna die this week so I'm baking two trays of cookies for the wake; a plate of cabbage horns and some baby hamburgers. They can just pick up the foods with their fingers, easy-like, as not to interrupt their grieving."
"Mom... what are you talking about? Evelyn who? And how do you know her husband's going to die?’
The mother paid little attention to her questions but the girl continued asking.
“Is he sick? Do you know this pre-deceased person? Do you even know what he looks like?"
"No. I never met him personally, not face-to-face. I'll meet 'em at the wake. Questions, questions, questions don't worry me with all your questions."
The mother turned her body to end the questioning and continued talking.
"It's gonna be a two-day wake for sure. I think he's an important man. Do you remember Emil's wake and his funeral?"
The mother was giddy. Her adrenaline was pumped. She loved funeral-talkin’. The girl avoided getting into the conversation. She walked to the refrigerator and opened its door looking for something, perhaps answers, possibly some insight or a beer.
"Maybe you had already moved to California when he died. He had fifty-seven cars in his funeral procession fifty-seven, mind you."
She got chills talking about such processional events. The number of cars in one's funeral procession affirmed the dead person’s importance, his accomplishments, how much he or she was loved.
The mother moved closer to her daughter who was reaching far back into fridge's lower shelf and leaned over to get closer to the girl’s ear.
"I hope when I die I have fifty-eight cars. You got to promise me there will be at least one car more than fiftyeight."
The girl looked at her mother somewhat relieved, "Now that's the mother I know. You want to out-car some poor dead guy!"
The mother turned herself back to the counter attempting to remember what she was doing. "Your father only had seventeen... but he had a bad attitude. You can't expect many cars at your funeral when you got a bad attitude."
The girl pulled out a bottle of Saris beer and a juicy lemon. "Mom, please shut off that damn radio. How can you even think when that radio is yakking all the time? Music would be one thing but traffic and more traffic and more traffic and then the pile-ups and..."
The mother wiped the radio clean of any settling flours and lowered its volume a tiny bit. Then she carefully put away the recipe for her cabbage horns that was written in her mind.
"You have to come with me to the wake. You might meet someone."
"Seriously? I don't think so mom. Something about meeting a guy at a wake that gives me the chills… it all sounds so creepy."
"Well you aren’t going to meet a nice man when you continuously hang around those artist people who don't have jobs or a pot to piss in – sitting in those coffee places with people who talk about all kinds of worldly things and new ideas that don't mount to nothin'. You think I don’t know what goes on in those places. A lot of talkin’ about useless stuff."
Violet rinsed her hands in warm water. White flour turned to paste and pealed off her skin into the sink's hole.
The girl appeared to be more comfortable and began moving around the room looking for an open space to sit.
In the corner a small round table with its partnering chairs was cluttered with papers, magazines and thirdnoticed bills. Next to the table was a couch where family dramas and secrets were stuffed under its upholstery, tiny pink and green flowers embroidered on satin fabric with wood trim that wrapped around the it's frame. Carved hand claws cupped the edges of the armrest.
In front of the couch was a short table. The table had a broken leg and looked lost in the room. It had a style that was all wrong and it wasn't just its obvious crippled leg. It was old and was originally in front of another couch belonging to the mother's sister who died years ago. Its formica wood was now too old and too tired to mimic real wood. The girl’s father unevenly duct taped its broken leg back in place. Three matchbooks taped under the injured leg was part of the repair.
The couch and the table faced a boxy black working television sitting on top of a blond French provincial non-working counsel television. The counsel hadn't worked for years, but it was the youngest and least injured piece of furniture in the room. Violet bought this piece at the Merchandise
Mart in Chicago. The girl remembered her mother standing and singing in front of the television to the national anthem that was played at the end of the broadcasting day. They stopped playing the anthem in 1974. The girl's mother just recently resurrected the patriotic practice. She would sing the anthem after the Matlock late night reruns.
"Mom, where's the remote?"
The girl's hand scanned under the couch pillows for the hard plastic box with the soft buttons.
"I'll get it. Wait a minute. Don't move anything." Violet had rushed nervously over to the couch.
"I'll get it. I'll get it. Move aside. Let me get it."
Under two pillows, under her purse, under wads of rolled Kleenex and tucked deep into the side's cushion, she had dug out the control.
"Why do you hide the remote?"
"People was stealing from me. I gotta be careful."
"But who would steal from you? You live alone…."
"Never you mind."
The girl didn't want to continue.
"You have to be more patient,” she had told her daughter as she pointed the remote directly in the line of Ben Matlock and pressed on a button firmly. Ben talked louder. He had taken over the room shouting at his jury. The mother pushed more buttons, more firmly with a stern index finger. Finally, Matlock listened and lowered his volume.
"There. Is that better for you? This channel is for Ben MetLife. He's good."
She had put the remote in her apron pocket.
"Mom, it’s Matlock. Ben Matlock... not MetLife."
[ I replayed that night a million times over in my head, carefully watching that girl with her mother. Did I miss something? ] 4.
DON’T LEAVE ME HERE
Weeee-oooooh! weeeee-oooooh! Blasting sirens and flashing lights cut through my window's reflection and raided everything; the girl and her mother, the floured counter and the room with the couch, all gone. I was left inside a warm limo staring at a cold window with no reflected memory.
The inside moisture slid everything down into the window's pocket. I shook my head from side to side, a kinder way of slapping myself silly into the moment in front of me.
Jaidee talked backwards to me in the mirror. "An accident ahead Miz Suzka..." then slowly merged the moment into one lane with the other vehicles. When we got closer to the accident the traffic tightened its grip. Lights flurried around a pile of trucks and cars coiled together. The merciful snow tried to cover their brokenness. A few people stood outside shivering. One man, younger, looked like a madman, his eyes in two black holes, yelling loudly with his hands. Another, a man in uniform pulled a woman out of a car. A policeman walked in front of our limo and extended his hand out signaling us to stop.
The cars, the trucks, the ambulances and the lights spread and stretched out like a canvas covering one side of the limo's windows. On the other side, the side where I sat, behind the glass a semi-truck pressed against all four windows. Everything once white disappeared. The sky was empty. All I could see were massive tires packed with chunks of snow frozen stuck in its wheels. Wheels that could run me over if they had a mind to, dragging my heart and my bloody guts to the city's vultures to dine on; if they had a mind to.
The snow turned to rain and came down like glass beaded curtains falling across the road. It clattered against the limo making a sound like sea pearls falling from the sky.
The policeman loudly waved at Jaidee.
"We are moving again Miz Suzka. Soon you will be to your maw’ter's home."
A small voice whispered inside me: “I’m here..."
* From the street half the house looked abandoned. Window blinds were shut keeping the inside trapped. The house was bundled in snow. Heavy mounds sat on rooftop looking like visiting sea lions that stopped to take a rest before they returned to the ocean. The driveway was packed with snow and ice causing the limo to slide closer to the front door before its stop. The limo settled close to the front door.
"Jaidee, you don’t have to help me with my luggage. It's too cold. Stay inside. I want to just slip out by myself."
"But Miz Suzka, don't you want me to take your baggages inside your maw’ter's home?’" "No. Not this time. Thank you though. You are such a sweetheart. Besides, I am wearing warmer clothing than you. Just flip the trunk open. I’ll get it myself."
Jaidee did not argue. He was never properly stubborn with me.
Jaidee twisted his torso and rested his full arm over his seat. I handed him his fare. "Don't forget Miz Suzka, call me when you need to get back to dee airport. Or if you need a ride into the ceetee.”
"I will. You know I always do." "Tell your maw’ter 'Hello' and give her a big hug for me."
I didn't tell Jaidee my mother was not in the house. I didn't tell him about the accident, the fall. He would have worried.
Jaidee smiled and gave me that wink - the wink that always brought me back into the soul of the moment where everything was simple and clear.
The limo drove away. I held on to its red backlights until they turned into tiny wet crystals dissolving into the white. The snow wet my face.
I was in two minds. I desperately wanted to chase after him but I couldn't move, forward or back. I stood on the edge of decisions and looked around. The snow blurred what was ahead.
I hadn't a key to get into the house but remembered. Yes, yes the door, I forgot. Was that last week or was it two weeks ago. The break-in.
[ She called me weeks ago about the break-in. It was
early in the morning. My mother never fully understood the rules of the creatives… Never call before noon.]
"Suzka, are you up... this is your mother calling. The front door is in pieces because of an axe broke it down. Get back to calling me. My number is 555-312-6013. Get back to calling me. My number is 555-312-6013. 6013." Click.
The sound was loud and screechy in my dream. It had sliced though the air on a flock of razors. It was early, damn early even for a dream. The sound was of a woman whose voice had slaughtered all respectable dreams, leaving them dismembered – dreams looking for their endings in places where dead people might go to get some peace and quiet.
I was toasty warm under the stack of worn blankets and spotted cushioned pads used by movers for packing. Anything sticky and wet on top was paint from the night’s incorrigible colors that hadn't enough time or patience to dry themselves.
Just the top of my head, above my nose was exposed to the elements. I cracked open my eyelids and looked up cross-eyed at my bangs blowing in the breeze. It was morning and cold, cold for California. A breeze came from the open sides of a large roll-up door about ten feet away from my bed.
The roll-up was the main entrance into the studio, a rather large cement block structure with only one small window. The outside read Suzka Studio, white scribbled letters painted on a vertical black plank.
Under the covers, my ghostly friends to the likenesses of Picasso, Giacometti, Rauchenberg, deKooning and Gulley Jimson rolled over when they too heard my mother’s voice.
The warehouse was wide and filled with color, barely a smidgen of the cinder walls poked through. Canvases stretched on their frames, still not quite ready to finish what they wanted to say, were piled everywhere. There were carpet tubes, sculptures, easels and coffee cups with paint stuck to its ears, tucked about the room. Everything was in the process of becoming something wonderful. I was part of the room; part of these runaway masterpieces, undisciplined, refusing to be captured and stretched.
"Suzka, this is your mother. Where are you? This is an
"Suzka, this is your mother. Where are you? This is an 312-6013.” Click.
There was no way in hell I was going to move any part of my body. The breeze, the cold and no coffee were solid reasons to stay buried. I scooted down deeper into my warm abyss and covered my head. For oxygen, I funneled a small opening big enough to let in just enough air to keep me alive. All outside sounds were muffled, as if a hand from behind the voice covered its mouth.
"Suzka, did y
ou get my message I left on your phone to you? I'm going to church but I'll wait for you to call me before I'm leaving. This is your mother. My number is 555-312-6013.” Click.
The words sat in the air waiting, looking around for someone to acknowledge its presence before the room had no choice but to absorb its’ lingering sound.
"Suzka wake up. I forgot to telling you that five policemen were in my bedroom. They're all now gone. I was barely dressed and very close to naked. Call me as soon as you get this tape. My number is 555-312-6013. This is your mother. Call me." Click.
Oh God, two words that should never be in the same sentence, 'mother' and 'naked'.
My sleep shook me to wake. I got up, went to the bathroom and returned somewhere to my dreams unnoticed. At least I thought I did.
5.
THE BREAK-IN [ Based on police records, my mother’s version and the artistic additions in color…the following five pages pertains to the actual break-in. ]
"Mrs. Violet are you ok? This is the police." The words got bigger as uniformed men walked through the house.
"Mrs. Violet, where are you?"
A voice turned the corner and walked towards Violet's bathroom.
The bathroom was poorly lit, cluttered and dated. Two of the six round bulbs refused to light. The counter was filled with beauty products: a sticky collection of dust-powered bottles with worn-off expiration dates. The jars of cream and moisturizers were kept close to Violet's reach. In the corner a heavy crystal vase held stemmed old hairbrushes with smashed down bristles. Next to the vase was an old cigar box of lipsticks dating back to the sixties. Most of them held only a smidgen of lip color and were deeply dimpled into their metal holders. Scattered within the clutter were three, possibly four green bottles of Campho-Phenique. Violet believed the C-P healed all bruises and cuts and healed earaches, leg cramps, broken bones, migraines, polio and gunshot wounds.
On occasion, I had been a witness to my mother’s morning ritual. I moved 2000 miles away years ago but the process had never changed. She would start with the lotions and move to the moisturizers and then to the beige creams. After she more than adequately covered every facial corner, she would reach for the lipstick and blot a series of small dabs, three exactly on each creamed cheek that she would then smear up into her cheek bones, high into the illusion. Then slowly and as soft as a whisper she removed a tattered nylon hair net that covered her head. During the sleep, the net protected some parts of her upsweep-style and smashed down other parts. With a ballpoint pen she always kept on the counter, she lifted the flat sections and patted down other parts in order to even-out her style. Her hands moved fast with direction and purpose, moving in and out. In her time, everything would come to an abrupt calm. She glanced sideways out of her eyes at the mirror accessing the reflection of her work. For the grand finale, she spat twice into her fingers and rolled the spittle juice around evenly. When the tips were adequately lubricated, she gathered a cluster of stubborn hairs from each side of her forehead and twisted them inward into a curl on each side like quotation marks. Her spit kept them in place.
Wonders In Dementialand: Dementialand Page 3