fourth of july
Brother tiptoed into Girl’s pink bedroom and tugged at her shoulder to wake her. Brother and Girl shared a box fan at the end of the hallway and slept with their bedroom doors open to catch the hot moving air. Mostly, they just got the buzz of the motor. Mother and Stepmother had a window AC unit that came with the house. All summer their door was closed tightly so as not to let any air out. Girl loved waking up in the hot summer air that did not feel different from the temperature of her skin.
In front of their house was a busy street—a double-yellow-line street, not just a white-dashed-line street. It was the Fourth of July, and the road in front of their house was closed, but the parade hadn’t started yet. Brother and Girl padded down the hallway in bare feet, stepping around the squeaky places on the hardwood floor and placing their feet carefully on the stairs so that no one woke up and told them “no.” They walked outside through the prickly gravel at the edge of the road. Girl looked left and right even though there were no cars because she didn’t know how to not look both ways. The pavement held the warmth from a month of sun and radiated up through her calloused feet. The siblings crossed the oncoming lane as quickly as they could without scraping their toes. They had a destination: the double yellow line. It was ugly gold and grayed out on the edges, and it, too, had retained heat. When Girl prodded the line with a toe it squished just a little under her toenail—not as hard as the concrete, and not quite as soft as when she had stuck her thumbnail into a glob of old green paint on the bench at the playground. Girl had been waiting all year to see what it felt like. Brother and Girl stood with their feet on the dividing lines and there were no cars anywhere, just people starting to walk with lawn chairs down to the parade route on Titus Avenue, the main road with traffic lights and small stores. Hawkers were already selling red balloons to tie around children’s wrists. Girl always untied hers and released it with a wish, and she always cried with regret when it went up so fast into the sky and got lost in the clouds. Mother knew she did this every year, and before buying a red balloon at the parade she made Girl promise that this time she would not let it go and she would not cry and they both knew this was going to happen regardless, but Mother bought one for Girl anyway, tying a shoestring bow around her summer-brown wrist.
Brother and Girl had to hurry now, because the sidewalk on Titus was filling up and the good spots were already taken. The siblings ran back into the kitchen to urge their parents, “faster, come on, hurry up, we are going to miss it, we don’t want to miss it, hurry up.” They never brought lawn chairs because by the time they got there the crowd was at least one or two rows deep, even though the family lived closer than most all of them. But it was okay, because when the people marching in the parade threw candy, their arms arced wide enough for at least a few pieces of candy to land where the children stood. They watched their friends march by with Girl Scouts, or dance troupes, or Pee-Wee cheerleader squads. Brother and Girl had marched in parades, too, but only in the Memorial Day parade, not the sacred Fourth of July one.
“You will not be a cheerleader,” Stepmother told her daughter as little girls went by shaking their navy-blue-and-gold pom-poms. “Their outfits are a disgrace to women! No daughter of mine is going to wear a short skirt and cheer for boys.” Girl wanted to be a cheerleader more than anything, but she didn’t say a word. She practiced doing the splits with her best friend Gretchen, and someday when Girl was able to get her crotch all the way down to the ground, she planned on bringing it up with Stepmother again, but she couldn’t do it, not quite yet. Cheerleaders were popular and cute and when they stood up in class they tossed their hair with the same right-to-left flip as the models in shampoo commercials.
Shriners rode by on tiny motorcycles with their silly red fezzes, and the children could clap for them, because Mother said that they had a great-uncle who was a Shriner, and Shriners raised money for sick children. Girl thought the old men on their knee-high scooters were embarrassing and she didn’t want anyone to know that she was related to one, but Shriners always threw the most candy, so Girl yelled loudly so they’d make sure to send some her way. Girl felt the rat-tat-tat cadence of snare drums in her teeth, but the deep bass drum got trapped inside her chest where she felt everything. She didn’t know why bass drums made her cry but it had something to do with expectation. When Girl felt the bass drum she did that ugly, nose-wrinkle don’t-cry-face and turned away so Brother wouldn’t mock her. She loved the feather caps of the majorettes even though Stepmother said that majorettes were as stupid as cheerleaders, with their fake white guns and knee-high boots and miniskirts. Girl also loved the dancers that waved double-sided flags until they almost touched the street and then back up with a swirl as the band played behind them. Girl swore that someday she would dance down the street in knee-high boots and a miniskirt twirling a flag because she was really terrible at spinning her baton in the backyard, and she knew baton-girl was beyond her abilities. When she threw that shiny metal rod up into the air and spun around, the white rubber ends hit her on the head as often as they bounced on the grass.
The veterans went by, and the crowd quieted slightly in respect.
“Don’t clap, yet,” Stepmother said. “Wait, I want to see … okay, they are World War Two vets. You can clap for them.”
Korean vets were iffy, but Stepmother told the children to never, ever clap for Vietnam vets. Girl clapped anyway, saying, “It’s a free country,” under her breath, and everyone else was clapping too so Stepmother couldn’t hear her. Even though Mother always said the children could clap for whomever they wanted, Girl wasn’t sure what was right. She didn’t want to clap for war, but a lot of these men were the fathers of her classmates. Girl couldn’t always remember which vets were okay to clap for and which were not, so sometimes she refused to cheer for any of them—it was too hard to figure out. Why was it permissible to clap for very old soldiers and not young ones? Girl had seen the old vets at the drugstore and they always had blurry green tattoos and a lot of them had the red blotches Mother said was scurvy, and their skin was always dry with white flakes on their arms. Girl clapped quietly, her sticky palms barely touching, not making much sound, unless they had a tank or big military vehicle. Then she couldn’t help cheering but was a little afraid at the same time.
The children could cheer for Campfire Girls and Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, and Girl clapped for all the teenaged girls who wore prom dresses even though she didn’t know what they were queens of. Girl promised herself that someday she was going to wear a crown in a parade and sit on a float and wave, just like them. When the politicians came by with their big signs on the sides of their convertibles, Girl wondered if they had to find a friend with a convertible every year or if they tried to be nice to people who had convertibles just to keep their parade options open. Girl was not supposed to clap for Republicans but if they threw candy her way, she clapped anyway and didn’t care.
“Pinny Cook!” Stepmother yelled and walked up to her car to cheer up close while the politician was stopped behind a dance troupe for a minute. Pinny Cook was a Republican but she was also a woman and Stepmother voted for her but Mother didn’t because Mother said that being a woman wasn’t as important as being a Democrat. Louise Slaughter drove by slowly and the whole family all clapped for her, even though Louise wore too much makeup and everyone could smell her perfume a mile away. “Hi, Judy!” she yelled to Mother, and Girl felt famous because her mother was on the Democratic Committee and made the children walk around the neighborhood and put fliers on houses every fall. But Democrats didn’t throw as much candy.
At the end of the parade came all the kids on bicycles who were in the decorating contest, with red, white, and blue streamers woven through their spokes and dangling off their handlebars. Brother entered the contest once—a year before Girl was old enough to—and she had watched him weave blue and white crepe paper between the spokes of his red dirt bike. Now that they both could enter, neither of them wanted to
. The other kids had sparkly garlands and Mylar streamers—much fancier than Brother’s—and Girl didn’t know where to buy things like that. She felt sad for Mother, because obviously she didn’t know either, and Girl didn’t want Mother to see that their crepe paper decorations weren’t as good at the other children’s.
The family had a cookout in the backyard after the parade, and Girl and Brother rode their bikes down to the town hall for the craft fair and street party and the fried dough. The siblings watched people throw balls at the dunking booth, but they never tried because they were both very bad at throwing baseballs and the firefighter in the booth always made fun of the people who missed. They very much liked to watch him suddenly drop down into the tank because he was so mean and obnoxious and the children knew that water was cold and grown-ups were always big babies about cold water. Girl and Brother rode back and forth between the front yard of the town hall and the backyard of their parents’ house, where Mother and Stepmother had grown-up friends over. Their parents didn’t have many friends who had children.
Everyone went down to the town hall together for fireworks: the children, their parents, and their friends, Shirley and Betty. They always got a good seat on the curb. They never brought a blanket because the grass was full by the time they get there, and more importantly, Stepmother said that the view was better from a little way back. Girl looked scornfully at those people on blankets who didn’t know they were sitting too close. Girl and Brother always saw someone from school and said “Hi” and then stood there awkwardly for a minute before running back to their parents to wait for full dark.
“Don’t cheer when he gets dunked,” Stepmother said as they passed the man in the dunking booth. “They are poor migrant workers and they deserve respect. I just wish they found a way to raise money with more dignity.” She didn’t realize that the “Point Pleasant Pea Pickers” were the local firefighters’ union, not people who picked vegetables.
The fireworks started and Mother’s friend Shirley asked Girl, “Which ones are your favorites?”
“Bacons,” Girl said, knowing it was a silly made-up word, but not knowing how else to describe the ones that sizzled on the way down like bacon grease in a black cast-iron skillet. “Like that!” she explained, pointing her popsicle-sticky index finger up at the white balls, the sizzle lighting up inside her in the same place that the bass drum hit, but fireworks made her soar inside like she was coming out of her body entirely.
“More bacons!” Shirley yelled, as they clapped wildly. Girl loved her so much for not laughing at the silly word. The white bursts snaked down the blackened-blue sky and the grand finale went up, one firework after another after another, colored ones that opened like paper umbrellas, each one larger than a house, ones that cracked and boomed. Smoke trails snaked down and hung in the air brownish-black, before they wafted away. When it was over Girl was surrounded by too many grown-up legs moving too quickly, and Mother took Girl’s hand and pulled her close, like she knew that the crowds had turned her small, like Girl was too precious to lose.
flying to alaska
Girl and Brother had started spending every summer as well as a week or two every winter in Anchorage back when they were four and five years old. At first, they made the eleven-hour flight with various chaperones, then graduated to Unaccompanied Minor status when Girl was seven or eight. They flew every summer, leaving right after the Fourth of July and returning at the end of August.
Girl and Brother ran across the wet lawn in their socks. Girl was excited to get going and Mother and Stepmother were taking forever to load the car and Girl knew she’d be sitting for a long time. She decided then and there that socks were just right for running in the grass. They were warmer and softer than bare feet, but without the loss of the texture and sensation of the grass stems, anthills, and rocks. It was perfect, but she never did it again.
When the children returned to the house, Mother and Stepmother were in a tizzy. Every stitch of clothing the children owned was packed in two powder-blue Samsonite suitcases so full their sides curved out into a rhombus and they had to be duct-taped shut. The children had no other dry socks. Stepmother was so mad she had drops of spittle on her lips, but then it never took much to send her over the edge. It would be five more years before Girl was given the words clinical depression as rationale for Stepmother’s constant anger. All Girl knew then was that Stepmother had a very short fuse, and just about everything the children did would turn Stepmother’s face red and her words harsh and full of fury.
Today Girl wasn’t concerned in the least. Stepmother could yell, but she could never strip away the feeling of the grass beneath Girl’s socked feet, and she couldn’t stop the children from going to Alaska. Her power over them was about to be lifted for the summer, traded in for that wielded by Father, and that knowledge trumped Girl’s usual strong desire to behave properly. Girl didn’t have to listen to Stepmother anymore, and there wasn’t anything Stepmother could do about it. The wet sock problem had to be resolved without opening those cases, the closing of which was a family affair. Mother would pack them full, then the children sat on the top of the light blue plastic-y lids while Stepmother strapped duct tape around them and swore. Swearing made the duct tape stick better.
At the airport, Mother and Stepmother walked Girl and Brother through security and all the way onto the plane. The stewardess wore too much makeup, and Girl longed to wipe off her face and see how old she really was underneath. Girl suspected that the stewardess was a lot older than she was pretending to be. The dark blue polyester uniform was ugly, and her pantyhose sagged at the knee. It was the late 1970s and all the flight attendants wore ascots, regardless of gender. Girl hoped she would never have to wear such a manly uniform no matter what career she chose someday. The stewardess gave Girl and Brother Unaccompanied Minor pins, and Girl was enveloped in heavy perfume as the flight attendant fastened her seatbelt. Mother turned to leave with a closed-lip smile and her eyes were wet behind her thick glasses, but Girl’s were dry. This was the children’s adventure; there was no place for Mother or Stepmother in this and she was eager for them to leave. Girl and Brother were starting their day of limbo, which would end with them in the possession of their father. On the planes and in the airports in between, the children belonged to no one.
The plane started to taxi, going faster and faster, and Girl and Brother leaned forward as long as they could, fighting gravity until the speed pushed them back in their seats, unable to even tilt their heads forward. Joy rose in Girl as the front wheels left the earth. Here we go, into the wild blue yonder! Climbing high, into the sky! Girl sang freely now that the engines were too loud for Brother to hear and tell her to stop, like he always did. The children held their hands on the silver armrests in what Brother said was “pilot style” and pretended they were the ones flying the 747. Once the plane leveled off and their excitement with it, the children dragged their carry-ons from under the seats in front of them and looked at the surprises Mother had packed: a few small toys, some candy, and an Archie and Jughead comic book. The children only got comic books for trips—Mother said that they were for people who weren’t smart enough to read real books, so it was a good treat to have one.
Girl’s carry-on was dark blue and white and said TWA (Trans World Airlines) on it. The letters formed the shape of a swan. Brother had an ugly, white bag from Northwest Orient. Girl’s bag was prettier and sleeker, but the children had never flown TWA and Northwest Orient was by far their favorite airline. Northwest Orient stewardesses wore white dresses and they all had long, shiny, black hair and almond-shaped eyes. They smiled a lot and were super nice to the children, and pinned gold pilot’s wings to their shirts to identify them as passengers needing assistance. When the children flew Northwest Orient, they were always the only Unaccompanied Minors and got to hang out in the first-class club lounge on long layovers. The flight attendants let the children lie on the white shag carpeting and watch the big, wood-enclosed console TV that
sat on the floor, and they even brought the children orange juice in real glasses with ice.
By far the worst plane to fly unaccompanied was United Airlines. Instead of gold pilot wings they gave out ugly, red-and-white, diagonally striped tin buttons with “Unaccompanied Minor” printed in bold type. On Northwest Orient the stewardess would take the children off the plane as soon as they landed, before the rest of the passengers, but on United, Girl and Brother had to wait for the plane to clear of people before they could leave.
When the children got to Chicago they had to walk quickly to keep up with the flight attendant who was overseeing their plane change. Flight crews all had small rolling bags they trailed behind them with one hand, so Girl and Brother dragged their carry-ons, too, even though theirs had no wheels.
“Stop dragging your bags!” the stewardess reprimanded them. “You are going to rip them!” Girl and Brother listened for a while, but the Chicago O’Hare terminal was big and their bags were heavy, and they knew the stewardess had no real authority over them. By the time the stewardess delivered the children to the United Airlines Unaccompanied Minor room, Girl was out of breath and the bottom of her bag was streaked in gray.
The room was small and smelled of old shoes. There was a red-and-blue rug printed with the stylized tulip-shaped UA insignia in the middle. It had stains from spilled drinks and black spots of ground-in chewing gum. Eight or ten other kids sat in armless chairs upholstered in red-and-blue, nubby fabric like polyester terry cloth. A few looked up when Girl and Brother entered, but no one said hello or even nodded an acknowledgment. A television hung from the ceiling blaring a baseball game. Girl didn’t recognize either team, but then no one in her family watched sports.
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