My Sister, My Love

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Like other Christian settlers to the New World, Reverend Rampike believed passionately that child-bearing, child-rearing, and the “bringing of children to salvation” was the primary task; unlike most other Christians of his era or any other, Reverend Rampike believed that children were “but miniature beasts in a crude semblance of human form” who had to be “continuously and severely disciplined” by both their parents and by the community; mothers were warned not to allow their babies to crawl “beyond what was necessary” for the resemblance between the “crawling, bestial baby” and the “serpent on its belly” was “filthy” to behold. The souls of infants luckless enough to die before being baptized went directly to Hell; the souls of those who managed to live longer had a slightly better, though not much better, chance of salvation; for most of mankind was doomed, no matter the effort made for salvation. Adult life was a matter of work, except on the Sabbath; children were to be pressed into work by the age of three, or even two. It must have been that my stern Calvinist ancestor, father of nineteen squawling babies, had reason to know firsthand that babies were “defiled with the stain of original sin, filthy, odious and abominable.” Reverend Rampike did allow for the possibility that there existed, in the most bestial of babies, a divine spark that original sin could not wholly extinguish. This was a spark, Joshua Rampike preached, that “only Jesus Christ Our Savior could breathe upon to fan into the flame of Salvation.”

  Rampike family history! Maybe I am just slightly impressed.

  Quakers—so much more sane, like ourselves!—tended to believe that small children were “pure”—“innocent”—“moist wax to be molded” by caring adult hands.

  Skyler wasn’t sure what he believed. Observing Baby close-up.

  Once Baby was able to totter about upright, Skyler had to concede that Baby was to be an actual person, though Baby would never be a very important actual person, like Skyler himself.

  For Baby would always be a girl. And Skyler was Mummy’s little man.

  As a toddler of two, Edna Louise began to lurch and stumble about “getting into everything like some kind of demon” (as Mummy said). It seemed that Edna Louise was “very pretty” except sometimes you could see that Edna Louise was “downright homely, like me” (as Mummy said). Visitors remarked on Edna Louise’s “beautiful” cobalt-blue eyes but these were also unnerving eyes that stared so hard, sometimes they seemed about to bulge out of their sockets. (Ugh! Secretly Skyler pried both blank blue glass eyes out of the rubber head of Edna Louise’s favorite doll and was frightened by the eyeless sockets and tossed away all the incriminating evidence in the trash where no one, not even Maria-from-Mexico, could find it.) “Such an angel!” visitors to the house were always cooing, especially female visitors; yet Edna Louise could certainly be, after visitors disappeared, a “very bad girl” (as Mummy said).

  Poor Edna Louise! Mummy shook her head, “Edna Louise” was such an ugly name.

  (Anxiously Skyler asked: was “Skyler” an ugly name, too? And Mummy said quickly No! “Skyler” was a beautiful name.)

  Edna Louise had been named for Grandmother Rampike who was Daddy’s mother from Pittsburgh. The reason for this, Skyler gathered, was to make Grandmother Rampike “like” Edna Louise, and Mummy, more than Grandmother Rampike might otherwise have liked either of them; for Grandmother Rampike was, as Daddy conceded, an “icy-hearted old gal” with a smile that was the “exact way” a pike would smile “if a pike could smile.”

  (Skyler erupted into peals of laughter when Daddy said such funny things for often Daddy did not himself smile but spoke gravely, which made Daddy all the funnier. And if Mummy did not laugh, but looked uncomfortable, or blushed, somehow it was even funnier. Especially Skyler laughed when Daddy said how Grandmother Rampike and certain relatives of Daddy’s lived in “Piggsburgh” which was the “gruntiest, stinkiest” city in the United States.)

  Daddy adored Edna Louise, mostly. Skyler felt a stab of jealousy when Daddy lunged at Edna Louise to swoop her up in his arms calling her “my bestest prettiest little gal.” But Daddy was not home much of the time. Mummy was home.

  Skyler observed Mummy with Edna Louise and was not jealous, for Skyler sensed how Mummy did not love Edna Louise. Not as Mummy loved Skyler. For Mummy enrolled Edna Louise in the Montessori school when Edna Louise was just two, where Mummy had not wanted to enroll Skyler at that age because Skyler had been Mummy’s little man and Mummy’s companion on lonely days.

  Maria-from-Mexico was in charge of Edna Louise most of the time. Skyler overheard Mummy giving Maria instructions in a rapid distracted voice as if her mind was on other, more important things. Each school-day morning, Maria got Edna Louise ready for school and walked her to the end of the driveway to be picked up by the Montessori minivan; but Mummy got Skyler ready for school and often drove him to Fair Hills Day herself, in the lime-green Chevy Impala, and picked him up after school.

  Sometimes, Edna Louise was so lonely!—though she could see that Mummy wasn’t in the mood, Edna Louise hung about her, whining, whimpering, wanting a hug from Mummy; so that Mummy had to say, in an exasperated voice, “You make me weary, Edna Louise. I feel as if the two of us have been together a long, long time. Go away.”

  Skyler felt a mean thrill of satisfaction, hearing this. When Mummy told Skyler to go away it was clear that Mummy did not mean it.

  When Mummy relented and told Edna Louise that she was a very good girl, and Mummy loved her, Skyler heard the false brightness in Mummy’s voice and thought No! Mummy loves me.

  One wintry day Skyler saw his little blond sister sprawled on the family room floor amid a scattering of dolls like dead things. He had heard Mummy’s sharp voice, and he had heard Mummy on the stairs. (Of course Mummy had not slapped or struck Edna Louise no matter how impatient she became with the strange, willful child, as Mummy did not slap or strike Skyler. That was not Mummy’s way!) And Skyler came to Edna Louise, and Skyler asked Edna Louise what was wrong, why was she crying, and Edna Louise sniffed, and wiped her runny little nose on her hand, as Mummy would have been disgusted to see Edna Louise do; and Edna Louise lifted her teary cobalt-blue eyes to Skyler who was so much bigger than Edna Louise, and older, and mattered more, and Edna Louise said in a plaintive voice: “Why doesn’t Mummy like me, Skyler, the way Mummy likes you?”

  And that was the day Skyler began to love his younger sister. Just a little.

  * This chapter is for Puritan history buffs among my readers, possibly a very small fraction. All others may skim and skip to the paragraph beginning “Quakers—so much more sane, like ourselves!”

  GOLD MEDAL GYM & HEALTH CLUB I

  “WHO’S COMPLAINING?” WAS A FAVORED DADDY-SAYING IN THE RAMPIKE household. Also “What’s the deal?”—“What’s the problem?”—“What’s the bottom line?” With cheery vehemence Daddy pronounced “No problem!”—“Case closed!”—“Fin-it-to” and “Batta!” and “Mission accomplished!”—“Homo homin lupus!” Childish fears and tears and terrors were handily banished by a snap of Daddy’s fingers for Daddy had a saying, or a snappy comeback, for any situation: “Stay the course!” (Daddy had been a cadet at Bleak Mountain Military Academy in Gallowsville, Pennsylvania, as a boy)—“Cut your losses!” (Daddy had quit Bleak Mountain after two years)—“Never say never!” (Daddy had been a much-lauded athlete through high school and college)—“Don’t pour money down a rat hole!” (the essence of financial wisdom, acquired by Daddy from his manufacturer-financier father). For a youngish guy Bix Rampike had already acquired enough world-wisdom to stuff a Grand Canyon of Chinese fortune cookies.

  I loved him. I was in terror of him.

  Like Mummy. (Too much like Mummy!) For even as you recoiled in hurt, indignation, utter disgust, you could not help but love Bix Rampike, like a kicked, craven puppy, and want Bix Rampike to love you.

  Daddy was one of those tall seemingly clumsy/alert and “competitive” alpha males with a shaggy-bison head, battered-handsome face, soulful brown eyes that e
xuded sympathy, sincerity. Big, breezy, affable, and shrewd, he was immensely attractive to both men and women. (Are you thinking of Bill Clinton? Bix Rampike was Slick Willy with a soupçon of Ronald Reagan. Politically, Daddy was all-Reagan.) His skin was ruddy as if pumped with blood and his teeth were large and chunky and frequently bared in a happy carnivore smile. The soulful eyes were “empathetic”—think of that fat juicy water spider that fixes his gaze upon the paralyzed pond frog as by slow inexorable “utterly natural” degrees he sucks the life out of the pond frog: “empathetic.” You could feel, no matter who you were, Bix’s height or shorter, dazzling beauty or frump, Fair Hills (male) VIP, chic caterer’s assistant in black miniskirt or just another of the sturdy-bosomed Marias everyone in Fair Hills employed/complained about; you could feel, even if you were Bix Rampike’s runtson, that Bix Rampike peered into your very soul, and “engaged with” you. Only you.

  Except that, let’s be frank: in a crowded room, as in the vast spaces of life, there are so very many yous to be acknowledged, how could Bix Rampike be expected to remember you all?

  Way I see it, son: buck up.

  Stay the course, never say never, recall that Daddy loves you and that is the bottom line, Amen.

  Your mother has shown me, son. The videotape.

  It has been destroyed, son. For your protection. Only know: God will forgive.

  NO. THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANT. READER, DELETE THIS. READER DELETE this. Emergency tabbouleh rasa* here!

  FAST-FORWARD AND FREEZE AT: BRUCE “BIX” RAMPIKE AS A YOUNGISH suburban dad of thirty-three. The year is 1993. Skyler is six years old and walks (my God, look!) without the slightest suggestion of a limp nor does he wince with pain, or, as he walks, stoically suppress a wince of pain. Here is a naively happy little boy, you would reasonably think: but you are wrong.

  “Sky-boy? Son?”—here comes Daddy striding into the family room with a big-toothy-Daddy smile, slapping his khaki pants with the flats of his hands, in excess-Daddy-exuberance; unless maybe it’s Skyler’s room, upstairs; must be a Saturday since there seems to be no school and Daddy isn’t at work or away for the weekend, as Daddy so frequently is; and Skyler is furtively hunched on the edge of his bed (on the pale blue bedspread with the nautical figures: sailboats, frigates, man-o’-wars, harpoons and anchors); lost in thought Skyler is frowning over one of the Junior Science Series books he has brought home from the school library—Space Shuttle Heroes?—Adventures of a Microbe Hunter?—So You Want to Make an A-Bomb: Home Chemistry Fun?—Our Venomous Friends: Beware?—except no, none of these admirable titles, instead Skyler is frowning over one of Mummy’s (forbidden) glossy magazines, those glamorous magazines Mummy brings home in her sumptuous Prada handbag; six-year-old Skyler isn’t drawn to the pale, gaunt, eerily young-looking girl-models draped near-naked on the magazine covers, and not by the seductive scents released when you scratch a patch of special paper on a perfume advertisement; Skyler isn’t even drawn by the garish cover headlines HOW TO ENTICE, ENTRAP, AND PLEASURE THE JADED HUBBY: SIX NO-FAIL STEPS—ALONE OR WITH OTHERS? NINETEEN NO-FAIL STEPS TO ORGASM-PLUS—HOT TIPS FROM TOP DIVORCE LAWYERS—BEYOND PROZAC: BOTOX?—CONFESSIONS OF A (HOT) (MALE) PERSONAL TRAINER—IS LIPOSUCTION THE “PERSONAL TRAINER” OF THE FUTURE?—but by the wish, pathetic in a six-year-old with the halting, fevered reading skills of a budding dyslexic, to understand why Mummy is so unhappy even now that Edna Louise no longer cries through the night and Skyler, Mummy’s little man, has managed to perform so well in the first grade at (exclusive, expensive) Fair Hills Day School that he is being “seriously considered for promotion” into the “highly competitive” H.I.P. track at the school (of which more later, unfortunately); and before Skyler can steel himself, or protect himself, there’s a cuff—playful!—but hard—to Skyler’s head, for a dazed instant Skyler sees tiny suns, meteors of neurological sparks as Daddy snatches the magazine out of Skyler’s sweaty fingers without glancing at it, tosses it aside with a fierce Daddy-chuckle: “Son, enough of ruining your eyes with that ‘print’ crap. We’re going out. There’s a surprise in store. Pear und feese, eh? Veeta!”

  JESUS. MAYBE I CAN’T DO THIS ONE, EITHER. FOR THIS IS TURNING OUT TO be the dread Gold Medal Gym & Health Club Memory I. (Years of psychologists, therapists, grimly “empathetic” adults raking through, with Skyler, the maggoty rotted flesh of Skyler Rampike’s All-American Late-Twentieth-Century Childhood, have reduced my most traumatic memories to such shorthand designations; and the original events themselves, especially horrific in their seeming ordinariness, in the way (as above) they so innocently begin, have been reduced to something resembling stale TV sitcom plots.)

  Pear und feese. What does that mean? From time to time Daddy would utter these words in my direction, with a Daddy-chuckle, and if Mummy was close by Daddy would cast me a sly sidelong wink as of male-conspirators, but what’s it mean? (Mummy had no idea, either. “One of Daddy’s foreign ‘sayings,’” Mummy said vaguely.) Veeta! was uttered only at the conclusion of a statement, and was usually accompanied by finger-snapping, so you got the point to get moving, hustle fast; years later Grandmother Rampike explained that Veeta! was an Italian command, unless it was a French command, favored by my late grandfather Winston Rampike, Daddy’s father, invariably accompanied by an impatient snap of his fingers. Loose translation: “Move your ass!”

  Maybe for now, since I’m not feeling so great about this, I can backtrack a little, away from Gold Medal etcetera to an earlier time. Maybe Daddy from a kiddy-perspective will remind you of your own special Daddy, the Daddy that was just-for-you. Or maybe (lucky you!) if you’ve never had a Daddy like this, you will feel a perverse sting of envy.

  Well! Daddy was big. (Have I said that?) Daddy loomed, Daddy towered. Sometimes, as if playfully (but how could you know for certain?), or threateningly, Daddy teetered above you. Daddy pinched, Daddy poked, Daddy tickled. (Daddy’s “spider fingers”!) Daddy was always hurrying in from somewhere (where?) to hug (“Big Bear Hug”—made you swoon!) and to kiss (“Turkey-Gobbler Kiss”—“Boa Constrictor Kiss”—made you giggle!). Because Daddy was so tall, Daddy did a lot of stooping, and swooping, and scooping-up in powerful Daddy-arms, and Daddy lifted you above his head so your own head brushed against the ceiling, Daddy twirled and swirled and tossed and “flipped” you. Daddy had “pet” names as he called them for you: Little Guy, Little Toot, Little Smelly (‘way back when Skyler was just emerging from diapers to potty, we can skip this), Junior Peepee (let’s skip this). Later came Big Guy, Hotshot, Skye-boy, Son. Also Kid. Also Buddy. Daddy had not nearly so many pet names for Skyler’s little sister and only just a few names for Mummy whom he called Gorgeous—My Gorgeous Gal—My Gorgeous-Luscious-Big-Busty Gal—My Sweet-ass Pumkin—My Good-Girl-Scout-Girly-Gal—My Pussy Galore etcetera. (Certain of these Mummy-names were growled in Daddy’s throat as Mummy laughingly, or flush-faced with embarrassment, or annoyance, tried to push Daddy away; Skyler was probably not supposed to overhear. So we’ll skip these, too.) (As I intend to skip an inventory of Bix Rampike’s sex toys, too. Don’t expect it.)

  In our household, we were very proud of Daddy. Grandmother Rampike, the icy-hearted old gal with a pike’s smile, was, it was hoped, proud of Daddy. (And would remember Daddy more generously in her will than she would remember Daddy’s conniving, mendacious, deceitful loser-siblings who were, in other guises, Skyler’s “uncles” and “aunts.”) For Daddy was likely to be, in any gathering, the tallest man in the room; and for a long time, Daddy was likely to be the youngest. It was said of Bix Rampike that he was “up-and-coming” and it was said that “headhunters” were in constant pursuit of him. When the subject came up one day in the Rampike household, and Skyler happened to overhear, the silly kid piped up fearfully, “‘Headhunters’? After Daddy’s h-head?” and Mummy and Daddy laughed at Skyler, and filed away little Skyler’s query to be repeated, for laughs, in subsequent years; explaining to Skyler that it was “corporate” headhunters who were in pursuit of Daddy, ever
tempting him with offers from Baddaxe Oil competitors, and such “corporate” interest was a very desirable thing, and made Daddy “more valuable” as it put Daddy in a “very good bargaining position.” Mummy laughed nervously saying, “Darling, we can’t move again. We’ve only just moved here.” And Daddy said, “Never say never, darling.” And Mummy laughed again, though Mummy’s eyes were frightened, and Mummy said, “I still miss Parsippany, we were happy there, I thought,” and Daddy chuckled saying, “You said the exact same thing, gorgeous, when we lived in Parsippany: you missed Whippany. And before Whippany, you missed New Axis.” (Whippany, New Jersey, and New Axis, a Philadelphia suburb, were before Skyler’s time and were not places that meant anything to Skyler, could’ve disappeared into enormous sinkholes or tar pits, who cares? Except Mummy seemed to care.) (Skyler did not like to think of a time in Mummy’s life before-Skyler still less that Mummy was claiming now tearfully to have been “happy” then.) Daddy spoke pleasantly, but with an edge to his voice; and Mummy spoke falteringly, as if not knowing what she was saying; and Daddy said, “In such matters, it’s wisest to cultivate a strategy of sand-feud. Like on the football field. Or poker. That way the sons-abitches can’t figure you out.” Mummy asked, doubtfully, “Isn’t it—sand-freud?” Daddy laughed. “‘Freud’ is the Jew shrink. What’s he got to do with this?” and Mummy said, “Bix, ‘Jew’ sounds crude. In Fair Hills, people don’t talk like that,” and Daddy said, “Jews call themselves ‘Jews’ all the time. What’s crude about it?” and Mummy said, “The way you say it sounds different, Bix,” and Daddy said, still pleasantly, “Different from what?” and Mummy said, “There are many Jewish people in Fair Hills. Just down the street—” and Daddy said, “Not in the Sylvan Glen Golf Club. I don’t think so,” and Mummy said, excitedly, “The Sylvan Glen? Did you say Sylvan Glen? Were you playing golf there, Bix? That’s where you were today?”