Mesopotamia

by Arthur Nersesian

  Her sad eyes appeared to be drowning in her ever-expanding face. She walked with her arms extended, as if physically unable to fold them inward. Vinetta noticed me staring and explained that diabetes was slowly robbing the wife of her sight.

  “Shame that only celebrities can afford stomach staplings,” I commented, not mentioning that this poor woman was the real victim of Vin’s storm-cellar liaison.

  “When I first met Thelma she was the prettiest gal in high school,” Vin said.

  “Sad.”

  “Hey, maybe you can use your literary gifts to write to one of those shows where they do surgical makeovers and they could—”

  A loud metallic gong, and Vinetta hit the earth like a ton of bricks. Blood immediately began running from the back of her skull. I thought she had been shot until I saw the old metal pail rolling in a circle nearby.

  Screaming, then bursting into tears, the seven children raced around, grabbing their fallen leader.

  “Someone get a doctor!” I hollered.

  An old cowboy rushed over apologizing profusely as he checked her wound. “I’m so sorry, ma’am, my bull kicked the bucket from his stall.” He pointed a short distance away.

  “You asshole!” I screamed. “When we’re done suing your ass, you won’t have any buckets left!”

  Slowly Vinetta started coming to. Though blood was still trickling from her crown, nothing was coming from her ears or her mouth, a good sign. Still, she was unable to fully get her bearings. In another moment the ambulance that had been parked out front came around and a gurney was wheeled over. The children started screaming again, some of them hysterically. Floyd Jr. tried comforting them, but it was obvious that even he was having difficulty coping.

  “Oh God,” she said dizzily. “I can’t leave my babies.” The seven blubbering kids grabbed on to her like a flotilla in the stormy seas.

  “You need stitches and you should get X-rayed,” said the paramedic. “Just to make sure you don’t have internal bleeding or a concussion.”

  “But my kids!” she groaned.

  “I’ll take care of them,” I said nervously.

  “No! Don’t leave us!” shrieked one of the little girls.

  “It’ll be okay.”

  “You go on, Ma,” the eight-year-old said, strengthening up. “We’ll be just fine.”

  “Call Edwina if you need any help …” she hollered out as they wheeled her into the back of the ambulance and slammed the door. I didn’t know Edwina’s phone number.

  All her poor babes wept as the ambulance sped off. Floyd Jr. and I gathered the kids, and I assured them their mother would be okay. They cried almost in tune while I led them back to the banged-up truck. All I could think was: I had interfered in her covenant, and God had exacted His toll.

  CHAPTER THIRTEN

  On the drive back to the trailer park, I pulled out my cell phone and called information trying to locate a charitable babysitting service somewhere in the county.

  The nearest one I could find was in Memphis, Nannies & Mammies. After relaying all the details to a receptionist, she wanted a hundred dollars an hour to send two high school dropouts to watch seven kids for seven hours—the minimum time, which included the three-hour drive there and back. Since I didn’t have seven hundred dollars, I declined.

  When we arrived home, where all the kids and the two dogs howled, yelled, cried, and fought, it hit me with full force that I was seriously screwed. Until she was well, I was food provider, diaper changer, and all-around prison guard for seven psychotic, unfinished convicts. That first night was sheer hell. I checked out the food pantry and put together a menu for our collective dinner. It really came down to two diets: one for the one-to-three-year-olds, who I had to spoonfeed, and a second meal for the five-to-eight-year-olds, who ate under supervision. I really couldn’t have done it without Floyd Jr. Not only was he surprisingly well organized at making dishes, he also knew how to handle the other kids. Still, I was the substitute teacher and they knew that meant they could get away with anything. After wearily cleaning up, it was all I could do to push them all in the direction of the bedroom.

  “Nighty night,” I called out as I fell back onto the sofa, exhausted. The sounds of shouts and cries did not diminish. Twenty minutes later Floyd Jr. came out and explained that civil war had again broken out.

  “You can’t just dump six kids into a room and expect them to go to bed!”

  “I can’t?”

  “No, you have to go back in there, make them put their pj’s on, watch them as they brush their teeth, have them all say their prayers, and finish them off with a bedtime story.”

  So I pulled myself back up and tiredly did so. By the time they were all properly back in bed, I was barely able to kick off my shoes.

  That morning I slept right until seven, when the two-year-olds started bawling their eyes out again for Mommy. It was the first night most of them had ever been away from her. With the help of Floyd Jr., meals were prepared and children were comforted.

  Vinetta called that afternoon. Before I could say that I didn’t think I could do this much longer, she explained that the X-rays had revealed a hairline fracture in her cranium. The good news was that she had received a CAT scan and MRI, and though there was mild swelling, the prognosis seemed generally fine. Still, they wanted to keep her for a few days just in case.

  “To be honest with you, Vinetta, this is not really something I have an aptitude in, and I—”

  Floyd Jr. suddenly snatched the phone out of my hand. “Ma! How’s your head! You okay?” he shouted desperately, “Yes’m, Ma, sorry.” He handed the phone back to me. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Listen, Sandra, good parenting comes down to balancing power with compassion. Focus on meals, laundry, and getting them out of and into bed. In terms of their behavior, they are all little rebels. And they are constantly testing your borders. You have to give it to them twice as hard, single them out for praise and punishment. No one hits my kids, but humiliate them with the Elvis songs. They work. There’s a lot of shame in Elvis’s music, a lot of remorse.”

  “What do I—”

  “Assign them specific chores, specific times when things begin and end, otherwise they’ll completely overwhelm you. Just remember, if they fear you they love you.”

  “I guess I can try—”

  “Try hell,” she shot back. “You’ll do! You’re all I got and you have to hold down the fort till I get back. The good news is you’ll find strength you never thought you had. And I’ll be home tomorrow night, the day before your big Elvis contest.”

  Her gung-ho talk invigorated me. This was one mission that would be accomplished. At my best, I had been an anal-retentive, fault-finding bitch. It never occurred to me I could use that as a weapon. Since the other six kids were swarming around me to say hi to their mom, I made them form a line and handed the phone to the first one.

  “You got one minute, then hand the phone behind you.” I stared at my wristwatch.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “What should we call you?” asked one of the half-pints.

  “Mother Bloomgarten,” I replied.

  “Yes, Mama Bloomgarten,” their adorable Southern-accented voices said in chorus. I had to struggle to keep from smiling.

  The next day, in addition to my maternal duties, I was able to make some phone calls. They were precautionary, in the event our little extortion backfired again and turned into a murder case with me as the corpse. Intermittently I shouted out orders and the kids jumped. I used them to guide me through the chores, but wasn’t timid about modifying what didn’t work. The hardest part was formulating activities: telling the kids exactly how many minutes they could play on the collapsed swing set, or ride their tricycles with flat tires. At the same time I didn’t want to push them too far. I knew that if my demands became too arbitrary, the eight-year-old—despite his helpfulness—was just waiting to revolt.

  Vin
etta called that night with good news: the doctors were waiting for final results, but if all went well, she should be back at the trailer the next night.

  “Do me a favor and don’t tell them,” she added. “I want it to be a surprise.”

  My maternal stint would soon be over. This got me thinking about my own mother. Even though I didn’t believe it was my fault, I felt bad about parting with her on such bad terms. At noon the next day I called her. She answered, but her voice sounded strangely free of all that stressful bitterness. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t her at all, but my sister Ludmilla.

  “Cassie,” she said upon recognizing my voice, “I can’t believe it’s you. Sweetie, I have awful news: Mama passed away in her sleep two days ago. We just buried her, and we’re all here sitting shiva today and tomorrow.”

  “Oh my God!” It was exactly as Rodmilla had said. She had probably just been waiting to see me one last time. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I was going to, but I knew you were on bad terms,” Ludmilla responded. “I figured you were on assignment somewhere and I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “Bother me? She was my mom too!”

  “Please don’t be cross,” she said. “I just meant that we all have our kids here, so it’s a little tight and I know you and her didn’t really see eye to eye.”

  The hidden message, as I inferred it, was, She’s not your real mother. You were just another liberal, well-intentioned project she took up years ago.

  “Well clear a place at the table,” I fired back. “Cause not only am I coming, but I’m bringing my kids.”

  Your kids?” I had hardly spoken with my sisters in the past ten years so it was at least somewhat plausible.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll just stay for the day.”

  “You’re coming all the way from New York City just for one day?”

  “I like driving.”

  “At least stay for dinner!”

  “Fine, see you in six hours.”

  “You’re coming tonight?”

  I turned off my cell phone. Mom’s house was only about twenty minutes away. I figured I could load all the kids in the truck when the older ones returned from school, rush them to Mesopotamia for a visit and a dinner, then get them back home for Vinetta’s return that night.

  I hardly knew my sisters anymore. How many questions would they ask the kids? If my sisters did discover I wasn’t the mother, no harm done. If I pulled it off, though, I knew they’d feel crappy for treating me like this. Besides, not having to cook dinner and clean up afterward, for even one night—that alone would make the trip worth it.

  I spent the next hour trying to pull together decent clothes for the kids. When the two oldest ones returned from school, I had just finished dressing the younger ones, so I began coaxing them out to the pickup.

  “Okay, kids, Mama Bloomgarten’s got a little game for you all.”

  “I’m hungry, where’s food?” seven kids said in seven different voices, volumes, and tones.

  “That’s the game!”

  “What’s the game?” one of them growled—I think it was Rufus.

  “Escape to Witch Mountain.”

  “Why would we want to escape to something?” asked one mouth of the seven-headed monster.

  “Play it right and you’ll win food.”

  “Sounds scary!”

  “See, we’re going to go visit some witches pretending to be ladies. If we do that, we get to eat the magic food, then we’ll get back into the truck and go home.”

  “What happens if they catch us?”

  “Then you all have to stay and talk and get kissed and hugged and stuff.”

  “Eww!” a chorus returned.

  “Why don’t you just make us food?” one snotty little head suggested.

  “Because we’re all out, so let’s not screw this up.”

  “Why don’t you go shopping?” the eight-year-old piped up.

  “All out of money. Now let’s—”

  “You ain’t out of money, you’re just being lazy!” the seven-year-old shouted.

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “We’re tired,” said the eight-year-old rebel leader.

  “Yeah, we don’t want to go nowheres!” said his second-in-command.

  “That’s it, I want some Evil Elvises!”

  “Fine, but we ain’t leaving,” said the eight-year-old.

  “Yeah, no one’s leaving,” one of the younger kids echoed him, and I realized that my authority was evaporating.

  “Make us some food, why don’t you. That’s what you’re supposed to do!” another little screamer joined in, chirping orders at me.

  Right then I had a flashback; I recalled a fight, almost exactly like this one, over thirty years earlier, with Rodmilla. With horror I realized I had been the insurgent in our family. I suddenly had the urge to apologize to that older woman who I had spent my entire life fighting with. That’s when it really hit me that she was dead. There was no one left to fight. I sat down on the ground, and as the kids kept yelling at me, I envisioned her face thirty years ago. Tears came to my eyes.

  “Hey,” the eight-year-old suddenly said to his crew, “that’s enough. Let’s get dressed.”

  “No, it’s okay. I guess we have some food around.”

  “No, Mama Bloomgarten,” he said softly. And I realized they had seen the tears. “It’s no trouble.”

  “We’d only be going about twenty minutes away,” I told him.

  “Then let’s shake a leg,” he said to the others. “Maybe they’ll have some pizza!”

  In a few minutes they were pulling clothes from their wardrobe. I helped them, checking their progress.

  About twenty minutes later we were all outside in the truck. It was there I explained, “If you can all do me one small favor, I want you to pretend while we’re at this place that I’m your real mama. Can you all do that?”

  You’re our real mama?” asked Urleen.

  “Yeah, and that we’re all here visiting from New York,” I added.

  “New York, the city?” the eight-year-old replied in awe.

  “Yeah, and if one of the little kids accidentally slips, I’m hoping one of you will cover for him,” I said to Floyd Jr. and Urleen.

  “What do we get if we do this?” asked Kayla or Eugenia.

  “I told you, magic food.”

  “Mars bars!” Cotton or Kayla swiftly demanded. Clearly they had already given this matter some thought.

  “Tell you what, I’ll give you a Mars bar for every time you pull me out of a rut,” I proposed.

  The youngest ones got in the front next to me. All the others piled into the rear of the truck. Before we backed out, Floyd Jr. hollered, “Stop!”

  “What?” I feared a child had tumbled out the back.

  “You want us to pretend we’re from New York?”

  “Yes!” I resumed backing down the driveway.

  “Stop!” he shouted again.

  “What?”

  “This pickup has Tennessee license plates. How you going to explain that?”

  The eight-year-old had a point, so we all somehow packed into my crappy little compact with the New York plates. Little arms and legs were sausaged every which way. As we drove, I called out, “Who wants to play a little game?”

  “We’re already playing a game,” one of the smarter heads reminded.

  “The game thing is wearing thin,” said the eight-year-old.

  “This is a better game. It’s called pretend. Are you ready to play pretend?”

  “Yeah, that we’re from New York,” one kid tiredly replied.

  “Yeah, but we’re also on this secret mission. Now, who’s your mommy?”

  “You’re our mommy!” some shouted back.

  “And where d’we pretend live?”

  “Here,” yelped some without hesitation.

  “No, New York City,” the oldest boy corrected, and all repeated.

  “And where’s you
r daddy?”

  “With God in heaven,” one of the kids shouted back.

  “No, in the game of pretend, Daddy’s alive but he left us. So let’s repeat that, ready? Where’s Daddy?”

  “He left us!” the kids yelled out.

  “This game sucks,” the eight-year-old muttered.

  For the remaining twenty or so minutes, as I drove, we kept up the pretend game quiz. Every few miles we’d pass a billboard that announced the upcoming Elvis contest and some of the kids would scream out or sing. I kept returning to the “game,” drilling the same facts over and over into their seven little attention-deficit heads.

  Finally, we pulled into Ludmilla’s house of horrors. I parked between two new white Mercedes-Benz SUVs, cigarettes to the lungs of our dying planet. One had a bumper sticker that read, My Daughter Is an Honor Student at South Lane High School. The other car had a Jesus fish—so much for five thousand years of Judaism. By the time I pulled the seven little bodies out of my vehicle, they were hungry, whiny, and the youngest needed to be changed. Linking hands we all headed up the walkway.

  “Oh my God!” cried a gold-highlighted, stallion-haired lady who turned out to be my sister Ludmilla. She hugged me, making me feel self-conscious about wrinkling her expensive clothing. Looking at my Elvis cut, she paused and said, “I … um … like what you did with your …”

  “Thanks.”

  Squatting low, Ludmilla grabbed some of Vinetta’s kids and started indiscriminately kissing them, something that would never have occurred to me. As they wiped off her tacky lipstick, she squealed, “Look at all these beautiful, beautiful children! Do you know me, I’m your Aunt Ludmilla!”

  “Aunt Umbrella?” asked one.

  “No, Lud-mil-la,” she sounded it out for them.

  “Lump-milla?” said the cunning eight-year-old.