Girlchild

by Tupelo Hassman

  The silence is broken by Mama, though, and she doesn’t sound angry, “I can’t change it and neither can you, Ma.”

  “There’s the smart kid I raised. Start carrying that bit of wisdom around like you do everything else, would you please?”

  Mama laughs, quiet. There’s a pause, and I use it to put it all together, that my brothers’ story that night was true and not the fairy tale I hoped, what it means that Grandma can laugh about it, and that Mama is afraid for me, and guilty, and holding on to it tight. I’m trying to put it together enough to be cool when I go back in, and that’s when Grandma says, “R.D., you can come in now, before the ice cream melts all over the hallway.”

  I turn the corner, too surprised to not give myself away, but Mama smiles. “My double-digit kid,” she says, and pats the seat beside her.

  Grandma keeps on, talking now about how we need a new table, “spruce the place up.” She moves her hand across the scarred wood. “You should start saving up, Jo. This old thing reminds me of the Santa Cruz house after the fire.” She winks at me. “And that, Bird-day Girl, is another story.”

  gloss

  I’m writing a letter to my brothers. I barely know where I’m sending it to, and it almost feels like I don’t even know where I’m sending it from. Part of me wants to write to those kids they were on the Ridge, their heads barely out of Mama’s oven and being put back in it, and say that Mama’s different now and they should come back more often, and say that Mama’s different but she still needs saving. But instead I write to them where they are now and say things that come from where I know they want me to be.

  Dear Ronnie,

  Thank you for the lip gloss you sent for my birthday. I like the chocolate-flavored one the best. I bet Tracy picked it out and I hope you’ll tell her I really like it. Mama wrapped it for you with a silver bow and left it for me this morning to open before school. Later on we had cake and ice cream and Grandma came over and she called it my Bird-day about a thousand times. Did she sing Happy Bird-day to you when you were little?

  I just wanted to say that I liked your visit and you should come back more often.

  Please tell Win and Gene and Bob I said hi when you talk to them because I think you talk a lot to each other. You can always call here too, and talk to me, and I’ll take a message for Mama. Maybe when you come back you’ll bring my little cousins. I can babysit while you and Tracy go out. I’ve read the Child Care section of the Girl Scout Handbook about forty times, it’s under “Health and Safety.”

  Love,

  Your sister, R.D.

  clipped

  THE COURT CALENDAR

  Tuesday, March 31, 1970

  Superior Court

  Joann Ruth Gilbertson, 26, of Santa Cruz, who pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana last October, was sentenced to three years’ probation. No fine was imposed, financially speaking, but emotionally, this family will find themselves in the red for generations. This is especially true when considering that the family’s hopes of a brighter future went out with the flames that were overtaking their home when the marijuana was found. Why the SCPD showed up during the fire is not clear, but the community is grateful that the police had no other pressing business that evening.

  the girl scout laws

  The Fourth Amendment hangs from the doors of the scariest houses on the Calle, makes its patriotic protest against unlawful search and unlawful seizure from homes that never came close to lawful in the first place. Homes whose wiring and plumbing are gutted for quick cash from the junkman, whose windows shatter forever against the duct tape that still holds the shards in place, whose inhabitants are known by their burnt fingertips, their bruises, their long sleeves in summer. All that’s left inside the houses is the paranoia of the users who haunt them, waiting for the cash that won’t come until the next first or fifteenth. These are the folks who tape the Fourth Amendment to the front door believing its promise—The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects—will keep the police out and their secrets in. These are the folks who think that because a document is sacred it means the police won’t read between the lines and decide that the lines obviously being measured out on glass and countertop are enough for probable cause. These versions of the Fourth Amendment are blurry, handwritten, and hard to read, they hang weary from front doors and gates by thumbtack and nail, shudder there and flip in the wind, now against searching, now against seizing, but for all its ink and big ideas, the Fourth Amendment burns just like anything else:

  10-14-69 HOME VISIT

  HENDRIX, Johanna #310,788

  Mrs. Hendrix had telephoned the worker on an office holiday to report that her house had caught on fire the night before and when the police came to the home to investigate the fire, they discovered marijuana in the home and arrested Mrs. Hendrix for possession of narcotics. The worker was as sympathetic as possible about Mrs. Hendrix’s arrest but both the worker and Mrs. Hendrix had talked about the use of marijuana on earlier occasions and Mrs. Hendrix was on notice that this was illegal. She was quite distressed in her telephone call of 10-13 and the worker did pay a home visit on 10-14. The damage of the fire itself was not so substantial that the house could not be lived in.

  Mrs. Hendrix described the event of her arrest, and apparently one policeman accompanied the fire trucks to the scene of the fire, and while all of the children were out in the street and the blaze had been extinguished, the policeman found some marijuana and a cigarette roller in the living room. Mrs. Hendrix resisted his attempt to arrest her and she herself states that she used some very bad language in resisting the arrest. He eventually forced her into a patrol car and she was booked the night of 10-11-69 at the Santa Cruz City Jail. In her possession at the time of the arrest were several marijuana cigarettes found in her purse, which she stated had been given to her by a hitchhiker who used this gift as a payment for the ride.

  Telling stories is an important Calle skill and Mama gets the star. I know this even without V. White making it clear as the black and white on the patrol car that took Mama downtown after her house caught fire and her temper with it. But I also know that whether those stories are true or not doesn’t matter once Johnny Law’s car is headed to the precinct with you in the back. Right or wrong, once that door is slammed shut, it’s hard to open it back up. The Officer made short shrift of the Constitution, and ignoring the devastation on the faces of four little boys standing on a smoky sidewalk, he took their mama away. And she never quite made it back. Despite her creation of a phantom hitchhiker, despite her curses, and despite the promises of the Fourth Amendment, Mama never did escape the damage done to her reputation after taking that ride downtown. Despite the promises of equal opportunity and protection under the law, so rich in the air in 1969, that night her arrest record got all shuffled up with her social-services record, and soon the childcare she got so she could go to college was canceled, and with it her courses, and Mama went back to the school of hard knocks.

  birds in flight

  Between her blackout nights and Alka-Seltzer mornings, life with Mama is a tricky one. Winston Dean’s the oldest, which means he holds the record for putting up with it the longest. I was only barely rolling over when Winston turned fifteen, folded Gene Jr., Ronnie, and Bobby under his wing, and set out to find the delinquent fisherman and cast their lines alongside him. Before I was old enough to say don’t go, my big brothers had already gotten in their Dodge and gotten out.

  The Hendrix Four had their bad daddy, and now they have each other. For them, Mama was a force to be survived, a storm to be weathered, and now she’s a post-office box. But ten is too young to pull off fifteen, especially without the benefit of facial hair, and anyway, I don’t have any father to run to, delinquent or not. I’m not just passing through here. Mama’s all I’ve got.

  tent city

  The last weekend of July is Revival Time on the Calle, courtesy of the Lions Club or the Elks or the Kiwanis, or whoever adopts
animal names and funny hats most of the year but for one weekend turns their attention to the lost sheep on the wrong side of the tracks. For three nights the Calle’s drunks and gamblers, its freaks and creeps, move their sideshow from the Truck Stop and Hobee’s to a giant tent set up in the dirt at the end of the asphalt, just downwind from the cesspond that was going to be the Calle de las Flores swimming pool, a hole that was dug but never finished and has since taken on a life of its own.

  I always play pool on Revival nights at the table farthest from the dunk tank, farthest because the dunk tank is on the Adults Only side of the tent, because the dunk tank is where Mama always is, in the tank or in the drink, drying off at the bar, climbing back in. For this feat she earns a buck a dunk for the Lions Club White Picket Fence Fund or whatever it is they’re collecting for this time. More important than that, she earns the admiration of the Calle men and the envy of the Calle women. The promise of possibly dunking Mama, in her cut-offs and rosy-pink tank top, sells tickets. It’s that or her mouth, because Mama can’t seem to stop pushing her customers, “Bet you can’t,” and “Keep dreaming,” and all in a voice that the Girl Scouts would find anything but sportsmanlike.

  Mama brings the money in, and Mama will go down again and again to applause and hoots from the Calle men. I choose shots to keep her behind me even if it costs me the game, but when I hear the softball hit its mark and feel the crowd take in its breath, the silent pulling suck before cheering, I turn around, because the sight of Mama underwater never stops being a surprise. Maybe she needs the crowd cheering so she can hear her way up to the air, maybe she needs the warmth of the fools who pool up around her, buy her drinks. She’ll sit on the bench without a care, even though there’s three feet of water underneath her, that her hair is wrecked, that her mascara has run, and in just seconds she’ll stand, the rose in the center of her tank top the only thing not made see-through by the wet. And her smile. If she likes who dunked her, she’ll flip him off sweetly, the red nail on her middle finger dripping bright as her voice that says, “Bet you can’t do it twice,” like she can’t wait to do it again, like water’s never scared her at all. The tent gets louder, she gets wet, dry, wet again.

  And this Revival night is special because, while the Kiwanis think it’s to celebrate the new tassels on their hats, the rest of us know this is Grandma’s moving away party and there’s free barbeque and all the Olympia you can drink. The spotlights bouncing off the kegs make everyone squint, but what’s hurting my eyes is seeing Mama and Grandma together, not passing by, not handing shifts off, handing me off, but together, and this makes the night so bright that my eyes start to water. Grandma is leaving the Calle, going back to California, because, she says, “There’s gold in them thar hills,” even though I don’t laugh anymore when she says it. What she really means is that she can’t fight the one-armed bandit anymore. If she wants to hold on to whatever she’s got left she’s going to have to get out of his reach, and what she really means is good-bye.

  The whole Calle’s brought presents for Grandma, a stack of cardboard boxes, brand-new rolls of packing tape, and more seed packets for her new garden than she’ll have room to plant, but Grandma brought a present for me. She hands me a sheet of twenty-cent stamps and a stack of envelopes. “This is how we’re going to stay together,” she says, “until you get old enough to get out of here.” And I’m looking at my new sheet of stamps, white eagles ready to fly, when the music starts again and dancing feet kick pebbles pinging into the keg behind me. The music’s too loud and too fast, “On the Road Again,” and when I look up, it’s Mama. She’s dancing in bare feet, her toes are grey with dirt and her still-damp shirt is getting caked with dust. She grabs Grandma’s hands, kisses them both, and says, “Dance with your kid, old woman.” Mama’s words are all slurs, she’s slam-dunked for good, but even so, her feet and Grandma’s move in time, raising clouds in the dirt as if they’d danced together every night of their lives. The crowd claps and hollers, moves in closer and closer, until I can’t see Grandma’s braids flying and Mama’s dirty feet dancing, and then I think I hear my name, Mama’s voice singing Rory Dawn over and over to the rhythm of Willie’s guitar, calling me to come dance, and I want to disappear before I’m made to join them on the floor. I won’t last under all those eyes. Jim Beam didn’t fill up my dance card and I don’t have age to protect me from the burning stares so I sneak out the back where I’m tripped everywhere by extension cords and cables in the dark. They run from inside double-wides and singles, snaking down the Calle to light up the tent whose insides are so loud I can’t tell anymore whether that’s my name I’m hearing or just the crowd singing along.

  I slip over the embankment that surrounds the Calle’s cesspond, and when I do, the stamps and envelopes slide out of my fingers. I want to grab them back, close my hands around them and hold on, but there is only this slipping away, soft as Grandma’s hand slipping from mine. Her gifts disappear into the dirty water and the desert sun rising over the pond will bake them into the mud.

  hit and run

  It’s like a wildfire after Grandma leaves. Regardless of how little or often they saw each other, Grandma made Mama feel like she belonged here and the feeling was strong enough to keep us close without penning us in, and now Mama’s on a hot streak trying to find a man to fill the space left empty. Gray-haired or young, slobby or square, the men warm our house for a night or two, maybe a week, and then they’re gone, eighty-sixed from our lives as clear and clean as if what took place between them had stayed at the bar. And usually it’s a push, no loss on either side, they come in after I’m in bed, leave before I get up, and I couldn’t give less of a shit about any of them. But once in a while one loses his heart and once I think I did too, but never Mama. Her heart stays right in place and it’s wham-bam-don’t-give-a-damn every single time. Whatever she’s got, that thing that can say good-bye like good-byes don’t mean anything, I didn’t get that. And the glass unicorn with the shiny gold horn and hooves that sits by my bed proves it, proves that I can’t let go of things like Mama can. The unicorn is from one of these long-gone men, Martin, and so far, Martin is the only one I miss.

  Maybe because he took me on their date to Sizzler and didn’t care that I only ate soft serve and cheese, maybe because he won the unicorn in the arcade at Circus Circus after fifteen tries at the Milk Can Toss, was ready to try for fifteen more and wasn’t losing his temper along with his money, and maybe because he gave me a giant, hardcover-and-color-illustrated copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland whose pages turned smooth and new in my hands, Martin is the only one I’ve wanted to stay.

  But not Mama. The afternoon comes when Martin is standing on the doorstep asking where she is and why she hasn’t called him back and do I think she’ll be home soon, and I want to kick myself for opening the door in the first place. I want to slam it on his stupid, sad face, crawl under the window, and turn up the volume on the TV so I can’t hear his next question, I know it’s coming. “What happened?” Because if I have to answer that question one more time, I’ll scream. I’ll scream that I’m only ten and he’s a grown-up and if I could understand why Mama does what she does the first thing I’d do is explain her to myself, and I guess he can kind of see that because he starts to cry. His tears soak into the rug, slide across the linoleum and right through my socks, and I feel myself start to grow on those tears. I sprout straight up over him toward the top of the bookshelf, and I keep growing and growing until I’m a giant and he’s just a little, tiny boy. My cheek scrapes against the stucco ceiling and I count the moth wings burnt against the lightbulb and look down on him where he’s shrunk on the porch, and I wish this was Wonderland because if it was, I would be wearing a clean blue dress and shiny black shoes instead of dirty corduroys and wet socks, and instead of lint in my pockets there’d be cake that said Eat Me and I’d nibble on a bit of it now and turn this right around, make me kid-sized again and him a grown man with answers instead of questions and the wherew
ithal to make her settle down and start coming home to us every night.

  finger

  My pops’s last name wasn’t Hendrix but it obviously didn’t rate much higher since Mama never took it and I never got it. What I know about him comes from listening at corners to the little talking Mama does with her various cowboys after they’ve bribed her with the promise of a night’s distraction and me with buckets from KFC or boxes of Chinese takeout. The food is always cold after being hauled from downtown to the Calle and is almost as salty as the men who listen to Mama’s stories like their night depends on it. What I learn about my pops could fill the front of the paper slip from my fortune cookie with room left on the back for lucky numbers and how to say So Long in Chinese but it seems about as likely a version of our past as any.

  According to Mama, he was once in the navy, traveled all over, and ever after considered himself a pirate. He was a shaggy man and tattooed but born too late to fully realize his dream of high-seas adventure and, besides, could never muster the hardheartedness necessary to the walk-the-plank tradition. But Mama could, and when she decided she could stay broke without him and without having to wash his socks, it wasn’t long before, true to family tradition, we hit the road to Reno. Mama says she knows when to cut her losses, and that is for sure, so I try not to think about what was lost exactly in that good-bye I was too young to say. There are plenty of knees to ride pony on in this town and I figure my own Pops wouldn’t have been that different from the rest, coming home too late when he came home at all and passing out with his boots still on. Or maybe I picture him that way because even in my mind he’s got one foot out the door. He’s listed as Unknown on my birth certificate and all Mama has to say about that is, “The damn fools at the County finally got something right.”