by CeeCee James
I walked back to my stool and sat, and bit my thumb nail. Was I was in trouble for bothering Mama’s friend? I didn’t want to be hit with the paddle. When we got home that night I got into bed still dressed, pulled the covers to my neck and pretended I was asleep while I listened for her.
We went to the same house again for another party the next weekend. A man brought me into the dark living room. Mama’s friends sat on couches and chairs in a semi-circle. “You stand here,” he said, “Hold this.” He handed me a smoking stub held in a metal clip.
The red coal on the tip was hot. “I don’t want to get burned.” I looked for someone to hand it to.
“It’s fine. Quit whining,” Mama said from her spot on the couch.
I brought it to each of them whenever they gestured to me. They put it in their mouths like a cigarette, and there was lots of smoke and laughter. The smoke smelled terrible, but I liked the feathers tied with leather that dangled from the end of the clip. I marched up and saluted the man when he waggled his fingers towards me, and he winked and saluted me back.
Mama rolled her head along the man’s shoulder she was sitting next to and waved at me with a floppy hand. Her eyes looked red and watery as she stared at the glowing stub. She snatched it from me without touching my fingers. After a big drag she handed it back, dropping it a split second before I had a hold of it. I grabbed at the leather thong, and the red coal swung up to my wrist. I squealed, and nearly threw it, but the man plucked it from my fingers. He laughed like I had done something funny, and soon everyone in the room was laughing. My important feeling wilted, and the hollowness in me boomed.
Chapter 6
~Tonsils~
Winter came, and the whole world that had once looked like it had been put to bed under a giant patchwork quilt, was now brown with rotten leaves. Along with the cold temperatures came a horrible virus. I was not quite five, and never been sicker. Air felt stale and used up, and I went outside to feel the breeze on my face, hoping it would help me breathe.
I was sick for several months before Mama took me to the doctor. The doctor peered at my throat with his bright light. He told Mama that my tonsils were infected and had banded together with scar tissue. When we got home that day, I ran to the bathroom and said “AHHHHH,” with my face inches from the mirror. I wanted to see what a tonsil was.
Soon after that doctor’s appointment, Mama came over to where I sat in the kitchen eating cereal. She stared at my mouth. I paused with my spoon in the air.
“You need to breathe quieter, right now.”
I took a few wheezy breaths. She backhanded me across my face.
“Quit defying me.”
Tears blurred my vision, and I put my head down on the table.
“You look like a donkey with your mouth hanging open! Heee Haw Heee Haw.”
I didn’t move until Mama walked away.
That night, she heard me in my bed and yelled, “Quiet down now!”
I hugged my pillow over my face and listened for her footsteps. I chanted into my pillow, “Can’t breathe yet, don’t breathe.” There were little sparkles in the dark, and my chest pounded. She didn’t come in.
The next afternoon, my uncle came to our house with a pizza. He threw it on the counter and then jumped over the back of the couch with a thump to watch TV. Mama sat next to him, and they flipped through the channels; laughing game shows, droning news channels, before they settled on a movie with scary music. I stayed in the kitchen at the table with my plate.
Without turning around from the TV, Mama yelled, “Stop! Your breathing is ruining our show. We can’t even hear what they are saying!”
Mama and my uncle looked at each other then and mimicked me with bulging eyes, and open mouths to let out loud gasps. Both of them laughed and Mama gave a couple of donkey brays. I stared at the pizza in my hands. My face felt hot, and the hollowness echoed in my heart.
It was late spring when Mama scheduled the surgery for my tonsils. The sky was blue and clear when she drove me to the hospital. We sat in silence in the hospital room on either side of a bright square of sunshine on the floor. She was frozen like a statue, hands resting on the seat of her metal chair, blank eyes staring at the mossy green hospital room wall. I didn’t make a sound, my legs dangling. I slowly swung my leg, making my untied shoelace spin in circles.
The doctor apologized when he walked in. His face was red, and he talked fast.
“Sorry, sorry. Busy day. Let’s see what we got.”
The doctor pushed my tongue down with a wooden stick, and I wanted to gag. He peered through a silver mirror, and I could see my face in it, upside down. I tipped my head to see if I could make my face pop up-right. He flipped the silver dish up with a snap and gave a disappointed sigh. Squeaking back in the chair, he turned to Mama.
“We can’t do the surgery. Your daughter is sick again. Too dangerous. Let’s reschedule for two weeks and see how she’s doing then.” He patted me on the head, stood up, and walked out of the room with large steps.
Mama was very angry, and she glared out the windshield on the way home.
“If you could have been a big girl, and kept your fingers out of your mouth you wouldn’t be sick. I’ll make sure your fingers are out of your mouth.”
She slapped my face many times over the next few days. I held the bottom of my shirt every time I was near her, stretching it down to keep my hands far from my face, and flinched when I saw her move hers.
Two weeks later, as I climbed into the car to return to the hospital, Mama twisted around in the front seat. Her face creased with dark lines by her eyes and mouth.
“You better not be sick again.”
We waited at the hospital the same way as before. When the doctor came in to check me, I was shaking. Please say yes, please say yes.
“Now, no reason to be scared,” the doctor said, and he smiled and winked at me. When he was done examining my throat, he tapped my shoulder. “Okay, looks good. Let’s get this taken care of!”
It was my fifth birthday. I pulled out a doll that wore yellow pajamas from my coat pocket that Grandma had given me the day before.
“Behave,” Mama said, and walked out of the room.
A nurse came in and gave me funny pajamas. They had blue stars on them and lots of ribbon. She spun me around and tied the ribbons down my back. “You just wait here a sec. I’m sending in our special nurse to help you feel better.”
I swung my legs in the chair for a little bit, waiting for the next nurse. She walked in pushing a wheel chair.
“Hop in. We’re going for a ride.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You need to be a big girl now,” she said with a small smile.
The hallway was dark, with two doors sat at the end like a giant insect mouth. Adults walked about in blue gowns, and some wore white masks. Their eyes were dark and shiny. Why are they covering their faces? What are they hiding?
She pushed open the doors, and there was noise and bright lights. Patting the bed, she told me to climb up. I shook my head no, so she boosted me with her arms tight around my waist. “Lie down. I don’t want you to fall.”
A man was suddenly at my other side, his hand on my wrist. My heart beat faster, and I jerked away.
“Let me go!”
He leaned in. Even his eyes were covered with glasses. “Do you know how to count backwards?”
I started to cry. I didn’t want to cooperate anymore. More nurses crowded around me and pinned me down. I kicked at them. The male nurse held the mask over my face with firm hands. My tears ran down into my ears.
“Count down from one hundred please.” My vision doubled, and then I was out.
I saw witches. The doctors had long warty noses and evil black eyes. They came at my face with sharp knives, and I couldn’t move no matter how hard I tried. When I woke up, I was crying again. A nurse popped her head from behind an orange curtain. I held my throat; searing pain. “Would you like some ice-cream? You have to stop c
rying if you want some.”
I nodded and closed my eyes.
I woke up again in another room. There was a screech, and a little kid next to me jumped up and down in a covered crib. He stuck his tongue out at me and made a face. A few minutes passed, while he hooted and bounced until another nurse with a mask wheeled him out.
Mama picked me up the next day. I left my doll behind in my hospital bed when Mama led me from the room. I didn’t understand we were leaving the hospital.
Mama sighed. “I’m not going to turn around to get it. It serves you right. You don’t take care of your toys.” Her steps were quick and echoed in the parking garage, and I hurried to keep up with her. Tears burned my eyes; having my breathing fixed was not going to make her happy with me. Still not making eye contact she said, “By the way, this surgery was your birthday present.”
The next day I stayed home alone with a cup of cold water to sip. Mama had to work.
When she came home that night she sent me down to the mailbox. There was a brown package there for me from Grandma on Mama’s side. Grandma gave me a bible for my birthday, with red letters for when Jesus spoke, and a middle section full of bright colored pictures. I held it in my hands, grinning at its heavy richness.
“You take care of that, CeeCee. It cost Grandma a lot of money.”
I nodded and tucked it under my arm to my room. Pushing my clothes to the floor, I sat on the bed and flipped the pages to the colorful pictures. I stopped when I came to a picture of Jesus holding little children on his lap, and fell in love. Tracing over the little children with my finger, I tried to decide which one I was. Was I the blonde one who had Jesus’ hand on her head? Or could I be the one with the brown curls he looked at with kind eyes? I ran my hands over my hair and felt how short, thin and unkempt it was. I was neither of those pretty girls. I shoved the bible under my bed.
A few nights later I walked down the tarry road to Mrs. Perkins’ house. Mama was going on a date. Mrs. Perkins made me chocolate pudding while I waited on the couch with the funny tassels along the edge. She put a spoonful of cool whip on it and brought the dish to me as we settled in to watch The Waltons. When the show was over she went to the corner and pulled out a metal stool. Dragging it to the book shelf she lifted a big, egg-shaped doll.
“This is a Russian nesting doll.” Her gray hair bobbed as she climbed down from the stool and set it on the table. She pulled the first two pieces apart, showing me the next bright painted face. I clapped. She pushed it over. “Here, you try.”
I opened the next doll, and carefully matched the two pieces together. I laughed when I got to the baby. So darling. Mrs. Perkins’s glossy dining room table became a little cottage house for the wooden dolls.
Mrs. Perkins didn’t understand Mama’s strict rules with me. Mrs. Perkins liked to talk with me, and we went on walks together while my gray cat followed us. She taught me how to pick butter cups and hold them to my skin to see if I liked butter. She told me a story about forget-me-nots--the tiny flowers that were afraid to be forgotten-- and I giggled when I saw some.
“I found you!” I ran up to point them out to Mrs. Perkins, and my cat followed. He curled up against my legs and rubbed his cheek against the tiny flowers.
Mama had warned her before we left, “You want to walk with her? That girl’ll talk your ear off. Don’t let her take advantage of you.”
Mrs. Perkins answered her, “Oh, she’s delightful to walk with!” Mama laughed, but Mrs. Perkins insisted, “She’s fine.” Mama gave a quick nod.
Mama told me in private, “Mrs. Perkins doesn’t know you very well, CeeCee. You sure have her fooled.” I was scared. I didn’t know how to keep the fact that I was a monster hidden from Mrs. Perkins, so that she would continue to like me.
A few weeks after my birthday a classmate knocked into me when we all rushed to go play on the swing-set outside. The back of my head smacked against the glass door. Reaching back, I examined the lump, and my hand came away bloody. I looked at my bloody hand in shock. How am I going to hide this? I didn’t want to tell anyone.
The teacher walked behind me.
“Oh my!” she said, when she saw the blood. She disappeared for a minute, and returned with a wad of paper towels.
“Hold this tight, and let’s go see the nurse.” She called to the other teacher, “Watch my kids, I’ll be back in a minute.”
My teacher walked me to the school nurse while I held the towels to my head. The nurse peeled back the towels for a minute and quickly turned to the phone.
“Please don’t call my mom! I’m okay, honest I am.” I pleaded.
Her eyes flickered over at me and she smiled, before she was distracted again. “Oh, hello? Yes, I’m calling about your daughter. She’s had a bit of an accident and it might be good to see a doctor.” I crumpled down on the cot, shivering. I was going be in big trouble.
Thirty minutes passed, until a man walked in the office. He looked like a stranger, until his features melted into a face I knew. Dad was here. I was so relieved that he was the one who came, that I didn’t feel shy.
Parked in front of the school entrance was Dad’s new red convertible. It was so fancy. Dad must be a rich man. He drove fast, while I held the paper towels on my head, trying to keep the ice from slipping.
“Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he fumbled with his silver zippo trying to light his cigarette. It fell in his lap, and he said a bad word.
He parked his car in front of the hospital.
“Don’t slam the door!” he said, when I got out. He walked with me into the building with his eye already on a plastic chair. As he sat down, a nurse came over to us. Dad waved, “Go on.”
The nurse steered me by my shoulder into a big room. It was dark, with a single bed covered by a paper sheet under a light. She picked me up and set me on the bed, hurting my armpits when she lifted me. The doctor came out of the dark without a sound, and I jumped. He swiveled the bright light over behind me and poked my head.
“We need to cut the hair.”
My hair? “No! No! No! Leave me alone!” I screamed, pushing against the paper to jump off. Firm hands grabbed me.
“You stay here. You want your head to get better, don’t you?” The nurse held my wrist and forearm, and her hands squeezed tight.
I heard them ask for a needle and cat gut. “I want a Band-Aid! Don’t put cat guts in my hair!” No one answered me. The doctor and nurses faces looked angry before they held me down on the table and stitched my scalp. They worked in silence. I screamed.
As we left the hospital, Dad told me not to get blood on the leather of his new car. I sniffled in the seat next to him. He dropped me back off at the school and drove away as soon as I shut the car door. I walked into the school and stood there in the empty hallway, the back of my head shaved and cold. With a lump in my throat, the hollowness echoed inside of me.
Mama was mad when I got home from school that night. She didn’t like the stitches, and she didn’t like that Dad had a new car. She made goulash for dinner, out of noodles and cans of white potatoes and tomatoes. I hated goulash.
“Don’t turn your nose up at it, we’re poor. Your Dad doesn’t love you enough to help take care of you, but he sure has enough money to buy that fancy new car.”
Saturday night Mama had a date, and I was going along. It was dark when we left for a diner. We sat at a long counter on tall stools, and she fidgeted with the paper napkin in front of her, folding and refolding it. I tried to fold mine, but no interesting shapes came out of it, so I tore it into a little nest instead. Her date didn’t show up. I didn’t like the grilled cheese I had ordered, because it tasted like the plastic was still on the cheese. When we got home she spanked me with the wooden paddle of a paddle ball toy.
“You don’t embarrass me when I tell you to eat. If I tell you to jump you say how high!” Mama spanked me until I screamed, and kept up until she broke the paddle on me.
Mama bou
ght another paddle ball the next time we went to the grocery store. The clerk smiled at me.
“Getting a prize?”
Mama shook her head, “Niece’s birthday present.”
I turned away, my attention caught by my first wiggly tooth. I sucked at it, and then pressed my tongue hard against it and tasted blood. Mama frowned when she saw me wiggling the tooth. “Pull it out!”
The checker over heard her. “I bet your little girl would pull her tooth out if she could have this little bag of peanuts! Wouldn’t you like these peanuts sweetheart?”
“Of course,” Mama said, and turned to me, opening her eyes wide. “Pull it out, and you can have them.” She dangled the bag of peanuts out of my reach. I was hungry.
I tried to pull it, but it was still too firmly fastened in my gum. I lifted my hand a few inches in the striped bag’s direction. “Please Mama.” My mouth was watering.
She jerked them away. “You pull it.” She smiled and fear zipped through me.
The checker’s mouth shaped into an “O” at Mama’s response, and she said to me, “Here honey, just take the peanuts. My treat.”
Mama frowned at her. “If she can’t pull the tooth, then she doesn’t deserve peanuts.”
I couldn’t do it, and missed out on the treat. When we got home, Mama cut the ball off of the paddle and threw it in the trash.
“Now, just you try and smart off.”
When I finally lost my tooth a week later, Mama told me to put it under my pillow. “The tooth fairy will come,” she said.
The light in the room was gray the next morning when I woke up. Mama slapped the wall above my head again.
“Get up! You’re late!”
I jumped out of bed and pulled on the clothes I had worn the day before. Grabbing my lunch bag, I ran out the door, making it to the bus stop just as the orange bus turned the corner at the bottom of the hill belching black smoke.
It was until after dinner that I remembered. The tooth fairy! I ran into my room and flipped back the pillow. My tooth was gone. A quarter was there inside a twisted cellophane cigarette wrapper. A fairy came into my room last night! She left me a prize! I ran out to show Mama.