by CeeCee James
Chapter 8
~The Boyfriends~
Mama regained her health and her weight over the next few weeks. Her cheeks grew pinker and she was able to get about the house without help. I even caught her doing a little sashay around the cat, dipping down to scratch the top of her head. I wondered what life would look like now.
I felt sick when I saw every bit of healthy ground she regained was a step away from me. The silent treatment began again. Her dark eyes never met mine unless I was in trouble. I tried to bring her back, by doing the things I had done when she was sick. When I offered to cook eggs, she shook her head.
“No, I don’t want that.”
I brought her a bouquet of dandelions, and she placed them in a glass with some water, and never looked at them again. When they closed into wilted green pods I threw them out.
Her hands went back to being scary sources of pain. I watched for them to move, and ducked to the side if they came flying at me. She grabbed the back of my arms and pinched with a twist to get my attention. She decided the toy paddles were too wimpy, and used her thick wooden spoons.
“Don’t you move, CeeCee, or I will start this all over again.” She didn’t stop until she was satisfied with my screams and pleas. “That’s how I can tell you are genuinely sorry,” she said when she put the spoon away.
We drove to the grocery store a few weeks after she came home from the hospital. Mama was in front of me pushing the cart, when she stopped, and I accidentally stepped on the back of her shoe. She turned around, and I flinched when she scratched the end of her nose. She laughed like it was some kind of joke, and winked at me.
“You think you can manipulate me? I’ll give you something to flinch over.” I stood quietly and gave no response. Shaking her head, she looked back at the list.
After we unpacked the car, Mama sat out on the cement stoop in front of our house, petting our grey cat that had grown fat from his kitten days. He slowly winked his green eyes while she scratched his ears, chuckling.
Still looking at him, she said, “My cats have never disappointed me,” and raised her eyebrow.
Sitting next to her was a ceramic blue bowl filled to the brim with cat food, food spilling out around the bowl. I wonder how it tastes. Mama measured every portion of the food I ate, and she became infuriated if anyone fed me without her supervision. Especially my paternal grandparents. She’d taunt me when I left for their house, “Your grandparents are going to make you fat like they are.” I didn’t understand why Mama was worried. I was skinny, even though she was skinnier.
We went to her friend’s house for a party that weekend. I could hear her from my stool making jokes about fat people to the group of adults. Laughter erupted from the living room. I leaned back to look in the living room; the adults were sprawled on the couches with their beer bottles. I stood up quietly and snuck outside.
The bright sun made me squint as I walked to the side of the house. Overgrown bushes blocked my path, and I had to push the branches back to get behind the house. The back yard was a sloping hill of mowed grass. I grinned, and tucked my hands behind my head to roll down the hill like a log. When I stood up the whole yard spun around me, blue, green, brown house. In the corner of the yard I saw cherry tomatoes climbing a trellis. I ran over and snapped one off the vine and threw the red globe into my mouth. Mmmmmm! The tomato squirted seeds out onto my t-shirt. Oh No! I scraped at the tiny seeds with my fingernail so that Mama wouldn’t see.
Mama never noticed because she had a special friend at the party. She introduced him to me later that night. With a crooked smile, he shook my hand, and called me, “Ma’am.” I laughed, and then ran away when I caught Mama’s eye.
Whenever he came over to our house he’d call out as soon as he got there, “Where’s my blue eyed-angel?” and I would come running. He made me laugh one night, “Man, I’m so tired I might need toothpicks to hold open my eyelids!”
Mama gave him a dirty look. “Well you best be getting those toothpicks then, because you’re not staying the night here.”
On my sixth birthday I hoped he would bring me a cake covered with candy sprinkles, but instead, he brought a miniature pink sewing machine that really worked. The sewing machine was the size of a book and had a foot pedal the size of a walnut. I giggled when I saw it, completely charmed with how perfect it was.
“Oh, thank you!” I gave him a hug. “Mama look! Tiny scissors, and look at these baby spools of thread!” I wanted to tear open the box, already picturing making a blanket for Mary Jane.
Mama considered it with raised eyebrows. “Well, that’s a strange toy. Don’t open it,” she said with a quick glanced over at her boyfriend. “We’ll open it another time, when I have time to show you how it works.”
It gathered dust on the top of the bookshelf for a few months where I looked at it with longing, until Mama threw it away.
I wanted her boyfriend to be my dad. One night, as he carried me half asleep from the car after a party, I wrapped my arms around his neck and murmured, “Will you be my daddy?”
With a sigh, he patted my back, and softly whispered in my ear, “I wish it were possible, blue-eyed angel. But your mama doesn’t love me.”
My heart sunk, I was going to lose him. Mama saw us and protested that I was a big girl and could walk by myself. She broke up with him later that night.
When it was Dad’s weekend for a visit, my paternal Grandparents threw me a party with balloons and six pink candles that flickered on a big chocolate cake. The car was quiet when Dad drove me back home. He was having one of his down days, and didn’t talk to me, but I didn’t mind. The inside of my mouth was cut from the last slap Mama gave me. I looked out the window while he flipped through radio stations.
He pulled into my driveway, and the cats scattered in front of the car. The black cat climbed the lilac tree with her ears back, while the fat gray cat sauntered up the steps towards Mama standing on the porch. She gave Dad a steely glare when I climbed out of the car, and hurried past her into the house with my box of birthday presents. I rushed into my room to hide the toys, but Mama slammed the door shut and followed me.
“Let’s see what they got you,” Mama said, stopping me from shoving the toys under the bed.
I pulled out a doll that Grandma had given me, a doll that I had begged for, that ate real baby food and had dirty diapers. Guilt flooded through me, even though I didn’t know why. Mama snorted in disgust.
“That is the ugliest doll I’ve ever seen. It’s going to mold and get all gross! I can’t believe they got it for you.”
I agreed right away, “Yes! It is ugly!”
Her eyes considered me for a moment and lines deepened around her mouth.
“They spoil you rotten.”
I took a step back away from her, holding the doll out in front of me. The space in my room felt even smaller and the air felt like it crackled with danger. She gave me an icy stare, and then turned and walked out of my room. I could hardly breathe, and my hands shook as I hurried to hide the doll away.
Soon after that, Mama met a man named Adam, the man who would one day become my stepfather. Mama warned me minutes before his car pulled into the driveway.
“He’s being sweet to date me even though I have you. He doesn’t want kids. Don’t ruin this for me.”
Adam was a tall man, with shaggy black hair, and a red mark on the back of his arm. He let me examine it, and told me the mark came from eating too many strawberries as a boy. I stared at the red mark, and pictured a little boy gluttonously sitting on a pile of strawberries with red lips and a round tummy. Later, he played in a water rivulet with me that flowed through our dirt driveway after a heavy rain. We made leaf boats and little rock dams, while Mama watched from the doorway.
Dad also came by that same weekend, and he brought me a red bike with training wheels. He walked along next to me while I rode it up the country road by our brown house. It had a beautiful bell with a thumb slide that I rang over and over.
He didn’t seem annoyed by its repeated metallic sound. He caught a baby snake in his bare hands nearly escaping into the grass. He held the snake curled up in his palm out for me to look at it. The snake tasted the air with its tiny flickering tongue, making me smile. I had never seen something so small that was alert and alive. I wanted to hold it, but instead he put the baby snake into a cigarette plastic wrapper and twisted closed the top. He was quiet on our walk. I tried to cheer him up by sharing the flower stories I had learned as we passed them growing on the side of the road.
Dad took me home with him that night, and I stayed with him for a week. He played pool at his pool table the entire time. We didn’t talk very much; my days were filled with the clicking sounds of the pool cue shooting the balls, the squeak of the blue chalk on the stick, the clink of the balls being racked, and a growing pile of fast food containers. His house was quiet, dark, and gloomy, and I spent a lot of my time curled up in a ratty chair, watching him play. I pulled on the stuffing that had escaped from a hole, and twisted it into a spike, all while trying to convince myself not to act awkward around him. He’s your Dad, not a stranger.
We rode from place to place on his motorcycle, only now I sat in the black side car. It was uncomfortable to be seated down so low, level with the passing car tires. I watched the blur of the road that flashed by mere inches away, and was tempted to reach out and run my fingers on it.
Dad took me to visit his girlfriend, Wanda, who had a house in the next town. There was a rusty, black metal spike fence that separated her yard from the sidewalk, and I climbed it and pretended I was on a pirate ship when I played outside. “Ahoy there mates! Who goes there?” I called to the leaves that cartwheeled down the street in the wind. Her house was messy when I walked inside, and the air was thick with dust motes that hung in the yellow light from the dirty windows. There were candy canes out in a dirty cup that sat on top of a dusty piano. I walked over, tempted.
“You can’t eat those, hun. Those candy canes are as old as I am,” Wanda said, and her eyes crinkled in the corners as she smiled. I stared at the candy canes, amazed they had made them red and white striped in those ancient times.
Wanda had wild, red hair and wore lots of blue eye shadow. At dinner time, she and Dad ate special mushrooms they had picked a few days earlier. I watched her put green tomatoes into flour, and then into a pan of oil where they snapped and sizzled. The cooked tomatoes smelled wonderful, and I tried a bite. They didn’t taste as good as they smelled. Wanda glanced over at me, and laughed,
“You don’t like those?”
I shook my head no.
“Aww that’s too bad. I grew them myself.”
I gave her a sheepish smile and got a wink in return.
“You know CeeCee, you have beautiful eyes.” Wanda said, putting a piece of buttered bread on my plate. I bit into the bread, but it was hard to swallow because of the lump in my throat.
That night Dad decided we were going to stay at Wanda’s house. Later, when I crawled into the musty sleeping bag, her friendly overrun house was suddenly spooky. The shelves in the room had odd trinkets that were ordinary enough when I had the lights on, but now were scary shadows glaring at me. Wanda tucked me in. Pulling the edge of the sleeping bag up under my nose, I peeped at her from the top of it.
“Awww, come here a sec.” She grabbed my hand, helping me off the floor. We tiptoed down the stairs past Dad snoring in the recliner, and went outside.
“Let’s catch some fireflies,” she said. The little lights twinkling in the air around me. It was too dark for her to see my smile.
She posed like a statue, blue sweatpants pulled up high, and her hands suspended in the air, waiting for the fireflies to light up and show us where they were hidden. I laughed, watching her chase them. She clumsily sprang after them, and gave a deep laugh every time she captured one in her cupped hands. We filled the glass jar, and she tapped air holes into the metal lid with a nail. Wanda handed it to me.
“These little guys will keep you company. They have the power to scare off any bad guys.” She smiled at me as I walked back to my room. I climbed back into my sleeping bag and fell asleep, with my hand wrapped around the jar, watching the fireflies blink their tiny lights.
After that night, I wished I could stay at her house forever.
Dad drove me to visit his parents the next day. Grandma took me swimming at her neighbor’s pool. She covered her curly gray hair with a funny white rubber hat, while I sat with my legs dangling in the water on the side of the pool and blew up orange arm floaties. After sliding them up my arms I took a running jump into the water and splashed Grandma.
“CeeCee!” she screamed, her hands reaching up to check her cap. I bobbed next to her. She pushed me into the deep end. I rolled on my back and spit water, pretending to be a sea otter.
After a while I climbed out, wrapped a towel tight about my waist, and walked back to Grandma’s yard. The tractor was going. Grandpa was making neat stripes across the back yard. After he turned the corner he saw me and waved me over. When I got closer, he scooped me up and gave me a ride on his riding lawn mower. The steering wheel vibrated in my hands and he pointed. “Make sure to keep it straight.”
After a few swipes I said, “Going straight is boring, Grandpa!” He laughed and let me turn circles around his fruit trees.
Then, I was hungry, so I hopped off and ran into the house. Grandma had a sandwich all ready for me, four triangles on a plate with a pile of grapes in the center.
After I finished, Grandma asked, “Want to help me make my bed?”
We tugged the blankets off, shook the pillows free from their cases, and remade the bed with fresh sheets. She showed me how she liked her corners folded.
“These are military corners. When your Grandpa was in the army, his officer would bounce a quarter off the bed. If it didn’t bounce, they’d be in trouble.”
I found a nickel on the dresser and threw it on the bed. It landed with a thud. Grandma laughed.
Grandma had a dresser in her bedroom that was filled with purses, white gloves and jewelry. She let me play with her purses, and I draped them around my shoulder and pinned on her big flower pins. She put ropes of her multi-colored round beaded necklaces on my neck, and gently clipped on the matching earrings.
“Oh, so fancy!” Grandma said.
Walking into the bathroom Grandma pulled out a wicker basket from under the sink. It was filled with little sample lipsticks with tiny clear lids. I puckered my lips and Grandma painted my lips red, then smiled at me.
“This is what you do when you put on lipstick,” Grandma said, and blotted her lips. I tried it too, and we laughed at our butterfly shaped kisses left behind on the tissue.
Dad showed up a little later to take me back home. On our way there he made one last stop at his friend’s house. They sat outside in their shorts on striped plastic lawn chairs and smoked cigarettes. I wandered through the garage and found a coffee can full of smelly liquid and crawling with bugs. Curious, I hit the side of the can and watched the bugs land on their backs at the bottom, and their little legs kicked. I brought it out to the men, curious.
“What is this?” I held it under Dad’s nose.
“You stay away from that! What are you doing, hitting the can to watch the bugs squirm?”
“How did you know?”
They laughed. “We know everything,” Dad’s friend said, and sagely nodded.
There was a marked difference between Mama and him. Dad was moody, but he didn’t punish me for embarrassing him. He still slapped me, and his voice became loud in an instant when he was upset. I always cowered down when he yelled, overwhelmed by his anger and the volume, not sure of when the pain was going to come. Mama rarely raised her voice; she let her hands do her talking.
I didn’t see Dad for the rest of the summer. He called on the phone one night, and said he was busy picking up hot chicks at the bar. I never saw Wanda again, but in my dreams she still tucked me at night on day
s Mama didn’t talk to me.
Chapter 9
~Blackberries~
The August before I started first grade was miserably humid. I ate my breakfast and ran outside to take care of the chickens. Sweat was on my upper lip, and my shirt was already sticking to me. The sun beat on the black pump and burned me. Ow! I blew on my hands and shook them to cool them.
Mama called from the front step.
“Want to go black berry picking?”
I looked over at her. Her face was shadowed by the dark door frame, the rest of her body bright in sunlight.
“Blackberries?”
“Yes, you know, blackberries. Maybe we can make a pie.” Her face came forward into the sunlight then, and her white teeth glittered.
A pie! This was such a new idea I needed a moment to think. Maybe she likes me again. The water gushed out of the pumps mouth and hit the pan. Little drops sprayed my legs.
“Yes please!”
“Finish the chickens then, and come inside.” Mama continued with uncharacteristic patience.
I ran with the water pan over to the pen. The chickens pecked under my feet for bugs.
“Get out of the way, you fat old hen!” Tulips squawked and fluffed her feathers trying to fly, when I set down the water.
By the time I ran back to the house, Mama was already locking the door. She had a metal bowl in her hand and a white colander tucked under her arm.
“Get in the car.”
I climbed in my spot in the back seat, and we drove off. It was Mama’s new red car. She had brought it home the other day and revved it in the driveway, calling out the open window, “Check this baby out!”
We drove deep into the overgrown woods. The tree branches reached across the road and swept the sides of the car. It felt like we had been driving forever. We bumped over a rickety old bridge spanning a trickle of a stream. At the neck was a pond blocked by a beaver dam. Mama pointed out the dam. “Wow, would you look at that?” I looked at her instead, my heart pounding. Why is she acting so different?