The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo

by Darrin Doyle

  The twins sometimes thought an argument would break out, but Grandma’s provocations were only answered with halcyon smiles and the dusty 1967 compendium Myths from Around the Globe, which Grandma Pencil always accepted with a smirk and then inevitably “forgot” on the coffee table, under a planter, or once, in the bathroom trash can.

  Grandma Pencil bore Murray’s jokes by crunching pretzels to drown out his punch lines. If no pretzels were handy, peanuts worked. The fingers-in-the-ears method was always available as a last resort. Murray’s mouth formed a satisfied grin when his jokes made Grandma Pencil change the subject or turn to ask Toby why he was doing pushups and sit-ups in the corner there, was it for a special game?

  Undoubtedly, Murray’s dream was to see Grandma stand from her chair, wag a gnarled finger like she did at the neighborhood “no-goodnicks” with their boom boxes, and hobble furiously out of the house, so consumed by indignation that she forgot to grab her hat from the rack. But Grandma never gave him this satisfaction. It was a psychological war between bully and victim. Or better yet, fisherman and bass. Day after day, bait was dangled before Grandma’s face, tempting her to bite and be dragged to the hostile surface . . . but the metaphor stops there because what Murray did was far worse than inviting her into an argument.

  He threatened her core, her spiritual foundation, that bubble of peace into which she’d climbed decades ago—since the Philippines—and risen to a place of calm high above the nightmare of her father’s brutal murder.

  In April of 1977, on a day when the rain rattled the windows as if the Almighty Himself was getting impatient, Grandma Pencil strolled unannounced through the front door. Without wiping her shoes, she crossed the room and handed Murray a one-inch stack of fifty-dollar bills. Her hands were wet and dripping. Murray stood with one slippered foot propped on the coffee table, taking a brief respite from pacing to tap the air with his index finger (his invisible calculator).

  “The twins will be given a Godly education,” Grandma said.

  She knew what she was doing. Undoubtedly, she had planned this encounter detail by detail for months, maybe years. Possibly even for a decade, beginning when Misty had first brought home the dry-skinned, scrawny kid with the flattop and horn-rimmed glasses and introduced him as “Murray. My man.” It’s likely that Grandma saw the future at that moment and had planned accordingly, chucking away a dollar or two a week into some secret, secure place—the bottom drawer of her dresser?—waiting patiently for the chance to regain control.

  Such an idea wouldn’t be tough to believe. Grandma Pencil knew the virtue of farsightedness. She was all about the long haul. She also knew the perils of complaint. She knew the value of the human ability to suppress instinct, to control urges, to mentally leapfrog the miserable present and land in the future, where a better day waited.

  She arrived in early evening, after dinner, with money in hand and a glint in her eye. Her timing was precise. She entered while Misty napped, Toby changed Audrey into pajamas, and Murray paced the living room, mumbling random ideas to the air.

  Murray took the cash from Grandma Pencil. He studied it, turned it over, mocked it with his eyes as if it was a primitive ashtray sculpted in a child’s art class.

  McKenna looked up from the circus train she was pushing on the carpet. She watched the exchange.

  “You will enroll them in Saint Monica’s,” Grandma said. “It is nearby enough that they can walk. They will get exercise of the body, mind, and soul. Free of charge for you. Everyone is happy.”

  Murray scratched his earlobe, frowning. “Do you know what I could do with this much money?” he asked.

  “It’s enough for one year’s tuition,” Grandma answered, turning. “Next year, I’ll bring another stack, and the year after that, another.”

  “This isn’t funny,” Murray said, to her backside.

  “AND SO ON!” she screamed, as the door slammed.

  13.

  Audrey was a momma’s girl. Always nursing. Always nestled in Misty’s arms or in a sling fitted against her breast. Misty pacing the dining room, unhurried, her expression blissful, a Nature Mother in a field, cool grass caressing her toes, stepping so gently not even a floorboard squeaked. Murray at Hanson Mold, being molded. Mid afternoon, McKenna and Toby home after a half-day of kindergarten, Toby with an ice cream sandwich in the living room, watching The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. McKenna, if not stolen away by Toby to race laps around the house, would be sitting at the table, assembling a puzzle. Misty making her rounds, lulling McKenna with her humming, her gentle sway, “Rock-a-bye Baby” flowing like water.

  McKenna closed her eyes so that she herself was being rocked, being serenaded.

  Now and then, the spell was broken by Misty whispering, “What will you be, sweetheart? What will you be? Audrey the audacious. Audrey the awesome. Audrey the automatic garage door opener. You can be Audrey anything.”

  You forgot Audrey the awful.

  “Mom, I need help,” McKenna said.

  Misty stopped behind McKenna’s shoulder. Still swaying, still humming. “What is it?”

  “I can’t find this piece.” There was a hole in the puzzle, a gap in the center of the swimming pool.

  “You know what goes there, right?” Misty said.

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “It’s water. Just blue. Fill it in with your imagination. That’s what I’d do.” She patted McKenna’s head the same way she patted Snoodles.

  Whenever Audrey got the chance, she bogarted Misty’s lap, curling up on it like a kitten, refusing to budge. She purred, “Sing to me, Mommy.”

  Even years later, when Audrey and Misty had their epic battle of Flute vs. Drum, it was obvious that beneath the tears, nasty words, obsessive tapping, and flute chomping, Audrey felt unwavering love. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. No one else called Misty “Mommy.” No one even tried.

  And it worked both ways. Audrey was the baby of the family, Misty’s clear favorite.

  Oh sure, Misty never said it. She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Not in words. “Do you think I love my pinky more than my ring finger?” she said once, after McKenna, age eight, asked why Audrey always got away with stuff, why everyone had to clean up after her, why Misty loved Audrey the most. Misty held out her hand. “If I lost any of my fingers, my hand would never be the same. When you’re a mother, you’ll understand.”

  McKenna couldn’t sleep that night. Even as a third-grader, she was skeptical of the analogy. In the dark, she felt the fingers of her right hand. Clearly, the pointer was the most useful, with the best reflexes. Much more nimble than the others. And what about the thumb? Was that part of the analogy?

  The next day, McKenna tried performing ordinary activities without her thumb. She struggled to brush her teeth, tie her shoes, braid her hair. Writing was nearly impossible.

  Was every finger equal? Did McKenna love every one the same? Not even close.

  From that day on, McKenna noticed whenever Misty gave Audrey a special smile, or she bought Audrey a new dress at a yard sale, or praised the wonderful job Audrey did in brushing her teeth without swallowing any paste, or lifted Audrey and said, “Gosh, such a big girl,” or brushed Audrey’s hair, or took Audrey to the dentist, or told Audrey to “Please stop banging the table,” or folded Audrey’s socks in front of the television.

  From that day on, McKenna noticed everything about Misty and Audrey. Noticing, McKenna realized, or decided (she couldn’t tell which), was her special talent. It was the one thing she did well, the thing she did best, and so she chose to do it often. And often. And often. And often.

  14.

  What could a Catholic education mean to two kids who thought “Noah’s Ark” was some old man’s forty-day piss stream?

  Not much, truth be told. But for better or worse, it got them out of the house. Preschool hadn’t been offered; the twins never heard that word until they came to kindergarten. (They would learn a number of valuable words and phrases at St. Monica’s—covenant, for
giveness, only begotten, transubstantiation, Body of Christ, and sin .)

  Toby was thrilled. Among other children, he flourished. School became his first obsession, and in many ways it lead to his second obsession—body measurements—which undoubtedly was the springboard for his greatest obsession—body mass.

  Each day before sunrise, Toby dressed in the dark. He kicked McKenna’s mattress until she opened her eyes. Perhaps he knew she had been awake for hours. Perhaps this is why he kicked so hard.

  The children slurped milky spoonfuls of Froot Loops or Honeycombs. They heard their father emerge from the master bedroom, where Misty and Audrey slept. They heard his loud ablutions, his bathroom routine of light switch snaps, water hisses, cupboard slams, gargles, and toilet flushes.

  After twenty minutes, he stomped down the wooden stairs into the dining area wearing steel-toed boots and an untucked work shirt. His face was smooth, his hair parted flat to his head with a wet brush. The twins teased that he looked like a teenager. Eyelids puffy, he waved away their insults like mosquitoes and joined them in crunching a bowl of sweet cereal before heading out the door with a mumbled, “See ya.” Outside, the Catalina roared to life.

  In the half-light, their backpacks like turtle shells, the twins left the house, carrying lunchboxes—Toby’s Six Million Dollar Man and McKenna’s Planet of th e Apes. They climbed the hill to Coit Ave., crossed. They walked five blocks, passing North Park Elementary, where the public school children were deboarding buses. Then it was six blocks up Elmdale hill, into the “good” neighborhood (Grandma Pencil’s term), past the row of “nice” houses (Misty’s term) with their manicured bushes and sprinkled lawns. At the thicket of trees that obscured Ascendance Lake, McKenna liked to step off the sidewalk into the brush, inhaling the fecund leaves and soil, hoping to see a robin, stooping to catch a glimpse of the calm water hidden between branches like a treasure. Toby marched onward without pause, turning left onto Assumption Drive, which inclined even farther upward until reaching another road, one narrow as a driveway that sloped downward into the church parking lot.

  Beyond the lot, a one-story brick structure crouched in the shadows of sycamore trees. The yellow lights inside revealed barren classrooms waiting to be filled.

  McKenna didn’t feel welcomed by the lights. Nor by the wash of warm air upon opening the door. Nor by the scent of ammonia and floor wax, nor the prickly rose perfume of Principal Potter-man, who arrived early and always left a robust cloud hovering at the entrance like some ghost self. The empty hallways filled McKenna with dread. The loneliness and abandonment were palpable. Every morning, she fought the urge to turn and flee, to sprint all the way home and jump back into bed, a bad dream averted.

  Kindergarten, come to think of it, was a pretty accurate snapshot of McKenna’s entire life.

  Each half-day was four hours of sensory assault. Kids vomited on desks, spilled blood from fat lips and over-picked noses. They smeared McKenna’s shoulder with paste. They jabbed her backside with pointy Elmer’s bottles. During lunch, they lost muffin chunks down their shirts before finding them later and throwing them at McKenna. Boys and girls alike screamed. Not endearing, helpless screams like Audrey’s. Rage, desperation, ecstasy—each fought for supremacy in those caterwauls, and frankly, they were upsetting.

  McKenna retreated. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she was behaving exactly as her father did at Hanson Mold. While her fingers painted, or her mouth recited the alphabet, or her feet danced the hokey-pokey, her mind ran through a languid play-byplay of the washing of Audrey’s body parts: the wrinkled hands; the fingers like twigs, the nails like paper; the folds of neck spread carefully and soaped; the stumps at the ends of the legs, each bearing a soft pebble of skin she longed to pinch; the umbilical cord like a gnarled black root, hard as bone, that McKenna dabbed with the sudsy cloth until one day, like a loose tooth, it quietly detached, exposing Audrey’s navel, freeing her. There’s no going back now, McKenna had thought, and it struck her as a defin-ing moment. Audrey was locked forever out of the only home where she could be safe and warm, always.

  By the time McKenna entered kindergarten, she’d learned how to handle Audrey’s mouth. Once something was inside it or attached to it—a rubber duck, a washcloth, a rattle—the mouth was satisfied; Audrey was satisfied. As time passed, the mouth’s urgency began to please McKenna. It needed, purely, and McKenna could fill that need, and it felt good to fill it.

  As for Toby, he loved kindergarten. Not so much the learning and structure, but the being out in public and announcing his existence to the world. His assimilation was instantaneous. He rolled on the carpet in beet-faced tantrums, whipped muffin chunks at McKenna. He quickly established himself as a leader, a conqueror, a man among boys. All year he looked forward to June’s Field Day, when he could earn honest-to-goodness ribbons that would quantify the superiority of his body in shiny blue magnificence.

  15.

  I’d like to share Misty with you, construct a living Misty before your eyes. A tree house of sentences high in the branches, barely visible from the ground. You need to shimmy up the trunk, squint into the leaves. Ahh, there she is. A sturdy structure, but one that isn’t so finished or vivid that it precludes imagination. I want you to help create her. That way you can visit her anytime, in your own mind.

  Envision a short woman, five-four, well-proportioned and trim. She walks barefoot through the house, except in winter when wool socks warm her toes. Her feet are compact, gorgeously curved, arches never touching the floor. “Bright colors are me,” she likes to say, and her wardrobe reflects this: lemon skirts to mid-calf, peach scarves, shirts the color of cartoon skies. She even owns a pair of green panty hose, popular with the teenagers in the late 1970s. Murray says to Misty, “You aren’t a ditz, but you dress like one.”

  She pretends not to hear, or in fact doesn’t hear his words but rather the music of his voice. Her bliss is her beauty.

  Light brown hair, a self-inflicted haircut, bangs draping her brow while the back and sides rest upon her shoulders. Breasts moderate, unremarkable. Hands long-fingered and thick-knuckled. Low-slung face, not pretty in a chiseled way. Jaw broad and defined, tending toward mannish, but her lips—“supple” is a good word—remove all doubt that this is a woman. She has soft, heated hands, one of those people whose skin radiates warmth in spite of her lack of body fat and in spite of always complaining of being cold (so much that McKenna has to run to the hall closet for a blanket every time Misty watches Dallas ).

  But other than her great gift of touch—which isn’t to be downplayed and in fact communicates haystacks of words in the smallest of cheek caresses—Misty is not an emotional person. Her children never see her cry.

  They also never see her thirty-seventh birthday.

  Toby, a technical adult, is proud to stand with five other men (none of whom are their father) in dark, ashen suits. They carry Misty in her closed coffin up the aisle of St. Monica’s church. They set her on a rack at the foot of the steps leading to the altar. After the service, the men bear the coffin outside, slide it into the hearse. Toby watches the door slam shut. He leans over and whispers to McKenna: “You look like a bag of sticks, Kenny.”

  It’s a spectacular April day, with the sun staring through a hole in a bank of clouds amassed in the east, a columnar pattern of clouds, which, if studied closely by a person with an artistic eye, resembles a door. The sun is the knob.

  16.

  Imagine you’re eating a hamburger. Better yet, go to a nearby fast food restaurant and buy a hamburger. It’ll cost you eighty-nine cents. You go. I’ll wait.

  Ready? Now lift the burger as you normally would, by the buns. Bring it to your mouth. Take a bite—not huge, not tiny. Bite as if you weren’t being watched. Rend as much meat, cheese, tomato, and bun as is comfortable for your particular mouth. Now chew. Concentrate on what happens inside there. Notice how the food shifts naturally, without conscious thought, from one side to the other? First, it’s kept
near the front, dancing over the middle of the tongue. Those bumps—called papillae—each one of these bumps has taste buds on it. And the buds themselves are wearing wigs—microscopic microvilli, sensitive hairs that describe to your brain what you’re chewing: salty, grilled, fleshy; sour, tangy, sweet; metallic; ashy; acidic like bile; flavorless as glass.

  Within seconds, your teeth do a decent job of pulverizing your bite. Enough so you can swallow, anyway. Your neck convulses as the wad of Burger King breeches the back of your throat. This morsel drops into your tummy for one last disintegration, the acid bath, which will transform it like a fairy tale prince into a frog of basic nutrients—vitamins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals. These will course through your tissues and blood. They will help you live.

  But wait! Don’t let that bite go so fast. Bring it back up. With a slight flex of the epiglottis, a gesture similar to making yourself

  belch, and with an additional heaving motion, a tightening of the back of your throat to kick-start the gag reflex, you can rescue that masticated bun and burger, welcome it into your mouth again. Ahh . . . there we go.

  Chew it some more. You weren’t finished. It’s quite soft now, more pliant than gum. Spongy, to say the least. Ten, twenty more chews.

  Then swallow.

  But wait! Don’t let it go. Bring it back up. Run it through the courses a third time. Your saliva enzymes are doing their job. The mush is nearly liquid now, but you don’t discriminate. Ten chews. Slow ones. Swallow.

  You’ve been holding the burger for five minutes. The teeth marks in the bun indicate you’ve only taken one bite. Your family is looking at you. You’re working on it. You haven’t finished chewing yet. They need to mind their own business.