Everything I Never Wanted to Be

by Dina Kucera

  All the anointed people congregate into the bedroom where my father has laid us on beds. All five of us are bleeding and in shock, so they begin the “laying on of hands.” Very loudly. Almost screaming. It is desperate praying. Suddenly, my mother walks in.

  Dad tells her what happened and she loses it. She starts screaming that we need to go to the hospital. Some of the loud praying people explain that the color is coming back to our faces and maybe they should keep going with the prayer. Mom starts screaming and threatening people to carry us to the fun van and take us to the hospital before she strangles every “Goddamn person in the room.” We go to the hospital.

  That was the last time we played “Fucking around in the van.” That’s when we started playing “Throw things up on the electrical wires on the street and see what we can hang up there.”

  Once my brother, Mark, hooked a bike handle on the electric wire. The electricity in the whole neighborhood went off for about two days. He was a legend after that.

  I believe in God. I also believe in miracles. But I also believe that God made certain people to be intelligent enough to be doctors. Doctors help you when you’ve fallen out of a van. At the hospital my parents were still going back and forth about which treatment works best. The hospital and doctors or the loud desperate praying. I think doctors and prayer work hand-in-hand.

  Growing up, we lived in a trailer on the Land Blessed by God. At one time, we lived in a little house on the Land Blessed by God, but that house was condemned by the city. I guess if God blesses the house, but the city condemns it, the city wins.

  The trailer we moved into wasn’t a sweet double-wide with a pretty flower box out front. It was a single wide, with wooden steps, parked on a huge lot of dirt. It was so small that if someone was walking down the hallway, you had to wait until the other person passed because both of you couldn’t fit. Fistfights were common. If you started down the hallway and one of my brothers wanted through, you backed out or he would back you out.

  We spent many days without electricity which was great because we could play outside under the street lights while my parents sat on the wooden steps of the trailer. My dad smoking cigarettes and my mom thanking God for everything.

  When my father worked, he was a school teacher, so he was off on weekends. All five of us were small, but we would wait anxiously for his call every weekend morning. Dad would yell from his bed, “I wish I had a friend!” That meant he wanted one of the kids to bring him a cup of coffee.

  All five of us would rush to the kitchen and try to be the first to get the cup of coffee. The winner got to walk down the narrow hall in the trailer with hot coffee being splashed on his or her arms by the losers who were following too close behind. Each of us five kids wanted to be the winner because even though it meant first degree burns on your arms, it also meant you got to be Dad’s friend. You’d hand Dad his half a cup of coffee, and he’d smile at you like you had accomplished something really amazing. My mom would also smile, and we all knew it was because when the alcoholic is smiling, we may have a shot at a half-decent day.

  We were raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Now that I live in Phoenix, I remember the sweet things about Albuquerque. Like chili. Red or green, we ate it every meal when I was growing up. People roasted green chili on the side of the street in Albuquerque. We could smell it when we rolled the window down. It was the most amazing smell ever. We wanted to pull over and buy some, but typically we had a freezer full. We put green chili on everything–on eggs in the morning, on a burger at lunch, and with beans and fried potatoes for dinner.

  The only place to get Hatch green chili is Hatch, New Mexico. Miles and miles of green chili growing along the side of the road. Unless it’s a particularly hot batch of Hatch green chili, it’s not the heat of the chili that makes it amazing. It’s the taste. Hatch chili has a very distinctive, hot-sweet flavor. People who grew up in Albuquerque can tell the difference between Hatch chili and a chili that was just aspiring to be a Hatch chili.

  Once, my grocery store had a guy out front with a sign saying he was roasting Hatch green chili. I asked my boss if it was actually Hatch green chili. My boss says, “Yeah! Hatch chili! Well, it’s from California.” You can only get Hatch chili from Hatch.

  After growing up eating chili all day, we moved to Phoenix, walked in to a Mexican restaurant and the waiter said, “Red or green sauce?” Sauce? Is it chili or is it sauce? The waiter said, “It’s chili sauce.” Oh, God. Toto, we are not in Albuquerque anymore.

  If you say “red sauce” in Phoenix, they always bring out the same sauce at every Mexican restaurant. The dark, dark red, weird... sauce.

  Red chili in New Mexico is a beautiful color of red with an orangey tint. It’s a magical color of red. When we go in a new restaurant and I see a waitress walk by and the red sauce is that deep, dark red, I order tacos. I’ve eaten many a taco since we’ve lived in Phoenix.

  The food, oh God, the food in Albuquerque is ridiculously awesome. When I go back to visit my sister, I force her to eat Mexican food all day. I never get tired of it. And it’s not two or three places. It’s ten amazing Mexican restaurants on every single street—little places that were once individual houses are now restaurants with ten tables and lines out the front door.

  Also in Albuquerque, people don’t paint their front doors bright blue because it’s stylish. They paint them bright blue because in New Mexico that’s the color a door is supposed to be. Bright blue, bright green, or orange. Wooden wagon wheels lying around because they belonged to someone at some point. Amazing little houses with flat roofs, mud walls, and red trim.

  The smells... the flavors... the culture... Albuquerque had it. But it also had snow, which is not my cup of tea. I cannot stand to be cold. In Phoenix, if it dips under 70, I complain until March when it goes back up to 95. Or until June when it’s 115 like it should be.

  My parents had eight kids, including twins who died at birth. My brother, Patrick, was born when the five older kids were all at least ten or eleven. He was the cutest child ever. He was spoiled by all the older siblings and my parents. As spoiled as a kid can be living in squalor.

  I wonder how my parents and other parents did it with so many children. How do you feed them, or provide them with clothing?

  I hated going to the grocery store with my mom. First, she paid with food stamps. That humiliated me. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she would never have enough food stamps. She’d have to put things back. She’d say, “Take this off. Now how much?” And she’d keep doing this until she had enough food stamps. During all this I’d wait in the car. Now that I’m sort of grown up, I’m sure the food stamps embarrassed her more than they embarrassed me.

  Mom and I would go to the laundry mat, but by the time we could afford it, we had fifteen loads of clothes. We walked in the laundry mat carrying enormous bundles of clothes wrapped in bed sheets and take up half the washers. All the other people stared angrily at us. The three-load laundry people always judge.

  One Christmas we all got bikes. I still have no idea how my parents financed five bikes. But my dad spent all night Christmas Eve putting the bikes together. I woke up in the middle of the night because I had a really high fever. I walked into the living room, and my dad was sitting on the floor with half-assembled bikes everywhere. I heard him say, “Son of a goddamn bitch,” as he was working on a bike. I was so sick I couldn’t even connect that we were getting bikes for Christmas. My mom rushed me back to my room.

  The next morning, surprise! Santa Claus brought us bikes! I was still sick and could hardly get out of bed for the unveiling of the bikes.

  My brothers and sister are out like lightning the second the sun comes out on Christmas morning. They all take off on their new bikes and don’t come back for hours. But I’m sick, so my parents won’t let me go out in the 10 degree weather to take a spin on my pink bike with the pink basket. Instead, I sit with my fever on my bed crying.

  After more than an hour of dramati
c crying on my part, my parents say I can ride my bike once around the block. So I get on my bike and ride once around the block with the bitter wind hitting my face and snot dripping down my nose. I bring my bike in and park it next to my bed and fall asleep for the rest of the day. Merry Christmas.

  I loved my bike. I was nine. I spent most of my time pretending I was making commercials for my bike. Here was how the commercial went: I rode my bike out to the middle of this desolate land and parked it. I dramatically looked at my bike and pretended I was crying. Then I kissed the handlebar and slowly walked away with my head hung down. I walked about ten steps, then I turned and looked at my bike, then ran back and hugged it. Then, in my head the commercial guy said, “Pink bike. The bike you can’t abandon.” At the time, this made sense.

  I spent a lot of time pretending. I played Jeannie C. Riley really loud and sang “Harper Valley PTA.” I was also the star of “Grease” in my room. I sang with a hairbrush and danced.

  Sometimes all of us kids were a singing group. We were the Jackson Five except white with white stringy hair. The albino Jackson Five. We danced and sang “One Bad Apple” while we took turns flipping on and off the lights to make it more concert-like.

  We also had to take turns being Michael. I felt I was the best Michael of all of us because I had the moves. I could get my freak on at a very young age. My siblings, on the other hand, were just as white as white can be. It was sad to watch.

  Out of six children, five of us became alcoholics or addicts or both, so we really did have the makings to be the next Jackson Five. But only if we had just put my sister, Lisa, way in the back so you couldn’t see her dance like the whitest person in the world. Lisa can sing like an angel, but she is hands down the worst dancer I have ever seen.

  I began making pretend commercials as far back as I can remember. They weren’t all as good as the pink bike commercial, but I thought they were television-worthy. Actually the only other commercial I remember, I created before the pink bike commercial.

  It was another time when I was really sick, this time with the stomach flu, and my mom would always give us 7 Up when we had the stomach flu. I pleaded with my mother to let me have a Coca-Cola. After listening to me beg, she went to the store and got some Coke. I drank the cold Coke with my fever and that’s when the commercial came to me.

  The commercial started with me holding my head down and holding my stomach. Looking very sick. Then I dramatically look on my table and there sits a beautiful cold Coke. Then I take a drink of the Coke and hold it up with my arm outstretched and the commercial guy says, “Coke! It’s the best drink in the fucking world!” So you can see from a young age I had a natural gift for advertising.

  One place we lived in when I was young was a tiny house with random rooms built onto the house to make it bigger. You think that’s a closet? Wrong. It’s a room. You think you’re going outside? Wrong. Another room.

  But as the other rooms were added, they didn’t add heat so the living room was the only room in the whole house that had heat. It was a big heater that was level to the floor that blew hot air out into the room.

  In Albuquerque, the winters can get really cold. Lots of snow and wind. You need heat. So all five of us older kids would pray we would be the first up in the morning so we could lie in front of that blowing heat. Mainly because we were frozen solid by the time the sun came up. I’d open my eyes, jump up and run to the living room. There was nothing more devastating than running around that corner and realizing that someone had already assumed the position in front of the heat. There they’d be, lying sound asleep on the floor with the warm air blowing on them.

  So I would stand there and look at them. I was cold. I needed to get warm. I knew the keys to the kingdom were going to come in the form of spooning with my sibling.

  Spooning with a brother doesn’t just happen as naturally as you’d think. I knew the second I touched his back he’d punch me in the side of the head. But it was so worth it to stop my teeth from chattering. The best I could do was lie next to him and at least warm my back.

  We would fight about the heat. We tried taking turns but that didn’t work. So I’d have to loiter around the living room so the second the heat hog got warm enough, I could rush into position. It was like heaven lying there on that filthy floor, warm and happy.

  My brother, Mark, was a really great basketball player at our school. He made the team, and then my dad used Mark’s basketball shoe money to pay Dad’s bar tab. So Mark got pissed off. He went into a sporting goods store, put on the most expensive pair of gym shoes, and walked out the door.

  The problem was he couldn’t walk around in the stolen shoes because Mom and Dad would notice if someone was wearing shoes that were more expensive than all the furnishings in our entire house. So Mark put the shoes on in his room. You could stand by the door and hear him: “He shoots! He scores!”

  He’d come out of his room really sweaty, and Mom would say, “Why are you so sweaty and red faced?” Mark would shrug his shoulders.

  Every time Mom and Dad left, Mark put the tennis shoes on and ran through the house. We all sat on the couch in our shoes wrapped in silver duct tape and watched Mark run back and forth: “He shoots! He scores!” Mom and Dad pulled up, Mark ran to his room, and we all laughed. It made us proud to be related to someone with such nice shoes.

  When my parents found the shoes under Mark’s bed, they took Mark to the store and made him confess. Mark promised never again to steal shoes that he desperately needed. The store manager accepted the apology and agreed to take back the shoes—until he saw that they were already worn out. So the manager told my dad he had to buy the shoes. My dad didn’t have any money because, well, beer. So Dad said, “How much are they?” The guy told him. My dad said, “I don’t want to pay for the store. Just the shoes.” Dad wrote the guy a check.

  The rest of us were waiting at home wondering if Mark was going to prison. No, he wasn’t. He ran in the front door wearing the shoes and acted like he was making a basket: “He shoots! He scores!”

  So Dad wrote the check and the next two months we didn’t have water or electricity. And you could say it was because of the shoes, but really it was because of the bar tab.

  My sister, Lisa, was the beauty queen in our house, and she got straight A’s. She also won awards weekly. I couldn’t get one fucking sugar cookie award, and there she was setting another award on the milk crate covered with a towel. “Oh, don’t put your drink there! That’s where I put my awards!”

  I was average-looking and got solid D’s. Which didn’t matter to me since my dad didn’t really notice. I could not impress my dad if I shot solid gold bricks out of my ass.

  I see Dad sitting on the wooden steps in front of the trailer smoking a cigarette. Suddenly I feel like this is the time to really impress him.

  I decide I’m going to do a round off right there on the dirt road. I start running, I pick up speed, anticipating how thrilled he will be that I’m his daughter. I’m at top speed and I see out of the corner of my eye that he’s standing and walking in the door of the trailer. Holy shit! I’ve got to do this now! But I lose my footing and only do half the round off, which is the equivalent of diving directly into the dirt. All I do is scrape up my arms and legs and make dirt fly up all around me.

  I look up and see Dad peek his head out of the screen door. He yells, “What the heck are you doing?! You’re gonna kill yourself! My, God, get in this house.”

  I limp to the trailer as Lisa comes down the road in some boy’s car. Her long beautiful hair blowing in the wind, and in her outstretched arm is what looks like an Emmy.

  I have been phobic as far back as I can remember. You know that cartoon where Wiley Coyote is standing on top of a speeding train and the train goes into a tunnel? He forgets to duck and his outline is smashed into the concrete arch above the tunnel. As a child I would wonder, What if I am standing on a train and I don’t duck fast enough to go through the tunnel? This was someth
ing I actually worried about.

  I’m afraid of everything. I trace it back to the second grade. My second grade class went on a field trip. We were all sitting on the grass in a big circle somewhere, drinking lemonade. I took a big gulp from my straw, and I swallowed two or three seeds. I said to the little girl sitting next to me, “I just swallowed some lemon seeds.”

  She looked at me and said, “You’re going to grow a lemon tree in your belly.”

  I thought, Oh my God! A lemon tree in my belly! Someone help me!

  I spent the rest of the field trip thinking about the lemon tree growing in my belly. How fast will it grow? Will the branches poke out of my skin? Could I trim the branches so I could wear regular clothes? Would the lemons be edible? Would my parents be embarrassed by my condition, yet pleased because my lemons are so tasty?

  By the time I got home from the field trip, I was in complete panic. I ran to my mother, grabbed her shirt, and said, “I swallowed some lemon seeds!”

  She continued doing whatever she was doing.

  I got more desperate. “Mom! I swallowed some lemon seeds! A girl said I am going to grow a lemon tree in my belly!”

  In my entire life there has been one time I needed my mother to be sure of something and this was the time. I needed her to be firm and confident and absolute. Instead, she looked down at me with a smile and said, “Oh. I don’t think so, Honey.”

  I don’t think so? Good God in heaven, I might be growing a lemon tree in my belly. You don’t think so. But you can’t be sure? I sort of need you to be sure about this. I needed something to the effect of, “That is the silliest thing I have ever heard! Of course you will not grow a lemon tree in your belly!” But no. She didn’t think it would happen.