#YALit – Tonia Allen Gould

When It Comes in Threes/Chapter 5: “You Never Know When You Might Come Up Short”

Mama’s mood altered and shifted as quickly as the thunderstorm clouds wafted across an Oklahoman-rainy-day-sky for weeks after Daddy left her lyin’ in a pool of her own blood on the trailer floor. It’s like he snuffed the light clean outta her steel-blue eyes, leaving her perpetually dazed from the blow when he stumbled home drunk that God-forsaken night, walloping her over the head with that Amish chair Mama picked-up at a yard sale. Ain’t nothin’ me and Bartlett and Graham could do to make our Mama laugh no more, no matter how much we all tried.

“Let’s get her!” Bartlett exclaimed, as she poured herself on top of Mama laid stretched out on the couch watchin’ a Bonanza rerun. Opportunely, I took the cue and jumped on top of Bartlett and reached around her waist to find Mama’s armpit and started ticklin’ her good and hard tryin’ to get her to emote or laugh or somethin’.

When Graham came wanderin’ in fresh from a nap in his footed pajamas and saw us piled high on top of Mama like that, he squealed just like a pig in heat with pure adolescent delight. “Yertle the Turtle!” he exclaimed. I realized what he meant and I do reckon we must’ve looked just like all them turtles piled-up high from that picture book written by Mr. Theodor Seuss Geisel hisself. But, Mama, glanced up and took one look at Graham’s intentions on gettin’ in on all our fun and quickly wiggled her way out from under me and Bartlett. She stood up so fast it caused me and my sister to fall into a tangled heap of arms, skinny legs and long hair and all, right onto the carpeted floor directly at Graham’s feet. Immediately takin’ Mama’s sour mood out on me, Bartlett stood up too and quickly jabbed her elbow deep into my side and then stamped on my foot good and hard while Mama’s back was turned.

“Yeowwww!” I cried, as Bartlett turned to look me straight in the face with that don’t-fuck-with-me look of hers that somehow always managed to instantly numb my pain and stifle any waterworks that threatened to gallop like wild horses down my cheeks. Obstinately, I pursed my lips and stared right back at her in a showdown that I already knowed I was destined to lose so it weren’t worth even tryin’.

Mama sighed and said, “Don’t go startin’ in with your damned cryin’ now, Barley. You ain’t a baby anymore. You’re almost fifteen years old for Christ’s sake,” she lectured when she caught me wipin’ one lone, errant tear from my pained face. “You kids go on and git outside now and leave me be for a spell. And be sure to shut that door on the way out. We ain’t heatin’ the outside!”

On the way to grab my coat, I stopped and picked-up a glass swan ornament engraved with “Harvey-Douglas Funeral Home” that had fallen beneath the unlit Christmas tree set all cockamamie on its stand in the corner of the living room. I turned the novelty around and around in my hands, workin’ over the smooth glass with my fingers as if that could summon up Grandpa reincarnated right before my very eyes. It’s true though, that if I closed ‘em nice and tight, and squinted my forehead in deep thought and fond remembrance, I could pertinear smell the scent of Old Spice and Copenhagen, and could see Grandpa rubbin’ his bald head as he bent over to pick up a penny he found on the ground.

“Keep it for another time and place, Barley, you never know when you might come up short,” Grandpa said with a toothless grin. And poof, just like that—the image of my Grandpa was gone along with the telltale aroma of his aftershave and snuff-in-a-can, and was instantly replaced by the smell of outdoors and the Loblolly Pine Christmas tree Daddy and Graham chopped down and hauled inside last week.

As I placed the ornament gently back on a branch of the stubby tree, and twirled it around on its string, I recalled the day the tall, solemn Funeral Director, dressed in a navy blue suit, walked over and handed it to my Mama. She opened the black velvet box and began to shudder and cry. One. And then he told Mama that he’d be closin’ up Grandpa’s casket soon. Two. “It’s time to pay your last respects before we take him away,” he said. Three. I told you everything bad happens when it comes in threes like that.

As the Funeral Director walked away, Mama turned to me and Bartlett and said, “Go on now. Both of you. Give your Grandpa a kiss.” I couldn’t believe what Mama was askin’ of us as I watched in downright horror as Bartlett tentatively worked her way to the edge of the casket, peered in and worked hard to conjure up some nerve. Just as my sister leaned in towards my Grandpa, a now wrinkled, ghostly, pallor of a man I no longer recognized; I turned on my heels and ran fast—bursting outside and into the sunlight where Daddy and several other pallbearers stood smokin’ and snuffin’ out cigarettes with their shiny dress shoes.

And, I kept goin’. I ran as hard and as fast as I could down the flagstone steps and out to the curb where a black hearse was already parked ready to haul my Grandpa’s lifeless and limp body out to the cemetery, and then I continued on down the walkway and out onto the sidewalk and past rows and rows of houses and barkin’ dogs and cars whizzin’ by me along the street, and past fire hydrants and picket fences and summer gardens filled with peonies and pansies. I ran beneath a clear blue sky blemished only by legions of puffy white clouds that trailed my steps and kept up with my wild pace. I ran with tears streamin’ wanton from my eyes, and until my sides hurt so bad I thought I was gonna die too, but I kept runnin’–until finally, from out of nowhere, I felt a hand on my shoulder that yanked me clear around stoppin’ me dead in my tracks.

“Where ya off to, Barley?” Daddy panted, bending over to catch his breath from sprintin’ as fast as he had tryin’ to catch-up to my mad dash away from the finality of death that awaited me back at the funeral home. When I didn’t have an answer, Daddy grinned a giant, sheepish smile and said breathlessly, “Now you know I ain’t got my runnin’ shoes on.”

And then I fell into him and cried and cried, intoxicated by the smell of man, sweat and the temperature of his body heat, and it was there, buried deep in Daddy’s chest, that I finally succumbed to my grief. It felt foreign and awkward when Daddy cradled my head in his hands and drew me in closer. Daddy and me stood there on that sidewalk together for what seemed like an awful long time before he finally pulled me away from the safety of his body, smirked, and then reached into his pants pocket and produced a white cotton hankie embroidered with an “S” for Sullivan in the corner.

“Clean yourself up. It’s best we be gettin’ back now” Daddy said, turning on his heels to face the direction of the funeral home. He was clearly as embarrassed as I was from the raw emotion that we both exhibited out on that sidewalk and so I turned away from him too, and blew my nose. I was ready to pay my respects to my Grandpa. I tried to give Daddy back his hankie, but he just laughed, “Keep it; I ain’t puttin’ all those tears and snot back into my pocket,” he said, as he ruffled my hair.

Mama was standin’ at the top of them steps, stampin’ her foot and waitin’ for us along with all them pallbearers and the rest of the guests lookin’ to start the procession out to the cemetary. It’s like the memorial had come to a dead halt without us and I reckon I did feel real bad about that. When I got close enough, she took one good look at me and saw that I had been cryin’ and knew I had been off throwin’ a fit somewhere. In five seconds flat, she marched right up to me and grabbed my arm and slapped me solid across the face, sending me reeling back on my feet.

“Today ain’t about you, Barley. Get that through your God-damned thick skull,” she said as she turned to face the crowd of people waitin’ to get Grandpa’s body into the ground. Each person in the band of people before us turned uneasily away from the spectacle goin’ on before them, some of them lookin’ down at their shoes uncomfortably. And just like that, Daddy pulled away from me too and joined his place in line with the other men, while I stood there fightin’ new tears along with the harsh sting of Mama’s handprint which I knew was indelible across my cheek.

Out at the cemetery, the flat granite gravestone marker was already in place bearin’ my Grandpa’s Paul’s name: Private Paul Doyle, 1918-1981. Below that it read, “Loving husband and father who served his family and country well.” Next to his name was my Grandma Anita’s and the year she was born—1922, but she was still alive so she didn’t get no final restin’ date next to hers yet. I tried real hard not to think about Grandma’s dyin’ too. The thought of that was almost more than I could take on at the moment.

The hot, August sun permeated clear through my polyester clothes as I stood there tuggin’ onto my skirt that was clingin’ to the sweat beadin’ down my legs. All of a sudden, the crowd migratin’ around us hushed and I seen the most amazin’ sight I ever did see with my own two eyes. Out there in that eerie cemetery, dotted with trees and gravestones and flowers everywhere; an Army soldier in full uniform appeared amid us where he produced a bugle and stood there for a moment like he was collectin’ his thoughts or somethin’. And, then he raised his instrument to his mouth and blew out a beautiful, lonesome tune I knowed I heard some place else before.

Two other soldiers also appeared, stretched a flag out between them and then folded it lengthwise, and then lengthwise again. Eventually, somehow or another, as if by magic, they formed the flag into a perfect triangle while managin’ to keep the stars facin’ outwards. With a somber, regretful look on their faces, they handed the flag to Grandma Anita who was decked out head-to-toe in black. Upon receivin’ their gift, she finally began to wail. And, as if that were their cue, the soldiers slowly backed away. Suddenly, seven more uniformed men appeared out in the clearing nearby, armed with rifles, and each fired three shots into the air.

Mama and Bartlett was wailin’ right alongside Grandma, as well as were various other female relatives on my Mama’s side. As for me, I was all cried out with no more tears left to shed by the time them soldiers lowered their rifles in perfect timin’ with my treasured Grandpa and his flag-draped coffin bein’ hoisted deep into the ground.

Plagiarism is Purloining. Or is It?

It’s good to have smart people in your corner. Mentors can help you take your writing far, and I’m quick to lean on people for advice or to get help when I am stuck. Like most writers, I get fixated on “what” I’m writing so often, I try to remember to consult with people from time-to-time about “how” I’m writing. I’ve been having some ongoing dialogue with my former high school English and Journalism teacher, Vickie Benner, who read the first three Chapters of my new novel, When it Comes in Threes. For some time, she and I have been discussing whether or not I should change the voice in my first draft of the book from an adult to a child’s narrative as suggested by someone I highly respect in the literary community. When I finally decided to give the new voice a whirl, I discovered I was having much more fun writing the piece from a child’s perspective than I ever did before. Long story short, it’s a full rewrite, but will be better suited for the Young Adult book market for which the piece is intended.

Just this week, I leaned on Vickie again. She and I had dialog about other books or movies that could compare to what I am working on now. After a bit of contemplation, I threw out books that resonated with me that could be considered along the same grain as mine. So I threw out Running with Scissors (due to the highly dysfunctional family depicted in the book) and Bastard Out of Carolina (the conflicted, young protagonist dealing with abuse.) But, I got stuck on the name of a third book and the subsequent movie that followed. I said, “Oh Vickie. What’s the name of that book with the Wal-Mart Baby in it? You know, named Americus?” She said, “Oh yes. With Natalie Portman in it?” But, neither one of us could remember the name of the movie. I then told her my book would have someone, maybe a couple or three people, come into my main character’s life and make a difference in it, like the “Welcome Wagon” lady did in Natalie Portman’s character’s life, and more great dialogue ensued. Vickie and I chatted a bit more and we hung up.

The next day, during lunch, I switched on the TV. I never switch on the TV at lunchtime, and guess what was on? Where the Heart Is. It was on. A movie I hadn’t seen in probably five years. So, I watched it, and right where I picked up in the movie Lexie Coop (Ashley Judd) was asking why Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) named her baby Americus.

And, then–there it was.

I swallowed hard and tried to will it not be so. Lexie tells Novalee that she named her kids after snack food. Brownie, Praline, Cherry and Baby Ruth. Kids named after food! Oh. My. God. Enter Chapter 1, Paragraph Six of my new novel: “Nine months after Mama said I do, she gave birth to Bartlett, named after the pear fruit, ‘cause Mama was green with the flu when she went into labor and threw up all over her doctor, just two years and a month before I was born. Mama always did have a penchant for food, and so she named me Barley, like the waves of golden grain that rolled through the John Deere combines from the dry fields of Oklahoma. Seven years later, my baby brother, Graham, like the cracker, came. Mama didn’t have no real good explanation for his name, except that she liked to crush up graham crackers in milk in the mornings and eat ‘em like that for breakfast. Us three, Bartlett and Graham and me, we never knew what hit us being born a Sullivan. One of my elementary school teachers, Miss Espich, once told me that never knowing what hits you is an idiom relating to very bad consequences in which the people involved were totally unsuspecting. That’s us, the Sullivan Three, totally unsuspecting people named after food.” I thought I was being ingenious and novel when I wrote that paragraph. I “thought” I owned the inventive concept of people naming people after food!

Wikipedia defines plagiarism as the “wrongful appropriation” and “purloining and publication” of another author‘s “language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions,” and the representation of them as one’s own original work. The idea remains problematic with unclear definitions and unclear rules.The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, particularly with the Romantic movement. Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty and a breach of journalistic ethics. It is subject to sanctions like expulsion.

So, for all you readers and writers out there, I have two questions and then will follow up with a thought:

1. I already admitted to watching the movie over five years ago and, Where the Heart is clearly still resonates with me. I’ve carried the book and those characters along with me these past five years. That said, does Billy Letts, the bestselling author, own the concept of naming people after food merely because she published it first?
In the book, The Outsiders, a main character’s name is Soda Pop.
I wonder, based upon the definition of plagiarism, if one author could be accused of stealing the mere concept of naming character’s after food?

2. Have I plagiarized already by merely expressing an idea, which I thought I owned, by publishing Chapter 1 of my book on my blog?

In December of 2011, I published an article entitled “Finding the Value in Creativity” on Promokitchen.com. I later re-blogged the same article here on my site. In it, I write, “The Free Dictionary Online indicates that according to the philosophy of Plato, the definition of an idea “is an archetype of which a corresponding being in phenomenal reality is an imperfect replica.” The web source goes on to say that according to the philosophy of Kant, “an idea is a concept of reason that is transcendent but nonempiral.” But, even Hagel said it differently. He claimed that an idea means “absolute truth; the complete and ultimate product of reason.” In the dictionary, the definition of an idea reads “something, such as a thought or conception that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity.”

Transcendent thought, huh? A thought or conception that existed in the mind as a product of mental activity, huh? If this is true, that would mean at the point I wrote my paragraph, it was my thought, my mental activity, and my idea. I don’t know. Maybe I have to change it purely because it’s now unoriginal. But, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. My mentor, Vickie Benner, gave me hers…

When It Comes in Threes: Chapter 3 “Meet My Daddy”

This is Chapter 3 of my new novel, a work of Young Adult, Mature Subject, Fiction. Young readers should be particularly advised that this chapter is harsh. Chapters 1 and 2 are published here also at www.toniaalengould.com. I’m uncertain how many chapters I will publish here on this blog. Your feedback is welcomed and appreciated, and please kindly note that this is only fairly edited to this point.
Please forgive errant commas or semi-colons. My focus is on writing at this juncture.

Meet My Daddy

Last night, when the house was quiet and nothin’ was keeping the room lit but for the dime store digital alarm clock Mama got me and Bartlett for Christmas last year; my sister broke the night’s calm by shifting her weight and turning over in her bed to face me in mine. “Barley, you awake?” she whispered. Not waitin’ long enough for me to answer she continued, “It’s real late and daddy ain’t home yet. When he gets in, I don’t want you to make one single, solitary sound in here, no matter what happens. Ya hear me?” Bartlett pleaded. I shivered and pulled the covers tighter over my body and used the top of them to wipe the tears that already began to roll as big as quarters down my cheek and said, “Uh huh, I hear you,” I said, knowing she was right and that the shit was about to hit the fan. I tried to muster a voice inside me big and loud, but what came out of my mouth squeaked like one of them kangaroo mice that we occasionally caught meekly pokin’ their heads out of our paneled wood walls, disappearin’ as quickly as they came, here and gone again, just like my tears now. My whole body began to tremble and shake and my feet were so cold, it felt like I had popsicles for toes.

Bartlett rose up out of her bed lookin’ like a ghost or something, loomin’ over me like that in her cotton white nightgown; her face was nothin’ but a shadow in the darkness, and for a second, I thought I was dreaming or having a nightmare or somethin’. I pinched myself sharply and only when I felt the pain was I certain she was real and not a figment of my own imagination. Finally, she sat down on the edge of my bed. “Sit up for a second,” she said, as she pulled back the covers and tugged at my arms, effortlessly bringing me up next to her. I couldn’t make out her face in the darkness, although her white cotton nightgown seemed to illuminate the whole bedroom. She stroked my long, dark hair and whispered in my ear. I know she could feel me tremblin’ beside her, and even though sometimes I hated her, I was grateful for my sister’s warmth tonight. “Shhh,” she said. “Maybe it won’t be so bad this time. Give me a hug and try to go on back to sleep now and remember that no matter what happens, you stay in this here bed and don’t get outta it for anything, until Kingdom come if you have to, or at least until I say so” she said, as she pulled me tighter in next to her body. I hugged her limply, like something had sucked the bones out of me and I was nothing but a gob of dangling, cold skin, but it weren’t for but a second, before she got up and paced across the room to check on Graham, who was sleeping soundly in his own bed. I knew Bartlett would be by his side, stifling him, muzzling his mouth if she had to, if things got all out ugly. So I just laid there—cold and limp, a lifeless, waiting, trembling, hoping and praying mass of a person. If you’ve never had the experience, waiting for something bad to happen feels like all the oxygen has been snatched-up outta the air, your throat and lips feel awful dry, you can’t hardly swallow your own spit for the lump in your throat won’t let it go down nice and easy. Shoot it’s as if the Earth collapsed and shattered to giants chunks of rubble right next to you, pinning you in and leaving you breathless. Yes. Waiting feels like somethin’ as big and looming and enormous as that.

Another hour or so must’ve passed as we laid there in silence before the headlights from daddy’s ’59 Impala finally ricocheted off the walls and reflected from the mirror that sat on top of our dresser. The light was so bright, it was blinding, and it felt like Lord Jesus had come to take us home. I could hear the tires spitting-up gravel from the driveway and the pistons rumble and fade away into the darkness once Daddy turned off the ignition. Moments pass and he finally gets out of the car, slamming the door forcibly as he exits. Then the thud, thud, thud of his feet comin’ up the porch steps, tromping the whole way. Suddenly, I became consumed by each and every sound my father was making, each noise was a siren, a warning call that rang loud and true and into the stillness of the night. It was almost more than I could bear, waitin’ for my Daddy to find his keys and enter the trailer. I wasn’t breathin’, but I wasn’t holding my breath neither, it’s like I had my foot stomped on and was punched in the belly all at the same time. Rattle, Rattle, rattle; he fumbled with the doorknob, turned it, and then finally fell into the kitchen which was right outside our bedroom. He was strugglin’ to find the light switch; I could hear him grasping at the walls, groping the wood paneling, and scraping the dinette chairs across the floor as he clumsily made his way to the light switch across the small kitchen.

From where I was layin’, I could see the dark shadow of his body through the crack in our bedroom door. I screeched a bit when he finally found and turned on the lights in the kitchen. It scared the bejesus outta of me, since I had become particularly fixated on all the sounds he was making, but mostly due to the suspense of it all. Bartlett shushed me again, but fortunately Daddy hadn’t heard me. Bartlett was right, it was best to pretend I was asleep, but I couldn’t help but watch through that small opening in our bedroom door.

I wanted to roll over in my bed and face Bartlett, but it was too darn late, I had to lay still, or I might’ve caught Daddy’s attention, so I watched as he tried to navigate hisself around the kitchen. Daddy has knocked over a chair, and I watch as he stumbled and fell forward, trying to pick it up. When he finally brought the chair upright, he heaved his body into and lit himself up a Marlboro, and thankfully the whole trailer fell quiet again. We can hear Mama as she slowly eases herself up out of her bed through the paper thin walls leading to the bedroom next to ours. The rickety old box springs from the cast iron bed Mama and Daddy got from a flea market, is the only thing to break the silence. “No Mama,” I prayed. “Please don’t get up. Let him be. Don’t go in there,” I prayed. But I knew God wasn’t listening to Barley Sullivan tonight, because I watched as Mama drowsily entered the kitchen, wiping the sleep out of her reddened eyes. I could see that Mama had been crying, and guessed prob’ly she had cried the whole night long. The stench of the alcohol on Daddy’s breath, and what smells like a somewhat familiar perfume now permeates the air throughout the entire trailer. Mama is ten shades of mad because Daddy has been out so late. She glances around the kitchen in disbelief. “Earl, it looks like a God-damned circus ran through here,” she says as she stoops to pick up an errant chair up off the floor. Mama’s right. It was a circus in there and unbeknownst to her; she just stepped into the lion’s lair. Like I’ve said before, Mama don’t have too much common sense.

“You think ya can just saunter on in here, any old time ya God-damned want, drunker than a skunk and smellin’ like June’s cheap-ass perfume all the time? I’m getting pretty fuckin’ sick and tired of it, Earl!” she yells. “If my brother John gets a hold of you, he’s gonna kill you for runnin’ around with her like that. What? You think I don’t know? I’m not as stupid as you think I am,” my Mama laughs. The argument ensues, both of them screaming back and forth at one another, but some of what they are talkin’ about makes absolutely no sense to me—like what does Aunt June have to do with any of this, anyway? It’s all over my head stuff I don’t come to understand, and Daddy is so belligerent, I can’t make right or wrong of what he is saying at all. Their voices rise another octave, and the neighbor’s dog, George, begins to bark and that beckons other dogs in the trailer park to wake and come alive with their unrelenting barking, too. Daddy’s voice suddenly shifts to a dangerous tone, and I can feel it in my gut; it’s too late, there’s no undoing what’s Mama’s done. She has incensed my father.

Despite Bartlett’s admonishment, I sit up on the side of my bed, my legs dangling, holding on tightly to the stuffed monkey I got from that time I got put in the hospital when my appendix almost burst. Doctor Cooper gave him to me. I loved that stuffed monkey because he reminded me of a special time. For two weeks, while I was in the hospital, I got to eat all the ice cream I ever wanted, there weren’t any televisions on blaring loudly twenty-four-hours a day, and Daddy and Mama weren’t there fighting about things I just didn’t understand, like they were doing tonight. Hell, Mama and Daddy barely even came to see me when I was in the hospital back when I was only just nine-years-old, and oddly enough, I was okay with that. Those two weeks were the first time in my life I had ever experienced what silence was. I could think there in the hospital. I wasn’t all wound-up like a toy and scared all the time. In fact, it felt like I had boarded a plane, and landed in some faraway perfect place. For a kid like me, growing up in a trailer park, staying in a hospital feels something like staying at one of those fine resorts I read about in one of those magazines Jeannie Bell had down in her parlor shop in town.

Bartlett breaks me away from my reverie and whispered loudly again, “Lie back down and pretend that you’re asleep! If Daddy sees you, he’ll up and come on in here and whoop us both. Do it now!” But I don’t listen to Bartlett. My body feels possessed by someone much bigger and braver than me. Instead, I continue to rock myself gently back and forth, trying to will away the feuding coming from the other room. Daddy is cursing something fierce, and then I hear him push a chair out of his way as he crosses over to Mama where I can’t see them anymore. I knew better, and despite all of Bartlett’s warnings, I got up and tip-toed myself across the floor to the door and stepped quietly over to the other side of it to peer through the crack to see where my Mama and Daddy are standing on the other side of the kitchen. Daddy’s already got her pressed right up against the wall, his arm pinned across her throat and he is yellin’ directly into her face. He’s so mad, I can see little droplets of spittle flying into the air as he screams at her. And then, before I can digest what I am seeing, I watch in outright horror as Daddy leans over and picks up one of those fallen chairs and busts it right across my Mama’s head. She falters and falls hard to the ground, moaning in anguish; her body is now a lifeless heap strewn clear across the floor in a pink, cotton-candy-colored, terry-cloth robe. With a grumble underneath his breath, my Daddy steps over her body, like she’s nothing more than the day’s trash, and stumbles into their bedroom. I watch him hoist his fully-clothed body onto that old bed, the sheer weight of him causes those box springs to creak and whine again, and almost immediately, the sound of his snoring breaks the dead quiet silence of daybreak. The morning light is already filtering in through the windows, casting an eerie light on my poor mother, splayed out on the floor, all out of kilter like that in her pink robe.

Mama was lying perfectly still on the floor, and I was almost certain she was dead. A thin, red trickle of blood oozed from a wide, deep gash on her forehead. I was cryin’, but my sobs were coming from some subterranean part of myself I hadn’t felt before. Even if I wanted to, I could not project any noise; I had learnt early on in life to stifle my emotions and to filter my own pain. My stomach was heaving in and out while a steady train of new tears rolled down my face. It took every ounce of my courage to walk over to my Mama to see if she was breathing fire or was dead cold. Just as I crossed over the kitchen and came to her side, my mother looked up at me, and it scared me somethin’ fierce to see her bloodied face staring up at me like that. She was surprised to see me and immediately placed her right index finger next to her lips and mouthed the word “Shhhhh!” I leaned over her and gave her my hand, which she gratefully took, and I helped her up off the cold, hard linoleum tiles. Without saying a word, she led me back to my room where Bartlett stood cryin’ at the door, holding Graham in her arms; he was almost too big for her carry. He was holding on to her for dear life just like an ape’s baby. Although he was already seven-years-old, and too big too hold, his arms were draped across her neck and his face was buried deep in her bosom. I knew Bartlett hadn’t let him see anything that went on in the kitchen. “Go on back in there now, you three. Ain’t nothin’ more to see out here tonight,” Mama said as she motioned us back into our bedroom. “I’m ok,” she said, “It ain’t nothin’ more than a little bump on the head and a little blood. Y’all go back to sleep, and stay good and quiet in here, you hear me?” she whispered. Mama led me back into our room, where she tucked me into bed, checked on Graham, who rolled over immediately and went back to sleep, and then looked thankfully towards Bartlett. Then with some degree of dignity, she straightened her back and walked out of our room and out into the kitchen.

The door to our room was left cracked open again and I watched as she lit herself a cigarette, inhaling the smoke deeply into her lungs where she savored it a moment until she finally exhaled, and then she sat down at the dinette table, drew her feet up onto the chair and rested her head on her knees, her body trembling from head-to-toe as she silently watered her lap with her tears. I wanted to go to her again, but I knew if I did, she would retaliate on me just to prove she was still strong and in charge, like she had done so many times before after a beating from Daddy, so I just laid there and saw her arms heave up and down as she cried, watching as the early morning light cleansed and clarified the kitchen, hoping for a new and brighter day.

When it Comes in Threes: Chapter 2 “You Ain’t Nothin’ Unless You’re Something”

Chapter 2 “You Ain’t Nothin’ Unless You’re Something”

Mama always said, “You ain’t nothin’ unless you think somethin’ of your own self.” When I was younger, I once asked her how some people got to be rich while others went without. “Well,” Mama said, “A long time ago, well over a hundred years ago or so; a great tornado came to Oklahoma and picked up all them homes spread across our great state and plopped them down haphazardly where God best saw the people in them fitting in. It was sort of like the story of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. All them houses were just plunked down in the middle of nowhere in some cases,” she said. “Some people started out rich and went poor because they was placed near the railroad tracks, or the other way around when a poor man suddenly found hisself living on a giant plot of land out by Lake Murray,” she said. “You don’t get to choose anymore, Barley, where you’s gonna live or how much money you’s gonna have one day. You was born without a pot to piss in because God did all the choosin’ for you by placin’ you here with me, right where ya belong. He did all that long before you was born by picking your parents, and our parents before us, and so on. There ain’t even a God-damned thing anyone can do about it. You just gotta be thankful ya just got a roof over your head and plumbin’ to wash the dirt off your hands when you come in from work, and clothes on your back to protect you from the sun and to ward off the cold. No one needs anything much more than that, Barley,” she said.

“You forgot love,” I whispered under my breath, so low and barely audible that I was certain she couldn’t hear it. But, Mama’s hearing was sharp, just like her tongue. “Love ain’t gonna get you through but one single, solitary winter. Don’t you ever forget that,” she said, casting her eyes away from me and dropping the conversation entirely by dismissing it with a wave of her calloused hands. “But, you love Daddy, right?” I said. Still, Mama would have no more of it and I knew it was best to leave the conversation alone.

I had to hand it to Mama’s imagination about that tornado, and for making excuses for her and Daddy like that about where we lived, in our tiny trailer spread out along with all them other trailers and government-owned houses that dotted the landscape in the very armpit of Oklahoma society. I guess some of what she said, did make sense, even though it weren’t all entirely true.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe you are what you are born into, and there ain’t nothing you can ever do to fight off Old Man Destiny. I wished it weren’t my true, but people would look at us and our dirty hands and feet from runnin’ around in the yard and from being barefoot all day, and I just knowed they was making assumptions about who we was and where we came from, and pro’bly rightly so. If a rich man walked into a store and he was covered in sweat and had dirt under his nails, there was no other explanation for that except that maybe he was out playing in a soccer game or workin’ in his backyard, planting a flower garden or something, and all it took for you to know he had money was by takin’ one good look at the clothes on his back. Take a poor man, under those same circumstances, and place him in that same store and you’d either take pity on him or be embarrassed for him for showing up in public, all soiled-up like that, and you’d thank your lucky stars you didn’t wind-up standing in the Welfare line and eating government cheese in your macaroni, right along with him.

The only thing is, no one else but me in my family seemed to notice all them rich people stopping and staring at us all the time and casting their judgments on us like they was God Hisself-reincarnated in a living, breathing human soul standing next to us in the cashier line at the Affiliated Food Stores. Believe it or not, poor people have a great deal of pride, and that pride just kept them browsin’ the aisles until it was time to hand their food stamps to the cashier, and pride kept them walking right out the front door, stompin’ the dirt off their boots the whole way. But, from where I sat, pride and ignorance went hand-in-hand. In our two-bedroom trailer, down at the Cloverleaf Trailer Park, deposited neatly under the bypass, Pride’s name was Earl and Ignorance’s name was Franny, and I secretly hoped that one day I wouldn’t turn out just like them.

It’s not that my Mama was stupid really, even though she didn’t have nothing more than a seventh grade education. She was smart enough, she just didn’t have a lick of common sense. She told me she had to drop out of junior high school to help take care of her baby sister, Mabel, while her Mama and Daddy went to work providing for her nine other brothers and sisters. Mama wasn’t much of a student anyway; she could barely read and write and it wasn’t until she was twenty years old that Doc Patton at the medical clinic, told her he thought she had Dyslexia, given her struggle fillin’ out paperwork all the time. When Mama first said she had a disease, I imagined twenty different ways she was gonna die right in front of me, and straightaway big old tears welled-up in my eyes. When Mama saw the terrified look on my face she immediately dismissed my fears, “Nah, Barley, it ain’t nothing like that! What I have is the sort of disease that makes your brain tell your eyes to see things backwards, that’s all. That’s why I’m none to good at readin’ and writin’.” And there it was. That “Ah-ha! Moment” I had been waiting for my whole life, that one explanation for why my mother was the way she was. One singular sentence described my mother’s condition perfectly and I knew Doc Patton had given her the proper diagnosis. I had always questioned the way my Mama saw things, in all fourteen years of my young life. But that day, when Mama came home plagued with the Dyslexia, it all suddenly began to make sense. Mama was just backwards.