Creepy Come Ons

Channeling my youth. Awakened thinking of this one:

My bff in hs, Claudette, invited me to visit her older sister who was living in Questa, NM. Her sister had one kid and was expecting another. We took a bus out to Questa which is in the sticks and beautiful country. A small town, lots of mountain scenery.

Her sister's husband was in the armed forces, I don't remember which one, and he'd been wounded. There was something about a plate in his head, but I didn't pay too much attention cause I'd just gotten my license before we left and Claudette's sister owned a '66 Mustang.

Wow, was she insane to let me take that car out on the open road or what? I drove the mountain roads with the pedal to the floor and with both of us squealing as only almost sixteen-year-olds can do. I wheeled around switchbacks skirting the edge until Claudette begged me to stop. Deer and bunnies spread the word to stay off the road.

The husband hadn't been home for a few days. On the bus ride to Questa Claudette shared tidbits she'd picked up about him; he drank and had psychological problems, what we'd term post traumatic stress disorder nowadays, but again adult stuff - not all that interesting.

The house was small and Claudette snored, so I slept on the couch. One night the husband was home. He took us out for burgers, but was mostly quiet during dinner.  In the middle of the night he crept into the living room where I slept. Literally folks, the man was on his hands and knees. I'm a light sleeper, and I'm also near-sighted, but the blurred vision of his stealth crawl is vivid in memory.

He crawled over to the couch and started touching me on top of the blanket, kind of petting me like I was a cat or something. I was totally freaked and pretended to be asleep. He reeked of liquor and mumbled some b.s. I could barely understand telling me I was beautiful and that he wouldn't hurt me. My heart beat so hard it filled my ears and drowned out all other sound.

I've always wondered if my heartsound woke up Claudette's sister. She tiptoed into the living room, but stepped on a squeaky floorboard as she rounded the corner. Busted! He immediately laid down on the floor like he was passed out. She went over to him whispering, and he acted like he didn't know how he got there and that he'd fainted. I was still pretending to be asleep.

I could barely look at them the next day and remember nothing more about our stay there.

Shite like that was always happening to me. For a long time I thought I must have some sort of electromagnetic draw for all the adult creeps in the world.

Toothsome

This story was published in a couple of anthologies. Remembering Mom:

In her thirties, Nellie wore miniskirts and go‑go boots, false eyelashes and hairpieces, and seemed oh‑so with it, up‑to‑date, and modern. Her small square teeth gleamed in a perfect line behind a red lipstick mouth. She laughed and giggled weak‑in‑the‑knees through days where nickel and dime tips forestalled economic disaster. Her life was hard work and more work and raising kids, and sexual trysts on the sly. Nothing long‑standing, nothing lasting. 

         Even the children metamorphosed into upwardly mobile wraiths who disappeared, then reappeared with babies. But Nellie was strong, looked younger than her age, and then there were her teeth. Perfect. She had no cavities.

         In her fifties, she finally needed dental work. Nellie traveled to Juarez, Mexico to get the work done cheap.  The dentist suggested gold fillings for three of her front teeth.  He patted her knee.  "Special price for you."   

         Her children had only seen gold teeth on winos and the occasional rap music star. "Why?" they asked each other in disbelief.

         Nellie shrugged.  "He said gold would last forever."  

         She flashed her golden smile often, and the kids gave her $500 to get the gold taken out. Nellie bought a new water heater instead.  “I look fine,” she said. “You try taking a shower in ice cold water and see how you like it.”

         In her seventies, her teeth began to trouble her. They would have to be removed. "Give her the best dentures available," her children told the dentist, secretly relieved that the gold‑lined teeth would go. Nellie would look like every other senior citizen equipped with porcelain choppers.

         "Don't let the dentist keep that gold," Nellie warned her children when they took her for the surgery. "I paid a pretty penny for it!" 

         "Everyone wants their teeth blazing white these days," her children told her. "You'll look modern."      

         Nellie frowned.  "I don't want people to know I'm wearing false teeth.  Makes you look old." 

         The dentist fitted her dentures perfectly to her mouth and handed her a mirror. Nellie smiled at her reflection, turning her head to the right and the left. She ran her tongue over her small square teeth gleaming in a perfect line and nodded at the dentist, satisfied.

         Her children waited in the lounge and stood to greet her as she left the office. She gave the dentist a hug.  “You’re a genius!” she gushed. “I look better than ever.” 

         Nellie turned and smiled wide at her sophisticated children, gold now lining every single artificial tooth in her mouth.

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Buick Sundays

 Sundays were always special because mom didn't work on that day.  She was tired from six straight 10-hour nights of waiting on tables.  No one could blame her if she didn't feel like cooking, cleaning or driving.  She'd let me drive the old Buick my Grandpa had given us, and by old I mean made of steel and without power steering.  Driving to Louie's Drive-In to pick up tamales and comic books was my job.  I was twelve and very responsible, but in my mother's mind I think that meant I was thirty-two.

It was fall in Santa Fe, a frosty nip in the air, but no snow on the ground.  My brother was only five and stayed with Mom and was totally not my responsibility for that one day. Everyone stayed inside, but my hangout on Sunday was the Buick I'd managed to park safely in our narrow driveway (there was a telephone pole planted right in the middle of the entrance).  I made the car cozy with pillows and a comforter.  It took on a greenhouse effect with all that New Mexican sunshine filtered and magnified through the windows.  I left them cracked, and the scent of pine and aspen wafting down from the Sangre de Cristos was a welcome counterbalance in my little hothouse.

Stuffed with spicy tamales, I'd snuggle down and read Superman, The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Wonder Woman, Tales From Beyond, and something called Classics, which was a retelling of stories like Romeo & Juliet in graphic form. When I'd finish my series, I'd take them inside and exchange with Mom who'd been reading Batman, or Silver Surfer. We were getting along in those days.

That night Mom might cook a one-dish meal like macaroni made with Velveeta Cheese. The nights were cold, but we were warm and full.  Mom sometimes sang and danced when she cooked.  She teased and complimented me.   We laughed and I remember distinct happiness.  On Sunday nights, I went off to bed and read some more, only books this time, and the house was quiet.   I was fed on multiple levels.

Mom began to come home late.  When you get off at 3 a.m. late is arriving home at dawn.  I was worried, upset, angry . . . and curious.  I began to wake up in the middle of the night and wait for her.  She was full of excuses:  she'd gone out with the girls for breakfast; there was an after work party; her car broke down; her girlfriend's car broke down.  I was furious and jealous and possessive, and suspected sex was happening, but only in an amorphous, nonverbal way that made me afraid of losing my mother.

I was afraid of a lot of stuff in those days.  I was almost thirteen and hadn't yet started my period.  Every one of my girlfriends had breasts and had been menstruating practically since birth.  They were short and curvy and cute, and I was not.  Mom and I began to fight everyday, and I missed a lot of school because I overslept.  

"Aren't you going to school?"  I wanted her to make me go, but Mom couldn't even make herself come home after work.  On some days, she didn’t make it home at all.  The Sunday I gouged out a hunk of my thigh in a bicycle accident I needed stitches, but didn’t tell Mom about it when she finally came home.  She didn’t notice anything until years later when she asked about the huge scar on my thigh. 

I passed thirteen and we fought and I challenged her and we fought some more.  I was angry all the time and mean to my little brother.  On Sundays Mom was exhausted and withdrawn.  She cooked, but there was no laughter.  I stopped reading comics in the Buick, but read Dostoyevsky by the light of a little portable electric heater bedside until Mom’s car entered the driveway.  I’d quickly shut my book and pretend to be asleep.  We didn’t talk until I decided to go live with my Dad in Texas, and then I slept with her and my brother every night until the day arrived for me to leave.  It was my last belonging.

For the year that I was gone, we remained close.  Her letters were long and full of love and trivia.  When she called long distance, she’d ask if I wanted to talk to my dog and cat.  Long distance was expensive in those days and the gesture meant a lot to me.  She was home, she was family, and my dad and his new wife were not.

I returned to New Mexico carrying the secret Mom had shared with me in her last telephone call: I now had a baby sister.  Dad squeezed his Caddy between the telephone pole and the wall and made it down our narrow drive.  Before he’d turned off the motor, I’d jumped out and entered my mother’s waiting arms.  She looked tired and ill.  She’d had to stop waitressing as her pregnancy advanced, and had taken a babysitting job for a family that lived in a trailer park on the outskirts of Santa Fe.  There was a real outdoor swimming pool there, and my brother and I swam everyday under our mother’s watchful eye. 

My dad wept when he found out about my sister.  He begged me to return to Texas with him and warned me about the bad boys who would swarm all over me when they found out about Mom.  He frightened me, but not enough to endure my stepmother again.  Winter and high school and bad boys were months away.  Mom was resting and getting well and eventually she’d return to night work.  In the meantime, those days at the trailer park pool were like a summer full of Buick Sundays. 

Review: Driving With Dead People

Driving with Dead People by Monica Holloway


Dysfunctional isn't a strong enough word to describe the narrator's family. Something is wrong with little Monica, but it doesn't play out until you're two-thirds of the way into the book. The story started slow and stayed slow through half of the book, but picked up speed when Monica reaches high school.  Before that her childhood was dominated by a violent father and a passive-aggressive mother.

Her family was not poor-there were piano lessons and bikes and participation in extra-curricular activities at school. But I kept checking dates because there was no modern sensibility insofar as the mother was concerned; it was as if they lived in the '40's or '50's.  Her mother, while not as mean as the father, was just plain suspicious. I never understand women who have children,claim to love them, and then live in a violent situation.

When the heroine begins dating, the authors mundane writing style works better because her experiences are a colorful enough balance: bad boys, gay boyfriends, married men and workaholics dominate her college years. All the while, the dynamic of her attempts to become closer to her three siblings, and parents, plays out. We learn how vile the father could be, and also how the mother enabled him. I loved the descriptions of her meetings with various loser therapists. Best of all, the author learns redemption not through forgiveness, but through cutting off her parents entirely, and forgiving herself for believing in them.

December 5, 2012 Warning: Revelation about to happen.  Didn't mention above that the author's older sister suffers a severe breakdown as the result of memories resurfacing about her father molesting her.  Revisiting this because the author expends considerable energy and many pages pondering whether she herself was molested.  She mentions her mother slathering Vaseline on her and her sister's bottoms every night when they were well past toddlerhood, but she never asks the ultimate question?  Was her mother molested as a child?  Not that she would have gotten a straight answer from a woman who avoided all revealing conversations, but  the question needed to be asked.

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