"The Grass wasn’t Greener: Confessions of a Loner.”
Written in October of 2007
1.The City of Brotherly Love.
My eyes flew open. The bright room had become familiar to me by now. The moon had whitewashed the walls. My eyes darted to the curtainless windows. They gaped open, allowing the moonlight to spill in on this unreasonably bright night.
Thoughtlessly I kicked the white down comforter off and swang my awkwardly long legs off of the tiny twin bed. My feet hit the wood floor with a quiet thud as I padded over to the window. I stared out into the all too still July night and allowed, for the first time since I left, my mind to wander.
What would have happened if I had stayed? Where would I be? What would I be like? Even more, what would I believe in? Would I be the awkward fragment of a girl that I was now? My memory flashed back to the last conversation. The last time I heard his voice. I could hear his words, crystal clear, as if he had been standing in the pale moonlight right beside me, gazing out the window into the empty street.
“Please understand I had nothing but the best of intentions for you.”
I crinkled my nose at that. It sounded so formal. Like something you would say to a forgotten pair of shoes being discarded after they went out of style. So mechanical. So rehearsed.
And so, like the old pair of shoes, I was discarded. Taken care of. How could I have been such a fool? I wondered what shoes had taken my place. If there were any. What they looked like. Where they better than me? Did they ever remind him of me?
Having your entire life planned out at age 18 is a mistake. The plan of your life revolving around a boy is a greater mistake. I would not come to learn this for several years.
That was when it began to hurt. It hurt all over. I was hurting for all the times I had made it a point not to hurt, thinking it would go away. I had managed to compartmentalize the last three years of my life into a little drawer labeled “DO NOT OPEN”. What had I done? I had opened Pandora’s box. Twenty minutes ago I was sleeping peacefully. Over it. Over him. How wrong I was. Every second, every memory, every word came back to me then. It was all too real. I was as if not one moment had passed, nothing had healed, and I was right back where I started, standing there, in his driveway. Rain pouring down. The last goodbye.
I wasn’t aware that the sob that broke out in the quiet room belonged to me. I wasn’t aware of my chest heaving in and out, my body shaking as the tears finally forced their way out, spilling down my cheeks. I felt it all. I felt it raking through my veins like tiny pieces of broken glass. Everything I had made it a point not to feel. It all came back to me.
*
My time in Philadelphia flew by quickly, before I knew it, the summer was half over and I was mechanically going through the motions of life.
Sleep…eat…work…sleep…and so on.
I noticed I had turned into a little bit more of a human since the night I had allowed myself to cry for him. I will admit, up until that point I had acted slightly creepy. I had tossed my hair and laughed. I smiled and went through my day as if I was fine. As if I had just randomly decided to pick up and move to Philadelphia for the fun of it.
It wasn’t until that night that I realized I had run. I had picked up and run to Philadelphia. Hiding. But how was I to know? I had become such a pro at running, I didn’t even notice what was happening as I begged my father to send me away. It was June of 2005.
“Think of how good it will be for me!” I had pleaded, “It will teach me to fend for myself and be responsible!”
That conversation seemed like it had happened so long ago.
My uncle, who was the administrator of the mission, was a strong advocate of applying The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to all areas of life. I extrapolated the general gist of the first and second rules and gently applied to my current condition.
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that our loves had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
And this is where my story begins.
*
“Hello,” I said to the speedometer in my makeshift car as I waited on the stoplight to change, “My name is Carrie Roberts and I am addicted to [ for the sake of keeping names and reputations intact, let’s just call this gentleman Mr. X]. I am powerless over this.”
The speedometer glared at me through its scratched up panel. I cocked my head at it in wonder. I had never been made to drive a car like this before. I was raised right smack dab in the middle of God’s country- Arkansas- in an upper class family. My father had the luxury of retiring a decade before he was supposed to. My mother got to sit around the house all day, drinking margaritas and moving furniture around to her liking. My brother lived a fraternity boy’s life and we all drove nice cars. Classic republican nice cars. We did what rich white people do; we went to Disney World while Mexicans dug a hole in our backyard for our new pool. We ate frozen yogurt and watched shows like LOST and Survivor. Typical republicans. We managed to get stressed about the fact that we couldn’t find a pair of shoes in town to match our ensemble for the upcoming Sunday School Class party. Life was real nice, I won’t lie.
That was then. This was now. After X, everything changed. With the clarity that comes with your heart being ripped out, I decided to uproot myself and go to a place far away from cotton and soybean fields. Philadelphia would do. We conveniently had family there. My mother’s brother was all too eager to accept my cheap labor at his homeless mission in turn for finding a house to stick me in and loaning me a car. Little did I know the house I would be stuck in would be the Dent’s-a family I later realized I considered as my own, and the car loaned to me would be a 1986 Honda Accord, complete with two decade’s worth of awkward bumper stickers peeled off and reapplied.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to my conversation with the speedometer at the stoplight.
I found that the ability to talk about it informally (to myself, that is) brought on the ability to at least think about it. The ability to think about it led to the ability to think about it often. And this, in turn, brought the entire “situation” as I had begun to refer to it, into a more visible part of my heart. I was owning up to it. Claiming it, even.
“Ello!” I filched an Australian accent to my showerhead as I lathered shampoo into my brown head of thick hair. “My name is Carrie Roberts and I am the most lonely person you’ll ever meet! And I-” I dramatically pointed to myself as a grabbed my loofah off the shower ledge, holding it up like a microphone, “just might be the loooonliest person you’ll ever meet!” I spoke into the cascading water, “I am so powerless over this minor detail.” Minor? Obviously not. I was talking to a loofah.
*
August rolled around to find me still talking to myself as well as inanimate objects, working at the mission and going to sleep at night in a room I still had not managed to negotiate curtains for. I noticed I had also begun obsessing about my weight, too. Perhaps that is something that comes with the city. I took stairs every chance I got. I drank water rather than tea, I lived on coffee in the mornings rather than sugary cereal. I hadn’t really thought about my loss of appetite until I realized my jeans no longer fit.
My ass. Where had it gone? I stared over my shoulder at my lack of a bottom in the mirror that hung on the closet door.
I remembered quite clearly the way it looked when I had first come to Philadelphia. I remembered obsessing over the fact that it was the size of two bowling balls as I squeezed into the tiny airplane seats, what a nasty emotional mess I was that day! I recalled the mascara tears I blinked back as I watched out the tiny window of the plane. Surely X would come for me. I searched the runway with anxious eyes, ready to take him back. He would be running after me, coming for me at the airport. He knew he was wrong to call us off …and was going to ride in at the last moment…
Wrong.
I yanked at my jeans-yes-they were loose, weren’t they? I twisted around looking at my backward view in the mirror once again.
“It would appear,” I murmured to myself in my quiet room, “that broken heartedness suits me…I wear it quite well if I do say so myself.” A grin spread across my face.
In a desperate attempt to look like the girls I saw on television, I danced. I danced the way I had seen the black girls dancing at the mission, popping my butt awkwardly up and down in front of my mirror. With my back to it. Watching myself over my shoulder the whole time. About fifteen seconds in, I doubled over in laughter. How pitiful was I?!
I could see the headlines clearly: “White girl dies dancing in front of mirror. Mysterious weight loss concerns friends and family.”
Yes, friends and family would definitely be concerned. I could hear my father now. He would begin with a “Wow you look great!”
He would finally approve of my figure just before his eyebrows would knit together in concern, “You’re not on drugs are you?!”
Oh no, dad. I was not on drugs. It was worse. I was a white girl trying to dance like a black girl. Something which happens to be an impossibility. In retrospect, I can say I honestly don’t care how good you did in step show, little white girl. You will never have the rhythm and the groove of a black girl.
I had begun to form friendships with people at the mission. Some were homeless, some were not. I found I enjoyed talking to them, hearing their stories. They were real people, they played no games. It was refreshing. It made it easier not to think about me, me, me all the time. I was so sick of me.
Saul had sauntered past me several times now. I was perched on a stool in the lobby waiting for five. I couldn’t wait. Five more minutes and I could go home. I would go home, exchange pleasantries with whoever happened across me on my way up to my room, and sit. I would sit and read a book or sit and listen to music. It would have to depend. What kind of a mood was I in…music or book...book or music? Decisions decisions…
“Aye.”
I pulled out of my thoughts long enough to look up at the dark figure that towered over me. His shirt draped down to his knees where blue jean…were those shorts? They drooped down to his ankles. Shiny red shoes stood out against the boring white tile of the floor at the mission. I judged him silently. Maybe he would go away if I didn’t make eye contact. Surely he wouldn’t want to mug me?! I clearly didn’t have a purse on my shoulder. He wouldn’t…violate me…would he? Not with all of these people…where was everyone?! I looked around, panicking. I was about to be raped and I didn’t even have a decent story to show for it! I could hear myself, years from now, warning younger pretty white republican girls about the dangers of sitting on stools, trying to figure out whether music or reading was a better evening activity-
“You deaf?” he asked. His voice was deep, but gentle. I drew my eyes up his figure and met his gaze. His eyes were dark. Very dark. And his skin was so black. It was beautiful.
“Huh?” he asked, I figured it was in response to his last question.
I stammered, trying to find my voice. Where was it?! It had gotten buried so deep in my chest. With all my worrying a lump had formed in my throat causing me to croak, finally, “No.” I let it out in a tiny voice.
He must have seen the fear stricken look behind my eyes, turning my face white.
“Girl I ain’t gonna hurt ‘chu!” he squealed in a pitch higher than I thought he would have been capable of, a big white shock of a smile breaking on his black face.
He rocked forward, punching me on my shoulder, I flinched and recoiled at his touch. He paused, smiling that big white smile, giving me a chance to cover for my clearly racist action. Silence. My stomach plummeted to my feet, my heart was pounding in my ears. I couldn’t move. I had graduated from a highschool that proudly sported 2.5 African American students. My side of town didn’t see anything but white. Hispanics raised the children and blacks cleaned our houses. I recall a conversation I heard my mother having with a woman from our very Baptist church. “Jewell is a different kind of black woman to have around your house. I mean. You can trust this one. I’ve quit locking away my jewelry. Honestly, Karen, I even let her polish the silver. And it’s all still there. I counted.” My mind then flashed to my mother, holding a wine glass staring at the ceiling with her lips pursed as if she were calculating Paula’s words to her.
“Aah… I see ha it is,” he tilted his head back as he spoke, his eyes tightening.
Speechless I stared at him. What did he see? Did he see I thought he wanted to violate me? Take me to Oklahoma in the back of a big white van and slowly chop me up? Discarding my mangled parts in a ditch somewhere? I could see the headlines now.
“Mangled white girl found in Oklahoma Ditch. Authorities suspect fowl-play.”
I trembled, eyeing the double glass doors not ten yards away…I could make a run for it.
His sudden movement jerked me out of my escape plan.
He merely shook his head, a genuine look of remorse flashed into his eyes as he turned and walked away, lethargically dragging his feet, causing the soles his red shoes to squeak.
I stared after him in wonder. As the rhythm of my heart slowed, I took mental inventory of my body. Yes, it was fine.
Click.
5 o’clock.
I slid off my stool and paced across the room, disconcertedly. I shoved the heavy glass door open. The northern summer heat rushed in, slid around my body, like a liquid. I broke out into a run towards the comforting grey Honda.
2.The Great Escape
I look back on that first encounter with Saul quite often. I remember it was almost like he haunted me. I realized what I had become in that short time with him. I was a coward. I was too frightened to even address him like a human being. Too busy thinking about me, me, me.
It’s not like anyone plans to turn out that way, really. I never thought it would happen to me, that I would become such a coward. It’s strange, isn’t it? How many people say that; “I never thought it would happen to me”. Looking back on that part of my life, I can only shut my eyes and thank God that I somehow managed to not lose myself completely when X had broken up with me. I understood then, that the life I thought I had been living, was in fact, no life at all. It was like being something that I knew I wasn’t. In a sense, I was cheating life, and getting away with it. I was barely living, walking around half dead, and getting away with it.
I faced my greatest fear that summer, I met myself. At the time I was sitting on that stool, shaking in my boots, I didn’t know it, but I had definitely cut to the chase and found the raw Carrie Roberts. I realized I was nothing. I finally realized what people were seeing when they looked at me; Nothing. Poofy hair. Honor student. A shell. A carbon copy of the many generations that went before me, sliding through life without real meaning.
But mostly I realized this: the reason I appeared so lifeless was because I had no life. It’s that simple. Up until X, I had played the perfect part of a cookie-cutter daughter, doing exactly what my parents expected. I won awards, baked cakes, met curfew. My life was lived for them and their approval. When X and I started dating, I became what he wanted me to be. I completely immersed myself into becoming the “trophy wife” he dreamt of marrying. Pearls, poofy skirts, high heels, mascara, three course meals cooked for him on a Tuesday night-the whole nine yards.
The absence of him in my life had left me a shell of a woman with a love for cleaning and a great recipe for brownies. I had all of these things I knew how to do, but no one to do them for.
Who was I? After being a parent’s wet dream of a perfect child, I morphed into a Stepford wife. A Stepford wife who never got the ring, or the guy for that matter.
Up until that point my life had been one big charade. I had been living it for everyone else but me. Where had it gotten me? Alone in a room, without curtains, pondering why I was terrified of the color of a man’s skin.
I had to figure out who I was. I had to escape myself.
But my escape had already begun. I was already running. I had run harder and further than I ever thought I would be able to. Had my subconscious been telling me to run before my conscious had even figured it out? When I had begged my father to send me away, was it really me begging him to send me away from myself?
I did spend the remainder of my summer in Philadelphia. I fell in love in Philadelphia. That fall, I left my heart in Pennsylvania. I swore to myself I would one day return to live a beautiful life there. Everything about the North was lovely to me, and knowing that I would one day call it my home made it easier to leave, and return home to begin my freshman year at the University of Arkansas
Saturday, April 9, 2011
The Water Boy
“The Water Boy”
I am the kind of girl that won’t walk through a parking lot alone after eight at night because it is not safe. And yet, there I was, in my dirty pants and white tee shirt now stained brown and soaked through with sweat, chasing after Joseph Patty who was chasing after three Yora Indians.
There were 268 airports in Peru and only 54 were paved. Arriving by plane and sweating like we never had before, we unloaded and immediately reloaded our luggage and equipment into old Peruvian military vehicles that we were told to “hide” in the back of. When the driver saw me, he began laughing as he pulled a yellowed handkerchief from his front pocket. As he wiped beads of sweat from his dark forehead, he bragged about how he refused to take our team any further until I was sent home. The Amazon was “no place for the more gentle kind”, is what one of the boys, Joseph, translated to me. Ten minutes later, and 200 Nuevo Sol later (the equivalent of the dollar) there was a bumpy ride for several hours and we were dumped at the Amazon River. Loading small tipsy boats there with our supplies, and putting off for a tributary called the Panagua River was the distinct point that I thought we had dropped off the edge of the earth.
It is one year earlier. I am in West Philadelphia, an area that would have anyone look over his or her shoulders constantly. The Sproul Street traffic is humming to the rhythm of the fast paced Northern Life. Staring out the third floor window, judging the people that walk by below me, I thank God that I am not like them. A woman cries out for help from her husband who is clearly drunk as he walks out the front door of the government housing across the street. Sitting on a bench, another woman waits, rubbing her hands over the large swell of her pregnant belly. Judging again, I notice no wedding ring winking at me in the July sun. Watching this woman, I began wondering what she could be today had it not been for the man in her life three trimesters ago. It was in the summer of my junior year in high school that I decided no man would ever hold me back from being the woman I knew I could be.
It had been a good day because it did not rain as the weatherman had promised, breaking in and out with a fuzzy static voice on our small out dated paint splattered radio. Indeed, black clouds had covered the rising South American sun and an angry wind from the Andes coolly fussed with our tents as we tied our equipment down at the camp. We threw tarps over all the electronics and pulled our trashcans in as we dragged our potted plants out. The potted plants made our rudimentary camp seem a little more like home; it only seemed fair to share the coolness of the wet rain with them for all the comfort they brought. But, it did not rain as the weatherman had promised. So we pulled them back inside. Food was rice, always, or MRE’s that we had managed to finagle the military into donating to us. These “meals ready to eat” were not nearly as bad as the movies made them sound. If we were lucky, we were brought fruit from a local tribe, the Yora. They only brought us fruit on the days they felt we hadn’t brought a curse on them. We, Americans, were not taken kindly into their close circle. It was on the days that we hadn’t “cursed” them that we were allowed into the village to administer medical treatment; our soul purpose for living in Southeast Peru, sleeping on the ground and bathing under a waterfall for nine weeks. At times, days would go by without us being invited. But when we were invited, we could load our jeeps and be on our way, tearing through the lush greenery and steamy jungle floor in minutes.
I was frightened because I was the only female in the group of 9. Snakes were everywhere. You learn not to fear the common bumblebee in the playground once you watch a boy pull a long glistening snake out of your sleeping bag with a stick. I still contemplate whether I was more afraid of the boy or the snake. Pressure was on to always keep up with the boys. I had my ideas about how they thought of me. Then I decided to carry on conversations like the men did, careful not to go into detail about anything so my mind would not be considered feminine. I dressed like them most days, so as not to be looked at as a sexual object with shorter shorts and fitted shirts. Even then, I was still treated differently. A mysterious pail of water was brought to my tent to wash with every morning without my asking. I don’t expect the anonymous water boy will ever know how he and his pail impacted my life and my worldview. It was in that summer I realized no matter how loud or long I protested being treated like a “more gentle kind”, men would always bend to meet a woman’s needs. They had a natural desire to provide and protect, and I had a natural need to hide behind them when frightened. That summer, I realized men really were stronger and cut out for certain tasks that women are not. There I was; dressing, talking like a man, and silently demanding equality, when really my feminist ideals had gone down the toilet on the first day in the wild.
And there I was, chasing after Joseph Patty in my dirty pants and dirty white tee shirt soaked through with sweat. We ran with our heavy packs thumping against our backs. Had it not been for the male running in front of me, the male whose footprints I traced carefully through the damp forest soil, I would not have even made it past the airport. Recognizing that, wiping sweat from my brow, I was thankful. And that is how the summer of my senior year was spent. Following boys and learning that sometimes, a single pail of water is all a woman really needs or searches for in life.
I am the kind of girl that won’t walk through a parking lot alone after eight at night because it is not safe. And yet, there I was, in my dirty pants and white tee shirt now stained brown and soaked through with sweat, chasing after Joseph Patty who was chasing after three Yora Indians.
There were 268 airports in Peru and only 54 were paved. Arriving by plane and sweating like we never had before, we unloaded and immediately reloaded our luggage and equipment into old Peruvian military vehicles that we were told to “hide” in the back of. When the driver saw me, he began laughing as he pulled a yellowed handkerchief from his front pocket. As he wiped beads of sweat from his dark forehead, he bragged about how he refused to take our team any further until I was sent home. The Amazon was “no place for the more gentle kind”, is what one of the boys, Joseph, translated to me. Ten minutes later, and 200 Nuevo Sol later (the equivalent of the dollar) there was a bumpy ride for several hours and we were dumped at the Amazon River. Loading small tipsy boats there with our supplies, and putting off for a tributary called the Panagua River was the distinct point that I thought we had dropped off the edge of the earth.
It is one year earlier. I am in West Philadelphia, an area that would have anyone look over his or her shoulders constantly. The Sproul Street traffic is humming to the rhythm of the fast paced Northern Life. Staring out the third floor window, judging the people that walk by below me, I thank God that I am not like them. A woman cries out for help from her husband who is clearly drunk as he walks out the front door of the government housing across the street. Sitting on a bench, another woman waits, rubbing her hands over the large swell of her pregnant belly. Judging again, I notice no wedding ring winking at me in the July sun. Watching this woman, I began wondering what she could be today had it not been for the man in her life three trimesters ago. It was in the summer of my junior year in high school that I decided no man would ever hold me back from being the woman I knew I could be.
It had been a good day because it did not rain as the weatherman had promised, breaking in and out with a fuzzy static voice on our small out dated paint splattered radio. Indeed, black clouds had covered the rising South American sun and an angry wind from the Andes coolly fussed with our tents as we tied our equipment down at the camp. We threw tarps over all the electronics and pulled our trashcans in as we dragged our potted plants out. The potted plants made our rudimentary camp seem a little more like home; it only seemed fair to share the coolness of the wet rain with them for all the comfort they brought. But, it did not rain as the weatherman had promised. So we pulled them back inside. Food was rice, always, or MRE’s that we had managed to finagle the military into donating to us. These “meals ready to eat” were not nearly as bad as the movies made them sound. If we were lucky, we were brought fruit from a local tribe, the Yora. They only brought us fruit on the days they felt we hadn’t brought a curse on them. We, Americans, were not taken kindly into their close circle. It was on the days that we hadn’t “cursed” them that we were allowed into the village to administer medical treatment; our soul purpose for living in Southeast Peru, sleeping on the ground and bathing under a waterfall for nine weeks. At times, days would go by without us being invited. But when we were invited, we could load our jeeps and be on our way, tearing through the lush greenery and steamy jungle floor in minutes.
I was frightened because I was the only female in the group of 9. Snakes were everywhere. You learn not to fear the common bumblebee in the playground once you watch a boy pull a long glistening snake out of your sleeping bag with a stick. I still contemplate whether I was more afraid of the boy or the snake. Pressure was on to always keep up with the boys. I had my ideas about how they thought of me. Then I decided to carry on conversations like the men did, careful not to go into detail about anything so my mind would not be considered feminine. I dressed like them most days, so as not to be looked at as a sexual object with shorter shorts and fitted shirts. Even then, I was still treated differently. A mysterious pail of water was brought to my tent to wash with every morning without my asking. I don’t expect the anonymous water boy will ever know how he and his pail impacted my life and my worldview. It was in that summer I realized no matter how loud or long I protested being treated like a “more gentle kind”, men would always bend to meet a woman’s needs. They had a natural desire to provide and protect, and I had a natural need to hide behind them when frightened. That summer, I realized men really were stronger and cut out for certain tasks that women are not. There I was; dressing, talking like a man, and silently demanding equality, when really my feminist ideals had gone down the toilet on the first day in the wild.
And there I was, chasing after Joseph Patty in my dirty pants and dirty white tee shirt soaked through with sweat. We ran with our heavy packs thumping against our backs. Had it not been for the male running in front of me, the male whose footprints I traced carefully through the damp forest soil, I would not have even made it past the airport. Recognizing that, wiping sweat from my brow, I was thankful. And that is how the summer of my senior year was spent. Following boys and learning that sometimes, a single pail of water is all a woman really needs or searches for in life.
The Maroon T-shirt
The Maroon T-Shirt
“Nathan!” The curly headed boy I had been talking to turned around to see who had called his name. “Don’t talk to the help. They’re below us.”
Nathan looked at me, biting his lower lip he took a step back, “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”
I looked beyond Nathan to the man who had barked the order. David Pate. He is the associate director of the summer camp of my employment. He shook his head at me and rolled up his window. I listened to the gears shift in the elaborate piece of machinery that his big truck was as he sped off; throwing up a cloud of brown dust from the gravel he drove on. So there I was, alone again. Sitting at the lemonade stand waiting for the thirsty campers to get back from the fishing derby. I contemplated the fact that I had not been good enough for the camp director’s son to talk with. I was just the hired help. I pulled my pride up by the boot strings by thinking to myself, “Had he passed me on the street any other day, he wouldn’t even have the nerve to talk to me. I’m better than all of these people.” Yes, at the beginning of that summer, I certainly had pride issues.
And there I was, a month into the summer. My red shirt was now a deep shade of maroon and had been since 9 that morning when I had fished a screaming camper out of the lake. I cursed the humid Arkansas July weather that did not allow me to dry out. I cursed the lunch hour that had not allowed me to change the sticky shirt because I was sifting through a garbage dumpster, looking for a lost retainer. It was now two in the afternoon and I was down at the lake again life guarding and more bitter than ever. But I was smiling.
My job title was “the extra”. It was explained to me that I was to be the extra activity leader, extra lifeguard, and extra kitchen staff and so on. Four weeks into the summer I realized extra was code for vomit cleaner upper, and scapegoat. If something went undone or got broken, it was my fault. During the second session, three boys had sunk a speedboat in Big Lake. Naturally, it was my fault for not checking for holes or patching it. “I hope you realize we could be facing a lawsuit right now if anyone had gotten hurt,” the camp director, Steven, hovered over me as I filled the coolers up with ice. Yes, I learned a lot about responsibility that summer. I had swallowed my pride the first time my boss made me cry in front of the rest of the staff. Working at the camp was one big mind game. It was survival of the fittest. If you could come out in August from an entire summer on this Hot Springs ranch, you were guaranteed to be a better person.
The red t-shirt I had donned at 5 that morning stuck to my back as sweat rolled out of my hair and down my neck. The sun hung high overhead it beat down on our shoulders, it seemed to make everything heavier. We, the staff, were hired to be mentors, friends, and roll models for children ages 8-15. Come what may, we were paid to always have that Christian smile plastered on our faces. We smiled as horses bit our fingers while we bridled them for the campers to ride; we smiled as we knelt on our hands and knees, cleaning up vomit from the notorious nervous camper. We smiled really big when we pulled eight year olds out of the lake, kicking and screaming, not ready to get off of the bumper boats. We smiled as we walked the crying homesick camper down to the nurses station, and at the end of the day, when we were too tired to take a shower before we passed out on our bunk beds in our cabins, we smiled when our camper accidentally wet the bed. The quote goes, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” if there is any underlying theme for the summer of my junior year in high school, that would be it. Truthfully, I have never been more humiliated in a working environment. I was treated like the third class citizen I most certainly was not and I was given no privacy whatsoever. The director frequently pulled me aside for “talks”. These talks happened in the early evening where he, as a “caring boss”, filled me in on my shortcomings. According to him, I was quirky, didn’t have a lot to say and awkward. No one on the staff liked me and I would end up alone if I continued to constantly push people out. After several talks like that, you get a little bitter. Reflecting on it all, I call it worthwhile. I can say in full confidence I learned more that summer than I ever have in my life. I wouldn’t know it until later, but working at that camp taught me a lot about what children want and need to see in an older person. It taught me not to ever show panic or concern around children, it taught me that a smile and a little attention goes a very long way.
I could tell Cynthia and I were going to chase each other in circles from the first moment I saw her. This nine year old with short-cropped dark hair and big brown eyes stared right into me as she walked through my cabin’s door. I watched her size me up and inspect my clothes, she then stared past me to my bunk bed where she looked at the brand name of my comforter and peered through my plastic drawer set at my personal belongings. I greeted her and her parents accordingly and offered to help drag her trunk full of summer camp clothes out of the back of her parents Mercedes while they smothered her with kisses goodbye.
“It will be okay.” I remember her father assured her in a hushed tone just as I tumbled through the swinging screen door with her last backpack.
“Of coarse it will! We’re going to have the best week ever! I’m so excited that you’re here, Cynthia. You are going to have so much fun in my cabin,” I squatted down so that I was at her height. “Don’t tell anyone else, but this is the best cabin on girl’s hill.” I winked at her. Her parents left shortly and I dragged in about eight more trunks and bragged more about my cabin being the best one.
We, as counselors, had been trained how to work a child’s mind. When a child realizes someone is his or her primary caretaker for a week, they automatically invest trust into the relationship. The girls in my cabin would trust me by bedtime. Especially the younger ones. Telling them they were in the best cabin on the hill was practically factual information to them before they even slipped into their sleeping bags. By the next morning, they would believe it religiously and by lunch the next day, they would be so full of cabin pride, they would be chanting and cheering for us all day long.
There was one point in the week where Cynthia, who was moaning and groaning incessantly with all the pain of a constipated nine year old, was dragging me across an open field. “Uuuuugh! Must go! I gotta go!” She squealed. We ran through the tall grass towards the forbidden port-a-pot. As the “extra”, I could afford to be the one that takes the kids to the bathroom. “Restrooms are at the top of the hill for a reason.” I thought to myself. Bitterly. “The plumbing is up there.”
When Cynthia swung open the door to the little blue box, a spider “lunged” at her and she refused to go in alone. Yes, I was forced to climb in the little port-a-pot with her. Once in, she refused to sit on the seat, fearful that spiders would crawl out of the hole and bite her. Once again, I was forced to act as a brace for her to cling to as she squatted over the stinky hole.
I was right, Cynthia and I did chase each other in circles all week. Despite the port-a-pot incident, she was loud. She wouldn’t sleep during naptime, she wouldn’t go to bed when the lights were turned out, she wouldn’t shower when everyone else did, she made my life miserable. Even so, I smiled at her, tucked her in and said bedtime prayers with her every night. Every morning I woke her up and she got a hug on the way down to breakfast. I asked her about her activities during the day and if she had made any new friends. Oh how I loathed that child. But I smiled. Always smiled. On Saturday, the very last day, I thought she had left without saying goodbye. Good riddens. Just as I thought that, I turned around and there she was. She stood there staring at me for the longest awkward minute. Then she hugged me and told me I was her hero. I asked her why she would say that, her response: “Because you noticed me, even when I wasn’t loud.”
We spend our entire lives on a mission to teach children things. When really, they’re the ones teaching us. Every encounter I have with a child changes me just a little. I struggle constantly to see the world as they do.
*
It was the kind of Philadelphia summer day that makes you wonder if the City of Brotherly Love is worth the sweat beads that instantly form on your upper lip and forehead upon exiting your cool home. I compare the feeling to that of opening an oven and being blasted by a puff of hot air. It was the kind of awkward moment that you, as an adult, know is awkward, yet you’re thankful that the child that it’s awkward with wasn’t old enough to be embarrassed, too. I had told Braheem he should take the coaster we just made out of popsicle sticks home to his dad. He replied simply, “I don’t got a dad. He locked up.” He shrugged it off, smiled and started gluing popsicle sticks to one another. “Imma invent something dats gon make me rich.” I was still translating the first sentence …I don’t have a father, he’s in jail…and now, I’m going to invent something that’s going to make me rich. What do you say to that? Braheem was 7, black and poor. At least that’s what his profile said. I did not choose to come here. I was brought in to work with the children in this West Chester homeless mission outreach. It was definitely different from anything I had ever experienced before. I was used to working with spoiled doctor’s children who sank speedboats and wore Lacoste and Ralph Lauren to play in the dirt. These children were completely different; nothing could have braced me for the change in culture I experienced with them. There were regular fights between the children, they cursed like sailors and openly took out anger on any readily available source. Then there was Braheem. Braheem had it harder than most of the other children for several reasons. Out of all the children, Braheem was the best behaved. At night, when I had commuted back to my safe suburb of Media, I would lie in bed and ponder on Braheem. Why was he different? Why did his eyes beam joy and love despite his harsh upbringing? I watched him. There he was, his black fingers were coated in white glue, his mind was working away, turning a new idea for his popsicle invention over and over in his head. He was incredibly bright for a child of his age. He noticed things the other children didn’t notice. I remember thinking to myself that this boy, if given the chance, had a future. He had a chance to get off the streets and break the homeless cycle on his family.
That was the summer I realized there is nothing a parent or a mentor can do to make a child choose a correct path. I believed in Braheem, I knew he was smart. I knew he could go to college. I also knew I was the only one that took the time to look into his eyes and see more than another hoodlum in the making. Braheem, raised in those conditions would one day come to some sort of crossroads. Which way he would go was up to him. This made me sad. A child’s freewill will get you every time.
*
I had never held an infant before that moment. I had always been too appalled by them. I saw right past their chubby cheeks and spit bubbles and burps that made all the other girls make stupid noises at them. I saw how they monopolized a mother’s life, I saw how they ruined sexy in a woman and I was not interested. And yet, there I was, holding one. I had refused to look him in the eye for the first ten minutes, but something called my attention to them. They were the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen and they were staring right at my furrowed brow and me. The four month old knew how I felt. I could tell. His parents swore keeping a baby was the same as keeping any child, and they promised they had written everything down that I would ever need to know. And just like that, they were out the door for a long night on Dickson and I was alone with it.
They knew I had no experience, yet they hired me anyhow. “We hear great things, we know you’ll get a handle with Alex in no time. Besides, everything is written down.” My arm was soar now from holding the plump curly boy as I peered over the kitchen counter at on sheet of paper covered in blue Sharpie notes. My survival guide.
Twenty minutes later those blue eyes were flooded with tears and those plump cheeks were an angry shade of red. He screamed louder than I had ever heard a baby scream before, but looking back I figure that’s just because I had never actually had one in my arms while it was screaming before. I consulted my survival guide. The sheet of paper said nothing about how to stop crying. I thought back to movies and cartoons where they have the crier a bottle. Yes, there were directions for his bottle on it. I sat him down in his Exersaucer and went at it. The Excersaucer was an amazing contraption to me. It was the kind of thing that I never had when I was little because stimulating a child’s mind with mirrors, buttons and activities that taught the alphabet and colors was not high on anybody’s priority yet and that made me feel old. “Sexy is leaving already!” I announced over his screams as I slid back and for the through the huge kitchen, dumping in scoops of rice cereal and formula, warming water-too complicated.
He snuggled in my arms, noisily sucking away at his bottle, staring at me as if to say, “Duh you idiot, of coarse I was hungry!” And I stared back, embarrassed by the fact that I was a 21 year old female that didn’t know how to assemble a bottle. The kitchen looked like I had been making anthrax in it, a small explosion by the sink and microwave. My jeans had white stains all over them and my black t-shirt had powder all over it from the formula. Somewhere in the anthrax explosion I had lost my long necklaces and bracelets, but the little boy had stopped crying. He seemed to melt in my arms. His eyes got heavy and he was falling asleep. Was that normal?
By the time Alex’s parents noisily stumbled through the door, he was asleep. I had hid all evidence of anthrax and managed to do their dishes and fold laundry, too. They paid a wonderful handling fee and I was out the door and in my car speeding away in no time.
As I drove, I reflected on the night. I came to the conclusion that I was the one who should have been paying by the hour for the night. Granted, I didn’t understand everything about small children. But I certainly wouldn’t look at them like a disease ever again.
*
The eight-year old boy that lives below me in my apartment complex is in the army. I know this, because early in the morning he exits his parent’s two-bedroom studio and looks around with big brown eyes, soaking in his field for the day. With his hands crossed behind his back he stands quietly in his red and white striped shirt, stained with Fun Dip and Kool-Aid and watches. When he is positive he is under the cover of secrecy, he breaks into a run towards the stairs. He grabs the railing and swings himself up onto the brick divider between the stairs and the sidewalk and begins to bark orders in a hushed voice while climbing up the side of the railing. He carries on by dropping back down about 5 feet and starting all over again. Occasionally, dangling from the bars and sprawling about heroically, he will shout out something along the lines of, “Move! Move! Move!” It’s then that he drops to the ground in a roll and combat crawls behind the hedges and spies on the sleepy morning dog walkers and cars passing by with dewy windows. He holds his hand to his mouth, clicks his tongue and makes hissing noises to simulate the radio he is transmitting information back to the main base in, only pausing to drop the imaginary radio and pick up his stick-gun that he strategically hid there the day before. He aims it at a passing “tank” and makes the perfect machine gun “tht-tht-tht-tht” towards the unsuspecting vehicle.
I take another sip of my strong coffee and cock my head in amazement. Little boys seem to have a built in noise maker that little girls do not have- I know I could never replicate the sounds of war coming from his mouth.
I realize I am one of few adults that would rather watch a boy play army than watch television. I am grateful that I can look upon children without disgust. They are not ankle biters or curtain climbers to me. They are the future. They are a blank slate walking around, waiting, watching for someone to imitate. Some are loud, openly crying out for attention. Others are angry, hiding their need to be noticed. Others just stare at you, expecting to be loved. Whatever their approach may be, they will always assume it in one way or another. The mind of the child has always fascinated me.
I’ve worked with children for as long as I can remember. I’ve watched the rich children play on go-carts and jet skis and I’ve watched the poor play in the streets with marbles and jump ropes. There are so many different ways to raise a child, so many different ways to shape their personalities and beliefs but one thing always turns out the same in each child; their extreme need to be loved and noticed.
“Nathan!” The curly headed boy I had been talking to turned around to see who had called his name. “Don’t talk to the help. They’re below us.”
Nathan looked at me, biting his lower lip he took a step back, “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”
I looked beyond Nathan to the man who had barked the order. David Pate. He is the associate director of the summer camp of my employment. He shook his head at me and rolled up his window. I listened to the gears shift in the elaborate piece of machinery that his big truck was as he sped off; throwing up a cloud of brown dust from the gravel he drove on. So there I was, alone again. Sitting at the lemonade stand waiting for the thirsty campers to get back from the fishing derby. I contemplated the fact that I had not been good enough for the camp director’s son to talk with. I was just the hired help. I pulled my pride up by the boot strings by thinking to myself, “Had he passed me on the street any other day, he wouldn’t even have the nerve to talk to me. I’m better than all of these people.” Yes, at the beginning of that summer, I certainly had pride issues.
And there I was, a month into the summer. My red shirt was now a deep shade of maroon and had been since 9 that morning when I had fished a screaming camper out of the lake. I cursed the humid Arkansas July weather that did not allow me to dry out. I cursed the lunch hour that had not allowed me to change the sticky shirt because I was sifting through a garbage dumpster, looking for a lost retainer. It was now two in the afternoon and I was down at the lake again life guarding and more bitter than ever. But I was smiling.
My job title was “the extra”. It was explained to me that I was to be the extra activity leader, extra lifeguard, and extra kitchen staff and so on. Four weeks into the summer I realized extra was code for vomit cleaner upper, and scapegoat. If something went undone or got broken, it was my fault. During the second session, three boys had sunk a speedboat in Big Lake. Naturally, it was my fault for not checking for holes or patching it. “I hope you realize we could be facing a lawsuit right now if anyone had gotten hurt,” the camp director, Steven, hovered over me as I filled the coolers up with ice. Yes, I learned a lot about responsibility that summer. I had swallowed my pride the first time my boss made me cry in front of the rest of the staff. Working at the camp was one big mind game. It was survival of the fittest. If you could come out in August from an entire summer on this Hot Springs ranch, you were guaranteed to be a better person.
The red t-shirt I had donned at 5 that morning stuck to my back as sweat rolled out of my hair and down my neck. The sun hung high overhead it beat down on our shoulders, it seemed to make everything heavier. We, the staff, were hired to be mentors, friends, and roll models for children ages 8-15. Come what may, we were paid to always have that Christian smile plastered on our faces. We smiled as horses bit our fingers while we bridled them for the campers to ride; we smiled as we knelt on our hands and knees, cleaning up vomit from the notorious nervous camper. We smiled really big when we pulled eight year olds out of the lake, kicking and screaming, not ready to get off of the bumper boats. We smiled as we walked the crying homesick camper down to the nurses station, and at the end of the day, when we were too tired to take a shower before we passed out on our bunk beds in our cabins, we smiled when our camper accidentally wet the bed. The quote goes, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” if there is any underlying theme for the summer of my junior year in high school, that would be it. Truthfully, I have never been more humiliated in a working environment. I was treated like the third class citizen I most certainly was not and I was given no privacy whatsoever. The director frequently pulled me aside for “talks”. These talks happened in the early evening where he, as a “caring boss”, filled me in on my shortcomings. According to him, I was quirky, didn’t have a lot to say and awkward. No one on the staff liked me and I would end up alone if I continued to constantly push people out. After several talks like that, you get a little bitter. Reflecting on it all, I call it worthwhile. I can say in full confidence I learned more that summer than I ever have in my life. I wouldn’t know it until later, but working at that camp taught me a lot about what children want and need to see in an older person. It taught me not to ever show panic or concern around children, it taught me that a smile and a little attention goes a very long way.
I could tell Cynthia and I were going to chase each other in circles from the first moment I saw her. This nine year old with short-cropped dark hair and big brown eyes stared right into me as she walked through my cabin’s door. I watched her size me up and inspect my clothes, she then stared past me to my bunk bed where she looked at the brand name of my comforter and peered through my plastic drawer set at my personal belongings. I greeted her and her parents accordingly and offered to help drag her trunk full of summer camp clothes out of the back of her parents Mercedes while they smothered her with kisses goodbye.
“It will be okay.” I remember her father assured her in a hushed tone just as I tumbled through the swinging screen door with her last backpack.
“Of coarse it will! We’re going to have the best week ever! I’m so excited that you’re here, Cynthia. You are going to have so much fun in my cabin,” I squatted down so that I was at her height. “Don’t tell anyone else, but this is the best cabin on girl’s hill.” I winked at her. Her parents left shortly and I dragged in about eight more trunks and bragged more about my cabin being the best one.
We, as counselors, had been trained how to work a child’s mind. When a child realizes someone is his or her primary caretaker for a week, they automatically invest trust into the relationship. The girls in my cabin would trust me by bedtime. Especially the younger ones. Telling them they were in the best cabin on the hill was practically factual information to them before they even slipped into their sleeping bags. By the next morning, they would believe it religiously and by lunch the next day, they would be so full of cabin pride, they would be chanting and cheering for us all day long.
There was one point in the week where Cynthia, who was moaning and groaning incessantly with all the pain of a constipated nine year old, was dragging me across an open field. “Uuuuugh! Must go! I gotta go!” She squealed. We ran through the tall grass towards the forbidden port-a-pot. As the “extra”, I could afford to be the one that takes the kids to the bathroom. “Restrooms are at the top of the hill for a reason.” I thought to myself. Bitterly. “The plumbing is up there.”
When Cynthia swung open the door to the little blue box, a spider “lunged” at her and she refused to go in alone. Yes, I was forced to climb in the little port-a-pot with her. Once in, she refused to sit on the seat, fearful that spiders would crawl out of the hole and bite her. Once again, I was forced to act as a brace for her to cling to as she squatted over the stinky hole.
I was right, Cynthia and I did chase each other in circles all week. Despite the port-a-pot incident, she was loud. She wouldn’t sleep during naptime, she wouldn’t go to bed when the lights were turned out, she wouldn’t shower when everyone else did, she made my life miserable. Even so, I smiled at her, tucked her in and said bedtime prayers with her every night. Every morning I woke her up and she got a hug on the way down to breakfast. I asked her about her activities during the day and if she had made any new friends. Oh how I loathed that child. But I smiled. Always smiled. On Saturday, the very last day, I thought she had left without saying goodbye. Good riddens. Just as I thought that, I turned around and there she was. She stood there staring at me for the longest awkward minute. Then she hugged me and told me I was her hero. I asked her why she would say that, her response: “Because you noticed me, even when I wasn’t loud.”
We spend our entire lives on a mission to teach children things. When really, they’re the ones teaching us. Every encounter I have with a child changes me just a little. I struggle constantly to see the world as they do.
*
It was the kind of Philadelphia summer day that makes you wonder if the City of Brotherly Love is worth the sweat beads that instantly form on your upper lip and forehead upon exiting your cool home. I compare the feeling to that of opening an oven and being blasted by a puff of hot air. It was the kind of awkward moment that you, as an adult, know is awkward, yet you’re thankful that the child that it’s awkward with wasn’t old enough to be embarrassed, too. I had told Braheem he should take the coaster we just made out of popsicle sticks home to his dad. He replied simply, “I don’t got a dad. He locked up.” He shrugged it off, smiled and started gluing popsicle sticks to one another. “Imma invent something dats gon make me rich.” I was still translating the first sentence …I don’t have a father, he’s in jail…and now, I’m going to invent something that’s going to make me rich. What do you say to that? Braheem was 7, black and poor. At least that’s what his profile said. I did not choose to come here. I was brought in to work with the children in this West Chester homeless mission outreach. It was definitely different from anything I had ever experienced before. I was used to working with spoiled doctor’s children who sank speedboats and wore Lacoste and Ralph Lauren to play in the dirt. These children were completely different; nothing could have braced me for the change in culture I experienced with them. There were regular fights between the children, they cursed like sailors and openly took out anger on any readily available source. Then there was Braheem. Braheem had it harder than most of the other children for several reasons. Out of all the children, Braheem was the best behaved. At night, when I had commuted back to my safe suburb of Media, I would lie in bed and ponder on Braheem. Why was he different? Why did his eyes beam joy and love despite his harsh upbringing? I watched him. There he was, his black fingers were coated in white glue, his mind was working away, turning a new idea for his popsicle invention over and over in his head. He was incredibly bright for a child of his age. He noticed things the other children didn’t notice. I remember thinking to myself that this boy, if given the chance, had a future. He had a chance to get off the streets and break the homeless cycle on his family.
That was the summer I realized there is nothing a parent or a mentor can do to make a child choose a correct path. I believed in Braheem, I knew he was smart. I knew he could go to college. I also knew I was the only one that took the time to look into his eyes and see more than another hoodlum in the making. Braheem, raised in those conditions would one day come to some sort of crossroads. Which way he would go was up to him. This made me sad. A child’s freewill will get you every time.
*
I had never held an infant before that moment. I had always been too appalled by them. I saw right past their chubby cheeks and spit bubbles and burps that made all the other girls make stupid noises at them. I saw how they monopolized a mother’s life, I saw how they ruined sexy in a woman and I was not interested. And yet, there I was, holding one. I had refused to look him in the eye for the first ten minutes, but something called my attention to them. They were the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen and they were staring right at my furrowed brow and me. The four month old knew how I felt. I could tell. His parents swore keeping a baby was the same as keeping any child, and they promised they had written everything down that I would ever need to know. And just like that, they were out the door for a long night on Dickson and I was alone with it.
They knew I had no experience, yet they hired me anyhow. “We hear great things, we know you’ll get a handle with Alex in no time. Besides, everything is written down.” My arm was soar now from holding the plump curly boy as I peered over the kitchen counter at on sheet of paper covered in blue Sharpie notes. My survival guide.
Twenty minutes later those blue eyes were flooded with tears and those plump cheeks were an angry shade of red. He screamed louder than I had ever heard a baby scream before, but looking back I figure that’s just because I had never actually had one in my arms while it was screaming before. I consulted my survival guide. The sheet of paper said nothing about how to stop crying. I thought back to movies and cartoons where they have the crier a bottle. Yes, there were directions for his bottle on it. I sat him down in his Exersaucer and went at it. The Excersaucer was an amazing contraption to me. It was the kind of thing that I never had when I was little because stimulating a child’s mind with mirrors, buttons and activities that taught the alphabet and colors was not high on anybody’s priority yet and that made me feel old. “Sexy is leaving already!” I announced over his screams as I slid back and for the through the huge kitchen, dumping in scoops of rice cereal and formula, warming water-too complicated.
He snuggled in my arms, noisily sucking away at his bottle, staring at me as if to say, “Duh you idiot, of coarse I was hungry!” And I stared back, embarrassed by the fact that I was a 21 year old female that didn’t know how to assemble a bottle. The kitchen looked like I had been making anthrax in it, a small explosion by the sink and microwave. My jeans had white stains all over them and my black t-shirt had powder all over it from the formula. Somewhere in the anthrax explosion I had lost my long necklaces and bracelets, but the little boy had stopped crying. He seemed to melt in my arms. His eyes got heavy and he was falling asleep. Was that normal?
By the time Alex’s parents noisily stumbled through the door, he was asleep. I had hid all evidence of anthrax and managed to do their dishes and fold laundry, too. They paid a wonderful handling fee and I was out the door and in my car speeding away in no time.
As I drove, I reflected on the night. I came to the conclusion that I was the one who should have been paying by the hour for the night. Granted, I didn’t understand everything about small children. But I certainly wouldn’t look at them like a disease ever again.
*
The eight-year old boy that lives below me in my apartment complex is in the army. I know this, because early in the morning he exits his parent’s two-bedroom studio and looks around with big brown eyes, soaking in his field for the day. With his hands crossed behind his back he stands quietly in his red and white striped shirt, stained with Fun Dip and Kool-Aid and watches. When he is positive he is under the cover of secrecy, he breaks into a run towards the stairs. He grabs the railing and swings himself up onto the brick divider between the stairs and the sidewalk and begins to bark orders in a hushed voice while climbing up the side of the railing. He carries on by dropping back down about 5 feet and starting all over again. Occasionally, dangling from the bars and sprawling about heroically, he will shout out something along the lines of, “Move! Move! Move!” It’s then that he drops to the ground in a roll and combat crawls behind the hedges and spies on the sleepy morning dog walkers and cars passing by with dewy windows. He holds his hand to his mouth, clicks his tongue and makes hissing noises to simulate the radio he is transmitting information back to the main base in, only pausing to drop the imaginary radio and pick up his stick-gun that he strategically hid there the day before. He aims it at a passing “tank” and makes the perfect machine gun “tht-tht-tht-tht” towards the unsuspecting vehicle.
I take another sip of my strong coffee and cock my head in amazement. Little boys seem to have a built in noise maker that little girls do not have- I know I could never replicate the sounds of war coming from his mouth.
I realize I am one of few adults that would rather watch a boy play army than watch television. I am grateful that I can look upon children without disgust. They are not ankle biters or curtain climbers to me. They are the future. They are a blank slate walking around, waiting, watching for someone to imitate. Some are loud, openly crying out for attention. Others are angry, hiding their need to be noticed. Others just stare at you, expecting to be loved. Whatever their approach may be, they will always assume it in one way or another. The mind of the child has always fascinated me.
I’ve worked with children for as long as I can remember. I’ve watched the rich children play on go-carts and jet skis and I’ve watched the poor play in the streets with marbles and jump ropes. There are so many different ways to raise a child, so many different ways to shape their personalities and beliefs but one thing always turns out the same in each child; their extreme need to be loved and noticed.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Ghost Town
It’s a small venue off of one of our main streets in town called Nettleton. The long stretch of street is flanked by quant stores and shopping areas. There is a bookstore, a toddler’s clothes store and a map store. There’s even a retro shop where the remaining hippies in this yuppie town gather and sell their goods that they have built, sewn or painted. During the day the street of Nettleton is a busy place. People bustle back and forth shopping, laughing, slamming car doors and ringing doorbells as they enter the shops. Every store has come to life in the strip with the exception of one; it is nestled in between the map store and a candle shop. It sits with white walls and a naked cement floor, sleepily winding the day away. The windows are empty. Compared to the surrounding stores, it gives the building the illusion of having an eye gouged out. One article of decoration graces its door. Instinctively my eyes pass over the small old English lettering. The white coloring of the letters contrast against the shadows that lurk inside. I read it and take it in with a grain of salt and go about my day.
When the sun slips down behind the flat horizon of the Arkansas farmland, and the moon comes up, the street of Nettleton sings a different song. The stores that were once lit up with the hustle of the day now sleep silently, all still except for one. The familiar white walls are lit with dim lights and candles with dancing flames that cause shadows to chase each other restlessly on the ceiling.
A strange buzz of excitement fills the air in and around the area as I step out of my car in the dark parking lot. I’ve parked down by the hippy store in hopes that I can just slip in the back unnoticed. I toss my Burberry scarf over my shoulder as my breath turns to fog. I am immediately recognized and noticed, and I realize to my dismay that invisible is the last thing I’ll be tonight. I ease in and they part, making way for me, acting like they don’t want to touch me. I’m ashamed to find myself relieved that my showing up here appalls them. I have come here tonight to watch an old friend’s band play. I was not here for anyone else than him and his band. I glance around at the crowd they have drawn, soaking in every detail.
They are all looking at me now. They give me the kind of looks that I associate with contempt and disdain. They look at me like they feel sorry for me. By nature my head drops down and I stare at my feet as I consider leaving. I’m wearing my favorite pair of shoes, black Nine West pumps but oh how I hate them right now. I can almost feel my feet burning though them, wishing I didn’t wear them. I swallow my intimidation and look back up. I find the same expression on some of their faces, but the majority of them have turned away, already bored of the thought of me. When I think no one is looking, I quietly make my way closer to the stage by edging up against the wall.
The room is packed shoulder to shoulder with the mixed group of people. They’re anywhere from 14 years old to their later 20s. They seem to churn and boil against each other with their own agendas as they move to and fro. The air is hot and stuffy like it has been breathed too many times and the sweet mixture of wine and sweat intertwined with cigarette smoke hangs in the air, with the occasional gust of cheap perfume floating by, as well.
So I stand against the wall and watch. Their black clothes don’t fit them. Either they drape to the floor in ropey frays or they hug their white hips too tight. T-shirts pop up over midriffs revealing bright tattoos of mushrooms, butterflies, cartoon characters or the ever so popular Celtic cross. The girls look aged beyond their years with black eye shadow and inky dark dyed hair. I see blue lipstick and purple hair. Boys wear spike on their wrists and things that resemble dog colors around the necks. Fingernails are painted black and almost every boy and girl has a big black X drawn on the backsides of their hands. They wear four or five inches worth of bracelets on each arm and chains hang around their necks. Some wear more than others. I wondered if this was a status thing.
They had piercings. Lots of them. Everywhere. The boys wore earrings that purposely split open the lobes of their ears. Belly button rings were shown off with cut off shirts. Spikes protruded through chins and bars stuck out of eyebrows and lips. I give my pearls a gentle tug. What was I thinking coming here? I noted their skin was so fair, as if they never saw the light of day. I found myself somehow hoping that in the mix of things, perhaps my fake tan would not show up under the candlelight. Or my pearls.
Their arms hung lifelessly at their sides under slouched backbones. I straightened my back even more as if it would somehow magically make them want to correct their posture as well. It didn’t work. I edge up against the wall even more trying to stay out of everyone’s way.
They all look the same to me but I understand this is the way they choose to state their independence. They want so badly to stand out as individuals, so they express it by wearing black and coloring their eyes black with eyeliner. I found it intriguing.
There was one girl I noticed in particular. Perhaps it was because she was taller than the others. She had a long slender figure and beautiful hands with long fingers. She wore the black clothes well. She wore them with her chin up and a smile on her face. Her auburn hair tumbled down her back in curls and her dark green eyes shown in the candlelight like emeralds. She moved gracefully in a dignified manner. She wore her jewelry like the other girls did, thick and black except for one Care Bear slap bracelet she wore on her right wrist. Bright and pink. The black clothes didn’t do it justice. I hadn’t realized I was studying her until our eyes met and her smile faded into curious pursing of her lips. My eyes assume their nervous position of starring at my shoes.
As if on cue, the lights dim almost like a last call for smokers to stop mingling in the night air and push into the small room. I slowly pull my colorful scarf off of my neck and stuff it into my purse, as if that will make me fit in better. Simultaneously, the black lights are turned on. The walls that were once so white hours ago are now illuminated in colorful graffiti. Invisible to the naked eye, under the black light, neon blues yellows pinks and reds emerge from the wall. They form words with detailed curls and sharp edges. They were sad words: destruction, ruin, devastation. Carefully sketched creatures appear, some have glowing bulblike eyes, others peered through paranoid slits. Individual scales have been carefully drawn and colored with different glow pens. Demons lurked in corners, curling their talons around scribbled poetry that went on for yards at a time. Gargoyles were perched above the door with hands outreached as if they were collecting the people walking in. On the wall opposite from the three-foot pentagram a detailed crucifix was drawn. Individual colors brought out blood sweat and tears on Jesus’ chest, then pooled more towards the floor in an ocean with even more monsters swimming around in neon hues.
The rumble of the first bass strums scare me-I had been so enthralled in the wall art that I hadn’t noticed the band come on stage. The drummer does a count off by whacking his sticks together and the music begins. I feel my lungs vibrating inside my chest with the different sways of the bass and angry beats of the drums.
The audience has gone wild. They are screaming and have begun dancing to keep rhythm with the music. The room is now phenomenally crowded and they pulsate in one steady movement like a whole. A few of them form a circle in the center of the room that reminds me of a wigwam and they begin something that has the same ring as an ancient African tribal dance: one person stands in the center and the others begin circling him as he flails his arms and legs about in no particular form or fashion. Another person will push into the center of the circle and throw the first dancer out and so on. As time progressed the ones that made up the circle began dancing-tossing their heads to and fro, shoving each other around.
I am fine standing in my corner watching them. Then without warning one of them trips out of the dancing circle and swings into me. I fall to the floor before I even know what hit me. My breath is knocked out of my chest and now I am frightened. The boy who hit me lies next to me. He snarls and stands up, dusting himself off and walks away without offering to help me up. I pick myself up and the tall girl stares at me as I smooth my hair down and tuck it behind my ears.
Yes they all looked at me now. They looked at me the way I looked at them: unable to understand why I would choose to live the way I do. I represented everything they hated about society. The SUV, the RAZR phone, the gaudy rings and designer bag. Heaven forbid my high heels. I was on their territory and I realized I hadn’t come in with enough respect for it. I had simply waltzed in like I always do. It was time to go.
I turned on my heel for the door. It was so crowded. I felt rude pushing my way out but I didn’t care. It’s hot now. Beads of sweat form on my forehead and I still push for the door. I remember a time when I was little. I had dove into a dark lake and I was on my way back up. I could see the sun wobbling on the surface of the water, I was clawing my way up for air and for that one second I thought I would drown-but with one more pull of my arms and with all that was in me, I surfaced. My sweaty palm slapped against the cold glass of the door, immediately forming a fog. My eyes are drawn once more to the old English words that are now just inches from my palm: Ghost Town.
I push the door open and emerge into the cool night air. Clean. They were what they chose to be. I found the title of the venue quite fitting. Ghost Town. They were something I knew I was too afraid to ever try to understand.
When the sun slips down behind the flat horizon of the Arkansas farmland, and the moon comes up, the street of Nettleton sings a different song. The stores that were once lit up with the hustle of the day now sleep silently, all still except for one. The familiar white walls are lit with dim lights and candles with dancing flames that cause shadows to chase each other restlessly on the ceiling.
A strange buzz of excitement fills the air in and around the area as I step out of my car in the dark parking lot. I’ve parked down by the hippy store in hopes that I can just slip in the back unnoticed. I toss my Burberry scarf over my shoulder as my breath turns to fog. I am immediately recognized and noticed, and I realize to my dismay that invisible is the last thing I’ll be tonight. I ease in and they part, making way for me, acting like they don’t want to touch me. I’m ashamed to find myself relieved that my showing up here appalls them. I have come here tonight to watch an old friend’s band play. I was not here for anyone else than him and his band. I glance around at the crowd they have drawn, soaking in every detail.
They are all looking at me now. They give me the kind of looks that I associate with contempt and disdain. They look at me like they feel sorry for me. By nature my head drops down and I stare at my feet as I consider leaving. I’m wearing my favorite pair of shoes, black Nine West pumps but oh how I hate them right now. I can almost feel my feet burning though them, wishing I didn’t wear them. I swallow my intimidation and look back up. I find the same expression on some of their faces, but the majority of them have turned away, already bored of the thought of me. When I think no one is looking, I quietly make my way closer to the stage by edging up against the wall.
The room is packed shoulder to shoulder with the mixed group of people. They’re anywhere from 14 years old to their later 20s. They seem to churn and boil against each other with their own agendas as they move to and fro. The air is hot and stuffy like it has been breathed too many times and the sweet mixture of wine and sweat intertwined with cigarette smoke hangs in the air, with the occasional gust of cheap perfume floating by, as well.
So I stand against the wall and watch. Their black clothes don’t fit them. Either they drape to the floor in ropey frays or they hug their white hips too tight. T-shirts pop up over midriffs revealing bright tattoos of mushrooms, butterflies, cartoon characters or the ever so popular Celtic cross. The girls look aged beyond their years with black eye shadow and inky dark dyed hair. I see blue lipstick and purple hair. Boys wear spike on their wrists and things that resemble dog colors around the necks. Fingernails are painted black and almost every boy and girl has a big black X drawn on the backsides of their hands. They wear four or five inches worth of bracelets on each arm and chains hang around their necks. Some wear more than others. I wondered if this was a status thing.
They had piercings. Lots of them. Everywhere. The boys wore earrings that purposely split open the lobes of their ears. Belly button rings were shown off with cut off shirts. Spikes protruded through chins and bars stuck out of eyebrows and lips. I give my pearls a gentle tug. What was I thinking coming here? I noted their skin was so fair, as if they never saw the light of day. I found myself somehow hoping that in the mix of things, perhaps my fake tan would not show up under the candlelight. Or my pearls.
Their arms hung lifelessly at their sides under slouched backbones. I straightened my back even more as if it would somehow magically make them want to correct their posture as well. It didn’t work. I edge up against the wall even more trying to stay out of everyone’s way.
They all look the same to me but I understand this is the way they choose to state their independence. They want so badly to stand out as individuals, so they express it by wearing black and coloring their eyes black with eyeliner. I found it intriguing.
There was one girl I noticed in particular. Perhaps it was because she was taller than the others. She had a long slender figure and beautiful hands with long fingers. She wore the black clothes well. She wore them with her chin up and a smile on her face. Her auburn hair tumbled down her back in curls and her dark green eyes shown in the candlelight like emeralds. She moved gracefully in a dignified manner. She wore her jewelry like the other girls did, thick and black except for one Care Bear slap bracelet she wore on her right wrist. Bright and pink. The black clothes didn’t do it justice. I hadn’t realized I was studying her until our eyes met and her smile faded into curious pursing of her lips. My eyes assume their nervous position of starring at my shoes.
As if on cue, the lights dim almost like a last call for smokers to stop mingling in the night air and push into the small room. I slowly pull my colorful scarf off of my neck and stuff it into my purse, as if that will make me fit in better. Simultaneously, the black lights are turned on. The walls that were once so white hours ago are now illuminated in colorful graffiti. Invisible to the naked eye, under the black light, neon blues yellows pinks and reds emerge from the wall. They form words with detailed curls and sharp edges. They were sad words: destruction, ruin, devastation. Carefully sketched creatures appear, some have glowing bulblike eyes, others peered through paranoid slits. Individual scales have been carefully drawn and colored with different glow pens. Demons lurked in corners, curling their talons around scribbled poetry that went on for yards at a time. Gargoyles were perched above the door with hands outreached as if they were collecting the people walking in. On the wall opposite from the three-foot pentagram a detailed crucifix was drawn. Individual colors brought out blood sweat and tears on Jesus’ chest, then pooled more towards the floor in an ocean with even more monsters swimming around in neon hues.
The rumble of the first bass strums scare me-I had been so enthralled in the wall art that I hadn’t noticed the band come on stage. The drummer does a count off by whacking his sticks together and the music begins. I feel my lungs vibrating inside my chest with the different sways of the bass and angry beats of the drums.
The audience has gone wild. They are screaming and have begun dancing to keep rhythm with the music. The room is now phenomenally crowded and they pulsate in one steady movement like a whole. A few of them form a circle in the center of the room that reminds me of a wigwam and they begin something that has the same ring as an ancient African tribal dance: one person stands in the center and the others begin circling him as he flails his arms and legs about in no particular form or fashion. Another person will push into the center of the circle and throw the first dancer out and so on. As time progressed the ones that made up the circle began dancing-tossing their heads to and fro, shoving each other around.
I am fine standing in my corner watching them. Then without warning one of them trips out of the dancing circle and swings into me. I fall to the floor before I even know what hit me. My breath is knocked out of my chest and now I am frightened. The boy who hit me lies next to me. He snarls and stands up, dusting himself off and walks away without offering to help me up. I pick myself up and the tall girl stares at me as I smooth my hair down and tuck it behind my ears.
Yes they all looked at me now. They looked at me the way I looked at them: unable to understand why I would choose to live the way I do. I represented everything they hated about society. The SUV, the RAZR phone, the gaudy rings and designer bag. Heaven forbid my high heels. I was on their territory and I realized I hadn’t come in with enough respect for it. I had simply waltzed in like I always do. It was time to go.
I turned on my heel for the door. It was so crowded. I felt rude pushing my way out but I didn’t care. It’s hot now. Beads of sweat form on my forehead and I still push for the door. I remember a time when I was little. I had dove into a dark lake and I was on my way back up. I could see the sun wobbling on the surface of the water, I was clawing my way up for air and for that one second I thought I would drown-but with one more pull of my arms and with all that was in me, I surfaced. My sweaty palm slapped against the cold glass of the door, immediately forming a fog. My eyes are drawn once more to the old English words that are now just inches from my palm: Ghost Town.
I push the door open and emerge into the cool night air. Clean. They were what they chose to be. I found the title of the venue quite fitting. Ghost Town. They were something I knew I was too afraid to ever try to understand.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
A Good Name
“I remember the first time I met your mother,” my grandmother shook her head as she spoke causing her grand pearls to click against each other on her aged neck. “Your father brought her home one weekend and as soon as they left I turned to my sister, Sybil, and I said to her, ‘Sybil, that woman is not like us and she’s certainly up to no good with my son’. That’s what I told Sybil.” She brought her hand to her mouth, heavy laden with a chunky gold ring topped off with a diamond. “We Roberts’ don’t associate with her kind.”
The Christmas tree lay perfectly in the glistening snow. The pieces of broken glass ornaments sparkled under the white moon and the smell of fresh pine permeated the cold December air from the broken needles and branches the tree had attained in the process of it’s removal from our dining room. I was an eight year old then, standing on the porch with my head cocked, studying the discarded tree. Inside I could still hear my mother ranting and raving. My father slipped out the door, a gust of heat swept over me from our warm home. He let out a sigh and shoved his hands into his pockets as he stepped beside me and studied the tree with his head tilted to the side, as well.
“Dad…”
“Yes?”
“Why did mommy throw the tree into the yard?”
I looked up at my towering father; his crisp Polo shirt had lines down the arms where they had been starched. I could see his mind turning as he chose his words carefully and squirmed his lips around before he spoke.
“Your mother…thought we had too many trees in the house already,” he nodded, satisfied with his comment. It was true. We had four. Christmas was a time to overdo everything and we, the Roberts family, were spectacular at overdoing Christmas. We were known for having the most beautifully decorated house on the block and our Christmas parties were known all about town for being the best. Lavish decorations were strewn throughout the house and somehow, every year, there was a new Christmas tree in a room that did not have one the year before. The lucky room this year was the dining room.
“But why did she throw it off the porch? Christmas trees go at the end of the driveway for the garbage man to pick up.” I rattled off rules like this constantly. I was such an orderly child with a complex for tidiness and punctuality. Anyone breaking any rule of society or prim and properness would throw me into a complete hissy.
“Your mother…” my father thought long and hard again then polished his sentence off with the best conclusion that still, to this very day, sums up my mother. “Your mother isn’t like us, Carrie. So don’t try to define her.”
Holidays could always be counted on to bring about a royal fit in my house. For example, the thanksgiving dinner table was split up into teams. On the right side, was team Carl. Dad’s family. They were clean cut, fit, and stylish. I remember anytime I ever answered the door and found “Team Carl” standing there, I was greeted by a wave of strong perfumes from London, red lipstick, and folding money was always stuffed into my pockets before mom could see and disapprove.
Then there was the left side: Team Karen. Team Karen had unkempt hair and had different clunker cars every six months that were lovingly named. They were obese and brought candy rather than money for me that was pulled out of purses when Dad wasn’t looking. They were more of the story-telling kind, unlike the politic-debating Team Carl. Their clothes were ordinary and they always smelled like the food they had brought over that was baked from secret family recipes dating back to the American Revolution.
My mother had been raised in a poor family and received no formal education outside of high school. My father, on the other hand, had been raised in an upper class wealthy family and had attended college and Pharmacy School. School for me was a mix of the two worlds; mom raised me to live in the moment in high school, that the peak of life lied in those halls that were filled with cheerleaders and football players gossiping and riding around in big trucks on the weekend. My father had raised me to not care about what was going on socially in that school because, “After all, you’ll be out of there and on your way to college in no time! They won’t matter. They’ll be pumping your gas.” He encouraged me to volunteer, become active in school-based clubs and build a college résumé. “A good name is to be desired rather than great riches,” he would always tell me. To my mother’s dismay, I was never the homecoming queen, but I did graduate with honors as the president of our senior class and was inducted into the National Honors Society among many other organizations and activities. By the time I started filling out application for college, I didn’t have enough room to state my achievements and extracurricular activities.
My father had always made it a point to socially groom me for life. He put me in ballroom dancing classes, etiquette classes and golfing tournaments. Mom frequently quoted him from the day of my birth. She would curl up her lip and sit up straight poking her pinky finger in the air like an aristocrat and let the words tumble out of her mouth slowly and with a proper British sounding accent, “Your father. Your father looked me in the eyes on the day of your birth and said, ‘Karen, this little girl will have a silver spoon in her mouth in everything she does!’” She made a mockery of him and his spoiling ways.
Looking back, I don’t see how my parents ever married. My mother was a woman with a fetish for pink flamingos as yard decorations. Her idea of a good time included playing pool or bowling while drinking canned beer. My father was a man who had an obsession with nice cars and clean Polo shirts. His idea of a good time consisted of playing tennis at the country club and going for a Sunday afternoon drive in his convertible. While my mother spoke with a deep southern draw and used curse words to garnish her sentences, my father had a concise way of articulately pronouncing every word perfectly and every sentence was always grammatically correct.
For as long as I can remember, my father has woken up every morning at the crack of dawn and put on a suit and pleased people. I was raised, trained and sent off to college to get a degree so I could do the same thing: put on a suit and make money and be a people pleaser. But something unexpected came out of my raising. Something that dad had nothing to do with. I liked to draw. I was quite good at it. I won ribbons in art competitions for my art portraying feminism in a broken world. While mom didn’t buy me bows for my hair and teach me how to apply makeup correctly, she did fill my art drawer with paints and inks from other countries. Paper and wax for Bahtik art could always be found and she would never forget to pick up a canvas on her way home from grocery shopping.
If my father shaped me socially, my mother certainly shaped me artistically. She taught me to question people and intentions. Dad taught me to shake hands and kiss babies. It’s in this that I realize I am what I am: a product of a socially unaware mother who would run through a department store cursing up a storm in a bewildered panic and a classy father who enjoyed the fruits of capitalism and hard work. The social class friction between my family members made me who I am today. I’ve looked at life from both sides and have picked my “team” to play. I find I also developed the ability to show courage in the face of “the other side”, because my mother acquainted me with how hard life can actually be for some individuals.
They say college brings out the best and the worst in people. With this statement I agree. Growing up and receiving such mixed signals about where I was to fit in socially, I was truly curious to see where I would land when my parents flung me out of the house and into another town on a college campus. I remember a time during my freshman year when I had a choice to either roll out of bed in my pajamas and go to class or wake up an hour earlier for a shower and fresh clothes. I made the choice to take on the appearance of a lady and continued to do so until I was known as the “girl that always wears high heels to class”.
Years later I sit across from my mother at a dinner table. She props herself up on her arm over a glass of red wine and eyes me suspiciously. Out of nervous instinct I fidget with the pearls that hang around my neck and tuck my hair neatly behind my ears. The perfectionist in me longs to reach across and fix my mother’s distraught hair, too. In such dim light, perhaps people won’t see how tangled it is. I refrain. Silence. Tension is palpable as we wait for Dad to come back from greeting his friends he spotted when we were seated. I glance across the white clothed tables and flickering candles reflecting off of crystal glasses, and just on the other side of the restaurant I see him. He strokes his hand smoothly over his silk tie and slips his other hand in his pants pocket to jingle his change as he speaks. I look back to my mother. She slouches lifelessly, still staring at me. I’m disappointed in the fact that I clearly bore my mother.
“You know, Carrie. I raised you and taught you everything I know. But you still turned out to be just like the man I married.” She sat back in her chair and examined me.
“Well, he is my father.” I laughed nervously back at her.
She looked down at her napkin and fumbled with it for a moment, pursing her lips in thought. After another pull of awkward silence she looked back up at me and let out, “I don’t mean to offend you, but I think you should know I don’t particularly like people like you. I make it a point to avoid people like you every day. How did that happen?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Somewhere between the sports car, the pearls, the sorority letters constantly plastered on your chest and poofed hair you turned into...” she stopped. Long pause. Violins ironically chimed in the background from the band towards the back of the restaurant.
“What?” I’m interested to know my new label.
“Your father’s mother.” She nodded at me as she said it. She looked at me with pity written all over her face. She looked at me as if I was trapped. Slowly going down with the ship. I wondered if that was the same look she had been getting from me all of these years.
What may have appeared as an embarrassed blush to my mother was a proud glow on the inside. Mission accomplished. I was a real Roberts at last.
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