Fiction: Family Outings

I can jot down my personal version of the truth or I can tell you outright lies, and I'll call it fiction if I want to.

After all, it's what I do.

I could tell you about the time I rode my daddy's shoulders out to the sand bar at Savannah Beach in Georgia, where the nurse sharks were circling.

I was seven when that happened. He'd lifted me up and headed straight for the beasts with all the excitement he'd exuded when that fox in Alaska came trotting down the ice-covered road. It's bright red fur stood in stark contrast to the dull, gray snow. My daddy made me whisper as we watched it perk its ears left and then right and then skitter away, frightened by the presence of humans. Not humanity, mind you--just your typical, dirty rotten humans.

The sharks were less peculiar. They circled us in the warm, clear water, closing in with each orbit. Soon enough, my daddy was able to extend his arm so the nurse sharks could swim under his fingers. I watched them caress the smooth lengths of those fearsome fish. He never flinched, and neither did they. They seemed in perfect harmony.

 The rest of the family ignored us from the safe sands of the beach. What did they care about nurse sharks when there were crabs to be chased, castles to be built?

The breeze bounced across the surface of the sea and tickled past me, causing me to shiver. My daddy wrapped a strong hand around my ankle to steady me. Or maybe to scare me. I couldn't tell.
It was the kind of gesture dad's do, you know. The good ones, anyway, and my daddy had been pretty good for a while by then.

Or maybe he had only been pretending.

I had that crystal moment of clarity right there on his shoulders in the center of a swarm of nurse sharks. I realized I was at his mercy. He could use his strength to protect me, steady me, keep me squarely on his shoulders until we made our way back to the shore.

Or he could toss me in.

And I knew he just might be crazy enough to do it. And it might serve me right that he was finally paying me back for that thing I'd done the year before.

You know.

When I shot him.

Dream: 1981 (that is to say, I had this dream in 1981)

That old vanity where she always put on her makeup and curled her hair had a mirror big enough for the two of us.
It looked like rock-n-roll and royalty. It smelled like cigarettes and seventeen.
I liked to watch her in the reflection: her perfect eyes, her luscious red lips, her confidence. She blended and highlighted and brushed like an expert.
She'd been the only girl.
After having three rowdy boys by natural means, my grandmother decided not to take any chances. She adopted a girl.
And so, my aunt garnered quite a bit of attention from the rest of the family, including me.
She was the center of the world. She listened to the loudest music, had the wildest friends, knew the sexiest dance moves. She was living the life, and I wanted to live the life, too, so it didn't faze her to have me always at her side, soaking up some of the awesome she exuded.
The vanity, that's where it happened.
That's where I became suddenly aware of the other presence in the mirror.
A small child with big, blue, adoring eyes and soft, blond curls stared back at me.
A beautiful girl with a crack running across her face--a big, black crack from ear to ear.
The Me in the chair looked at the Me in the mirror, wondering--what could it mean to have such a crack straight across like that? What damage could it cause? How should this be handled?
The Me in the mirror had no qualms. She reached up with both hands, lifted the upper half of the head and revealed the brain within.
No worries.
The crack sealed itself up once the deed was done, and the Me in the mirror placed a finger on her lips and smiled back at the Me in the chair.
The Center of the World never even noticed

Soup's On

I'm trying to write this story in the living room, and it's difficult.

I've made my demands for the television to be off. I've let people know that I intend to sit here and get some substantial creativity flowing onto these virtual pages. I've got the lap top atop the lap, yet...nobody's taking me seriously.

Nobody's allowing me to have the peace and quiet I need to focus on the character development. Nobody's skedaddling into other areas so I can concentrate. Nobody's shutting up.

It's like...they think I need to be part of their "intellectual" argument simply because I am within proximity of the ongoing conversation. They're so lively about the things they're saying to each other, and every once in a while, they expect me to chime in with my take on the story, which has nothing to do with the story going on in my head. Nothing to do with me at all.

We oughtta just bust out a deck of cards and a six-pack.

Because I am not getting anything accomplished in this environment

And its been going on for a few weeks.

And it needs to stop.

Because I need to write this story.

One Table Over: Neighbors

     The man on the other side of my bedroom wall is sick. Sometimes I think he might be dying. His low, rough coughing keeps me awake at night. Every once in a while, he calls for his caretaker. I can hear their voices.  

     He lives there, but it's her place. She moved him in several months after she started living there. She's like me. She does all her moving in one afternoon with the help of every family member she can round up. If I hadn't been home for it, I would have never known when it happened.  

     Mostly, they are quiet.  

     The people before had an affinity for loud music and marijuana. I knew too much about them: when they fought, when they made love, when the children were taken away. I even knew when they were evicted. 

     These new people are private. They never borrow eggs. They turn their television down. They never have parties. It's like they're not there. 

     Except for the coughing.  

     I feel bad for them. They have me for a neighbor.  Oh, sure, I'm the only one who lives here, but I have family. When my kiddos visit, it's as if they live here. They turn up the TV. They help themselves to a hot shower. They do their laundry. They bring their sweet, rowdy spawn with them. We yell from room to room. We play a lot of "Boo!" We laugh and squeal and run and drink and move furniture and hang out on the patio. 

     To her credit, she's never banged on the wall or hollered for us to keep it down.  

     It occurs to me she might welcome the noise. Maybe we are music to her ears. Maybe she's tired of the sound of so much coughing.

That's Her.

Whoa! It's been nine days since I posted here!
That seems impossible, since I have been reading and writing like crazy.
I've been saving all my fiction for my creative writing class this semester.  I feel as if I'm depriving my Blogger friends of  the terrifically horrific "October Specials" I've scrawled in my notebooks, but it is for a good cause, I assure you. ("Good Cause" amounts to me getting an 'A' in writing class, and that's all there is to that.)

You may or may not know that October is the month of my mom. Today is her birthday, and twenty short days from now will be her "deathday." Most of the shorts I've written lately have centered around motherhood, but none of them have been about my mother. I wrote a little bit of a shocking impromptu story in class the other night, and now my entire class probably thinks my mom was some horrible bitch who didn't love me, but that's not true. (She loved me.)

You want to know a little secret about our family? We like purple spiders. They mean love.

When my mom was alive, she would watch that TV show "Crossing Over, with John Edwards." In the intro, he explained that his dead mother would communicate her love for him with white birds. My mom decided our talisman would be purple spiders. (This decision had something to do with her sister and thrift store shopping, but that is another story.) So now, every time I see a purple spider, I think of my mom. (Did she know ahead of time that she would die on Halloween--a time of the year when purple spiders seem to be everywhere?)

I remember when she was in the hospital. Toward the end I was spending all my spare time camped out in her room. She tried to stay awake, but she slept most of the time. For some reason, I felt like I needed to be there for every waking moment. I guess I was trying to hold on to her as much as possible. I knew I'd have to let her go eventually, but I was going to soak up every tidbit of time I could get with her. She was dying, there was no denying that, but I'd be damned if I was going to sit back and wait for a phone call from some disembodied voice of some indifferent doctor. I needed to be there with her.

One day, I went down to the gift shop for a little while to stretch my legs and take in some different scenery. They had a string of the large, scary-looking purple spiders on the clearance rack. I snatched them and took them up to her room. Carefully, while she was sleeping, I arranged them so it seemed the spiders were crawling across her feet.

The nurse accused me of wanting to kill her with a heart attack, but my mom smiled when she opened her eyes and saw them.

"So you like spiders?" the nurse asked, dryly.

"I like purple ones," my mom said with a smile and then slipped back into sleep.

In the months after her passing, we would actively search for the purple spiders. We'd see them, and one of us would shout it out, as if we'd come across some rare artifact never seen before by human eyes. The fact is, there are more of them around than I realized. They're on greeting cards and in cartoons and on posters. For a while, it seemed we couldn't get away from them. Even our friends started bringing them to us in the form of jewelry and hair clips and decorative knick-knacks and what-nots. There was a huge, fuzzy, bendable spider perched in the back dash of my car for about a year. (His name was Hector, and I have no idea where he went. I only know that he's gone.)

Nowadays, we're not so quick to scoop up the spiders when we see them. We just smile to ourselves and move on with life, knowing that my mom is out there, somewhere, still loving us. I like to think it's the completely unexpected sightings that are truly messages from her. The ones that throw me off a little, you know? Like that purple car I saw on Georgia Street, the one called a Spyder.

That's my mom. That's love.

Hip Stir

This was the plan:

I was going to grasp my new found (if only temporary) freedom, jump in the car and go see the fam bam up in Dumas. After a day of surprising folks who might not necessarily want to shift their Sunday plans just for me, I was going to head over to New Mexico and check out some of the scenery there. I've got a couple of friends over there who might've sat with me for a drink or two, and then I was going to go from there in no specific direction-just blow with the breeze, you know?

My school work is all caught up, and I don't have to go back to work for another week. I haven't had two minutes to breathe for a solid year, so I intended to enjoy this particular vacation as if it were the only one I'll ever have.

But of course, as Robbie Grey's always reminding me, if you'd like to make your deity laugh, just make plans.

This is what happened:

I got the call yesterday afternoon. Grandma (the one in Dumas, the one I was planning to visit today) broke her damn hip.
So the hospital there decided to send her here to Amarillo for hip replacement surgery.
So that's what we're doing now.
Waiting for the surgery.

I just live a couple of blocks from here, so I hopped in the car and came right over. Aunt Brenda's here, taking care of things as usual, because she's the one in that immediate family who does those things. She's a real trooper, but she's starting her Pre-K summer school class tomorrow, so somebody else is going to have to step in for the morning shift.

That would be me, because I'm so handy living here, and I'm the one in my immediate family who does those kinds of things. I don't really mind. It's not like I had any plans or anything.

I imagine my Great Aunt Sherry will make it over here some time tomorrow, and my cousin Christy will also make an appearance. She's cool like that. I saw my uncles yesterday in the ER for a few minutes, and my cousin James is the one who let me know which hospital to invade.

I guess I'm getting the family visits after all.

I just wish I had a margarita too.

One Table Over: Party at the Playground

            “Hey ya’ll!”  A skinny, blond woman waves cheerfully to the small party gathered at the covered picnic tables.  She makes her way across the grass from the parking lot. The folks in the group look up in unison but do not reply. They look back at one another and murmur amongst themselves. “I didn’t think I’d ever find ya’ll!” she hollers to them as she approaches. She’s walking determinedly, her flip-flops flapping, her jaw yapping. She pushes her sunglasses to the top of her frizzy, bleach blond head in a well-practiced move so they can get a better look at her, as if they have forgotten who she is.

            They are silent, immobile, and ashen.

            One brave soul breaks away from the group and moves to block her. He is the patriarch of this small family, if that’s what they are. He alone will protect them if he has to. He holds his hands up, signaling her to stop where she is.

            “You can’t be here, Rhonda,” he states boldly.

            Her jaw drops, almost comically. She stops walking and clutches a bony hand to her freckled chest. “What?” she gasps. “Why not?” She shifts the bag over her shoulder to a more comfortable position. The strap of her hot pink tank top falls casually off her shoulder.

            “One hundred yards, Rhonda,” he says pointedly.

            “But it’s her birthday!” she squeals. “You won’t keep me away!”

            “One hundred yards,” he reiterates. She stomps her foot like a child and stands her ground. Another member of the group, a young woman with nothing but a camera approaches them. She holds the camera up, a poor shield, but a powerful weapon.

            “What the hell are you doing, Amanda?” the blonde demands to know. Receiving no answer, she tries to swipe the camera away, but the man steps in her path. She huffs and retreats a few feet. She adjusts herself as she thinks of her next move and then reaches into her bag. When she pulls something out, every person in the group gasps and sinks to the ground to avoid the imaginary spray of bullets.        

            “Aw, COME ON!” the woman howls, exaggerating her dismay. “Do you really think I’d bring a gun to a birthday party?” She throws a small wrapped package on the grass at the man’s feet. “THERE!” she screams. “I hope she likes it, ‘cause I spent all my money gettin’ it for her!”

            She turns and stomps away, but she does not leave the parking lot. She props herself up on the hood of her dented Cadillac and smokes a cigarette. As she watches them, they pack up their party and grumble. When they approach the parking lot, she hops off the hood and backs away, giving them their space. They try to ignore her, but she throws a lit cigarette toward them as they climb into their van. The woman named Amanda starts to say something, but the man pulls her by the elbow into the van. They drive away slowly, leaving the blonde alone with her fury.

            She never goes back for the package in the grass.

Dog-Gone Dog Gone

My dog is moving out tomorrow.
She's not a fancy dog, or a well-bred pedigree. She's a roadside dog, really just a mutt. My friend Melina scooped her up on the highway one night driving back from Muleshoe. Her mother had already been hit and killed by another car, and my dog, still a puppy then, was lying on top of her mother's dead body, confused and lonely. Who knows how long she would have stayed there grieving before starving to death or possibly being killed herself.
Melina's landlord wouldn't allow her to have more than one dog. She already had a rough, tough puppy named Cookie, so I brought Hyway home to my kids. Matthew had always wanted a dog. David and Jacob had probably wanted one too, but not nearly as much as Matthew. I think Sara had already moved out by that time, or she was about to move out. I don't remember.
I've never been a dog person. Cats were always my pet of choice. Cats are generally low-maintenance pets. A couple of vet visits, a clean litterbox and a full dish of food. That's pretty much all a cat will demand of you. They have more important things to do than to be in the constant supervision of lowly humans.
Not dogs, though. Dogs need to be walked. They want to play fetch. They need to chase cars and cats and other dogs down the street. They have to warn you everytime the mailman drops mail in the box. They like to hang out with you in the back yard. They protect you from the vacuum cleaner. They howl at police sirens and tornado sirens and the moon. They bury things and dig things up. They go with you to the park and help you make friends. They scare away bad guys in the middle of the night.
My dog is a great dog.
I am a bad human.
I'm gone all day, and I forget to put her outside. I don't leave the TV on so that she's not lonely, and half the time, I forget to check her food. We rarely go walking. We never play fetch, and if she escapes the yard to go exploring the neighborhood, I don't chase her. I wait for her to get tired and come home.
She knows how to knock on the door. Seriously, she keeps banging until I get up and let her in.
Despite the fact that I don't care for dogs, and long for the day I can come home without finding the trashcan knocked over, she's fiercely overprotective of me. You're not allowed to touch me, or climb onto my bed. She'll attack. There will be bloodshed. That's why I can't take her to the park or any other public place. I'm scared she's going to hurt some kind soul who just wants to pet her. My own children aren't allowed to touch me. It makes hugging hard, but they like to tease her. They pretend to swat me, and it just makes her mad . She growls and snaps at them. It gets on my last nerve. I just want to relax and read my book without being in the middle of a war everyday.
Ordinarily, she's a friendly, energetic, bouncy, happy, funfunfun kind of dog. She loves the kids, even Sara, who hasn't lived with her. My grandson thinks she's all that. He likes to steal her toys and he curls up next to her in her bed and takes a nap with her. He cries when she knocks him over, but she's just saying hello, and she calms down as soon as she gets a good sniff of him. She thinks he's her baby. She's very gentle with him when they're playing. She plays fetch, and she actually drops the ball for him. She won't do that for me. She makes me work for it, and I usually get dog slobber all over my hand.

Tomorrow she's going to live with my two oldest children, Sara and David. They rented a house out in the country, and they called me today to see if I would give up the dog. They love her, and she loves them. I know it will be a big adjustment. This is the only home she's ever known, but she'll have more freedom in the country. It's not like I'm abandoning her out there, right? I'm leaving her with family members who love her. They love her.

They really do.

Now I have to go tell Matthew I'm giving away his dog.