Jade Maze: Book

“Please, I just need a moment to catch my breath. Just one moment…”


Chapter 6—Home Sweet Home, Part Two

Now, don’t let me mislead you. Home was not just animal farm and omelets. Ma was down, but she wasn’t dead. We had a very sexy mother, and she had no qualms about flaunting this undeniable truth. Ma loved attention and got plenty of it. In fact, our house oozed sex from just about every corner.

Ma was the kind of lady that wore silver go-go boots and plunging necklines. She’d dye her hair to whatever color was in that week, and, I must say, I’ve never seen a woman work her walk better. I have witnessed men on two separate occasions walk directly (bam!) into a telephone pole because they were staring at her so hard. I liked looking at her, too, and loved having such a colorful mother. My silent Sis’ face registered enough distaste for me to realize she did not approve; nevertheless, this did not keep either of us out of Ma’s closet.

We loved all the exciting clothes Ma had. We’d dive into her closet and dress up in the boots and fringe vests and have an absolute ball. It was so fun going to “Bizarre Bizarre” the vintage clothing store that Ma frequented almost daily, trying on all the thirties style heels, while Ma did her shopping. She’d ooh and ah over the jewelry with the store clerk as Sis and I ran our fingers over all the different materials appreciating the sensory delight the various textures afforded—satin, suede, wool, silk…

But back to the merciless aura of my mother's sexuality: it wielded an awful lot of power. One grand example is when she persuaded the entire construction crew from around the corner to drop everything they were doing in order to move an old piano for her that she’d found by someone’s garbage can. They heaved, huffed, and flexed that heavy, old, upright all the way up those three sets of stairs. It got wedged at the turn to the landing on the final flight. But fear not! Those macho men toiled and sweated for eight hours to get that thing through the door. All of this for some spaghetti, a few beers and the opportunity to bask in the glow of Ma's flirty smile, firm breasts and endlessly long legs.

I don't think she was ever a prostitute. I'll never know, but she didn't seem the type to tolerate that. She needed too much control. That may seem a rather extreme idea to ponder, but, not really when you take into account the neighborhood we lived in and the dialogue we heard.

She definitely was a go-go dancer. She used to take us with her to rehearsals. We'd sit reading on the floor, while Ma and company coordinated there jiggles, bumps and grinds on the table tops. They all looked so lovely and “Hollywood” to me as they batted their false eye lashes and tossed their false hair. Even though Ma accented her physical femininity, she’s one of those ladies that could not look tacky, no matter what she wore. She was woman. Not “a woman,” but “woman.” Not cute, adorable, soft or pretty, but “woman”—the beautiful epitome of female.

My disapproval of her didn't kick in until the men started coming home. I saw red and raged just like Ma when that happened in apartment number six. I didn't understand exactly why I was so upset, but I could not control my anger. When the living room door closed, I would lose it completely and start banging, kicking, crying and screaming, “Get Out! Get Out! Ma!! ‘Pleeease!!’ Make him leave!”

No threats from them could stop me. I would tantrum relentlessly until the “he” of the day would leave, or I fell asleep with my fist to the door. On days I could bear it, I would go to the front room door to Ma’s room and put my eye to the hole where the door knob was missing (that was her way of locking the door). I'd watch, cry, beg and shout. It wasn’t jealousy. I think I was upset that my innocence was being infringed upon, and, also, horrified with my own morbid curiosity. Or perhaps it was some type of territorialism. Maybe I was simply grossed out and disgusted by the live pornography act taking place in the front room. I didn’t want to know about these things, and hear these sounds, and see these actions. I wanted to shame them into stopping. The only thing I knew for certain was that my anger ran deep. My rage raged.

I was so happy when Ma didn't come home for days on end during this stage. Things got stranger every time she returned. I couldn’t relax for even a moment in her presence. The culmination of circumstances, daily events, underlying sexual tension and the general chaos was making life feel like a frayed tight rope. Everything set me on edge.

Things were setting Ma on edge, as well. She couldn't stand the sound of the telephone ringing anymore. The “brrrng” truly sent her into a sort of mental discord triggering a kind of writhing response in her body. Her melodramatic reactions made me defensive because they seemed embarrassingly abnormal. I didn’t want to participate in what I thought were theatrics. She always had me lie to the callers for her. I did it a couple times before opting for honesty.

“She's here but she doesn't want to talk to anyone. The phone is upsetting her.”

Now, we were constantly fighting. I didn't care. I felt a lot of contempt for her even though I still loved her and was in awe of her beauty. I walked around in a general state of alarm. Her behavior was so jagged.

She also started getting nasty to Sis at this point. We must've been eight and nine. Sis had allergies, and Ma refused to accept it.

“Stop sniveling!" (Smack). “Go blow your f#!king nose instead of sounding like a sickly little weakling.”

Sis' eyes would bulge with unexpressed anger and sadness as the allergies helped hide her tears. Her hands were blunted by numbness as she attempted to dab her nose with the tissue. I now see her body was checking out in an immediate reaction to Ma's snide onslaught.

These interactions were accented by the fact that Ma didn't hit me at all and rarely ordered me around.

Sis and I still managed to have plenty of fun. We spent many hours roller skating behind the Catholic school in clamp-on skates or playing “Gilligan’s Island” in the back yard. We still loved Ma and would make breakfast for her walking it four blocks over to the gas station she worked at. Ed Kelly, her boss, the big black man with the two-tone shades in his blue mechanic's overalls, always had a big smile for us. And besides...

I had my pogo stick. You could barely get me off of it. I loved the rhythmic noise it made with each jump—that sound somewhere between a squeak and a crunch—1, 2, 3, 4 ... How many jumps can I do in a row? One-handed? No hands? Not too smart on a pogo stick. I still have the scar on my inner knee from that silly experiment.

…home because I remember one night in particular. Ma was preparing for a party she was throwing. This was a big deal. We hadn't had a party in the apartment, yet. What kind of people would come over? We hadn’t invited anybody into our space, thus far, accept horny men.

“Girls, please be good tonight. If you're quiet, you can stay up through the whole party. If you can show me how well behaved you can be, I'll take you everywhere with me. That's a promise.”

Now I had a goal. I wanted to know what went on in the world and solemnly vowed to be the best, quietest little girl possible.

And I was. I didn't make a peep. I sat in corners and watched everything with all- absorbing eyes. I found this suited me. I liked people watching and was learning a lot as I listened to the chatter and took in facial expressions, some of which were not meant to be seen.

The company was pleasant enough—normal people trying to look a little edgy and artsy. Most of them were from Laney College and Ma’s ballet class. A few full-time musicians and jive-talkin’ street men were thrown in the mix to add an air of urban authenticity. But that was it. Nothing outrageous took place. I enjoyed the scene and hoped we would do it again sometime.

Everyone thought Ma was so cool (Far out, Mary Jane!) with all of her animals, her two mixed-race kids, the organic garden, and her home-farmed chicken and duck eggs. Sophisticatedly complex was she with this “organic, hippy s%#t” coexisting next to her false eye lashes, glamour girl make-up, high teased hair, sexy chic cloths, and cosmopolitan ways.

Ma was giddy with the success of the party and her image. By the end of the night, she had been described as “deep, truly liberated,” and a “bad motherf!#%*r.” And, now, she saw us as assets…commodities…we had further authenticated her coolness! The reward we got was more than I'd hoped for.

Ma sat us down the next day. She told us what champs we’d been the night before. “Sweethearts, I didn't know you could be so polite. You can come with me almost everywhere.” She meant it too. I was tickled beyond pink.

Our family outings were a blast! Ma was culturally very hip. We went with her to San Francisco to watch black and white films of Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. We never missed Chinese New Years and even saw a few ballets. She took us with her to her dance classes where I found a new passion—Helga, the short ballet teacher with the thick Slavic accent and the big stick she kept count with, really made me feel like I could dance. That was the first time in my childhood I remembered feeling graceful. I was digging our new lifestyle. We went with Ma to her music classes at Laney College. This was especially exhilarating for me.

I knew since age five that I was a singer/songwriter. I'd announced it to Ma back then, and have never changed my mind since. That was my thing, period. My first song was about a couch that I wanted: “There/s a nice big table, a nice big couch, and I'm gonna move in this little old house. Oh, baby...,” a blues.

Anyhow, the music lessons were a dream come true. I couldn't understand what the teacher was talking about, but just being there was enough. I sat in the corner with a music book busily copying all the notation on the chalk board. The teacher stopped mid-lecture, “Is that coming out of that kids head, Mary Jane?”

“No. She's just copying.”

Yeah, I loved traipsing around with Ma. We hitchhiked just about everywhere we had to go. Ma looked so cool now. She was going through her “tough” phase, and sported a denim apple hat with her hair all tucked in, black boots, skin tight jeans (she had to lay down to zip them up), a Danskin leotard, and one of her variety of vests. I was proud to walk into Fenton’s Ice Cream with her and Sis and order our banana nut or pistachio ice-cream cones.

Things got a little more stressful when Ma got another car. This time it was an old tan VW bug. Ma’s driving was upsetting enough (can’t forget that detached retina) without the added complication of a stick shift. She was running into or rolling back on everyone. And Ma was all fight. Even though she was at fault one hundred percent of the time, she'd jump out of her car and get into the other drivers’ faces cursing and making threats. She even backed up on the freeway, once, to follow a driver off an exit ramp so she could make her point. And she always got away with it, too. Always. I literally did have white knuckles driving around with her.

The only time her in-your-face style was ever challenged was during an altercation she had on foot, while we were walking down a San Francisco street one Chinese New Years. Ma decided to try to break up a gang fight and, without hesitation, walked amid flying chains and knives to smack some guy in the head, and tell him to pick on someone his own size, since the guy whose head he was kicking against the marble building corner appeared to be smaller than he. Still, nothing really happened. The gang members called her a few names, spit at her, and continued fighting till the cops came.

I started staying home more—because of the car, and the fights…and the piano—in that order. I spent hours noodling around on the keys. I didn't know what I was doing, but it didn't matter. My obsession with learning how to play was a much more productive form of escapism than the mindless hours I spent watching T.V.

My favorite memory of me and Sis takes place at the piano. Ma taught me a simple chord pattern with a catchy melody and easy words. With the tape recorder poised at the ready, I had Sis sing the song, while I played. We did it again and again, adjusting a note here or an accent there, until two hours later she squeaked out a heart felt version, “The wind in the trees is a wandering breeze coming in from the sea and the ocean ...” I judged it to be “perfect!” and exaltedly announced, “That's it. That's the keeper!”

To my childish eye, everything was cool except for the men. The men were the problem. And the bigger we got, the bigger the problem got. It finally dawned on me that Ma viewed us as competition the more we started to look like women. She accused Sis of flirting with one of her boyfriends at age nine. I was right there and saw no flirtation of any kind taking place. He had only said “hello” and given her a smile, but sweet Sis never heard the end of it for smiling back.

“Let me tell you girls something. All men are assholes. You can never trust a man. Use them and manipulate them because they're all a bunch of chicken s#!ts. That's all you need to know to get along with them.”

I was tall for my age. Gary down the block had asked Ma if I was dating yet. “What did you do to make him look at you? Did you talk dirty to him? Did he come on to you? I don't want to hear any bull s#!t!” I didn't know what to say to her. I knew who Gary was because he was her friend and had a big pretty dog named Sesame.

“You girls better not be trying to get away with sexy s#!t when I'm not here. I'm not going to have any little whores for daughters, Goddamnit!”

Ma’s eyes changed. Now, they were filled with fear and distrust every time she looked at me and Sis leaving me greatly alarmed. It was no small matter to be on this woman's bad side. I wanted to put her at ease but didn't know how. I was getting really sick of her accusing looks, since I wasn't doing anything wrong. Our growing bodies (what could we do about “that?”) were threatening her reign over sex and womanhood. Her wariness felt extremely primal and constant. The threat was real. Sassing her would get me nowhere. My instincts told me it would be dangerous to confront her. This is the moment in time when I started to develop a bad attitude toward strangers. It was the one way I could safely let off steam.

Somewhere in all of this hullabaloo, we enrolled in school. I'm not sure how much we had missed, but it was a lot. Thank God we were quick studies.

The first school was not so good. I learned to fight there. Had to. Michael and his gang would've beaten me to a pulp if I couldn't fight back. My friends were Claudia and Luba. I was in third grade. The beaters were in fifth. At last my height was paying off. One teacher named Kathy seemed to sense I was coiled like a spring. She gave me a special journal to write in. I would hand it back to her with tears every morning saying I just couldn't. The coil was too tightly wound to risk releasing. Still, her kindness and caring gave me a glimpse into another way of living. She looked so gentle…so sensible. It made a difference.

We switched to another school that had a program for gifted kids; I don’t know if we were part of it or not, but Ma brought it up often to others in conversation, as if she were bragging. Every morning, we caught the College Ave. bus to Berkeley, transferred to the school bus, and went up the hill to Kaiser Elementary. Sis and I had lots of friends: Kristy, Evan, Pam, Maurice, Allison…

Allison had the most beautiful hair, which ended up being at the center of a huge tragedy in her life. She was from the Phillipines and had the most silky, beautiful, straight black-blue hair. One day, she was swinging upside down on the monkey bars gearing up for a flip, her long lustrous hair blowing and flowing in the wind. All of a sudden, a girl from the special education class that was playing nearby became mesmerized by the beauty of Allison’s shining black hair and wanted to touch it. She leaned over and grabbed Allison’s hair with both hands tugging hard, which caused Allison to fall from the bars and land in a crumpled, unnatural position, her face a blanched study in pain, though she made not a sound. Teachers held us kids back as the ambulance came and somberly took her away. Sis and I weren’t at Kaiser long enough to find out the end result of that horrible accident. But rumor had it that beautiful serene Allison had landed in a way that stunted her growth for life. I hope it was, indeed, a rumor.

My best friend was Christine Larson. She brought out some of the bad girl in me (locking ourselves in the nurse’s room, or scaring people with special effects at Ouija Board séances we held in empty classrooms). Smart, pretty, and sarcastically witty, she was a half Italian girl with long luxurious chestnut brown hair. When we weren't pulling pranks, playing tether ball, or in class, we were chasing boys and talking about Rod Stewart, Peter Frampton or John Travolta (Vinny Barbarino). I'd go over to her apartment, and we'd listen to “Frampton Live,” or the big hit, “Tonight's the Night,” and talk and giggle over our crush on John-John Robinson, the cute boy at school. This felt so fun and normal. I never wanted to go home to Ma's evil eye.

Orlando and his gang were the bullies in this school. I learned to run here. A more serious threat than anything I'd come across so far, Orlando was tall, mean and hell bent on hurting me and Sis (I recall an incident in which he and his crew viciously chased Sis with pins of all things!) for nothing more than entertainment value. He did a pretty good job of it, too, Orlando with his black jacket and crooked, snarling smile, before I got him expelled. He and his crew were pounding me good. They had me backed in a corner. He was bearing down on me intending to put his full weight behind the punch. I ducked at the last minute, and he messed up the window frame almost knocking out all of the safety glass. Since he busted school property instead of my face, he was expelled.

Ma was smoking a lot of pot at this point. She didn’t even bother trying to hide it anymore. She left the paraphernalia on the kitchen table, her vanity—everywhere. One night, she was cutting my hair while high. She was so fascinated by how my hair kind of rolled off in fluffy balls that I was one-half inch away from baldness by the time she was done. The kids called me “baboon face” and beat me up until my hair grew back. This did not help my already strained relationship with Ma even though she came to school and called them a bunch of “chicken s#*ts” on my behalf.

School was a little rough, but the teachers, the Mrs. Wongs (always smiling, yet serious) and Kathy types, were very good for me. They brought me joy and made me feel like I was special and bright. I appreciated that greatly. They paid attention to me in a trusting, friendly, smiley manner unlike Ma. I am certain it was their presence that saved me from becoming deeply bitter.

Yes, Kaiser Elementary was a bona fide school experience: my first talent show (Winners: Me and Christine singing “Close to You!”); dances (Popular songs: “Rockin’ Robin, Kung Fu Fighting,” and “You Make Me Feel Brand New”); plays (I played a drug attic in some production); more singing, more dancing, and friends…I was actually getting comfortable enough to not try to be perfect. Kaiser was the place that taught me people could get mad at you and get over it. And because of this, a strong mini-segment of history was built in my life as well as Sis’ and all of our friends.

Even so, I was becoming a real asshole. I had to let off steam somewhere. I needed my friendships badly, and knew better than to test them with verbal abuse. So, my unexpressed anger was vented in all the wrong places; for instance, I said “F#!k you!” to Mrs. Reynolds, another Kaiser teacher, because she was too prissy for my taste with her blonde Suzy-homemaker wig and swishy stride; or I'd be riding the bus and an old lady would ask me for my seat. “F#!k off!” I'd say turning my back to her. I was starting to enjoy the fights at school, and my language had gone all the way over to the land of filth.

Luckily, I went through this neighborhood unharrassed. No rapes or violence occurred in this house. Lots of weird neighbors dropped by whether Ma was home or not, but no one molested us children. Charles, the artist, was a druggy. His portraits were fascinatingly haunting and dark. Jim Parker, the skinny, little, pot-head, white nigga-wannabe, just bullshitted. He wanted Ma badly, but she wouldn't give it up to him, and that ruffled his bantam feathers mightily. Big Percy brought soul music into the house, and somewhere along the line, Ma started building a jazz collection.

I was getting heavily into music. I knew all the words to Ella, Billy, and Sarah's records. The soul made me want to dance and Judy Garland made me feel. Barbara Streisand in “Funny Girl” made me want to be a star and Carole King’s songs just made me smile. All of this helped me escape Ma's paranoia. The record player was in her room, so, when she had company, I would watch T.V in the kitchen as an alternative. I escaped into “Charlie's Angels,” “ Wonder Woman,” and “The Brady Bunch” religiously. This actually was a very good thing. Before I’d had these distractions, I'd spent hours on end full of sadness or rage. Now I was relaxed and able to concentrate.

I was almost happy. My biggest problem was that I went to school with dirty clothes on. Sis and I did the best we could, but we didn't have money. Ma didn't budget laundry in on a regular basis. Though frustrating and embarrassing, it never occurred to us to wash our clothes by hand.

Sis and I were in band at school. She played cello; I, the saxophone. So, what did occur to us was the idea of making money for the laundry with our musical skills, amateur though they might be. This led us to the streets with our instruments. Now we could go see "Sinbad" movies at the Elmwood Theater and the Kurt Russell surfer movies at the Alameda Theater. We'd even go to man-made Lake Temescal to swim with Gina from across the street. We never did get around to the laundry. Priorities…

Though, clearly having our priorities a bit skewed, Sis and I were, nonetheless, developing inside and out on many levels. But Ma persisted in being a child. I tolerated her whims and tirades with silent exasperation that looked like patience. If any sweets were brought into the house, we would immediately divide them into thirds. We actually had to hide our portions from Ma, so she wouldn’t eat them. Sis took to licking her share for extra insurance. We were developing horrible eating habits. We'd divide a pack of Oreos into thirds, and I'd eat mine in one sitting to avoid the risk of having to get angrier inside at Ma for eating them—Ma, who either pigged out, or was on a five-hundred-calorie-per-day diet. Eating was not just about nourishment and taste in our house. There was a storm brewing.

For “un-parented” kids, we were hanging in there pretty well and staying fairly productive. The only very upsetting occurrence for me happened across the street at the Catholic School. A bunch of us neighborhood kids were playing hide-and-go-seek, and home base was right next to a window. I was so busy watching the kid who was “it” chasing me, I missed the base and ran through the full length, plate glass window.

My arm was split wide open only half an inch away from that very important vein in your wrist. You could see my bones and everything. All the kids ran screaming. Sis tried to find help. Ma wasn’t home, so we went to our neighbor Agnes who gave us vanilla ice cream every Sunday. It was left over from her shriveled up old husband, Warren, who visited every weekend from jail where he was serving time for tax evasion. Poor Agnes fainted. A stranger ended up taking me to the hospital to get my sixty-two stitches. The doctor wanted to graph some skin from my butt to my arm. I was already freaked out enough without entertaining that unpleasant thought. I wouldn’t let him do it and still have the scar today. That’s how I learned my left from my right.

…home because there are too many memories to jam into this chapter. The apartment number six tapestry was, without a doubt, of “rich and royal hue.”

We had another big dose of health, while visiting Kristy, Sis’ good friend from school, and her family at their house. I was fascinated by her parents, Judy and John, who were two incredibly beautiful people that were clearly in love with each other. I had never seen such a thing! Wow! Ma would drop us off, or (miracle of miracles!) we’d actually visit as a family, and that felt great. No evil eye…merely laughing, and talking, and sharing.

So, just as life was beginning to establish a manageable rhythm, just as I was beginning to let my shoulders down for at least a third of the day, things were about to change yet again.

It was during our final week of unsupervised time. Ma had gone on a trip with Bill Ganslen, an older well-established San Francisco photographer. I don’t know what happened while she was on that trip, whether he had talked to her, or if some kind of parental instinct started kicking in. But, when she returned home from that particular trip, Ma looked at things realistically for the first time in a long time, and made a good, very grown-up decision—probably the best one of her life thus far.

She decided it was time to get out of the city. Not only did she decide this, but she actually had the wherewithal to plan the move a month ahead of time and tell us about it. This was unprecedented! Granted, it wasn’t a lengthy plan, but, for Ma, it might as well have been a year.

As with most kids, we were opposed to the move. As eccentric as it was, we did have a routine and had made friends here in Oakland. So, even though I knew from past experience, that whenever there was a complete break in pattern…a total change was going to take place, I opted to remain in denial. I did not allow myself to worry. I mean, what were the odds of our depressed, disappearing, paranoid, sex-crazed, narcissistic Ma getting organized enough to actually follow through? I found out when she pulled up one evening in a rented Ryder truck.

“Reality versus the moment—the big picture versus this microcosm in time. Which one distorted my sense of self and confused my thoughts? What time is it, and how old am I again? Am I the lion or the lamb?"


Chapter 6—Home Sweet Home, Part One


Move number six—Howe Street—the middle of the block—an eight step cement stairway sandwiched by large patches of ivy heading up to a three flat with peeling dove gray paint—the eye sore of the block.

We moved into the second floor apartment. The first floor was divided into two apartments occupied by our immediate neighbors, ninety-year-old Mrs. Frickholm, and sixty-five-year-old Agnes Graham, who smoked so much over her many years in the apartment that her dinner plates were stained yellow and gave the food an acrid ash flavor.

Our city block appeared to be on the verge of being run down. A walk around it starting left brought one to a lone crab apple tree looking sickly and out of place on corner one, a beautiful, well-tended rose garden with some of the biggest roses I’ve ever seen on corner number two, a long expanse of browning lawn on corner three, and two vicious unchained, unfenced German Shepherds staring hungrily just across the street on corner number four. The Catholic school across the street stood an architectural beacon of light amid the fading two-flats and the partial view of the tacky red and white gas station peaking through from Piedmont Avenue. A few long blocks south brought one to Kaiser Hospital and the Mayfair Market. Mosswood Park brushed up against all of that. Walking in the opposite direction led to a huge cemetery immediately followed by a long row of rustling eucalyptus trees. The aromatic trees melted into the mini-mall located directly behind the College of Arts heading you into College Avenue, the gateway to Berkeley, the infamous land of intellectuals, freaks, and philosophers.

Up the eight cement stairs, to the six wooden stairs, to the door, which opened to the dozen plus, once carpeted stairs, to the second floor flat one would go. Once the stairs were traversed and you collapsed on the landing, you would find yourself faced with two doors: one on the right opening into the front room now turned into Ma’s bedroom, and one on the left opening into the kitchen. The kitchen led into a hallway with a small, narrow bathroom. Sis’ and my bedrooms were off to the left next to the back door. Heading back through the hallway to the right was a small room which functioned as the living room. That room had French doors which led into Ma’s bedroom where there was a small balcony. The place was set up in an oval of sorts.

Mr. Albertini, our landlord, was a quick moving little Italian man with fresh, faithless eyes. He and my mother instantly fell into a volatile, love-hate banter. He’d be screaming at her, half in English, half in Italian, that she had lied about the number of pets, children, blah, blah, all the while, his eyes never leaving her breasts unless they were locked firmly on her crotch. She, in turn, would display the perfect blend of disgust and lust while delivering blatantly empty and therefore punishable apologies. In retrospect, I felt I was privy to some type of perverted fetish and really should not have been in the room while they carried on in this manner.

So here we were in our first home—home because we actually lived life in these rooms for what must’ve been two years, maybe even three; home because we knew the people in the neighborhood and became familiar with certain smells and patterns; home because this was the most routine my life had been thus far.

Ma went through lots of changes here. She literally crashed. I don’t know how else to describe it. Everything seemed such an effort for her. There was so much weight and stifled sorrow in her voice. She looked swollen or beat up. Her solution for everything was sleep. She wouldn’t, or perhaps, couldn’t get off the couch for days on end. We’d pull her, pinch her, yank her, but…nothing. No more lovely smiles… just a mild frown or a weak moan. When she was awake, her brow was always furrowed so I could study well the unusual, solitary, vertical crease that would form between her eyes. She didn’t talk much. Sometimes she’d disappear altogether for days on end. This upset us at first, but she’d always return, and we soon became impervious to her unexpected absences. The initial feelings of fear and worry due to her being gone were quickly replaced with the distractions of noise, TV, lights, reading, candy, and eventually a rationalized relief.

I liked Ma this way. I was now seven about to turn eight. The last couple of years had been so tumultuous; I had already written her off. It was the only way I was able to embrace her fragmented way of living. Tired of surprises and sudden change, her sleeping for days on end, or disappearing altogether, seemed a blessing to me. Now that she was depressed, I could get on with life.

We compensated very well for Ma’s inaction. We learned how to make scrambled eggs, homemade pancakes, biscuits and cream-of wheat…I recall most fondly the two or three months I had Kraft macaroni-and-cheese and hamburger for dinner every night. I never got sick of the synthetic cheese taste and the hamburger drenched in Heinz or Delmonte ketchup. The first bite was the highlight of my day. It never let me down. Sis became the bread and pie baker, and I specialized in cakes. We had a good time eating too much and sleeping with the lights on.

Every now and again Ma would snap out of it and we’d have great fun together. She was a gloriously creative soul. All of our activities revolved around music and art. Dancing, singing, drawing, paper maché... Fun! And it was always glamorous with Ma. We didn’t draw flowers and stick figures. We drew ladies with three shades of eye shadow, mascara, contemporary hairstyles with flips covering one eye, luscious, lipstick-covered mouths, and designer clothes. Nothing was cute. It was all beautiful or precise.

Ma was lenient, too, as long as it was done in the name of art. I recall that strange paint job I did in my room one weekend afternoon while she was gone. I found some aqua paint in the garage and expressed myself on the walls. I thought it was beautiful, my three-foot wide aqua stripe on each wall.

So did Ma!

Once in a while, Ma would "come to" with more fire and try to make us jump through her ridiculous, paranoid hoops. Sadly enough, I’m not exaggerating. She really was paranoid. She always thought someone was trying to brainwash her, or kill her, or something. It wasn’t unusual and actually was quite routine for her to wake us at three or four in the morning demanding that we sit in a circle with her in the living room wearing copper bracelets and chanting to ward off evil. Or she would insist that we hide in a closet because some bad guy was in the house trying to find her. She’d come stomping into our room shaking us awake with adrenaline pumped hands.

"Shh! Get up! Come on. ‘Now!!’" she’d hiss.

I don’t know if I can convey to you how highly unnerving it is to witness someone experiencing so much fright and torment when there is clearly nothing wrong and no danger in sight.

Again, the only way I could process her behavior was to detach—to write her off. Sis seemed to be using the same method. Our response to Ma’s overactive imagination was unsophisticated, cold, and completely in the moment. We thought she was weird, and, at least for the first few times, almost hoped there was someone or something lurking in the shadows to offset the bizarreness of the scene. Over time, it took a lot to get us kids to worry about her, let alone them. We just wanted to have a good time, and she was ruining it. I would roll my eyes behind her back and make the crazy sign to Sis, or pretend that I didn’t hear her to avoid the issue entirely. I didn’t know words like "schizophrenic" or "delusional". If only she would calm down and get the crayons out.

It got to the point where I was certain that something was terribly wrong with her. No longer could I humor her imagined emergencies even with my condescending attitude firmly in place. The instinct to protect myself from her delusions, so intense and panicky, became overwhelming. You know when a mosquito is humming and buzzing right by your ear, how after a while you snap and start swatting at it in a hysterically violent manner? That hyper frustration is what Ma inspired in me. The only reason I couldn’t snap is because she was bigger than me. All I could do was wish her gone after one of her episodes and be ever so thankful when she finally did disappear for a few days.

My limit was finally reached, and I became fed up enough to draw the line out loud one day. "You’re not a real mom," I told her in my childish voice. "You don’t think right. You can tell me to do whatever you want, but I won’t do it unless I think it makes sense." I looked her right in the eye as I said this. My statement was unprovoked, which gave it more weight. That particular morning she was sitting at her vanity applying mascara as I lay watching sprawled across her sheepskin-covered bed. She didn’t argue with me as our eyes locked. Time just stopped, and those few seconds froze like minutes punctuated with icicles for exclamation points; then, she went back to her make-up. Subtle as it was, that is the only time she ever acknowledged her illness.

This is also the exact point and time where my sister and I lost all chance of forming a real bond. I knew Sis wanted, needed things to be normal. She needed Ma to be a parent you could listen to, and this made her a prisoner to my mother’s insanity. She “did” do what she was told; Sis “did” jump through Ma’s farcical hoops, and she had a lot more pain in her life as a result.

...home because we had most of our family pets here. Our place was a virtual zoo. Ma loved animals so.

There was a large balcony through Sis’ room. That’s where we kept the cats that Ma kept bringing home. The cat adoptions started because Leroy had been stolen and Chicky had run off. But Ma’s efforts went beyond replacement. She kept bringing these kittens home. They’d get big and have babies; before you knew it, we had twenty-one cats. Chicky miraculously found her way home three months later, but the pattern had been irreversibly set.

A visit to the Japanese Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park gave Ma a yen for carp. Of course, the only logical thing to do was to fill a child’s wading pool full of carp and stick it out on the balcony with the twenty-one cats. Those poor fish. None died, but all incurred battle wounds from the many attempts on their lives.

On Easter, we added a baby duck to the compound. Once big enough to hold his own, he, too, went out on the balcony. It was only natural, having never seen another duck since birth, that he thought he was a cat. I found it highly amusing to observe him slinking in the house to lie under the bed or sit on my lap while I watched T.V. He would show his affection by maniacally biting ones toes. No one got as frenzied a toe attack as I. True love!

The real cats didn’t like another kind of love he was trying to offer them, so, without further ado, Ma got Ducky a girl duck to solve the problem. They honeymooned in the garage for two nights. I can still hear Mr. Albertini’s ranting...

You can imagine, with twenty-one cats and a couple ducks all sharing the same porch, a hygienic problem developed. One had to watch one’s step, there being no litter box. Every Sunday we’d get out some laundry soap, a janitor’s broom, and a hose and get down to business, scrubbing and spraying away. That meant poor Mrs. Frickholm was subjected to watching globs of cat crap slide and dribble down her lovely sun porch windows on all three sides. At ninety, standing just under five feet tall, it’s safe to say her protest was feeble at best.

We can’t complete the food chain without dogs. Sidney, the short-haired collie, was our first. He got mauled by the Shepherds on corner four and hit by a car twice (the first hit made him blind in one eye) before he died. Casey, dog number two, was a German Shepherd. She only had to get hit once to die a particularly dramatic death in the front yard with Ma pushing the blood out of her body to hasten the end of her misery. Dog number three, Doggie, was a little Sheltie we rescued from the dog pound. He also was hit by a car. We think he died. We saw him get hit, but there was no corpse to speak of. Sis and I were convinced that he was a ghost or a magic dog, since he seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

We didn’t have money for food, and it was becoming a real problem. Yes, we got the government-issue cheese and peanut butter. Yes, we were on the list of human guinea pigs for prototype cereals, but it just wasn’t cutting it. So...we got chickens.

Ma had interesting logic. There was, indeed, a method to her madness. The practicality of her farm training paired with her creativity formed a curiously effective result. She was trying to stretch what little money we had as far as it would go. So, since chicken feed was cheaper than human food, she bought two chickens, and we ate their eggs (protein problem solved!). Certainly, Ma did not want to deprive the chickens of their sex lives; hence, in walked Roosty.

She forgot about the fact that cock’s crow. Now we were getting lots of questions from the sleep-deprived neighbors. Roosty, his Leghorn majesty, was definitely disturbing the peace every sunrise. Eventually, we hit upon the simple yet effective solution of putting him in a dark kitchen drawer at night and not letting him out until around eleven the following morning.

Let me state the obvious. The apartment was getting excessively crowded; it was virtually overrun with animals. Consequently, we needed to expand beyond the front door. This is when our bigger projects, born of necessity, began. Ma wanted all these animals, which, by volume, was defeating the purpose of stretching the food money. This being a reality impossible to ignore, she now had her sights set on a garden. Without Albertini’s permission, she had me and Sis pull up all the ivy on either side of the eight cement steps in front. Not just a little patch, but ALL of the ivy. We planted corn, Swiss chard, tomatoes, carrots, etc. Once that mission was accomplished, we moved into the back yard to build a chicken coop—accommodations for our ever-growing hen farm. Ma came home with supplies: wire, wood, nails and a hammer. Sis and I threw something or other together. After the coop, it was a fence she wanted us to build. We made a monstrosity of a contraption four feet high and twenty feet long that was impossible for us to pick up and put in place. Ma came out to help us and, with one mighty heave, tore all the muscles in the right side of her torso. She was bedridden for a month. The fence just lay there in the middle of everything inconveniencing everyone. Someone put it in place after several weeks.

Meanwhile, the animal theme continued spanning beyond our own pets and food providers. Sis and I became a superhero team of sorts and carried out several rescue missions throughout the neighborhood.

We discovered our first victims while building that ramshackle chicken coop in the back yard. Rumor had it that our neighbors in the house directly behind us raised and killed rabbits for money. To our horror, this rumor was confirmed as a fact by the anemic looking fourteen-year-old girl who lived there. She told us in great detail how she helped her dad skin and boil the little innocents three times a week! We occasionally heard the poor babies’ shrieks of terror as the left the world. Something had to be done. Hopping the fence, Sis and I put as many bunnies as we could fit in a cardboard box and walked them up to the cemetery to their freedom. So proud of ourselves were we. Every time I saw a bunny scurrying amongst the tombstones, I was sure it was one of our rescues or their babies.

Our next victim was found on top of the garage roof while we were building a fort with the leftover wood from the chicken coop. He was old, dirty, decrepit, and his days were undeniably numbered. This foul smelling, weak, wobbly-legged, white tomcat immediately won our hearts because even though he was so close to death and winced with each step taken, he seemed to be in remarkably good spirits and was always genuinely pleased to see us. Our expectations were realistic enough. We just wanted to offer him a little comfort in his last days. An old pillow served as his bed, and we fed him scrambled eggs till he was no more; however, this kindness backfired on us. His disease was contagious and knocked off many of our own cats. May you rest in peace dear Jason, Sweetmeat et al! We had quite a cat cemetery in the back yard.

One more rescue needed to be made. I gave my friend Luba a mouse for her birthday. Mice and those black-and-white, tame rats were very popular pets in the seventies right around the time the movie “Ben” came out. Shortly after the birthday party, I went to Luba's house to play and went up to her room only find her twirling the poor rodent round and round in a wrapped up curtain. Shocked and appalled, I snatched the mouse from her in an indignant huff and took him home to the zoo.

Mousy was so forlorn. He looked like a prisoner in his yellow and orange habitrail. His front claws were almost constantly pressed against the yellow plastic walls in a wistful, pleading manner. I built him a large cage, planted grass on the bottom of it, and moved him out on the front balcony in Ma’s room. I prayed the fresh outdoor air and the natural grass would brighten his spirits. Still, mousy moped miserably. I asked Ma if I could set him free in the house.

“Sure.”

Now Mousy was happy! We hardly ever saw him. I knew he was there though. Every morning, I’d check the little clay dish I had made at school that was on the kitchen floor by the sink to see if the small glob of government-issue peanut butter had been eaten. It was gone every time. Mousy showed up in a plant pot every now and then, or I’d feel him run across my toes at night once in a blue moon. Startling and heartwarming it was.

Even though we enjoyed snippets of the animal experience, it wasn’t without a lot of annoyance. Ma made me sigh and shake my head a lot. We whined about taking care of the fifty plus animals and tending the garden and building the chicken coop and the many other contraptions too numerous to mention. The whining was brought on by the fact that, other than the rescues, all of these animals were Ma’s idea. She wanted them, but we took care of them. I, for one, was not happy with all the mess and responsibility. One or two pets sounded good, but more than fifty and a huge garden too? And besides, we were normal kids in that respect. Yuck! Chores!

The animals were with us the entire two or three years we were there. We lost one chicken to a stray dog, and, as stated, many cats to disease, and all the dogs to cars, but other than that, they were a constant presence. Ma’s depression, absence, and paranoia were also constant, which is a grand testament to her resilience…

Another chapter. I can't make italics here, so I'll have to use quotes.

Walking, walking into the night, through the night, into the day—through the day, into the night... night... day... night... day—dark... light... dark... light...


Chapter 5--Going Nowhere Fast

We spent about three weeks living in the car. It was cozy in a let’s-play-house manner with towels hanging over the windows acting as curtains and flashlights on the dashboard at night. We ate our meals on top of the occupied rabbit cage and read or played cards while listening to the radio humming along with the popular music.

Our routine was simple, just as Ma had said it would be. Most of our daylight hours were spent hanging out at the Cactus Café, a dingy little diner on Telegraph Avenue run by a middle-aged man with a round, leathery, grill-cooked face whose slanted eyes defied his predominantly Irish features. Ma yakked at him incessantly while Sis and I sat swiveling round and round on the counter stools occupying ourselves with nothing for hours on end. The sunlight shone through the yellowing blinds, never quite able to touch the faded pink walls in that dusty, humble corner of the world. We would walk out of the quiet almost rural atmosphere of the diner into the slick, quick, agitated city streets, and we’d meander our way back to the “car-house” stopping first at Vern’s Market for one of their yummy sweet potato pies (still the best I’ve ever had).

Once “home,” we’d let the animals out to play; they never wandered further than they would have in a fenced-in back yard. Chickybits and Leroy stepped gingerly among the rusted car parts and empty bottles. This was all "so" beneath them. The last bit of daylight would be filled with the omnipresent strains of hit tunes. If we felt really ambitious, we would drive over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco and head up to the Cross—the white, neon cross where people would go to kiss or pray. The view of the city from said cross was a steep, eerie silhouette mysteriously covered with a layer of fog, which hung just below the subtle sparkle of lights dipping in and out of the hills. Eventually, we would make our way back to the dead-end alley and fall into cramped, furry, smelly sleep.

The way I saw it, life was good. I was too young to be embarrassed by the circumstances or feel the hardship. This was a great adventure to me—yet another extension of our ongoing game of make-believe. I’m not sure how Sis felt about it. She didn’t look too thrilled. Her silence conveyed nothing.

After those initial three weeks in the “car-house,” we moved into Louis’ apartment. Louis was a good looking, young black man, a thirtyish fiery, wiry "nigga" that Ma had taken up with. When I say "nigga," I mean it in the street sense of the word. We were on the Street, and Louis was a fast talking, good looking, strutter—a quick thinking survivalist that could act any part in the blink of an eye to stay alive and well; he was a "nigga." In his world, this was the ultimate compliment. Life with Louis consisted of greasy breakfasts, games of tag and me always asking, “What?” because he talked so fast that I couldn’t understand him. Moving in with him was the beginning of a series of unstable, colorful environments.

We moved into our first apartment alone a couple of months later. We moved a lot of places. Ma went through a lot of jobs and a lot of men. Most of the apartments were just there; most of the jobs were mindless; and most of the men were big and black.

My favorite was a dapper, tall, strong, beautiful black man named Jim Kent. I was only five and even I knew he was incredibly sexy. I loved strong, fearless male energy, and, boy, did he ever have it. It made me relax and laugh from the belly. Dumb stuff like crossing a big, busy avenue and him saying, “Watch this.” He’d stick his leg right out in front of a car and bring rush hour traffic to a screeching, angry halt. My terror was so fun because as long as his strong arm was wrapped around me and I could feel the muscle of his leg flexing against my cheek because I was pulled so close to him as we crossed the street, I knew that no real harm could come to me. God, what an incredible feeling. In those moments I was truly a child, trusting, dependent, safe and happy. And he cooked great breakfasts to boot. We’d laugh and eat ourselves into a state of paralysis overstuffed with food and joy.

Everyone else was substandard at best. Each relationship reeked of sex, drama, and violence. The joy was missing, and Ma became expert at saying “Good-bye.” Louis got dumped because he blew up the big, black car with a bomb in a political rally. Lots of others came and went. My least favorite is a toss up between eighteen-year-old, nappy-headed Eugene who sat on our front porch a pitiful puddle of tears everyday for a week straight when Ma dumped him, and Bill, the funny, smelly, crunchy "granola", white guy that fancied himself to be a philosopher.

So, the Bay area was our home for the next five years as we moved from place to place. Each apartment became associated with certain incidents in my life:

Apartment one—the second floor of a white house with yellow trim just down the street from our old "campsite"…our first place alone after moving out of Louis’. This is where we added doves and a snapping turtle to our pet collection. I played with matches here, and found on old ‘45 of "Spooky," which I listened to over and over again.

Ma became part of a hippy commune down the block. All the people there had renamed themselves colorful names, such as Prospector, Roots, Empty Sky and Kookie... That was interesting. They were very free. Prospector was tall and willowy with a beard—kind of Jesus-like; Anya, his wife, who always wore overalls, was a short, cute, buxom freckle-faced woman with wavy, strawberry-blonde hair. They believed in giving their children LSD and teaching them to swear. Hey, they were free. My incredulous gulp never lessened no matter how many times I heard four-year-old Blake say, "F%!# it all," with great conviction, his two-year-old brother Morgan trying hard to follow suit.

Reefer smoke filled the neighborhood air. I was fearfully mesmerized by Sonja, the albino black girl that lived two houses down. I couldn’t come to terms with her blonde kinky hair, her white, freckled skin and her eyes, one blue, the other a kind of pink. She looked otherworldly to me as she sat on her front porch in her Catholic school uniform slinging a pink yoyo.

Sis and I spent hours alone, which I used to satisfy my curiosity about everything that went on in the neighborhood. I liked walking around talking to people, and seeing so many blacks mixed in with everyone else. After all, up until this point, I’d been raised in white-bread America. This integrated panorama was quite a treat.

Unfortunately, I learned more than I ever wanted to when the eighteen-year-old boy next door took my virginity at knife point on the garage floor. "Cold, hurt, dirty sex— warm, slimy gunk running from my crotch in between my cold, gritty butt cheeks making me feel humiliated and guilty like you do when you’re too old to wet the bed and it happens anyway." Waiting for the right moment to run back in the house so my sister wouldn’t see, I, at five-and-a-half, had my first big secret to keep.

Move number two—a small house with dark, wooden shingles right across the street from the school we would attend. There, I got beat up a lot by gangs of second and third-grade girls that called me “chicken” because I wouldn’t help them beat up other people. Cedric used to chase me into the girls’ bathroom and hit me because he liked me. Velda was the freak in school because she stood five-foot-one in first grade. The vicious guard dogs on chains in front of many houses on our block intensified my already heightened fear of dogs.

Ma couldn’t afford rent on our place. We kept the front of the house dark and only lived in the kitchen and one room in back so the landlord couldn’t confront us. Every other day we’d hear a knock on the door and the landlord David’s exasperated voice, "Mary Jane, I know you’re in there. I need the rent."

We would turn all the lights out and sit still until he would go away. I could see his tolerant profile through the missing shutter slat. His slightly tinted glasses couldn’t hide the conflict, landlord versus humanitarian, in his eyes. He would wait for a response, one hand nervously running through the hair flip and down the side burn. This routine went on for a couple months.

One night, instead of knocking and talking, we heard a picking at the door. My handsome, Irish, six-foot, straight looking, very gay cousin Scooter, who was visiting at the time, became very upset.

“Mary Jane, you have to face him. I’m sure you can work something out.”

She shushed him and they argued in whispers for a minute.

“Enough is enough! I’m letting him in.”

Scooter walked over to the door, opened it with great flourish and exhaled, “All 'right', David.”

He found himself face to face with a nervous looking little black man hunched over the lock with crow bar in hand. They stared at each other frozen for a moment; the, the would-be thief ran off with the most bewildered look on his face. We laughed about it for hours recalling the moment again and again with more mirth each time.

“What if his name actually was David? Wouldn’t that be funny? Ha, ha!”

It wasn’t long after that when we snuck away to another house; not, however, before we lost the rabbits to insecticide covered leaves.

The next three moves were insignificant, merely variations on the same theme. But apartment number six... apartment number six deserves a whole chapter.

Just keep me distracted so I don't have to see what is happening—so I don't realize that I'm young, stupid, and out of my league with nowhere to go and no one to trust...

Chapter 4 --Through Rose Colored Glasses

“Kids, this is Jerry Row. Don't worry. He’s a nice man. Guess what? He’s driving us to California!”

Wow! We were going to California! I was more than excited. I’d always wanted to go there. Being stuffed in the back seat with pillows, blankets, animals and my sister wasn't so bad. Actually, I rather enjoyed it. It was so unusual leaving in the middle of the night like this. We must be on some kind of grand adventure. I could hardly contain myself!

Jerry had a low, soothing voice, which I very much liked the sound of. The voice, so mild and sane in tone, made it easy to forgive his rather gawky, gangling appearance. He was a tall, skinny white guy with big bushy sideburns and an even bigger Adams apple. I couldn’t see much else in the darkness. All I knew for certain was that Jerry was very tall, very skinny, and he seemed to make Ma very happy, so everything was cool with me. She was almost pretty and fun again.

Morning came soon enough. I could see Jerry had big, blue, droopy eyes as I watched him through the rear view mirror. His gaunt frame was topped off by golden hair cut in a Lancelot bob, which didn't match the rest of him. Every now and then, he'd throw one arm over the back of the seat, and his hand would dangle. I had never seen such a big hand with finger joints protruding almost as markedly as the gargantuan knuckles. I found it truly fascinating. Its size alone made me relax. The combination of the low, friendly voice and the big, masculine hand made me feel safe and completely at ease.

Details of our journey escape me for the most part. I was more impressed with its ambiance, which was golden like Jerry’s hair.

We kept the radio on all the way to California. Three tunes dominated the air waves. Each time we crossed a state line, there would be a moment of static prompting us to adjust the radio, but, still, the same three tunes: “I've got a brand new pair of roller skates. You've got a brand new key…;” and, “It’s the last song I’ll ever write for you. It’s the last song to show you just how much I really care…;” and, “Bye-bye, Miss American pie. Drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry. And good ol’ boys drinking whiskey and rye singing this’ll be the day that I die. This’ll be the day that I die...” Yep, the same three songs again, and again, and again, "and" again. That in itself was a lulling comfort.

By adult standards, the trip was pretty uneventful; from a child’s perspective, it was exhilarating. So what if it was the middle of winter? Each hour was filled with something new: a kind of tree, the gas attendant’s accent... It was so exciting stopping down some random country lane to let the cats out and clean the rabbit cage. Even the stupid, crappy, little arguments with my sister were fun. One night, we stayed in a youth hostel. I remember being amused by the fact that Jerry slept on top of his guitar as if it were a pillow; he was worried that someone might steal it. All these average little hiccoughs along the way read as new angles on life to me—a broadening of my horizon, if you will. I approved.

The further we drove, the warmer the temperature became. We were literally driving into the sunshine. True, the car was becoming pungent with the smell of human sweat and rabbit droppings. I didn't care. As far as I was concerned, this was the life. That is, until Jerry left. Things felt a bit scary when we said good-bye to him.

We’d gotten as far as Denver. The time was eleven p.m. I knew things were about to change again because Jerry was driving slower clearly looking at street numbers as if trying to find a specific address. He slowed to a stop and parked. Guess we’d found the place. The street was dark except for the dirt covered, neon sign of a bar. The sound of a live band thudded through its walls. Jerry got out of the car and grabbed his duffel bag from the trunk. Ma scooted over to the driver's seat and rolled down the window. Jerry leaned in, whispered something in her ear, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Good-bye and good luck, girls. I'm going into this jam session here. I'll play the first song as a prayer for you kids.” One more kiss for Ma, and then, with guitar slung over shoulder, he disappeared into the bar. Good-bye, Mr. Sunshine.

The cold came as soon as Jerry left. We were heading up into the Rocky Mountains. Ma had a detached retina and couldn't see things correctly unless they were at a forty-five degree angle left of straight ahead. No doubt, this made for interesting driving since she refused to wear her glasses. I wasn’t too worried even though it was pitch dark and the roads were minimally marked. Logically speaking, as long as we were climbing uphill, she couldn’t build enough speed to be dangerous. Sis and I took turns riding in the front seat. It was spookily fun being in the middle of nowhere winding up, up, up amongst the night and trees.

Down was a different story. No more front seat for me. Ma let the car gather speed with each turn. With no guard rails and no lights, it looked like certain death. I tried to will myself to sleep but had no such luck. We had a momentary respite when we hit the mecca of Salt Lake City. There, the warm glow of the cabins and salt deposits around the lake charmed a little color back into my cheeks. Not for long. No time for an overnight stay. Back on our dark, erratic roller coaster ride we went. Thank God night ends.

Things were less stressful by day. It wasn’t slow and sane as it had been with Jerry, but I’d been used to this vibe with Ma for years; I could handle it. When Jerry had been around, he had been the grown up and we were the kids. With Ma, we were all kids and she was the most wayward one.

We made one last stop for a short glimpse of the Grand Canyon by which, surprisingly enough, I was not impressed or excited. Being in that particular environment felt as subconsciously innate to me as breathing. The still air, dry heat, warm, golden earth and endless blue of the sky felt wholly natural and awoke in me a sense of wisdom and strength beyond my years overriding the impact of its stern beauty, and expressing the essence of my existence to perfection. Its barren, fossilized beauty validated and completed me as if it were my one true love. I took note.

We were now heading into the final stretch of our cross-country trek, and it wasn’t long before we rolled into California. Now THIS was impressive. THIS was thrilling! The coy glimpses and brief rendezvous I had with the ocean amazed me the most. I fell in love with this unrestrained body of water and the fine, warm, white sand surrounding and cupping it in love. The strong misty breeze equaled sinful delight as it blew against my uninitiated face. I had great reverence for the strength of this world wonder as I resisted the undertow and was ruthlessly pummeled about by waves only to be unceremoniously deposited ashore gasping in glee and basking in sunshine. So magnetized was I by this magnificence called Ocean that my mother had to constantly yank me out of it lest I drowned. I would’ve gladly surrendered my life as an offering to this that made me so intoxicated with pure joy.

Oh, yes indeed, our first two weeks in California were sheer heaven. We stayed in four star hotels that hugged the coastline every night eating and drinking whatever our hearts desired. We even had live lobsters in the fridge and all the sweets we desired; I was hooked on Oreo cookies at the time. We went through a continuous rotation of game rooms, plays, and movies. The rabbits stayed on the balcony. The cats were properly groomed. Chicky lost her babies (thanks Clifton!), but was otherwise okay. Needless to say, I was happy, happy, happy. Ma looked great! She was her colorful, beautiful self once again. Everything was too good to be true. This was a fairytale time--a fantastical whirlwind of entertainment and luxury.

Our surreal game of make-believe continued via an odd detour to the Gulf of Mexico. This involved packing a small suitcase and getting on an airplane with the animals, while leaving the rest of our things in the California hotel. There was no prep time. One minute Sis and I were swimming and building sand castles on a beach somewhere in California, the next, Ma was calling us in telling us to towel off and to hurry because we had to be at the airport in an hour. Upon landing in Houston, we rented a VW bug, drove down to Galveston, Texas, stopped at a mall and went on a HUGE shopping spree before checking into yet another luxury hotel located on a Texas beach. A fantastical whirlwind....We snuck the animals into the room in some of the shopping bags, but left everything we'd bought and the suitcase in the car in the parking lot.

Retrospectively I realize Ma must've met a man that promised her the world. I can vaguely see in my mind's eye a red-faced wooer in a cowboy hat and a gray business suit chomping on a cigar handing out twenties to me and Sis and telling us to go check out the hotel and have fun while he talked to Ma. He was some kind of famous car dealer. I had seen his face in T.V. commercials before. Whatever. Money! And no supervision! Sis and I continued our splurge buying bathing suits, and stuffing our faces, and laughing, laughing, laughing so hard...By day we explored the new ocean, catching blue crabs with big sticks and storing them in a trash can filled with sea water out on the balcony near the rabbits. Crabs on the balcony, lobsters in the fridge, cookies in the cupboards, twenties in our hands, and now flowers upon flowers from the red-faced wooer filling our room--the red-faced wooer who came to talk to Ma an awful lot—we had it made!

In the evening, we’d tip-toe back into the hotel room hearing muffled laughter and voices behind the closed bedroom door. We’d feel so special when we saw the room service, metal covered plates waiting for us and giggle with surprise and delight every time as we removed the covers to dig into our food with relish. Then we’d pull out the hide-away bed in the couch and flop on our stomachs to watch T.V. through all hours of the night. I’d hear the brief sharp sound of the bedroom doorknob as it turned in the earliest part of morning. Red-face would come out fully clothed with cowboy hat on head. I’d catch blurry views of his silhouette as the light from the T.V. glanced off his hat and shoulders. He didn’t tip-toe or creep but walked straight-backed with full authority. Funny how those cowboy boots never did make a sound at that time of night—almost like magic. They definitely clicked during the day.

It didn't last. Within a week we were buying new suitcases to pack up all the fluff we'd bought in the hotel stores and were headed back to California. We missed our flight because we couldn't find the VW Bug in the parking lot. Someone had stolen the car with all the stuff in it from our initial mall shopping spree when we'd parked there a week ago. So, we taxied it, animals and all, to the airport. We were back in our California comfort zone in a matter of hours. The big black car was still in the parking lot. Red-face showed up once or twice and made a few pleas over the phone, but it was official: we were once again a trio of playmates. No men, no women, just three little girls on a constant sleepover. Wheeeee!

On one of our nights of decadence when we were out to dinner, Ma appeared unusually thoughtful...

“Kids, get whatever you want tonight and really enjoy it because after tonight, we’re going to be living much simpler. We really needed this fun, but I don’t have anymore money, so I have to get serious again. Don’t worry. We’ll be all right. Just enjoy tonight and we’ll deal with tomorrow when it comes.”

“Okay, Ma.” Any excuse to indulge. I only translated the “go for it, kid” into child language and did not hear nor heed the warning.

Yet again, things were about to shift significantly. I now knew all the signs. Whenever there was a complete break in pattern, I now knew that meant a total change was going to take place in how our day, week, or month went. We received a wake-up call at five a.m. the next morning. We never got wake-up calls. Something was afoot. Lots of packing and getting the animals ready... Perhaps another plane ride? Instead of using the elevator, we went down the fire stairs. Now I was frightened. This was an extreme measure. Ma wanted us to be quiet so badly. She glared murderously at us whenever we uttered a single peep, startling us into silence. What was the big deal? We loaded up the car in a silent panic and took off fast.

Yah, we were on the road again, but something didn’t feel right. Ma answered our “destinational” questions vaguely. Now that we were in California, she couldn’t just blurt out "California" anymore. We needed the name of a town, or place, or…something. But she seemed very hard pressed when it came to specifics and snapped defensively till we hushed.

It felt like we weren’t going anywhere. We drove to San Francisco and rode up and down hills all day long looking, pointing, “enjoying…” Yet, still, I had a sense of great foreboding. At dusk we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. Ah, there was the ocean. Okay, things weren’t all that bad. We went back over it again into San Francisco, and then took the Bay Bridge into Oakland. I couldn’t ignore the fact that Oakland was not so nice, at least the part we were in. It looked poor and felt ugly. Ma kept driving up and down every street aimlessly. It was getting late. Even I could no longer find the fun in our everlasting Sunday drive. Ma was emanating waves of stress. No one spoke. She took a left turn into a dead end alley and turned off the engine.

“Okay, kids. Get comfy. This is our campsite for tonight.” She lay across the front seat with a pillow and blanket, and closed her eyes. Fun! We were sleeping in the car! Sis and I pet the kitties and tried to sleep, but it was, as usual, too exciting for me. Finally, I fell asleep as night hinted at morning. We got up about ten a.m.

I took a closer look at our “campsite,” a shallow, dead end alley with dumpsters at the back, a partially demolished building to the right, and rusted old car parts to the left. I’m not sure if it was a child’s powers of rationalization, the change of pace, or an overdeveloped sense of looking on the bright side, but, believe it or not, I thought this was all real cool.

Ma opened the car doors, and we let the animals out to play. They stayed near as they stretched. We locked them back in the car, cracked a window a bit, and went walking…

Here's another chapter.


My face is falling. It can't be saved. No longer can I play this game. I've got to keep moving or it's all over...

Chapter 3--I Hate You


It all changed almost over night. All chances of routine, security, comfort and confidence were lost at this sharp turn in life’s road. The house in Robbinsdale sold. Between that and the money Ralph left her, Ma suddenly bad a big wad of dough. She decided it would be nice to live on a farm and bought a hundred and fifty acre ranch in Syracuse, New York. Off we went. Just like that. She didn’t hire help or have a game plan. All at once, poof! We were living on a huge ranch in upstate New York in a big, rickety, drafty, old farmhouse with wood-framed beds. As large as the house was, it wasn't big enough because Clifton came along.

Clifton was my mother’s new boyfriend. Simply put: I hated him. An extremely well-spoken black man with an enormous chip on his shoulder, he reveled in negativity and cynicism. Clifton hated white people but was dating my mother and another white woman she knew named Pat. As a matter of fact, Ma and Pat both looked a lot alike. It was now nineteen-seventy. Long hair teased high was the fad, as well as black cat suits and severely tailored pant suits. Their tearful lunches together—sometimes united, sometimes opposed in their love for this asshole sickened me. I was dragged everywhere with them and party to all the sordid details of their depressing conversations.

Harshly critical and exceedingly uptight are the words Clifton embodied. I don’t recall him talking to us kids directly—only on rare occasion. But he never, ever missed an opportunity to put down Ma. He was constantly on her case.

He beat her almost nightly in that big, rickety, old house. Sis and I would go upstairs to bed and he’d start lecturing, haranguing, harrassing and patronizing, getting louder and louder, breaking something for emphasis, and then laying into her full force. We’d creep down the stairs to hear better, whispering in the darkness, our comfy, flannel nightgowns in stark contrast with events below--the scent of dusty, old wood permeating the air. I never felt worry. I never felt fear. I just could not understand why my mother would let him do this to her. It was so illogical to me.

He was yelling at her about the Himalayan cats now. We had brought two with us: Leroy and Chickybits who was pregnant. Louder, and longer, and nastier, and even louder... throwing Chicky against the wall for emphasis...

"These cats are another symbol of the white way of life. It’s so frivolous. A sign of status..."

Let the games begin. Whatever.

It was now time to enroll in school. The stingy landscape of leaveless trees poking up out of the thin layer of dirty snow was metaphoric; new friends did not await me here. As I awoke the morning of the first and last day of classes, I tried to shrug off my instinctive dread. It correctly prevailed as I almost clinically observed my physical manifestation of fear--the quick dry breaths, the cold clammy face, the ice cold extremities, and the ringing blue aura around my eyes and ears.

Icy and evil is how the paved path leading toward the campus entrance felt beneath my feet. Empty hallways signified that Sis and I were entering our respective classrooms late. I'm sure the teacher greeted me in some manner, but I was too consumed by my fear to hear her. She walked me over to an empty seat and sat me down. Everyone was drinking milk. I was afraid to look at the children, so I relied on my peripheral vision to inform me. The black kids were civil (not friendly) enough to the white kids and vice versa; however, neither race appeared happy with my mixed presence. A thick hatred tactilely filled the air. What I exuded toward Clifton back at the ranch seemed like love compared to this.

Unnerved, I decided it was best to concentrate on the little red and white carton of milk in front of me. That posed a great challenge. I couldn't figure out how to put the straw into the carton. No way was I going to ask anyone for help, and if I didn’t do it myself, they would all think I was dumb. So, I took the straw out of the plastic wrap with shaky hands and tried to inconspicuously stick it in the milk carton. I opened one flap then the other very conscious of the fact that my carton was all messed up while everyone else’s flaps were sealed in nice neat little triangles. I jabbed the straw at the carton harder and harder till it partially punctured the waxed cardboard. With one final, mighty jab, the carton crumpled. Milk sprayed all over the table. The classroom broke into one huge roar of laughter.

"Stupid, little nigger! Albino nigger! Yellow dummy!"

The teacher shushed everyone, walked over to me and actually gave me a little smack as she told me to go stand in the corner for making such a mess. I was crestfallen but determined not to cry. My level of concentration was so high that I could not think or hear until more laughter and snickers cut through.

"How many times do I have to tell you to go back to your seat?!"

I suddenly forgot how to walk and stood there afraid to look up. The teacher wasn’t shouting. She sounded annoyed and loudly nonchalant. The teacher’s aid gently pushed me to my chair. All I could do was stare at the table and pray the bell would ring soon. It did.

As soon as we were in the hall, the name-calling resumed. I saw my sister down the hail experiencing the same thing. I ran to her. We held on to each other and walked down the stairs.

"Don’t look up, Hedy. Just keep walking."

We held each other tight and walked toward the school bus.

"We don’t want no yeller niggers here! Don’t come back or we’ll beat your ass!"
"Yah, we’ll kill you!"
"Yah! Yah! Yah!"

I felt a rock hit the back of my head. A clot of dirt broke on my sister’s forehead. We broke into a run. So did everyone else. I thought we would be safe on the school bus. Not so. Yelling, laughing, pushing, threats—my head was pounding.

This is the first time I remember my sister clearly. We held onto each other, heads together so no one could see us cry. Luckily, we didn’t have far to ride. The bus door opened and we were pushed, poked, and spit out onto the sidewalk.

"I don’t want to see you on my bus again!"

That was the bus drivers parting sentiment as she slammed the door and drove off.

My first taste of racism. Even the bus driver had told us not to come back. I didn’t get it. I thought something was terribly wrong with my sister and I. I truly did not understand that we were a different color. I just figured we must be really weird or deformed, and that all this time, no one had let us know. I felt naked, foolish, alienated, clumsy, weak... ashamed of myself and how stupid I was not to know how gross I appeared to others. All this time I had held my head high when people must’ve been laughing behind my back. I was completely mortified.

The argument lead-up that night: "You have to explain race to these children. They are black and have to know the pressure, responsibility, and burden of this in the white man’s world."

My mother refused to accept this.

"No. I want them to feel like people, not like a burden."

She took an extra hard beating that night.

Now that we didn’t have to go to school, we got to hear Clifton's constant onslaught continuously. It was a strange way to go through the days. It got to the point where I couldn’t even hear the words, just a highly charged monotone pervading the air at all times—static--stupidity. I really thought they both were dumb and felt a deep sense of disappointment in my mother. She was not the person I thought. I accepted it readily enough. I wasn’t down or sad; indifferent and arrogantly tolerant is a better description.

One day, Clifton got mad at me while my mother was out. It was very nasty having all his criticism coming my way. He grabbed a spatula and said, "You know I have to punish you."
He bent me over his knees, pulled my pants down, and started spanking my bare ass. Mom came home in the middle of all this.

"These are not your kids to punish!"

He got distracted, I crawled off, and he started beating on her. This was the first time I actually witnessed it. What a bizarre exchange. A possessive, righteous, disgusted vibe exuded from his every pore. Each blow was delivered as punishment. Ma did not ward him off, fight back, or make any noise. She took it as if she deserved it. If he hit her to the floor, she merely lay exactly where she fell until he hit or kicked her into a new position.

I was furious, not with him, but with her! Why did she accept this?! What was wrong with her?! He finished and stood in smug silence for a moment, then left, slamming the door to punctuate his grand exit.

"Hedy," that was my nickname, "go put your cloths in a bag, and you and your sister pick out some toys. We’re going on a trip tonight."

This scene is etched in my mind: My mother looking like a broken rag doll leaned up against the wall, talking to me in a voice more suitable for inquiring about the weather, and me feeling absolutely no pity for her, thinking her a complete idiot. Why did she let Clifton treat her this way without protest? She didn’t make sense.

I started feeling the unconscious beginnings of self-preservation taking root. The first bricks of the wall soon to be between us had been laid. At least we were going on a trip. I liked trips.

Clifton came back around eight that night, drunk. That was the first time I’d seen him intoxicated. He never drank. He looked so watery, weak and bitter in this state. It inspired violent thoughts. I wanted to push him down and kick him repeatedly in the head in all my contemptuous rage and loathing. He stumbled off to bed.

My mother quietly packed a suitcase and told us to go to sleep, that she would wake us when it was time to leave. I couldn’t sleep. My subconscious agitation mingled with my gleeful anticipation of the trip juxtaposed on my childish curiosity and excitement created the perfect cocktail for sleeplessness. My eyes would not shut. Hours later, I heard a car drive up and a soft tap on the door.

A few moments passed, and Ma came in whispering, "Hey, kids, come on. We’re going on a trip."

We got up, I wide awake, leading my groggy sister down the stairs. We got in the back seat of a big, black car. I could hear Ma putting things in the trunk. She kept shoving stuff in our laps: more clothes, two rabbits in a cage, blankets...

A man’s voice said, "All set, Mary Jane? Is that everything?"

"All set."

She opened the back door one more time and dumped Leroy and Chickybits on me and Sis.

"Okay. We’re off." The man got in the driver’s seat and started the car. That marked the end of our two weeks of ranch life.

Finally had time to put up the 2nd chapter. I'll make a point of updating more frequently. Enjoy!



I don’t want anyone to think something is wrong with me. I must keep my clothes clean and smile so no one will know that I am on the streets…

Chapter 2—The American Dream



Though I was born in Minneapolis, I consider myself to be from California. We moved there when I was five and my sister six. It was just the three of us: Mom, Sis, and I.

Up until that point, we’d had a lot of money. Our early days were spent living in Robbinsdale, Minnesota as an upper-middle-class suburban family with two Chihuahuas, a parakeet, three cars, and a white picket fence. Time and money flowed in excess enough for us to raise Himalayan show cats and host weekly barbecues (steak, not hamburger). The man of the house was Ralph Jacobs, a retired police detective turned restaurateur/chef. Sounds pretty good, eh? There were, however, a couple of glitches that really left this picture wanting more.

First of all, it just didn’t make sense. My mother, born Mary Jane Kearney, was a twenty-five-year-old, voluptuous, Marilyn Monroe type with auburn hair and perfectly classical features topping her sensual body. An almost ideal specimen of her Irish-German lineage, at five-foot-nine, her only flaw was the fact that she was tall for the beauty of that time. One of seven children born to Hester and Tracy Kearney (a railroad Kearney no less), she had a winning smile and a colorful yet sweet personality—an upstanding Catholic housewife blessed with beauty and grace.

She was married to Ralph, a sixty-year-old Jewish man with a balding head and a weight problem. His harsh demeanor helped him carry his size with distinction, and he always wore a suit. He was not attractive. He wasn’t nice. All I ever heard him talk about was food, money, and how he was going to blow my mom’s head off one day.

He’d take the gun out of the nightstand drawer while Sis and I sat on his lap. With each of us propped gingerly on either knee, the gun swinging precariously in his right hand, and his already serious face erupting into violence, he’d say, “See this, kids? I’m going to use it to blow your mother’s head off someday. She’s going to drive me to it.”

He’d laugh. We’d cry.

My sister and I looked a lot alike. She was slightly lighter in complexion than I. Her soft curls had hints of blonde and honey-brown. My coarse tight curls were a solid, seal brown. I mention the skin tone and hair texture because it was noticeably different than either my mother’s or Ralph’s. We were definitely black. I didn’t understand that at the time or even realize we were a different color for that matter. Nobody said anything about it, and it didn’t occur to me to wonder.

So there you have it: our American Pie.

Every now and then, Ma felt compelled to sit us girls down at the round, wrought-iron, glass-topped table to tell us the story of how she and Ralph got together. She’d explain how she didn’t love Ralph at all. With a coy little smile playing across her lips, she would boastfully tell of how he had asked her to marry him everyday for a year until she finally said, “yes,” how he’d been fascinated by her beauty, and how she was going to “work” that fact to the max.

“You’ll understand when you get older, girls. Women have to be smart, not in love.”

They had a business deal. He had the money. She was the arm piece. This justified their not sleeping together after the first few months of marriage. Yes, they argued a lot, but she didn’t care. Mom had lots of secrets dancing in here eyes. I liked seeing her sparkle so. I just wish it was more wholesome things that made her shine.

So, we did all the normal things that little ones do. We played cops and robbers, had best friends and worst enemies. I was afraid of Danny Lang, the neighborhood bully, until I showed up on his front doorstep at my mother’s order, shaking and tearful, with shovel in hand, threatening to beat his ass if he didn’t stop scaring me. I’ll never forget how good my reward hot-fudge sundae tasted when I did actually beat his ass instead of running and crying; forever gone was my fear of him and his jarred “killer bees”; he couldn’t make me pull up anymore flowers or split anymore pumpkins. We loved Kimi, the white, fluffy dog down the alley to the right, and hated Bruno, the guard dog down the alley to the left that almost jumped the fence in his ferocity every time we walked by. I got my mouth washed out for saying "Goddamn", and my sister and I had stare-downs on a regular basis. She could talk me into cleaning her room for a glass of water any day of the week, and, as all girls do, we played dress-up. I wanted to be pretty like Nancy down the street. I always cried when the older kids ditched me. Yes, everything was normal if you could just ignore the constant yelling, the slamming doors, the dramatic exits, the silent, tense dinners, and the waving gun.

Ralph stopped coming home. I don’t remember it as an event; I merely noticed that he wasn’t around anymore. What a relief! The tension I felt from my guilt for being so happy that he was gone was not nearly as bad as the anxiety I had experienced when he was actually there. We soon learned that he had taken a hotel suite in town. Mom, Sis, and I packed up and moved to Colfax Avenue in Minneapolis.

4114 Colfax Avenue was in a family neighborhood our house being one of the few split up into rental units. This was a very happy time for me. I embraced the new environment wholeheartedly. Apparently, I was not even remotely attached to our recent past. I experienced no sentimental woe and felt no need to reminisce. Good riddance! The change of scenery and the people that went with it were refreshing and sparked my curiosity.

Mr. Alexander lived two houses down. It became part of my daily routine to walk over to his house and eat breakfast with him. He was army all the way with the blue tattoo on his shoulder, buzz haircut, and white T-shirt. I loved having this burly man show me how to dip my toast in the soft yolk of an over-easy egg. I didn’t mind his cigarette smoke or his gruff voice. He kept his loaded shotgun by the table and would occasionally get up shooting skyward out the back door to scare off stray dogs from his yard.

Maria was the lady that would come and take care of us. She wasn’t a Spanish Maria as you may assume. All I see when I think of her is a horsy face surrounded by graying chestnut curls, glasses covering dark bright eyes, and always the same brown dress with a little white flower print.

If not Maria, than Mrs. Kovle would appear in all her Jewish “Grandmotherdom.” She was bent with age, but that didn’t stop her from marching Sis and I through the neighborhood picking wild mushrooms. She knew how to differentiate between the poisonous ones and the ones you could eat. I loved her very much until bath time; then, she would scrub us raw, “Can’t get too clean. Have to be thorough,” she’d say as she pushed the little wooden brush back and forth across our bodies over and over again with tireless resolve.

I loved and hated nine-year-old Kelly Green next door and always tried to find an excuse to go visit the middle-aged couple across the alley. Their house had stacks of old newspapers in it heaped higher than my head. It was creepy and fun to walk through the piles of press. Why did they save all those papers? All of us neighborhood kids would dare each other to knock and see if they would let us in.

The only frighteningly bad memories I have from this part of childhood are when Ma renounced her religion (Sis and I were so relieved when she didn’t spontaneously combust on her first churchless Sunday—she actually had sat us down and said her good-byes), and one of the few nights Elaine babysat.

Elaine was the Alexanders’ oldest daughter. She had long black hair like Cher hanging in her white freckly sixteen-year-old face. She only babysat now and then, and most of her time with us was spent on the phone. We got to eat lots of popsicles as long as we didn’t interrupt her.

I was quite content with this arrangement until the particular evening I am recalling occurred. On that night, Elaine let a boy in the house as soon as Ma left. They sat in the living room drinking, smoking pot and making out. “Don’t come in here, guys, and don’t make any noise,” said a sleepy sounding Elaine, her voice intermingling with the pulsating rock music.

The situation seemed very grown-up and interesting to me. I was much too curious to stay away. I’d keep peeking around the corner. Afraid of getting caught, I was only able to perceive blurry images of their private party in my hurry to hide, which gave the reality around the corner a dreamy quality much more intoxicating to my imagination than if I had allowed myself a longer glimpse. Chuckling, they’d shoo me away with a little less verve each time until, pretty soon, they ceased shooing me altogether.

“Come here.”

I went in and sat on the afghan-draped couch with them. They asked me questions and giggled at my every answer.

“Have you ever been high? Do you know what high is?”

I had no idea. I didn’t even know I was answering so distracted was I by my elation at the fact that they were paying attention to me.

“Here. Drink this.”

Whatever it was tasted just like Kool-aid. They watched in eager anticipation as I gulped down the bright red beverage. They watched. Nothing happened. They stared. Nothing happened. After another five minutes passed, they sent me off to watch T.V. with Sis unable to wait for me to walk around the corner before they resumed groping and doping.

Everything was fine until it wasn’t. Without warning, tics by the thousands started crawling up over the back of the T.V. until the screen was completely obliterated by them. Yes, tics. My fear was paralyzing. They began to blacken Sis’ body, nestling down into her hair. Only then could I take action. I tried to scrape them off her, screaming as my hands came in contact with their hard, vibrating bodies. I clawed to no avail. Now they were digging in her eyes and up her nose. Amazingly, she didn’t seem bothered by them. She kept pushing me away as I tried to help her.

A door slammed somewhere in the distance. My sister was afraid and ran into the bathroom locking herself in. I looked down. The tics had covered my legs. My heart seemed to stop. I couldn’t move. I fell to the floor and became a scream. I couldn’t tell how long I lay there. Forever describes what it seemed if not reality. Blinded by this horrific trip, I felt rather than saw hands on me and heard Ma’s voice asking, “What’s wrong!? Where’s Elaine?”

Panic suffocated my voice, and I could barely wheeze out, “Tics! Help!”

I was scratching myself, my ears ringing unnaturally loud. I could hear myself panting as I gouged at my arms and face. Ma carried me to the bathroom.

“Open the door!”

Into the tub she set me. She and Sis poured big cups of water on me continuously.

“Everything’s okay. See? I’m washing off the tics. We’re washing off the tics.”

I wasn’t convinced they were all gone till seven-thirty the next morning. We were all so tired and traumatized. I couldn’t focus enough to get the story out, and Ma didn’t have the energy to press me.

We didn’t have to go to school that day. I lay on the couch “cozying” and breathing my way back to safety and calm. Ma stormed out of the house around nine after a short rest. I was pleased to be protected but felt very sorry for Elaine.

Ma’s wrath was no joking matter. It hadn’t come my way full force yet, but I’d seen her in action. She was the kind of woman that could instill fear with one withering glare. Mix that with motherly protection, righteousness and unleashed rage: it was all over. She truly saw red and snapped. Ma was capable of anything from scathingly filthy language to a solid right to the jaw, or a full force kick in the groin. I don’t know what she did to Elaine that day, but we never talked to her again and my morning breakfasts with Mr. Alexander were forever over.

Life went on. I actually enjoyed going to visit Ralph at the hotel. Dinners were always sumptuous. I relished the smell of some kind of candied vegetable or other mixed in with that aromatic cigar smoke of his. The low lighting and clinking glasses made each visit a special event. All the fancy people dressed in black and silver, the hushed tones of talk and laughter…I loved it! Ma and Ralph were ironing out the details of their divorce. I didn’t mind at all because they were so very pleasant to each other—lots of smiles and lots of drinks clinking at our very own table.

Ma was becoming more beautiful with each passing day. She wore colorful clothing and fussed about her hair and make-up. I was in love with her at this point. She was so pretty and had such a big, big smile.

She started leaving us for one, two, even three weeks at a time. Maria explained that she was a performer and had to go far away for her work. I didn’t understand. All I knew was that my pretty, fun Ma was gone. I would cry and cry, and then forget all about it when she came back with stuffed toy in hand.

Life was taking on a certain albeit strange rhythm at last (fancy dinners with Ralph, exciting reunions with Ma, stupid kid stuff). Then it all changed almost over night.

Ralph died of a heart attack. I really didn’t feel emotional regarding this fact. It seemed to affect me about as much as a light bulb burning out—perhaps less if the light bulb was in a hard to reach spot.

I watched Ma closely looking for some kind of cue as to how to act. Her behavior was guarded. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking or feeling. I don’t know what was going on with Sis either. No one seemed sad. Of that much I was certain. Ma sat us down at the glass-topped dining room table once again. Time to talk.

“Girls, I need to explain something to you. It’s okay if you don’t feel any great loss because Ralph is gone. He’s not your father. Your father is a black man named Jesse—Jesse Hayes. He was a friend of Ralph’s, a good man. He’s dead now, but I just wanted you to know about him. That’s all.”

I wanted to jump for joy. Again, what a relief! Ralph was not my father. Now I could admit to myself that I despised him and I was so glad I wasn’t related to him in any way, shape, or form. I had never liked him or felt love for him and was so glad to know I didn’t have to.

“Your father was a black man…” The black thing escaped me. I didn’t know what she meant by that. Who cared? I was happy. Ralph was not my father. My father was a man named Jesse Hayes. He was a good man. I liked that idea a whole lot.

It's time for me to make this public. Here's chapter one from my first book. I've been keeping in the desk for way too long. Here goes nothing.

Not a care in the world have I...
Chapter 1--Surrender


I broke down in Las Cruces, New Mexico.


Making one last feeble attempt to join in, to partake of, to affiliate myself with civilization, I politely responded in the affirmative to a young bohemian looking photographer leaning against his green VW van. He wanted to take pictures of me down by the Rio Grande River. I was highly amused at my ability to actually be flattered by this invitation inspite of...and how willingly and instantaneously I reverted to my overdramatic level of angst-ridden teenage vanity and self conciousness. Oh my gawd!! My hair wasn't done and the faded yellow t-shirt with the peeling parrot decal looked tacky! I must be okay...sane, fine if I was able to care about these things. Not so. The one shot he snapped sent me into a state of frenzied panic. I ran off. I didn't understand my very specific fear of a man with a camera. I ran off and locked myself in a gas station bathroom. The attendant knocked.


"You okay? You seem scared. My trailer is behind the station. Stay there until you think it's safe... if you want." He sounded less than concerned, as if frightened looking, almost-grown girls routinely locked themselves in his gas station john.


Growing bold at the sound of his fading steps, I came out and spotted the dirt-layered, ten-foot, aluminum can of a trailer. I locked myself inside spending the next hour watching the attendant through the parted blinds of the window. As he worked, his clear colored eyes were filled with a look of concentration as strong as the contrast they played against his high cheek bones, aquiline nose and sun-beaten, bronzed skin. My childlike approval of his native-american looks (he had straight black hair too, though he wore it short) helped me rationalize letting down my guard. I figured he would be working long enough for me to relax and promptly fell into that hard, deep sleep that hurts again.


Hands all over me and an angry one halfway home--that's what woke me up. His translucent eyes now full of ice-hot determination, my soul already so beaten yet unable to die, he wasn't going to take "no" for an answer; I couldn't afford to be defiled yet again. We fought. But I got away.
I ran and ran. This was not the run of fear where you don't feel your body, just your heart pounding and a sense of heat or cold. This was the run of the living dead. My skin was so dry on my face I thought it would split. My stomach was tied up in constipated knots. My feet felt like bricks. All I knew for certain was that I was as tired as a person can possibly be, and I'm not talking about physical fatigue.


I was really sick and tired--tired of needing food, air, sleep, and, most of all, people. I ran back toward the desert, back toward isolation, back toward that nagging, implacable loneliness. And the closer I got to it, the more tired I became.


It made no sense to me. Why did I feel lonely? Why did I need people? People were bad. People could only be trusted to use you for their twisted perversions and anger. People were guaranteed to hurt you and push you down. Why did I need this? Just the thought of smiling at someone made me ill--even the nice ones. They would use your body and soul while commenting on the weather. Their smile was their gun; a warm caress was their fist in your face; and a "thank you", their "f**k you".


I wasn't even angry anymore. I was simply too tired to participate. Count me out of the game. Pictures by the Rio Grande...what had I been thinking?! I slowed to a reticent walk.


Yes, I noticed the quaint charm of Las Cruces as I retreated. One couldn't miss it even in my semi-catatonic state. I noticed the immaculate backdrop of white adobe, red clay and brilliant blooms, but...


There was no point in walking any further since I had no destination, no point in eating since I wasn't going to use my body. Sleep sounded good since I hoped it would last forever. I wasn't suicidal. I had just given up. I had no worries anymore because I wasn't trying to do anything. In my mind, it was all over.


My last goal was simply to find a resting place and rest in peace. Even this seemed too much of an effort.


I walked on a little further feeling every step was wrongly placed. Why was I going somewhere? A great sense of relief washed over me as I spotted my final destination: a plain wooden bench just off the left side of the road. Perfection lay in that bench facing away from town so I wouldn't have to look at anything except sky, desert, and a few trees--that bench placed just far enough off the road so that people would have to go out of their way to talk to me, yet close enough so my sitting there wouldn't seem strange or suspicious.


I sat down, my goal in life, to sit on this bench until I was no more. Serenity took over as I sat and thought of nothing. My soul was still for the first time ever. A couple hours went by. Nothing happened. Nothing was almost mine.


I was aware of the sun changing position and the wind fluctuating. Soon, I wasn't even aware of that. I only saw a gray tunnel with murky, yellow-green light at the end. No thought went through my mind. No feeling went through my body. I'm not sure how long I sat like that.


As in a dream, when a repetitive sound is there and you awake and realize it's the alarm clock, that is how I was forced back to the present. The click of a camera shutter was the offending noise. It's unnatural presence in my tunnel of gray made me lethargically aware. Something simply was wrong, and I could no longer disappear.


It felt as if it took me two hours to turn my head in response to the sound. My eyes focused in on a wiry, energetic man with one foot up on the bench, my bench, bending down and aiming at me through a camera. He was in his mid-forties with a salt and pepper beard, plaid shirt, jeans, cowboy boots, and Foster Grant shades hanging out of his shirt pocket. He put the camera aside and was now talking to me, but I couldn't hear him. My eyes tuned into his voice taking special note of his uneasy smiles.


"... I work for several magazines and you looked so aboriginal staring off into the distance like that. I thought I could use these shots for several different things. You don't mind do you?"


I couldn't hear my own voice, but I formed and hopefully spoke the word "yes".


"Oh, okay. I'm really sorry. You just looked so interesting sitting here. If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing? You've been sitting here for quite a while. I noticed you over an hour ago."
"I'm resting and I don't want to be bothered. You are bothering me. Please, go away. Leave me alone."


"Just one more question. By the way, my name is Paul--Paul Sutner. How long are you going to sit here and rest?"


"Forever. I'm not getting up again and I'm not saying anything else."


I could hear my voice now--edgy but hollow sounding, angry yet apathetic--finally fearless.


He left. He had truly disturbed my peace. I now was aware of all noises, and the little chill in the air, and the fact that I felt weak. This imposition named Paul Sutner had ruined everything. His being there was almost the last straw. But not quite.


The sun had shifted, so it was beating on the back of my neck. This seemed to make everything all right. My body was almost numb again, so I wasn't uncomfortable. Hours went by without anyone coming near allowing my frantic watchfulness to merge subtlely back into calm. My little wooden bench regained its worthiness and reclaimed its right to be my final destination. It would just be a few hours now before I reached the point of nothingness...