26 April, 2012
“The Lawn Ranger or A Day at the Races” (The Grandpa Essay revised)
Dad called him the “Lawn Ranger”. I’d always giggle and listen out my window for the mechanical clanking and whirring blades on the old, red Wheel Horse as Grandpa swirled around the yard, hacking up the vibrant green of his lawn. Grandpa always bought red equipment. Our rusty snowplow truck was red. Great Grandpa told him red would help melt the snow. What Great Grandpa said was law. I hate the color red.
The back door to my Grandparents’ house was a thin metal door that precariously swung out and threatened to thwack you in the nose if you weren’t careful. It screeched and groaned in protest every time I threw it open after I ran down the sloping lawn to knock on the door for cookies. Musical notes of Perry Como drifted out the open doorway as Grandpa swallowed me in one of his bear hugs. I’d poke his belly to make him laugh like the Pillsbury Doughboy. He’d wiggle his ears. I’d laugh harder. Grandma always yelled from the kitchen to shut the door as I could smell the fresh tollhouse cookies she had just baked, their moist chocolate chips glistening on the stove top. She’d hand me one. It would melt in my hand before even making it to my tongue where I could mash the thick chips and doughy batter against the roof of my mouth, which I thought enhanced the taste and experience of eating fresh cookies. Grandpa would sneak up behind me and snatch one from the stove. He was a Diabetic, but he cheated. He’d whisper not to tell Grandma or she’d “holler” at him. I think he always knew she was right around the corner watching him, silent, but knowing. My favorite picture is of the three of us on their concrete stoop. My hair is curly, wild, out of control. That’s the only thing that hasn’t changed. Grandma has her arm around me, clutching me to her in a giant hug. Grandpa is behind us with an easy smile playing upon his lips. I never realized how big his glasses were. I’m clutching a white plastic horse, whose mane I have taken scissors to and whose synthetic tail I have run multicolored markers through.
Horses run in my family’s blood. They owned, trained, sold, bought, spoiled racehorses. They weren’t very fast, but it was never about the speed. Grandma’s favorite story is about how Never or Now, the biggest chestnut in their stable, ate doughnuts and cough drops. Maybe it was apples. Or maybe that was Dark Devil. He was donated to a prison as a form of therapy for the inmates. He wasn’t far from my college, but died before I could visit and see a part of my family’s past.
Grandpa took me to my first race. I remember standing up against the rail, trying to peer over the top, but failing. Everything was vibrating. The ground shook, the rail swayed, and the stands roared. I was getting frustrated as adults sidled up to the rail in front of me, not noticing the short little girl with a crumpled program in her hand, clumsy stars marking the names that she hoped to hit the finish line first. Back then, it was all about the names. Star Eyes, even at a 40-1 shot, would be picked over the favorite, BowlingBall, just on a nicer name principle. Grandpa didn’t correct me. I won by luck. Once I understood the numbers – how many wins, where they won, what their breeding was, which jockeys rode the best – I won less often. So did Grandpa. It’s very much like gambling at a casino. The person throwing the dice who has never played craps in their life is usually the luckiest. Ignorance breeds bliss. And I knew all the stories – Secretariat, Man O’ War, Seabiscuit. My aspiration at that age was to become a jockey, something I outgrew in both height and dreams. With the loss of that dream, Grandpa lost a part of me as well.
At the races, we always went to the rail. Not for all of them, just the big money ones, the important ones, the ones we thought we’d bring in the most cash. He’d place his hand on my shoulder and point.
“Look to the turn,” he’d say.
So I stood on tiptoe, trying to look, but only succeeding in listening. The Saratoga flags whipped in the breeze behind me. I shut my eyes tight and heard them. Their pack of hooves churning the dirt and swallowing up ground as each stride pushed them towards an imaginary line. Grandpa muttered under his breath.
“Come on. Come on.”
He had placed a sizeable bet on Barnaby. But Barnaby had to fit into the exacta box he had made with the five horse. They needed to run first and second for Grandpa to cash in. That’s the thing with racing. You have too many options to gamble on. You have your trifecta bets, exacta bets, supertrifecta bets, and more. Grandpa liked to play his numbers in several different ways, but I knew he usually lost more than he won. I always knew he was there to watch the horses. Barnaby happened to be in the back of the pack in this particular race, while horse number five surged to win. I looked up at Grandpa’s scowling face just before he shrugged and smiled at me.
“That’s why it’s called gambling,” he chuckled.
We stuck to just watching the races and buying food for the rest of the day. I knew better than to ask any questions. I was pretty proud of my gambling skills as a ten-year-old. The elderly men sitting at the picnic tables across from us would scoot their chairs closer as I loudly reiterated to my Grandpa why the number six horse was superior to the one he had chosen. It was obviously because it had a better name and was the same color as the horse at my stable back home. But as Grandpa reminded me I only had 20 dollars left from my last bet, the old men’s ears perked up. I had been winning. They listened closer and started placing sizeable amounts of money on the horses I was rattling off. After the race, a paunchy man walked by counting the bills he had collected at the window as a result of listening to me. Grandpa laughed and told me he’d bring me along more often since I was such good luck. He never bet the same horses I did.
Grandpa brought me to the yearling sales that same year. We walked the row of sleek Thoroughbreds. Their noses pressed to the front of the stall doors where brand new fans had been fixed to keep them cool. Shavings had been piled feet high to keep them comfortable. These young horses lived better than some people. He asked the girl to bring a chestnut filly out for a walk. He pretended to be extremely interested despite the 100,000 dollar price tag. I had never seen something so delicate, alert, or flawless– from her small white snip that was just a dash on an otherwise perfect copper penny colored coat to her silky tail. I gently ran my hand down her neck and felt as though I was sliding my hand along lukewarm water. Her head swiveled from side to side, her nostrils flared. Her feet were planted in a stance meant to give her a quick getaway. Grandpa thanked the girl and told me it was time to go. That filly was all I talked about for weeks, mostly down Grandpa’s when we shared milk and cookies. We had plans to attend the Kentucky Derby and wear big hats and drink mint juleps, without alcohol of course.
Then I turned 16. I walked down to see my Grandparents less and less. School, friends - all seemed so much more thrilling. I had met a boy at the family lake house and spent more time visiting him than my Grandparents who were right next door. Grandpa didn’t have to say that I hurt him by not visiting. I knew I did. It was harder to visit each time, having to bear that disappointment that I could hear in the edges of his voice as I talked, overly cheerful, about daily occurrences that now seemed completely mundane.
Bandit was one of the few things he had in common with me at that time. He would let me drive his Cadillac to the barn, since I only had a permit and needed an adult present. He would bring his camera or sit in the car with a book. Sometimes he’d go golfing if I was going to be a while and come get me later. But he always came in to give Bandit a pat on the nose or tell him to be nice to me. He actually helped me parents buy him for me. He was the same color as the filly I had seen six years previous. I trained Bandit myself. And Grandpa came to every show, camera in hand. He would set up chairs alongside the ring for himself and my Grandma, usually with their Subway sandwiches in a cooler next to them. As I turned 17, horses began to take a back seat. Cross-country and track began to have a more important role in my life as college scholarships became a priority. Grandpa watched me win the championship race and eventually receive a running scholarship to Marist College. He told every single one of friends that his granddaughter was going to run in the Olympics. He also told them he knew I’d be a great runner because whenever I ran next door to visit him, I never walked. I was always running. That’s how he knew I was great.
Grandpa made me cry. He said I ignored him at my graduation and didn’t run to give him a hug. My dad fought with him back at the house. I wanted to throw my diploma in the trash as their angry voices floated around from behind the rose bush. I apologized to him.
Grandpa had cancer. I sat on that hospital bed with him one afternoon. It didn’t make a sound when you sat down. Normal beds squeak or make a thumping sound. This bed did nothing. It didn’t exist. I shuffled the sticky deck of cards, listening to their sharp flipping sound as I made sure I mixed them up good. We were playing Setback, our favorite card game, one he and my parents taught me when I was young. Grandpa just watched me. The hospital machines beeping behind him, the fluorescent lights buzzing, and the TV – still audible even though it was on mute. My head swam and wanted to burst from all the noise. He cleared his throat.
“I’m betting 4. You taking it?”
He knew I wouldn’t. He kicked my ass in Setback every time.
Grandpa died five days after I got to school. Mom drove me home in the dark. I said goodbye, but I know he didn’t hear me as I looked at his swollen face and hands. I wanted to apologize for the years lost. I wanted to thank him. Instead I cried – it was as good as silence.
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26 April, 2012
“Summer 2007”
We called ourselves the Otis crew. Nick and Paul, my neighbors were more recent additions that we had met the summer before. Paul was the boy down the road, but way more than just the boy next door. His parents bought him whatever ATV or PWC he wanted – jetski, boat, quad, you name it, he had it. Along with a hot tub and his dad’s crazy inventions. He was quick to anger and even quicker to suggest some bizarre scheme or idea that rarely ever worked. He could do double backflips off a nearby rope swing and he was usually getting concussions from trying backflips on his wakeboard. He was only a little taller than me and swore every other word. Probably the last person I would find myself attracted to. Or so I thought. We ended up getting along quite well the six years we have been dating. And then his blonde curly-haired friend Nick was around as well. Usually just the kid who does what everyone else is doing and likes to complain. His goal – “find hot bitches.” That never worked. And then there were Megan and DJ – also known fondly as the Moltys. They spent most of their time together fighting (something they eventually grew out of). Megan, my childhood friend, who had changed almost beyond recognition as our time apart during the school year created an impossible crevice to breach. We no longer covered our bodies in the sticky lake clay and told our mothers that it was a “spa day”. Instead, we tanned; she took her parents’ boat to find boys; she was growing up much faster than I could imagine. My oldest friend and only a year younger than me. Her hair was always bleached blonde and as she got older, she knew more than most girls her age. Nick was crazy about her. DJ was my brother’s partner in crime. They were good at making a mess, starting trouble, and cracking jokes. Nick and Paul had a bucket of ice cold water dumped on them through the deck slats when they were sitting on the swings below. Poor, unsuspecting neighbors that they were. And finally, there was Jesse. Jesse, who played too hard and always caused someone else to get hurt as a result. My dad described him as “a day late, and a dollar short.” And I was the oldest, with Paul being only a few months younger. Nearly every day of the summer was spent together – on this 1,085 acre freshwater, man-made lake. Where the trees in Tolland forest are dark shadows to shield the crying fisher cats at night. Where the weather changes every fifteen minutes. Where the sunset is different, but still beautiful every late afternoon. Where the roads are all made of dirt and the locals are missing teeth. Where the sky feels closer than it ever did.
I watch the lightening roll in over the far end of the cove. Megan wraps herself up in her towel on the chair next to me, clearly displeased with the lack of sun to tan beneath. “Let’s go get our bikes,” I say that dreary afternoon. She looks at me for a second and then throws the towel off. We run up to my mother and Mrs. Molty who are playing cards under the umbrella on the deck. We tell them our master plan. Immediately the words “electrocution” and “idiotic” fly out of their mouths. Paul walks in while eating an ice-cream cone and volunteers to drive alongside us. More withering looks, but with his reputation as a troublemaker, Paul is used to these looks. Megan takes the Ninja Turtle bike and I grab the old Barbie one. We leave the driveway with the first clap of thunder, laughing wildly. The rain comes down harder. Mrs. Molty crawls beside us in the white Durango, but we can barely see her. Our shirts stick to us. The world is a prism of hot, white light. We round the far turn in the road. Some old guys sit beneath the overhang of a local garage and yell at us as we coast down the hill that loops around the Marina cove of the lake. Ten minutes later, the storm ends. We skid to a halt in Megan’s driveway, five miles from my house, and run and jump right into the lake as the sun peeks through the clouds. Stupidity equaled freedom in that moment.
The Moltys bask on the sun bleached gray dock with us, their Sea Ray boat quietly bobbing up and down, tugging at its restraints in the slip. We hear a splash from the other side of the boat lift and hear a splash. “DJ my balls!” My mother is on her feet within seconds. Her five foot frame is perched at the end of the dock, a strong scowl plastered on her tan face. “JACK!” Jack, my seven-year-old little brother, giggles after seeing that my other brother, Mike, and DJ, are laughing hysterically. He gives an insincere, “Sorry.” My mother returns to her lounge chair and resettles herself, closing her eyes and facing the strong rays of the sun. “DJ MY NUTS!” She starts to get up and throws an arm up in disgust. I mean, at least the kid has a strong understanding of synonyms. I repeat this to my mom causing her to turn her attention instead to Megan and me. We are doubled over, crying with laughter. Mike was hiding his laughter in the water and DJ wasn’t even trying to hide his hysterics at this point as he floated on the other side of the raft. His howls echo across the quiet cove. Mom shoots lasers from her eyes as Jack sits perched on the raft looking rather pleased with himself. He looks almost as pleased as the time when he was two and quietly ate an entire bowl of multi-colored M&M’s and proceeded to drool a rainbow all over his white linen overalls and my Grandmother’s expensive white rug.
We decide it is a prime afternoon for triple tubing. My dad has the boat all ready to go and the boys are already bouncing around on the tubes. Paul nabs me for his team. Mike and DJ get on another tube and name themselves the “orange with a tint of orange team”. Jesse and Megan go on the third tube. Dad isn’t paying attention, probably a result of the way and he and Mr. Molty throw back cans of Bud Light all summer. We fly through corners, our whips becoming more severe with every wrench of the wheel. Jesse hops from tube to tube. Then we hit The Wave. The middle tube is airborne. It flies up and lands squarely on me and Paul. I feel Jesse’s bulk as the tube is ripped out from under him and he clutches at the straps on my life jacket. I feel something catch on my bathing suit and then we’re being whipped back out to the side. The tube has too much weight on one side and immediately flips over. I swim for the surface, finding Paul to my right. Then I feel it. An odd breeze down by my legs. I slowly reach as hand down. I don’t feel fabric. I feel cold, clammy skin. Panic. I immediately begin searching. DJ is by my side in seconds. “I’ll help you look!” Not only does DJ have a reputation as an excellent swimmer and goofball, he harbored a love of girls from the tender age of thirteen. My dad has pulled up in the boat at this point. DJ is underwater – “searching”. Dad is furious. He’s screaming like I purposely sunk my bottoms in the murky lake water. Paul, wearing both cargo shorts and boxers, removes his shorts and hands them to me to get in the boat. Too bad they slid off despite the knot I tied in the belt. I never found those bottoms. Neither did DJ.
Jack had reached that stage where going to the bathroom meant being like one of the guys and running into the woods. The problem was that Jack hadn’t yet mastered the whole standing-up style. Megan and I brought the boys down to the beach to play volleyball. Jacks calls out to me that he has to go to the bathroom and we have to go home, NOW. I tell him to go in the woods, like any sister would do. Megan and I continue to scour the beach and watch the boys that drive by on their jetskiis. Mike and DJ step in to take over the situation. Mike walks over to the trees and tries to explain in a non-embarrassing manner what Jack needs to do. No dice. DJ walks over. “Jack, let a man show you how to do manly things.” Megan and I dissolved into laughter as DJ’s pants fell to the ground and he and Mike stood shoulder to shoulder and pee’d into the dark forest. Jack ogles them, grins, and attempts to follow suit. I’m pretty sure an airplane could have seen their three white butts, full moons, against the wooded backdrop.
It’s a warm August night. That means ice-cream at Katie’s, the local fast-food-grocery-butcher-catch-all store. I call Paul and tell him I’ll pick him up at the corner of our road. I quickly dab on some eye-liner and try to fix my knotted curls into something presentable. I give up and run out to the Suburban. My Yellow Lab, Jasper, is snoozing on the other side of the car. He wags his tail as I give a low, “good boy”, and start the car up. I crank the radio, roll the windows down and creep out of the driveway, the diesel engine still not warmed up. I bop to a song, fix my seat. I see Paul at the corner. He has a perplexed look on his face. I’m barely out of my driveway when he runs up to the truck, waving his arms. I put it in park and laugh at him. “Your dog is tied to the bumper of your truck!” I tell him that’s not funny, get in, the ice-cream place closes in a half hour. “No! Jasper is behind the truck.” I look in the mirror and there is my faithful Lab, shaking from head to toe. I thank God I only went about 200 feet at five miles per hour. He barely had to jog to keep up. I run over and unhook him. Give him hugs, scratches, kisses, whatever he wants. I help him clamber into the back of the truck as Paul climbs in, laughing. I park the truck and bring Jasper in the house, yelling for my dad. He was in the habit of tethering the dog to the bumper of the truck in the summer while we were down by the water. He figured that way he wouldn’t wander away or sit outside barking all day. I told him what happened and he just laughed. My mother had the propriety to look at least a little appalled. To this day, I still get calls from my dad’s friends when I’m home for the weekend, asking me if I want to take their dog for a drag. Paul reminds me how he saved Jasper’s life and I owe him. Jasper forgot about it the next day.
It’s 2012. Grandma might sell the house. Jasper is arthritic and gray. The lake may not fill up. I visit Paul on a gray April afternoon. His hair has lost its blonde tone from the summer sun. We’re bundled in sweatshirts and the water is still at its lowered level from the winter. I rest against him as we sit on the porch and look out at the deserted lake. We have watched six years go by together. Six years of memories on the lake. Six winters of reliving them. He is quiet until he grins. It always starts “Do you remember that summer when…” - the possibilities are endless. I feel as though he is the only constant I have left – my only connection to these memories.
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26 April, 2012
“The Neighbors”
Pete and his family have lived behind my house longer than I have been alive. Pete - who doesn’t know the meaning of personal space; who feeds our dog steak and then complains that Jasper, our aging Yellow Lab, is eating him out of house and home; who doesn’t know what personal hygiene is.
Pete always brings my mom his dirt laden lettuce. He grows it in the backyard, right up against the fence that meets our property. But he doesn’t just bring it over like a normal person. He seems to pick out his yellowest, dingiest, dirty undershirt, or sometimes wore no shirt at all, and ripped shorts to carry over his offering of neighborly love. The greeting is always the same - “Schweetheart, brought you shome lettushe.” And my mom would gingerly take the dirty vegetable out of his soil covered hands, trying to not look at his droopy, gray undershirt and shorts that he walked through our yard in. My mom always thanks him profusely, plastering a fake smile on her face. Inside, I know she’s cringing.
My dad finally had it. He went to Klotter Farms and bought an expensive white shed to match our house. He plopped it right on the property line, completely blocking Pete’s house and yard from our eyesight. Dad was pleased with his purchase. After the initial swearing and frustrated brow swipes to get rid of the sweat, he gave himself a pat on the back for a genius way of blocking Pete from our yard. He landscaped around it and quickly filled it with extraneous bits and pieces of lawn toys, bikes, and car parts. Pete was even quicker to complain about it. He went in to see my dad at the office one morning. He was wearing his dirty undershirt. “I can’t see in your windows anymore. You blocked my view.” My dad told him that was the only place he could put it, that it didn’t fit anywhere else in our yard. Actually, we have a half acre next to our house that we call “the empty lot.” I’m assuming that Pete either doesn’t know it’s ours (despite the fact he watches my dad mow that plot of land at least once a week) or he didn’t comprehend any of the word coming from my father’s mouth. And that wasn’t the end of Pete.
In 2001, we got our first puppy. He was an energetic yellow lab that we named Jasper. Jasper was, to put it nicely, neurotic. My friend Kim came home from the barn with me one afternoon and wanted to meet my “adorable” new puppy. Jasper gave her his standard greeting. He latched onto her brand new jean short and ripped the bottom hem completely off as she tried to run away in terror. My brother Michael’s friend George got out of the car another afternoon and his eyes lit up at the sight of our deceivingly cute and inquisitive looking puppy. Jasper bounded over to George and jumped from many feet away. This dog must have been propelled by demon power, that’s how evil he was as a puppy. His teeth sank into the fabric of George’s backpack. Panicking, George swung the dog and backpack around in a circle to try and remove our piranha puppy. True to form, Jasper seemed to enjoy it and only clung tighter. As he grew older, my dad’s meticulous perimeter training seemed to fail. It was a long battle between my dad and the rest of us. He didn’t want to spend the money on an electric fence, so instead, he insisted that Jasper was smart and would respond to the perimeter training. Every morning, we would look out at my dad in his old Reeboks , grey sweatpants and sweatshirt, and cup of coffee. Jasper was chomping on the green leash that attached him to my dad and together they marched around the edges of the yard, stopping to sniff any suspicious plants. This process continued for the first few months of Jasper living with us. And it seemed to work. My dad would go out into the garage and say, “Jasper, go poop!” and Jasper would dutifully run to the property line and squat. Dad was ecstatic with our puppy’s progress. That is until he ended up on Route 63, the highway behind my house that is notorious for speeding vehicles that would not stop even if you were being murdered in the gutter. My neighbors had to rescue him from lanes of speeding cars. Electric fence arrived at our front door in a few days’ time, by which point Jasper had nearly chewed through the leash that kept him tied to the house so he could be outside, but couldn’t run away. My dad told the girl he wanted the dog’s eyes to glow and his tail to smoke when he tried to run through; my mom and I thought they were going to leave us fence-less. He assured them he was kidding and Jasper assured us that we might have needed to make his eyes glow and his tail smoke. He ran through that fence like a bull. And where did he go? Straight to Pete’s for Milkbones and other assorted goodies. Years of this went on, with my dad telling Pete in the insurance office that our dog was getting close to obese and the vet warned us to stop over-feeding him. Pete simply told us that he barks at the back door so he HAS to feed him. My dad turned purple and one of the secretaries kindly took over Pete’s policy. We tried breaking Jasper of this habit. We called it his “detox” where he spent 5 straight days in the garage, except when we took him for walks. But he snuck out when my mom was going to pick Jack up. He had cracked. We’ve given up since then. Maybe he’ll realize we give him the same Milkbones as Pete.
Pete also has a granddaughter who lives with him and his wife, Fran. She harbors an obsession for my middle brother, Michael. We would catch bits and pieces of gossip she would tell friends at other schools about how she wanted to date Michael and thought he was adorable. We would catch her going for walks by our driveway, pausing at the end to see if my brother was outside doing yard work. She would hold Jasper hostage when he ran over for treats, hoping Michael would be subjected to going to pick him up, which never happened. My mom feared that if Michael went over there, he’d never return. Kasara was a fan of prank phone calls. She called our home late one night from a slumber party, pretending to be a friend of Mike’s. Except, it was not her precious Michael who answered the phone and would have known he didn’t have a friend named Todd or Tom or whatever name she thought would make sense. I answered the phone and was the brunt of her nasty comments and swearing. I put the receiver down after telling her to grow up. Twenty minutes later, Kasara’s grandmother was dragging her up our front stairs to apologize for her prank call. My mom had called Fran when we told her what happened. Kasara avoided our house for a few days before returning to her walks and dog kidnapping. She no longer holds Michael in rank with the Greek gods.
Pete, however, seems harmless beside crazy cat lady, whose name I have long since forgotten. She would also watch our house. She would also stop my mom in the supermarket and start talking about how our cats were such good friends. Our cat, Cougar, was an old tom cat we found by my mom’s old gift shop. The pizza guys next door were throwing him hunks of cheese and my dad felt sorry for the old cat and took him home. My dad saved him when I was about two years old. Cat lady’s cats were little mangy housecats who rarely ventured outside. Yet, when we buried Cougar in the backyard, she insisted that “Bootsy” be buried right next to his bestest friend. She still watches their “grave” from her kitchen window. We still see her in Stop & Shop. My mother will painfully wrench my arm around and tell me to stop dragging my feet as we rush to the car before being asked to a memorial service of the feline persuasion.
Our neighbors have ceased to exist, like many other aspects of our childhood. I only hear Pete’s name as my dad curses when Jasper disappears for hours during the morning, obviously munching on some snacks with his favorite grungy buddy, Pete. And while we laugh and roll our eyes about our “crazy” neighbors, when I saw yellow flashing emergency lights at Pete’s house over Christmas this past year, my dad and I pulled boots on over our flannel pajama pants and took a ride to see if they needed help. It was just his son-in-law’s tow truck. Jasper, far past his wild puppy years, whined in the back of the truck and shuffled around as we accelerated toward home. I rubbed his ears and he promptly started to fall asleep as we pulled into the driveway. He’d go see Pete for himself the next morning because some things never change.
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26 April, 2012
“The Flea Market”
I have been in this car for what seems like forever. Paul is on the phone with his mom, trying to get directions to the flea market at some unknown park. We overslept, so they left without us. I wouldn’t have cared except this is the first one I have ever been to. I seem to harbor some inner thoughts about how cool my closet would be if I could just accrue some vintage pieces. A flea market seems perfect for this. It’s a win-win as Paul is the one taking me. Any time I manage to spend with him makes the world seem like a fantastic place, compared to when I’m at school and want to burn everything I see to the ground. The sun is scorching hot for a late September weekend. Beads of sweat drip from my collar bone, down my shirt, leaving dots of perspiration. How unattractive. My heavy Nikon hangs from its strap, leaving an unwanted band of sweat across my shirt.
I don’t know flea market protocol. Do you just wander? How do you just go up to a table to look without the seller engaging you in conversation? I really don’t want to hear about Aunt Fanny’s pearl earrings that she wanted to be buried in, but you wanted to sell them for the money and probably snatched them from her cold, dead ears while you were at it. I’d much rather hand over my wad of cash and walk away blissfully unaware of the family drama that these earrings, or bracelets, or necklaces caused in your home. And then it really hits me.
These are someone else’s possessions. What was their story? I look across the table of cloudy, vintage Coca Cola glass bottles. Who drank out of them? Or did the soda just disappear one day? Did the cap fall off and spill soda everywhere? Was it called pop where these bottles came from? I’m afraid to ask the Santa Claus doppelganger that is sitting behind the table. Instead, I look for Paul. My heart slows to a normal pace one I see him a few tables over. He is deep in conversation with a man selling handmade machetes. He looks up from the rusted blades and gives me a raised brow grin. I snap his picture with my Nikon before his smile fades. I continue on to the next row of overladen tables. I see old fashioned records. There’s no player there to see if they work. And they’re so cheap, I’d guess they’d just make great decorations at this point. With names like, “hey boy, hey girl” by Louis Prima (did you know he died in 1978?) and “doo wop” on the covers, they scream vintage. Or at least what I think is vintage. But I can’t wear them and move on.
Doilies and bath salts with suggestive names –“love spell”, “sex on the beach” – litter a tented table that offers a break from the relentless ball of explosions hovering in the sky. Across the way is a stall titled New Bags Made by Old Bags. Two old women with crowns of curly white hair sit in ratty cloth spectator chairs. No one stops to check out their crafts. Nothing here makes sense. Everything is a piece of something else, something larger. Paul picks up a broken gold telescope while I look at chipped paper weights with what are supposed to be flowers frozen inside them. If you ask me, they look like mutated dust bunnies in a limited edition color - dusty pink. The broken dolls intrigue me until I see that they have missing eyes, fingers, and open chest cavities. I snap another picture with the Nikon. These dolls have not been taken care of. I’m beginning to wonder if this flea market specializes in decorations for Halloween. Scare all the neighborhood children with these battered dolls, only five dollars apiece. These items are not for me. I spot another jewelry stall a couple rows over.
I pick up a vintage blue and silver ring from West Germany. I roll it around in my fingers, try it on and smell the bitter sterling silver rolling up at me in the heat. The blue stone in the middle looks cheap, but the band is ornate and tarnished, reflecting an unknown past. Paul walks over from the rusty sculptures next door. He rests his chin on my shoulder, rubs his rough hands up and down my bare arms. I lean back against him, further considering the ring in my hand. He comments on how unique the band work is. Am I buying it? I hand the man my money and Paul slips it into my index finger before walking, hand in hand, back to the car. The metal overlap of the band digs into my skin and I try to twist it in a way to make it fit. Maybe it was never meant for me.
I realize that I have knickknacks of my own. No family heirlooms. Just junk I have collected and hoarded away over the years. Grandma’s old costume jewelry, plastic horse statues that I played with instead of Barbie dolls, hundreds of Beanie Babies that Grandma was sure would be worth thousands in a few years (she was horribly, horribly far off on that one), and my hundreds and hundreds of books. And then there are my hand-written journals. Nine of them in total – from first grade to the present. Who cares? My journals will sell for a buck and someone will laugh at my misfortunes, cringe at my “romantic musings”, roll their eyes at my taste in music. They’ll purchase my costume jewelry for much more. Ironic, as the journals mean more; priceless to me, fuel for a fire to someone else. When I die, someone else will be buying this blue ring for 17 dollars or a comparative sum for the future. Possessions are just things; junk. We pass our junk to each other. They have memories attached to them only as long as a specific life claims them as theirs. Death eradicates any significance of an item. A diamond ring becomes a diamond ring left in a dusty drawer once both members of a couple die. No one claims its love anymore. The memories are buried deep in the dirt or wreathed in ashes in an urn.
We pass a cemetery, the silver Subaru Impreza humming along the steel gray road scumbled like a thick oil painting with the orange and yellow leaves of Fall. Paul squeezes my hand under his. It’s in my favorite spot – resting on the stick shift. He pushes my hand forward to switch gears. The road hums up through the tires, reverberating through my body. I forget the ring. I forget the broken, missing-eyed porcelain dolls with their matted hair and yellowed clothes. I forget the broken jewelry and broken toys set out before the greasy burger stalls. Instead, I let Paul grip my hand tighter, rub his thumb softly across the top of my hand. I feel the car cling to the road around tight corners, waiting for that moment where we might possibly be able to soar up into the sky and fly for a little bit. Tokens and broken antiques cannot hold this moment.
I put my collection of items on the blue bedspread when we get home. My ten dollar Ray-Ban knockoff sunglasses that I bartered with some old blues musician for; he told me if I gave him the Nikon, I could have the glasses for free. For some reason, he thought he was a funny guy. Another ring that, now that I’ve had a chance to try it on a few more times, is really much too large for my finger. It barely fits my thumb. And finally, the copper cuff bracelet that I thought was such a great steal. I look closer and see that the beads are really just plastic Lisa Frank beads cut in half. I sigh. Deflated, defeated, dehydrated. Paul jumps on the bed scattering the odds and ends I’ve laid out. They roll away except for the Germany ring. It snags at a piece of thread with its sharp edge. He picks it up and rolls it between his fingers, reading the inscription upon the sterling silver. Jokingly, he slides it onto my ring finger and gives me a peck on the cheek. He turns away as I roll the ring around my finger. Why didn’t I think to wear it on this finger, where it most certainly fits better? Paul is distracted with the Nikon. We flip through the pictures I took. In a few days, they will be meaningless, forgotten. Paul turns the camera off and helps me carry my luggage down to the car. This is the part I hate. This is our moment - one quick kiss goodbye and a couple short beeps as we are separated at the fork of 23 and 8 in the center of Otis, Massachusetts. He speeds around the curve and disappears toward Lee, toward the New York State Thruway that will take him to Rochester; five hours from Poughkeepsie, my temporary home. Weekends only last so long. Not even a broken ring can perpetuate them.
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26 April, 2012
I Just Want a Hug
It’s the Friday night before New Year’s Eve and he walks through my kitchen door. The tarnished Christmas bells ringing as the door knob turns and the door opens. And there he is in his ripped red Columbia jacket. Same old crooked grin and scruff on his face, the kind that looks attractive on most men, but burns and scratches with every kiss. I run up to him and slip my arms under his jacket and wrap them tightly around his warm torso. We are a cocoon. I pull myself tight to his body, my head in the spot right under his chin where it fits so perfectly. Like a puzzle piece. He smells sickly saccharine; of Red Bull and Swisher Sweets. I can smell the December cold on him. His hands are rough and callused. I can feel them through my shirt as his hands are locked behind my back. Then he pushes me away, just a bit, to slowly kiss my lips, then my cheek, then my forehead. He rests his chin on top of my head again. This is how we say goodbye as well. Our own Aloha. Hello-Goodbye. It prolongs our separation, creates an ellipses. Once the kitchen door slams behind him and he’s clambering back into his car, the emptiness swoops in. My stomach knots. My palms sweat. My heart beats extra hard and my chest tightens. I feel my legs go weak. I shake my head. I feel the empty space around me and need to fill it. I’m craving touch. Even smell. I want the familiarity back.
Touch is unique to culture. Every person has a unique way of touching via their culture’s standards. Fred E. Jandt describes “haptics” when he speaks of touch in cultures as a way of communicating. “Compared with other cultures, people in the United States are touch deprived, having one of the lowest rates of casual touch in the world” (Jandt, 120).
She told her parents that Paul and I made her uncomfortable. My dad cornered me that night. Disappointed. That word feels worse than hearing that your parents are mad. He was disappointed. His face was red, he stood in the doorway, glowering at me as I started to cry. My mom cut between us. She rested a hand on my shoulder, she glared back at my dad and asked me what we were doing on the boat when Megan was with us. I told her we were holding hands.
“In the United States, more touching may take place in preschool or kindergarten than during any other period. Touching is lowest during the early to mid-teens. Jones and Yarbrough conducted a study of university students at a western U.S. university that showed twelve meanings communicated with touch – affection, announcing a response, appreciation, attention getting, compliance, departures, greetings inclusion, playful affection, playful aggression, sexual interest or intent, and support” (Jandt, 120).
I can remember exact moments as Polaroid’s. People frozen in time, our bodies touching, connected in some way. Kevin pulling his pants down in Kindergarten and Bridget touching him, kissing him, imploring me to follow suit. (I ran away; those ugly polyester uniform pants and his pale skin burning behind my eyelids.) Punching Michael in his groin as hard as I could because I thought it was funny. Mom gave me the “private parts lecture” after that one. My first dance with a boy, hoping he wouldn’t notice my sweaty palms. And then I remember the first time Paul held my hand. How I tripped in the dark as we walked to the beach. He held my hand to steady me.
In New Zealand, the “hongi” is how the Maori “share the breath of life” (Jandt, 121). They touch their noses together and close their eyes.
I remember holding Grandpa’s swollen hand as he lay on a hospital bed in the dead of night, machines clicking him away from me by the second. Except, I didn’t really hold it. It wasn’t his hand anymore. I remember his hug, just a week previous. I still feel the grip of it. He was the only one I cried for when I left. Grandma’s hugs are not warm.
"Touch is an important component of attachment as it creates bonds between two individuals," Achal Bhagat, a Delhi-based psychiatrist says.
Overwhelming depression. I cry. I feel soggy, like bread left to defrost after being in the freezer for too long. I need a hug. I need someone to squeeze me until I forget everything. I am alone. I find my old teddy bear, not giving a shit that I am acting like a 3-year-old. I squeeze him to my chest, leaving perfect circles of tear drops on his head. His eye is starting to pop off. I look up to the doorway when I hear footsteps. Paul’s hands, clumsy but soft. How I craved them, wanted them. And then Paul. I’m in a heap on the floor, sobbing. He has his body wrapped around me, holding me to his chest, my legs out to the side, limp, lifeless. But he holds me. And I never want to leave this spot, crying or not.
There are bad touches, too. I hate the feel of sand on any part of my body. I hate the beach. I hate the feel of oily skin or hair. I hate the feeling of terrycloth or velour sweat suits. They are tacky. I hate the feeling of wet bathing suits. I hate the feeling of bunched up Under Armour shorts during a race. I don’t like being touched for no reason. Dad walks by my chair and pats me on the back. I flinch. I yell at him and feel the hot, fast flush of rage fly through me. My head gets woozy with my anger, my fingers clench my pen. I am cold. I have started despising touch. I don’t want anyone in my space. I initiate hugs. I initiate any type of closeness. I only want to be touched when I want to be touched.
“We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth” - Virginia Satir. It’s pretty common knowledge that a hug or touch can result in the release of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin. Reduced stress and that feeling of belonging somewhere or with someone.
Luke’s hugs are empty, hollow. I don’t trust him; he says he’s Paul’s friend but he uses him, uses me. When we need him, he is gone. Auntie Mimi squeezes me too long as she drunkenly thanks me for coming to visit after her brother’s funeral. I want to pull away. Coach’s hand on my back does not bring me comfort. My brothers and I do not hug. If we do, I don’t feel anything. They are there. They’re solid masses of flesh. They smell like boy and seem distracted. They say goodbye and disappear to watch TV or play guitar in their boxers. I wish for more sincerity.
“Touching is lowest during the early to mid-teens” (Jandt, 120).
I bring a movie. He shuts the door. The lock clicks. We lay on the bed. He’s petting my hair, as though I need to be soothed. My heart starts pumping as if I’m about to jump on the line for a race. Soon he’s pulling my face to his and hungrily kissing me. As though it’s been years. But hasn’t it? He breathes heavily and I twist and contort under his body weight, letting him pull me into him. But wait, I don’t feel comfortable. I feel as though, if he could, I would disappear beneath him. He whispers in my ear. My eyes widen, but I shakily nod. We’re both unclothed. He clumsily fumbles in his drawer. I’ve never seen one before. I feel cold and stupid. Little and dumb. And just like that, he’s thrusting against me. I’m not enjoying it. I want to cry because I think I’m supposed to. He flops back down next to me and says he loves me. I nod. I have to go home. We’re leaving the next day.
We communicate through touch. Our society is turning to touch, but in a non-intimate way. We have iPhones, iPads, nooks. All touch screen. We handle money, write papers, shake hands. We open doors, we feel fruit at the supermarket to see if it is ripe enough. We transfer germs. We touch. But we don’t touch each other. In Iraq, they have strict rules governing touch between adult men and women (Jandt, 120). The United States has no strict rules, other than a certain disgust for public displays of affection.
I outgrew my apprehension to touch, gradually warming to his continual patience and soft gestures. How he listened through touch; how I crave that gentle feeling after long weeks of papers and phone calls. And then we’re back in the sun, bleached by carefree summer wind and an endless layer of fine dirt that is everywhere. We swim under the dock. The water is cold and feels like liquid metal is kissing my skin. I shiver. Paul wraps his arms around me and squeezes me. His legs coil around mine and we float. My hair fans out behind me like dark ink on the gunmetal gray of the water. He brushes his thumb along my jawline, turns my head and whispers that my lips are blue. I pull myself tighter to his body, feeling him, knowing him through our constant connection of touch, our perpetual hug. But he is faster. He’s kissing me as my mom, from her lounge chair above us, asks if Paul wants grilled chicken for dinner. We aren’t there anymore. We don’t exist as we used to.
Works Cited:
Bhagat, Achal. http://www.lifepositive.com/mind/personal-growth/hug/hug-therapy.asp
Jandt, Fred E. An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a GlobalCommunity. 6th ed.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010. 120-121.
Satir, Virginia. www.lifepositive.com
