I suppose every young person goes through a time of silence, a time in his or her life when communication between child and parent is virtually impossible, and never pleasant. For most of my adolescence, my silence was directed towards my dad. I have tried to figure out how it happened, to sift through my shoebox of memories and pick out the one with the caption, "And here, the silence began." I have imagined that the still-frame would depict a dramatic scene of dissension between my dad and I, but the best I can do is trace it back to the first night I said, "Shit."
* * *
In true loyalty to the immature child who still lives in some corner of my body (probably behind my spleen), I have tried to figure out who taught me the word, and thus, blame all of the subsequent difficulties on the perpetrator. I have taken myself back to the second grade, placed myself at the desk I shared with Aaron Kiehler during math, and strained to hear him utter it. To my frustration, it appears that Aaron's second-grade mouth was not as bold as his high-school mouth. So I sit patiently in front of the television at age five and sneak peeks at such violent, and therefore banned, programs as The Power Rangers. Still, no luck - shocker! The psychological community (the “community” being my roommate, Erica, who happens to be a fourth-year psych student) says that our minds can invent memories so vivid and realistic that we are convinced of their veracity; I find even this phenomenon failing me. I cannot remember the first time I heard someone utter the word.
* * *
I can recall the first time I uttered it. To be truthful, “uttered” is too light a word to describe the way I entered the forbidden new world of swearing. I was born into this world with celebratory displays of fireworks on a humid Fourth of July.
I was about eight years old, obviously naive and very cute, with my red curls bouncing around my face and my big brown eyes, innocent as a cow's. Certainly not the kind of girl who swore. We were gathered at my Granny's house in Alleyton, Texas to celebrate the Fourth with my dad's side of the family. The event was, as were most with my family, marked by barbecue, Budweiser, and my cousin Brandon experimenting with firearms and birds in the backyard. While my girl cousins and I waited inside for dusk to fall, arguing over watching MTV (their choice - they were all older than me) or Bug Juice (my choice - I told you, I was tragically innocent), a loud "crack" would ring out, followed by "And there goes the beak!"
When night finally came, and the sky started erupting into sparks, I stood at the gate watching my cousins shoot Roman candles at each other. It was around this time that some neighbor decided it would be a super idea to show his appreciation for American independence by shooting a gun. Well, at least my memory remembers that it was a gun. I'm pretty positive we found shotgun shells littering the street the following morning (at least now the previously mentioned phenomenon is proving itself useful). Anyhow, when the shot rang out and lodged itself in the corner stop sign just behind the house, I screeched, "SHHIIIIIITT!"
My cousins, assorted aunts and uncles, and mom stared at me in astonishment. At the time, I did not understand the weight of the word. I did not know that years of the use of French in England had banished "common" words into the land of immoral language. All I knew was that people said it when they were surprised. My family told me I was lucky that my dad was inside and had not heard me swear so passionately. But suddenly, my mom was yanking me into the bathroom by my elbow, and my mouth was being stuffed with a bar of Dial.
I cried as she told me never to say that word again, and especially not to let my dad hear me say it.
* * *
Over time, I learned not to let my dad hear me say a lot of things; my silence was not limited to the use of dirty words, which, I can assure you, I continued to use like my new favorite toy. As a third grader, I delighted in swearing in front of my best friends, mixing these shiny, new words in with the sand I threw around on the playground. I felt daring, and somehow, disillusioned with the secrets adults kept from us.
Yet, as I grew out of that phase, the list of things I could not say to my dad grew longer. Through most of elementary school, the list mostly consisted of the names of boys I liked (Nick, Adam, Aaron Kiehler), the mean things I may have done to my classmates (or had done to me), and, in the case that we were in the car, the fact that I had to pee (he always tried to hit potholes if I divulged this information).
* * *
By the time I reached high school, the list included more serious topics. As freshmen, my girlfriends and I were pleased to find ourselves in the company of an older, more mature group of junior guys. In the recounting of this story, I am tempted to classify them as boys, for that is what they were. Yet, my friends and I felt the time had come for us to stop hanging around with "boys." Being that "men" were our dads, we decided to call them "guys." They were in Pre-Calculus, they could drive, and they could grow goatees. Well, some of them could. Almost.
It became our Friday night ritual to plan a big group outing. We would spend hours on the phone, deciding which movie we would see, which restaurant we would eat at, which guys would drive, which girls would ride with whom. "Whitney had to ride with Todd, because they were like, talking. The other Danielle wanted to ride with Josh because she was totally into him, and I couldn't ride with Brent because he liked me, but I didn't like him." And so it went.
When we were returning from one of these such events, I ended up alone in the truck with the guy I had a crush on at the time after he had dropped off all our other friends. Oh, how lady luck was toying with me. I was excited to be alone with him, but as we drew nearer to my house, I started to freak out. We did not live in a particularly affluent part of town, which was not the problem, because neither did he. Our house, however, was in poor physical condition. The faded paint was peeling in most places, and, thanks to the outrageous Gulf Coast humidity, one side had grown to be covered with obnoxiously green mildew.
For years, my dad had been promising my mom that re-painting it was next on the list of things to do, but a demanding job that never seemed to pay quite enough and a nearly debilitating thyroid problem kept this promise unfulfilled. I could tell that she held it against him, which I pretended to find unfair, but in truth, I did as well. I felt that my friends looked at my house, and therefore me, with an unpleasant taste in their mouths. It was the same taste we all got when, if we were honest with ourselves, we drove through the "bad" part of town, one mixed with pity, disdain, and disrespect.
As the truck got closer to my house, my mind was racing to find a solution to the insurmountable problem. I considered the old "just drop me off here" trick, the one where you get the guy to drop you off a few houses before, wait till he drives off, then walk. If one approached it from the north side of town, like he was, my house was situated at the first corner of the first block. I would have him bypass it. However, I must have forgotten that he had been by my house before, probably with a more trusted, less-cute friend of ours, and vaguely knew where I lived.
"This is it, right?" He had stopped right in front of it, too soon. I panicked.
"Oh, umm... yeah." I groped helplessly for the door handle and yanked it open. "Okay, bye," I mumbled as I hung my head in shame and ran inside.
He knew where I lived. He knew this ramshackle house was mine. And I knew he would never ask me out. The next day, I could not look my dad in the eye. All I felt towards him was bitterness and shame, and the silence grew.
* * *
The silence continued through the rest of high school, all the way up to my freshman year at college. As the move to college approached, I could tell that something was wrong between my parents. In fact, I had sensed it for a few years. I forgot to mention it before, but not only was I a cute child (I feel that most of my high school portraits will prove that I had grown out of that phase as well by this time), I was also intuitive. But, as was the custom in our family, we never talked about it. My mom and dad had been taking turns snoring on the living room couch for some time, and we never did anything as a family any more. At one point, I even tried to take this into my own hands. I foolishly attempted to institute one of those "family game nights" you sometimes see annoyingly happy Milton-Bradley families participate in during commercial breaks from CSI. Never mind that I was well past the age when playing games with your parents on a Friday night is acceptable. It did not go over well.
Anyhow, when it came time for me to move into my first dorm room, they united to make this transition smooth. After a last breakfast together the Sunday before student orientation was to begin, they dropped me off at my dorm, placed a wad of money in my hand, and hugged me goodbye. I watched them get into the same car, and thought that maybe now, with me out of the house, their marriage might improve. With their only child gone and an empty nest, they may have to find solace in each other, fall back in love with each other, and all those other things that happen in romantic comedies about middle-aged men and women.
Every time I called home, though, it seemed that my parents never talked. I would recount a funny anecdote about my exciting college life to my mom one day, only to find that, when I spoke to my dad the next day, he had no idea what was going on with me. My parents still were not communicating. This realization really hit me when, as hurricane Katrina was approaching the Gulf Coast, I asked my dad what their plan was. He explained to me that he was going to stay at home, maybe board up a few windows if it started to look serious.
"Well, what about mom? Isn't she worried?"
"Oh, I think you're mother is going to Houston to stay with her mom."
I was shocked to discover that my parents would not be staying together for this predicted disaster. What if my mom and grandmother were in danger in Houston? Why would my dad stay at home and allow that possibility?
As worried as I was, I still could not bring myself to break the silence. The hurricane, as we now know, was a disaster, but it did not hit my home or Houston with any serious damage, and I dismissed the situation from mind. A few weeks later, though, I went home for my first visit, and on the Sunday morning that I was to return to school, my mom climbed into my bed with me and told me that she and my dad were separating. I laid there, unmoving, as she stuttered through her sobbing, and played with the frayed edges of my bed sheets. After the news had been delivered, my dad came home and realized what had transpired. He was upset; he thought they had agreed to tell me about this at a later date. I pretended like I was okay. Actually, I probably was, but not because the news had failed to upset me. I was already entering a state of denial. I packed my bag, ate a quick meal of chicken my dad had grilled. It was his special recipe, a robust marinade of butter and spices, and it was my favorite. That much I remember. I cannot remember what kind of side dishes there were. Probably mashed potatoes. I was always a meat-and-potatoes kind of girl.
My parents sat at the dinner table watching me closely in case (I suppose) I flew into a violent rage. I was calm, though, as I told them that I did not want to talk about the details of the situation. All I said to them was that I wanted them to work it out peacefully, without putting me in the middle. Then I robotically hugged them goodbye, climbed into my car, and drove up to Houston to pick up one my friends from school, who had also gone home to visit that weekend.
I do not remember much of that drive, either. I am sure I listened to upbeat music, probably some terribly peppy crap about the goodness of God, in efforts to cheer myself up and ignore the drastic turn my life had just taken. I guess I forgot to say so earlier, but I had been raised in the church for most of my life, raised to believe in things like the goodness and holiness of God, which I really did believe at the time. In fact, I still do. It just looks different now. But, all of that is for another story.
Anyhow, I do remember one thing about the drive very clearly. I was entering the north side of Houston, a part of the city tangled in tollways with which I was unfamiliar, and in my ignorance, pulled into the "exact change only" lane. In fairness to myself, I did have exact change, just... not in change. When my turn came to toss my coins into the basket, I searched in vain for a slot to feed my dollar bill into, and realized that the coin basket was the only available option. I promptly broke my (almost always) ban on swearing.
"SHIT! Shit, shit, fucking shit!"
I was mad at the Houston toll system, I was mad at my parents, I was mad at God, but I was especially mad at the growing line of cars behind me who kept honking incessantly, as if that was going to help me figure out how to get out of this predicament. I sat in the car for what felt like ten minutes (but was probably more like thirty seconds) stared at the open road in front of me, and the gate blocking my way. I considered crashing through it, nearly convinced myself that my car could handle the impact and that my dad would not mind paying for the damages, especially considering the events that had taken place earlier that morning. After a few moments, I came to my senses and realized that that was a bad plan. Cops would probably chase me. But I could out run them, right? No. I still knew it was a bad idea, so I climbed across the console, frantically fumbled with the passenger door (there was not enough room between the driver door and the toll booth to climb out... I had already tried), and ran to the car immediately behind me. I knocked on the back window (why the back window, I will never know) where the young couple who sat in the front seat had safely tucked away their young son. He shook his head in confusion, and his mom rolled down her window. I offered a my handful of dollar bills, which that bitch toll booth refused to accept, and tried to explain my situation. I think I even told her about the bombshell my parents had just dropped in efforts to make her understand just how truly dire my need was. She shoved the change into my hands and rolled her window up. I must have looked like a madwoman. I ran back to my car, threw the change into the basket, and the blessed gate rose and allowed me to pass. I laid rubber peeling out of there.
* * *
When I got back to school, I called my parents to let them know I had made it back safely. I did not talk to them about the separation, or the coming divorce, and I wouldn't for a long time. When I finally did, it was with my father on the way home from a visit to my Granny's. He sat in the passenger seat next to me as I drove us home. The silence had been heavy, and when he opened his mouth, and he made that sticky sound lips make after they've been locked for too long, I knew it was coming. I breathed in deeply, and the scent of the earth my dad worked in rose off of his work clothes and into my nose. I had never noticed it so intensely before. It was so strong I could taste it on my tongue, like mudpies in my grandma's backyard, or carrots so fresh you can still taste the dirt they grew in.
He told me that he had tried to save their marriage. He had done everything he knew how to do. He had not wanted a divorce. And he told me he was sorry. I had already known that.
* * *
I did not say much, but not because I was angry. I just did not know what to say. I still don't. But I do know I can tell him more than I ever could when I was growing up. When the last election was coming up, I could tell him that I was planning to vote for Barack Obama, a decision that was in stark contrast to my conservative, Republican up-bringing. I can tell him that I believe homosexual men and women have the right to be married, and he will listen with thoughtful respect. I can tell him that I sometimes have doubts about the existence of God. And these days, when I drop something fragile, or stub my toe, I can say, "Shit!" without eating a bar of soap.
No comments:
Post a Comment