Demons are Real (part 2)

I couldn’t swallow the spinach. I put it on my tongue and there it sat like a green slug of resistant slime refusing even gravity. It touched the back of my throat and I gagged and coughed. Out it plopped back onto the plate. I was tearing up already.

‘Quit it!’ said my father, “Eat your damn food.”

‘Nicole, stop it. I only gave you a little bit and you have to eat it. Here..’

She mixes the offending spinach back in with the rest on my plate.

‘Take a smaller bite.’

Before I knew it her fork was in my mouth jamming the green ooze between my teeth. I swallowed. I choked and I swallowed. My eyes were leaking. My nose was leaking. My throat hurt. I just couldn’t do it.

‘GOD DAMMIT!’ Said my father slamming his hand on the table. ‘Eat it or you’ll regret it.’

‘I can’t!’ I wailed. As much as I feared his wrath, it was clearly my only alternative.

‘God DAMN you! GET TO YOUR ROOM, I’LL DEAL WITH YOU LATER.’

I ran straight to the record player and put on my song. If I kept playing it I’d be OK. If I kept playing it he’ll forget. If I kept playing it I wouldn’t be punished.

‘…I will protect you from the wolves...’

‘TURN THAT CRAP OFF’

You’d think a child as perpetually terrorized as I was would have obeyed immediately, but magic thinking is stronger than fear. I turned it down and sat with my ear to the speaker until it got dark enough to turn on the light. I moved only to cue the song on the player with my left hand until my mother slid into my room and turned on the light.

‘That’s a nice song.’

‘Yes.’

‘I told your father that you tried.’

‘Thank you.’

‘He won’t punish you tonight, but you have to stay in here.’

‘Ok.’

IT WORKED. The song worked. Obviously.

‘You know the rules. You have to eat what’s on your plate, you know that.’

‘I couldn’t’

‘It wasn’t so much. Spinach is good. I thought it was tasty. Next time you have to eat all of it, ok?’

‘OK’

‘No choking and carrying on or you really will be in trouble. You know the rules.’

‘3 strikes…how many do I have?’

‘More than 3…’

‘Ok’

‘Do you want me to turn that off for you?’

‘No. No I want to listen please. It’s quiet. I’ll be quiet.’

‘Are you saying your prayers?’

‘Yes’

‘Will you say them tonight?’

‘Yes’

‘Remember Nicole, if you pray, god will help you.’

‘Are there wolves?’

‘Yes, and there are demons and bad things, but if you pray, god will hear you.’

“Will he save me?’

“If you’re good and pray and believe hard enough he will.’

‘Am I good?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I tried’

‘You have to try harder than that.’

I was on permanent probation. Two years earlier something happened, and I’m still not sure exactly what, but it may have involved the bushes of the house next door, but not the neighbors themselves. The shrubs in the back of their house made a kind of natural tunnel as the outer limbs grew up and then drooped down in unkempt heaviness. When I go there in my mind’s eye, I am looking up through the branches lying on the hard packed dirt. Something is going on below my waist.

This memory floats with others that see me lying in my brother’s red wagon as I’m wheeled into the garage to play a traditional game of doctor with some of the other children on the block. I see sky and then there’s a bang as the wheels smack the door frame. A face hovers over mine. There are other memories that are more like thoughts I remember thinking. I remember lying down on the driveway as part of a game and suddenly being afraid that someone would come over me. I see my red gloves and my breath, and our dog, Shane, who’s life would have been longer if our family hadn’t chosen him.

And I remember forgetting.

I know that this is in some ways just a repeat of what I wrote the other day, only instead of telling I’m showing. Because how I tell this is important to me. It’s not enough just to get the information out there, I want to figure out what happened. I want to see it. I want you to see it. I stopped writing on the blog for a while for many reasons – performance anxiety among them. I am working more now so I don’t have the time to polish my sentences, and the entries for June aren’t as nicely written as the entries in May. I have to give up the idea that I can do this perfectly the first time, because I can’t. And because this is for me, I’m going to go back and forth through all this stuff until it rings right for me, until I find that bit of truth reflected back in language.

Memoir is a tricky thing. Of course I don’t remember this exact conversation with my mother. I remember the essence and maybe an image, and from that I’m trying to find that illusive pattern that my mother and I danced to for so long. Where did the twists in her thinking enter into my thought process? How did her parallel reality ride next to mine and where did it cross? I never remember the actual conversations, but I do remember the sense of chaos and loss I would sometimes feel as everything I thought was true shifted perspective at her bidding.

Demons are Real (part 1)

There are so many other things to think about: Iran, Darfur, the plight of Ang San Sui Ki, the stock market is up again giving false hope to the small (gullible) shareholder, there aren’t enough places in the ‘good’ schools here now that parents are forgoing private education, sales are still down, the rain in June spoiled the tomato crops, we aren’t going to get a vote on Health Care for months if ever, the swine flu is expected to incubate mutate and affect 40% of us, and the list goes on. It doesn’t end. And still I need to vomit up more about my demons. That doesn’t end either. Am I better person yet? I think that’s what I’ve been hoping for. The great epiphany. A happy ending. And then she got up from her computer and went out and did things, good things, things that only she could do and the light shone out of her asshole. Amen.

Everyone has demons, right? Some learn to live with them. Some harness them and use the energy for creative purposes. My problem with demons is I grew up thinking they were real. Yes, in my house demons weren’t written by Stephen King and they weren’t even some symbol of repressed ugly reality. In my house demons could be anywhere, and they wanted possession of my body and soul.

In the late 70’s when I was a very small person, folk music was in vogue. We didn’t have music in my home, there are many reasons which would take book length tangents to fully explore, so I will leave it at this; my parents weren’t music lovers. We did have a few records though, a Star Wars Single, Alice in Wonderland, The Nutcracker; this and that regifted to us kids through young aunts and uncles. And there was one folk record of songs inspired by the New Testement that had me utterly fascinated. A song on it quoted scripture and was sung in a light baritone, ‘Come unto me, I will protect you from the wolves’. I just remember the refrain now. I must have played it endlessly, convincing myself that nothing could happen while I was playing that song. Surely nothing could happen while the man sang in Jesus’ voice. Magic thinking wasn’t exactly discouraged in my house, and I think my mother might have had similar beliefs.

‘That’s right Nicole, if you pray, god will help you.’

‘Are there wolves?’

‘Yes, and there are demons and bad things, but if you pray, god will hear you.’

“Will he save me?’

“If you’re good and pray and believe hard enough he will.’

Suddenly I had a job. Believing in this god also required that I believe in demons and wolves and bad things. I was pretty much a nervous wreck. The school I attended wrote the first of many notes about my anxiety levels.

I was obsessed with being good. If there was a best way to act I did it. If there was a line to form I was at the front of it. If a hand had to be in the air, I put it there. If a ball needed to be caught I threw myself under it. Every act in my little world was for god, so that he would know that I was good and that I believed. Every act was a prayer for worthiness, because I had been over-taken at least once already. Mine was not a pure and a chaste fortress. Something had already happened, and I was suspect.

Summer Festivals and Plays

I've been out reviewing theater. Some of it was pretty good and then there was this play, which is an amazing first for this playwright, who dedicates this piece to 'all survivors'.

If you somehow get to see it, I'd love to talk about it, but not on the blog because of spoilers, which is why I didn't post when I first reviewed it.

Let me know by email!

And now the regular blogging will recommence at least once a week.

I'm on the Front Page

OMG, I'm on the front page of www.nytheatre.com - ok it's my review of 'Brief Shorts' which is on the front page, but holy cow, now I sort of wish I had taken another glance at it before sending it out. Well, I won't read it again for fear of cringing, but if you are interested in free independent theater and might be in New York in the next month, give it a read.

1 Down Too Many To Go

I made the mistake of scanning the headlines before sitting down to write and found this. This monster "is the associate director of Duke University's Center for Health Policy". He faces 'up to 20 years' for his crimes against his son, which means he gets out in 5 with parole. Is that fair? I don't understand the leniency in the law toward people who commit these unspeakable acts. Why is this not akin to murder? Especially when they (molesters) are more likely (given the rate of recidivism) to reoffend? I know why. It's because some how it's explained away in "Urges" and those murky family issues.

If I were to make a blog entry for every one this cases I read about I'd be a very busy lady. This case just strikes a cord because this monster was in charge of Duke's Center for Health Policy. It's a massive betrayal not only for his family, but also for his staff and the students he came in contact with. My thoughts are with them tonight.

Still Here

Yes, I've been away. I had to take a break for numerous reasons, and I'll even tell you about a few of them. I think the subject matter of this blog has been contributing to my insomnia. Nightmares. And yes, I will continue to post, but I also needed to step back. And I even asked myself if I was repeating my lifelong pattern of disappearing, to which the only answer is a big fat post tomorrow.

Another reason (excuse) for not blogging was that I simply couldn't DO it without a space. Sitting cross-legged on the sofa with my laptop next to Marc on his Mac began to feel like cubicle life. I needed to make a little space. Done. Trip to Ikea. Built the table and chairs yesterday and today I have a space, but I also have to go to work. So, until tomorrow kittens.

Abandonment

At some point that Spring (post fire), my absent father decided that it was time for him to get a divorce after 7 years of separation. My dad lived in McLean,Virginia. He was a “Security Consultant”, something to do with government contracts he said. He liked to be mysterious about it, and he’d allude to anyone who’d listen that he was a “spook”.

He mentioned numerous times that he had been in Army Intelligence during the Vietnam War. I can only think he must never have understood what a joke, an oxymoron, that job description had become. I’d like to think that he was personally to blame for all of the logistical errors in the Vietnam war, but I’m pretty sure he pushed papers, and “Security Consultant” was probably just another name for security guard.

There is a ‘family meeting’ in a restaurant – one of Anthony’s Pier Something places, fussy and frumpy. My mother loved an air of class, authority and propriety; the rules helped her focus. Popovers. Surf and Turf. Waitresses dressed in shit brown maid costumes with crinolines and white starched aprons. I can count the times we ate out as a family on one hand and this was definitely not Tiki Lau, so I should have known something was going on.

At the time of the fire I hadn’t seen or heard from my father in months. When he wasn’t around, he never called or my mother never let him speak to me. I don’t know. I didn’t have his number

His large black silhouette blocks the light from an enormous picture window. My mother begins telling me what’s on the menu, which should be endearing as I’m sure it’s something loopy that other mothers do to the embarrassment of their teens. My father makes the situation worse by telling my mother that I can order whatever I want. Her eyes flicked blue hatred over her menu to me, and I know this will be used as further evidence in future interrogations. If my insides could deflate anymore they do.

“Your mother and I have some news for you”.

“It’s your news not mine” says she.

“Your mother and I are getting a divorce”.

He then began a speech straight out of any given 80’s sitcom explaining that 'I need not be upset'. That everything would 'work out'. Our lives could continue as they had before. It was the most absurd thing I’d ever heard. I got up and walked out before he could finish. I’m still not sure if he actually thought he was talking about our family. I wasn’t upset because my beloved parents were divorcing. I just didn’t want to participate in the farce. I couldn’t pretend for him, and I didn’t understand what the hell they needed me there for.

He still attempts to treat me with this kind of formality. It’s as if he rehearses his ‘role’ before-hand and then plays it out, but he’s a terrible actor/writer so it comes across as inappropriate, strange and unnatural.

He pulled up his car beside me as I walked. Figured he was going to talk at me until he had his list of prearranged items ticked off and I might get it over with – at least I wasn’t surrounded by frilly lace curtains and a vomit of floral wallpaper. I got in the car.

“She’s trying to kill me”, he said savoring the words on his tongue and giving me his most serious look. He had been waiting all day for that one, and he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play it out.

“Take me with you”.

“I can’t do that. There’s no room for you in my condo. I don’t think it would be appropriate. ”

Appropriate. great word.

I got it then why things had been getting so bad at home. This had been in the works for a while and it was destabilizing her. Not that she had really ever recovered from her relapse 2 years before. He didn’t want to take any responsibility for her any more.

He was going to get away, and his escape had no place in it for me. I would be all she had. I was trapped. My brother was losing his own battle to delusions, depression and rage. I felt hot, and the weight of the air became unbearable. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say, well, I don’t think she likes me too much either. Just gave a nod. Let my hair fall over my face.

Now I look back with disbelief. He knew she needed to go to the hospital, but he just didn't want to deal with it. He wanted the insurance company to take care of the house. He just wanted to be free of me, and he is ok with his decision. He feels he owes me nothing because he abandoned me in a town with a good school. Yes, he did in fact say that to me years later. He felt he picked himself up by his bootstraps and I could do the same. He felt that I was just going to get married in a few years anyway. This is the same man who told me that I wasn't smart, but that it was ok, because I was just a girl anyway.

So you see, he is absurd. It's hard not to laugh at him now. And this is why I can forgive him just a little bit. He was/is so incapable of being anything to anyone that I can only pity him. How horrible to live as a shell of a man, play-acting the dramatic bits of a sad existence.

Happy almost Father's Day Dad.