Gram Belle

I wake up in the dark to the sound of my grandmother’s voice coming loudly from my cell phone which has slipped down my pillow. “That damned husband of hers had better not mouth off again. He really doesn’t want to mess with me, does he Boo?”

Pretending I have not dozed off and have no idea if we’re talking about a family member or a soap opera character I say, “No ma’am. He sure doesn’t.” I look at the alarm clock across the room and when my nearsighted squint clears the red digital glow I see that it is almost 3am. Gram picks up the conversation and after five minutes of context clues I determine that we are talking about my aunt and her newish husband, who really is turning out to be a no-count dick.
This isn’t an odd scenario for us, we’ve always been abnormally close. My mother is a career woman who took her only child to her mother’s house to get on and off the bus while she worked her way up the corporate ladder. It was in the hours after school that Gram taught me how to play poker, Foxtrot, and walk the line between a lady and a good time. On some rainy days when a particularly good sale was going on or a major story line on General Hospital was slated to unravel, Gram would call my mother to tell her I had developed a strange cough and would need to be in for the day. My mom caught on quick, but reprimanded us only when I got close to the absentee limits. My grandmother loves to tell stories about how I would bring her flowers, statuettes, and other treasures stolen from the yards of neighbors. She leaves out that she kept them all.

As we both grew older our relationship changed. I became a latchkey kid and she went a little nutty, confining herself to her bedroom. I visited to gossip, help her balance the checkbook and file her mail. After I started driving I would sign myself out of school to take her to a doctor’s appointment. At seventeen, I became anxiety ridden and depressed and she was the only one with the sense to give me a Vicodin and a splash of sherry and really really listen to what I was feeling.

When I left for college My Gram and I had both evolved into creatures who consumed mind altering substances and kept strange hours. We became the best of late night phone friends and in ten years our conversations haven’t really changed. She tells me about her aches and pains and reads me letters from her first love. I sing Patsy Cline on request and we discuss the escapades of day time television characters. Occasionally though, one of us slips up and the benign conversation gets interesting. Our loose lips bond us and on nights when we are both particularly bored with life and our drugs of choice. We enter the walk-in closet and toss family skeletons back and forth.

These calls are where I learned that my aunt was pregnant, my grandfather had cancer and my uncle was getting divorced. It was during one of these calls that I found out that my mother was born out of wedlock and that my Pa-Pa was not my biological grandfather. My grandfather is a retired lawyer who lives in Chicago and was a prick to my mother when she went to meet him the year she turned sixteen. My Pa-Pa was the submarine sailor who went AWOL to marry my nylon model of a grandmother in 1960. He adopted my mother and raised her as his own, his “Ichiban Baby-san.” Two children followed my uncle and aunt, and the family moved to Aiea, Hawaii to reside on the naval base.

The woman has lived three lives in seventy-two years and I wonder what it must feel like to be done. I want to be done. I want to know if I’ll ever have babies and what they’ll be like when they grow up. I want to know if I’ll marry and to know who will die first. I want to know my happiest time and my saddest time and know that everything else is going to fall somewhere in the middle of the road. I want to sleep when I want, eat what I want and tie a scarf around my head before I leave the house.

On the other end of the phone, I hear her light another cigarette and I reach for one of my own.

Smart

I'm thinking of Carly. I do tend to do that when I fall off of my high horse. Carly was in my fourth grade class. Strike that. Carly was in just about every class I ever had starting with Mrs. Clarks a.m. kindergarten class and ending with 12th grade AP English. We were in AIA, Academically and Intellectually Able. I'm told that in many other school districts this program is/was referred to as G&T, Gifted & Talented. I wonder if after the self-esteem war in schools these lofty monikers went the way of red pens and first place trophies.
Anyway, it's 1991 and The Board of Ed. gave us a funny acronym and kept us separate. We were out in annex trailers for 6 hours a day. We got to join the other kids for an hour a day in rotating "enrichment" classes; library, gym, art, music, and I can't remember. I do remember it was just long enough for the gen. pop. to call us Assholes In Action and not pick us for teams.
So the Queen of AIA was Carly. She was the smartest of the smart. A superlative wrapped up in superiorty. But all of that was put on her. Adults framed her that way and she took the praise and ran with it and there was simply no competition. She would later emerge in High School as a hell of a soccer player, but for now all she's got is freckles and Smart across her forehead. I was Pretty. I sat next to Fat and Funny.
So one day we're about to take a test. It's a social studies test about the desert. I remember mesa and plateau and trying to hold on to the difference long enough to scrawl it out on paper yet to be delivered. Everyone's putting books away. There's the sound of shuffling and scooting those awful chairs across that awful linoleum. When the last of this noise dies down I hear a weird noise. A ragged breath. Everyone hears it. We look up. An audible body shudder. It's Carly unprepared. It's a little girl about to fail a test. It's a nine year old about to lose her identity. It's the first time I saw a panic attack. No, we weren't taught how to deal with failure. We were smart. When smart failed we diversified. Carly found soccer. I found boys. I hope every kid in that trailer found a new identity. Smart's a slippery bastard.

Flacco Feels Me

I knew what was coming before I set foot in the back conference room. You know the one, far removed from the rest of the office so that if I decided to let my grace slip and make a scene no one else’s work day would be disturbed. My colleagues shouldn’t have to deal with anything so messy. I had been avoided all day, but I thought that was because I was just returning to the office after a nasty bout with swine flu and everyone was being extra cautious. I had no idea that what I really had was the about-to-be-unemployed-plague and no one was looking to catch that in December 2009, at the height of a recession weeks before Christmas.
The notice on my Outlook calendar sent from my boss said “6 month review status” and informed me that Carol from Human Resources would be participating as well. I had never been fired before but I was no dummy and this had all the signs. The damn meeting was even scheduled at the end of the day so that I could peaceably pack up my desk and head for the elevators in a veil of my own shame.
So at 3:30 on the dot I headed empty handed toward the dreaded conference room of demise and shook hands with my boss and then Carol from HR. I took my seat and waited for “elected to discontinue your employment” before I glazed over. I remained calm, but I refused to participate further in what seemed like my undoing. So I sat. I sat while my transgressions were recounted to me. Yeah I knew I was late a lot and I knew I was disengaged. I hated the job and was bitter and confused about what to do. I had been contemplating giving my notice for a while. The bastards beat me to the punch and that was what bothered me most. I let Carol give her shpeal about the continuation of benefits and what they needed to collect before heading to my desk grabbing a few things and making a b-line for the elevators. All told, it took them six minutes to give my ego and my finances a good shake down.
I threw myself out the front door and in to the street. As I walked through Lexington Market towards the parking garage I felt an odd kinship with the street people I normally avoid. I stared dead into the eyes of everyone I passed. I was quietly challenging everyone I passed, but I didn’t know to what end. That night I watched the Raven’s game alone on my couch nursing a National. Some things are sacred - even when your world has crumbled and you are too ashamed and shocked to pick up the phone or the dry cleaning or dinner.
Joe Flacco had back to back interceptions. The Packers sacked him three times and the fans booed his every move. I watched him head to the sidelines and lift his helmet to reveal a face full of disappointment and self hatred and disgust. I’ve never wanted someone so bad in my life.