| WORLD VOICES DANCING FOR MY MOTHER
BY DUFF BRENNA |
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Voices Home |
And
she’s right. By
the time school starts you have almost no limp. Just a tiny one that no
one
seems to notice, even when you exaggerate it. You’re in second grade
and the
children in your room already know how to write letters joined
together.
Somehow you missed that part at your last school. You can’t figure out
how to
tie the letters together, make them flow. So you print them and draw
lines to
each one. You don’t question why the teacher wants the letters
connected. You
just do what she says when she tells the class to practice cursive
writing by
copying a page from your reader. At the end of the day you take your
work home and
show it to your sister. She says you’re doing it wrong. She sits you at
the
kitchen table and teaches you the right way to write. It takes a few
days to
get the hang of it. She makes you practice and practice until finally
everything clicks into place. Your penmanship is awful, but basically
you’re
writing the way you’re supposed to. Walking
home from
school one day you get in an argument with Danny. It will be Christmas
soon and
you still believe in Santa. Danny is older than you and he says you’re
really
dumb, there’s no goddamn Santa. By the time you are six or seven you
shouldn’t
believe that shit. You tell him that not believing in Santa is the same
as not
believing in God. Those who don’t believe will go to hell. He laughs at
you.
You punch him. You fight him for Santa. Danny punches you back. You go
at him
with your head down and arms whirling. Danny keeps uppercutting you. He
tells
you you’re stupid to fight with your head down that way. You tell Danny
he
better take it back about Santa. He spins away laughing. Leaves you
with a
split lip and achy teeth and a stinking hunch he’s right about Santa.
That
evening you ask your mother. You say it straight out, Mom, is Santa
Claus real?
She pauses. Her thumb and forefinger gripping her temples. No, there is
no
Santa, she says. Santa is a story for kids, so they can be happy at
Christmas.
Santa is the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of giving. Strange
to say
you’re not all that upset. Feel like a fool, though, and blurt out what
is next
on your mind: Okay, if there’s no Santa does that mean there’s no God?
Your
mother comes unglued. She shakes her finger and shouts, You must never
say such
a thing ever! Of course there’s a God! Who do you think made the world?
Who do
you think made life? Who do you think made you? You nod, you agree, you
can see
that she’s got to be right. But in the back of your mind there are
worms of
doubt. That
winter Pappas
is in an accident. He is driving the grinning-grill Dodge and spins out
on an
icy road, rolls over in a ditch, breaks his arm, separates his
shoulder, which
they have to pin back together. When you see him he is wrapped up and
has a
sling like the one you wore when Husky chewed on you. At home the first
day
Pappas is in lots of pain. He drinks wine rather than take the pain
pills. At
some point in the evening, when your sister and you are in your new
bunk beds
in the big bedroom, you hear Pappas in the kitchen moaning and
groaning. He
says he’s in excruciating pain. He breaks down in tears. Your mother
comforts
him. She says, My poor baby, my poor baby. The sound of him crying is
dumbfounding. Never would you have believed such a thing could happen.
Pappas
crying? No way. You start to say something to Carol Marie about it, but
she
leans over her bunk, puts her finger to her lips and says, Shh! Each
night Grandpa
Mike wakes you before he goes to bed. He hands you the empty coffee can
to pee
into. He always gets you up before dawn to milk Irini and do chores. So
you get
to pee both late and early. This routine works. The winter passes and
you don’t
wet your bed. No spankings, no threats, nothing but praises from your
mother.
Life is calm. Life is peaceful. Life is spoiling you. 11
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