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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations
The Graduate School
2005
Eating White Rice with My Fingertips
Stacy C. Brand
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
EATING WHITE RICE WITH MY FINGERTIPS
By
STACY C. BRAND
A thesis submitted to the
Department of English
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts.
Degree Awarded:
Summer Semester, 2005
The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Stacy C. Brand defended on June 15, 2005.
_______________________________
Robert Olen Butler
Professor Directing Thesis
_______________________________
Sheila Ortiz-Taylor
Committee Member
_______________________________
Elizabeth Stuckey-French
Committee Member
Approved:
_______________________________
Bruce Boehrer
Director of Graduate Studies
The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.
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for Grandma
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank my committee members for their guidance, inspiration, and support: Robert Olen
Butler, Sheila Ortiz-Taylor, and Elizabeth Stuckey-French. I would also like to thank Bob
Shacochis for reminding me that I have stories to tell and much more. Thanks to Brandy T.
Wilson and Rita Mae Reese for listening to me and for believing in me. Finally, thanks to Sarah
Fryett for helping me find the heart of an artichoke. And thank you to everyone I have left out
who, in one way or another, helped me find my vision.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………….…….vi
The Way Life Was
Whitetail Sorrow...……………………………………………………………….............………2
The Way I Imagine Life
Destination………………………………………………………………………………………18
Boy Pants………………………………………………………………………………………..30
Driftwood………………………………………………………………………………………..41
The Way Life Is
Eating White Rice with My Fingertips……………………..…………………………………...55
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH…………………………………………………………………….65
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ABSTRACT
When I began writing this collection, it started off as a short story collection. As I continued to
work with memory and recreation / re-vision, my stories began taking the shape of non-fiction. I
have decided to include two non-fiction pieces, bookending the fictional stories. I have found
something in my thesis, this collection of stories that crosses boundaries and often intersect with
each other, speaking from different perspectives. So what you have is a collection of stories,
blurring genres, striving for new boundaries. These stories explore and meditate on
relationships, the costs of love and loving, loss, sexuality, and identity—my experiences,
spanning the human experience.
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Part One:
The Way Life Was
I am writing this book about you at a time when I am least sure about such words.
—Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family
1
Whitetail Sorrow
I sat in the stand, a lean-to made of two-by-fours and a wooden pallet, White Fang
gripped in my palms, keeping me awake. My father sat behind me on a green five-gallon bucket,
rifle cradled in his lap. Sunflower seeds cracked in my ear. I was nine or ten, I can’t remember
exactly. When the deer appeared, easing through the thicket to our right, I lowered my book and
tapped my father’s boot. I pointed with my chin, never taking my eyes off the doe. It took him a
minute, but without turning around, I sensed the cold barrel above my head. I raised my hands to
my ears, hunched over, and waited for the deer to reach the small clearing I knew my dad was
aiming for. I don’t remember the sound of the rifle. I never did. But I do remember my father
standing up behind me, announcing that the doe was headed for the stand. He aimed again, the
heat of the gun above me. Startled and confused, she charged in our direction, passing not
twenty yards from where we sat. Her leg is broken, I screamed. That’s her guts, my dad
corrected over the ringing in my ears, and then discharged the rifle again. She fell to the ground,
legs still kicking—my hands still over my ears.
The following year my dad sat me, alone with a shotgun for the first time, in Mike’s box
stand, one I helped build with four-by-fours and plywood. It was the first hunt of the season,
buck-only week, and we had noticed a lot of droppings in the area, deep rubs, and several
scrapes. I didn’t see any antlers that day, but I did watch a half dozen doe and a couple babies
nuzzle through the woods. I forgot to check for any bucks lingering at the edges, waiting for
their moment to rut—my moment to fire. I put the scope on the deer and just watched them,
relieved that it was buck-only.
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I explained this sensation, a piece of magic it seemed to me, to my dad when he rolled up
on the four-wheeler that afternoon. He climbed in the stand, leaving his rifle propped on the
four-wheeler, and sat there with me on the other bucket. Sounds of squirrels rough-housing
caught our attention now and then, and in between was the sound of a lighter striking. I would
listen to the ash on his cigarette sizzle and then the sound of him inhaling and exhaling—his
square jaw moving in slow-motion, exactly how I wanted to remember him.
My father was never a serious “sportsman.” He hunted to get away from the house for a
bit. I hunted to be with him. The following winter though, we didn’t go hunting. I was no
longer taken out of school during Thanksgiving week. Dad pawned his guns, a Remington 3006, a twenty gauge, and his twelve gauge. Maybe Rachel hocked them; he never told me what
really happened, why he didn’t have the ticket to get them out.
Sitting on the toilet at age twelve, scrounging around for something to wipe my ass, I
would spot little white rocks with a yellow hue on the floor. I remember coming home from
school one day, going straight to my room, and flicking on the TV. The picture was fuzzy like
little ants racing across the screen. I tried to adjust the antennae to find that one side of the
antennae was gone, broken low at its fattest part. I knew where Rachel kept her pipes. I rushed
out of my room, rummaged through the drawers in their bedroom and found the other half of my
antennae, a charred screen from the kitchen faucet placed in one end. Dad was sitting in the
living room, Styrofoam cup in hand with beer poured over ice, smoking one cigarette after
another, Bullet—our loyal boxer-mix—at his feet.
“Rachel broke my fucking antennae.”
My dad sat still and gave me his defeated smile to calm me. He hated when I had to get
involved in his drama, but he only took a drink to take care of it. My father never over-reacted.
Unfortunately, he hardly ever reacted. When Rachel raced out once because Dad wouldn’t give
her ten dollars for a bump, she drove the truck straight into the ditch right across the street.
We
heard a crunch, peered through the picture window and saw the left tire in the air, spinning.
Rachel often took off in the truck. My dad would sometimes take the coil wire out, so if she
managed to get the keys from him, she couldn’t start it. The truck would have been mine when I
turned sixteen. A single cab Ford F-150, two-toned (beige and white) with nice rims and a
3
matching beige tonneau cover with two pieces of plywood underneath to keep it from flapping
on the freeway or from collecting water.
Bullet stood on his hind legs beside us at the window, staring at the truck. My dad
walked out the front door. Rachel was gone, down the road somewhere, probably hitching a ride
from a passer-by, scheming some way to get twenty bucks. Dad looked at the truck and started
walking the block to his brother’s house, visible from ours.
“What are you doing?” I asked, pointing toward the ditch.
“We gotta pull out the truck. You comin’?” he asked without turning around.
I followed, wanting to be there with him when he finally decided to save us, letting him
know that I was beside him. Something inside of me, unrelenting love, remembered how life
used to be, how we played ball in the backyard with neighborhood kids, went to Hot Springs
with my aunt, his sister and my cousin, the bowling alley, I-30 speedway. I tried to let those
memories shine through, reminiscing always as if I was talking to someone with memory loss,
showing them pictures, telling them stories, waiting for that moment of recognition in their eyes.
The truck had little damage, the front headlight cracked. He argued with Rachel later that
night, her eyes wide and full of fire, her movements quick and deliberate. When she dumped the
silverware on the kitchen floor, scrambling for a steak knife, I pulled my bat from behind my
bedroom door and stood between them, determined not to let her hurt him. But my loyalty, not
even my love, could convince him that our life was falling apart.
You lie to me. I lie to you.
You disrespect me. I disrespect you.
You hurt me. I hurt you.
And so on.
That was his philosophy, but that was not our relationship. At the time, I felt that since
he was spiraling the only thing I could do was spiral with him.
Late one night, Rachel gone, Dad passed out after eating his usual, a Nacho Bel Grande
from Taco Bell. I left, got a friend of mine to buy me some beer, and picked up a couple of girls
whom I was attracted to. We cruised down Old Conway Highway with forty ounces tucked
between our thighs, music blaring in our ears. A jeep tried to pass us, but I gunned it, showing
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off, trying to impress the girls. Dad had taught me how to throw an automatic in a lower gear,
rev up the RPMs, so if the boys wanted to impress me they’d have to try harder.
The jeep filed back behind me, and I slowed down to a taunting speed. When he tried to
pass again I stomped on it, leaving him and eventually turning down a side road. The headlights
closed in behind me, so I threw a cup out of the window, drunk and stupid. My ears began
ringing. I knew that ring and felt the heat above my head, smelled the gunpowder. We had been
shot at. The girls screamed beside me.
I hit the gas, but I didn’t know the road, just kept driving. Soon the pavement turned into
gravel. The headlights behind me disappeared in the dust. On the way back into town, we saw
that the tonneau cover had been ripped up to the sliding glass window, nicked with buckshot.
Three inches higher and it might have gone through. I dropped the girls off and drove home,
trying to figure out how to explain the damage.
When I pulled into the driveway, still shaken, I woke my dad and told him that I was in
the projects looking for Reggie, a neighborhood friend. Someone tried to flag me down, I
explained. I heard them call out, Rachel (she and I both had shoulder length hair). That’s when I
gunned it. The shot followed, and I drove the back roads straight home, trying to lose them.
For a couple of years I had attempted to convince my dad to get rid of Rachel.
“She’s not so bad,” he’d say. “I got her to quit shooting up.”
He was so proud of himself.
Rachel had put me in danger; at least that’s the way it looked to my father. This was it, I
thought. They argued. They fought. Yet she didn’t leave. The fighting escalated over the year,
and he just sat back and took her abuse with every gulp of beer. My friends all thought I had it
made. My dad was the cool dad who let me have the truck whenever I wanted—as long as I took
the back roads. He taught me how to drive on a gravel road in Cabot, Arkansas, when I was six.
Cabot was a dry county and we would drive the short distance to the liquor store where I would
buy candy cigarettes and I.B.C. root beer. He’d let me steer while he controlled the speed since I
was too little to reach the pedals. But one night he got out of the car. I laughed nervously. You
want to drive. Then drive. He wasn’t even drunk. He told me to give it a little bit of gas then
apply the brake so I could get a feel for it. I grew up on four-wheelers and three-wheelers. I
5
mowed the lawn on a riding lawn mower after he cut a square for me to follow. So I felt
confident, confident that he trusted me.
As I watched my father defend me, finally scared for me, perhaps seeing for the first time
the reality of our life, the trust I had for him surfaced only to be extinguished again.
That year at the end of an ice storm, dad, drunk, was upset that one of his mistresses
wasn’t around (or so I assumed). He wanted me to drive him to the gas station for beer before
midnight. I wanted a cinnamon roll. The drive was slow because of the patches of ice. He said
something hurtful on the way there, but I don’t remember. When he went inside to get his beer, I
jumped over in the passenger seat.
As he walked back to the car and saw me sitting there, he high-stepped to the driver side,
flipping me off with that wild big-eyed look he gets when he’s drunk. He threw the cinnamon
roll at me, screamed something about me making him drive. I’ll cost him his job if he gets
pulled over. We’ll lose everything. It will be my fault, but if that’s how I want it. He slammed
the car in reverse, skidding in the parking lot. He didn’t slow down on the way home.
He got out first, came around to my side and pulled me out of the car by the front of my
shirt. I was blubbering tears. He threw me down, picked me up, and thrust me back to the
ground never releasing his grip on me. I went directly to my room when he was done. Bullet
didn’t stir in the armchair.
Soon my father came in with the cinnamon roll, pulled it out of the bag and shoved pieces
in my mouth. Eat it, he demanded. I tried to chew. He left me on the side of my bed with
cinnamon glaze all over my face.
He’d never physically abused me, never even laid a hand on me before this night. I had
probably been spanked three times in my life on the rear end. He believed in talking, reasoning
with me like an adult. When he came after me, his eyes were full of anger I had never seen,
coming from a place he never spoke of. Maybe they were full of pain, but I wouldn’t have
sensed that then. All I knew was that he would never touch me again.
My girlfriend came over one night, we were both thirteen and my dad didn’t know we
were “together.” When he did find out two years later, he called my aunt, who wanted to get me
into therapy. When I declined, he disowned me. Ironically, he eventually let it go because
6
Rachel convinced him that I was going through a phase. She had experimented herself, she told
him.
We were all watching TV, and he kept talking. I told him to shut up, and when he turned
to look at me on the couch, I knew he would be coming after me again. Maybe he did know I
was sleeping with this girl and sat there for as long as he could, brooding about it. I darted for
the door, no shoes, no cigarettes. He followed. I hauled ass up the road until I reached the top of
the hill by the railroad tracks. I saw headlights and crouched down in the bushes, my feet
throbbing from the pavement. It was my girlfriend and Rachel, assuring me that he had calmed
down.
He came out of the house when we pulled up. They got out and I locked the doors. He
jangled the keys into the lock, but I re-locked it in time. Somehow though, he got in. I leaned
my back to the opposite door and kicked him until he grabbed my ankles and yanked me
forward. Rachel was screaming for him to stop. My girlfriend too. My head went in between
my knees and he pulled me out by the hair, out of the truck, and slung me into the yard. I
scrambled to my feet and ran to the field across the street, huddled down in the grass, and
measured my breathing so he wouldn’t be able to hear me. I saw him walking up and down the
road, yelling for me to come home. I army-crawled through the field, for once not afraid of
snakes or the field mice that ruled our house every winter, his voice fading behind me.
The Arkansas River rushed all around me and the moon wavered on the water’s surface.
I sat there, trying to sort out what happened, my feet still on fire. My girlfriend and her mother
came looking for me about thirty minutes later. I didn’t return home except to pick up two
laundry baskets of clothes and my school supplies while he was at work. I bounced from one
girlfriend’s house to another for three years until my options ran out. He was on his way to
losing everything:
I was gone, his two four-wheelers were gone, the truck was next and
eventually his house.
Two years later the Ford F-150 was in the Arkansas River on the North Little Rock side
in Rose City, across the street from the house I had lived in. My grandma called me at my
girlfriend’s house and told me that Dad was at the police station being questioned about the
incident. A friend of mine drove me to the NLR Police Department. He was outside, smoking in
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the passenger seat of somebody’s car that I didn’t know. I squatted beside him. Apparently,
Rachel was still being questioned.
“What happened?”
He looked shaken but calm as always, pulling deeply on his cigarette. I lit one of my
own and listened as he told me the story in his slow, thoughtful voice:
Rachel got upset and took off in the truck. Mike (Rachel’s ex-husband) and Donna (his
girlfriend) were at the house. Bullet came home soaking wet. You know he never went into the
water unless someone was down there. Sometimes he’d come home with his feet wet, but not his
body. I knew something was wrong then. I walked over to the river, looked around. Mike and
Donna drove their car and aimed the light beams down the ramp. Rachel came running out of
the bushes toward me. I gotta save the truck, she was screaming. I grabbed her. I looked back
at the dark water. My daddy always said that river is evil.
He paused now and then, hot-boxing his cigarette, pulling once then twice without
exhaling. He grew up on that river and I spent a lot of my youth there. He taught me the
currents. How to drive a boat; aim for the buoys—red and green. How to rock the front end and
piss everybody off, make them spill their beer, clench their towels. I imagined the rocks I used
to walk out on at night into the river that gave me the feeling of standing on water, the current
splashing around me. I could see Little Rock around the bend, the lights twinkling on the water.
I knew when the river was rising, depending on which rocks were exposed, but I couldn’t
imagine the truck churning in the sandy riverbed.
Dad stared through the windshield, never looking at me.
I put Rachel in the back of Donna’s car. Mike and I stood at the bottom of the boat ramp,
looking for signs of the truck. There were no bubbles. Rachel came running out of the car again
and splashed into the water. The current took her immediately down river. Mike and I started
arguing. You going to get her? Hell no, I told him. She’ll swim back when she’s tired. I started
down the bank to try to watch her. Mike went into the water, but I didn’t see him. We had all
been drinking that night. I found Rachel about a hundred yards down. Some folks on a docked
barge helped her out. We looked for Mike but couldn’t find him.
“She ran the truck into the fucking river? The Arkansas River?”
“She didn’t mean to do it. She said she tried to put the truck in reverse but it was already
sinking. She just wanted to get my attention.”
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“For a twenty dollar bump? For fuck’s sake.” I lit another cigarette. Shook my head—
kept shaking my head. There was nothing for me to say. I hugged him and left him sitting in the
car, staring through the window.
Dredgers dragged the river for three days and found Mike’s body, miles downriver under
the I-630 bridge, planes flying low overhead, arriving and departing. Dad didn’t stop drinking.
He was charging right for the stand, guts swinging at every leap.
I was fifteen and had no place to go. My girlfriend, nineteen, a high school drop-out with
low self-esteem and a drug problem herself, decided that it would be best if I moved back home.
So I returned, my room more or less untouched, except for the occasional drunk passed out on
the floor. Dad was glad to see me back.
Heart-broken and angry I found a crystal connection, and somehow scrounged enough
money each week to sustain a habit for two months. At least I didn’t smoke crack, I would say
to myself, mocking the denial in that declaration. Rachel and I would fight for the truck, a 1978
rusty, lime-green Ford with an oil leak and a transmission leak. She knew why I needed it, and
I’d usually win over my dad. For some reason, she never told him where I was going.
My connection would go to the McDonald’s and we’d exchange there. I would drive
across the way to the North Little Rock River Front, watch the water, monitor the rise and fall of
the river, and test my little baggie. I kept a blade in my wallet, straws in the glove compartment
(I didn’t have an extra dollar to spare for the occasion). Then I’d just sit there, Little Rock
looming across the river, the NLR side run-down with trash and homeless people.
At night, after Rachel was gone searching for her own connection, I would do a couple of
lines, go into the living room and pull up a chair next to my dad. I was determined, the fuel
rushing in my veins, to make him own up to his failure, explain to me what happened. He would
always start first, telling me how bad of a fuck-up I was, how I’d end up pregnant and drop out
of school, no different from when I lived there three years prior. I knew then the psychology of
alcoholics, or at least thought I had some understanding. He was projecting, I thought, reflecting
his own disappointments in himself. Though it hurt me then, I tried to look past the verbal abuse
and sympathize with his pain, reach out to him.
I stopped reaching though, and me, fucked up on crystal, would go on with him for hours,
trying to punch each other lower than the last blow, letting him know this time what a fuck-up he
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was without holding back. You hurt me. I hurt you. Our pain rushed between us—raw and
unsettled. I think we knew then what we were doing to each other but had no idea how to
reconnect, how to love each other like this.
When Rachel would come home she would pull me to the side, ask me if I had anything
to share. I’ll save you a bump next time, I’d tell her, knowing full well I wouldn’t give her a
dime. I’d hand her over to my dad, hide in my room, and listen to them fight and argue until she
left again. My dad denied my drug use, which did nothing but make me use harder. He thought
I was selling, though I wouldn’t sleep for days.
I was in the shower one morning before a softball fund-raiser when I noticed how skinny
I looked, my eyes bulging from sunken sockets, my veins glowing blue underneath my skin. I
collapsed in the tub, screaming for Rachel, scared that I had overdosed. She brought me some
milk and for once I was grateful for her addiction and remedies. I called my best friend and told
her I needed out.
Anna, a girl I played softball with since I was eleven, helped me, locked me in her room,
and told her mother and her sister that I would be living with them. I had seen enough, living
with drunks and addicts, hanging around people no better than that, many of them older with no
direction. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew that I didn’t want to end up like that. There
wasn’t enough love in that household, in a life like I was leading, and though I searched for love
with every girlfriend, in every gram of crystal, I knew love was somewhere else.
Judy, Anna’s mother sat me down to make the move official, and told me that I would
have to abide by her rules, curfew at ten through the week, midnight on weekends; I’d have to
get a part-time job so I could learn some responsibility. Judy was scared to death that I would
influence her daughter, but I later learned that she hoped Anna would influence me more. To top
it off, I had to go to therapy for co-dependency (Judy grew up with an alcoholic father as well). I
couldn’t have been happier to have restrictions, the simplicity of discipline as a sign of caring.
Her “rules” translated into love.
Through the persistence of many teachers at my high school, I got into college on
academic and poor people scholarships. I would joke that it was a good thing my dad was an
alcoholic and unemployed. I knew how to make people laugh after years of associating with
10
alcoholics and drug addicts, gauging their emotions and actions, making sure to not say the
wrong thing.
My freshman year I walked-on to the fast-pitch softball team at the University of
Arkansas—Fayetteville, three hours from home but not far enough. My name was in the local
paper along with three other young women who also made the cut. My father didn’t have a
phone, so one weekend I hitched the three-hour ride back to North Little Rock with some girl
from my dormitory, newspaper clipping tucked neatly in an envelope. I was going to surprise
him. It was October. I hadn’t seen him since August and that was for a brief good-bye. No hug.
Dad didn’t have much of a home. I had loaned him the money, not telling Judy, to rent
the little apartment near Highland Court, a poor, drug-infested area. The money was lent on one
condition: Rachel, (still smoking crack), would not be living there. Of course, I found out she
was, but that didn’t stop me from attempting to connect once again. I thought that we had
enough distance between us.
Sports were his dream after all. Everybody told me I couldn’t do it, walk-on to a
Division I softball team. I was too small, they said. My dad liked to prove people wrong. We’d
sit, side-by-side, in his raggedy recliner, and he’d tell me how I had to look out for myself
because “everybody wants to see you fall.” I had no idea what he was talking about but figured
there was some sense in it, and for some reason, I always knew that the strength was within me.
Anna’s sister, Elisabeth let me borrow her car, agreeing not to tell Judy (she didn’t want
me in that area). Dad wasn’t at his apartment when I pulled up so I drove the few blocks over to
his friend’s house, going slow in case I caught him walking. When I got to the house, Sam,
Rachel’s son from her first marriage, came leaping off the porch. He was fucked up, wired on
crack, eyes darting back and forth.
“Your dad’s not here,” he told me, then climbed into the car. “I’ll take you to him.”
Sam directed me to Fifteenth Street off of Pike Avenue where the streetlights were
broken or busted out. I remember him telling me to slow down; the house is on the right, before
the fire station. I slowed and as I peered at each house, Sam suddenly punched me. I felt an
enormous pulse in the right side of my scalp. My ear burned. Another blow. The car swerved
to the left. I steered to the side of the road, blows still coming. I pulled up the emergency break
then put my hands over my head, blood rolling from my nose onto my khaki shorts, onto the
seat. There was splatter on the gear shift, the brake. I screamed, what the fuck are you doing? I
11
was so fucking mad and I kept screaming at him. He was in a jealous rage, set off by the crack,
saying something like, you think you’re so fucking special. That’s all your daddy talks about,
you in college. Just shut the fuck up.
Sam and I used to smoke weed and drink together. He used to play football in my
backyard when we were little. What the fuck are you doing?
A cop drove by but didn’t stop—didn’t stop for a car parked on the wrong side of the
road, headlights still on. Sam told me to drive, his hand clasped behind my neck. I pulled up to
Pike Avenue, saw two cops huddled over the gravel behind Coulson Oil Company. I looked to
my left and no cars were coming. I popped the clutch and made a tight swing into the parking
lot, jumping the curve. I scrambled out, rushed the cops, explaining that things like this don’t
happen to people like me. I had gotten out. I was in college. Their hands were on their guns,
and I stopped, trying to imagine what they were thinking, how ridiculous I must have looked,
screaming with blood all over my face.
One cop approached Sam, still in the passenger seat, his head in his palms. He didn’t put
up a fight. When they ran his name, he had outstanding warrants in Sherwood where he’d spend
some time in jail. They moved him to the back of another patrol car and directed me to my car.
I stood there, replaying what happened, why Sam snapped; all I came up with was drugs and
jealousy. When they asked what I was doing in that area to begin with, I cried and felt the
newspaper clipping wrinkled in my pocket.
They took two Polaroids of me. I hadn’t looked at myself yet. My eyes were nearly
swollen shut, my nose looked crooked and huge, blood was still everywhere.
I didn’t file a report. They’d have it on record though, if I changed my mind. I wanted to
put that three-hour distance between us, return to school and forget this even happened. When
the cops released me I asked the officer if she would follow me back to Elisabeth’s, just up the
hill, a couple of miles. She had another call though.
I had quit smoking when I made the softball team. I’d gone six weeks. But right then I
went to the gas station, my head down, and bought a pack of Cambridge Menthol Light 100s,
Dad’s brand, and smoked them all.
When I retuned the car to Elisabeth, I stayed on the front porch smoking, not sure how to
explain to her the situation, knowing that this time I couldn’t lie my way out of it. The reality of
the situation settled deep, Judy’s tongue-lashing in the morning, the disappointment on her face.
12
I cried those tears that only come when you realize your efforts are useless, that it is time to let
go, the realization that the situation is as bad as the people who love you have said it is. All of
my efforts at defending my father came full circle, and the impact of my life and experiences
added up to this moment of recognition and acceptance—the moment when love purges the pain
and becomes honest, no longer in self-denial.
Dad paged me out of nowhere a week later from Clarence’s, a retired friend of his who
liked to supply crack to the women. I told him that I had a tournament coming, the Fall
Invitational and I would most likely pinch run for someone. I wasn’t going to ask after Sam. I
wanted that to be over. I twirled the phone cord and tried to hold back, gritting my teeth, rolling
and unrolling my toes. I stared at the snapshot I kept on my desk.
Dad and I are standing in the front yard of our trailer in Cabot. I’m six or seven with my
t-ball uniform on, Bond Consulting Engineers (BCE). My blue glove is raised as if I’m going to
catch a throw, covering my face slightly. He stands beside me, his arm draped around my
shoulder, white polo shirt pressed and tucked into jeans with a crease in the front, hair combed
and sprayed—hardly a hint of grey. Jake, the stray walker, stands on his hind legs, front paws on
my father’s chest. Jake is taller than me. Dad taught me how to play softball. I’ll carry your
equipment bag, he used to tease, because I gained recognition for my athleticism and my positive
attitude, both of which I gained through his confidence and support in me. You never know who
is watching, he’d repeat.
“How’s Sam?” I asked, unsure of myself, not wanting to relive those moments or those
tears, trying to remain strong, stick to the conviction I found on that front porch.
“Well, I got him a job at this site, but he called the neighbors last Friday for Rachel. Said
he was in jail. He didn’t want us to bail him out though. He had more time to spend in
Sherwood for another warrant.”
“Did he tell you why he was in there?” My voice rose, unsteady—shaky—the little girl in
kindergarten who ran from the bus everyday in tears straight for her daddy. “He beat the shit out
of me.”
I explained what happened. How I was trying to get to him—to him—to surprise him
with the news.
13
“He will never set foot in my house again. When’s your tournament? I’ll be there.
Clarence will drive me. I’ll be there, baby.”
He didn’t show up to any of the games. I watched the gate and scanned the bleachers
between innings. I found out that Sam was living with him again. I asked why weeks later when
I spoke to him.
My father’s response was: “I wasn’t there. I don’t know what really happened.”
“Fuck you, Daddy.” I let the phone rest on the receiver, determined this time to not let
him ever hurt me again. He taught me to never hurt myself for anyone else or because of anyone
else. I cried. I yanked the phone out of the wall. I punched the closet door until I saw blood,
then I punched the cinder blocks of my dorm room. It was finally over. We didn’t speak again
for over a year.
I don’t think I ever forgave him or ever will. Growing up, people say there is a time
when you reconcile with your parents, actively or not—a moment of understanding occurs. My
father and I haven’t reconciled much. I have come to realize that love is not always about
reconciliation or forgiveness. Sometimes love is resolve, a decision to accept or reject love
without hurting yourself. I tried everything to get his attention, to win his love. I did drugs; he
thought I sold them and set up deals for me. I moved out, but he thought I was just trying to hurt
him. I cursed him; I tried to beat the hell out of him. Nothing worked. Finally, I gave up.
Now I constantly live with that manipulation and guilt—the build up and let down, the
connect and disconnect. I act it out in my friendships and relationships, always having to check
my motivation. He still breaks my heart, but my resolve gives me the clarity to not intervene, to
let him be. There are moments when I want to help, get him to the VA hospital to dry out, try
some persuasive, manipulative tactic, because I believe he loves me and will dry out. I have
tried to understand why he gave up, why he let me go. It was never about me, and I have to
remember that always. Rachel eventually moved on. Sam continues living through the cycle,
trying to get clean then relapsing. My father moved on to another crack-head girlfriend, and if
she doesn’t kill him, alcohol will.
14
There are at least two types of memories I have to the events of my past. One is my
memory as a child, recalling those moments with a child’s eye, free of analysis but full of pain
and tenderness; the other is the memory trying to sort itself out, like a rope flung onto the ground
in knots. Most of the memories are still knotted and scattered. I will never know what he was
thinking while we sat in the deer stand for hours or on the long drives we used to take down Old
England Highway to the dam; what really happened the night the truck went into the river; why
he let Rachel, his current girlfriend, everyone abuse him; why he gave up.
In the past three years I have seen my father for a total of about two hours and I haven’t
seen him completely sober at whatever hour of the day it was. I go home each year for a couple
of days during Christmas—for my Grandma. I stay in a hotel. Dad doesn’t go to Christmas
dinner. Bring me a plate, he says. Mama will understand. She doesn’t like his drinking, and he
won’t abstain for an hour.
I’m ten to twelve hours away now. Last year I feared it might be the last time I made that
long drive. On the way, I thought about my grandmother, her health declining each year—how
she often talks about leaving this world. If she were to die, I thought, would I ever come home
again?
I gave him all of my cash like I usually did—two twenties tucked in my wallet for that
purpose. We never talked much. If he was drunk, he’d want me to stay around and shoot the
shit, have a beer and relax. I would decline, explain that I have to go visit Grandma, and leave. I
took him to the store for beer (only a quart) and cigarettes, longing to hear the tap of his class
ring on the window as he thumped his ashes, his jaw moving in slow-motion.
I remember a conversation I had with him when I first moved to Florida four years ago.
He said he was tired, and the weight of his voice killed me, tore at every bond we had, surfaced
all of the pain from the past.
His voice was distant, and he sounded old for the first time. He lost his job at the sand
company, decided to not take the bus home but walk down Gribble Street to the house he lost,
the same place he grew up. I think his life came full circle then, as he stood there remembering
the nights he sat by the river looking at that house for sale, knowing that he would own it. He
saw his bass boat, the fenced-in yard, the rose bushes, his truck, us playing catch in the back-
15
yard, Bullet running circles around us; racing the four-wheelers in the field across the street,
Mike going into the river and the truck never found.
I’ll get you a bus ticket. You have a month to find a job or I’ll send you right back. He
was too scared to leave, though. The life he leads is all he knows, maybe all he believes.
Perhaps he feels he deserves the life he ended up with. Hanging around all those drunks and
addicts drags you down. He agreed. He wanted out. But his pride, I assume, held him back,
kept him there. He needed a Corner Man, someone to see the punch coming, the weaknesses and
the strengths. I fought long with myself that I could never be his Corner Man, and finally I threw
in the towel. He has no sense of direction except the one he is in, running toward the stand. I
will scream over the familiar ringing in my ears, my hands clasped over my eyes.
16
Part II:
The Way I Imagine Life
17
Destination
Ms. Sandy’s voice rose from behind the counter where she sliced bread rapidly for a large
sandwich order, her eyeglasses slipping with each cut. She worked efficiently, never losing track
of her orders while simultaneously greeting each customer who entered.
“Laura, my love, let me guess,” Ms. Sandy grinned. “You want the meatball sub?”
“Yes, ma’am. Extra cheese, please.” Laura smiled back, then took a seat in a little patch
of sunlight by the window. She had been coming to Sandy’s Subs and Treats for over two
months, never turning down the fresh baked muffins that Ms. Sandy offered on every visit.
Laura worked as a CPA in a law firm only three suites down, and Ms. Sandy’s little deli became
a daily routine and a nice break from her windowless office.
“Here’s your sub, sweetie.” Ms. Sandy placed the tray in front of Laura with a banana
nut muffin in a bag to go. There was a sense of obligation that Laura felt for Ms. Sandy, a hardworking Filipino woman, pleasant to all of her customers, especially kind to Laura for the
heritage they shared— a heritage Laura knew little of.
Their silent kinship made Laura
uncomfortable. She never understood the instant connection Filipinos made with one another as
if they all shared a secret—a secret that Laura did not share but always pretended.
“I’m visiting my mother at the end of the month.”
Ms. Sandy sat at the table with Laura. “Oh. Where is she?”
“West Virginia.”
“I wish she could come see you. You make her come down next time and get some lunch
here. On the house.”
18
“I’ll let her know.” Laura smiled back, but she was embarrassed, embarrassed for her
mother, Kay, who is a waitress. She knew her mother would consider it a slap in the face if
Laura brought her to Ms. Sandy’s store. “I’ll have to bring in a picture. She’s really beautiful,
like you.”
“Stop teasing.” A customer walked in and Ms. Sandy went back behind the counter.
Laura observed Ms. Sandy over the flat grill, steam fogging the lenses on her drill-mount
style glasses. She simply looked over them until they cleared.
Ms. Sandy stood about five feet tall. Laura was comforted by her round face and smile,
flat wide nose, epicanthic eyes—features similar to those of her own mother. The endearments
did not vary either: sweetie, my love, darling. Ms. Sandy wore her hair short and sometimes
wore a baseball cap, something Laura only saw her mother do when she went fishing by the
dam—hair tucked under the dome. That was years ago, kindergarten, second grade maybe.
Laura couldn’t remember. Her mother’s hat was red, too large for her head so one ear poked out
a little and one was tucked under the hat.
Ms. Sandy cleaned nearby tables and picked up Laura’s tray. “Laura, what region is your
mother from?”
Laura hesitated, raised a soiled napkin to her mouth. She knew very little about the
Philippines except for what she was taught in elementary—Ferdinand Magellan, Tagalog was the
national language, the Philippines were also called the Republic of the Philippines. Laura knew
even less about her mother’s experiences there. She wasn’t even sure where in the Philippines
her mother was born. Kay came to the United States at twenty-one and pretended she had been
here since birth even though she still ate her white rice, chicken, and fish with her hands—a
technique Laura did not inherit or learn.
“Region? Ms. Sandy, I’m not sure. We don’t talk about the Philippines much.”
Ms. Sandy cast a look, that look of camaraderie as if she knew why Kay hardly spoke of
the Philippines. “When did she come to the states?” she asked.
“She met my father when he was stationed in Manila, and she moved with him when he
was stationed to Washington.”
“I see,” Ms. Sandy replied.
For a second, Laura was ashamed of that information, as if it said something about
19
her mother that she had not intended. “They’re divorced now,” she blurted, more embarrassed
than before.
Ms. Sandy gave her a pouty face and grinned. “That’s okay,” she said. “You turned out
good.”
“Do you ever visit the Philippines, Ms. Sandy?” Laura unfolded and refolded the napkin
in her hand.
“Oh yeah,” Ms. Sandy’s voice lifted and her Filipino smile embraced her face. “The
festivals there are so fun,” she continued. “Everybody eats and dances. It’s a good time. You
should go for the new year.” She turned to direct one of her employees to the register to help
incoming patrons.
Laura wanted to ask her how long she had been in the United States, if she had family
still in the Philippines, if she wanted to move back. Was it beautiful there? Are Americans
everywhere or mainly in Manila? Her favorite color. All of the questions that she could never
ask her own mother—questions her mother would evade or tease away onto another subject.
Favorite color? Her mother did not have time for silly questions. She had errands to run, life to
attend to, and Laura was her counsel. Laura had the education—the “opportunities”—all of the
answers, but Laura felt as if she knew nothing.
“Go be a doctor or a nurse,” her mother would advise. “You have so much ahead of
you.”
Her mother had a point. Kay tried to improve her life in the United States, and Laura felt
like she didn’t apply herself as much as her mother did. But Laura hated blood; she wanted to be
a photographer. Instead, though, she crunched numbers behind a heavy oak desk in an office in
the same overpriced area as Ms. Sandy’s store. CPA. She started the job as a filing clerk while
she was still in college completing her B.A. in Business. One of the partners of the law firm
suggested she become certified and start keeping the books for them.
“We should plan a trip.”
Kay, silent on the other end of the line, exhaled a drag from her cigarette. “Where do you
want to go?” she asked. “California? Niagara Falls? The Grand Canyon? I’ve been to all
three.”
20
Kay had always been concerned with appearances and enunciated her words carefully,
but the word “three” snagged her each time. When Laura was young she teased her mother—
made her count to ten and giggled each time Kay said three. There was a trill to it. Laura didn’t
know why she thought of those moments now. Three, Laura said to herself, the trill of the r at
the tip of her mother’s tongue, bobbing behind her front teeth, coming out like tree.
“All three, huh? When did you go to Niagara Falls?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, I want to go to the Philippines, and I want you to come.” Laura picked at a snag
in her jeans.
“Oh,” laughter in response. “Why the Philippines? They eat dogs.” Kay laughed harder.
“I came home from school one day and my Fido wasn’t there. ‘Where’s Fido?’ I asked my
mother. She ignored me. Fido was on the dinner table.” She took another drag, still laughing.
Laura heard that story before when she was younger and wanted a puppy. Kay always
acted as though she did not like animals. They had fleas. They were dirty. Laura was never
sure if Kay was telling the truth. She had a friend in college, Ruby—half Filipino—who named
her beagle pup Dinner. They laughed every time they called his name, so Laura figured there
was some truth in the story.
“Can you hear me? I’m making chicken.” Kay sounded like she was in a tunnel.
Laura heard water running in the background. “Am I on speaker phone?” she asked.
“Yeah. You there?” Kay’s elevated voice sent static through the cell phone. “I have to
go to work tonight, so I’m having chicken for lunch.”
“Hey,” Laura called. “What region in the Philippines are you from?”
“Region?”
“Yeah.
I met a,” Laura hesitated, considered saying Filipino with the hard “P”—
Pilipino—like her mother and Ms. Sandy but decided otherwise. “I met a Filipino woman by my
work. She asked me what region you were from.”
Kay swore, something in Tagalog—water still running behind her.
“What are you doing? Burning down the kitchen?”
“The water’s boiling over. I’ll call you back. Love you, anák. God bless.”
“Okay, call me back. Love you too.”
21
It was dark outside. The wind blew the hollow, wooden wind-chimes on the front porch.
Laura put some leftover red beans and rice in the microwave and plopped in front of the
computer to begin her search.
She was determined to learn something about her mother. She knew that her desire to
know was becoming an obsession. When the microwave buzzed, she didn’t hear it, nor did she
step onto the porch for a cigarette break. She hadn’t thought about the fight she and her
girlfriend, Brooke, had over Laura’s vacation time. They were supposed to go to the beach.
They hadn’t even spoken in two days.
Ms. Sandy’s question disturbed Laura. She felt guilt settle in her chest for not knowing,
for neglecting something about her mother and possibly herself. What region is your mother
from? Region? The click of the mouse echoed through her apartment, an odd counter to the
wind-chimes outside her window. She printed out maps, encyclopedia definitions, and other
miscellaneous information about the Philippines. Not one detail brought her closer to her
mother.
Ms. Sandy was busy over the flat grill when Laura walked in after work. She skipped
lunch, too busy with the tax deadline approaching, so she thought she would get something to
take home instead.
“Laura, my love, how are you?”
“Hungry.” Laura smiled.
Ms. Sandy pushed up her eyeglasses speaking, but not in English, to someone in the
back—a familiar language that Laura could not translate. A tall young man emerged, about
sixteen or seventeen, with dish washing gloves up to his elbows. He looked irritated.
“What?” he asked in English.
“Laura, this is my son, Robert, named after his father.” Ms. Sandy stood beside him,
reaching only to his shoulder. She smiled at Laura, who returned her smile. “Robert, Laura’s
Pilipino too.”
Robert shrugged. “Hi,” he said and returned to the back to continue washing dishes.
Laura thought that he wouldn’t care if she was from Saturn.
Ms. Sandy did not stop smiling. “He’s getting so tall. His father is not that tall. I don’t
know where he gets it. He helps me out sometimes.”
22
“Did you teach him Tagalog?”
“Ever since he was a baby. Now he corrects my Tagalog and my English sometimes.
Funny, huh? Your mother didn’t teach you?”
“No. How do you say “I love you?”
“Mahal kita.” Laura felt like she placed the accent on the wrong word and the tone felt
awkward, as if it was an announcement.
Kay laughed on the other end of the line. “What was that, silly?” she asked, then
repeated the phrase to correct Laura’s pronunciation. “Where did you learn that?”
“Why didn’t you ever teach me Tagalog?” Laura heard something sizzling in the
background. Kay was cooking again—steamed rice and Tilapia with a dash of all-purpose
seasoning. Only a dash, Kay always warned.
“What do you need to know Tagalog for?” Kay asked, pots clinking behind her.
Laura pictured her cooking. Though they rarely lived together except for random times
throughout Laura’s elementary years, she knew her mother’s motions in the kitchen. Laura
realized that most of her memories of Kay were surrounded by a kitchen: the kitchen when she
was in kindergarten, the second grade kitchen, the thirteen-year-old kitchen, and the kitchen in
West Virginia where Laura visited two years ago during the summer.
Laura imagined her mother clearly when she lived with her at thirteen for one nine week
period during the school year. Kay was making egg rolls. Laura wasn’t allowed to help then;
she might waste too many wraps, but she had to stay up to keep Kay company. Kay had on a
long thin dress—red and white leafy pattern—that hung loose—old and thinning more in some
areas; her long, permed hair pulled back in a clip.
Laura heard water running and envisioned her mother—belly damp from cleaning the
fish and dishes. Kay never had a dirty dish in the sink. The counter tops had probably been
bleached three times already.
“Why do I want to learn Tagalog?” Laura reiterated. “Well, I wouldn’t mind being
bilingual or even talking to you. Keep you practicing. What does anák mean?” Laura had asked
this many times before, but this time she hoped to keep the conversation going—somewhere.
“They are like child, baby, daughter.” Kay hesitated between each possibility.
“What does maganda mean? I hear you say that too.”
23
“Like beautiful or pretty.”
The noise in the background faded, and Laura heard the strike of a lighter.
Laura could picture that clearly: her mother sitting down, sifting through her purse for her
silver cigarette case that she’d had for years, the elastic inside to hold the cigarettes unraveled.
The case fit 100s, her brand, and had a dragonfly on the front. Laura thought it was maganda.
Laura could see her mother on the couch, her legs pulled up, tossed to the side, knees
toward the armrest. If she just got off work two throw pillows would be on the coffee table
where she propped her feet. The clip in her hair rested on the end table, and with her free hand
she would rake through her tangles. A coke, maybe with a shot of bourbon or, if she made
enough in tips, Crown Royal, sat near the ashtray with a paper towel folded underneath to absorb
the condensation.
“I love you too, anák,” she said, but not with her usual teasing tone and articulated
syllables. The words ran together. “When you going to come see me?”
“I’ve got vacation time at the end of the month I have to use. I’ll try then.”
“Good. We’ll make egg rolls.”
Laura rented a car for the eight hour trip, tried to call Brooke, but she didn’t pick up. She
had her CDs in the order she wanted to listen to them but ended up listening to NPR for the first
leg. She tried to limit herself to one cigarette every hour.
She hadn’t seen her mother in about two years, five prior to that. Kay’s ex-husband (the
second after Laura’s father) was in the military, stationed to Korea before Laura turned twenty.
The sun bent behind the clouds, and her sleepy eyes felt sticky. NPR repeated the news
and, when Laura picked up on the repetition, she put in a CD she bought for the trip: Speak
Tagalog at 70 mph. She was going eighty-five. She practiced her pronunciation of the alphabet.
Between each section were different facts about the Philippines.
There are seventeen regions in each province of the Philippines.
She repeated the facts, tried to memorize them, store them in a safe compartment the way
secrets are kept.
24
The internet directions Laura printed took her right to Kay’s driveway. The front porch
light was on, and Laura saw Kay outside waving her dish towel, shoeing a small grey kitten. The
kitten ran under a car and watched from her cover. Kay placed a small, clear bowl on the
wooden porch and dumped the leftovers.
Laura got out and stretched. “I thought you didn’t like cats?” she teased.
“I know, but this one won’t go away. Come in.” Kay opened the front door and before
Laura made it to the porch called out. “Are you hungry?”
The refrigerator was packed from Kay’s recent grocery trip: a whole chicken, Tilapia,
fresh vegetables for egg rolls (cabbage, bean sprouts, carrots, string beans), eggs, and fresh meat.
She also bought breakfast foods: bagels, cream cheese, bread, and juice. The large rice container
was filled to the brim. Laura liked the boiled chicken and looked forward to dinner even though
she knew there was no dinner to speak of but eating a lot throughout the night. Boiled chicken.
Kay teased her because of its simplicity. Seasoned with salt and pepper, soy sauce, and a little
all-purpose seasoning. Just a little. It had MSG.
Laura wanted to take a quick shower but there was no hot water left.
“If you didn’t wash everything on hot and scald yourself while you do dishes, you’d have
some hot water,” Laura said playfully.
“Oh anák, I’m glad you came.”
Kay looked Laura up and down, examining her baggy pants and short, cropped hair.
“Why don’t you let your hair grow out? What do you want to eat? You want me to make
the chicken now? There’s rice in the steamer. It’s done, though. Just on warm.”
Laura sat down in the living room with her ice water and pulled out a cigarette.
“You smoke inside?” she asked, knowing that her mother did.
“Yeah, sweetie. Make sure the fan is on low.”
Meet Joe Millionaire was on, but it was a rerun so Kay had it on mute. Laura propped
her legs on two throw pillows from the couch but after a few moments tucked them underneath
her instead.
“Look at that guy. He’s like a Kennedy. Handsome, huh? I still wouldn’t take the
money, though.”
Laura glanced up at the television. “Yeah, he’s pretty good looking.”
“They’re falling all over him and fighting too. It’s funny. You ever watch it?”
25
“No. I don’t get that station very well.” Laura lied.
Kay asked about the drive, then ranted about some guy who eats, three sometimes four
times a week at the restaurant where she works. He leaves good tips, Kay teased. She brought a
plate of rice into the living room.
“I listened to this CD on the way here. Speak Tagalog at 70 mph.” Laura took the case
out of her book bag.
“You shouldn’t go that fast.”
Laura smiled to herself. “Oh, I brought something for you.” Laura pulled out the maps
she had printed of the Philippines. She tried not to look at her mother, tried to act casual.
Kay put her cigarette in the ashtray, thumbed through the maps, and turned the jewel case
of the CD over to read the back. She put the CD down and studied the map. It wasn’t a National
Geographic, but it was detailed.
Laura did not know what her mother was thinking. Kay held the map in one hand, her
forearm resting on her legs.
“Where did you get this?”
“Off the Internet.” Laura resisted explaining how. Kay, though aware of how much
information was on the computer, never surfed the Internet. Laura moved to her mother’s side
on the couch and continued eating her rice. “Show me where you were born?”
Kay fished her cigarette out of the ashtray. “Here,” she said. The cigarette dangled from
her lips as she pointed to a location on the map, an island on the eastern border. “Two hours
walk from the nearest city.”
Samar. Southeast of Manila.
There are seventeen regions in each province of the Philippines.
Laura watched her mother, who sat silent with the map in one hand and her cigarette in
the other. She appeared to be locked in memory, as if she was staring through a window but
trying to see her reflection instead.
Laura remained silent by her side, hoping that Kay would recall a story to share, getting
past how are you, are you hungry, how’s work. She wanted to see that reflection.
“That’s nice, sweetie.” Kay handed the map to Laura, then put her cigarette out and
shook the ashtray. “Do you want something more to eat?” Without waiting for an answer, Kay
returned to the kitchen and pulled another plate out of the dish strainer. Kay scooped more white
26
rice onto the plate. “What do you want with your rice? After you eat I have to go to the store to
get cigarettes then we’ll come back and make egg rolls.”
Laura chopped up the string beans and carrots for the egg rolls, talking to her mother,
who stood at the stove preparing the hamburger meat. They talked about work and whether or
not Kay should go back to school. She wanted to register for her prerequisites in nursing but had
to pass remedial math first.
“I paid a tutor twenty dollars an hour and still did bad,” Kay explained as the kitchen
filled with the scent of garlic and soy sauce.
“You really need to move closer to me. I could help you with that.”
“It’s no big deal. I’ll pass it sooner or later.” Kay smiled and shrugged her shoulders,
glancing back at Laura.
“I know. But I wish you didn’t have to waste your money on a tutor that wasn’t helping
you.”
“Chop those a little smaller, like this.” Kay took the knife and rapidly cut thin slivers
from the green beans.
“I met a Filipino woman by my work. She owns a deli.”
“Pilipina. That’s good.”
“Yeah, she wants you to come visit. She said we could order whatever. On the house. I
thought that was nice.”
“Oh. On the house. Isn’t that nice?”
Laura heard the sarcasm in Kay’s voice but continued anyway. “She visits the
Philippines at least every other year. She told me what region she was from, but I don’t
remember,” Laura added.
“The meat is ready. You want to get the eggs.”
The tedious part was next—tearing each egg roll wrap from the last. The wraps were
thinner than paper. Laura thought they were glued together, and they were kind of, with some
sort of paste. No matter how carefully Laura separated the wraps, she always tore holes in them.
“I bought plenty.” Kay reassured her.
27
Kay mixed the cabbage, carrots, string beans, and sprouts and divided them into two
large bowls with the seasoned meat and garlic. She bought two-hundred wraps, eight packages
of twenty-five each.
At the opposite end of the table from Laura, Kay sat with her feet tucked under her,
focused on the task. She put a wrap on her plate, scooped a little less than two spoonfuls of mix
in the center, and folded it. Before the last fold, she dipped her hand into the beaten egg white in
a separate bowl, and then rubbed the last fold before she rolled it so it would stay together. A
couple taps to smooth the wrap and the roll was ready for the hot vegetable oil on the stove. Kay
always cooked about twenty to snack on during the long egg roll process, and then froze the rest
in large zip-lock bags.
“How do they make egg rolls in the Philippines?”
“Not with hamburger meat,” Kay laughed. “I like them this way though.”
“I can’t even eat other egg rolls because I like these so much.” Laura smiled.
They continued working in silence. Kay completed three rolls to Laura’s one. Laura tore
holes in only six of them. One little tear and the wrap was useless. The mix would come out in
the oil while cooking. Laura paused to take a break and smoke a cigarette. It was after three
a.m. and Kay looked tired.
“We really should go to the Philippines next year,” Laura pushed.
“Okay, anák. Are you tired baby? Go to bed if you need to. We’re almost done.”
“No, I’m fine. Save up though. We’re taking a vacation.”
Laura watched her mother mechanically wrap the egg roll mix. Smoke from her cigarette
coiled into the ceiling fan, occasionally causing Kay to squint. Laura recalled how her mother
pointed to the map and said, Here.
Samar. Southeast of Manila.
There are seventeen regions in each province of the Philippines.
Laura saw her as clearly as she ever would the day she imagined Kay at the stove, the
water boiling over. Laura pictured her house dress. Though the one she had on was a light
purple, it was still the same—fading in some areas more than others, damp at the belly. Laura
saw herself in kindergarten and second grade when she was never allowed in the kitchen, waved
away to play in the living room. Even at thirteen, Kay was too cautious and sent Laura to do
28
other chores away from the hot oil. The dress rarely varied, and the hot oil crackled and sizzled
as Kay’s dress swept across the floor.
Here, Kay had pointed. Two hours walk to the nearest city. Laura would never picture
her anywhere else but Here.
29
Boy Pants
Sonia patted dry and opened the bathroom door to catch Carrie’s voice over the vibrating
air conditioner.
“It’s already hot out there,” Carrie exclaimed, placing the continental breakfast on the
nightstand: two bagels, two miniature cups of Styrofoam coffee, and the daily newspaper. “I
didn’t think you’d be up already. I went down and read the paper so you could sleep in a little. I
brought it up for you though.”
Carrie wrapped her arms around Sonia’s waist. “I found some more apartments I’d like
to look at today if we have time. They’re near that cafe. I forgot what it’s called. You
remember though, from that website?”
“The lesbian owned one?”
“Dorothy’s Café?” Carrie pulled Sonia closer. “You know, you look like a rock star
when your hair’s wet.” She reached up and ran her hand through the back of Sonia’s hair, her
nails grazing Sonia’s neck.
Sonia tossed her head back and forth like she was head banging, then leaned in for a kiss.
“I love your slender waist,” she whispered, moving in with even more pressure. The kiss was
soft like the way she kisses Carrie when she’s asleep so not to wake her—lips delicately brushing
the surface.
Carrie closed her eyes and tilted her head as Sonia’s lips moved to her chin and around to
her neck. She let out a soft moan, barely audible, but Sonia felt the vibration in Carrie’s throat as
she kissed her.
“We’ll be living in your truck if you keep this up,” Carrie joked, pulling away.
30
Sonia adjusted her towel with a smile and dropped it a little to tease Carrie.
The coffee steamed on the counter. Carrie slid over and cupped it, sipping cautiously.
She slid the curtains open, arranged the newspaper and city map at the makeshift desk, and
hummed something that Sonia couldn’t make out over the whir of the air conditioner.
Sonia thought that Carrie looked refreshed after the fifteen hour car ride from Tennessee.
Sonia tossed and turned all night, trying not to think of this sudden move, her new job, and
Carrie.
The sun pierced the mirror, refracting light into Sonia’s eyes. She readjusted her towel,
then took a big bite out of her bagel and headed back to the bathroom. Methodically, she put a
little gel in her hair, just grazing the tips, smoothed down the thin baby hair on her forehead and
tugged her sideburns to a point. She ironed some khakis and a solid green shirt. Nice but, more
importantly, comfortable. Sonia noticed that Carrie wore stone-colored capris and a thin, pastel
blouse with sandals. She looked good, her long blonde hair blow-dried off of her face, curling at
the first layer under her chin, while the rest draped down her back.
The apartment search would be okay with Carrie taking charge the way she likes to,
trying to plan the route, starting with the northwest corner of the city. Sonia couldn’t help but
smile at Carrie’s careful plotting.
She could hear her: we’ll start at The Groves and the
surrounding apartments, work toward Eagle’s Hut near where we’ll have lunch, etc. She wasn’t
really talking to Sonia, just planning out loud.
“Think this shirt will be too hot?” Sonia asked before she put it on.
“Should we have lunch before or after Wooden Acres?”
“Whatever you want.” Sonia waved her green shirt. “What do you think?”
“It’s thin, right?”
Sonia silently agreed and finished ironing the collar and sleeves that she could just roll up
if she got too hot. She kept the sleeves down when she put it on and slid on her men’s style
khakis, tucking her shirt into her underwear, a trick she learned from her mother to keep the shirt
in place. Sonia could wear between a four and a six in women’s pants but felt more comfortable
in her long baggy ones, not so baggy that they sagged, but definitely not tight. She took one hard
look into the mirror to make sure everything was in place: her hair was stylish, the buttons on her
shirt lined up with the zipper of her pants. She was satisfied. “You ready, sweetie?”
Carrie stopped humming and looked Sonia up and down.
31
Sonia shrank a bit, inside and out, dropping her shoulders and her head, wishing she had
hair to fall into her eyes. Sonia recognized the look on Carrie’s face—the look women and
children often gave her when she was in a public restroom—as if she didn’t quite belong there.
“Shirt’s too hot, huh?” Sonia asked, thumbing the front buttons.
“No.” Carrie hesitated a little, tapped the white hotel pen on the center of the map. “Are
you really going to wear that?”
“Too casual? Should I dress up more? You know all I brought was some khakis and my
button-ups.” Sonia flushed as she explained, running her hands over the front of her shirt and
down her pants like she was straightening herself.
“You might get hot. Did you bring that shirt you wore to my company Christmas party
last year?” Carrie searched through her own suitcase, examining first a pastel yellow sleeveless
top with a little lace around the collar, then a brighter yellow sleeveless with a low, wide neck.
“I didn’t even think about what we’d wear,” she said into the suitcase.
“I’ll be fine, Carrie. It shouldn’t be a big deal. The car does have air.” Sonia watched
her, self-conscious and confused. She recalled the night before Carrie’s Christmas party. Carrie
had brought home a present, classic black pants, glossy, black flats, and a button-up. The shirt
was a solid maroon color, but fitted close with darts and French cuffs—no breast pocket. Sonia
agreed because Carrie was uncomfortable around her co-workers. Carrie felt the outfit made
them look less obvious.
Sonia knew it made no difference but went along anyway.
“Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t get too hot.”
“It’s not the heat I’m worried about.” Carrie stopped digging through her suitcase, eyed
Sonia again, then herself in the mirror. “You’re right. It’s no big deal.”
Sonia sat on the bed next to the desk. “Well, you look nice,” she teased, trying to break
the ice.
Carrie didn’t look up. “I hope I get that management position at that ad agency before we
actually move or I’m going to end up unemployed.”
“From the last time you talked to them it sounded like it was in the bag. Besides, if it
doesn’t fall through, I have that contract I’ll be working on for that development.”
“You know, Sonia.” Carrie looked at her.
“Yeah?”
32
“It’s not like we’re just going out to dinner. I don’t want to be labeled before we even
move in.” Carrie stood up and went back to her suitcase.
Sonia didn’t move. “We don’t know anyone here. I really don’t think it matters.”
Carrie moved back toward the desk. “Your outfit kind of looks boyish.”
“I don’t look boyish. I look like a lesbian.”
The sun blazed through the window onto the beds, the white bare walls, sending shattered
light throughout the room.
“It’s not just the shirt. I’ve never liked those boy pants anyway.”
“Boy pants?” Sonia glanced down at her khakis. “They’re the same style as all of my
other ones.”
“We’re trying to find an apartment.” Carrie straightened the map on the desk. “We look
like a fucking stereotype.”
“Stereotype?” Disgust rose in Sonia’s voice.
“You know what I’m talking about. The butch-femme couple.”
“Where in the hell is this shit coming from?” Sonia started to roll up one sleeve,
carefully so the seam followed the fold in the cuff.
Sonia dug through Carrie’s purse for cigarettes. “Obvious? You act like I do this
intentionally, like I love when people call me “sir” just because I have short hair. I’m not even
that fucking butch. Butch-femme? What the hell, Carrie?”
“You carry a wallet in your back pocket. You always talk about cars. How can you say
you don’t look like a boy? I don’t know why you can’t just be more subtle.” Carrie grabbed a
cigarette for herself.
“Cars? When did me liking cars make me look like a boy? And who’s to say who can
carry a wallet? It’s more convenient and most women would agree.”
“Never mind. Wear whatever the fuck you want.” Carrie smoothed the maps once more.
Sonia took another drag off her cigarette, letting the ash fall on the carpet. “No, find me
a pretty blouse and while you’re at it can I get some mascara and maybe some of your lipstick?
Or is it the wrong color?”
“Go ahead and make fucking jokes. I mean,” she stood up bracing herself on the arms of
the chair, her voice steadied, “if I wanted to date a fucking man I would.”
33
The cigarette fell onto the floor; Sonia looked at it and picked it up only when the carpet
began to singe. She pawed the burnt spot with her boot and pulled deeply on the cigarette to
catch the burn. Carrie’s suitcase was still opened and Sonia reached in and grabbed a maroon
halter-top, trying to unbutton her shirt with the cigarette dangling in her mouth, smoke trailing in
her eyes with each deep breath she took.
“I didn’t mean that.” Carrie started toward her and reached for her arm.
Sonia jerked away, finally getting out of her shirt, pulling the other one over her head,
careful not to get deodorant marks on the outside. She walked over to her coffee, which had
turned lukewarm, but she swallowed a mouthful anyway, avoiding eye contact with Carrie’s
reflection in the mirror. She saw her own bad farmer’s tan and awkward baggy pants with the
tight tank top hugging her slender waist.
“Let’s go before it gets too late. We only have a few days before I have to start drafting
those prints.” Sonia grabbed her keys and her wallet, which she put in her front pocket instead of
the right back pocket. Carrie fumbled behind her with the newspaper, map, and her purse.
It was hot outside—humid—and it was only around nine in the morning. Sweat gathered
around Sonia’s hairline and upper lip before she even reached the car.
The morning and afternoon were long and hot. They rode from complex to complex;
only Carrie’s low “turn left,” “turn right” pierced the silence. They didn’t turn on the radio.
They looked at a couple of models without speaking to one another.
Carrie handled the
managers, and Sonia couldn’t figure out how Carrie regained her composure to talk to these
people.
They drove through a number of unkempt properties; without speaking, Sonia knew not
to stop. Golden Ridge was a nice contrast to the last few places on the list. The complexes were
well shaded with large oaks and Spanish moss dangling from thick branches. Hibiscus plants in
reds and yellows lined one of the drives that received more sunlight—larger than any hibiscus
Sonia had ever seen. The azaleas were at the end of their cycle, but the buds scattered on the
grass cast even more color on the grounds. Sonia relaxed in her seat a little, coasting in second
gear through the parking lot. It took her a minute to remember her parking lot strategy; she
couldn’t take her eyes off the flowers.
“The office was back there,” Carrie pointed out.
34
“I saw it. I’m just checking out the cars. See what kind of crowd we got gathered here.”
Sonia looked at the type of car first, the license plate next, then for any revealing stickers on the
bumpers or in the windows.
“Look.” Sonia pointed at a pink triangle in the back glass of a late nineties model Honda
Accord. “See, there’s family here.”
Carrie tried to smile. “I think it’s silly that you drive around to see what kind of people
live here based on their cars and stickers. They might not even be nice lesbians.” Her tone
softened like nothing had happened.
“You’re right. They might not even know what the sticker means,” Sonia said, smirking
to herself. “You didn’t know what ‘family’ meant.”
“You don’t have to bring that up.” Carrie stared out the window.
“I still remember your face when that waitress asked if you were family,” Sonia teased.
“You looked at me like you were lost. Remember how she looked you up and down when I told
her that you were new to the ‘family’?”
Carrie didn’t reply but smiled, then looked out of the window quickly.
That was three years ago when Carrie was fresh out of a long-term relationship with a
guy. Sonia and Carrie were neighbors in a quaint apartment complex, both completing their
graduate degrees.
They exchanged waves and after a year talked about their studies and
eventually about Carrie’s deteriorating relationship. Sonia moved through a couple of short-term
flings that year but nothing serious. She never thought about hitting on Carrie.
They had taken to eating dinner together, studying together, and watching late night
movies. About three months after Carrie’s boyfriend had moved out, Carrie approached her one
night while they were watching the late night news.
“Why am I so comfortable with you?” Carrie asked in a tone that didn’t require an
answer.
The question caught Sonia off guard.
“I mean, we talk about everything.
We’re interested in similar things and enough
different things to keep it interesting. Why haven’t you asked me out?” Carrie smiled, reached
out across the couch but let her hand fall between them.
35
“You’re crazy. Watch the news.” Sonia attempted to ignore her. She figured Carrie was
just curious anyway.
“I’m serious, Sonia.” Carrie reached over then and placed her hand on Sonia’s knee—a
little awkward, hesitant.
“Carrie, you’re straight.”
“How do you know? Ever since Greg moved out I haven’t thought about a man. I
haven’t even noticed one. That should tell you something.”
“It’s telling me that you need to explore elsewhere.” Sonia laughed to ease the tension.
“I really think I like you. How about I ask you out on a date. Can I take you out to
dinner Friday night?”
Sonia stared at her. Her leg was tense from Carrie’s hand. She couldn’t deny that Carrie
was attractive, great to be around. She wondered why she never considered it before.
“I can take rejection though. Never mind.” Carrie pulled her hand back to her lap and
turned towards the television.
“No, let’s go out then. But I’m driving.”
Carrie laughed. “Why do you get to drive?”
Sonia didn’t reply.
“Fine.”
After a few “dates,” Carrie’s apartment became more of a storage unit. She slept over
regularly, they went grocery shopping together, to the park, wherever. When Carrie’s lease was
up five months later, they moved in officially. They encountered few problems in Tennessee.
Sonia had a strong network of friends where Carrie felt welcomed and secure. When Sonia
received the job offer to move to Florida, Carrie gave her full support and began applying for
sales management positions to accompany Sonia on the move. Everything seemed to transition
smoothly, naturally.
The manager, John, was on the phone when they walked in the office, and he motioned to
some chairs in front of his desk. Carrie sat down first, crossing her legs and carefully positioning
her purse in her lap. Sonia looked at the pictures on the walls of floor plans and the property.
36
“Okay, ladies. Sorry about that,” John apologized. His voice resounded as if he was
speaking through a megaphone. Carrie—all manners—shook his hand. Sonia moved toward
him, but he sat down before she reached the desk.
“Were you the young lady who called this morning?”
“Yes, sir. That was me,” Carrie answered.
“I don’t remember.” He rummaged through his desk. “Were you looking for a one
bedroom or two, because I can show you both?”
Carrie nearly cut him off. “Two. We’re looking for a two bedroom please.”
“Oh, for the both of you then? Two, of course,” he mumbled, looked over at Sonia, who
stood near the window, then back at Carrie. He smiled.
Sonia moved towards Carrie, but Carrie shifted closer to the desk, uncrossing then recrossing her legs away from Sonia.
“How many square feet are your two bedrooms?” Sonia asked.
The manager explained the layout of the apartments, glancing first at Sonia then
redirecting his explanation to Carrie. When he found the keys, he motioned for them to follow,
holding the door.
The apartment’s entryway opened to a large living and dining area from where the
kitchen branched.
“This is perfect, Carrie,” Sonia interrupted the manager’s routine sales pitch about the
apartment’s amenities. “My drafting table can go here and our new couches here; your special
reading chair over there in that corner where we can hang your lamp.”
“That sounds good,” Carrie replied then headed towards the bedrooms.
Sonia heard the manager following close behind: “Now, this is the bigger room. You’ll
see the view in this room is a little nicer. The courtyard is kept up daily—planting and pruning.”
“Hey, will our king size fit in there?” Sonia called. She heard Carrie’s sandals flopping
briskly as she approached the kitchen. Sonia ducked under the kitchen sink, inspecting for water
leaks or possible bugs.
“What are you trying to do, Sonia?” Carrie attempted a harsh whisper.
“Sorry. Just make sure the bed and dressers will fit.”
Before Carrie could respond, John approached from the living room.
37
“You can watch some television from the kitchen if you set the TV up right.” His voice
was not as loud as before. “Everything okay in the kitchen?” He stared at Sonia.
“Yeah,” she answered. “Plenty of cabinet space.”
Carrie eyed Sonia then put her smile back on for John.
“Miss,” he directed his gaze to Carrie, “I’d like to show you the master bathroom. It has
a nice vanity.” The manager followed behind Carrie again, this time guiding her with his hand
near her lower back without touching her.
Sonia watched them through the square opening until they disappeared in the hallway.
Shortly, Carrie emerged from the bathroom, the manager still positioned carefully at her side.
They approached the sliding glass doors.
“Sonia, have you checked out the patio yet?” Carrie asked, stepping out into the humid
air.
“Yeah,” she lied. “It’ll be nice for our gas grill. John, do you happen to know where
Dorothy’s Café is located?”
“Oh, I know where it is, Sonia,” Carrie stated.
“So, you ladies going to try to eat at that café joint today?” John looked over at Sonia.
“That area draws a different crowd, but I hear the food is good.”
The café was quaint and eccentric. The silverware, wrapped in dinner napkins, was
placed on tables draped with simple white cloths. Spices and the smell of fresh-baked rolls
lingered in the air. The place was crowded, but everyone spoke in hushed tones. As they waited
for a seat, Sonia read that the artwork was rotated every month with a new featured artist, always
a woman. This month featured a local who specialized in stained glass. Stained glass fairies,
sylphs, and Venus-bodied women hung everywhere for sale. She wanted to show Carrie one
near the register, two bodies entwined in rainbow colors—shattered into small pieces, but Carrie
sat with her back turned away from the counter.
Sonia thought about that morning, wrapped in a towel with Carrie in her arms. They
weren’t ashamed of their bodies then with the sunlight dashing in like an intruder. Sonia hated
being so indifferent in public. She never liked to draw attention to herself. They usually worked
their differences out before they would leave the house or before they would even get out of the
car. But where would they start now?
38
“Anything jumping out at you?” Sonia finally attempted.
Carrie remained silent. Her eyes seemed to move aimlessly from left to right focused on
the menu. “The club looks good.”
They placed their orders to the waitress in baggy pants. Sonia wanted to point out how
big they were but felt childish for even thinking it. She knew she’d lose the argument anyway.
The waitress had the hippy-baggy look while Sonia had a starched frat-boy look.
“Think you’d be happy in that last place?” Sonia tried again.
“Yeah, the bathroom was huge. You didn’t see it, did you?”
“No, but the back patio seemed private.”
“And who’s gonna do the grilling?” Carrie settled into her smile.
“I will only if you’ll buy me a rainbow-colored apron.”
Carrie retained her smile but averted her eyes from Sonia. Sonia followed her glance to
two women sitting a couple of tables away by the window. They were about fifteen years older
than Sonia and Carrie, in their late forties, early fifties probably. Carrie stared at them for a
while, sipping on her water occasionally. The couple had on tight blue jeans and t-shirts, tucked
in, with outdated feathered hair. One of the women had the large checkbook size wallet in her
back pocket with a silver-threaded chain hooked from it to her belt loop. That’s butch, Sonia
thought.
“Sonia, I’m sorry about earlier.”
Sonia was sure Carrie wanted to smooth things over, but she didn’t know what the real
issue was. “Don’t worry about it. This traveling stuff makes people cranky.”
“Really, I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t really know why I got so paranoid.”
Sonia gently shook her glass to loosen the ice.
“There’s nothing wrong with your pants. I like the way you dress. You know, I might
even look good in baggy pants.”
“You’d look like a lesbian.” Sonia laughed and watched Carrie fidget with her napkin.
“Look.” Carrie pointed at one of the stained glass figures. The sun leaned through the
window and cast a blue figure and a gold one onto the table cloth.
The hips of the stained-glass woman reminded Sonia of her own—her tiny frame
narrowing to her waist, budding at her hips. She had a face similar to the blue sylph, angular
eyes and sharp cheekbones. The gold one danced, with her arms tangled above her head. Sonia
39
didn’t think that there was anything masculine about the way she looked. She wanted to spread
out on the tablecloth—fierce and bold—like the blue and gold sylphs scattered in the sunlight—
intense, quiet color on the white cloth. She remembered the red hibiscus at the last apartment
complex—how brave, she thought then, for them to grow so well with the sun bearing down on
them, illuminating their every feature.
40
Driftwood
The Arkansas River was high and the current fast, taking the bend at a swift pace against
the eroded bank. The police units dredged the river all day and still didn’t find the truck or
Wayne’s body. Chris stood at the boat ramp with his cap pulled down tight, shadowing his face
as he listened to the walkie-talkies for a sign, smoking one cigarette after another. It was May
and hot outside, cloudless. The sun reflected off the bumpers, the gravel, and the murky water.
Chris wiped one eyebrow then another with his forefinger to clear the sweat from his face, then
returned his gaze back to the river. He watched a piece of driftwood about three feet long and
thick as it churned in the current, occasionally pulled under only to bob back to the surface. He
tried not to think about what happened to his father, tried not to think that they would find him
dead. But the dark wood rising and falling sent images of his father struggling for the surface—
first it looked like his arm, then his leg, then his waist.
Losing sight of the wood, Chris turned toward a couple of volunteers at the bottom of the
boat ramp. They were laughing about something; one gestured with his arms, sending them wide
at his sides while the other guy dropped his head shaking it in what looked like disbelief. Chris
shook his head too. He couldn’t believe he was looking over the Arkansas River on a
Wednesday morning and not at work nailing carpet down or ripping carpet up, laughing with the
guys on his crew. Ricky was probably hung over, telling one of his stories while sneaking drinks
from everybody’s coffee. Ricky and Chris were the oldest members on the crew, almost two
years together. Every other day Chris tried to tell him to cut back on the drinking: “Moderation,
brother or you’ll end up like my old man.” They would laugh together, at the truth of the
41
statement, unable to discuss the sadness of it because it was too close, like the humidity that
hung in the air.
That morning as Chris locked the dead bolt of his apartment, the phone rang at five thirty.
He thought it was probably Ricky needing a ride because he couldn’t find his pants—where his
keys probably were. But it was the North Little Rock Police Department, calling with the little
details they had. Chris finished pouring his coffee, when he hung up the receiver, figuring his
dad was probably washed up somewhere or passed out soaked and wet full of beer.
Chris stood in the same spot on the boat ramp throughout the morning, watching the two
dredgers zigzag their way down river toward the first bend. A police unit pulled into the gravel
lot a little after lunch, scattering the glare at Chris’ feet. There was someone else in the
passenger seat, and as the car pulled to a stop in the shade, Chris saw Doug. Becky, Doug’s
girlfriend, wasn’t with him. Doug rose from the front seat of the car, lighting a cigarette that
trembled between his lips, both hands trying to steady the light, before he shut the door.
Doug’s shirt was rumpled around the waist, partially tucked. His jeans were dirty and the
usual crease along the front was gone; the hairspray in his short, feathered hair was gone too.
Doug always managed to look pressed, contrasting with his face and hands weathered from too
much construction work. Even after late nights of drinking and bar fights, Doug looked sharp.
“Any word yet?” he asked without looking at Chris, inhaling once then twice without exhaling.
“There was one false alarm. Turned out to be a bike.”
“They got two boats runnin’?”
“Yeah,” Chris nodded. “They still got Becky?”
“Well, I was gonna wait for her, but the cop told me I’d better come back to the house.
They didn’t know how much longer she’d be.”
“Why’d they let you go?” Chris asked, his voice lower than he intended.
Doug turned his head a little and saw Chris’ fixed face; his eyes were covered from the
hat’s shadow, and Doug seemed relieved, taking his time with his answer. “I don’t know,” he
finally said and started up the boat ramp. “I’m gonna have a beer. I’ll be back.”
Chris watched Doug ascend the ramp until he disappeared over the ridge, the story
churning in his mind, settling in his empty stomach—the same story he was sure that Doug told
the cops. His stomach tightened when he envisioned his dad going into the water loaded on beer
42
and schnapps—his drink of choice. The acid in his stomach rose, and Chris swallowed
deliberately so as not to gag.
Doug, Becky, and Wayne were hanging out at Doug’s drinking and having a good time
until Becky started bugging Doug for twenty dollars. He kept refusing. He never got upset, just
drank and talked to Wayne, occasionally looking at her with a heavy no. Wayne tried to get
Becky to get another beer and sit down with them. They both knew she wanted the money for
crack, and they wouldn’t give it to her. Finally, she took off in the truck. Doug and Wayne both
knew where she was going, first to find a little bit of money and then to find a rock. They were
used to this. Wayne told Doug that she hadn’t changed a bit since he was with her over five
years ago; they even laughed a little together. Not because it was funny, but they understood
each other.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when Chris heard that part of the story. Wayne had
dated Becky for a while, and she always begged for money. But when she came back without
the truck and soaked through, that’s when the story settled like sediment in the riverbed—never
stationary, always moving. She said she drove the truck into the river and couldn’t back it out.
She didn’t mean to do it. They all three ran to the boat ramp to save the truck, but they were too
late. When Becky jumped in and swam out a bit, diving under, that’s when Wayne started in on
Doug.
“You gonna get her?” Wayne screamed.
“Hell no. She’ll swim back when she’s tired.”
Wayne and Doug both stood there, waiting for her to emerge from the last dive, but she
never did. Doug started down the bank, slipping on the loose rocks. Wayne went straight into
the water, shoes, hat and all. Doug kept an eye on him, screaming out every now and then.
“You see her? Wayne, do you see her?” But Wayne never answered.
Becky screamed from a barge docked on the bank about one hundred yards down.
“Where’s Wayne?” Doug asked as he approached her.
She was shivering, her arms wound around her body. “What do you mean ‘Where’s
Wayne’?”
They questioned each other, then darted from one end of the barge to the next, looking
and calling out for Wayne. But nobody saw him, and the cops finally came.
43
The water faded, taking on the appearance of a black hole. Chris barely saw the debris
drifting down the middle of the river: wood, cans, plastic grocery sacks and trash. It was only a
quarter of a mile wide where he was but moonless. The stars were out though, glowing brighter
and brighter as night took over.
The sheriff walked over to Chris to tell him they were going to have to call it a night.
Like Doug, he didn’t look at Chris at first but fidgeted with his hands, picking at calluses on his
palms. “We covered pretty good ground today—nearly two miles. We’ll be back out before
daybreak.”
“Why do you think they ain’t found nothing yet?”
“It’s not uncommon, especially with the heavy rains we’ve had. The river’s moving
pretty fast pushing things from the surface to the bottom. You know the bed ain’t nothing but
sand—with the river moving like this anything is bound to get,” he hesitated, then quickly
finished, “buried. We’ll double track some tomorrow too. The water’s murky but we’ve got
some pretty high tec depth finders that might come up with something.” The officer shook
Chris’s hand and left.
Chris barely caught the last of the sheriff’s sentence; he didn’t think about his dad’s body
sinking to the bottom of the riverbed circulating in the current. He turned to the dredgers
anchoring off in the middle of the river. He watched them pull up three large grappling hooks,
the river bottom dripping from their tips—trash and mounds of sand plunging to the water. A
small flat boat the workers used to get to the bank pushed off, then docked itself, and tied up at a
couple of trees. There was no dock at this ramp, so they had to improvise. One by one the cars
pulled away, their taillights swerving around the potholes. Some of the officers and volunteer
fire nodded at Chris as they left, some didn’t even look at him.
The debris floated quickly past him down the river, racing to the bend. Chris wagered
with himself on whether the dark log or the little timber would make it first, calculating their
size. He strained a little, because the night surrounded him quickly. There was no breeze and
the darkness felt heavy, close to the skin and hard. Chris walked to the water’s edge at the
bottom of the ramp where his dad and Doug had stood, picked up a rock about the size of a golf
ball, and pitched it into the darkness. The rock flew through the night, out of sight, and splashed
barely loud enough for Chris to hear. He picked up another one and threw it, then another and
another. With fierce determination he threw rock after rock, gripping them in the palm of his
44
hand like he might not let the stones go. Out of breath, he reached for a cigarette but the pack
was empty.
Doug was sitting in the small dining room at the table with only two matching chairs; the
other two were brown folding chairs. “Help yourself to a beer.”
“You need one?” Chris asked, leaning into the refrigerator.
Doug shook his head no.
Chris remained in the kitchen, elbows on the bar that separated him from the dining
room, from Doug. The smoke gathered around the kitchen and dining area, filling the silence in
thoughtful swirls above their heads. Doug stared into the living room out the front picture
window, watching the occasional car drive by—music cranked so loud the picture window
rattled.
“How’s the carpet laying coming?”
Chris looked through the smoke at Doug. The house his crew started on was probably
finished by now. Ricky was most likely cursing Chris; he probably even stopped by the house
on his way home. “Jobs keep coming,” Chris answered. “It’s good though. We’re staying busy
and money is steady right now. Seems like everybody’s wanting new carpet this year, but I ain’t
complaining.”
“I remember when your daddy got you that job. He was gonna take it for himself but we
were pretty busy then too so what was the sense in leaving one job for another? You were
working at that factory down Old England Highway then, yeah?”
“I don’t remember,” Chris said as he made his way to the living room. He sat in the
recliner where Doug couldn’t see him, hidden by the wall that separates the dining room from
the living room. He started to say something but took off his hat to smooth his ruffled and
greasy hair. He left his hat draped on his knee. “Doug, why didn’t you go in for Becky?”
“You know how she is when she gets on that stuff. She was always doing something
crazy. Hell, last month she ran the damn truck in the ditch. I didn’t figure she’d run it into the
goddamn river, and I figured she would swim back.” Doug inhaled his cigarette. “I didn’t
expect your daddy to jump in the damn water.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?” Chris continued, taking a seat in one of the brown fold-up
chairs.
45
“I was headed down the bank, trying to catch sight of Becky when I heard Wayne go in.”
Doug’s voice lowered and his eyes glazed over like he was trying to recall something that fades
before it is in focus, always beyond reach. “I looked back and he was swimming with the
current. I didn’t know what to fucking do except keep going down the bank.”
Chris stared into his beer. He hadn’t eaten anything all day and the alcohol swirled in his
stomach. “Why can’t they find my. . .the fucking body?” Chris’s voice was low but steady.
Doug looked at him with suspicion. He lifted his beer but, without taking a drink, placed
it gently back on the table. “I grew up on this river,” he started. “My daddy always said that the
Arkansas River was evil.” Doug stated it like that was the end of the question, like somehow
that explanation was all that was needed and there was no use trying to mystify it or figure it out.
“Evil?” Chris asked, standing up. “Something fucking evil happened out there, but it
wasn’t the fucking river.”
“Chris, sit down now.” Doug uncrossed his legs and pushed himself a little from the
table.
They were both staring each other down when a car pulled into the driveway, its
headlights flooding the kitchen. “It’s Becky,” Doug said as he made his way for the front door.
Chris watched Doug unite with Becky and talk with the officer. When they started for
the front door, he went out the back to be alone. The night, fully set, hung thick in the humid air,
but the darkness wasn’t as close as it was by the river. Chris climbed into Doug’s bass boat and
sat down in the driver’s seat to smoke a cigarette. Doug and Becky looked the same getting out
of the police units, tired and troubled. Did something terrible happen that they couldn’t speak
about, an accident? They were all mean but none of them capable of murder. He’d known
Becky since he was eleven—almost eleven years now. There were times when she and his father
dated that she was like a mother, though seldom. They all drank too much but that was nothing
new. The backdoor opened; it was Becky, lingering in the doorframe as if she wasn’t sure
whether or not to go outside.
“Chris, I’m sorry about what happened,” she said.
“Well, hopefully there won’t be anything to be sorry about. The dredgers will be back in
the morning.”
“Yeah, tomorrow. Why don’t you come inside? I’m gonna make some fried bologna
sandwiches.”
46
“I’ll be in in a minute.” Chris wanted to say something more, but didn’t know what. He
had questions but had none. The only one he really questioned was why they couldn’t find the
body—he wanted to believe the story because he had no other explanation.
Doug and Becky were staring at their sandwiches when Chris joined them. “Hey, Doug
you think they’ll let us get that boat running tomorrow? Help them look?”
“I don’t know, but I know a guy who volunteers with the fire department. I think he was
down there helping today. Maybe he can get us in the water.”
Becky’s head dropped, there were tears falling on the kitchen table. “I don’t know what
happened. We were all sitting here, just like this, having a good time. Bull shitting, like
always—egging each other on. Then Felicia called. Said she had some good stuff. I’ve been
clean, Chris. I promise.” She looked up, and Chris was staring at her, not with sympathy which
she apparently expected, but something resembling disgust.
“Clean? What? For a day? For as long as I’ve known you, you ain’t been clean. It’s the
same fucking story.” Chris stood up, his thighs bumping into the table. “You’re a fucking crack
head, Becky. My dad’s floating down the fucking river, and you’re probably trying to figure out
how to get some crumbs. Twenty dollars. What does that buy you, one pull?” Chris was
leaning into her face, palms down on the table in front of her. Doug had stood too but didn’t
move.
Chris grabbed his hat from the floor by the recliner and went out the back door to the
boat, leaving Becky in tears. She would never change. Chris used to beg his dad to get rid of
her, because she always threw tantrums over crack; Wayne didn’t party as much before she came
along, then Wayne wasn’t home as much anymore. He started bar-hopping with Becky or
driving her from one crack house to another, while Chris sat on the front porch of their house
eating American cheese. Before long he was on the porch smoking cigarettes he’d stolen from
his dad’s pack, then he was out with his own friends smoking his own cigarettes.
Chris sat in the boat all night, thinking about the past, until it occurred to him that he
might be the one who found his dad’s body. He thought about the next day, them on the water
looking for signs of his father. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t say
so. The image of his dad in the water swirled in his mind like an impressionist painting, fuzzy
around the edges without a clear focus. He couldn’t picture his father’s shoulder-length gray
47
black hair falling in his eyes and his weathered skin never fading from the sun because he was
outside building all the time. Alive. He couldn’t picture him alive much less visualize what he
would look like washed up on the bank.
He dozed off every now and then, but his dreams woke him with more images of his
father, this time going under, unable to call out for help. Chris saw his dad’s hat drifting out of
reach, Wayne reaching for it—something Chris thought his dad would do even in a crisis. Chris
remembered that he could barely hear the rock hit the surface over the water rumbling against the
bank. How could his dad even call for help with water filling his mouth—his lungs?
The sky broke, making way for the sun to rise over the river. There was a large rock
about three feet off the bank, emerged enough from the water for Chris to stand on. The river
was still high and rushing against the rocks, occasionally splashing on his pant leg. Four people
pulled up, and their silhouettes glided down the boat ramp. He recognized them from the
dredgers as they nodded when they walked past. They worked slowly, untied the flat boat, and
settled in their seats for the little trip to the dredger. They talked amongst themselves. Chris
couldn’t hear them. He wondered if they talked about his dad or maybe the truck, maybe even
him. He had to look away from the water because the image of his dad going under appeared
every time he blinked; sometimes his father was alive—emerging to the surface, water rushing
from his mouth as he tried to catch his breath for the next pull. But sometimes he wasn’t alive,
but swollen, tumbling in the water like a barrel.
The dredger cranked and smoke huffed from the rear. They tossed the treble hooks in the
water; as soon as they hit, the current dragged the ropes to the side. Chris thought he saw a man
roll out of one of the hooks with a heavy splash. He coughed on the last drag of his cigarette at
the sight, stomach lurching into his throat; he gagged this time.
Doug pulled up with the trailer bobbing behind the truck on the gravel. A couple of cars
from the NLR Police Department and the Pulaski County Sheriff were close behind. They
walked up while the dredger cranked in its anchor.
Doug, alongside his friend who volunteered with the Pulaski County Fire Department,
was speaking to the sheriff. Chris overheard the sheriff’s concern about civilians going in, but
Doug somehow convinced him. Chris didn’t hear that part, but Doug told Chris that once he
explained that he grew up on this river in a house right down the road, that he was there when it
48
flooded in 1990, offered his help then too, he agreed. He said that the sheriff figured they could
use as many boats out there that would volunteer with the river being so high.
The Bayliner started with ease. Chris looked up to see if Doug followed but saw him
talking to the sheriff instead.
“What was all that about?” Chris asked, while they were idling off the bank.
“Nothing. He just said if we see anything, even if we’re not sure, to mark the spot, head
back and stay away from the area.”
They started down the river past the dredgers and other boats. Once they were around the
bend, Doug reached back in the rear live well and pulled out a beer. He had filled the front and
rear wells with ice and beer.
“Chris, you want one?”
Every muscle in Chris’s body tightened, but they just set out on the river so he tried to
restrain himself. Cigarettes were making him nauseous; the last thing he wanted was a beer.
“Damn Doug, I can’t believe at seven in the morning, after all that’s happened, you’re going to
have a fucking beer.” Chris shook his head and tried to focus himself back on the search, pulling
at the bill on his cap.
They were running about ten miles per hour. Chris sat at the front of the boat in one of
the high chairs in the center, swiveling from bank to bank for a sign of his dad. His hands were
on his thighs, gripping them, holding him steady. The sun rose fast and the heat with it. Chris
let his hand run through the water at his side, cupping a little to splash on his face. He turned to
Doug and told him he had to relieve himself. Doug eased over to one of the banks, put the boat
in neutral and coasted to the shore. Chris didn’t walk off into the woods; he just stepped to the
bow and did his business. While standing there, he glanced back at Doug.
“Why’d they keep Becky so long?”
Doug looked up at Chris but watched the depth finder, as he thumbed the dial. “They
were trying to figure out if she and Wayne were ever alone. That’s what she was telling me last
night.”
“Were they?”
“No. I told you, your daddy and I were at the table when she came running into the
house about the truck.”
“Why do you think they let you go?” Chris asked again.
49
“I told you I don’t know,” Doug answered toward the water.
“You lost sight of Becky and dad didn’t you? You don’t think she did something?”
“No,” Doug quickly answered. “When I got to the barge she didn’t even know he went
into the water.”
“Then where the hell is the truck?”
“She didn’t mean to do it.”
“Do what?” Chris looked at him.
“Run the truck into the river. She told me she tried to back it out. She just went too far.
It was an accident. A fucking accident.” Doug’s voice trailed off.
They headed down river and saw a couple of barges just past the bend behind them.
Doug slowed to turn around as he held his empty beer can in the river to sink it. The only sound
was the motor humming down the river and the water splashing behind.
There were two patrol barges at the site when they arrived. One of the men called them
off, telling them not to come too close. Chris hunched down from the high seat onto the lower
one at the front of the boat. He couldn’t see what was going on so he kept his head down, staring
at his feet with one hand cupped around the back of his neck.
“It’s nothing,” one man finally said.
“Let’s head back and get something to eat,” Doug suggested, looking at Chris.
Chris didn’t look up but nodded.
Doug and Becky went to the Dodge store for chicken, and Chris decided to stay at the
boat ramp just in case they heard something. The dredgers worked several miles that day,
crisscrossing each other up the river, making diamond shapes with their small wake. From the
bank they were out of sight. He remembered passing them, the divers relaxed against the
handrails, unable to go into the water because the current was too swift, the water too dark.
Chris didn’t eat anything when Doug offered the chicken. He watched Doug and Becky
on the tailgate of Doug’s truck as they ate. As they rose to head back out on the water, the
sheriff came over and told Doug he was going to have to go back to the station for more
questioning, leaving Chris to tread the water by himself. Doug finished his cigarette before
climbing in the back seat of the squad car, without looking at anyone. Chris avoided thinking
50
about why they were taking Doug in. He thought back to the story, but he didn’t want to see his
dad in the water. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be the one who found him either.
Chris motored on slowly, as close to the bank as he could come, sometimes using the
troller motor in tight spots. His eyes oscillated from one bank to the other, with thoughts of his
childhood flashing off of the water. He didn’t understand how his dad got caught up with people
like Doug and Becky. He did it his whole life, one failed friendship or relationship after another.
It seemed as though ever since his mom left them thirteen years ago, when Chris was only nine,
his dad never quite got over it, neither did Chris really. He fought with his dad, blamed him for
running her off, and as Chris grew up they fought about other things, why there was no food in
the house and only beer, why his dad never cared how his grades were in school, everything.
A small cloud passed over the sun, offering some relief from the heat, which was so
unbearable that Chris dunked his hat in the water to cool off his scorched head. He neared the I630 bridge, close to the airport when he considered heading back to the boat ramp. The planes
were taking off and every few minutes another was flying over—landing or leaving. Chris was
always leaving. Often Wayne tried to get him to go out, hit the bars or have some barbecue at
the White Pig Inn. Chris never went. Two nights ago he could’ve been at R&R Lounge playing
pool and pulling on a bottled beer; the tap there had never been cleaned and tasted like mildew.
Chris kept his eye under the bridge, thinking about when his dad showed up at his job site
last week. They never really looked at each other and usually spoke in broken sentences. It was
payday and Wayne offered to buy him a beer when he got off work, but Chris was stubborn with
his dad and didn’t like drinking so much. He barely stopped stapling carpet to talk to him, but
mumbled something about being busy and continued with his work. He should’ve been there
that night; instead, he went out to drive Ricky home from the bar because he was too drunk.
Chris looked toward the bank, and there was a hat soaked and covered in mud. It could
be anyone’s though. From where he was, it looked black. Chris pulled up the motor so it
wouldn’t drag and jumped to the bank, slipping on the mud a little so that he had to catch himself
with one hand. It wasn’t real steep, only muddy. He picked it up and examined the front design.
The hat was actually blue—darkened by the river water. It said CAT on the front; one of those
51
cheap convenience store hats where the bills were always sewn a little crooked and the dome
never seemed to fit right.
It wasn’t Wayne’s hat, but Chris didn’t put it down. He walked away from the water,
climbing the slight incline. He could almost see the dredger up the river, only the tip. He looked
up and down the bank and saw logs and sticks floating past, cans and the plastic six pack holders.
“Fuck,” his voice cracked. There was something not ten feet away that made him
shudder; he jerked his head from the sight and slipped, sliding a little down the bank, one hand
grasping the mud, the other gripping the hat. He was breathless, his eyes not wavering from a
body filled with water, bruised from head down, missing one shoe. The clothes were torn; the
shirt was wide open. It was the same shirt his dad was wearing when he showed up on payday: a
pearl buttoned cowboy shirt—classic brown with white trim.
The mud soaked through Chris’ jeans, but he didn’t stand up. He made a movement
toward the body and stopped. He couldn’t bring himself to get much closer. He remembered a
time when his father was making some Hamburger Helper, asking Chris if he’d stay for dinner
for a change. Chris stared at him, like he was doing now, wanting to say more to him, something
like, “Sure, Dad. You need any help?” But he didn’t. He walked out and drove away to meet
his friends without a second thought.
How could Chris recognize him? He hardly ever gave his dad the time of day. What did
his face look like? He had a mustache, graying like his dark hair. They had the same sharp nose
and bone structure from their cheeks to their forehead. But he couldn’t remember anything but
his backside: the broad shoulders kind of slouched over, head cocked down a bit because he was
so tall, his hair curling at the sides from his hat. His hair wasn’t curled now; it was disheveled
and no longer gray but brown and muddy.
Chris rose, walking toward the head. It couldn’t be his dad. This person was bloated,
bigger than his dad ever was. Wayne was a tall, skinny man; this man looked large. But maybe
it was just the position it was in. The legs, tangled into each other, one bent far behind, looked
broken. Chris tried to catch his breath. He would face him this time, look him in the eye and say
something, anything. He was closer now, only about an arms’ length away. He could see the
forehead, no visible wrinkles; the skin so taut it looked like he would burst any moment, water
rushing from his mouth, his eyes, and nose.
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Chris squatted in front of him without a shudder, but he was trembling. He looked hard
at the face. Nothing really recognizable. He pulled out a cigarette from his own shirt pocket.
They were mostly soaked through, but he fingered one that would at least light. He took a long
pull off of it and felt the acid coming up again. The nicotine settled his nerves but irritated his
stomach; he turned his head and gagged.
While he smoked, he remembered when he got the phone call two nights ago. He
remembered thinking that it was no big deal, his dad was always in fights and strange things
would happen, but nobody ever really got hurt, like the time he and Doug got into a fist-fight
over Becky or when they felt hustled playing pool. He figured this phone call wouldn’t be much
different. They would find his dad washed up, passed out drunk on the bank. He would slap his
face a bit, throw the cold rushing river water on his face, and he would wake up.
Chris leaned in toward the side, nudged it with the butt of his lighter. Water dripped
from the nose and Chris jerked his arm back and almost vomited again, but swallowed the acidic
taste back down his throat.
“Wake up,” he whispered. “Wake up. I’m not leaving this time.” His voice rose a little.
Chris prodded the shoulder once more with his lighter. The body rolled onto its back and more
water dribbled from the mouth and nose. “Wake up God damn it and talk to me.” He leaned
over and pushed the side again but with his hand this time, keeping it there on his dad’s forearm.
He rocked the body gently like he was trying to wake him. “Talk to me.” he screamed again,
but only more water answered his plea.
Chris remembered the day his mother left. He just walked in from school and his dad
was sitting in the living room recliner, body sinking in on itself. “I’m sorry,” his dad had said.
Chris dropped his book bag and looked at him. “Where did she go?” he asked, voice
shaking, on the verge of tears.
“Chris, she’s not coming back, but I’m not leaving you.”
Chris remembered that face; it said don’t leave me. He was only nine, but he didn’t miss
it. It was in his dad’s eyes—set deep, hollow and in his voice—low, soft barely audible. He
knew it immediately and walked slowly over to the side of his father’s chair, put his arm out and
rested his hand on his dad’s forearm. He thought then that he wouldn’t leave him; he would
stand by his side like that forever and be a man like his father.
53
Part III:
The Way Life Is
I think, in all sympathy, that people tend to feel the most guilt over things for which
they are not responsible.
—Sabina Murray, The Caprices
54
Eating White Rice with My Fingertips
Christmas morning outside of Fort Bragg in Hope Mills, North Carolina, my mother sits
in the armchair, smoking and sipping her coffee, her feet tucked underneath her for warmth. She
leans close to the space heater, and I recall how last night she was embarrassed as we sat huddled
by the heater in the living room (only one because more than that would throw the breaker). The
propane tank is low, so we have to conserve the heat for cooking and warm showers. She
blushed over the furnished single-wide trailer, a long brown couch and chair in the living room,
and the brown, worn carpet, even though the place is immaculately clean, tidy, and comfortable,
exactly as I expected. This is the first time she has lived alone for several years. I stress to her
that I am proud of her.
After she stubs out her cigarette, she preheats the oven and sets the pre-cooked ham in a
large dish, then begins preparing the meat for the egg rolls. I turn on a CD, low so it is not
distracting. I remember when I was in second grade when I lived with her for a brief nine weeks.
She hardly could stand the sound of background noise on our errands to the grocery store or to
the oriental market for rice. I would turn on the radio and she would turn it off and cross herself;
her nerves couldn’t handle the music as she tried to navigate through traffic, the ash on her
cigarette growing long.
The music in the kitchen is now a small pleasure I enjoy, revealing how she has changed
over the years, settled into her body, into our consistent communication. There were years in our
past when we barely spoke to one another. She could hold a grudge, even against a nine year
old, the year my father asked her for custody. Her lawyer drew up a contract, stating that my
father would never ask for child support. When he didn’t sign the document, she slapped me on
55
the back of the head and disappeared. My tears stung my face harder than her hand, and my
father, angry, told me to go pack. She didn’t speak to me for months after I moved out of her
house for the last time, not returning as I had previously for a couple of months here and there.
My father never asked for child support.
We talk at least once a week now—conversations that rarely go over three minutes
because she has to save the minutes on her phone. When we began talking regularly, I was
tentative at first, scared she would try to take advantage of me, manipulate me like she has so
many times in her past. Besides her stubborn grudges, she has borrowed money which I rarely
see again. A few years back when she was still gambling, she had called a few times, upset that
her electricity would be cut off. Where’s your husband, I thought, but I knew she most likely
lost her money playing bingo. I never asked. This was when she still had my younger half-sister
and half-brother, so I sent the money for them. But, in the past few years, she has never asked
me for anything. I have come to understand that I am a comfort to her, someone who still
believes in her, and I have settled into this role with some uncertainty but willingness
nonetheless.
The smell of garlic and seasonings linger in the kitchen. I know my job, so I place two
plates on the kitchen card table for the egg roll wraps. I separate them carefully, one by one;
they are paper-thin and a hole will ruin them because the meat will leak into the cooking oil.
We make a small batch, about fifty, sixty rolls, hardly speaking except for the occasional
comment on the wraps and the mix. I shower quickly after we complete the egg rolls, and Mike
shows up while I’m getting ready. He brings beer for me and Crown for Mom. Mike is a short
man who blinks rapidly and hard, retired military. My mother leaves us so she can shower, and I
learn that Mike was a “trigger man” who now works for an independent contractor. Light
bothers him. Despite his little ticks, he’s pleasant. I note that he pronounces her name correctly,
Lilia, something her ex-boyfriend never seemed to get, who called her Lydia, which I tried to
write-off as some speech impediment. Mike’s really not my mother’s type though; he’s too
short, she would tease.
When my mother comes down the hall, I’m relieved. She is dressed in a red, silky blouse
and a black knee-length skirt. I double check myself, conscious that she doesn’t really approve
of my black pants and button-down shirt, no make-up or high heels. As she passes the dishes
around, I decide to take a picture. She insists that I wait until lunch is over and we’ve cleaned
56
up, but I want to catch her not paying attention, an attempt to capture something real as if the
photo will expose something I have not seen. She picks at her food, commenting on how she’s
not really hungry. She eats all of the collard greens, and I can tell she likes the potatoes, which I
was in charge of, but doesn’t make a fuss over them. She asks me again how much sour cream I
used since she doesn’t make them often. The small one, an eight ounce tub, I say.
She begins a story as she makes sure there is enough water, napkins, and more food to go
around. I don’t know how the story started, a response to something Mike had said regarding
how she’s cruel to him sometimes. He was only teasing, but the words trigger a moment from
my mother. She speaks of moving from the Philippines to Washington State with her first
husband, a U.S. Navy man, and their child, my older half-brother.
Her eyes are fixed toward the television which is off, reflecting the brown carpet and
furniture. This is the story I have always wanted, and I wish I could record her telling of it. How
hard was it for her to move to the United States? What did she expect? I have seen and heard
the disappointment in her voice but had nothing to link her disillusionment to except for some
abstract idea she had about the American Dream.
Her first husband went immediately to sea when they arrived. She was only nineteen
with a four year old in a city she was not familiar with, in a country she had only dreamed of.
Doesn’t this story always begin the same? She barely spoke English, had no job and no concept
of the U.S. economy. She needed groceries; her baby was hungry. Her husband sent some
money, but it didn’t matter. For two weeks, she didn’t leave the house but cried instead, holding
her baby close.
My mother’s face shows no sign of struggle or pain. She tells the story to Mike, speaking
as if I had heard the story a hundred times. She is matter-of-fact, trying to explain why she is so
hard now, so distrustful of men. I have read this part of the story in books. Men desiring exotic,
obedient wives—Filipino women are clean women—a bit reductive, presumptuous even, but
how else do we understand this hierarchy of power?
Her neighbor, Diane, a woman in her thirties going through a divorce, knocked on the
door one day. My mother dried her tears, and Diane took her to the grocery store, showed her
how to balance her checkbook and pay bills. Diane told her that she had to be strong, take care
of her child. Stop depending on her husband. Get a job. This is America, she said, suggesting
that women have opportunities, women can be independent.
57
Diane taught her how to drive. It was cold outside, and the wind picked up as they
entered the bridge. My mother panicked as they crossed, gripped the steering wheel tight with
both hands—ten and two o’clock. Diane told her to roll up the window but my mother would
not let go of the wheel. “Lilia, we are going to freeze to death.” Diane laughed. “Roll up the
damn window.” My mother refused and when they got home, Diane made her practice rolling
and unrolling the window with one hand on the wheel, both of them laughing at their triumph.
She had finally stopped crying.
When her husband returned from sea he was angry. Lilia had learned how to say No.
There is no pause in her story. She continues, and Mike and I listen. She laughs
occasionally, especially at the No part. She continues with her narrative, pushing the food
around on her plate. She is getting close to my story. I will be born within the year and I want to
know the details.
She divorced her first husband and quickly remarried a man from Arkansas, also in the
Navy. I find it strange at first that she does not look at me and say something to the effect of,
that is when I met your father.
But I don’t interrupt her. I realize that this is her story.
She became pregnant again, and she and her new husband moved to San Diego. I was
born at the Naval base, and then my mother caught my father cheating with my babysitter not
long after my birth. The babysitter was around sixteen years old. After fighting with my father,
my mother called Diane and cried, depressed again.
My mother explains, stammering for the right words, that “the stars fell out of the sky.”
Cliché, but not to her—nor to me. She forgave him and moved to his hometown in Arkansas to
put up with his infidelity for two more years. She doesn’t explain why but mentions her
children, and I assume she had no other choice then.
She was remarried within a week of their divorce, out of spite she admits now, but my
father deserved it, she says. Her new husband was an easy target who tried to buy her love. He
bought her a brand new sports car, an Iroc-Z, the first one on the block. My father tried to kill
him, stormed into their house and put the man’s head over the stove. My mother thought she had
made her point but knew that even the material nature of her third marriage would not satisfy
her.
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I chew my food slowly, savoring every word she says, trying to catalogue her face, her
wide smile, how it can turn stoic in seconds. But she laughs more now, even though I know she
is still saddened by how her life has unfolded. She never turned to me and said your daddy was a
sorry-ass. She still tells me to take care of him; “He is your father,” stating it as if I have no
choice. She’s right. I am ashamed of the stories I used to tell about her when I was younger,
stories taken from my father and his family: she has been married five times, but I would spin the
story. She’d get a divorce and collect child support, eventually send her children to their fathers
and do it all over again. My father used to say she would always be a full-time waitress and a
part-time student. I always thought she was after money, but I had seen her turn down men who
had more than she could spend. I had always wanted to tell her that she didn’t need a man to
survive, but as I listen to her story, I am embarrassed by my own assumptions. I think she was
after what we’re all after—love and some sense of accomplishment in this land of opportunity.
I think about how she looked last night, blankets draped over our knees. Her regrets
surfaced in the empty bottle of Smirnoff Black she had been sipping. “All I wanted was a nice
place for you to come home to during holidays or whenever you wanted. I can’t even turn on the
heater. You have a worthless mommy.” She laughed it off. Inside, my heart ached for her
happiness, and I felt like she was my duty, that there was something I could do to help her. She
confessed that she doesn’t know why she still takes classes; she doesn’t want to work in hospitals
anymore. But I heard it in her voice; she doesn’t want to bartend forever either. All I could do
was reassure her that she was not worthless, that this moment was all I needed.
It is Christmas evening, a cold night on the base at Fort Bragg. We are at Teresa’s, my
mother’s best-friend’s house, for a second Christmas feast. I’m carrying a gift for Teresa—a
hummingbird lamp. My mother is more concerned with saving face than giving her daughter a
present, but I have come to understand this gesture and am no longer as pained as I used to be—
though I would have taken the lamp.
Teresa’s family has gathered: her Filipino parents, her three children, and her husband’s
daughter from another marriage. Other families are there as well, some with husbands like
Teresa’s who are in Iraq. Little children run under my feet. I resort to calling the Asian women
auntie so-and-so out of respect, not remembering if I used to pronounce it “auntie” or “aunt.”
The word comes out awkward and forced.
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My mom points to the buffet table, food piled high in hard foil platters like a Chinese
buffet, noodles, meat, casserole-looking dishes. All I recognize is the rice that is warming in two
large white cookers. My mother tells me what a dish is in Tagalog and laughs. Teresa’s mother,
Nánay (which I later learn means mother in Tagalog), stands next to us and laughs too, with the
others playing poker at the table, glancing up at me over their cards. I look from the table to
Nánay, and then to my mother and smile, knowing I am the butt-end of some joke.
She tells Nánay that I don’t speak Tagalog. “She don’t know,” she reiterates in English,
looking at me with a grin.
She takes a bite of something, and then waves the thing toward me to taste, her smile
spreading. I whisper, “What is it?” and she laughs again. “Pig’s feet,” she tells me, biting off
another chunk, sucking between the joints. I take some rice and noodles and pick carefully off of
her plate to sample, avoiding the pig’s feet.
Nánay asks me something in Tagalog. Everyone looks at me as if it’s my fault I don’t
understand; at least, that’s the paranoid sensation I get in situations like this. One of Teresa’s
children says something in Tagalog to her, her accent off but communicating something
nonetheless. The child is around twelve, and I feel like a stranger as I have many times in my
childhood, intentionally alienated by my mother, as if she has been keeping a secret from me by
not teaching me Tagalog. I do not want to embarrass her, so I try to dissect the language based
on tone and inflection, gestures, and eyes. I say something about the food, but Nánay doesn’t
speak English very well so we stand smiling at each other.
In the corner of the dining area, the television hums in the background in the same
hurried language my mother shares with Teresa’s family. At first, I am shocked by this digital
age, by the fact that someone in this house took the initiative to get satellite television so the
family can watch the news in their own language, from their own county. My mother has never
showed interest in the current events of a place she has tried so hard to forget.
She sits at the opposite end of the card game, eating rapidly with utensils
though I know she can eat rice with her fingers without spilling a single grain. She casually
watches the outcome of the game, occasionally exchanging words with the players.
“What are they playing?” I ask, holding my breath, aware of an old feeling of dread at the
back of my throat, trying not to remember the weekends I spent as a child at card tournaments.
“I don’t know this game,” she says without pausing over her plate.
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When I was younger, seven or eight, on rare visits to her house during the weekends, we
would end up at a card tournament, hosted by someone who kept coffee percolating and rice on
warm. Her husband at the time never joined us. Teasing, my mother told me to serve the
winners and it worked. I would fill water glasses, cokes, drinks, plates with more chicken and
rice to those who kept winning, and they would tip me. By the end of the night, after my
mother’s losing streak, my earnings which often exceeded thirty dollars, would be gone with an
I.O.U. never honored. I would lie on strangers’ couches, other children’s beds, or near my
mother, falling asleep to the sounds of “Check” and “Call” and the tap, tap of their antes on the
table.
My mother goes into the kitchen, hardly noticing the players, and pulls out a twenty-two
ounce Heineken from the fridge, then looks over the door at me.
“Bud Light?” she asks, and I’m relieved that she’s going to let me drink. Even though
I’m twenty-six now, I feel strange drinking around her friends unless we’re at a club.
Teresa comes over and they look like two high school girls, giggling, scheming a way to
get out of the house so we can go dancing. My mother had changed, after she got off work, back
into her skirt and blouse in case we did go. Teresa usually wears tight, stylish jeans and a tight
blouse with a low neck line. She is in her late thirties, still petite after three children and married
to a doting husband whom she loves in return. I know my mother is sometimes jealous of her,
though they are great friends.
Nánay looks over at them, and they skirt to the living room where Teresa has karaoke set
up on the television, a big-screen panel with surround sound. I have never seen karaoke so
professionally in someone’s house, and I compliment Teresa. The system has songs in English
and Tagalog.
Someone is singing “Like a Virgin” and my mother and Teresa laugh again, side by side.
My mother thumbs through the song catalog, searching for a tune she wants to sing, but Teresa
reminds her that the device needs updating when her husband gets back to the States.
“You want me to sing a song in Tagalog?” my mother asks in a whisper.
Teresa suggests one, but my mother says that she can’t remember the words. Teresa
punches the number on the remote control anyway and sings an up-beat song. I watch the words
highlight across the screen. My mother looks at me and smiles, still flipping the pages, her
frustration buried, hidden from me.
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“I can’t remember any of the songs,” she finally says, then shrugs it off and returns to the
English section. The rhythms of her life in the Philippines are forgotten, and I watch her search
for an English song, glancing up at the screen as I am, Tagalog scrolling across the bottom.
I remember the day I called and asked if she knew what bundók meant. “A friend sent
this to me. She subscribes to this word-a-day thing and this one came up,” I told her. “Do you
know what it means?”
“Hill or countryside; mountains,” she replied, nearly the exact definition in my
dictionary.
“Yeah,” I told her. “The English word ‘boondocks’ came from a Filipino word.”
“I can’t remember a lot of words,” she said, missing my enthusiasm.
“I’ll have to learn to speak Tagalog then.” And then I asked her, for the thousandth time,
why she never taught me. My father, though I don’t believe him now, used to tell me that she
didn’t want me running back to him, telling him where she was or what she was doing.
“What do you need it for?” she laughed.
For you, I think to myself, and for me. Our stories mean different things to us; yet they
are beginning to converge, to connect us somewhere between these barriers of past and present.
But I feel like an imposter. A fraud. What do I know about the Philippines, the Filipino
story? I grew up with my father, joking to others that I’m Filipino-Redneck, and have spent little
to no time around other Filipinos. I can’t even tell the difference between a Filipino and, say, a
Korean person.
My observations are in over-drive as I watch my mother interact with Teresa’s family,
trying to pick up a hint of what my mother has lost. I feel like I have lost something as well by
not growing up with her, but my younger siblings (now with their fathers) know very little
Tagalog, and even less of our mother.
On my visits, I fill up journals with her stories. When I return home, her voice is lost, her
gaze is gone. I try to recapture the silences in her narration, try to imagine what she was
thinking, envisioning, so I take pictures and record little bits. But I have nothing to stand on, no
point of reference, only pictures of the Philippines I have researched. My mother told me stories
of monkeys in the trees, fruits and vegetables growing in abundance on her farm, bathing with a
chunk of soap in the river with crocodiles, throwing objects at a bee-hive to get the honey but
getting stung instead; her father returning the next day with a large cone empty of the working,
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buzzing bees, honey dripping down his forearm. All I see is the picture of her father from a
photo album I used to thumb through when I was younger, trying then to connect her life to the
Philippines, to connect her life to mine. Her father lies in a coffin; the photo is stained a yellow
hue.
Her storytelling is a recent development, something she has taken to doing on my visits
over the past few years. They are versions of the stories I have heard all of my life. She grew up
poor. Her father died when she was around sixteen. Her mother let them run around dirty and
hungry. I should appreciate my mother for keeping me clean and fed.
I asked her a few years ago if she ever wanted to go back.
“Why? They eat dogs,” she laughed. “One day I came home from school and I said to
my mom, ‘Where’s Fido?’ My mom pointed to the table.”
She has told that story many times, always laughing afterwards. I never thought it was
true, just her way of telling me that she doesn’t want to go back and that she doesn’t want pets.
The day I leave to return to school, she tries to give me money, which she herself is short
of, so I leave it tucked underneath the ashtray she dumps obsessively after pouring the butts into
a paper towel and running water over them to extinguish any lingering embers. We sit in the
kitchen, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes. She offers to make breakfast, but I nibble on
some bread to give her a break. She starts another story. Her stories are random, without the
narrative arc of storytelling, coming to her like visions. There is always urgency in her voice,
and I realize that her stories have started to turn on themselves, no longer moral anecdotes or
lessons, but personal reflection, revealing more about her longing and regrets.
She never spoke of her father. This is the first story of him that I’ve heard. I note that
she calls him daddy and wonder at his absence from her stories over these years.
When I was little I was tough, she tells me. We had a farm and I would go with my daddy
through the jungle to the crops, whatever was in season and help him. We would collect fruit,
and he would tease me to climb the trees and shake down the ripe fruit. I could climb better than
the monkeys in that jungle. Our house was high up. There was no roof but a basement, a space
underneath for the caribou, like a carport; well, it’s not a caribou but it’s like that, to pull the
cart to the store. Maybe it is a caribou. My daddy owned a store. When I came home with all
those bee stings, my daddy said, “Where are those bees?” The next day he brought home the
hive and we had honey for months. I was his favorite. We picked rice together. When he died it
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ruined everything. My mother married someone else. They were mean. The food was so fresh
there, tastes much better than this, anything you want. Go outside and grab it, right off the tree
or right out of the ground.
“We should go back to the Philippines.” I try again, hoping she won’t write it off, as
usual.
“We’ll have to buy cigarettes. Marlboros and those t-shirts. What are they? Tommy
Hilfiger. I have forgotten so much Tagalog.” She smiles and fills up the cooler with ice for my
trip back home.
I am stunned by her response and don’t know how to push her further into her memories.
“Save up,” is all I can think to say, and in the back of my mind, I’m transferring balances on
credit cards to get her there, to get us there.
I will take her to the Philippines, and I am scared of arriving and finding a woman I don’t
know, of discovering secrets I think I want to learn but won’t know how to process. I am more
afraid of her possible disappointment, of her finding her mother whom she hasn’t spoken to in
over twenty years, of her having lost parts of her language to translate her suffering and love.
And her losses will fester and manifest in different obsessions and addictions. The American
dream is only a dream for her, but she will never admit that. She will tell them how America
was worth the trip.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Stacy C. Brand grew up in Arkansas and spent most of her years a block from the
Arkansas River. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of
Arkansas-Fayetteville in 2001.
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