Just Like You.
..........The sparrows were beginning to get fat, which meant that winter was approaching. Winter is my favorite season. I get close to cold, so much snow. I lie down in the middle of it without a jacket and make endless snow angels. And other people swim less in the winter and, and water in general becomes less and less of a practical means of transport.
..........But it was still fall, early fall no less, despite the girth of the sparrows. Leaves clung to the trees and turned bright colors from the struggle to remain attached to the tree. Just let go, i thought, when i saw them turn red, orange, yellow. The trees were always on fire in the fall. Sitting in our concrete backyard, i thought of the tree, the monster tree demon from my first house, my real house. It was turning colors now. If i were home, i could sit inside the trunk and wait for the leaves to fall toward Earth, toward me.
..........Sitting in the concrete backyard was the safest escape route from my home to the Overhead Diner. Safest from my mother. Once i announced i was going outside, my mother set up shop in the living room and assumed that i would return. If she ever questioned me, i insisted that i had been in the backyard the whole time. Lying didn’t make me so hot anymore.
..........I may have been safe from my mother, but fleeing from the backyard was tortuous to my little body. The escape involved sneaking into the alley between our house and the next. The alley was big enough for feral cats to wander through, but even a skinny 8-almost-9-year-old girl had problems. My torso snaked through easily enough, but my pelvis was crammed against either house. The first time i tried, i though ti was going to get stuck. When i didn’t get stuck, i was sure i would be crushed. I exhaled all of my breath so i’d be as tiny as possible. The front of my pelvis and my sacrum jammed toward one another and all my little organs got squished. Shimmying and squeezing inch by inch across three or four yards where the alley became its narrowest, i managed to come out on the other side. I’m probably bleeding internally, i thought. So i ran to the Overhead Diner so i could see Luke one last time before i died tragically.
..........On my way to the diner, i tried to believe with all my heart that i was invisible so that i would actually become invisible. I couldn’t have anyone telling my mother that i had been sneaking around without her. It must have worked because no one ever said anything to her and much to my surprise, no one said anything to me. They knew who i was. My size and my age were tiny, but my reputation was enormous and frightening.
..........These are the people i left in the dust on the way to the diner. An old man who probably wasn't that old. He sat on his bench when the weather was warm. When my mother and i moved to this house, the weather was still a bit chilly and the house he lived in was dark and cold. As spring emerged, so did the old man, as if it were the first time he had ever been outside, as if he were younger than i because he had been trapped in the womb of his house for his whole life. This man smiled at me as i passed. Every time.
..........Next to him was an old couple with adult twin sons living with them. One of the sons had had an accident decades ago. He walked hunched and with a cane. No matter the weather, he wore a wool hat. It was perpetually 5 o'clock on his face and he looked at the world through thick, dirty lenses. His eyes were clouded, but i could tell that he didn't see the world the same way other adults did. His mother still took care of him. His brother had lived away from this house for 25 years. He returned three years ago, widowed with no children, after his father had his first stroke. His mother took care of his brother, her son. He took care of his father, her husband. Their bench sat three; thus i rarely saw all four of them sitting outside together. Gravity had sagged the mother's face into a permanent scowl and she never, not once, turned up the corners of her mouth at me. The father breathed at me through an open mouth or else, he was asleep when i passed. The good brother smiled openly at me. Before i knew the difference, i smiled a few times at the other brother. He snapped his eyes to the ground when i did, until one day he shouted, "Stop doing that!" The good brother was with him and my mother was with me. He explained to her his family's situation and i listened.
..........The automechanic who slim-jimmed my mother's car each time she locked her keys inside or who helped her turn her engine over. Whatever that means.
..........The college-age-but-not-in-college boys who smoked cigarettes outside and left butts in their mothers' yards.
..........The ultra-orthodox grandmother who sat on her stoop with her tiny grandson and told him water myths.
..........The homeless man who came from nowhere and began helping the woman who ran the 99¢-store. I wasn't sure at first if he was loitering, but evenutally i saw him sweeping, breaking down cardboard boxes. Then his clothes started to look cleaner and newer. I was surprised by his sense of fashion.
..........I may not have actually managed to turn myslef invisible, but i was able to distance myself enough so that i looked at my neighbors through a pane of glass, like i wasn't looking through my eyes, but somewhere far behind them. We looked at each other like we were at a zoo. I don't know who was the animal. Probably me. The neighbors figured out our story from the stream of relatives that flowed in and out during our first few weeks here.
..........The moment before i stepped into the diner, i told myself that i wasn’t invisible anymore so that Luke would be able to see me. Without my mother with me, i was overwhelmed by the size of the restaurant, by the size of the chairs and booths, by the size of the table, by the size of the adults. The battle-weary adults bitterly sipped coffee and ate mushy scrambled eggs with bits of the shell left in. These were the people my mother was talking about when she told me not to go anywhere with a stranger: “You never know what someone might do.”
..........One of them, fat and muscular with long, dirty curly light brown hair and a full beard, leather-jacketed and earringed, the whole package of evil, turned to me and smiled. I was already guilty with paranoia about sneaking out against my mother’s warnings. Perhaps if he hadn’t smiled with his teeth i wouldn’t have thought of my brother playing the tree demon : “LITTLE GIRLS ARE MY FAVORITE SNACK!” Perhaps i would have screamed for my life if i hadn’t learned not to. For the first time in my life, i knew what it was to be frozen.
“Did you drop your ice cream cone again?” a voice at the counter, behind the face of evil was talking to me. Thank God for heroes who show up when they are supposed to.
..........Lots of words, sentences, fragments, images offered themselves to my mouth for use as a response. Don’t let him eat me! Don’t tell my mom i’m here! Whay are you nice to me when no one else is? Will you be my friend? I like your hand and your stump. I love you. (That one was a surprise and more surprising is that i admit to thinking it as early as then.) What my mouth accepted was the very innocuous declaration, “It’s not free scoop day!” It wasn’t. My mother and i had come in on a Wednesday. It was Monday.
..........“Everyday is free scoop day for you,” he said, gesturing for me to approach the counter. My mouth had thawed, but my feet were still stuck to the floor. My eyes gave my fear away. I tried to keep them centered on Luke, but like metal to magnets they swayed toward the face of evil. “Have you met Brian? He’s a regular, just like you.”
..........Someone was just like me. That had never happened before. I walked up to the counter and Brian helped me into a seat.
..........But it was still fall, early fall no less, despite the girth of the sparrows. Leaves clung to the trees and turned bright colors from the struggle to remain attached to the tree. Just let go, i thought, when i saw them turn red, orange, yellow. The trees were always on fire in the fall. Sitting in our concrete backyard, i thought of the tree, the monster tree demon from my first house, my real house. It was turning colors now. If i were home, i could sit inside the trunk and wait for the leaves to fall toward Earth, toward me.
..........Sitting in the concrete backyard was the safest escape route from my home to the Overhead Diner. Safest from my mother. Once i announced i was going outside, my mother set up shop in the living room and assumed that i would return. If she ever questioned me, i insisted that i had been in the backyard the whole time. Lying didn’t make me so hot anymore.
..........I may have been safe from my mother, but fleeing from the backyard was tortuous to my little body. The escape involved sneaking into the alley between our house and the next. The alley was big enough for feral cats to wander through, but even a skinny 8-almost-9-year-old girl had problems. My torso snaked through easily enough, but my pelvis was crammed against either house. The first time i tried, i though ti was going to get stuck. When i didn’t get stuck, i was sure i would be crushed. I exhaled all of my breath so i’d be as tiny as possible. The front of my pelvis and my sacrum jammed toward one another and all my little organs got squished. Shimmying and squeezing inch by inch across three or four yards where the alley became its narrowest, i managed to come out on the other side. I’m probably bleeding internally, i thought. So i ran to the Overhead Diner so i could see Luke one last time before i died tragically.
..........On my way to the diner, i tried to believe with all my heart that i was invisible so that i would actually become invisible. I couldn’t have anyone telling my mother that i had been sneaking around without her. It must have worked because no one ever said anything to her and much to my surprise, no one said anything to me. They knew who i was. My size and my age were tiny, but my reputation was enormous and frightening.
..........These are the people i left in the dust on the way to the diner. An old man who probably wasn't that old. He sat on his bench when the weather was warm. When my mother and i moved to this house, the weather was still a bit chilly and the house he lived in was dark and cold. As spring emerged, so did the old man, as if it were the first time he had ever been outside, as if he were younger than i because he had been trapped in the womb of his house for his whole life. This man smiled at me as i passed. Every time.
..........Next to him was an old couple with adult twin sons living with them. One of the sons had had an accident decades ago. He walked hunched and with a cane. No matter the weather, he wore a wool hat. It was perpetually 5 o'clock on his face and he looked at the world through thick, dirty lenses. His eyes were clouded, but i could tell that he didn't see the world the same way other adults did. His mother still took care of him. His brother had lived away from this house for 25 years. He returned three years ago, widowed with no children, after his father had his first stroke. His mother took care of his brother, her son. He took care of his father, her husband. Their bench sat three; thus i rarely saw all four of them sitting outside together. Gravity had sagged the mother's face into a permanent scowl and she never, not once, turned up the corners of her mouth at me. The father breathed at me through an open mouth or else, he was asleep when i passed. The good brother smiled openly at me. Before i knew the difference, i smiled a few times at the other brother. He snapped his eyes to the ground when i did, until one day he shouted, "Stop doing that!" The good brother was with him and my mother was with me. He explained to her his family's situation and i listened.
..........The automechanic who slim-jimmed my mother's car each time she locked her keys inside or who helped her turn her engine over. Whatever that means.
..........The college-age-but-not-in-college boys who smoked cigarettes outside and left butts in their mothers' yards.
..........The ultra-orthodox grandmother who sat on her stoop with her tiny grandson and told him water myths.
..........The homeless man who came from nowhere and began helping the woman who ran the 99¢-store. I wasn't sure at first if he was loitering, but evenutally i saw him sweeping, breaking down cardboard boxes. Then his clothes started to look cleaner and newer. I was surprised by his sense of fashion.
..........I may not have actually managed to turn myslef invisible, but i was able to distance myself enough so that i looked at my neighbors through a pane of glass, like i wasn't looking through my eyes, but somewhere far behind them. We looked at each other like we were at a zoo. I don't know who was the animal. Probably me. The neighbors figured out our story from the stream of relatives that flowed in and out during our first few weeks here.
..........The moment before i stepped into the diner, i told myself that i wasn’t invisible anymore so that Luke would be able to see me. Without my mother with me, i was overwhelmed by the size of the restaurant, by the size of the chairs and booths, by the size of the table, by the size of the adults. The battle-weary adults bitterly sipped coffee and ate mushy scrambled eggs with bits of the shell left in. These were the people my mother was talking about when she told me not to go anywhere with a stranger: “You never know what someone might do.”
..........One of them, fat and muscular with long, dirty curly light brown hair and a full beard, leather-jacketed and earringed, the whole package of evil, turned to me and smiled. I was already guilty with paranoia about sneaking out against my mother’s warnings. Perhaps if he hadn’t smiled with his teeth i wouldn’t have thought of my brother playing the tree demon : “LITTLE GIRLS ARE MY FAVORITE SNACK!” Perhaps i would have screamed for my life if i hadn’t learned not to. For the first time in my life, i knew what it was to be frozen.
“Did you drop your ice cream cone again?” a voice at the counter, behind the face of evil was talking to me. Thank God for heroes who show up when they are supposed to.
..........Lots of words, sentences, fragments, images offered themselves to my mouth for use as a response. Don’t let him eat me! Don’t tell my mom i’m here! Whay are you nice to me when no one else is? Will you be my friend? I like your hand and your stump. I love you. (That one was a surprise and more surprising is that i admit to thinking it as early as then.) What my mouth accepted was the very innocuous declaration, “It’s not free scoop day!” It wasn’t. My mother and i had come in on a Wednesday. It was Monday.
..........“Everyday is free scoop day for you,” he said, gesturing for me to approach the counter. My mouth had thawed, but my feet were still stuck to the floor. My eyes gave my fear away. I tried to keep them centered on Luke, but like metal to magnets they swayed toward the face of evil. “Have you met Brian? He’s a regular, just like you.”
..........Someone was just like me. That had never happened before. I walked up to the counter and Brian helped me into a seat.
posted by yogagrrrl at 11:20 AM
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