I am a high school teacher, and my students are getting ready to write their first creative pieces of the year: narratives about fictional heroes that reflect their values. I like to write alongside them. Considering my family had a pretty messed up value system, I thought it only fitting that I write from an anti-hero point-of-view. Unfortunately, this is based on a true story, but names and places have been changed.
1976, America’s 200th birthday and the year I gave birth to my first daughter. I was 16 and unsure who the father was. Does a dad really matter, though? I mean, I am a product of the generation who burned their bras and demanded equal treatment. My father died the year before and left my oldest brother to be the man of the house. At 18, Ray was carrying the responsibility of an eight-person household, but we were all contributing. There was always food in the house, even if it was just a few cans of vegetables and Spam shared between us. Point is we were surviving.
It was hard to tell how our mother was taking the loss of Dad. Several days would pass where we wouldn’t see her. She was mostly sleeping if she was home or she was staying away from the house altogether. On occasion, she could be found at the kitchen table, a lit cigarette with ashes an inch long dangling between two fingers. In between drags, she’d sip a Budweiser and chase that with a gulp of tomato juice. I never saw her eat much, and her white nurses gown had begun to balloon around her.
Besides Ray, I was the oldest. I had three younger brothers and two younger sisters. Matthew was the youngest and only 6 years old when Dad died– he was still clinging to Mom and sucking his thumb! I had begun to play the role of mom to Matthew, so when Katherine was born I was already kinda used to the whining and the neediness. What I wasn’t prepared for was the constant hunger, filthy diapers, and getting no sleep. Jackie, my sister who was 13 at the time, would often get up and make a bottle or change Kathy in the middle of the night (I did have to yell at her sometimes to do it, but at least I had some help).
Imagine the frustration of everyone in that three bedroom house when, in 1978, my second daughter, Amy, was born. I did know who Amy’s dad was, though, and he had told me that his parents would help us. Tom said we could move in with them, and he’d start working at his dad’s shop, changing oil then, but his dad was going to make him a manager and soon he’d be part owner. Ray didn’t even pretend he was going to miss the three of us as we loaded up Tom’s mom’s station wagon with just two trash bags full of stuff.
Tom’s parents let us take over their basement, which had a small kitchenette and a bar full of hard liquor. Problem was Tom and I liked that hard liquor a little too much. We’d try to cover our deeds by filling the bottles up with water, but there was no covering the amount of anger and resentment that liquor spread through our bodies. It’s hard telling how all our fights got started, but often it was him accusing me of sleeping around or sitting on my ass all day while he was at work. Tom’s parents would holler at us, come down to take Kathy and Amy upstairs with them just long enough for Tom to shut me up with a fist to the mouth. I’m real proud to say that after a few months of this same old dance, I took my girls and went back home. Mom was hanging around the house more, and she acted real happy to to have Kathy and Amy to look after.
One condition of me moving back in was I had to get a job. I was bringing in three mouths, not just one, Mom said. I hadn’t graduated high school and had no experience doing anything other than being a mother. One thing I did have going for me was my figure. I never ate much of anything and consumed most of my calories through the alcohol that always seemed to be on hand. Everybody was so shocked when they’d meet me and learn I had two kids already. Some older friends of my brother would take me partying, driving around to smoke, stopping at bars to get a drink, and I’d get served because I was a cute girl. One of these nights, I met a guy named Steve. I was leaning against the wall holding my cue and waiting for my shot at the pool table. Steve walked right up to me with a beer, one thing led to another, and we got friendly. I went home with him that night and he later offered me a job at his club.
I was making money hand over fist just by taking my top off, and Mom and Ray were not complaining about the stacks of bills I’d bring home. They were, however, complaining about Kathy and Amy. Between all those people at that house, you’d think there’d be no problem getting one of them to watch the girls for a few hours before their bedtime. It got to be a real issue, and one night I just decided to take them with me. The girls were throwing all kinds of fits, and I couldn’t just have them “making all that noise,” Steve said. They would run away paying customers and the authorities sure wouldn’t approve of them being there. I did my best to take care of them and the customers, and one guy sensed my struggle and offered to help. Carl said I needed a vacation; I agreed. This man had money, I tell ya! He wanted me to see the ocean.
There was one problem, though, with his vacation idea and that was that I was a mother without anyone to watch my girls. Carl said he knew an older couple a state over that loved children and would be happy to babysit while we went to the beach. How could I argue with a man with a plan? Two days after we met, Carl pulled up in front of the house just before 8 am. Kathy and Amy, then four and two years old, were in good spirits as we drove away. I still remember the giggles and stories about all they were going to do on their vacation. We arrived at the tiny but tidy house of the older couple (I can’t remember their names except the last name was White), and though hesitant, the girls found the tv and settled into the sofa in their front room. Carl assured them we’d be back in four days, and I kissed their soft white hair for the last time.
That was twenty years ago. I have no excuses. Carl and I snorted cocaine off a sink in a bathroom in Atlanta, drank Jack Daniels while pushing quarters into a jukebox in a roadside honkytonk, and had sex on a chartered fishing boat. It felt good to forget about my boring and taxing midwest life, but as day four approached, Carl said he had no plans to head back to Illinois. We argued in the parking lot of Publix, and I threw a beer bottle into the windshield of his Firebird. He spun his tires, and I breathed in the smell of burnt rubber and hopelessness.
I had no choice but to resort to hitchhiking. I was lucky enough to get back home with the help of only three truck drivers. However, none of them had the time to find the tiny house in Kentucky where I last saw my girls. With a last name like White and few other details, how would anyone ever know who I was talking about? I didn’t even write down their address because I was sure Carl would get me back there. My family didn’t ask many questions about the girls or my trip, and we quickly fell back into old routines. Some nights I’d wake and think I heard the whimper of Amy on the other side of the room, but of course she wasn’t there. Each week that passed I was sure it would be the last week I’d be without them, but the attention, the money, the drugs, the need to not feel guilty and alone overtook me.
I wonder who they are now.
Word Pantry 