Her name was Clara, she was the neighbor next door. My cousin talked about her often in those years. Clara was a little person, what they used to call a "Midget," but that term according to Google became offensive. Clara would help out with babysitting, visit and keep my cousin from being so lonely, she said. She often complained about being depressed, mostly because she had gotten pregnant at 16yrs old, today we say "TeenMom." She hated her new apartment and the ugly "battleship gray kitchen," she said. It seemed nice to me, her mother had left her all her furniture and she and her husband moved into the apartment next door. She said she and Clara were friends.
My cousin and I didn't see each other all that much before then, by this time she had moved back to our hometown from the next town over. She was into smoking pot, "partying" and dating an older guy. I visited a few times, got talked into smoking some pot, but was trying hard to get everything ready for my entrance exam for colleges, working, babysitting, and all the stuff needed to get accepted into college, so I wasn't really into it. Her life consisted of partying and having a good time and she seemed happy and popular. The boys always liked her, she would often say, citing her blond hair and blue eyes. As the years went by, I started to figure out it had more to do with having sex than the color of our hair, but when we were younger, she could always make me feel bad in some way. I would usually brush it off, my mother was the same way. There was always this underlying competition, but back in those years, I never called it that. I mostly just accepted what they use to say as the truth, and only later finding out about the lies. My cousin would laugh that it would take me so long. She started to like telling stories that weren't true, having me believe her, and then laughing later about how she was just kidding. Leading me on we were going to do something cool, but then we did the same we always did. As the years went by, the lies got worse and worse, but in those years, I was happy to have a best friend. I wasn't into having sex with boys, I was always wanting to ride bikes, ice-skate or be better at softball. We often played in the field close by. I wasn't that good at softball, mostly because I got too nervous, but I did ok.
I was hesitant when I first saw my cousins again after my mother left her boyfriend, their uncle, and we moved away, but my cousin pursued and I relented, “we were family,” after all, my cousin said. I had put all that away after my older cousin told me he loved me and tried to have sex with me. It was just another one of those secrets—it was in the past. I see now it was why I was hesitant to be friends, but I was often accused of not being good to family, bringing things up from the past, so the guilt and pressure were intense at times to get along with all these people that were supposedly my family—then again weren't. My grandmother wanted nothing to do with any of them! I felt in the middle of my mother and grandmother, which made my mother rage for hours. Avoiding her rages was always an ongoing concern. My mother because of this would accuse me and my grandmother of not accepting "The Boys," the boys were always a big deal to my mother who often accused me and my grandmother of "never accepting the boys." The boys were my two 1/2 brothers that I loved and couldn't understand why she always talked about them and then there was me. Boys my mother always said were easier. Girls were awful—I was awful for being a girl. She would get with her girlfriends on the phone all the time and go on about how boys were always easier than girls and "boys will be boys”—whatever the boys did was fine with her and don’t bother her while she was on the phone! They weren't the ones that ruined her life even though she would say kids when she referred to her life being ruined, but it was always inferred it wasn't “The Boys!”
My mother's moods were what made my days heaven or hell. On a good day she would take her nerve pills and not care what I did; shave my legs, get birth control pills, pierce my ears, she could care less! On a bad day, she would rage all day about something, make crazy accusations, and demand answers to questions I had no idea about. Mostly about how kids can ruin your life, not that "The Boys" did and if I didn't like it, the "door swings both ways" and don't let it "hit you in the ass!" She would sometimes throw something if the mood was really bad to make sure I got the point. In some ways, her letting me do things like watch movies was cool. I loved watching movies and it didn't matter the rating as long as I was "out of her hair!"
Then my cousins moved up to Market Street, and I moved to a village a few miles away after those Summers we went to the New Pool swimming and lived closer to each other. We moved often and we would cross paths periodically. My mother and her new boyfriend bought a house. It was a lovely house, had a beautiful English garden, but as soon as my mother moved in she said she hated all the flowers and promptly started to rip them all out. She never had any other ones planted to replace the ones she ripped up but was adamant about hating the ones there. I thought they were all beautiful, but I knew not to say a word, her wrath had only gotten worse as the years went by. She also had become ever more violent as I applied to colleges and the flowers really enraged her. I couldn't believe what she was doing, but she was determined to tear them all out. She would spend time ripping them all apart and then leaving these gaping holes in the ground. What she was going to plant she never decided. It was like watching a death. I felt awful about the lady up the road, it was her sister who sold us the house and had lived here. I wondered what she thought of all the years her sister planted these beautiful flowers all in their full bloom and having them all ripped out. I imagined she was sad about it like I was, but no one ever said a word. You did not tell my mother what to do about anything even if it was absurd, especially if it was absurd. My mother eventually got the idea she was going to put a pool in, so that took care of the reason for all the flowers in the backyard being killed, but the front was a mess of dirt and large empty holes where shrubs and flowers used to be. She then decided she would have a Porch sale to raise money for the pool.
"Here's the receipt," she said and shoved it into my hand after telling me to carry out the Pool ladder she just bought—"let's go," she said, it's all paid for! I didn't see her check-out, I had been looking in another aisle and did what I was told. "Just keep walking!" she said in that voice I knew not to question. I didn't know she was even going to buy a pool ladder, but I was nervous and worried about driving anyway. I had recently got my learner's permit license and could drive with someone at 15yrs old. I was so excited and nervous and not too focused on her like I usually was anticipating her every move. She could be happy one minute and raging the next, taking her "nerve pills" more and more these days. "Ma'am Ma'am," the clerk called following us out into the parking lot. "Just keep going," my mother said. "Get into the car," she said, but as I fumbled for the keys I realized in horror I left them in the visor where they always put them and I locked the door. I was told to always lock the door, but also to put the keys where my mother and her boyfriend kept them—up in the visor. The two directives didn't work well together.
We had to go to the office and talk to the manager and a while later we were allowed to leave. They talked for a while and my mother told me it would be dropped. My mother wasn't concerned, it wasn't a big deal. I was upset by then realizing the store manager thought we stole the ladder and I knew that wasn't true. I knew I didn't steal it and thought for sure my mother never did either. 30 years later, standing in front of a vicious Judge sneering at me calling me a "Juvenile delinquent" who had stolen a pool ladder and was going to make me homeless by putting me on the street from my 20yr home because of it. I had done nothing in my 20yr marriage and stealing this pool ladder was proof—it had started my life of crime and delinquency and he was going to make sure I paid for it. Why my divorce was his concern I was yet to understand. Why was the city court involved and why the pool ladder?
I was accepted to the few colleges I applied to shortly after that, choosing one downstate. I had dreamed of California but the logistics just wasn't something I could do on my own. My mother had always told me in no uncertain terms anything involving school was not her thing—she was not one of those PTA mothers! I often had to explain to the school why certain papers weren't signed or things weren't turned in if they needed her input, but after a while they just didn't bother, which I came to appreciate, dealing with her tantrums about school was just not worth it, especially because there were just so many other tirades she would go on about as she would put on the record player and blast D-I-V-O-R-C-E by Tammy Wynette and I just knew there were so many other more scary things that would send her over the edge. School papers were one of those things I could deal with. I got good at explaining things to my teachers and they would just let it go. They were more interested in me explaining why my 1/2 siblings had different last names and as I explained they would just move the papers she had to sign along, the questions about what name she would sign became more interesting. There were just no kids like me. I would sing along to Harper Valley PTA and pretend my mother was just too cool for school. She was just too modern to come to the school and deal with the school board that all had "skeletons in their closets," which always seemed pretty scary to me and you didn't question these stories about skeletons. Mostly it was very grown-up and bad, so just leave her alone—you ruined her life.
I wasn't ready for college she would yell. I thought I was high and mighty for going and after one of her violent rages, locked me out of the house one night, but I was secretly thrilled to go and so glad when I finally boarded the bus to leave. College wasn't something poor people did, because there were people with degrees that ended up working at McDonald's. I was never sure why this was so bad, but it was like all the one-liners quipped to shut down any meaningful conversation the idea that you don't need a degree to work there and often it didn't matter if you had a degree you ended up not being able to get a job or you could only get the jobs everyone else got anyway, so why bother. The idea being you must think you're something for wanting to go, someone who thought themselves better than other people and why would you want to do that?—smart people have no common sense, they would all tell me. My cousin had just dropped out of school and was working on her GED, which became more important news than me going to college.
Riding the bus home was another reason I was getting so tired of high school. “Having a sale Rhonda?” the cute older brother of one of my friends would say each day and get all the other kids laughing. Clothes by this time were strewn across the porch; wet, dirty, moldy. I would often try to clean them up, but my mother would rage and then add more to show me no one was going to tell her what to do, certainly not miss high and mighty like me. "You're just like your grandmother!" she would rage, you have to have everything just so. Then she would hurl an ashtray or whatever happened to be within her reach to make sure I got her point.
I was studying photography by this time and fell in love with Photographers like Diane Arbus, the idea of those of us that were freaks, I felt like a freak myself—someone different. Her photographs moved me and inspired me to be alright with being different. Clara was one of the kinds of people that Arbus photographed, but she didn't like me when I came to visit I was told. I was told often that people liked my cousin, but not me. I wasn't sure why Clara didn't like me, but she was like those little people that Arbus photographed and I just accepted that maybe it was hard for her, and I was glad that my cousin had the company in that awful battleship gray kitchen with her little daughter.
As my mother ripped up all the plants around the house, my cousin and Clara were planning all these starter plants around her apartment, it seemed to cheer them up. They were everywhere, these tiny clippings that looked like they were going to die, but she and Clara were sure they would mature up to full adult plants. They looked too small to me, not watered and drying out or over-watered and limping almost dead, but they were both so into it that I was glad. It was around this time I was told that she couldn't go out to bars with me. I used to love to go dancing and seeing a band, but now that she was a mother "chasing guys," was not something she could do even though I wanted to. The subtle implication was there even though I couldn't figure out why she thought I wanted to chase guys, but it was more she said that she got asked out too much and now that she and her husband were back together he was getting sick of it. It made sense, I thought, especially because she was blond and blue-eyed she said and guys found it hard to resist her. I knew better than to question her, she would get quiet and upset. I learned as a little girl not to do that because I would then have to leave because she would refuse to visit. After driving all the way to see her on my bike as a kid or later an hour in the car, I wanted to avoid the hassle. I would talk to her periodically from college and she would go on and on about the parties they went to and the bands they saw and it was too bad that I had missed such a good time, but to question her was pointless. I would be blamed for not getting along with my family.
My cousin was like my mother in that way, I just knew not to question her, or she would refuse to do what she had just agreed to a few minutes ago. Things like ride bikes, go to the pool, get ice cream. This of course was after I went to the store for her numerous times to get what she needed to go anywhere; shampoo, conditioner, color to highlight her hair, which by this time she was doing all the time. It used to look pretty cool, but now she was getting worried she was overdoing it and it did seem like it was becoming too much, but she had to have that little Clariol box of goodies. It seemed mysterious to me, but she and my mother were obsessed with hair and so it was just another thing I accepted. She would spread out all the little plastic items and magically be done in a few minutes, ready to go, blond sunny highlights and she would be happy. My grandmother had owned her own shop, going to Beauty school back in the day was also a big deal for women, but my grandmother said my grandfather rushed the business and pushed too hard—too much too soon as men are apt to do. They closed the shop after a short time. It was so cool going there as a little girl and seeing my gram having her own shop. Everyone was always doing hair. My mother preferred her friend's daughter to do her "french twist," she did it better than I did, she said. Doing hair wasn't my thing even though she was always giving me these hairdos that she said looked like Shirley Temple but I felt more like I looked like a little old lady.
Clara stayed away when I came, I knew somehow it was because of me, I was the one who could get my cousin in trouble for going out. I didn't question this, I was sure Clara didn't go out. I was outnumbered as was often the case. My cousin would wrinkle up her nose and tell me that Clara was you know a "midget," I wasn't sure what a midget was, I had just met Clara and something already felt strange, but mostly it was because they were both talking about me and I didn't realize it but sensed it after my cousin told me she told Clara all about me. Clara would then see me and hide, disappearing back into her apartment which gave her sort of an odd presence anyway. I wondered how she lived, could she even get up and down the stairs, but asking too many questions always got me laughed at as if I just didn't understand. I was often treated that way because I was younger and it was always like I just didn’t get things, especially after my cousin got pregnant. Her being a mother solidified the idea that she was just much more mature than me and let me know all the time that being a mother was far more important. I thought so too and didn’t question this. I had been babysitting all the time and my mother always babysat her friends kids, so I wasn’t in any hurry to have kids, especially because I wanted to go to college. I knew it was hard work and children demanded all your time and attention. They complained all the time about it, but didn’t want to do anything else.
"I'm the president," she would say whenever we played together because it's my house. I was the artist and would get my choice of colored pencils, but she had control of all of them. We would sit in the cold dining room, where her mother kept the heat very low and we would sit at the long dining table planning our adventures. We were going to put on plays and this is how she decided to divide up the chores. I just wanted to dance and do art, so having her be the boss was part of the routine I didn't question. As the years went by, she usually assumed this position. She had film for her camera, a $20 bill her mother would toss her while reading her magazines and basically tell us to leave her alone. I had to wait to save up babysitting money or from summer jobs and had to pay for my shampoo, clothes and save for things like my bike, skis, and anything else I wanted. So my cousin always had the extra cash to buy things like film and that made her the boss. She never really spent it on me, but it was always inferred, just like why her legs were prettier because they had a space between them—it just was. Mine used to, but around puberty, I started to develop an eating disorder. I used to be a lot smaller, she would often stretch out my clothes after borrowing them—she always had to borrow my clothes, but now I was gaining weight and I was glad in some ways. I didn't want to chase boys, be pregnant—I wanted to go to college. Food around this time was also a hassle with my mother.
The term midget isn't really used now. Clara just wasn't the type she wanted to be friends with, but because her life had become so hard this was what she had to do and it was even worse because I was off partying at school all the time, but she was a mother now and could not do that. She had to clean which she hated and also to cook which she hated even more and she was stuck with Clara, she would say. It was the same with the girl who threatened to beat me up in 5th grade all Summer long until one day I couldn't avoid her and when she went to grab me I punched her in the nose. "You broke my nose," she screamed as blood ran down her nose. My best friend at the time took my arm and said let's get out of here and we left.
So my cousin was now babysitting for her too. She had a daughter and another little girl that belonged to her new husband after the guy she was seeing locked her in the attic one too many times. They were all getting together while I was off partying at school they said. I was surprised when I visited and here they were friends, but like everything else, I just had to accept. Everyone knew all you did was party at school. My mother also stopping by bringing bags of pretty fancy party dresses for my cousin's daughter. She was carrying around these bags more and more full of new items from the local stores, but the bags were dirty and ripped and it was becoming obvious she was stealing them, but it was hard to imagine asking my mother if this was what she was really doing. Pretty Holly Hobby Posters, numerous ones, so many there weren't enough walls to display them all she gave to my cousin who went on and on about Holly Hobby. My mother would go on and on about having no money and yet how could she afford all these pretty dresses and posters. She was working 2 jobs now, there was no more welfare, my 1/2 sister was going to school now. We never saw her, she was either at the Mill making “Cabbage Patch” dolls or at the restaurant. Her boyfriend said she didn't have to work the night job at the restaurant being a dishwasher, but my mother said she hated being home. I felt bad for my 1/2 sister, she always wanted to sit by my mother when she came home, but my mother would fall asleep or be lost in needing her nerve pills. I learned not to ask too many questions, "Si" she would say whenever asked anything, her eyes glazed over, high as a kite because kids ruined her life—my sister curled up so close always forlorn.
I didn't equate being high with my mother. I was smoking a little pot with my cousin, but my mother being high never crossed my mind. “I don't drink!” she would say all the time. “Your father drank!” she would rage and of course her boyfriend drank, but he went to sleep she would say. Your father would start in and I knew she could quickly go into one of her rages so I would stay quiet—staying quiet often saved me. I never knew what she meant by “start in,” but according to her it was pretty bad, as bad as wearing lingerie, which got her even angrier. I could never figure out why wearing pretty things was so bad.
Her new boyfriend's sister lived in the back of the house my parents move into. It was my father's parent's house. She was married a year and then left him, my 1/2 brother born soon after. Her new boyfriend didn't drink, but she never let me not know that my father drank. I had always loved my Dad and missed him. I loved that he was in a band and I liked going along with him and listening to him play dreaming one day to play with him on stage. I was in a lot of plays in grade school, but by the time high school came I was getting too self-conscious, and after being denied entry into the honor society for a technicality, a new high school was being built and they told me 9th graders had to wait, we were now part of the high school. It didn't make sense to me, but by this time I knew having connections was what it was about and I had none. I was bored and agreed to get high with my cousin. A short time later she was pregnant and honor society seemed silly, even if I knew I had the grades to be accepted, it just didn't matter what they thought. I liked doing well in school, but there were always other things to learn too.
"You think too much," my mother would get everyone going at dinner to tell me. They would all sit around and laugh and chime in. My 1/2 brothers being egged on by my mother—it was them and then there was me. I was always the different one. Eating became a war zone. I hated to eat with everyone by this time because it became hard to eat and deal with the bullying and put-downs about things like thinking too much. Thinking too much wasn't a good thing, as bad as reading too much which I did all the time. I would often be told to just move on to something else. "That's in the past," my mother would say. Things were always thought about too much or they were in the past, so I needed to let them go. My mother would move from one thing to the next and it would be over before it started. She would try things and lose interest and not want to do them anymore. She liked to go fishing with her new boyfriend and I would often stay home, do all the chores I had to do then enjoy my time alone to create or listen to music. I would often clean up the rummage sales on the porch at least to let the clothes dry. She would get angry, but she was angry all the time or she would just say "Si," if asked anything, which was preferable to the violence. I always felt bad for her and believed her when she would yell that if she didn't have kids she could have really done something with her life. Having children was doing something with your life, but saying anything like that would get a cast-iron pan sailing by my head. Having children as a great thing a woman did with her life was something you said in public, but it wasn’t true.
I wonder if Clara is still around somewhere, probably not. I imagine she was older then than I remember. She liked the bee-hive hairdos like my mother and my cousin's mother liked. Their hair was always teased. She dressed like my cousin's mother too. It was the 70s and groovy polyester bell-bottom suits were in for older women, matching jackets and pantsuits they would call them. They would spend so much time teasing their hair. I never liked to tease my hair, it always took too long to comb out and hurt pulling out all the knots, but I did get a perm. Long waves of wild curls like Stevie Nicks, wandering around the streets taking pictures being told not to think too much.
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