On Being Held Accountable

I could never have imagined they would take it quite so hard.  After all, aren’t we entitled to certain allowances in our reckless youth?

What I really wanted to imagine-however delusional, mind you-was that they wouldn’t find out.  At least not until the whole affair was ancient history.  Folly!

And why, I’ll never understand, do one’s parents insist on visiting on a Sunday morning?  There ought to be a law.

I can still hear their words, and a harsher tone I hope I never have to hear again. “ We are VERY, VERY disappointed in you!”  And then a haze of more words…most of them rather unkind. Please don’t ask me to repeat them.

It’s not my fault the whole gang decided to gather at the club on Saturday night.  By the time I arrived, the merriment was well under way.  What was I supposed to do?  I joined them, of course.  I don’t have a rude bone in my body.

But “if only.”   I have a few of those.

If only there hadn’t been quite so much merriment-and  a particular song hadn’t been played.   A song that always turns me into a beast.

If only I hadn’t kicked a policeman on the shin.  (And insulted his mustache.)

If only I had been able to outdistance him. Even limping, he covered  the pavement with alarming speed.

( At least the judge let me off with a warning-this time.)

If only I’d had the foresight to destroy the evidence after reading about myself in the paper this morning.

If only, if only, if only…

But I left the offending newspaper, dissected into various sections, scattered about my apartment-the front page on the sofa.

And that front page-with its incriminating headline- practically shouted hello as my parents took a seat.

If only.

A Matter of Circumstance

I was always so jealous of her.  She was everything that defined my idea of “ideal.”  Everything I wanted to be, but wasn’t.  She had an older brother.  So much older, in fact, that he had already left home several years ago to join the navy while she was still in high school.  Handsome in his uniform, and far off in some exotic place fighting in the war, he made her the envy of her friends.  Myself included.  Imagine, having a brother like that!

How was I supposed to know…

Just a few weeks ago she had written him a letter, and she had gushed on so, in her letter, about nothing in particular.  The letter she now held in her hands,  returned and marked “undeliverable”- mocking  her with it’s happiness, and hope, and optimism.

Her returned letter was to be followed, a month later by a telegram.  Answering some questions, but leaving others in it’s wake.  Questions that had no answers within her reach.  Questions that threatened to break her heart, with eventual answers that would break her heart.

How could I tell…

Her initial pain had subsided after a while, along with the shock, but it had been replaced by a dull ache that seemed to saturate her body.  And then-a new emotion.  One she had not counted on, and was with her constantly.

Jealousy.  What small and fragile spark of joy the news of her brother’s death had left in her,  jealousy threatened to extinguish.  It wasn’t fair, she told herself, that there were other brothers, in other families, who had returned home from the war, and were now resuming their normal  lives with their loved ones.    A luxury her own brother was to be denied.

So unbearable was this unfairness, and so consuming was her jealousy, that she avoided everyone.   She avoided me.

Because, as perfect and enviable as I may have thought she was-and as much as I wanted to be like her,  I had something she didn’t have. 

My brother.

How was I to ever to believe…

That she could be jealous of me.

More than Enough

She is full.  She feels like she will burst if she eats even one more bite, but still.  Her plate is not clean yet.

“It’s hardly worth dirtying a leftover container,” she tells herself by way of an excuse, but really, out of a sense of necessity, she forces the last few bites of food down her throat.

It wasn’t always this way.  More than once, she felt the gnawing ache of hunger in her stomach.  More than once she went without food so that her children could eat, and even then sometimes, they’d gone without eating too. And burning with humiliation, even all these years later, she remembers that more than once she had to rely on the generosity of others to feed her family.  She laughs.  Generosity indeed.  Often she had to take handouts that were practically garbage, and act grateful about it too.  

These days, she has plenty of food.  She always makes sure that her cupboards are full, and she hides packages of cookies, or bags of candy here and there, just to be safe.

No one who visits her can ever accuse her of sending a person away hungry.  She keeps three tins in her kitchen- perpetually full of baked goods.  And when you sit down for a meal at her table, you are guaranteed to be well fed.  This “light” cooking and eating trend  is for the birds, in her opinion.

Always on the lookout for new menu ideas, she often peruses her large collection of cookbooks, and she cuts out interesting recipes from her women's’ magazines.  Her favorite topic of conversation is food-and she is eager to hear about the dishes her friends have prepared, anxious to try them herself. 

70 some years may be a long time in the past, but her memories of those leaner days are still as fresh in her mind as the loaf of bread she has just baked.  Even now, living a life of plenty, the specter of starvation she faced during the Depression is always with her.

“Don’t waste!” it admonishes her.

“The day could come again when you will have only potatoes to eat!”  it reminds her.

“You just never know!”

A clean plate.  Not an empty plate.  She can appreciate the difference.

The Right One

A fifty dollar car was a fifty dollar car.  She didn’t expect anything more.  She paid the salesman with several well worn bills and slid into the driver’s seat of the sorely neglected 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline.  “Piece of junk.” she muttered.  “Just get me where I need to go.” And she yawned, as if the whole car buying experience was one big bore.  Taking her gum out of her mouth, she stuck it under the dash and put the key in the ignition.

The salesman had referred to the car as lazy.  “It doesn’t seem to have much get up and go.”  But it made no difference to her.  Once she reached California, she planned to stop at the first junk yard she saw.

Putting her hand in her pocket, she pulled out a Snicker’s bar, and throwing the wrapper on the floor, stuffed the entire bar in her mouth in two bites.  Her fingers sticky with chocolate, she clutched the steering wheel and eased out of the parking lot.

About three blocks into the drive, light rain began to fall and she switched on the windshield wipers.  After one lethargic pass over the glass-they stopped working.  Coupled with the radio, which seemed to fade every time she found a station playing the easy listening music she favored, she was beginning to understand why the salesman had referred to the car as lazy.

Gliding through a red light four blocks from the starting point- Ajax Budget Auto, the ancient heap backfired twice and died. 

Needless to say, before the day was over, the Fleetline sat, once again, in the used car lot.

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A week later,  just when the salesman was about to call a tow truck to take the Fleetline away, a young girl appeared.  As she gazed over the assortment of cars for sale, her eyes fell on the old Chevrolet and you could see it was love at first sight.

“How much?” she asked, nodding in the direction of the aging car.  Her heart was racing, hoping the 100 dollars in her pocket was enough for her first car-the car of her dreams. 

“50 bucks.   But trust me.  You don’t want that old clunker.  It’s lazy.”

“But she’s the most beautiful car I’ve ever seen in my life.”  said the girl.  “They don’t make them like that any more.  Besides, I’m in the auto shop program over at Grant High.  I’ll fix her right up.”  And walking over to the Fleetline, the girl pulled a bandana from her pocket, and lovingly started to polish the chrome.

“Tell you what.  You can have it for $25.  Call it my contribution to the future mechanics of America.”

As the girl climbed in and started her new car up, it roared to life- the windshield wipers working  furiously back and forth while the radio blared Ella Fitzgerald’s  “My Happiness.”

The look of surprise on the salesman’s face was matched only by the look of  utter bliss on the girl’s as she drove away.

Lazy?  Not at all.  The Fleetline had only been napping- waiting for her princess to come.

Henry’s Girl

Henry Miller, in his bedroom, had almost finished  packing.  Almost.  If it hadn’t been for first his sister, sidling up and giving him a picture of herself, and extracting a promise from him to mention her to his new army friends at Camp Shelby, followed next by Henry’s mother, sniffling in noisily, with a family photo to give to Henry,  so that he would feel less homesick once he had left, and finally Henry’s father, clearing his throat as he entered Henry’s room and reminding  his son to send a picture home-when Henry was all dressed up in his uniform-Henry would be packed and ready to leave.

The Greyhound bus that would take Henry part of the way from Albany, Oregon to Camp Shelby, Mississippi left at noon.  It seemed like only yesterday that he’d gotten his draft notice, informing him of the day he was to report for basic training.  And now that day had nearly arrived.  Henry placed the two photos inside his wallet and shoved it  into the front pocket of his dungarees.  The front pocket, his mother had insisted, where it would be safe from all of the potential muggers and pickpockets he might encounter along the way-especially in big cities like Kansas City.

Henry  loved his family.  Henry was proud of his family.  That went without saying.  But as he boarded the bus in a flurry of hugs, promises to write and tears that could no longer be held back, he had a secret desire.  It wasn’t a picture of his sister, or even his family that he wished to keep safely in his wallet, ready to show off.  It was a picture of a real live girl.

The first hour of the trip was uneventful.  Henry read The Blitz Grinders comic book he’d brought along, and ate two of the six sandwiches his mother had packed for him.  He dozed for the next hour, the motion of the bus lulling him to sleep  like a rocking chair.   When the Greyhound pulled into the terminal at Boise for a 30 minute leg stretcher, Henry left his seat and with stiff legs climbed down the 3 steps of the bus and followed the travelers ahead of him inside the terminal cafe, choosing to sit on one of the  stools near the counter.  A cheerful voice interrupted his study of the menu.  “Is this seat taken?”  Henry looked up into a pair of questioning brown eyes.  “No.  But it looks like it is now.”  Trying to sound relaxed, Henry’s heart was racing as fast as Seabiscuit rounding the final turn at Santa Anita. 

Her name was Mary Pennington and she was from Long Beach, Washington.  She was on her way to the Naval Air Station in Olathe, Kansas for training with the Navy WAVES.  Henry and Mary made amiable small talk over their coffee for the next 20 minutes until the “All Aboard!” call was sounded.  Mounting the bus steps ahead of Henry, Mary turned and asked shyly  “May I sit with you?  I don’t know anyone else.”  I bet you can guess what Henry's reply was.

For the rest of the trip, as Mary and Henry became better acquainted, an idea was brewing in Henry’s mind, if only he could work up the courage to voice it.  “May I take your picture?”  The question was out before Henry had time to reconsider.  “You see, I don’t have a girl, but I wish I did, and if I had your picture I could pretend and show it off to the other guys, and well, you know…”  His voice trailed off as though both his idea, and his courage had run out of steam.  “Of course.  I’d be flattered!”  Mary replied almost too quickly.  “And I will write to you if you like.  I don’t have a fella, and it would be nice to pretend that I do, you know.  Something to talk about with the other girls.” Henry hardly knew what to say, but he was starting to think quite a lot of Mary.  Digging  into his suitcase, he fished out his camera.  Mary smiled, and Henry took her picture. “Perfect!”   Henry exclaimed happily.  And then  reaching into the front pocket of his dungarees, he pulled out his wallet. 

“Now, would you like to see some pictures of my family?”

The Dragonfly

Ida found the rain soaked dragonfly in the middle of the road one late summer morning, after a night of drenching showers.  She carried him carefully home to the refuge of her garden, placing his fragile, water soaked body among the leaves and  flowers of her petunia plants.  By all outward appearances, he seemed to be dead, but Ida held out hope anyway.

She had been walking to town that morning on an errand to purchase the few groceries she could afford, when she had spotted the dragonfly.  Struck by his beauty, and aware of his utter helplessness, Ida was, for a brief moment,  torn over what to do.  She needed to buy  food, yet she was unable to leave the poor creature where he lay.

Ida had figured correctly.  Her husband was more than a little displeased when she returned home empty handed, and he made no attempt to hide his contempt for her decision.  More pressing matters were at stake, he felt compelled to remind her, than rescuing half drowned insects.  As though she needed reminding.   There was never enough food.  There were never enough clothes that were decent enough to wear.  Never enough work to be found, and never enough money.  Ida silently added another  “never" of her own to the list:  Never enough words of comfort on her part to buoy the spirits of a man who seemed so determined to be miserable.  Heaven knew she had tried.

As desperate as Ida was to escape from under the layers of despair that blanketed  her life and start fresh, she knew such a prospect was slim.  So instead, she pinned all of her hopes for a second chance on the dragonfly, who with his iridescent wings and blue green body added color to a world where color, for Ida had drained away.    

All through the remainder of the morning, and into the afternoon and evening, Ida anxiously visited the dragonfly, who continued to rest as his wings dried.   “He looks like he is smiling, the dear little thing.”  Ida thought to herself.  “I hope he is having the most wonderful dream about flying.”

The following morning found the sun rising warmly after a night of clear skies, and Ida ventured outside to check on the dragonfly.  Feeling more of a sense of dread than hope, she tentatively searched among the leaves and blossoms of the petunias, half expecting to find him where she had left him slumbering the night before, only now certainly dead. 

Her heart began to beat wildly as the realization of what she was seeing became clear.

He was gone.

Outward Appearance

The stares.  The whispers.  The pointing, and the comments.   “Freak,”  “weird,” or even “ugly.”  She was used to it.   Her sideshow act,  The Tattooed Lady, toured the country with a  traveling circus.  People came from miles around,  paying good money to gawk at her colorful skin, inked with an array of designs  in a rainbow of colors. 

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She had been an exceptionally beautiful baby.    As she grew into childhood, and then adolescence, her beauty increased, although it hardly seemed possible given that her face was simply stunning to begin with.  Word of  her attractiveness spread, and her parents quickly realized she possessed a face that could be their fortune.   Always dressed  in fine clothes, she was paraded around her town for people to admire, and her looks often stopped the passing traffic of horses and buggies, and occasionally one of the new “horseless carriages.”  Never allowed to play outside, or inside for that matter, she was simply told to sit quietly throughout the day so as not to muss her appearance when curious visitors dropped by to look at her.

When she reached the age where girls begin to dream about their weddings, her parents seized the great opportunity that lay before them- to see to it that their daughter, with her gorgeous face, might win the affections of a rich and socially powerful young man, and marry into his family.  At many parties and dances, she was presented to a myriad of eligible bachelors.   Indeed, the right men were drawn to her because of her great beauty, and it did not take long for her to realize that her beauty brought out the very worst qualities in her would be suitors.  Qualities like jealousy, possessiveness, and distrust.

At the age of 20, she simply packed her small suitcase one early morning and slipped away unseen.  She was headed for San Francisco.  (That very evening, her parents were to announce her engagement at a lavish dinner party, having found an ideal match for her.)   Walking along a seedy street down by the waterfront her first day in town, she found herself standing in front of a tattoo parlor.  Her curiosity winning out over her apprehension, she went in.

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In all the times, over the years, that she appeared as the Tattooed Lady, not once, as far as she could tell, did anyone seem to notice her face.