assignment #2:
recreate a day that shifted something in a family. this may involve a secret being made or revealed. you may draw from your own or a known family story. Feel free to alter events and character to your own purposes.
draft one (not yet done, very much in the process, ending not complete):
Two things happened in the summer of 1976: my mother went crazy and I met Sandy. I met Sandy while bumming around my best friend Bill’s place. She lived across the street and spent her afternoons listlessly lollygagging around on her front porch, dangling her long skinny legs over the edge. One muggy Alabama afternoon Bill and I were ___ and she slinked across the street and up Bill’s sidewalk to return an incorrectly delivered piece of mail. To this day I’m not sure what happened after that, what kind of universal forces had to click together to make things the way they were, but I was enamored.
My mother had spent the past nine months mourning the loss of my sister Debbie to college. She was never the same after Deb left. There were good days and bad days. On the good days we would sit in the living room watching the baseball games. She was more enthusiastic about sports than most women. I loved watching her stand up and scream at the TV, then turn to me and say, “Do any of those umps have brains in their lousy heads?” On the good days I would wake up to the smell of sausage gravy in the skillet. On the good days I saw her kiss my father when he came in at seven in the morning from the night shift at the paper mill. All the good days in the world could not make up for one bad day. As if a switch had been flicked off in her head, she would become blank and expressionless. She spent days upon days in her bedroom with the curtains closed. She refused to eat and refused to acknowledge the existence of the world around her.
During the summer of 1976, my mother’s behavior became increasingly bazaar. No longer did she spend days upon weeks alone in her bedroom, but rather she decided to take her delusions out to the public. In the past, my father and I were able to keep a low profile concerning her behavior. We could always excuse missed tea dates or bridal showers or church functions with the old, “Well Dorothy’s so sorry she could not make it tonight she’s just not feeling very well.” Of course it was the stereotypical bullshit excuse, but in it’s own twisted way it was the truth. Now my mother had decided to come out of her bat cave of gloom and doom. She wanted to take charge of her life, rid herself of negative energies in her life and become a new woman.
She began by decorating the outside of our house. She started by planting some hideously huge flowers in the yard. She peppered pink plastic flamingos all over the grass. Her final touch was to paint our front door an atrocious shade of lima bean green. I watched out my bedroom window as the neighbors stared in disgust at her curbside creation. She stopped going to church because the pastor’s wife was not in attendance at Deb’s graduation party last year, and apparently she never shared her regrets about not making it with my mother. I’m pretty sure she was on a mission trip with the junior high kids, but my mother didn’t care too much for excuses.
She began to dress lavishly and out of character. If she wasn’t to be found in the house, chances were she was out shopping for a new ensemble. She filled every square inch of Deb’s room with racks and shelves of clothing. When she ran out of room she began stacks on the floor. You could hardly even walk into the room anymore. She showed up at the grocery store in a gold lame evening gown. She attended the annual community picnic in a purple chiffon number. Worst of all, she showed up to my baseball game in a raspberry pink satin ball gown. I tried to look the other way as if I had no idea who this crazy lady was, but I lived in a small town, there was no way of escaping the truth or at least everyone else’s version of it. My theory was always that my mother decided that as long as she was anyone but herself, maybe she wouldn’t have to be so sad anymore.
It did not take me long to know I loved Sandy. Bill got a job stocking the shelves at the corner market, so I began to join Sandy on her listless afternoon porch sits. We talked about things. She told me all about her life and her friends and her family. I told her the superficial details of my family life. I could tell she knew I was skipping over so many important things. She never said anything about it, but I could just tell by the widened questioning look in her eyes that she hungered for more information. One of her sisters would yell at her out the window that she needed to come sweep up the kitchen. She would roll her eyes and tell me that she would do anything to get away from her family and out of this small town. I never said it for fear of more questions, but I felt exactly the same way.
We spent long lazy afternoons at the Wilbee Theater watching the matinee three times over. I began to go to church with her family on Sundays since my mother was boycotting and my father, in his usual passively abiding way, was going along with her delusions. I avoided bringing Sandy home at all costs. On the rare occasions that she did come over, I made sure my mother was gone on one of her shopping excursions, which was sure to take a while. Her house was close enough to walk, but I told her to come in on the side street because I’d be waiting for her in the driveway. I hoped that she couldn’t see any of the little plastic animals in the front yard which had now grown past just flamingos to include see gulls and turtles as well. We would spend the afternoon in the living room watching television and then before my mother came back I would make up some lame excuse to rush her out of the house. I didn’t want her to go, but for my sake I knew she had to. I was too embarrassed to show Sandy the way things really were for me.
A week before school was to start again, I woke up to the sound of the record player gushing with sound. Some classical piece by some composer that I didn’t care to know about was reverberating throughout our house. I stuck my head out my bedroom door to see my mother rushing down the hall at a quickened pace with handfuls of her outlandish clothing. She had streams of mascara diluted by tears running down her face. I silently followed her through the living room and out the front door where I watched her thrust the contents of her hands out onto the grass amidst the zoo of fake animals. I saw that my father, looking quite __ from being awoken out of his sleep, was standing on the edge of the porch, looking silently overwhelmed and unsure of what to do. I didn’t have to talk to him to know that nothing had caused this outburst, it was just my mother slipping back into her bad days. My mother bumped my shoulder as she burst her way back through our lima bean door in search of more goods to throw out. My father returned inside unsure of his next move as I took a seat on the swing.
I never understood why she was this way. Her behavior followed no plan, it was totally unpredictable and unexplainable. There was nothing any of us could do to help her. I sat staring into the already muggy Alabama morning and began to notice an approaching figure in the distance. My mother rushed by with another load of dresses and wigs and vampy stockings as the violins swelled to a musical apex inside. It did not take me long to realize that the approaching figure was Sandy. What was she doing here? We had no plans today, and she had never just appeared at my house without warning like this, and today of all days was not the day to be doing so. I rushed out into the yard past the turtles and sunhats and seagulls and floral skirts to the street to meet Sandy. By this time my mother had sprawled herself out on the grass and was flailing her arms, ripping up the grass and tearing the closest articles of clothing as the violins wailed inside.
I hoped that as I found my way to Sandy she might not be able to hear my mother’s screaming sobs and that she might not find it odd that classical music was playing louder than classical music had ever been played in the background, but I could tell by the look on her face she knew something was going on. As I met her in the street she walked right past me until she was standing dead center in front of our house. I watched in horror at what was happening and in fear of what might come next as her eyes poked from point to point of this bazaar scene. I saw her glance back at the lima bean door, then to the plastic animals, the outlandish outfits and finally stopping on my mother, who by now had reduced her sobs to low pitiful murmurs and her flailing and ripping to simply burying her face in the grass. My father stepped out the front door and walked up to my mother. He noticed Sandy’s presence and gave us both a nod as he helped my mother up and back into the house. I turned to Sandy.
“Look, I think I should explain all this.”
“I came here because I was wondering if you wanted to go down to the river with me today.”
*needs some work, but im happy. we'll see what happens
