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I look in the mirror and watch my eyes flicker
like a dying light. I can almost see the crosses as they must appear
to others. I weather the last of the snorts and chuckles and feel
the familiar ache eating at my insides. I open the medicine cabinet
and grab one of the bottles of Pepto-Bismol. I unscrew the cap and
take a swig. My tongue doesn't thank me, but I know my stomach will.
I pull as much of the cigarette into me as possible, then fall to
my knees and retch violently into the toilet. The Pepto-Bismol drops
from my hand and sprays across the linoleum. It bleeds to death
as I retch again. The pain in my tongue turns white-hot. And then
it all goes black.
I dream I am young again. I look around
and recognize the ordered pattern of my Mother's garden. Her pets
are all lined up in alphabetical order and each plot has a two by
eight card with the name of its guest neatly printed above the date
on which it had been buried alive. The date she expects them to
dig free is penciled in on the bottom right of the card, and all
of it is preserved under a clear, plastic cover pulled taut. The
precise moment they gasp fresh air is entombed in one of her journals
and garnished with notes. Her predictions are not always right,
but she is never more than a couple days off. After all, she has
twenty years of statistical data to back her up, and to stand as
evidence of her gardening skill, she has won more than one blue
ribbon at country fairs.
The rebirth, as she calls it, is
not the only time she writes down observations. She sits in her
weathered, yellow, fold-up chair and watches and records. Anything
and everything, Monday through Saturday, from dawn until dusk. She
has volumes and volumes of journals. I have read some of them and
found most of it to be unintelligible. Had my Mother discovered
me, she probably would have gouged my eyes out. |
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My Mother would
take Sundays off, just long enough to hustle me off to Mass. She never
considered it her place to be in a Church, but she wanted me to grow
up understanding God. She always felt close to Him when she was in
the garden. I think He may have talked to her there. There
was one morning when the Sun raced my Mother to the garden and won.
My father had been at our house the night before and kept her company
while the Moon sauntered through the sky. When she finally awoke,
I heard her frantically throwing on clothes and pulling herself down
the hallway. She tottered to the kitchen table, then pushed off from
there to the screen door that opened to her solace.
But that was where my Mother stopped.
I joined her and watched her nails slip into her palms and take on
a color she associated with whores. She stood still for a few moments
until at last, her hands unfurled and wept in anger. At first, I didn't
see what she was staring at, but then I knew. A large, fat rabbit
was entrenched in her garden, gnawing on the few children that had
worked their way to salvation. I did not understand her anger, but
realized the frustration this creature caused her. My hands mimicked
my Mother's and a column of crescent moons marched across my palms.
She scanned the room, eyes finally
settling on a heavy, crystal bourbon tumbler my father had left on
the kitchen table. She snatched it up and measured its weight in her
hand.
"You want to free my pets?" Her voice
questioned the rabbit as the glass bounced in her hand. "You want
to help them escape? You want to help them cheat?" She turned the
glass upside down and let the melted ice wash her hand of sin. The
weight of the glass sunk into her palm and its heaviness tugged at
the tendons in her arms.
"I'll teach you to steal from me!" And
with that she ran wildly at the door. Momentum kicked the screen out
of her way and she windmilled the tumbler through the air. As it somersaulted |
