Call Me Tuesday (11 page)

23

Around lunchtime, on a Saturday, Mama brought me a plate, and on it was a huge slab of the hog jowl she used to season beans and turnip greens.

Even though I was starving, the mere sight of the hog jowl with its dense, yellow fat, encased in thick, bristly skin, repulsed me. But when she went and got the flyswatter, and stood over me with the wire end poised in the strike position, I knew I had no choice but to eat it.

I stabbed it with my fork, and put the entire piece into my mouth in an attempt to swallow it whole and avoid the taste and texture of the fat. But the bulk of it got stuck in my throat, and my body rejected it, and it plopped back onto the plate. I then tried to cut it with my fork, but it was too tough, so I removed and ate the rubbery outer layer of skin, only to have it come back up too, the bristles scraping my throat along the way.

Finally, after a half hour of chewing and throwing up, and chewing and more throwing up, Mama standing over me the entire time, I was able to get the hog jowl down.

For supper the same day, she brought me another plate of food. This time it was the good stuff—fried chicken, mashed potatoes, pinto beans, and cornbread.

I wanted to dig right in, but I knew better. After so many episodes of either being forced to eat something gross, or finding strange things planted in my food and drink, I was left to face the hurtful truth: even a seemingly kind act from her most likely had a covert cruel intention.

As I ate, I prodded around with my fork. The food seemed fine, but I noticed she was watching my every move, which made me suspect something was up.

When I had the last bite of mashed potatoes in my mouth, I felt a hard object scrape against my teeth. With my tongue I rolled it around, trying to figure out what it was. It was about half an inch long, and ovular, and tasted metallic. I had no idea.

The object was small enough to swallow, but something told me not to, so I slipped it under my tongue, and continued eating until I had finished all my food, and then put down my fork.

Puzzled, Mama took the empty plate from me. She lifted and checked under the fork, and then darted her eyes back to me. “Where is the bullet?”

It
’
s a bullet!
“What bullet?” I asked innocently.

“Open your mouth,” she demanded. “Lift your tongue.”

As I lifted my tongue, I allowed the bullet to slide out, and then nestled it between my teeth and jaw. Somehow, she missed it.

“You ate a bullet, you stupid bitch, you stupid,
stupid
bitch!”

I’m the stupid one? You’ve got nothing better to do with your time than to feed your kid a bullet in some mashed potatoes, and I’m stupid?

As if she had heard what I was thinking, she slapped me solid across the face. Then she turned and walked away, disappearing into the kitchen.

I could hear her opening and shutting cabinet doors, shuffling cooking utensils around in the drawers, and then the rhythmic ping, ping, ping, of a spoon hitting against a glass, like she was mixing something.

When she emerged from the kitchen, she was carrying a jelly jar filled to the brim with a mustard-color concoction. With her free hand, she grabbed the hair at the base of my head and led me through the kitchen and down to the basement.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, she pushed the jelly jar into my face. “Drink this,” she said.

I took the mixture from her and drank. I expected it to taste much worse, but it was pleasant, compared to some of the other stuff she’d forced on me. It was made of mustard, with hot sauce, and maybe some vinegar. Whatever it was, it must have been something meant to induce vomiting, because I lost my supper halfway through the glass. While I was throwing up, I managed to keep the bullet under my tongue.

When my stomach was empty, Mama went to the kitchen and got a butter knife. She then stooped down in front of me and used the knife to prod around in the slimy bits of chicken and beans and cornbread I had thrown up.

In a twisted way, I enjoyed those few moments she was at my feet, on her knees, poking around in my vomit.

She poked and poked, so intent on finding the bullet, I was fearful that if she didn’t come across it soon, she might split my gut open next. I decided to release it from my mouth, as if I had just thrown it up. As soon as the bullet hit the concrete, she snatched it up like it was a precious jewel. Then she took the remaining mustard mixture from me and without saying a word, stiff-armed me across my jaw.

I lost my balance and stumbled to one side. She got behind me and pushed me forward into the vomit. The palms of my hands, and my knees, smacked against the concrete floor.

“You dumb weasel!” she screamed.

She bent over, and with one of her hands applied pressure to the back of my head, trying to force my face into the vomit. As she pushed me down, I locked my elbows, and resisted her with all my strength. She pressed using her weight. As she shoved, my arms bowed, and I moved closer and closer to the vomit, until the tip of my nose was touching it.

Finally, I couldn’t hold her back any longer, and collapsed. My forehead slammed against the concrete floor, into the slimy mess.

With my face in the vomit, I kept fighting, until I managed to slip loose and raise my head again. She grabbed a broom leaning up against the wall and pointed the handle toward me.

I had been hit with the handle of a broom before, plenty of times; I remembered how the thin wood sliced into my skin. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. Down on all fours, I stared at her square in the eyes, like a wild animal ready to attack, vomit dripping from my chin.

She hit me across the back.

I grunted from the pain.

She reared the broom up over her head and hit me a second time, and then a third, and a fourth. Just when I thought I couldn’t take another blow, she gave up.

She went up to the kitchen and got a roll of paper towels. “Clean up this mess!” she said, tossing them down the stairs to me.

I had vomit on my face, and I had just taken a beating, but still I felt like a winner, because for the first time I had been in control of Mama. However brief, the gratification I got from watching her down on her knees sifting through my vomit gave me a sensation of power I had never before experienced, and made me realize how strong I had become, and that I was capable of much more than I knew.

24

No one at school paid much attention to all the bruises up and down my legs and arms. Lots of kids had cuts and bruises from falling down and bumping into things. Mama was careful to whip me with the flyswatter, or a wire hanger, only where my clothes would hide the marks. When occasionally she lost control and busted my lip, or blacked one of my eyes, she kept me home from school until the wounds had healed.

During the school months, her physical attacks were the least of my problems. She had become more creative in her efforts to humiliate me in front of my classmates. She started out the year by making me wear the same dress to school every day. This went on for weeks. When it got old, she chopped my hair into all different lengths, so short in places it stuck straight up like the bristles of a porcupine. Whenever Daddy and my brothers asked her about it, she told them I had cut it myself.

Her manipulation of my appearance ensured that I was a total outcast among my peers. I often heard them whisper—hands cupped around their mouths—as they passed by me in the halls, “There’s the ‘weirdo girl.’”

I did my best to fade into the background. I alienated myself from the other kids and didn’t speak to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. The girls in my class formed cliques and talked about their favorite TV shows and the slumber parties they threw. I had nothing to share, so I thought it was best to keep my mouth shut; that way no one would find out how different I really was.

In a sense I didn’t mind so much being an outcast at school.

It saved me the trouble of having to explain to the other kids why I couldn’t talk on the phone, or invite them over to my house, or tell them why my hair was stubby and my clothes were odd. Friends would have only made my life more complicated than it already was.

Still, in spite of all the humiliation and the loneliness, being in school was much better than being at home. It was nice to sit down in chairs like other people, and to be able to go to the bathroom, or get a drink of water, whenever I needed to.

I was fascinated with the water fountains at school; ice cold water was a luxury I seldom got at home. Each time I passed a fountain in the halls, I could not control the impulse to stop and drink until my stomach protruded.

My favorite part of school was eating in the cafeteria. Food was the only thing that brought me pleasure. But eating lunch at school was not enough, because Mama continued to withhold my suppers, and I was always hungry. Grandma had fattened me up during my summer stay with her, but within months I had lost the weight I’d gained while I was there, and had started to look gaunt. My face was drawn and forlorn. My skin was sallow, my hair was stringy and dull, and I had bald spots from having it pulled out so much.

About halfway through the school year, Mama decided to start making me late for class every day, so however ridiculous my appearance, it would surely be noticed when I walked in ten minutes after the bell had rung.

Ms. Wicks was my fifth grade teacher. I admired her because she was young and pretty. She had brown, wavy hair, and the skin on her face was always pink and shiny, like she had just scrubbed it. She wore soft, fuzzy sweaters of pastel blue and lavender, some of them with embroidered rosebuds and tiny rhinestones.

At the beginning of the year, Ms. Wicks liked me too. But after a while, the constant tardiness began to annoy her. She thought it was an intentional act of disrespect on my part. First she disciplined me by taking away my recess. Then, when that didn’t work, she called Mama.

The next day, after she had talked to Mama on the phone, she stayed in at recess with me, after everyone else had gone outside. “Tuesday, this tardiness every morning is going to have to stop,” she said. “It disrupts my class when you walk in late.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Wicks, I can’t help it.”

“Yes you
can
help it, Tuesday. I know you can because I spoke with your mother on the phone last night, and she told me you walk to school every morning. Isn’t that right? Don’t you walk to school?”

I squirmed in my seat, like it suddenly had become hot. “Yes, ma’am.”

She got up from her desk and walked around in front, leaning back against it. “Mrs. Storm said she has you dressed and out of the house in the mornings early enough for you to be able to get to school by eight o’clock.”

I fiddled with the corners of some papers on my desk. “But I don’t have enough time,” I pleaded.

“I know better! I also checked with your brothers’ teachers and found out they are hardly ever late. If they can make it on time, then surely you can.”

I tried to tell her the reason my brothers weren’t late was because they rode the bus to school, but when I opened my mouth to speak she cut me off. “No more excuses! I’ve given you plenty of opportunities to correct this, and all you’ve given me is excuses!” She stood straight, and calmed her voice to a controlled, serious tone. “You will continue to stay in at recess, and in addition you will write an essay on why it’s important not to be late for school every day until you learn to make it on time.”

The next morning, as usual, Mama did not let me leave our house in time to get to school by eight o’clock. I ran as fast as I could, and I was close, but still I didn’t make it to class before the bell rang.

The following morning, I tried even harder, and again I failed.

After weeks and weeks of punishment, I guess Ms. Wicks felt guilty, because she gave in and allowed me to have my recess back. She learned to work around my tardiness, but she held it against me for the remainder of the year.

All the frustrations with being late to school, and then becoming a spectacle because of my appearance when I got there, spurred horrifying nightmares. I had the same one over and over practically every night. I called it my black pit dream:

It’s the first day of school, and I cannot find my classroom. I am late. I am driven by the urgent need to push forward, to beat the clock. The school seems large, the corridors vast. They widen before my eyes, and the lockers soar endlessly upward. The fluorescent lights are as far away as the sky. I’m late. I search for the office to ask for help, but I can’t find it either. Feeling the pressure of time running out, I try to hurry…faster…faster, but I can only move in slow motion. Finally I spot the office. It’s huge; the doorknob takes two hands to turn. I open my mouth to speak to the lady behind the desk, but the words that come out make no sense, as if I am speaking another language. Frustrated, I turn and run. I see a stairway; I go up. As I climb the steps, they cave in under me. I trip and tumble down them, landing in front of a room I believe to be my class. When I walk in, all the kids laugh, laugh loudly. “Wrong class,” they shout at once. They point at my clothes, my choppy hair, and they keep on laughing. I run from the room, and continue to search for what seems like days, until the bell rings. School is out. The other students pour out of the classrooms. They knock me down. I can feel them trampling on my body like I am rubble. I manage to get on my feet again and join the other kids. Pushing through the double doors, I follow them outside. All of a sudden, the earth opens up in front of me, and below is a black pit. I fall, spinning in somersaults gobbled up into the black hole.

One night, after waking from the nightmare in a cold sweat, I remembered God, and what Grandma Storm had told me about him always being there for me. As she had taught me, I made sure to thank him for all his bounty first.

“Oh Heavenly Father,” I began, like I had learned in church. “Thank you for school, and for the cafeteria, and a warm place to sleep. God bless Daddy, and Mama, Jimmy D., Nick, and my new baby brother, Ryan. Bless Grandma Storm and Aunt Macy. Please take care of my sister, Audrey, and Ladybug, who are up in heaven with you now. Lord, I know I did something bad when I wished Audrey would die, and when I gave her the flu. But I wasn’t sure I was sick when I let her chew that piece of bubblegum, and I didn’t think she would die. Anyway, I’m sorry about it, Lord. Please forgive me.” Then I got to what I needed. “God, can you please, please make Mama stop hurting me, and make her love me again? Amen.”

I said the prayer every night for a month, but nothing changed. I thought maybe God hadn’t heard me, even though Grandma Storm had assured me no prayer went unheard. So, just in case, I prayed louder and waited, but every day when I got up, my life was still the same.

Grandma Storm had explained to me how God works in ways sometimes we humans don’t understand. She said he had a reason for everything that happened, and not to doubt him, but to be patient, and he would someday show me the reason. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe God had a purpose for allowing my life to be miserable. But I couldn’t imagine what the purpose could be.

I came to the conclusion that God was angry with me for what I had done to Audrey, and that’s why he didn’t answer my prayer.