Little Altars Everywhere (10 page)

Sometimes I lock myself in there, just to stare at all the poor people’s stuff in their cabinets. Gigantic industrial-sized bottles of aspirin—and they never use toothpaste, only baking soda in huge boxes. There is a picture of the Holy Family next to the sink mirror, with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph standing behind a gate. I do a few genuflections there in the bathroom and murmur a quick prayer before one of the little girls starts knocking on the door needing to get in and pee. I feel lighter and purer every time I step out of the Williams’ bathroom. It’s almost as good as going to Confession. I
swear, if the Pope himself came to Thornton on a surprise visit, he’d drive straight over to the Williams’ house and not be disappointed.

On Saturday mornings when it’s cold outside, Mrs. Williams makes a huge pot of oatmeal. Each of us gets up and ladles some into a cup, then we crawl back into bed to eat it because the house hasn’t warmed up yet. They don’t have heat in the bedrooms, so it’s much warmer under the covers. But your toes freeze off from walking barefoot to the kitchen and back. If Mama ever found out I was this cold, she would stop me right away from ever visiting them again. But as it is, I knock off days in Purgatory right and left, just by spending the night in that wood frame house.

Marie and I lie in the top bunk in the morning and pretend to be missionaries, and we sing “Dominique” like the Singing Nun. We discuss how we’ll be missionary nurses instead of nuns, because in Africa what they really need is medical help. Plus, we don’t want face warts with stiff hairs sticking out like Sister Osberga.

At the Williams’ house, every single bit of food is rationed. If you take more than your share, it’s against the rules. I know that, because it was one of the first things Marie explained to me when I started spending the night over there. I love it! It feels like we’re all pulling through a war together by not being pigs.

But one Friday night at dinner when they are passing around the plate of day-old sliced white bread, I swear
I get possessed by Lucifer. I know that there’s only enough bread for each person to have one slice. But that does not stop me from reaching out and grabbing two pieces so fast that nobody notices. I hold the pieces together so they look like only one. I smear one of them with margarine and put the other one in my lap.

The blue plastic bread plate gets handed all the way around the table, and when it stops in front of Mrs. Williams, there is not one single solitary slice left for her.

I stare down into my spaghetti and tomato sauce as Mrs. Williams asks, Who helped themselves to two pieces of bread?

I start sweating. I begin balling that second piece of bread up in my palm so it fits there like a sticky little glob of Play-Doh.

Each of the Williams children looks up at their mother with these totally innocent eyes. Mrs. Williams calls the roll, to find out who the greedy one is. Marie? Bernadette? Kathy? Theresa? Monica? Jude?

She leaves out Mr. Williams and the baby girl who is still in a high chair.

I’m so thrilled with what I’ve put into motion that I can hardly sit still. I don’t know how I can ever confess this! It feels great, like something I was born to do. I play with my food and steal little glances at the holy family’s drama.

Finally Mrs. Williams settles on Jude. Leave the table, Jude, she says.

But Mama, he protests, I only took one piece, I promise!

Please leave the table until you can learn not to take more than your share, she tells him.

It’s not fair—he starts to say, but Mr. Williams interrupts, You heard what your mother said, Son.

And Jude gets up from the table without saying another word.

I have never seen a boy take something like that. All humble, like Jesus when he was unjustly accused. And all because of me!

After dinner I say to Mrs. Williams, Thank you for the lovely meal. May I please be excused now?

Then I go into the bathroom and flush that balled-up bread down the toilet. Later that evening I teach Marie and Bernadette the dance number to “Personality” that I’ve been learning in dance class. I tell them, I don’t see how yall can stand living here—there’s not any room to tap dance at all.

The next day, Mama comes to pick me up on her way home from one of the Ya-Ya
bourrée
games. Her hair is particularly poofy, with the hairpiece done in this cascade of waves. She has that anything-can-happen Saturday afternoon look and her arm is propped on the partially rolled-down window with a cigarette dangling between her fingers. Mrs. Williams comes out of the house, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, and walks to the end of the driveway to be polite. Marie and I
hug goodbye and I climb in beside Mama, with her plastic tumbler of vodka and grapefruit juice sitting on the seat between us.

Mrs. Williams says, Oh Mrs. Walker, your hair always looks so pretty.

Mama smiles generously. Thank you, dahling, she purrs. You don’t know what I go through to get it like this! I only have three hairs on my entire head, you know—the whole thing is done with mirrors.

Mama loves to put herself down when she’s feeling all superior to someone. It’s how you can tell something is coming. She lifts up her sunglasses and then French-inhales while she stares at Mrs. Williams’ hair. This is the first time I notice how oily and stringy it is. It has no luster to it whatsoever. It looks like the kind of hair that if you sniffed it, it would just smell too human to bear.

Mama says, You know, Antoinette, you really ought to get yourself on over to the House of Beauty. Talk to Jeannine. She’s my girl. Tell her I sent you. Would do you a world of good! You really shouldn’t let yourself go like that.

I cannot believe my ears! Mama telling a poor holy woman that her hair is ugly!

Mrs. Williams rubs her hands on the dishtowel like they’ve got something on them. She takes a tiny step back from the car and stares down at the grass growing through the cracks in the driveway.

Then she clears her throat and says, I wish I could. But I…We…We just can’t afford it.

Don’t be ridiculous, Antoinette! Mama exclaims. You can’t afford
not
to!

Then Mama puts the car into reverse and slowly backs out into the street. Idling the motor for a minute, she instructs me, Tell Mrs. Williams what a delightful time you had, Sidda.

I cannot bear to look at Mrs. Williams with her hands hanging at her sides. Marie is standing beside her, and for a second I have this clear vision that when Marie grows up she will look exactly like her mother.

I say, Thank you, Mrs. Williams. I could not have had a more enjoyable time.

But what I’m really thinking is, I’ll have to do penance for my mother’s sins—along with my own—
for the rest of my life.

Mama points the car toward home and I turn on the car radio because I do not want to talk to her.

She takes a sip of her drink and says, Did yall have fun? What’d yall do?

I tell her we pretended to be Connie Stevens. I don’t mention a word about our missionary plans. Mama reaches into her purse and hands me a piece of gum. I put it on the seat beside me.

She keeps driving along for a minute or two before she says, Listen to me, Siddalee, and listen good: There is
no excuse
to let your looks go, no matter how poor you are. Cleanliness might be next to godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere.

Yes Ma’am, I say. And I stare out the windshield of the T-Bird.

Well, after that, I am just too ashamed to set foot in the Williams’ house. Marie asks me to spend the night and I just have to tell her: No thank you. Even though it breaks my heart in two.

A couple of months go by and I’m at Bordelon’s Drugstore, with Mama waiting out in the car for me while I run in to pick up some of her nerve medicine. And who do I see over by the vaporizers but Mrs. Antoinette Williams! At first I don’t even recognize her because she has lost weight and she has this new haircut. I think about running and hiding, but she spots me and walks right over.

Siddalee, she says, how are you? We sure have missed you over at our house.

You have? I think.

I say, You look so different, Mrs. Williams. I mean—you just look so pretty.

She says, Well, I have your mother to thank for that, Siddalee. She is the one who inspired me to start taking care of myself. Your mother is a good lady. Don’t you ever let anyone tell you different.

I can’t think of a thing to say, except Thank you.

She says, Don’t be a stranger to our house now. You’re welcome anytime you want.

Then she walks away down the aisle and I pick up Mama’s medicine. When the druggist rings up the bill,
I sign for it on Daddy’s charge account. Then I walk out of the store. I feel light and good. I feel like I’ve just come out of Confession, even though I’ve only been in a drugstore, not a Catholic church. Even though Mrs. Williams is a regular person, not a priest or a nun or a saint.

Siddalee, 1963

O
ur Lady of Divine Compassion Parochial School is surrounded by sycamore trees. In the fall those big leaves turn yellow and the scorching days of summer are almost over, and you can start breathing again. I walk every school day underneath those trees to the music building, which is between Divine Compassion and Holy Names Academy, where the high school girls walk and talk in their blue-and-white straight skirts and starched blouses. I can hear them at choir practice while I’m walking along with my music folder under my arm. I love the high school girls, especially the ones with bubble hair-dos. But mainly I love getting out of regular classes to take piano. It’s the calmest part of my day. I get so tired of everyone—from my classmates to my brothers and sister to my mother—making so much
noise
all the time. I take my quiet wherever I can find it.

On lesson days, I knock on Sister Philomena’s frosted-glass door. When she says, Do come in, I open the door and say, Good afternoon, Sister. She is a big nun with a wide face who quotes the Bible a lot. She always seems glad to see me. I’m working on my recital piece, “The Elf and the Fairy,” which is considered quite a difficult composition for fourth grade.

At first Sister Philomena asks me, Siddalee, are you certain that you want to choose such an advanced piece for your recital?

Yes Sister, I assure her. I love that piece. I can handle it, I promise you.

This is my big chance to take something hard and do it right.

The first time Sister Philomena plays “The Elf and the Fairy” for me, I close my eyes and go somewhere else. To a place in another state that doesn’t have all the hot white light of Louisiana. There are waterfalls there and the air is so sweet and easy to breathe. There are actually fairies darting around, and when you see them you can’t tell if they are working or playing—it’s all the same thing to them. My grandmother Buggy talks to fairies frequently. She calls me on the phone and tells me about her conversations with them. Fairies aren’t strange to me at all. They’re sort of like midget guardian angels with a good sense of humor.

I am determined to take myself to that same magic place by learning my recital piece perfectly. I practice
for hours and hours, alone in the tiny practice room in the music building. That room is like a monk’s cell and I enjoy it—just me, the piano, and one window where the afternoon light comes in and tries to make me sleepy. Sometimes I am tempted just to lie on the floor and take a nap, but Sister Philomena says: God will not allow us to be overwhelmed by temptation, but with it He will provide a way of escape so that we will be able to endure it. I play those notes over and over, until it feels like I can climb up inside them and live there. Piano practice is the best way I know to feel organized.

It’s just impossible to practice at home because Little Shep and Lulu do nothing but make fun of me. They run around the piano like wild Indians, screeching out their imitations of opera singers like hyenas. It is kind of a family hobby, to make fun of opera singers. Mama taught Lulu to sing in pidgin Italian, “Ahhh! Spitonya! Ahhh! Pick-aya-boogers!” and other nasty high-pitched phrases, and that is now Lulu’s specialty for our family skits. Playing the piano is right up there with opera singing for Little Shep and Lulu in terms of being something to make fun of.

The other problem with trying to practice at home is that you never know when the place is going to be filled with the Ya-Yas. They roar up in their station wagons and Cadillacs to drink and play
bourrée.
After they play and scream and cheat and drink and smoke, they always start singing songs about men.

They moan out how fish have to swim and birds
have to fly and so they have to love one man till they die.

You just cannot concentrate with all their moaning going on. But when I complain to Mama, she says, Don’t get dramatic with me, Little Miss Sarah Bernhardt.

So I make a bargain with Baby Jesus: If I play “The Elf and the Fairy” perfectly at my recital, He will forgive me for pinching Lulu in church just to make her cry. If I play the composition flawlessly, Baby Jesus might also forgive me for some other things that I can’t quite name but always feel guilty for anyway.

I work harder and harder on the piece, picturing those notes while I try to fall asleep at night. My fingers strike the mattress until it feels like the bed is vibrating. I get all my memory work, fingering, timing, and phrasing down. All I have left to do are the final polishing touches.

But the week before the recital, Mama goes to a big Ya-Ya party out at Little Spring Creek and cuts her foot up something awful on a broken Coke bottle. The other Ya-Yas take her to the nearest emergency room and get the wound sewn up, but the cut is so deep she has to use crutches to get around. We have never seen Mama crippled like this before and it is kind of scary.

The night after Mama’s injury, Lulu and I are already in bed. I’ve sharpened my pencils and laid out my clothes for school the next day. They sit next to my book sack where my books, papers, and art supplies are
arranged all neat. I can never fall asleep until everything is organized and ready to go at the foot of my bed.

When I first hear the screaming from my parents’ room, I think it’s hurt dogs or something. I bolt up and dash down the hall. I can feel my bare feet squeak on the shiny wood floors. When I get to the entrance of Mama’s long narrow dressing room, Lulu, Little Shep, and Baylor are already there. How did they get there so fast before me? Daddy is standing next to the chaise longue in his socks and boxer shorts. He has a toothbrush in his hand. Mama has on her pink nightgown with the lace, and the way its gathers fall, you can’t hardly tell she’s using crutches. I can smell the nightcream on her face. In one hand she has one of the squatty crystal glasses she drinks out of at night, the ones with heavy bottoms that don’t tip over.

They are already in the middle of it.

Mama says, You redneck bastard, don’t you dare make those kinds of insinuations to me!

Daddy says, Insinuations, hell! I said you’re a goddamn drunk and I’ll say it again! Why do you think you almost cut your fool foot off?

Even though he hasn’t touched her, Mama looks like Daddy has split her up for kindling. Her expression changes and she goes for him, slapping him hard in the face.

They stand there yelling like the four of us are in
visible. One closet door is open and I can see Mama’s ice-blue crepe sheath hanging with a laundry bag over it.

Daddy lets Mama slap him, then he knocks the glass out of her other hand. The glass falls to the floor and breaks, ice going everywhere, and you can smell bourbon in the dressing room along with Mama’s rose sachets that hang in the closet.

Mama braces one of her arms against the wall and raises the fist of her other hand and punches Daddy in the stomach.

As if
you
can talk, you pathetic excuse for a man! she yells. You cowardly dirt-farming loser!

This is not happening,
I think.
I am not in this room.

Then she goes to hit him again, but he pushes her away—not hard, but like she’s a duck trying to bite him. It throws her off-balance and she falls down. Those crutches just fly out from under her.

This is the first time in our lives we’ve ever heard one of them call the other a drunk. It is like dynamite. It’s bigger than even seeing her hit him, or the way he pushed her. Just his saying that word “drunk” changes everything, even changes the air in the room.

I don’t cry because I can’t breathe. Lulu starts eating her hair, like she does whenever she gets upset. Little Shep and Baylor are mute, and Baylor is shaking. He looks so much like a little bird to me.

Daddy looks down at Mama on the floor and then
he looks at us. But we won’t look at him. He says to Mama, You are not fit to raise these children. Then he turns and walks out of the room.

I help Mama up on her crutches. She is shaking and crying and she says, We are getting out of this hell-hole. Yall go get your school clothes.

When we stand there frozen, she yells, Don’t just stand there like ignoramuses. Yall heard me, go get your damn school things!

I race to my room where I have my brown-and-gold dress with the drifting leaves laid on the chair. I scoop it up, along with my slip, panties, socks, and cordovan tassel loafers. These loafers are my all-time favorite shoes, hand-me-downs from my teenage cousin and broken-in just right. When I wear them, I feel like a cheerleader who writes poetry, like I have a guaranteed good future.

Lulu says, Sidda, can I bring my turtle?

I say, Shut up, Lulu!

Then I grab my book sack, take my little sister by the hand, and fly down the hall to the kitchen door. As I run, I can see the couch, the TV set, and the piano from the corner of my eye. All our familiar things look foreign to me, and for just a second I can’t remember where I am or what I have done in my life before right now.

Mama is already in the car with nothing but her nightgown, crutches, and purse. She’s smoking and leaning on the horn, cussing at Daddy, who is nowhere
in sight. I’m so frenzied, I drop my book sack, and all my papers fly everywhere. Crayons roll under the car.

One of my loafers falls on the concrete and I reach down to get it, but Mama yells, Sidda, get in the goddamn car!

Then she backs the car out of the long driveway and speeds down the gravel road—away from the house. We are all keyed up. We are quivering with fear and excitement at leaving the house so late on a school night.

We quiz her, Where’re we going, Mama? Where’re we going?

We’re going to Buggy’s, she explains and I breathe with relief to hear she has some kind of plan. Maybe this isn’t so bad after all, I think. Maybe she’s got this all mapped out. Maybe I’m being delivered into the life I was meant for. I love spending the night at my grandmother’s old house near City Park. You get to stay up late there and walk to school. It’s like a little vacation, if you don’t mind her dog and kneeling to pray all the time.

But halfway down the road lined with old pecan trees that leads away from our house, Mama slams on the brakes and turns the car around.

I’m not losing every single thing I deserve because that bastard claims I run out on him! she yells. We’re going back! That sonovabitch is not going to get rid of me this goddamn easy!

She squeals the car back under the carport. I walk
toward the end of the driveway to catch my breath. But Mama yells at me and I walk back into the house that is all quiet except for the sound of the air conditioner that Mama leaves running till Halloween. I don’t let myself look at the furniture like I did on the way out. I go in the bathroom and run cold water on a washrag and put it on my forehead, like you’re supposed to do when you’re upset. Then I sit in my bed with my flashlight and try to straighten out my school things, which have gotten all messed up in the big getaway.

I don’t sleep that night and I keep having a hard time getting my breath. I wish I had a fan blowing straight on me so I could get some air into my body.

The next day at school, my head hurts and the back of my eyes burn. It’s Friday, the day for my last piano lesson before my recital. Sister Philomena asks me to rehearse every move—the way I’m supposed to lift my hands to the keyboard before beginning the performance, the exact way I should gracefully rest them in my lap after the piece is over, my perfectly rehearsed curtsy. I try to picture smiling faces applauding for me, but all I can think of is how jumbled up all my school papers are, and how there are some important things missing from the night before that I can’t seem to find.

When I play for Sister Philomena, I don’t miss any notes, but my timing is way off.

She says, Siddalee, be sure to give yourself some quiet practice time this weekend. And on Sunday, go to Holy
Communion. Offer the recital up to the Baby Jesus and everything will be fine. He will give His angels charge concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

But there’s no chance to practice on Saturday. The day is devoted to converting our schoolroom into Mama’s new bedroom. Daddy is nowhere in sight. Mama and Chaney rip down the blackboards from the walls. They haul out our desks, our toy boxes, and the tall shelves with the set of
World Books.
In their place, Mama moves in a Hollywood bed she gets delivered from Holden’s Fine Furniture, along with a matching nightstand and a new portable TV set. Before, no one was even allowed to smoke in that room because it was just for children. It was all ours. But now it is Mama’s new bedroom, and she has her silver and crystal ashtray with “Ya-Yas, 1960” engraved on the side right there on her new night table.

On the day of the recital, I’m real tired but still sure of myself. I
really
know “The Elf and the Fairy.” Those notes won’t abandon me in my powder blue dressy dress and patent leather shoes, with my hair rolled into a French twist, Mama’s favorite style. I fast my three hours before Communion. But at Mass, the Sacred Host sticks to the roof of my mouth and makes me nauseated. I feel like spitting up on the floor, but a mortal sin like that could easily take away my power of speech and make me grow a harelip to boot.

That Sunday afternoon the Divine Compassion au
ditorium is filled with mothers and fathers and aunts and grandmothers and the smell of floral arrangements and floor varnish.

Mama hugs me tightly and whispers, I adore you!

I join the music students in the front row. I perch on my folding chair with my feet crossed at the ankles and off to one side like we’re supposed to do. I watch the other students, one by one, rise from their seats, climb the steps to the high stage, and plunk out their recital pieces. Each one of them looks so afraid. I almost pity them. They’re so insecure, so ill-composed. I feel utterly calm; I do not even feel like a child.

When it’s my turn, I sit down at the piano. My hands are steady, my hair is clean, my heart is true. But the moment I hit the first note, somebody else’s hands—wild, shaking, and ignorant—take over. At first I’m only kind of curious and dizzy. It takes me eight entire measures to realize that I am the one producing the crazy frantic noise. I am confused, because part of me can actually hear myself playing the music impeccably. But the other part of me knows that the only thing left of “The Elf and the Fairy” is the phrasing. The rest is ugly, unrelated notes that crash through the thick air in that gymnasium. Inside myself, I can hear all the beauty, but my body can’t respond.
And I don’t even consider just giving up.
I keep on playing because I
have
to. And because I truly believe that I will finally discover the right notes and lead the audience into my elf and fairy world, where
peaceful out-of-state light glimmers and cleanses and redeems.