me what to do but just said things to me about things not
treating me like a baby. I loved when she let me go somewhere
with her and her girlfriends. I loved even when she was sick
but not real sick and was in bed for many days or sometimes
many weeks and I was allowed to go in and visit her a little and
sit on the bed and watch television with her and we would
watch “ The $64, 000 Question, ” and we were both crazy for
Charles Van Doren because he was so cute and so intellectual
and we rooted for him and bit our lips waiting for him to
answer and held hands and held our breath. Then I had to leave
her alone because I had tired her out but I felt wonderful for
hours after, so warm and happy, because m y mother loved
me. We held hands and we sat. But I couldn’t stand the stuff
she made me do. She made me sew and knit and do stupid
things. I was supposed to count the stitches and sit still and be
quiet and keep my legs closed when I sat down and wear white
gloves and a hat when I went out in a dress. She made me close
my legs all the time and I kept trying to get her to tell me w hy I
couldn’t sit how I wanted but she said girls must not ever sit so
sloppy and bad and she got mad because I said I liked to have
m y legs open when I sat down and I always did what I wanted
even if I got punished. She said I was a relentless child. But if I
had to think about closing my legs all the time I couldn’t just
sit and talk and I thought it was silly and stupid and I w asn’t
going to do it and she slapped me and told me how I was just
trying to hurt her. Sometimes she screamed and made me sit
with m y legs closed counting stitches knitting and I wanted
her to die. I wanted to go everywhere and I would lie and say I
was somewhere I was allowed to be and I would go
somewhere I had never been just to see it or just to be alone or
ju st to see what it was like or if anything would happen. Once I
got caught because two boys who were bigger and older
threw a Christmas tree at me and it hit the top o f m y head and
blood started running down all over me. I was walking on a
trashy dirt road but it had trees and bushes on it and even some
poison sumac on the trees which was bright red and I thought
it was beautiful and I used to pretend it was Nature and I was
walking in Nature but children w eren’t supposed to go there
alone because it was out o f the way. The tw o boys came
running out o f the bushes and trees and threw a whole
Christmas tree at m y head and m y head got cut open and
blood started running down and I got home walking with the
blood coming down and I got put in bed and the doctor came
and it w asn’t anything, only a little cut with a lot o f blood he
said. He said the head could bleed a lot without really being
hurt bad. But I had been some place I w asn’t supposed to go so
it was m y fault anyw ay even i f I had been hurt very bad. I was
supposed to learn that you weren’t supposed to go strange
places but instead I learned that m y head didn’t get smashed or
cracked open and I w asn’t going to die and I could do what I
wanted i f I w asn’t afraid o f dying; and I wasn’t. I had another
life all apart from what m y momma said and wanted and
thought and did and I did what I wanted and she couldn’t stop
me and I liked going places she wasn’t and I liked not having to
listen to her or stay with her or be like some prisoner where she
could see me and I liked doing what I wanted even if it was
nothing really. I hated her telling me everything not to do and
I stopped listening to her and no one knows all the things I did
or all the places I went. I liked it when she was away. I knew it
was bad o f me to like it because she was sick but I liked being
alone. I got sick o f being her child. I’d get angry with her and
yell at her for trying to make me do things. But I was always
nice to the other adults because you wanted them to like you
because then they left you alone more and sometimes they
would talk to you about things if you asked them lots o f
intelligent questions and made them talk to you. And you
have to be nice to adults to show you have manners and so they
w o n ’t watch you all the time and because you get punished i f
you aren’t nice to them because adults get to punish you if they
want and you can’t stop them. I knew I had to be nice to the
man in the movies because he was an adult and I had to talk to
adults in a certain w ay because I was a child and I got punished
if I didn’t but I also wanted to act like an adult so they would
leave me alone so I had to talk t o him like an adult and not cry
or be stupid or act silly or act like a baby or be rude or raise my
voice or run away or be scared like a baby. Y ou had to say
mister or sir and you had to be polite and if you wanted to be
grown up you had to talk quiet and be reasonable and say
quiet, intelligent things in a certain quiet, reasonable way.
Children cried. Y ou didn’t cry. Little babies screamed like
ninnies. Y ou didn’t scream. Adults didn’t scream when
someone talked to them quietly. The man talked very quiet.
The man was very polite. I was too grown up to scream and
cry and then I would have had to leave the movie if I made
noise because you weren’t even allowed to make any noise in a
movie. You weren’t allowed to whisper. I couldn’t understand how come the man kept talking once the movie started
because I knew you weren’t allowed to talk during it. M y
daddy hated for me to cry. He walked away in disgust. M y
momma yelled at me but my daddy went away. Adults said I
was a good child or I was very mature for my age or I had
poise. Sometimes they said I was a nice girl or a sweet child or
a smart, sweet child with such nice manners. It was a big act on
my part. I waited for them to go away so I could go
somewhere and do what I wanted but I wanted them to like
me. M y momma made me talk with respect to all adults no
matter what they did. Sometimes a teacher was so stupid but
m y momma said I had to talk with respect or be quiet and I
wasn’t allowed to contradict them or even argue with them at
all. One teacher in regular school made her pets stand behind
her when she was sitting at her desk in the front o f the room
and you had to brush o ff her collar, just stand there behind her
for fifteen minutes or a half hour or longer and keep brushing
her collar on her shoulders with your open hands, palms
down, stroking all the whole w ay from her neck to her arms.
She sat at her desk and we would be taking a test or writing
something or answering her questions and she would say
someone had to come up and stand behind her and she wore