'50 Chevy

After I gave Heidi away, I came back to a new home and a new high school.
While I was gone, Olman and Ruth bought into the geographical cure and moved down cape to Falmouth.
I wrapped up the last 3 months of my senior year like a refugee.
I felt like Aly Sheedy with the dandruff in 'The Breakfast Club'.
I didn't go to the prom.

I drove a 50 Chevy named Black Beauty.
I rip out her back seat and make a quilt and feather bed.
I paint bold colors on her fuzzy grey wall.
Alters with incense and daisys.
I camp at the Newport Jazz Festival.

The thing I loved most about Black Beauty was her malfunctioning clutch.
Every time we stopped at a red light, I had to pop the hood and fix the clutch. I wore an oil rag in the back pocket of my jeans.
In the late 60's, I looked like a girl who knew what she was doing.
And those college boys would check out my ass.
I picked one up who was hitching a ride to Yarmouth.
I always felt nervous around rich academic types.
I saw the red light coming and I was geeked about showin' off the popped clutch Chinese fire drill.
Jim Morrison wanted everyone to light his fire.
I bent down to turn it up and crashed into the car in front of me.
College boy hopped out, said 'thanks for the ride' while I wiped the blood from my head.
Olman brought out the Poloroid, ranting about money for my college education, snapping flashbulbs on my black eyes and stitched head.
He got some kinda money out of it and gave me the green light to go to art school.

After my third semester, they asked me when I will pay the bill.

Pedagogy

We used to call it “Swain School of Distain.”
A vending machine art school in New Bedford,
Massachusetts, the arm pit of Cape Cod.
My first assignment was to paint 100 grey values
between black and white.
My Philosophy Prof looked like Kurt Vonnegut.
I wrote an essay about giving Heidi away.
He made love to my 18 year old body in the guesthouse
of his 16th century farmhouse in Barnstable.
He took black and white photos of my youth as
his wife watched from a window,
backlit by the fire of a wood stove.

He gave me an "A" that semester.

My brother helped me cop my first crib. The landlady
had an eggplant nose and warts with hair.
She paid no mind to the cockroach circus that illuminated
the dark corners of the one room studio apartment.
She would open the old wooden window to my room
like a gargoyle confessional.
But it was cheap and my black eyes would pay for it.

I walk to school digging through matted confetti leaves of fall,
finding remnants of rusted pop culture and old bicycle parts.
I weld them together in sculpture class.

Artistgirl and I moved in with two rich brothers, Charles and Richard,
renting the servants quarters of a bedraggled seafarer’s mansion in
Fall River. A ghost paced the widow’s peak, searching the Atlantic Ocean,
probing the gasping water like a searchlight.
They fed us amphetamines and drove us to parties in their red
BMW convertible.
I saw Charles a year later. I’m a waitress at a fried clam shack and
20 lbs overweight.
I overheard him mutter to his bro, “Bub got chubby!”

Girls. Never do Uppers.

Carpet Burn

It's a damn shame we can't have everything.
You learn to walk to the beat of a different drummer.
You try to make peace with the past.
You try to grow up.
Someone said it's like a house with rooms. You knock
on the door and a can of worms opens.

My mother-in-law was old school Italian. We tried to hang out
couple times a month. See Indy Films. Both voracious readers.
I painted Trompe 'L Oeil on her corridors.
I loved the old ladies especially now that I am one. We met for lunch
in the family restaurant. Lots of skipping to the head of the line.
I ordered soup and quiche. She scolded me for putting my purse
on the floor.
Like germs bungee jump backwards to invade my tubular lungs.?
"How about those Red Socks?" I said.

The End of the Beginning

I made a big mistake when I planted mint in my garden.
It was like Pearl Harbor overnight.
Who coulda' known?
You start with this sweet fresh smell then it's invasive.
I couldn't teach math any more.
3rd grade, I'm done.
I'm not a civilian.
So I let the hungry yellow school bus devour them into comformity.
I like, couldn't do it anymore.
Turns out, when they got their choice, they came home to finish school.
How cool is that?

"I want the fairytale." Pretty Woman

So who knows why we get married? It's a crap shoot between petty and sacred.
Maybe take a shot at tryin' to do it better. Like a recipe.

5 Things To Do Before I Die:
1) Make a perfect pie crust, scratch.
2) A year in Tuscany.
3) Write at least 2 books.
4) Quit smoking. 34th is magic.
5) Truly love.

Y2K took us to the country. Man, the ultimate Butterfly Effect.
We had 16 acres and a spring fed pond. We raised a few beef cows, Chuckie
and Beefy. I learned how to castrate calfs.
Nick slept with one eye open.
We incubated eggs and raised chickens.
I painted murals on anything that didn't move.
We built underground forts and we homeschooled life.
We designed a catapult and made it out of culled lumber.
Bonfires and dirtbikes and jars full of fireflys.
It was a good ride.
My best ride.

Bread and Wine

After the cat angel, Otis and I started gettin' tight.
I'd do good things in secret cuz I felt like someone's
Watching me. It was an inside job. Like in 'MIB',
but angels invade instead of those kool graphics.
(I know I'm a little hard to follow sometimes, just go with
the flow, besides, you should be reading this backasswards)

I cleaned up my act. Little by little.
I got off the booze. I turned my little pottery biz into a goldmine.
I was asked to talk shows. I flew all over. I volunteered at the Mission
in Detroit. I made alot of money. I was on top of my game.

So I'm sittin' behind this guy with the grey temples in church.
Nick paid me no mind at first. His sister in law was a friend of
mine and she was playin' matchmaker. At lunch he sat as far
away as he could. Sorta like he gets hit on alot.
I say 'Whatever'

Next time I saw him he was friendly. Maybe he got some buzz on me.
It's great to taste Power.
Then I gave him the keys.

Verse Visa

Nick made me feel different than myself.
You Girls know what I mean. Some among
us 'marry up' which is an insult from the start.
Why would you want to marry someone like me?
Otis Forbid!
I had to go undercover, cuz I liked the grey temples.

Mansion of Cards

I drove a 27 foot UHaul to a new old world.
I moved from a 62oo foot crib with an indoor pool,
sauna, 2nd kitchen, 6 decks, blahblahbla blah....
to a 600 ft. apartment on the rooftop of old Victorian
house in a sleepy harbor town on the South Shore of
Boston.
But that's where I am now, so you can't
know the end.
Yet.

The Third Rail

I spent 8 days in Michigan.
I sat next to a physical therapist on the 2 day train ride.
After a night of fetal sleep, I was tempted to employ her services. After all, I’m supposed to be an old broad, right?

I wake up to Blade Runner City, my nose pressed to the window, takin’ in the foggy wasteland of Detroit.
Car graveyards, broken glass and tented gutter.
Major heart speed bump.
What are these people thinking?
It’s a two mile walk out of the ghetto!
Otis can show you the Way!
Find your destiny!

Eight days is some kinda Biblical number, sounds like.
Saw friends from ten years ago.
From before I caved.
We cut our teeth on having babies together, some too many, some prayed for, some adopted.
A first time mother alliance that never goes away.

When it was time to leave, James drove me to the station in Ann Arbor.
He’s hovering around like a big brother whose 15 years younger than I am.
Checked the bags.
We do goodbye.
I waited and watched him leave like a hired gun.
Then I power walk 2 blocks to the neon signed liquor store that I noticed when we took the right.
Fifteen minutes to train time.
They have what I want behind the counter.
I’m next in line.
I notice a vibe behind me.
James put his arm around me and we walk out.
I was just gonna buy a pack of butts! I said.

Countdown

The world was gonna crash and burn on December 31rst, 1999 at 11:59 PM.
Our bomb shelter was filled to it's starless dome with the sustinence of life. We had it all over the pedestrians.
We canned food at the Morman survival factories.
My ten year old twin boys dutifully measured dried peas.
My two and five year old daughters pitched their tiny fingers into huge burlap sacks of dried wheat. We learned about vacuumed air and how food encased in tin could last for years.
We scanned dry food cookbooks, hungrily looking for recipies that don't use dried eggs.
Because how could an egg that's dry taste good?
Nick bought a ‘State of the Art’ generator.
Our fire wood was stacked higher than the Weeping Willow.
We bought elixirs and pills that purify water. We huddled in hushed whispers about the panic and chaos that would surely knock on our door.
Some guy wailed over the Am radio from a stone fortress in Colorado.
All the clocks crept toward Zero.
In the morning of the year two thousand, I woke up.
I saw from my kitchen Window that snow had fallen the night before.
I looked past the barn and noticed a sixteen point buck grazing by the pond.

I figured we wouldn’t need the meat.

Rain

'By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong."
Joni Mitchell
 

When I got back to the states, my little posse were sending their apps off to colleges and planning their entry into the real life.
We hear rumblins’ about a little concert goin’ on in upstate New York. My man Bobby Dylan’s gonna do the gig so I scratch up enough to buy a ticket. I hook up with Artistgirl and we hitch a ride. The New York state freeway is stopped for miles. Whoa!. We walk the rest of the way. They don’t even take our tickets cuz the gates are flooded. We walk around with shit eatin’ grins.
Artistgirl meets a boy she wants and I say I’ll be cool. The sky pours down like Noah’s flood. I huddle under a band stage to stay warm. I visit tents for a free high. I’m covered with mud head to toe. I dance in the field to bad music. I eat one cold can of soup the whole 4 days. I never knew I could feel so lonely among 400 thousand people.
Bobby didn't come.
But I was there.

"Some have entertained angels unawares."

The second time I met Otis, I had a studio gallery in Birmingham, Michigan. It was called ‘The Earth and Me.’
My pots were really cool and innovative, but I was running it into the ground.
The wealthy Birminghamites would walk in and see dust and smell cat piss in the potted plants and never come back.
I thank a stray cat angel for my first sober night.
She had 6 kittens in my closet. Two of them died right away and I flushed ‘em down the toilet. Ma cat took off and left me with the last 4. I call a pet shop to find out how to keep the rest alive. They told me to feed ‘em milk with an eyedropper every 3 hours.
Of course I couldn’t get drunk cuz I had to feed these kittens.
They lived and I found out I was strong.
After a few hours sleep, I woke up on a Sunday morning and I could see how Otis fit into this picture. I remembered hearing somewhere about bread and communion. I knelt on my kitchen floor with a chunk of whole wheat bread and held it up to the sky. I said, ‘I don’t really know what it means but this is for You’.
Then I ate it.
I heard somewhere how we’re supposed to give money to God.
I’d been throwing pots on my wheel and my clothes were covered with mud.
I took some cash out of my drawer. I walked down the street to an Episcopalian church where I heard singing through the stain glass windows.
I knocked on the heavy oak doors.
A clean scrubbed man opened and said ‘Come in, come in!’
I felt dirty, covered with clay.
‘No, no, no,’ I say.
I threw the crumpled bills on the floor and ran away.
But things started to change after that.

"Not Yet"

Before the cat came,
I sat in my car, had it in drive, revving the engine,
left foot on the brake, headlights pointing toward
the plate glass window across the street.
The Engine wailed and screamed
‘TAKE YOUR FOOT OFF THE BRAKE.’
I wondered if the impact would be enough to kill me.
Then the night whispered ‘Not Yet.’

What’s this ‘Follow the Leader’ with Ruth crap all about?
This stuff Happened to me.
I didn’t cause it.

Cooking Wine

I’m visiting Michigan after 3 years on the East coast.
I’m staying at James' and Faith’s. The house is surrounded by big growth trees, crackling animal foot falls and wild turkey mating calls. My luggage was lost on the train and I wear other people’s clothes.
Last night, Nick brought A.J. here and Dex rode his Harley out to see me. She tries to teach me Salsa but it’s useless.
Dex laughs too loud. He seems nervous around me.
They brought out a birthday cake with balloons full of frosting and no candles. I have to reapply my war paint 4 times before the day is done.
Clinically, I’m unsavable, but this bunch will never give up on me. Their claws are tenacious and deep.
The first thing I do when the house is empty is look for frozen vodka, then cooking wine. I don’t want to drool and shake on the clean linens and air mattress that is my room.
They probably got rid of everything alcoholic before I arrived.
But they are sooo unfamiliar with people like us. The look at me with big puppy dog eyes and ask ‘why?’
First up, you don’t ask us why. That question begs an answer I don’t have.
Why?
You tell me.
They say I’m loved and beautiful and talented.
Why?
You tell me.

Grey Temples

 

I sat 5 rows back in a church pew.

First impressions?
 

No ring. Start there.

He’s too young to have grey hair.

Deer in the headlights kinda thing goin’ on.

A bit too Metro. I like my men scrappy and ready for anything
I got to give.

Throw him back. He needs more mothering.

Not at all hard on the eyes.

I'm sooo outa his league.

And he's soo outa mine.

Garden Party

I went to a party on Mulholland Drive.
I do some networking.

Kirby and Artistgirl are havin’ a sit down.

Isabelle is dancing to Aretha by herself.

Charlie Thorne and Ruth thumb fight. Ruth wins.

Brandy is sitting on Judy’s lap. Sis won’t let up on
that stupid baby talk.

Helen and Nordic boy are arguing about Kennedy.
She will totally vote for the guy.

George is doin’ some serious mouth hockey with
one sweet babe.

Bill and Josiah play chess.

Olman and Bub never get tired of playing the
drawing game.

But the party’s over.
It’s time to go undercover.
I’m getting married tomorrow.

Europe

My brother Bill lives in Copenhagen with his Danish girlfriend, Annie.
“Come,” he says.
Pete’s still hoop dancing.
I hop on a Boeing 747 and I left all my crap in L.A. 
Some kinda Peter, Paul and Mary song.
I wore a yellow hat. 
I’ve got like a hundred bucks in one pocket, Otis in the other.
The European culture seduced my senses. They’ve been doin’ this shit for, What?
2 thousand years?
Bill tries to teach me Danish but it’s useless.
I hook up with a paint factory that caters to internationals. All day, I fill little cans with color.
It was a cool job. I can’t remember why I got canned.
‘Easy Rider’ opened in America 6 months before and is now playing here.
As I watch I sink down in my seat.
I found a job as a chambermaid at the Hafnia Hotel before it burned to the ground.
I’m the Mexican in this end of the world. My boss was a big girl who liked to throw her weight around. She yelled German as she swiped lights with white paper gloves.
I met 2 best friends over bleached toilets. They invite me on a trek to the Swedish coastline. We spoke Hieroglyphics but had this eye thing goin’
.
When we got to the beach, I climbed a high tower and saw rusted World War 2 tanks half buried like the sand over Egypt.
I saw the bloody ocean.
I saw twisted bodies on the beach.
I saw the flags.
I saw why no one wins.

We eat oxtail soup for breakfast. We build fires with driftwood, and pass the hash pipe. We sing Swedish folksongs. They laugh like hell everytime I mispronounce a word.

I hook up with this Chinese guy, Tony. He's a champion chess player. His black hair sticks up punk and he always looks like he’s been in a fight. Now, it's my turn to laugh at word butchery.

We hear England calling.

We hitchhike across Europe hitting university dining rooms hustling chess games. He wins every time. The pretty girl and the geek.
When we got to the White Cliffs of Dover, they turned us away because we didn’t have a sponsor or 30 lbs in our pocket.

I met a ‘Nam vet named James who had a wounded leg and the disability to go with it. I moved in. He’s melancholy and stoic. I found a letter he wrote to his stateside sister while he was out.
 
“I want to run with Elizabeth in the mountains”,  it read.

That’s ok.
I didn’t love him either.

Bill hit the road and I decided it was time to come home.
I’m at the Leeside in Woods Hole and I’m old enough to buy a beer.
I’m listening to the news about Kent State. I can’t believe they’re killing our kids.
I stay with Artistgirl in her apartment. She seems fragile and distant. We went to visit a friend my first night home. While we were out, her apartment building burned to the ground along with everything she owned and every trace of my 6 months in Europe.

My belts low
My belly’s hangin’ in the snow.
My rhyme’s good,
But I ain’t choppin’
No wood.

Volley

Otis and I have a cerebral jocularity that’s hard to come by these days.

Typical volley:

“I Don’t Know How to Love You”

"This ain’t 300 AD, Man! Grab a dishtowel!"

“So, Why is it necessary to create 5,000 species of butterflies?”

Without a prayer or a Chinamen’s chance, I stand there, legs apart,
shakin’ my fist to the sky.

And on the dialog goes.

'

The Day I met Otis

I was 11 years old.
I sat in a wing-backed chair in the solarium.
I watched from the sky as foggy light filled the room.
His breath subdued all sound.
“Why do my fingers bleed when I gather flowers?” I asked.
He held me until I fell asleep.

Another Puppy

I’m a Burning Star
I’m a Trailing Star
I’m a Burnt Out Star.
I’m a star without Light.
I’m a Hollywood Star.
… Not.



Pete was my second daddy. A Boeing executive who quit the scene after his wife off-ed herself. He’s 6’3” with curly grey hair, smokes cigars and wears a loincloth and a leather saber filled with Eberhard and Faber 6325 ebony pencils that he sharpens with a hunting knife. Not a bad body for an old dude. He does chin ups from tree branches in Golden Gate Park. He teaches me how to throw a perfect bullet football. I throw like a quarterback. We play till my arm falls off, then sit on a blanket with yet another puppy, guzzling apple wine from a brown paper bag. We sketch people as they pass by. He’s 45 and I’m 19 so he has lots of stories to tell. I become his lover because I don’t want to end up like Adrienne. He tells me he’s writing ‘The Great American Novel’.
We make plans to move to L.A. and write screenplays together.

We settle in a little studio apartment on Hollywood and Vine.
This place is a trip. Even this jaded Boston girl got an eye full. San Francisco was filled with quirky crazy kids like me but Hollywood and Vine is one strange bird. They parade down the street wearing shackles, handcuffs and feather boas. They stare at me with vacant eyes. Prostitutes on every corner. I can’t tell men from women. Fights explode like Molotov cocktails. The store windows are filled with body parts. Trash everywhere.
I find a job doing ad layouts for a pornographic film company. I double as the receptionist. I get hit on by all kinds of sleazebags.
I work with a guy named Steve whose sole purpose is to get busted for the big boss in Beverly Hills. He lives next to Jack Lemmon. Parties with the old Hollywood elite.
Steve wears cowboy boots and could care less if his name is toast. He had a baby that died of S.I.DS and it made him a cynic, I’m guessing. We become great friends. He wants to be my lover, but there’s no way I’m gonna sleep with this guy.
“What are you doin’ with that old man?” he asks.
“He’s writing the ‘Great American Novel’.” I say.
"Yeah, right." says he.

But he puts a crack in my armor.
After all, Pete’s sittin’ home all day doin’ some kind of Massai Warrior hoop dance in his loincloth, while I’m workin’ in this dark room with cum in every corner, hangin’ from the ceiling for all I know.

“Split baby, get out of here while you can,” Steve says.

Split I Did. 

Voluntary Madness

I don’t know who I am but life is for learning.
CSNY

I told Otis, "Wake me up if you want."
I found myself with 4 limbs strapped to a steel bed and a siren escort.
Wake up to the home girls discussing the best pizza.
So they strip search me, take all my girly tools to the ‘sharps room’.How do you kill yourself with an eyelash curler?
They throw me some flip-flops.
They stick me in the day room. I learn to say yes mam’, armed with my journal and my 2B pencil.
I turn on my artist eyes.
I’ve been here before. I visited Ruth in a place like this. I am exactly her age when she died.
No sweat, mom. I’ll take over from here.
A girl sat in a wheel chair wearing a football helmet, lookin’ at nothing.
Fondly known as a headbanger. Half her head's shaved. Someone said shock treatments.
I didn’t know they did that shit anymore.
One guy brought me a picture of his dead baby to draw and they all lined up after that.
Junkies, bipolars, schizos’, counselors, nurses, even some doctors, asked for their portraits.
Josef was bald so I drew him with hair. The junkie-twins nodded out before I could give them a chin line.
I shack with a Russian heroin addict. She’s playin’ the game, here to gain a few pounds and get away from her pimp.
It feels homey here, reminds me of Wellesley.
Garcia lifts up his hands and prays to God as we wait in the cafeteria line.
He talks to the Big Guy on his mental cellphone. I joke to the girls “I thought cell phones weren’t allowed?”.
My rocker friend, Charlie, takes bread, sugar and juice from the day room and starts a batch of hootch in his bottom bureau drawer.
I hang with an anorexic, a cutter and a telephone worker whose depressed. We tell the deepest secrets and watch each other’s back and call foul when we shift blame. We make plans for the outside but know we’ll never see each other again.
We get one call a day. A girl who burned her house down ripped the receiver off the wall.
She gets shipped to the other side. We peek through wired windows to Catatonia.
I jump through all the hoops and more. I’m staff favorite.
Got outta there in 5 days.
Short version:
It’s time to write the book.
What a novel idea.

Cape Cod

We downsize to a little cottage near the beach. I buy a new outfit for school and I’m lookin’ preppy. I meet some girls in the lunch line and they circle around me like I’m some kinda’ prom queen. They don’t know where I come from and they don’t know where I’ve been. I dig into grades and the pecking order. I get a job at Herbie’s Chicken Shack so I can buy more of those magic preppy clothes. I learn how to steal from Filenes’s.
I steal for my friends.
Ruth’s life cannot be saved. She wants to check out. She stares out the window biting her fingernails till they bleed. Then she goes for her toenails. I say ‘whatever’.
Olman drinks even more. Not as many people to entertain.
But I still think it’s a good move, at least for bro and I. We are on our way up and they are on their way down.
I’m one of 3 best friends. The writer, the cheerleader and the artist. We sneak out of our rooms and meet under trees. We sing together like girl groups. We fry our bodies in the sun. We break into abandoned houses and pretend we own them. We spend hours on make-up and clothes and we Indian leg wrestle. We invent our own language.
We do nothing without each other’s permission.
They are my family.

The Great Escape

So Olman wants to save Ruth’s life. He figures cooking for 5 boarders and the six of us, maintaining a 27-room mansion with a bunch of runaways under foot isn’t helping much. Plus, they cut him loose from his government job for drinking. With a pretty good pension.
So he calls in some estate guy who buys all the antique mahogany furniture for a song and hauls it all out.
I’m glad to split. No real friends but Otis and He comes with. On my last day at Wellesley Junior High the football star says goodbye. It was the first time he ever spoke to me.

Brandy

It’s not your fault.
-Good Will Hunting

I babysat for my 5 year old cousin, Brandy. The most endearing thing about her were her crossed blue eyes. She had a perpetual runny nose, straggly blonde hair, sticky with pancake syrup, and wore over-sized unmatched hand-me-down clothes. She was the forgotten child, the last born in the last stages of severely alcoholic parents. Just like me. I was her pit bull big sister protector. She’d spot me and take a running leap into my arms.
Her mother would be passed out in bed every morning. The poor kid had to fend for herself. They lived in this cavernous house in Jamaica Plains. It’s the middle of winter, so she stacks wood for a fire. Then her nightgown catches on fire.
They shroud her with someone’s dead skin and stick her in an icy bathtub for 3 days before she died, her beautiful crossed eyes begging for help.
The legacy of her brief stay on this earth was to help pass the laws requiring inflammable nightgowns.

Brown Elementary

I was paid 35 cents a week to walk some kindergarteners to school.
I posed for the portrait lady mother. She made me wear a brown dress with stupid flowers on it. She drew me pretty cuz she felt sorry for me, being from the wrong side of the tracks and all.
Or maybe I am pretty.
I’m in Mrs. Marchant’s 5th grade class. She’s a drill sergeant. She never cracks a smile.
The boys used to peek under her desk at no underwear. When she called on me random I peed my pants. I burst out of the room holding hot piss in my hands like a cup.
I couldn’t tell you if it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I watched for signs.
I learned to be resourceful.
That should be one of the 10 fucking commandments.
It was then that I found out I was an artist.
They’d surround my table and make me perform pictures like a carnival monkey.
They’d plaster the walls with my stuff. I knew it was my only way to survive.
My right brain is useless.
On the way home, some older boys walked up to me. I’m grateful for the attention.
They give me a quarter to take off my sweater. Another one to take off my underwear.
I can’t earn anymore because I don’t have tits. I mention it to Olman at dinner cuz I think it’s funny. He goes to the principle’s office the next day.
The boys get suspended for a week. One’s father owns a fleet of trucks.
The other hangs Christmas lights like a side show. Another, some CEO god.
I was born with Limey white skin. Walkin’ the two-mile trek to school is like Croatia.
They’d sneak behind trees and throw Albino girl pebbles. The fat girls beat me up.
I’d trip over my big nose.
But it wasn’t all that bad. I found out how to play with myself.
I made pottery mud pies.
I rode my bicycle up and down. Up and down.
I dressed my dog in people clothes.
I’d sit under the 150 foot spruce tree, draw in the dirt and made stick furniture and pinecone people.
I performed 3 act plays and rode a horse with cowboys and Indians.
I’d pick dandelions for Olman’s soup.
I decided I was smart.
My best friend, Andrea Benito, was some kinda Boston Mafia girl. One day, we were hackin’ around. I chased her, tryin’ to punch her in the face. She slammed the French glass doors on my fist and released a bunch of tendons from my wrist.
Milky white stringy stuff that doesn’t bleed right away. A better anatomy lesson than slicing frogs. The next day, under the spruce tree, we tried to break her arm with a rock so she could have a cast like mine.
How cool is that?

Ruth

Ruth’s father, Josiah, was a socialist civic leader and worked at the Waltham Watch factory until he got the gold watch. Her mother Helen’s main job was giving Jehovah Witness tea parties and looking the other way when her children misbehaved.
She had Chinese eyes and a Roman nose. She hated having her picture taken just like I do. But she was a beautiful lady just like I am. She could wrap her legs around the back of her neck and rock like a horse. She could stand on her head until she Felt like coming down. That's heady stuff for little girls.
She took care for her cousins during the day and caught the bus to nursing school at night.
At the bus stop, an unnamed man raped her. Uncle Doc Harry took care of the abortion. She was engaged to a doctor when Olman charmed her away.
The day after her wedding, her oldest brother, Marshall, shot himself in the head. I wonder what that was all about?
I dismissed her early. I figured I’d grow up without a mother. She didn’t mean to be gone. But she couldn’t be there.
I found Ruth in bed breathing growly with an empty bottle of pills on the floor. For her birthday, I bought her a wide red bracelet to cover her slashed wrist.
After she vacated her mind, she made her home in Taunton State Mental Institution. She died in a nursing home of predementia at 56.

Fifth Grade Poem

Today's my mother's birthday
I know what I should buy
She'd like a pretty bracelet
to hide the pain inside

The width, it is important
a scar she has to hide
I found a pretty red one
for when she tried to die

"How does it feel to be on your own just like a rolling stone." Highway 61 Revisited

I hook up with a couple of biker boyz named Heinz and Free. We set off, thumbs out, lookin’ for a ride to freedom. Heinz was stocky, as German men tend to be, with long wavy brown hair and intense blue eyes. Leather, head to toe. Free was the most handsome boy I’d ever met. Like Joe Dellasandro in the Warhol films. Major arm candy.
The first ride took us to the cornfields of Minnesota. Trucker chewed tobacco and caressed my thigh the whole way. I didn’t care as long as I could put a lot of miles between myself and the place I called home.
Second ride was a red convertible. I watched the truck drivers watch me. I wore a tie dyed tank top and my tits had a mind of their own.
I sat suicide.
We slept under bridges and ate soup pantry soup. It was the scariest time I ever felt alive. Like I could die at any moment. It was the best way to live.
Lots of country music later, we landed on Oak Boulevard in San Francisco. Across the street, in the Panhandle, Janis used to play with the Holding Company from the back of a pick-up truck. Before she died from being famous.

My summer waitress friend said they really do wear flowers in their hair. But all the flower children had fled for the communes in Oregon. Back to the land, I’m thinking. And welfare.
When we get there, they take me, but not my biker boyz. I guess chicks do a lot of things better than boyz do. We’re kind of like dish towels. Get ‘em dirty then leave 'em hanging out to dry.
Broke my heart to see Heinz and Free cut loose. Talk about a rock and a hard place.
Matron of the house was a British belly dancer named Patty. She had straight strawberry blonde hair, an alkaline nose and no belly. She layed out the rules. We cooked huge pots of spaghetti and ate dinner together like a family.
I got a job as a waitress. Instant jingles in my pocket.
I walk up Haight- Ashbury, huggin’ my new puppy inside my fatigue jacket.
I wait my turn at a free clinic catering to hippies, drug addicts and old people. I ask them to check me for lice and STD’s. I plop down on a black vinyl chair and my eyes rest on a huge black man with tantric eyes.
“You starin’ at me?” he snarled.
As I shook my head no, he threw his hot black coffee in my face.
Next day, waitress girl and I cross the street to the Panhandle. I set my puppy down to pee on the earth. Suddenly he darts out on Oak Boulevard. I watch as he tumbles under a bunch of cars like a pinball machine. I pick him up still breathing. Blood pours from his mouth and his ass. We bury him under an olive tree and I cry all night.
Otis is here but not talking to my head. I stumble out of a dream and have a beer and the New York Times for breakfast.
I realize that I have a short fuse and that Otis is the only one who will stay and turn my lights off.
I meet a beautiful black man named Andre who draws photo-realism. He talks muffled ghetto and I’m always wondering what he’s saying but don’t dare to ask.
He’s probably got five of me on the side. I fall for him anyway. I follow him everywhere.
But he’s too big for me. He’s a lonesome pissed off soldier that I can’t save.
I hawk a job as an artist’s model for 15 bucks an hour. They like me because I have a good rib cage and a round belly and I pose like a dancer. I fall asleep while they’re drawing me and my limbs fuzz off my body.
I work with a girl named Adrienne who’s skinny and fractured and gorgeous. She has major issues. Something about a father who was a bit too touchy feely. Gurlz never get over that. When fathers look at their daughters like a whore, trouble brews.
After she jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, they found her body floating near Alcatraz Island.
 

Busted

Got caught stealing panty hose and colored pencils from the five and dime.
Store bitch emptied my purse and found a hash pipe. Turned me over to the law. Chief told me to turn all my druggie friends in if I want to walk. Olman picks me up at the station. I play basketball wondering what to do.
Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
Hear some yellin’. I look up to my second story bedroom window and see
white sheets of paper swaying back and forth in the wind. Followed by books.
Then clothes. Then a suitcase. I stuffed it with all the belongings I had in the world.
I split town and never looked back.

Brown Labs

I need to tell you something.
I had to escape.
You say I need coping skills.
Why would I cope with a dead marriage?
I know I’m a handful.
I plead for the stuff to make it work and
get unchanging promises.

Arrived in Boston to big slushy snow banks.
George picks me up at the curve.
We eat Chinese, and then go to a bookstore.
He buys a Mediterranean cookbook.
I buy a calendar on brown Labs.
I left a dying dog in Michigan.

A.J. texts me.
Said she cried in school.
I say this may be better.
At home we take each other
for granted.
From here we’ll be one on one and
Every word will count.
I have to make a spin.

I’m so sorry for allowing you
to bully me.

Olman

He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1908. His father, Kirby, was a sergeant major in the Royal Canadian Army til his discharge for bein' a drunk and died of cirosis at 55. His mother, Eunice, was a seamstress. After Kirby died, Eunice immigrated to America with her 3 daughters and 2 sons. She couldn’t take care of them so she farmed them out to foster homes and Olman came up as a ward of the state of Massachusetts.
He had polio as a kid. I remember him playin’ up the limp thing and acting retarded while we were walkin’ in P-town one day. When we kids laughed hysterically, we were scolded by a sweet old lady for making fun of the pitiful man.
Every family has their name for shit. Olman called it ‘Boomies”. One day, while shoppin’ at the grocery store, he called out, “Hey Bub, go pick out a box of Boomies.”
I ran like hell outa there.
He came up during the depression and used his considerable artistic talents to claw his way through. He’d spot a weather beaten sign on a restaurant and offer to spiff it up for a free meal. He landed some fairly lucrative jobs including ad layouts for Look magazine and designed the MaryJane candy wrapper, which is still sold in penny candy stores today.
His older brother was a bully, and rendered beatings when his mood fit.
The girls did worse.
May walked into the ocean after being rejected by a lover.
June was killed in a DUI.
Isabelle, a model and aspiring actress, jumped off the window ledge of a 10-story building.
Olman was a scrapper who died in his sleep at 93 after a life of red meat, booze and Camels.
I think about the mothers who build tombstones on the side of the road
and bury their 23 year olds.
So he’s lying there like a veggie. Judy saw him last.
She visited the dying place to say good-bye. During her vigil, he came alive. He recognized her and talked about the old days and told her he loved her.
That night he flew to his eternal reward. She threw an urn on her wheel and we all signed the wet clay.
Then we burned him.

A prophet is without honor in his hometown.
Predicted

knocked Up

At 15.
A Nordic boy, new in town. Genius in math. Full ride to Tufts University
. Ended up toothless in a homeless shelter. We did it during my period on a shabby mattress in the garage. And hallways. Thought we couldn’t get pregnant because of the blood. Tried to throw myself downstairs and punch my swollen belly.
Way before Roe vs. Wade and The Day After pill.

Ruth caught me throwing up yellow puke.
“You’re pregnant.” She says.
“How dare you accuse me of such a thing?” I cry.
Indignant.
“You’ll never wear a white wedding dress.” Says she.
Arranged my own ship out. Late ‘60’s, you understand. Judy is a teacher with a toddler in Michigan.
Nanny kind of deal.
I finally tell Olman when I’m 5 months pregnant. Scared shitless.
Waited as long as I could. Hoping it would go away.
He calls us all in.
Offers: Marry my daughter then split. Give my grandchild a name.
Nordic boy and I huddle.
“ I have a great future before me.” He says. Scares the hell out of him.
Retreats.
We’re classmates at school now, while I’m planning. Waiting. Waiting and hanging on until I can’t anymore.
He starts dating the prom queen while I watch through the stage door. They cut out paper garlands together.
I named her Heidi after the Johanna Spyri novel.
Plus, it’s Nordic and all.
Then I gave her away.
A year or so later, I was 17, maybe. I knock on Nordic boy’s door at Tufts.
My drunken car salesman uncle needs a brand new ‘67 Corvette delivered to New Hampshire. Sure, I say.
I’m sitting on a freaking metal tsunami. All 5 lanes used up, rush hour traffic, just outside of Boston, a little rain drizzlin’ down. I pump the brakes, car freaks out, bumps along the guardrail for 500 yards, not hitting one other car. I wake up to a handsome paramedic and blood in my eyes. I must damn well have a purpose. Just for waking up.
So, A tall willowy redhead answers the door naked. Half of my head’s bandaged and my face is the size of a soccer ball.
“Is Nordic boy here?” I ask.
He walks up behind her, shocked. He thinks I’m Freddy Krueger.
Sure you can spend the night. He plays the host and offers me peanuts.
We get stoned. Redhead walks around naked all night.
Olman won’t pick me up.
I take the bus home the next day.

Two Questions
Two Answers

Q. How long do we have?
A. As long as it takes.

Q. How much do we get?
A. As much as we need.



When I was 12 we could buy Belladonna from the drug store. Match that with Colt 45 stolen from Olman’s stash and we were well on the way.
A fat whore lived down the street and George’s posse used to party there. For a beer she would fit a boy’s fist into her vagina. Got em all goin’ on that one. Claim to fame, I’m guessing.
I started having a body but I’d rev it up with tissue paper falsies. It was that time with the James Bond film and Ursula Andress on the beach.
A Babson Institute boy tried to teach me how to water-ski in my stolen black bikini. He tried to get me up 17 times. My tissue tits floated on the water. Then he quit.
I burned my face on a sun lamp to 3rd degrees that fall. Had to go to school with my eyes stuck shut.

Breakdown

There has been a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the
extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed and there
remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved.

Don’t you love concise words?
No fudging.
No goin’ around em.

So why the animosity toward lawyers?
I’m just asking.

Olman

 My Olman had 3 personalities and we’d cycle them by his beer nights. The Day. The Day After. And The Day After the Day After.

Jester:
On “The Day” anything goes. We ruled the house. He’d be like this chortling Jaba puffing smoke and telling jokes. He’d balance beer cans to the ceiling. He’d eat lit cigarettes and talk like he cared. The house would be full of friends and laughter and a never-ending party. If I asked if I could drive his car by myself, he’d say yes.
If I asked if I could have 10 boys up to my room,
he’d say yes.
If I asked him for the moon and the stars, he’d say yes and somehow give them to me.
We’d write poems together.
We’d play the drawing game.
“I’ll draw a line, Bubadit, and you guess what it is.
“A peacock!” I’d shout.
He’d draw another line.
“A steamboat!” I gleefully cry.
“A dream.” I guess.
And all his drawings were perfect.
He’d buy $100 dollars worth of Chinese food and peppermint stick ice cream
from Brigham’s for the whole house. I sat at his feet as much as I could.
He was the wisest and most hilarious man I’ve ever known.
He was my father.
But I knew he’d soon be gone.

Marquis de Sade:
The Day After, George and I would sit at the doorway of his bedroom
and watch the Jaba awaken from his coma. We’d listen to him talk in his sleep
and watch his toes play bongo drums.
He’d develop fairly strategic plots and characters using different voices.
But we better not laugh too loud or he’d wake up and hold our whole world ransom.

One time he locked Ruth out of the house because she had too many drinks
at her cousin’s house.
Another time I had to call 20 friends to cancel the party the Jester said I could have.
I should have known better.
Once, he lay in front of Judy’s car so she couldn’t go out on a date.

Another time, I watched from the window of my little pantry bedroom
as Ruth ascended the stairs with streams of blood running down her face
on to her white nightgown after the Marquis smashed her glasses into her face.

He kicked my brother Bill into the wood box when he hadn’t filled it.
But chill, he’ll be gone by tomorrow.

Bantam Rooster:
"The Day After the Day After the Day After," Walter Cronkite ruled the air
and you better not make a peep.
Have dinner on time and don’t talk during it. Bed by 9:00.
Don’t go within a 10-foot radius of this anti-social bastard.
I guess it was ok if you like reform school.
At least the house was quiet and I got my homework done.
But hey, the Jester’s coming back tomorrow.
 

Blockhead

Rope

They sent me home after a week stay in Havenwyck.
After a pretty sorry attempt to end my life.
He wouldn’t let me in.
He gave me 24 hours to evacuate.
I felt like the people hanging on rope ladders
leaving the American Embassy in Viet Nam.
26 years.
This is why I don’t know how to be loved.

Wellesley

 We grew up in a dilapidated Victorian mansion that used to be a kind of Inn.
To pay for the zip code, Olman used to take in boarders. Itinerate boxers and cabaret dancers with high-pitched voices. Demolition Derby drivers named Charley Thorne
who hit on prepubescent 10-year-old girls. Some barber named Frankie
who was a sex fiend and put Vodka in my milk. He didn’t last too long.
Boria used to jingle his coins and whistle to announce his entrance into the private family zone. A guy we called Chesty was obsessed with any thing Mexican and danced with his sombrero while we cooked dinner. Judy would practice ballet on the never finished pipe work
in the kitchen. I hid under the table listening to heated arguments about Saco/Venzetti
and drawing pictures. Bill arm-wrestled Chesty and won. George slipped in and out
with his friends stealing beer.
Ruth wasn’t around much. As soon as Olman walked through the door carrying
the square brown paper bag named “beer night”, she turned off the dinner she was
cooking and went upstairs for the night.
I didn’t have many friends and Otis hadn't moved in yet. After I lost Girlover I started hangin’ with the girls with teased hair who snapped their gum and rolled their eyes.
Phyllis used to hump her boyfriend on our antique couch.
Ruth walks in and offers us chocolates. American Bandstand is invasive.
Errol Garner melts the air. My first boyfriend was a chubby kid named Johnie Schofield.
Lots a freckles. I crushed on him cuz he was popular. The funny boy.
I slammed down my red satin shoes when he didn’t show up for the school dance.
I ripped his picture in half with great drama in front of chem. lab. Richie Fey
was so tiny he could fit his hand up the vending machine and get all our cigarettes.
Max Daniels stole money from the Boston Globe cigar box.

Olman, when drinkin’ hard, woke up three sheets. One day George had his posse over workin' on the go-cart. They cranked it up, rode it snarling down the long gravel driveway. Olman took over, circling around. Reveling. Showin' off. Drunk. Then, the fat wheels rip up our front porch stairs, burst through the double doors into the living room, smashed into sofas and chairs and dust catchers, spittin' smoke. Crashed back out, bumpin’ down the stairs, flew over the front lawn and stonewall and landed on the turnpike, barely missing a semi.
Forever embedding in my mind that I would never be normal.

Camp

 

It was my first time away from home and I was scared shitless.
Olman sent me to girl scout camp. Of all places. Rubik cube meets a dandelion.
We drive up on a hot summer day. I crack open the creaky screen door of the rustic log cabin, scopin’ the bunks and the roommate situation. One with a bible, brush and comb.
Another bed full of Nancy Drew. Another with a sketchbook and origami.
But in the corner, pickin’ softly on her guitar was a pretty freckled girl with
long warm auburn hair. Quick squinty grins traded. We hit it off like a shot.
For two weeks we pledge undying love. She was my girlover. My friend.

My First Weekend Invited
To Her House

4H Clubs? Family dinners? A father tying a child’s shoe? Milk money?
My first introduction to a “normal” family.

When I Invited Her
To My House

At first she thought I was the luckiest child alive. Secret butler pantries. Hidden rooms.
A house full of secrets. We’d spy on people and bring hot trays of food up the spiral staircase
to elderly gentlemen. Runaways were our brother and sister.
Olman had a boss named Jerk. Big shot guy who was a binge drinker.
He’d hide out at our house for his little excursions. Olman sucked up to him a bit.
Ruth had to wait on the guy, being Olman's boss and all. We had fun with him. Mocking. Pretending we were waitresses. “Would you like carrots or peas, sir?”
When Girlover came down from her pristine Vermont farmhouse,
she met the Osborne family. A whole new flawed world opened up to her.
Shit happens.
So Jerk was like, bombed. We play with him like some kind of marionette. Suddenly, the guy awakens from his stupor, pulls Girlovers drawstring jammies down and starts fingering her.
Bro comes to the rescue, pullin’ her off. Lots a wailing later, her dad drives down at 5 in the morning.
Angry voices thunder the night. Then the night whisked her away forever.

Third Grade

I wrote a poem and was asked to read it to the class.
I stood up proud. Nervous.

Tadpole

I put some water in a bowl
In this I put a tadpole
He squirmed and squiggled
But couldn’t get out
So all he did was swim about
He dropped his tail behind a log
And turned himself
Into a frog.

I glanced up to stifled giggles. Ok, I thought.
They like it but it isn’t supposed to be that funny.
A kid from the back row pointed toward my knees.

Hot blood scorched my cheeks.
The belt I tied so tightly around my way too big hand me down skirt
left a huge gap at my waist, exposing my underwear and bare thighs.
I’ve feared public speaking ever since.

Invisible Dagger

His abuse was an invisible dagger. No one can see the crime.
No one to validate the cruelty. No one to detect the weapon.
My growing awareness gave faith to my feelings.
The push, the brush of anger, the cutting remark, the
psychological violence that killed my spirit. My only escape
was to turn the hate on me.
I was trapped by despair, with no way out but death.

“You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.”
Isadora Duncan

Rolling Child

My first memory is of rolling down a hill.
I hear mom calling “Where’s Barbie?”
I’m nestled in the tall grass of the Vermont farmhouse. Tryin’ to hide, full of giggles.
Waiting for her to come and find me. Then,
I hear mom talking to George about the barbequed chicken.
Chattin’ to cousin Harriet about her hair ribbons.
“Nana, do you want some more lemonade?”
“Is the Olman drunk enough to do the eat the lit match trick?”
I watched the sun roll down the sky and the stars kept me company.
I waited until the cow moon came home.
I waited, smiling at the sky.
They packed up the ’52 Chevy and discovered I was gone.
I don’t remember any thing else for a long time.

A Novel Idea

Chapter One

It's fun to think of names. What do you name a girl who always leaves her bags unzipped and spilled? Who holds you up in grocery lines because her paint splattered pockets are stuffed with crumpled dollar bills? A 57 year old woman who talks aloud to her make believe friend named Otis who resides in her brain? A girl who’s half mad?
That's why I like to write. It explains life to me.

But the name thing. Like a mother birthing characters in a dream. I was meant to be a mother because sometimes the best roll model is a mistake. I caved. Big time. Free fall started when I found out my marriage wasn't gonna work.

Otis, the guy that lives with me in my head, is like a gay boyfriend who will tell you your butt looks too big. Guess some would call me schizophrenic, but it sure beats dining alone.

I was a good mother. You know, this guys a great carpenter and this girl’s a bridge builder. Otis says I was a better mom than wife. Shit, he’s always right. I’m the kind of mom who made her toddler walk in front of her brother’s swing to teach her not to get hit. Softly. I was so intent on swinging her around the centrifugal force thingy that she couldn’t hold on. Seven stitches on her sweet baby lips.

So, I want to write this book, see? I go to Border’s and mosey around the reference shelves. Gad, I love those professorial types.
I told my girls that there was this giant magnet attached to me that could smash through a bookstore’s window. I’d plop them down in the kid’s section and spend days there. I find a book that says to write on index cards. I go to CVS and buy the colored ones. Not being a number person, the sheer spread across my carpet overwhelmed me. They’ve been in a half-written box ever since. Along with the book. Found out miles and pain is the only way my story.

I was inclined to fall.
Like a branch the Gardener willfully prunes
Falling Into fresh soil.
The only kid I birthed is either dead, clueless, High
Priestess at a cult in Ghandi, or she simply would not
like to talk with me.

My heart children either
hate me or Love me too much.
(I wish we could really get to know one another)
As my Pastor Dave likes to say, Acceptance.


                 * * * *

Commandment For Today

Let Us Not Be Boring

Why do I Love Dylan Thomas?

“ I mean, he was ugleeeey!”

“More chins than a Chinese phonebook.”
My friend Steve used to say.
“So what’s the deal, here?”

My zombie mother waxing frayed wire matinee brain farts?

“I-SHE-ME”….. the fly on the wall lookin’ for roadkill?

Some kinda lesson from Mrs. O’Riley’s Junior Year sell an
Education degree pitch?


K.
He was a drunken poet. Guilty.
Welsh. Limey, same island. Right.
Caved early. Wrong.


I Love the word vanguard.
Art folks, need to be sustained, fed, and valued.
We need civilians who make the trains run on time.

B.

Letter to My Children

There are too many things to say I'm sorry for. Many linger in my mind that you brushed off like a skinned knee. Kids are resilient and wired to believe and trust and can take an amazing amount of parental blundering, but some mistakes replay like infomercials. The first thing I'd like to ask your forgiveness for is being too preoccupied with 'art' or being too busy to catch butterflies or play house with you. I'd brush you off from my knee. I'd buy you toys to take my place. Another that comes to mind is laying down stupid rules and not enforcing the more important ones. I was inconsistent when it was convenient for me. Impatience was a way to get the day done. I didn't teach you how to be loved and cherished. I fell short in so many ways.

More recently, I've expected you to grant instant understanding because i have this disease, see, and I haven't considered the emotional toll it's extracted from you. I've 'expected' youto have empathy and cut me slack. This is so wrong and I see the enormous damage it could cause if you weren't such a strong woman. I'm not writing this for you because that would mean expecting something back, but I need to ask for your forgiveness, whenever and if you are able.