On a short dirt road lined with tiny houses we lived.
In my memory there are eight houses lined up side by side on one side of the street, the other side of the street quickly giving way to swamp and dampness.
Maybe seven houses?
Hold on.
Oh my god . . .
And now? I am stepping into quicksand.
Hold on. I need a minute.
I just went over to Google Maps, thinking that I would type in the name of the street on which I used to live. Click. Satellite view . . . click.
See if I can count the houses.
Street view? Sure . . . click.
And suddenly? And heart-stoppingly? It is as though I am standing at the top of our road, just where the pavement of the larger street ends and our small dirt road begins. At my school-bus stop, where the mailboxes are lined up in a messy row.
It looks just the same. And I am sinking into the past.
And the desire to walk down that small dirt road? Is overwhelming and frightening in its intensity. I am here to count houses in the name of accuracy, but suddenly?
I am here.
The desire to walk down that road is overwhelming.
My heart will not stop racing.
Jesus.
Ok, let’s just get this over with.
Click.
No amount of clicking will make the virtual me walk down that dirt road.
No . . . amount . . . of . . . clicking.
I stare at the image before me, and I can see what is just beyond the edge of this view.
My childhood.
This is where I lost it, just past the edge of this screen.
Fuck.
So on the small dirt road on which we lived, there were seven or maybe eight tiny houses, all lined up in a row on one side of the street. Facing the swampy dampness.
On one side of us lived a woman alone.
I will call her Mabel because that was her name, and because I can’t think of a reason not to use it here.
As best I can remember? Our relationship with Mabel first turned on the fact that she had a phone and we did not. I remember my parents making small bargains with her for the use of the phone.
She didn’t seem to like us kids very much, but she would sometimes call us over. She would pay us small amounts of change to run errands or do chores for her. I wanted the money, but I hated going to her house. She terrified me.
But the lure of those jingling coins was strong, and I would sometimes approach.
All business with Mabel? Was conducted within her house. That was understood.
Her house was always far too warm, and stepping through her doorway into the heavy warmth within? Felt like an unwanted sweaty embrace. Too much . . . in every way. The air was redolent with the scent of rotten apples and sweetness and decay and a flowery fragrant oil she applied to her hair.
And woman. She just filled the space around her with the smell of sweat and sex and desire. I was over-aware of every fold of flesh and what might lie beyond.
She was a huge woman, and she wore flimsy house-dresses that did little to hide her nakedness beneath. She moved slowly, almost ruined by age and illness.
Moved slowly . . . toward me.
I wanted those coins badly, glinting on a small round table in the middle of her living room.
She would stand too close as I tried not to breathe her in, and she would issue directions about the shopping to be done or the garbage to be collected or the dishes to be washed.
That was the best-case scenario.
As time passed, however? There were fewer requests for assistance and more requests for information.
About my father.
And there was an intimacy and an urgency to her questions about my father that upset me. She behaved as though she wanted answers to her questions, but also? She behaved as though she already had the answers and just wanted to torture me with the realization that she knew my family’s secrets. Knew my father.
That she knew my father.
I was never certain what she meant to say. What lay beneath the folds in her words.
She invited confidences even as her face told me others had already confided.
In exchange for a few small jingling coins.
I wanted those coins badly, but in the end?
Not a bargain I was willing to strike.
I missed having the money for candy.
But sometimes others?
Would share theirs.
Purchased with a few jingly coins.
From Mabel.
The desire to walk down this road?
Surprises me.
Kris,
The writing you share about your past breaks my heart. I want to wrap the child you speak of up in my arms and offer her some sort of safety. Security. Love.
Thank you for sharing this.
Kelsey
The child?
She has found safety and security and love.
Or she would not be here writing about the child.
She once was.
In my minds eye, in the story as you told it, she is huge, hulking. Jabba the Hutt in female form.
And your eyes have to be quick, looking at her but not looking, seeing the coins.
Quickness is so important. Because you think that – if you needed it, if fear poked you too hard – you would be so much faster than she.
I imagine you imagining running of you had to.
I don’t know why. What my imagination concocts when I read your story.
Her, huge. You, quick.
Your vision?
Is entirely accurate in every detail.
I love that I have done my job well enough for you to see.
I hate the unanswered questions of my childhood, but I’m also afraid of those answers. I long for the answers, but sometimes, when my grandma is talking and gets close to those things? I change the subject, get her to talk about something safe.
Then I regret it.
Then I repeat.
I wish I could get her to write it all down and seal it in an envelope because if I don’t get the answers now, I never will. But I don’t know if I’m ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.
Maybe Google maps will someday let you go down that road. Maybe.
And I have no one to ask.
I think I know the answers.
But I am not certain.
“The child?
She has found safety and security and love.”
How did you do that? My adult knows she has all those things.
But my child? Is still scared to make a wrong move.
I do not know how I am no longer scared of the past.
And how I have come to a place where I can look it in the eye without fear.
It has been a long journey, and there are still moments?
When my breath is caught.
By the strength of the memory and emotions tangled in my past.
But then I uncatch that breath and move on.
I do not know how to advise you.
Much love to you and your scared inner child.
Big love.
There is always such strength behind your words. And power. The power to make me see the road, the houses, the crooked mailboxes and smell. Her.
Happy sighs at having accomplished what I set out to do.
Thank you.
oh.
I had a friend with a mother like Mabel. Right down to the naked-under-the-housedress, fleshy presence. She scared the living daylights out of me. Enough that my eleven year old self distanced myself from the daughter to avoid be invited over. I just shuddered remembering Ray, her on again-off again man “friend.” He gave off waves of wrongness, and I had unspecified worries for my friend, but neither words to explain nor tangible evidence to describe.
I’m sickened for the child who was.
I do not have all the answers.
And the ones I think I have?
May be wrong.
But the child who was? Read waves of wrongness, as you said.
And I think?
That she was correct.
Over and over again I am amazed and confused and bewildered and delighted that such a wrong past could make such a right person.
such a RIGHT person.
That you are all of these things . . .
amazed and confused and bewildered and delighted?
Makes me just one thing.
Happy.
Your story…well not the story, but Mabel scared me. I don’t know why – maybe because you were so descriptive? She reminds me of someone from my past that I can’t place? The smells? Being small and afraid? I don’t know. But I am going away uneasy.
It’s amazing to me that the words you write can do that! It’s very powerful and a trait I admire.
You know what’s funny?
The dirt road I lived on was straight, and I started to tell a different lighter story.
But then the road?
Turned unexpectedly, and the story that emerged?
Was darker.
Sometimes a vivid imaginations isn’t a good thing. I can’t unsee the fleshy nakedness.
Neither can I.
But I apologize.
Do you believe in fate? And time travel? If so, maybe google maps is the window we can see into other dimensions…Mabel is living in her own hell. I always associate the name Mabel with cows. Ironic. I cant breathe thinking of the warm room…yuck.
Mabel is wherever Mabel is supposed to be.
And I will always have questions.
But the scent of her?
Is with me.
Hey.
I’ve brought ice cream.
Where the hell have you been?
I have spoons.
I have to work for a living! And to buy ice cream.
I hope you have the cherries.
I do.
And sprinkles.
Love those guys.
I don’t suppose you thought to bring whipped cream?
I always have whipped cream on hand when you’re around.
Always.
You know me very well.
Thank you.
oh wow. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it. you’re a master storyteller, woman. I always feel like I am right there with you. I have goosebumps.
Love goosebumps.
Thank you for that.
When I read your words I’m in your world. I am you. I smell and feel your story.
You truly have a gift.
Awwww . . .
Thank you.
Happy sighs.