Coronation of the River Queen

The river was deep and I drank it dry

down to the scales left behind by the skeletons

of various fish
now stuck in my teeth.

I thought I had swallowed them whole. I swear,

there were a few swimming in my belly. I lit a cigarette

and surveyed what I had done. The sand and the scales

freckled my lips, glistening like star fragments.

 

I was pregnant with everything. Everything I had taken.

Everything I had done. I couldn’t stop,

even though my torso

was scraping the riverbed. “Those poor fish,”

I thought, like the Walrus once had.

But because the Carpenter was gone,

there was no one

to slap my wrist when I picked up the scales

and fastened them around my tresses like a crown.

Good Morning

I woke up early and drove home in the blue light.

Folk songs about love lost and running away kept me awake. Well, kept me thinking about heavy red hearts, and mountainsides. With the windows down, I could smell the moist earth, that spring smell.

Anything to distract me from your scent still left on my clothes.

I stopped to get coffee and bagel when I reached Wilmington. I drove to the river and watched tiny whirlpools twist between pilings. At twenty-three, you’d think I’d be a little used to spring, and change, and meeting someone new.

I thought about what Brea said.

“She’s in love with love.”

And I thought about the girl Brea was talking about. And I thought whether or not it is true for everyone.

I first moved to Wilmington in the spring. I didn’t know a single soul. I was at a party and every girl was tanned, and fresh-faced. They seemed in love with life, and love and living. They danced carelessly, they played bongos, they kissed each other and the boys. They smoked weed. They made references to Jim Morrison. They were flower children, but the clean kind. The ones with rich parents and god given genetics.

I was so damn scared.

I went to the bathroom and stared at my reflection. The same eyes that have always looked back were there: when I was five, ten, fourteen, and now, a young woman.

I’ve since gotten to know those girls (and those boys for that matter) and they’re just as shallow and naïve as I am. I just wanted so badly for them to know me as I do. That I’m in love with love and life, just like they are.

Four springs later I’m sitting in my car, staring at my reflection and telling myself not to be so scared again.

With dew kissing every surface, and the sun warming the earth ever so gently, I could hear this little town waking up.

And I thought about calling Brea about her first date. And I thought about the girl in love with love. And I guess that’s just it. The world is turning green again, and like the robins, and rabbits, and azaleas we’re all poking our heads out, open palmed, trying to catch the rain.

I’m Afraid of the Dark

“It was a dark and stormy night.”

When I was five, my bedroom had a large bay window. At night, I would look to the sky and shudder at its vastness. I was so small, huddled in my blankets. Everything terrified me.

My father used to sit by my bedside and tell me stories about his childhood. He talked about hobos and boxcars, about his grandfather named Jingles (a nickname earned for always carrying change in his pockets), about petting wild deer on a hunting trip instead of shooting them, about firemen saving babies and wearing tin helmets.

I imagined his life in the woods, in a world where maybe Peter Rabbit lived too.

I remember his stories being my favorite. I didn’t want to read from the picture books. I wanted his voice to send me off to sleep as he looked up to the ceiling, smiling.

And Lord knows I’d be up in just a few minutes, knocking on my parents bedroom door, with some excuse. The list of my fears was endless: aliens, vampires, Santa, the dark, ghosts, Jesus’ bleeding hands, the Easter Bunny’s black eyes…

Seriously.

I was convinced that one of these unexplained guests would take my father’s place at my bedside as soon as he was gone.

That damn bay window would expand in the dark and nightfall would flood my bedroom: moonlight in pale streams across the carpet, the silhouettes of trees, the blinds casting shadows on the wall. Even the neighbor’s house seemed closer, leaning forward and staring at me in a contrast I didn’t recognize.

One night in particular, I remember begging my father to not leave after he had finished a story. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, while watery sobs hiccuped from my chest.

I kept stealing glances towards the night sky. I wouldn’t make it to dawn without him.

“I….am….too…scared!” I gasped.

“It’s okay, Brittany. I’ll tell one more story.”

***

I’m twenty-three, and I’m still that child: afraid of the unknown, of what I can’t explain, convinced the monster scenario I’ve made up in my head is definitely, definitely going to happen.

I’m still that child, clutching the comforter to my chin with my white-knuckled hands, and my nails digging into my palms. Wondering if I’m going to make it through grad school, if I am ever going to get my car back, if I’m too awkward for my own good, if I’m annoying, if I’m a good writer, if I’m destined to die alone as a crazy cat lady…

And when these fears come creeping across my pillow on some idle Tuesday, I’m inclined to say I’d much rather take on aliens or the Easter Bunny.

So, I usually end up writing. (Like now, at two in the morning. The cat is snoring his head off and I’m far too lazy to turn the heat on so my fingers are stiff from the cold) I sit plucking away at my laptop, while everyone else in the house gets their healthy eight hours of sleep.

What if my dad had stuck to the picture books? Maybe I’d be more into fiction, escaping into novels to keep my demons at bay. Perhaps I’d write short stories, coming up with characters far more secure in their life then I tend to be in my own.

Regardless, my father’s storytelling made an everlasting impression on me. He taught me about his family, his past, and where I came from. They were such a comfort. I remember lying in bed listening to his boyish and really, very simple adventures, wishing my life was that interesting. Hoping that one day I would have good stories to tell.

I think this is when I started to narrate my life in my head. I’d describe my mother’s facial expressions as she talked. My father’s hands as he passed a basketball to my brother. I’d have a entire inner monologue compiled by the time I reached the bus stop.

I did try keeping a diary, but that never seemed to stick.

Still, I absorbed my surroundings like a sponge. I constantly asked my parents or grandparents about their past, then recount their stories to my friends. I’d fall and scrape my knees, while climbing to the lake behind my grandmother’s house, telling myself I was just as adventurous as my father. I’d return home to point to my wounds and explain that I spent the afternoon with a flock of swans. I was determined to remember everything that was worth retelling.

And I don’t really know if fear and writing necessarily go hand in hand for me. I know it’s a comfort. I know it became a major part of my childhood because I could never face the dark on my own.

And right now, wrapped in my duvet, recalling our little white house on John Hanson Drive, imaging my dad talking about old hobos, has calmed me. The night has turned gentle.

This all seems so familiar.

Hopefully, I’ll eventually get to sleep.

Everything I’m About to Say is Cliche

HBO’s Girls

No one had slept well the night before.

Around two in the afternoon, I was sitting on my front porch with my legs hanging over the banister. My friend Alison was standing on the brick walkway, swaying from side to side. Liz sat on the front stoop.

“I wish I could just nap in the sun,” someone said.

“I shouldn’t have drank that bloody mary,” I probably said.

Across the street a party of bridesmaids walked up the front steps to the Catholic Church.

“Those are actually cute bridesmaids’ dresses,” Alison commented absently.

We watched as the happy procession disappeared behind the dark wooden doors of the church.

Then the bride came, escorted by her father. The last moments before he was to give her away, played out before our very eyes.

Liz’s actual Instagram stalker photo

She looked about our age. And the three of us, despite ourselves, gawked and, yes, we swooned.

“She’s about to start the rest of her life!” Alison said.

Liz had already whipped out her iPhone.

“Instagraaaaaaam,” she said, cigarette balanced between her lips.

“Dude, my dad would not be that calm. He would be bawling his head off,” I said.

We commented on the girls dress. On her father’s awkward hand gestures. On the weather. On how perfect it all seemed.

The doors opened, and at the last second the father offered his arm. We all collectively sighed.

“I wonder who will be the first to get married out of everyone we know?”

From there our conversation veered and dipped. The three of us postulated theories on co-habitation, promiscuity, careers and happiness.

Each theory had its undertones. Each of us had baggage, or hang ups due to prior experience.

I am steadfast against ever living with a significant other, until I am absolutely sure I’m willing to watch them die one day. Alison won’t even live with a fiancé until they’re officially betrothed. Liz is ready to move in with her boyfriend as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

All convictions are valid here.

For example, my ex and I lived together, and that fell spectacularly to pieces. Conversely, I am a product of divorce. That’s not to say I don’t find the father daughter moment adorable, or the bridesmaid’s dresses tasteful. Marriage just has never, ever seriously, been something I’ve considered or even fantasized about.

I can’t, of course, speak for my two friends. But we did all agree that the bride was incredibly young.

“Could you seriously imagine marrying someone right now?”

“We don’t even know who we are right now.”

“I don’t know who I’m going to be next week.”

Inevitably, the same twenty-something-year-old question came up again. What are we supposed to do? Where are we headed? Are we doing this life thing right? When does it start being ‘not okay’ that my parents still pay my cell-phone bill?

We started to point fingers.

“I heard on the radio—NPR or something—about the way the school system when we were kids worked. Everyone told us, ‘You can do whatever you want! Anything in the world! The world is your oyster!’ So we grew up, just believing we could become anything in the world, but we never honed in on any one skill. And now, the world is knocking, and we’re like, ‘Wait, what?’” Alison said.

“Plus the recession happened,” I added.

“Yeah, and now, what they once thought was this new age, great way to teach our children, has kind of backfired completely.”

So, of course, I brought up Lena Dunham.

“Have you heard Alec Baldwin’s interview with Lena Dunham?”

Neither girl had.

“It’s soooooo gooooood,” I exclaimed.

(This consolidates the fact that I fit snugly into my demographic. I hate when people my age describe anything as, soooo gooood. And I hate when I say it.)

“It’s kind of related to what we’re talking about,” I said, gesticulating towards the church and Alison.

“Lena Dunham says, ‘If you ask a girl in her 20’s, ‘Are you a happy person?’ I think she can say, ‘I have happy moments,’ but I don’t think it’s possible, maybe people will radically disagree with me, but I don’t really think it’s possible to be sort of an at-peace human when you are between 22 and 30’.”

And if you haven’t listened to Alec Baldwin’s Here’s the Thing, and if you haven’t watched HBO’s Girls, directed by Lena Dunham, then you are perfectly normal, and probably a more well put together adult than I am. You’re probably not a twenty-something female who waitresses to pay off her art degree. You probably don’t write a senseless blog or Instagram photos of your cats.

But then again, how could one resist?

And in that same vein, a young girl in a wedding dress, across the street from your house, doesn’t spark a twenty-minute existential crisis.

During Lena Dunham’s interview, Alec Baldwin comments, “I’m much older than you, and one thing I noticed when I went to college, which is a long time ago, an interesting number of people, they really knew what they wanted to be. They weren’t quite sure how to get there, but they had a dream. ‘I want to become a lawyer.’ ‘I want to become a doctor.’ ‘I want to go into politics. And now, people today – it seems like young people, they think they have more time to figure it out. They’re turning 25 and they really don’t have that picture in focus.”

I summarized these points to Liz and Alison. Summarized, being the key word here.

We fell silent. Comforted, but still pensive.

But then again, I’m not sure if Lena and Alec made us feel at all better.

We’re all in the same boat, yes. But, are we all fucked?

Just then the groomsmen and the groom all came out of the church all wearing khakis.

“Ugh,” Alison remarked.

“So tacky.”

“Yeah, no, they look like a fraternity. Who does that?”

Just like that, our sudden brainstorm of theories and convictions ended.

We went to take naps.

We don’t have an answer, or really, a solution. Maybe the problem is too many opportunities. Maybe the problem is the world isn’t really as open as it seems. Maybe we’re still young.

Liz loves to quote a meme she saw about Stan Lee the creator of Spiderman:

Stan Lee is 90 years old.

Which means he created Spiderman at 40.

Which means you haven’t even begun to live your life yet.

I think we’re just going to have to keep fumbling in the dark until we figure it out.

But I’ll be damned if anyone will be wearing khakis.

Writing at Midnight with Frank O’Hara

I smelled like the ocean when you left. And the day’s hour had sprung forward, because it’s March.

The planet is spinning towards the sun again, so my freckles are blossoming on my shoulders, and just under my lashes. Even my eyes seem brighter.

Or maybe, I’m just not drinking as much.

And, I don’t want to shower right away, because of the salt on my skin, and because I won’t see you for some time. I wonder when this will stop. When the mornings will seem habitual, and my stomach won’t seize every time you raise your eyebrows, or perhaps, say my name.

I’m sitting in my bed, with the damn window open, and I hate myself. I’m writing silly girl poetry. I’m twenty-three.

I should know better.

But the alcoves and landscape of your face distract me. Like a texture and blind woman cannot pronounce, I reread these memories constantly. I’ve become an insatiable two-year old. With the rouge in my cheeks and miswords on my tongue. Like spring, my skin surges into life.

I cannot take it.

The ambivalence is worse when you are here. I think of what isn’t being done, what else I have to do, how you ended up sitting here and whether or not your eyes are green or brown.

Perhaps if I had more stability, or maybe an inkling of where my life was going, this sudden ripening wouldn’t be fought so furiously.

My chest is rising and falling, my mouth is full of questions, proclamations of love even.

Yet, with you sitting across from me, I continue to absently stab the chicken on my plate with a bent fork.

Tip-toeing into Adulthood

Photo by Peter Rimar. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I fall asleep and wake up in Pittsburgh. It is snowing. With my face pressed against the window, I watch as a Sean Penn look-a-like signals the plane into the gate. The snow melts as soon as it hits the tarmac. The European couple next to me, still wearing their designer sunglasses, start to unbuckle their seatbelts.

Once I get into my cab, I finally relax. I’ve flown enough to know my way about. But, there is always my mother’s voice in the back of my head. You’re going to be late. Don’t miss your flight. Are those the right shoes?

I tell the cab driver my great-aunt’s address. He continues down the highway without a word.

“I haven’t seen mountains in quite some time. They depress me. I don’t know why.” I think to myself, looking at the grey sky and dead trees.

The cab driver detects some sort of despondency, “Is this your first time?”

It takes me a second to realize what he’s asking.

“Just once before.”

“Oh, I love this city. Small, but there is plenty to do. Cheap to live.”

He is Indian. Tells me he’s lived here nearly 17 years. We talk about India and North Carolina. He asks me why I am visiting. I like the cadence in his voice. His furry eyebrows pop up, and then disappear again behind the frames of his glasses.

I hear myself telling him that I’m visiting for an interview. I hear myself say graduate school. I must look at least a little grown up in my red lipstick, pea coat, and matching luggage by my side. Yet, I feel like some sort of imposter.

We arrive at my great-aunt’s home, a historic ten bedroom mansion, once owned by some steel mill tycoon.

“Your aunt’s house is huuuuuuuuge.”

Furry Eyebrows wishes me good luck on my interview and drives off. I am standing in the driveway, suitcase in tow, staring at a home I could never dream of living in. I find myself wondering how the hell I got here. Wasn’t I just asleep? Wasn’t I, just this morning, having breakfast, barefoot and sleepy-eyed, with my roommates?

I’m afraid to walk up onto the grand front porch: the double glass doors, the tall white columns.

Jesus, is that a grand piano?

I remember Nick, my great-aunt’s son, playing piano when I was little. It was just an electronic keyboard at my grandfather’s house. It was one of the few times I remember him visiting us. I watched him in awe as his nimble fingers danced up and down the keys. Then he stopped, the keyboard wasn’t long enough. The rest of the song existed outside of my little electrical instrument.

The housekeeper lets me in. She is cordial. She makes me coffee. We joke about cats, and cable television. She tidies the kitchen and leaves.

I seize the opportunity to smoke a cigarette. Forgetting Pittsburgh’s affinity for freezing weather, I step out the back door without a coat on. I turn around to retrieve my jacket, and find the door locked.

Fuck.

Summer is so close in Wilmington, I could kiss it. There are days when winter tries to rear is grey and feeble head, but the south is resilient against it. Wilmington is small and sleepy at times. It serves as a good incubator, it doesn’t demand much from you, but allows for you to find yourself. But like most utopias, there’s a scary underbelly.

As nurturing as Wilmington has been to me, it is time for me to escape. I can only walk the five blocks of the historical district so many times. Between work and going out, I hardly venture outside a fifteen mile radius. Writing has become a chore, not an outlet. Somehow, I’ve become frightened of what I will write down.

And now, locked out of this giant brick mansion, with my fingers losing feeling, my mind is buzzing with sentences, paragraphs even. I don’t want back inside because of the warmth. My fingers are aching to dance up and down the keyboard. Even if their song isn’t quite within reach yet.

“Oh and just like the river, I’ve been running ever since.”

Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Watching the Patuxent River through the cracks of our old dock, or feeling its warm currents lap lazily against my small skiff, has somehow seeped into my being. Since the third grade, I’ve greeted every morning with the river. It’s color, texture, or depth never the same. I fished and crabbed in its waters. I fell asleep to the sounds of changing tides.

I left that little island, hugging the Patuxent River, to settle near the ocean in Wilmington, North Carolina. And the ocean is beautiful, blue-green, teeming with life and mystery I could never begin to understand. But, its depth looms before me like an abyss. I’m afraid that the abyss will return my gaze, so I opt not to look for too long.

Perhaps this is why I find myself leaning over the wooden boardwalk at the River Front downtown. The Cape Fear seems languid, but its black waters are always churning. What is on the surface rushes down to the bottom and back up again. Unlike the ocean, I can see the river’s intention, moving away, reinventing and mixing itself, carving through sediment and earth.

U.S. Coast Guard photograph of Wilmington, North Carolina.http://www.uscg.mil/d5/mso/wilmington/ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I stand there with a coffee, as an au pair takes a young girl in a tutu by the hand. I’m dreading work. I’m watching a barge roll in. I’m thinking of love lost, and what to gain. I stand there as the Cape Fear River seduces the ocean.

And I know bringing up Sam Cooke is obvious; but, living in a place whose trappings recede or grow at the water’s whim, has an effect on a person’s soul. I move and change jobs often. I cope with loss by committing myself to journey, or to projects. When things turn stagnant, or when a routine begins to rear its ugly head, I either run or panic.

Where running from things only leads to sudden regret on an idle Tuesday, claustrophobic panic is crippling. When I’m stuck, I can’t write. Likewise, the turbulence clouding and thrashing inside my head, calms and settles into a pool of clarity, only after the lines and lines of little black symbols are arranged on a page.

And it seems that such clarity comes (or perhaps it is inspiration?) when I’ve found something new to tackle, change, or get rid of.

Needless to say, it is a vicious cycle.

Sometimes I have regrets. Often, however, I continue this slow churning movement forward: carving my way through school, or heart ache, or failure, hoping to reach whatever it is I am headed.

And like the river’s waters, headed toward the big blue abyss, once I’ve left an idea, a place, a person, seldom do I return.

It Drives You Into the Sky, Leading You to the Middle of Nowhere

Govenor Thomas Johnson Bridge. Courtesy of photosbyshew.wordpress

The Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge is my last leg home after a seven hour drive from North Carolina. He starts in St. Mary’s county, lifting you up over the creeks and inlets. It’s more residential on this side of the bridge. Houses old and new crowd the shore. Some are large multi-million dollar properties; others looked like one room shacks, probably built even before the bridge.  From there, is a slow ascent into the sky, and towards the small little island I called home for nearly two decades.

By definition, Thomas Johnson is an arch bridge. He looms over 140 feet tall (Just fifteen feet shorter than the famed London Bridge). And below him, the Patuxent River dips down to 130 feet deep. His concrete legs dive down into the Patuxent rivers depths, anchoring his massive structure in silt and sand. Having started construction in 1964, the state didn’t complete this massive bridge until 1977.

In turn, Solomons Island, my hometown, lost its isolation forever.

The main attraction and purpose for my hometown’s existence is a 1.8 mile long island, situated where the Chesapeake Bay and Patuxent River meet.  In the beginning, Solomons was an isolated and self-sufficient community. Most families depended on these bodies of water for food, livelihood, entertainment, and even shelter. Instead of cars, families had boats and used them as the primary mode of transportation. Solomons relied on steamboats to deliver food and other goods, or transport citizens to Baltimore.

Taken from SolomonsMaryland website, History page.

The first car drove into Solomons in 1910. School was dismissed. Shipyard workers put their hammers and fishing poles down. The whole town stopped to witness history.

After the car, came the roads. Then came the telephone and electricity.

Access to the island had developed. No longer did one have to board a steam boat and navigate up or down the Chesapeake Bay.

When Thomas Johnson rose out of the water almost a century later, Solomons became a vacation destination. Natives benefited financially from tourism.

The bridge offered something else, a break from isolation. Families now could easily access other farms, businesses, counties, and cities. Over time, Solomons became a small sanctuary for water enthusiasts and vacationers. Today, most of the island’s economy is dependent on tourism.

What I can’t understand is why the bridge is so damn big.

According to the Washington Post, Thomas Johnson was built at its seemingly ridiculous height to allow naval ships to pass beneath it. However, the pier that retired battleships or even active navy vessels used to dock, burned down years ago.

Whether it is due to the structure’s sheer height, or volume of use, there have been cracks in its foundation since the early eighties. Anytime there’s a storm, random earthquake, or traffic jam, rumors start to spread that the bridge is going to crumble.

And that’s a long way to fall.

Maryland state officials are planning to either expand the Thomas Johnson Bridge, or tear down the new one and replace it with something even bigger. Even though the bridge hasn’t served its purpose in decades, because of the Patuxent River’s deep ports, officials hope it may serve as an economic opportunity for surrounding communities.

But like I said, Thomas Johnson is the last leg on my way home.

With the St. Mary’s side behind me, it is at the crest of Thomas Johnson’s massive arch, where I can finally see the tiny twinkly town of Solomons Island:

Masts of sailboats collect behind old seafood restaurants like pens in a cup. The restaurant where my brother cooks has a full parking lot. He’s perfecting his cream of crab soup, or Chicken Chesapeake recipe. Next door is the  J.C Lore and Sons Oyster House, now converted into a museum. Its foundation built upon a massive pile of oyster shells.  The street is ice-cream shop. It’s metal fixture welded  by my Irish-immigrant great-uncle Phil. He fled back to Ireland before his disease took hold of him. But, every time I see that shiny silver prism, I picture him bending steel.

Right before the Island, the Glasscock Farm’s fields are either rich green, golden-yellow or soft brown, depending on the season. Their red barn looks like some toy structure, gently placed next to the river shore.  I can see my entire childhood laid out before me, like a ceramic Christmas ornaments on display in a shop window.

Everything seems so small and delicate from Thomas Johnson peak.

And our town is so very small. Despite the roads, telephones, and tourists, it still seems incredibly isolated. At night you can actually see the stars. The river turns black.  From my mother’s dock I can hear the voices of charter boat captains as they head out for night fishing trip.

I can still see Thomas Johnson from our house, even when the sun has settled beyond the horizon. He’s always been there, a grand entrance to our small water community. He hosts the fireworks on the fourth of July. He was my final test in driving school.

And he drives me into the clouds.

Just before I head back towards the earth, just over the jersey wall, I can see the postcard of my entire life, my family, my past, and all those before me. Where the Patuxent River and the Chesapeake Bay exchange brackish water. Where they sky is orange, or blue, or grey with the promise of rain. Either way, it’s all encompassing. And as the bridge dips, its concrete slope curves towards the moving tail lights and white front shops.

I know I’m almost home.

Perhaps that’s why they built the thing so damn high.

My Brother and The Bugs

cicadae (Photo credit: masayukig)

When I was a kid, I desperately pined for a puppy. My mother was steadfast against it. I would beg my parents, write secret letters to Santa Claus, pray to God and my dead ancestors— nothing worked.

I grew up in rural Southern Maryland. My mother and her friends would arrange play dates, but the majority of my time was spent either with my brother outside, or alone in my room reading.

Instead of a puppy, Dylan and I received two plastic bug aquariums. Mine had a hot pink lid with slits just big enough for ventilation. Dylan’s was lime green.

That year, the cicadas came. It seemed like overnight the woods across the street came alive with a cacophony of buzzing and clicking. I remember the cicadas grossing me out. But Dylan didn’t seem bothered by it, and it was the closest thing to a puppy we were ever going to get.  When the little bugs would advance up my arm, I remember calming myself. They were my pets, and I ‘loved’ them.

And the cicadas were absolutely everywhere, big, small, some shedding their shell, some soft and fragile because their shell had not yet hardened.

One afternoon I found a little white one next to our basketball hoop. I decided she was albino. I decided she was a she. I decided to name her Allie.

I immediately overturned my plastic tub, setting all of its prior occupants free. I placed Allie in there all by herself, for she was special.

I was so excited to show my brother our newest addition to the family. I turned the corner of the house to find him wrestling with the lid to his aquarium. Dylan had managed to pack 15 to 20 cicadas into his little plastic tub. His pets were frantically climbing over one another. I think there were a few limp ones at the bottom.

“You only have one,” he said.

“Yeah, but she’s albiiiino,” I said.

“So.”

This was before Pokémon, and “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” wasn’t yet a social phenomenon. Years later, when we both collected cards, a very similar conversation would take place. Dylan convinced me to give up my holographic Charizard card, because “It’s not as special as you think.”

I seriously think I traded it for a water energy card.

After seeing Dylan’s concentration camp of cicadas, (and after he convinced me that Allie was not Albino, just weird) I stopped collecting them.

I moved onto fireflies.

The fireflies I would catch at night, and incase in a large Twizzler container. They would dance and light up the box. I pretended I had my own magical lantern.

But every morning, when I would go outside to check on my new glowing friends, they’d be dead.

So, I moved onto caterpillars.

The caterpillars I would keep in mason jars. Each had one twig for climbing, and a few blades of grass or leaves for eating.

One right after another, my caterpillars turned into moths. It never occurred to me that this was their species. Convinced it was their diet to blame, I tried feeding them flowers, or colored leaves from the Japanese Maple. I gave them watermelon, oranges, anything remotely pretty or vibrant.

And every single time, after there little white cocoon would break open, an ugly, waifish, grey moth would emerge.

***

Eventually my brother and I both gave up on the bugs. We moved from our house on the hill and down the street towards the beach.  Pokemon took over our elementary school, and my brother started preferring to hang out with boys who played in the mud and pushed each other.

One of the boys had an older sister. She painted on white eye shadow and bleached her blonde hair. She wore Mudd jeans, and Sketchers.  She was three years my senior.

For whatever reason, she came over with her brother to play one day. I think our fathers were drinking and watching the game in the house. She took me outside with a salt shaker and pointed to a slug moseying its way across a damp stump.

“Pour the salt on it,” she told me.

I looked quizzically at the slimy little creature.

“Why?” I asked.

“They like it,” she said.

She seemed all-knowing, and I wondered if maybe we could be friends because we both liked bugs. So I shook the salt shaker all over our new pet.

The slug began to writhe with pain. It twisted and shrank. Not only did I kill it, I sucked all its moisture from its body. And I watched.

The girl smiled, “I didn’t know it would do that.”

She got up from kneeling on the soft earth, and brushed the dirt from her legs.  I sat staring at the slug carcass. I vowed to never tell anyone about my terrible deed.

I don’t remember that girl coming over after that.

Over time, I forced myself into my brother’s friend group. Sure, they punched each other; sure they cheated me out of my good Pokémon cards. But they never killed anything.

They talked like they were tough, they bragged about their Beebe guns, and their father’s hunting stories.

Yet, every time by brother took aim at a beer can the bullet shot straight through.

He’d then furrow his brow and point to a squirrel as the other boys rooted him on, but always, he’d miss, like I knew he would.

Mothers, Virgin and Not

Madonna by Raphael

The first time she came to one of us, my mother was seven. I guess I was there too, embedded in an ovary, pulsing and beating with her blood. But Mary came that night bringing death. A shadow hovering behind her halo and white linen robes. My mother ran out of her bedroom and down the hall, afraid any of it might be true.

My grandmother awoke to her daughter—big brown eyes wide with fear—standing barefoot with naked legs.

“Mom,” she said, “Nana had a stroke.”

“Go to bed, Monique. It was just a dream.”

When the phone rang the next morning, my grandmother dropped everything and ran. She ran out the door and down the sidewalk: silk robe, slippers and a mouthful of tears.

She stopped my mother on her way to school. My mother’s dream had come true.

Years later, Mary whispered again. My grandmother awoke to her daughter trembling at her bedside.

“Nana’s wearing blue, surrounded by pink roses. Mom, Nana died.”

And so Mary’s kiss of death whispered through the receiver after my mother had gone back to bed.
My grandmother flew across the Atlantic for her mother’s funeral. In the casket she wore a blue dress, her body adorned in pink roses.

Mary never showed up after that. My mother grew up and when she got pregnant, the Catholic church told her to go to the courthouse.

She was wed, and I was born, baptized and given a crucifix. I was told the blood of Jesus would save me from all evil. I sat in Mass staring at his emaciated body and the drooping cloth hanging from his hips. His crimson scalp and thorny crown scared me.

When I was seven, I started to say the Hail Mary. I didn’t want to wake up drenched in Jesus’ blood. I liked the Virgin and green serpent she stepped on in bare feet.

When Mary came—or who I assumed was Mary—I woke up in a cold sweat. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t say anything. I sat huddled against the bed frame. She bent her head and cried into her pale white hands.

I ran out the door and into the hallway. I didn’t wake my mother, for I didn’t know what to say. I sat there caught between the two women, between the two doors, not knowing which to open.

I never saw her again.

Now I am the same age my mother was when she had me. Across the street from my front porch, looms a brick Catholic Church. St. Mary’s. I sit and drink coffee and smoke, watching its patrons laugh and hug. Young fathers step out of Mass to calm their wailing infants. For the Spanish congregation, vendors sell hand carved wooden saints. Students in uniform laugh and play in the court next door. I watch their parents come and take them home in the late afternoon.

And I watch the priests in white robes say goodbye as they lock the red front doors from within.