Life As We Know It

I'm having an interesting discussion on my other blog about the situation with our returning soldiers, and it flashed me back to my old neighborhood and all the homeless we had there.

A soldier comes home and discovers that he/she no longer fits in society. They tend to believe that only another soldier understands this feeling. That's not so. I've never been in the military. Because, frankly- basic training scared the crap out of me. The idea of willingly submitting to "being broken" and made into a model soldier was abhorrent to me. So I never signed up. Not even for a chance at college. But I know how it feels to jump to combat readiness because someone nearby is giving off the subtle signals that mean danger.


I used to think my life was not sheltered. If you've read my archives, you might think my life was not sheltered, too. But in it's own wierd way, life was sheltered. We had a code to live by, and if you followed the rules; you were sheltered by the neighborhood. If you didn't follow the code you were abandoned. I followed the code: Acknowledge your betters. Fight when you have to, not when you want to. Keep your nose outta other people's business. Protect anyone who can't protect themselves. Partying is sacred, never mess with The Party... it goes on, but you get the idea. Those were the rules of my world. I had some vague idea that "rich" (i.e. County) people had other rules, but I had no idea what they were. I believed it had something to do with place settings and extended pinky fingers. All that stuff about 2 cars in your garage and having a well landscaped yard was beyond me. I didn't know the "rules" of "society".

The scariest thing I ever did was step out of my own little world, and take on society. It was scarier than going to the abortion clinic, scarier than giving my son up for adoption, and scarier than anything my neighborhood could throw at me. Because while my neighborhood could hurt me, society might break me. Average people do not know that there are people like me around. They don't want to know. I'm a predator, and I recognize other predators. I know when to present a challenging stare and when to lower my eyes and submit. I'm safe with that. I know my place.
Do you know what it's like? If you work at a bar, you do. Ok, I'm ranting. Sorry about that. I meant to talk about my personal evolution. Heh. So here goes...

At first, I just faked it. I dated a county boy and simply did whatever he did. I may not have understood the logic behind the behaviour, but I faked it well enough to pass. Then I started really looking at why middle-class people acted the way they did. Why did they lock their cars then lock the garages that were holding the cars, then carry their keys like a weapon as they walked to their well lit front doors? I mean really! Did they think someone might be lurking in their manicured bushes? What could they possibly fear?

It took me a decade to figure it out. They feared the unknown, the same as everybody else. I feared the unknown of a life beyond my neighborhood. The same holds true for them.

With understanding, comes acceptance. I accept that county fears are just as valid as city fears. My life is no greater than yours, nor is it less.

What does any of this have to do with a soldiers' return, you ask? I say it's the survival factor. Once you've been there, you can't go back. (Let's see if I still believe that when I'm ninety.) You can't just step back to being afraid of your front yard. I don't believe your typical suburbanite wakes in a cold sweat because they were dreaming of stalking an urban landscape; knowing that they were going to take a life, while their spirit cringes inside and quietly wails, "nooo...."
That's one thing soldiers and I share. We know what it's like to do whatever you have to do to survive. We know how it feels to think you've given up a piece of your humanity, and how desperately we want that humanity back.

Woot!

I'd like to thank whoever did a Yahoo search for "classy common redhead". Considering the freakish (and sometimes disgusting) search hits I get; reading this one in my site stats was a pleasure. It gets better, though. I clicked the link, expecting to show up on page 16 or so... nope! I'm Number One!
Wootwootwoot!

Living in the State of Virginity

My sister and I kinda stood apart from the rest of the neighborhood, in that we weren't going to have sex until we were damn good and ready. You would not believe the peer pressure involved. By the time I was 12, everyone I knew (except my sister, and the girl next door) had done it, or was actively trying to do it.
At twelve years of age, I didn't even want to think about sex. I wanted to ride my bike and play at the park. I wanted to climb trees in the middle of winter and catch snowflakes on my tongue. I wasn't ready to grow up. And I was smart enough to know it.

For the next year, I watched my friends chase down boys and step into that unknown world. I watched them drift away from the things I considered fun; and frankly, it scared me. Virginity is a one time thing. Once it's gone, there's no going back. It should be something more than another mark on a bedpost.

I actually had a friend who wrote on her wall the names of every eligible guy in the neighborhood. Her goal was to fuck them all. There were 22 guys on the list. It took her 6 years, but she got them all. And each time she put a little star by a name, I scratched that name off my mental list of men worthy of my virginity.

(I probably sound righteous, and I'm fine with that. I don't know where her crotch has been, and I'm certainly not going to give myself to someone who doesn't see me as the god send that I am. So there! Anyway...)

By the time I was 13, I was getting desperate. I still wasn't ready to take that big step, but the pool of males was shrinking daily. The good looking guys would screw anything, so it had to be someone average or ugly. Acne was a plus, because it made it more likely that they would cherish the act. I really wanted my first time to be good. I knew there was no knight in shining armor for me. My neighborhood didn't hold any Prince Charmings. I knew it wouldn't be perfect, and that was ok. I would settle for someone (anyone) who would treat me well, give me time to perfect my skills, and not smirk about it to his friends.

Believe it or not, that was a tall order.

I finally found someone to fit the bill. My friend BG. The guy who, later that Summer, would share his front steps with my sister and I while we watched a man get beaten nearly to death.

I chased BG relentlessly, dogging his every step. It was harder than I'd thought. First, I had to get him to notice me. I needed him to see that I was an interesting female creature with, you know... tits and stuff. I got a haircut and started wearing makeup. I paid attention to how my friends let guys know they were interested, and began mimicking them. I tried standing really close to him, ohhing and ahhing over his prowess at Pac Man. I tried pretending like I was too good for him. I tried just hanging out, "being his friend", acting like I gave a crap about the stupid things he was interested in. And all of it failed miserably.
I started to think that I would actually have to wait for marriage. And boy, did that make me feel pathetic. Nobody in my neighborhood stayed a virgin until they were married. Not even the fat girls.

So I got really depressed and gave up. I scratched BG off my list. I scratched everybody off my list. Either I was going to lose my virginity in a fit of drunken stupidity, or I was going to lose it on my wedding night and that was that!
None of these guys were good enough for me anyway. Nyeah.

And then BG started hitting on me. Literally. He would pass me in the game room and whop me (gently) upside the head. That just added injury to insult, in my book. First he ignores every attempt I make, and then he starts smacking me? What a jerk!

My friends all said, "He likes you." They were certain of it. I couldn't see how a guy could 'like you' when they were hurting you. That was just bullshit.
I tolerated his hitting because when I tried to fight back I looked and felt like a fool. BG had been practicing martial arts for years. He was too quick, and I never laid a hand on him.
Well, I'd be damned if he made himself look slick by blocking my punches. So I ignored him, or at least tried to. It's not in my nature to take that kind of crap. He'd poke me, or slap me, and eventually (inevitably) I'd fight back. It infuriated me that I couldn't get past his guard. It infuriated me that he was picking on me, and it enraged me that he didn't see me as a woman.

One day, after I had yet again taken a swing at him, and he had grabbed my wrist and was making me slap myself... "Stop hittin' yourself...Stop hittin' yourself"
With me resisting for all I was worth, and trying so hard not to look stupid... I had a moment of clarity.

I let my arm go limp, (which didn't stop him, of course) and said, "You know, BG. You're a real asshole. And I think you need to get off my porch and not come back. You can have the Game Room (the local hangout), just stay away from me."
I said it the way you might comment on the weather. He just didn't matter anymore. I was done with him. There was a nanosecond of grief for the years of growing up together, but really- he'd devolved into an asshole like the rest of the guys and he wasn't worth a thought.

BG didn't get it. He kept making my limp hand contact my face as I rolled my eyes away from him and stared at a tree across the street. I knew he'd go away sooner or later, and eventually he did. I stayed out of the Game Room for the next couple of weeks. I sat on my porch and listened to the radio instead. If BG came up on the porch, I'd take the radio inside. I could listen just as well on the balcony in back. As a matter of fact, the balcony was even better, because we had a hammock to lay in. Mom had bought it at the carnival supply store for $7, and it was quite comfortable, thank you very much.

Five weeks later, BG stood on the sidewalk and apologized to me. A few weeks after that, we were dating. Sort of.
I don't think anybody knew. Perhaps the proper term would be expressing an interest in each other. I went over to his house a couple of times. First we kissed, then we petted, then we petted heavily. The third or fourth trip to his house, I had decided that today was the day.
On that day, I would give BG my virginity.
It never occurred to me that he might not want it.


We reached a point where I was entirely naked, and we were taking his pants off -when I had to go and open my big mouth. I said, "I realize that this was kind of a surprise. I'm a virgin, so I'm not on the pill or anything. You don't have any condoms, do you?" He said, "No."
Then I had to make a choice. Risk pregnancy, or stop it right there. With my hormones raging and my body on fire, I decided to take the risk. I felt that in the interests of fairness, I should let him off the hook, so I said, "I'm the one who started this, so if anything happens, it's my problem. I'll take care of it."
I thought I was being responsible. I thought I was doing the right thing. Apparently that wasn't the case, because he laid back on the bed, flung an arm over his eyes, and stayed that way.

"Um. B?" I asked, "BG?"
nothing. No response whatsoever. He just shut me out.
I sat naked on the bed for what seems like an eternity. Then I spent another eternity screwing up the courage to ask him the question I so didn't want to ask... Well, there was nothing to be done about it. I could sit there in the buff or I could find out what I'd done wrong. (sigh)
So I asked, "Um. Do you still want to have sex with me?"
He replied, "No."

I felt absolutely worthless.
I slowly put my clothes back on. I wanted to give him every opportunity to come to his senses. After all, how often does a guy get this kind of offer?
As I was buttoning my shirt, I asked, "You're sure?"
No response.
So I left.

I stepped out into the bright January sunshine, lifted my chin proudly to the world and went home.

(And then I pretended to let my best friend talk me out of suicide, while I secretly chewed aspirin after aspirin in an attempt to kill myself. Aspirin being the only thing in the medicine cabinet.)

18

On May 14th, 1987, I celebrated my 18th birthday. There was no big party, no cake. I had something better. I had my temporary voter registration card. It was a moment I'd been looking forward to since mom took me to the polls with her before I started school.

I remember the voting place in the basement of Long School. We walked to the school, and there were people everywhere. I remember the orange and black fall out shelter sign. It was the first one I'd ever noticed. I asked mom what it meant. I could read, of course, but that sign made no sense. I imagined people falling out of the world, and falling into the school. Mom said it meant that in an emergency, people could go to the school for shelter and food. That gave me plenty to think about as mom worked her way through the crowd and talked to some people at a table. Then she took me to the voting booth.
I regret the loss of those old voting booths. They were a great place for a fertile imagination. Behind a curtain was a box full of levers. Somehow flipping those levers recorded your vote. But to a child, it was a space ship -a time machine -a magic box of fun.
Mom wouldn't let me flip any levers.
She said it was her time to vote, and I couldn't touch the levers until I was 18. Nobody wanted to grow up faster than me that day.
Unfortunately, time moves at it's own pace; and I had to wait 14 years for my own chance to vote. The old lever booths were gone by then. My first vote was recorded on a yellow punch card that was slid into a book. How dissappointing! I didn't even get to go behind a curtain. My vote was cast at a crappy wire podium. There was no privacy, and no magic.
But I always vote anyway. I'm an optimist. I believe my vote could, just maybe, make a difference.
*grunts while pulling out soap box*
Your vote could make a difference. You'll never know if you don't vote.
*puts soap box away*

On Dealers

On my street, most of the apartment dwellers sold drugs. I remained unaware of this until I transferred to public school. Oh, I knew that a few people sold drugs; and I knew that everyone owned a gun or two. But I didn't realize how readily available drugs were on my block.

That all changed when I invited my friend (the one who died in the previous story) over to my house. He told me his mom wouldn't let him. So I asked him why not? And he said, "Because of the dealers, of course."
"What dealers?" I asked.
Yeah, my street was so notorious, it even had a nickname. They called it Drug Alley. And no, it doesn't make sense. California Avenue is not an alley. Not only did my little stretch of land between Sidney and Lynch have the distinction of sheltering the California Bum, it was also the place where most of my friends' parents bought their drugs. Wow.

Of course, "drugs" back then are not the same as "drugs" you hear about on the news now. In my neighborhood, everyone smoked pot and most adults bought painkillers on occasion. LSD and mushrooms were taken exclusively indoors; and only with close friends. Really, the only daily drug was beer. Everybody drank beer. (except my mom, who hated beer. But mom never fit in with the neighbors anyway.)

Hard-core drugs were for junkies and yuppies. We couldn't afford cocaine, the rich man's drug. Nobody was stupid enough, or desperate enough to try heroin. Meth meant a kind of moonshine.

It was an eye-opener for me; realizing that the stuff everybody did classified as scary dangerous drugs. My neighbors weren't drug addicts! They were Hoosiers! They fought and drank and got stoned. So what? Didn't everybody? Who the hell gets to decide that my street is worse than any other, anyway?

... And I promptly got to know who sold what, and at which times. I had no use for drugs while in the 7th grade, but I knew I'd buy them eventually. Everyone did. It was just another rite of passage. You get a job, you buy drugs.

My freshman year of high school, I did buy a drug. I went to an apartment with the 9 year old prostitute and bought a pair of pink and blue pills. One for me, one for her. It was a surreal experience. I told the dealer that this was my first time buying speed. I let her know that I'd been getting high for a while now, and wanted to try something different. I told the dealer that I didn't want to try anything too strong, and she suggested "speckled eggs". My friend the prostitute said, "Oooh, those are fun. They're kinda wimpy, but I think you'll like them."
(note: "Getting high for a while now" translates to 3 occasions over 5 months. Oh, yeah; I was so experienced.)

I bought the speckled eggs for 50 cents a piece, and we downed them the minute we walked out the door.
And nothing happened.
So I waited.
Pills need time to dissolve, right?
(sigh)

Now, I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe bright colors and hippy-trippy music. What I got was a caffeine rush of the worst magnitude.
I got jumpy, and being jumpy made me mad. It built to a barely controllable rage. I. Don't. Like. Being out of control.
I told my friend what was going on in my body, thinking, "She has more experience. She'll know what to do."
She said, "You need to get in a fight. That'll help."
Yeah. A fight. I'd like to beat someone up. My fist smashing into someone's helpless face would be just the ticket. Yeah.
I spent the next eternity looking for someone to beat the snot out of. I was on a quest. It didn't matter that I'd never started a fight before in my life. It didn't matter that I held no grudges against anyone at the moment. The only thing that mattered was that there was no one out on the street. I mean nobody. We tried the park, the school, everywhere; and there was not a soul to be seen.
I took to pounding my fist into my other hand, while my friend skipped alongside with her eyes twinkling. She was enjoying seeing me be violent. Eventually it sunk in that I wasn't going to find anyone to beat up. So I went home.

When the singular speckled egg wore off, I went to bed. I was so tired. I had a flu-like exhaustion. All I wanted was to sleep. I told my mom that I didn't feel well, and that I wouldn't be eating dinner. I was just going to sleep. Mom gave me a worried look, and I knew that she knew I'd taken something.

When I got up later, all she said was, "I hope you're feeling better. And I hope you won't ever feel that bad again." Yes, she knew.
I never did feel that bad again. I felt worse when I drank so much that I threw up. And I felt even worse than that when I drank so much that I couldn't throw up. But that's another story.

This story is about the one and only time I bought drugs for my personal use. It was a waste of money, and a waste of time. I wonder, If I'd had a pleasant experience, would I be a druggie now? Probably. If you didn't do drugs, you were harassed by your peers. They would hunt you in packs and beat you up for thinking you were superior. It was far easier to smoke a little pot and drink a little beer, even if you didn't like it. At least you fit in, and you didn't have to be afraid to go out of the house. I never did a lot of drugs, just enough to get by.

The Day My Best Friend Died

Sometimes people can be horribly cruel; and for no better reason than that their own lives are miserable. If you haven't guessed from reading this blog, I saw a lot of cruelty... But this story is about the cruelest thing that happened to me.

When I transferred to public school, I made a friend. Well, ok; I made several friends and one best friend. We hung out after school. We hung out during summer vacation. Although we never dated, he was my first kiss. We worked at the same pizza place, just so we could be together. I watched him date my friends, and I forgave him when he broke up with them. I let him sleep in my car when his aunt kicked him out of the house and greeted him every morning with breakfast and a pack of smokes. Friends carry no debts.

I knew he was depressed. I mean homeless and unemployed; who wouldn't be depressed? But then his aunt let him back in the house, and he was actively looking for a job; I thought the worst was over. The day after he moved back to his aunt's house, he came to me with a bottle of pills. They were unlike any pills I'd seen before. He had made them himself. He had taken some household ingredients and mixed them with stuff from his old chemistry set. (You know, the kind of set that actually had toxic stuff in it? The kind they don't sell anymore?) He had put the mix into gelcaps, but his aunt had kicked him out before he could take them. Separated from his chosen method of surcease, he'd slept in my car and never said a word.
I made him promise me that he would call before he took the pills. I told him that I would try to talk him through it; and if I couldn't, then I would stay on the phone and keep him company while he died. He didn't want me to keep him company, he said the mix was designed to make sure he died; but it would be painful. I insisted that when you're in pain is when you need company the most. I reminded him of the day he'd talked to me for 7 hours while I'd secretly chewed up aspirin, trying to kill myself because BG wouldn't take my virginity when I'd offered it to him. (side note: 14 yr. olds are not very rational) But he kept me company, and talked to me until I fell asleep. He brought me back to my senses. How could I do less for him?

He did not call me the next day. He didn't come by to visit, either. I was confident that he hadn't taken the pills. During the 6 years we had been friends, he'd never broken his word. So I called his house to see how he was doing. His aunt answered the phone; and when I asked if my friend was available, she told me that he had killed himself last night.

I was stunned. My world became very quiet. I kept trying to think of something to say that would make it not so, and no words would bring him back.
Finally, I asked, "When is the funeral? I'd like to say goodbye."
His aunt replied, "You fucking bitch. You knew about those pills, and you didn't tell me! Now he's dead and it's all your fault!"
I tried again, "Please, when is the funeral?"
I'll never forget what she said to me next, "You can find out in the obituaries!"
Then she hung up on me.
I slammed down the phone, and sat looking at my hands and thinking. My best friend was dead. He didn't feeldead, but there was no reason for her to lie to me. I knew I should call our mutual friends, and see if they could find out when the funeral was. Maybe that bitter dishrag of a human being would tell them. I couldn't call his mom; she would be grieving, and I didn't want to dump this new problem on her. My mind was running in circles. I needed to call people... How could she say that to me?... Maybe K would talk to her... He can't be dead, he promised me!... How could he break his promise?... I need to call someone... an endless loop.

I did eventually call K, who called the aunt for me. She wouldn't tell him anything either. After that, she stopped answering her phone. K called all of our mutual friends, and they trickled in throughout the evening. We sat on my car for most of the night. We talked and we grieved. I should say they grieved. I was just numb. I kept thinking how surreal this was. Everything had the same weird quality as an uncomfortable dream.
It was a typical hazy summer night, which made the street look shrouded. It didn't help that the city had recently installed those nasty orange streetlights which bleed the color out of everything.

Once in a while I would say, "I can't believe it. He just doesn't feel dead to me. I would know if he were dead."
My friends said, "You have to face it and move on. He's dead. And you're in denial."
A good friend will say harsh things when they need to be said. They were good friends, indeed.
The next morning, he still didn't seem dead. I could feel him out there, alive. My gut said, "He lives!" while my head said, "Quit being stupid. Accept it and move on."

The morning after that, I had begun to come to terms with it. It was hard. I felt like I was going crazy. After all, only crazy people have delusions, and I was deluding myself thinking that he was alive. When in reality, my best friend was gone forever; but I was still here. Some part of me would probably always feel like he was alive; like he had moved to another state, and we just didn't talk anymore.
I had to separate that part of me, and I spent the day doing just that. Every time I thought, "He's alive", I would suppress it and think, "No, he's dead."
I guess it worked, because the thoughts came less frequently as the day went on. They started to be thoughts of, "I must go on", instead.

That afternoon the phone rang. A strange voice on the other end said, "Sharon? Hi! How are you?"
I said, "Who is this?"
The voice said, "This is (name)."
I said, "(Name) who?"

Here was this stranger on the phone insisting that he was my dead friend!
I said, "That's not funny. What kind of twisted fuck are you? (Name)'s dead!"
Ooh, I was mad. What kind of perv makes calls like this? How did he get my number, and how did he know my friend's name?
The voice said, "I'm not dead. I checked myself into Malcolm Bliss Hospital, so that I wouldn't kill myself."
And, oh my god, it was him!
His aunt, the bitch, had lied to me.
lied
to
me!

I didn't go and murder her.
I wouldn't, couldn't murder someone in cold blood.
However.
If I ever see her on the street begging for food, I will pass her by.
And if I see her trapped in the wreckage of a car, I'm likely to lean in real close and say, "You deserve it" before I walk away.

More writing is forthcoming, I promise
Right now I'm busy setting up an online storefront. Heck, that makes for a good story...

When my dad left, we moved in with Grandma (as you may recall from the archives). I think mom sent us to ballet class out of guilt. I know she couldn't afford it. It's possible that her brothers and sisters chipped in. They are those kind of people.
However it came about, my sister and I got to take ballet and tap lessons for almost a year. Every Tuesday we would run home from school, drop off our books, grab our dance bags, and catch the Gravois bus to go to dance class.

The school was on Gravois, between the White Castle and K-Mart. The reception area had pale violet carpeting and dark red chairs. I barely noticed the clashing decor, however; because my eyes were inevitably drawn to the photos on the walls. There were hundreds of framed 5x7 photos of girls in dance costumes. These were the real dancers. The ones who had actually been on stage, in front of an audience. I so my picture on one of those walls. There were more pictures lining the halls to the changing room. Every time I passed beneath them, I'd think, "I'm going to be better than you. They're going to hang my picture right out front.

I worked myself silly learning to shuffle-ball-change. I lost my baby fat doing tedius plie's. Up and down, up and down. Turn out your feet, tuck in your butt. Straighten your back. Up and down.
Our teacher had a cane that she would tap you with if your form was wrong. Her gentle taps never hurt, but it was humiliating to have your positioning corrected in front of the whole class. It didn't matter that she tapped everyone equally. What mattered was that she was tapping you.

And, oh! The pain of those excercises. First the warm-up stretches (no problem), then moving through the 5 positions (pain in the back, pain in the ankles, knees aching, arms turned to jelly, straighten your back, lift your chin and smile!) -followed by a million plie's.

But I was going to be a dancer. I was going to be on stage. My daddy would see my name in lights, and he would be proud of me.

Yeah, that was a nice fantasy.

I loved all that hard work. I loved finally getting my chance to tap dance to a bit of music on stage. I loved the costume that mom had to borrow money to pay for; and I didn't understand when the dance lessons stopped.
My sister and I begged to be allowed to go back. We swore we would scrub floors or work in factories to pay for it. Our pleas must have broken my mom's heart; but the dance lessons were too expensive, and we just couldn't do it anymore.
I wouldn't give up my tap shoes, though.

My first year at Visual and Performing Arts magnet school, I took acting and art. The next year I took acting and dance. I kept up the exercises when I changed schools. In total, I spent 5 years doing ballet exercises for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week.

As a result, I have arthritis in both my knees. I'm 35 years old, and there are days when the only thing that gets me moving is the need to get my son to school. In the winter time, it feels like a dozen icepicks are shoved into my knees. I (sometimes) do physical therapy exercises with 10 lb weights on my ankles to strengthen my legs.
It's funny, in a way. In order to slow the deterioration from too many years of dancing, I have to maintain dancer's muscles.

Which leads me to my store. I make an arthritis salve from shea butter and comfrey, I also make an oil. This stuff keeps me moving on my bad days. It enables me to do my PT, to walk without limping, to drive. Ahhh, comfrey.
As an added benefit, it's shrinking the stretch marks on my belly. (because, I just had to try it everywhere)

I used my friends as guinea-pigs, and put comfrey on everything from tendonitis to gout, and by god-it works! At the urging of my hubby and friends, I've started selling it online.

I hope you enjoyed my story, and I realized I forgot the best part about dance class. We would use our bus fare to buy white castles, and walk the 3 miles home in the dark. I was 8 and my sister was 9.

The Decay Of The Olympic Torch

When I was a kid, I got to see a runner carrying the Olympic torch. We had to get our parents' permission, because it meant leaving school grounds and walking 2 blocks through a crummy neighborhood in order to see a bit of flame for a few seconds. Mom got all excited when I brought the permission form home. She had to tell me all about the history of the carrying of the torch, where it had been, where it was going, and how fortunate out city was to have the flame pass through. My teacher had already covered this; with the same level of enthusiasm, and more historical accuracy.

I was in the 7th grade at the time, and thought that standing on the sidewalk was better than sitting at a desk any day. That was about the extent of my interest.

So the big day came, and after lunch we hiked off to watch the torch go by. Interestingly enough; while my teacher and my mom both thought this was a big deal, they were in the minority. My class was one of the 3 that even bothered to watch.
There were a scattering of people waiting with us. Most had brought lawn chairs. After about 5 minutes of standing there, I started wishing that I had brought a lawn chair too. It was boring, standing around in the hot sun. This was before St. Louis got serious with it's tree-planting program. There was no shade, and nothing to look at beyond a few run-down apartment buildings.

I started thinking about the history class I was missing. My desk was looking better and better to me. I could be learning something, darn it! All my friends were in the other 7th grade class, so I didn't have anyone to talk to. No one was stirring in the apartments, and there wasn't even so much as a pidgeon to stare at. (sigh)

I was terribly bored.

Then the people around me became restless. Word began to spread... The torch was coming. "Finally!" I thought.
I has assumed that all torch bearers were Olympic caliber runners, and I couldn't figure out what was taking so long. I mean, Olympic sprinters ran at least as fast as a car, right? (And that just goes to show you what 7th graders know about physics)
I looked down the street. Nothing.
I listened for the sound of running feet. Nothing.

More people were showing up, so I knew somethingwas happening. By the time the runner got there, the street was crowded. I was being squeezed from all sides, and couldn't see a damned thing. Fortunately, the teachers noticed this and started spreading us kids out. I don't know how it happened; but I wound up right at the curb, with a clear view.
A feeling of awe had spread up the street. I was standing with my toes hanging over the curb, and I was afraid of being pushed into the street. I couldn't fall into the street! It had turned into Holy Ground.
The crowd began clapping, and I could see someone jogging down the road carrying what looked like a short, white, whiffle-ball bat. It was pretty sunny out, and I couldn't see the flame. All that standing around to see a sweaty jogger? What a waste!

And then he ran past.

I had expected someone proud. I had expected the runner to look around self-importantly. Instead, I got the feeling that the runner barely noticed us. His sole focus was that flame. The flame I couldn't see. I couldn't see it, but wow! I could feel it.
And I began to understand. This flame, that had begun as the rays of the sun, was as pure as it was when it began it's trip in Athens. Passed from torch to torch, runner to runner, it was essentially the same fire.
He was followed by a pack of joggers. Some of them were replacement runners, some were everyday people. After them came a van with a police escort. It was carrying a back-up flame; for the flame must never go out.

There was something magical about that little bit if fire, and I'll never forget how it made me feel.

That was then. Nowadays, they have torch bearers in several cities, all running at the same time. That sacred flame is divided, and used to light stupid little cauldrons designed to look just like the big one at the Olympics. The last time the flame went out during a run, it was relit with a propane torch, because the "back-up flame" was in another city!

I personally believe that each time the flame is divided, each time it's used to light a little cauldron; it's strength is diminished.

I hate commercialism.

Ways to make money

Last weekend, we went to pick out a kitten. Driving through the subdivision that held the kitten's home; we passed a lemonade stand. I insisted we stop so I could buy some lemonade. The hubby-man thought I was nuts, but he dutifully pulled over so I could trade a quarter for a 10 oz. cup of lukewarm Crystal Light. (bleah)
So why did I do this? Why did I buy, and then drink, something I had no desire for?
Because I remember the pleasure of a handful of change that I earned myself.

My sister and I tried selling lemonade, snow cones, and ice cream. When that didn't earn enough to make it worth the effort, we mowed lawns and worked at the bingo hall in the Church basement. Bingo players are weird. Each person has their own little ritual for playing. They have a "lucky seat" and a "lucky number", and lucky doo-dads that they spread around their cards. Each knick-knack must be touched a certain number of times before the game commences. Everything must be in a certain order, so as to insure a good day. Some players liked to pick out their own bingo cards, but others preferred to have children do it for them. So, one of our jobs was to sit by the bins and pick "lucky" cards. For this service, we would receive a tip. Usually a nickel, sometimes the tip was as large as a quarter. Once gaming commenced, we ran errands for the customers. We would fetch food and drink for the players, so they needn't interrupt their game. This also usually earned a tip.

We would work for 3 hours or so, and come home with a few dollars worth of change. The work really paid off during Girl Scout Cookie time. We sold cookies door-to-door, and we also ordered extra cookies; which we sold before bingo. Mom was our troop leader, and she was really cool about the cookie sales. She would set a goal for the troop -enough to cover an educational field trip- and anything above that goal went into our personal accounts. We could use it to buy badges, new uniforms, or a trip to Girl Scout camp.

My sister and I figured the profit from cookie sales, and ordered the amount we would need to sell in order to go to camp. This meant 200 boxes of cookies. It wasn't too bad, really; because we could count on at least 100 boxes from door-to-door sales. Cookies were $1.75 at the time. Of that amount, 75 cents went to the troop. So 100 boxes equaled $75. And that was enough to get us to camp, since mom's income qualified us for a partial scholarship.

We sold cookies like crazy, until my neighbors ran out of money. President Reagan's "trickle down" theory never trickled into my neighborhood. It was embarrassing to knock on a door and have someone look wistfully at your order sheet and say, "I just can't this year. I'm sorry." My sister and I knocked on door after door, and we were turned away time and again. The people who used to order 10 boxes, began ordering one or two instead. To meet our goals, we ranged far beyond the neighborhood; taking orders as far away as Meremec Park. It was great in theory... but actually delivering 200 boxes of cookies was another matter.

Every day, for 3 solid weeks we hung bags of cookies off the handlebars of our bikes; for delivery to the far flung corners of South St. Louis. When your customer lives a block away, it's no big deal if they're not home. You just deliver on another day. But when you have to bike for 2 miles, balancing bags of cookies on your handlebars; to be greeted by an empty house... it kind of sucks.

Some of our customers were only home at night, and mom wouldn't let us bike at night; so those deliveries had to be made on the weekends. In the end, we were rescued by mom's boyfriend. He spent the last few days of our delivery time driving us to the various houses. Oh, the luxury of a car!

More On Prostitutes

Recently, Channel 2 news "exposed" prostitution in Creve Couer Park. Golly! There are men having sex with other men? In a public park? Here... in St. Louis? *gasp* I never knew!
Get over yourselves, channel 2. Go back to chasing Alderwomen who pee in trash cans. Quit scaring the many citizens who enjoy their parks. Better yet, use those investigative reporters to cover what's being done about the problem. Give us some good news for a change.

One day, C and I skipped school and went to Tower Grove Park. She wanted me to meet some friends of hers. So we went to the park and walked up to a group of guys who were sitting on a bridge. As we were talking, a car pulled up and a young man got out. My friend said, "This is the guy I really wanted you to meet. Isn't he cute?" If I could put little anime hearts all around the word cute, I would. I could certainly see them hanging in the air around her.
He was cute, with his blonde hair and blue eyes. He was tall and well muscled too. I could see why she was crushing on him. And, of course, her crush made him off-limits for me. None of the other guys had any interest in me, so I stared at the trickle of muddy water beneath the bridge while she giggled and posed.
I was starting to think it would have been more exciting to be at school. This staring-at-the-water shit was boring. I started praying for a fish, a frog, even a mosquito to liven the scenery; when something even better happened.
A car came cruising slowly down the road, the driver staring confusedly at me and C as he passed. He turned around and passed us again, then parked about 50 feet away from us. One of the guys said to us, "Hey! You need to go somewhere else. You're scaring away the customers!" Suddenly, the light dawned. These guys were prostitutes. I didn't even know boys could be prostitutes. I thought it was solely women's work, like dishes or childcare. I mentally scoffed at any woman who would buy sex, and then realized that C's "cute guy" hadn't gotten out of a car with a woman; and the parked car didn't hold a woman, either.
Well! That was an eye-opener!

The whole way home, I tried to get my friend to give up her crush. "He's a faggot! You can't date a faggot!" I exclaimed.
She replied, as if this made perfect sense, "He's not a faggot. He just fucks faggots and takes their money."
She thought it was funny; her guy ripping off the gay men. She laughed over how they got "taken"; thinking he was gay, when in reality he wasn't. I totally didn't get it. If he were ripping them off, then he would be beating them up and taking their money, not getting paid for a service he provided... And if he wasn't gay, wasn't he the one getting ripped off? Sex is supposed to be enjoyable. I just couldn't imagine him working at a job he hated, when there were less invasive jobs available. Even at 16, I had a lot to learn about the world.

The next time we skipped school together, we went back to the park. We sat on one side of the bridge and the guys sat on the other side. That way, we could talk without interrupting their flow of business. We became somewhat accepted when we helped pick gravel out of the cute guy's back. He had been car surfing, and gotten a nasty case of road rash, so we cleaned him up. I started carrying Bactine and bandages, after one of the guys had gotten beat up by a customer.

In the neighborhood; if you'd been beat up, your friends would have hunted the bastard down and delivered retribution. These guys just took it as a hazard of the job. They never stood up for each other. It sickened me that they would just shrug off a "fag bashing", nurse their cuts until they were healed, and go back to work. If the beatings weren't too bad, they would be working the next day. They said it brought bigger tips sometimes.

I hung out with the prostitutes long after C had given up her crush, and moved on. The funny thing was, the park was the only safe place for me. Walking down the street, I'd get propositioned left and right; but in the park, they were only interested in the boys.

The Thing About Hoosiers

I've taught my son a bad word, and I'm not proud of it. It worked it's way in when I wasn't looking. It never even occurred to me, because it's such a common term in St. Louis.
The word is "Hoosier", and it doesn't mean "A graduate from the Universtity of Indiana". At least not in St. Louis, it doesn't. All my life, I've heard this word used daily. I never thought twice about it. Hell, I never thought once about it; until I met someone who was born and raised in Indiana. I was chatting with this person, when a car full of young adults came down the street. The radio was blaring Black Sabbath or some such, every person in the car was smoking, and the vehicle was more rust than steel. I muttered the phrase I'd heard my entire life, "Goddam hoosiers."
My friend from Indiana lifted his eyebrows and said, "...Um... I'm a Hoosier."
I said, "No you're not! You have a college degree. You have a good job. You own your own home, for god's sake. You are not a hoosier."
This led to an edifying conversation. I learned that, outside of St. Louis, "Hoosier" is something to be proud of. My friend learned that, within St. Louis, "hoosier" meant "lowlife caucasion scum with no ambition". Yes, St. Louisans have a different phrase for non-caucasions living below the poverty level. I won't go into them here. They are all derogatory. And that's entirely my point. My mother taught me to judge a person by their actions, not their income or skin color. But when she was teaching me that, she meant that I should not judge anyone but hoosiers. Anyone with a clear ethnic background was potentially a human being, but when you see someone with pale skin and an indeterminate ethnicity -the judgement is on.
It's what I was taught. It's ingrained in me, and I'm not proud of it. I resist it. And every time I think I've got it conquered, every time I cease my vigilance; my bigotry sneaks in the back door.
Over the years, it's snuck in often enough, that my son has a clear definition of the word "hoosier", and it's not pretty. To be fair, the only time I've heard him say "hoosier" is when talking to grown-ups. So I hope his definition is not as restrictive as mine. But it galls me that I've been oblivious to my bias for so long.
Even my friend from Indiana uses "hoosier" now. I asked him why, once; and he responded, "When you don't say hoosier, people see you as an outsider. It's clear you're not from St. Louis. When I say it, I'm accepted."
He now says it as casually as the rest of us do.

Goddam hoosiers.

Congrats to Josh and Nats

Their baby girl was born Sunday, she's a whopping 10 lbs 7 oz. So pop over and offer them congratulations!

Trying my hand at poetry. Visit St. Louis Bloggers to read some others' poetry
St. Louis Sunset
The setting sun
Touches the facade
Of my 19th century apartment
Painting the limestone
With red and gold hues

Works of man
Reflecting nature

Fixing Up Cars

There were 3 classes of teenagers in my neighborhood; kids with no car, kids with a car that went nowhere, and kids with freedom -aka a car that runs. Thus a favored pastime was fixing up cars. I participated in it myself. The idea was to spend an entire paycheck on a car that didn't run, then have your friends push it to your house. Sometimes they pushed that car for miles. It didn't matter to them. All that did matter was having a status symbol. Boys with cars were a step up from boys who walked. Even if the car didn't have an engine, it might have an engine someday.

It showed that here was a guy who was going somewhere.
So, every once in a while, the whole neighborhood was entertained with the arrival of a new car. They'd come down California Avenue; one proud driver and 4 sweaty friends, pushing like mad. They always came down California, because that took them past the Game Room. It served a dual purpose in that, not only did you get to show off, you got more help to push your car home. Boys would pour out of the Game Room to ooh and aah over the rust bucket before them. They would spend an hour or so discussing the finer points of car restoration, eyes glazing over with dreams of what their own car might look like someday; living vicariously through others.

They always believed that this car would run again; they helped push it so they could share in the glory. Once home, the wheels would be taken off and the car would be put on blocks in the yard. For the next month, everyone would take turns sitting in the drivers seat and dreaming. This was called fixing up the car. As in, "We're going over to so-and-so's house, we're gonna help fix up his car." Sometimes they would get high, sometimes they wouldn't; but they always sat and dreamed.

Most of those old cars were eventually sold or traded when the owners' parents said they'd had enough, and to get that @&#^$ car outta the backyard. A rare few actually became drivable. That was pretty entertaining, too. We'd see our friends pull up in a car that was mostly body putty, blue smoke pouring out the back end, and usually running on less cylinders than should be possible. We'd all climb in the car and go for a ride. Then we would help push the car home. (snicker)

When I finally bought a car, I bought one that ran. Sure I had to replace a few things over time. Like the water pump, alternator, starter and one of the push rods. But I never needed my friends to help me push my car home.
I still grieve over that car. My much-beloved 1973 Satellite Sebring Plus was murdered by a drunk driver on the 4th of July, 1990. Two months later, the city towed it away and crushed it into a cube. We had moved to a better neighborhood, you see; and the neighbors complained about the ugly old wreck that was messing up their street.

On California Avenue, no one would have done that. They would have helped me bang out the dents and fix my baby's shattered frame. And they would have sat in the driver's seat and dreamed.

80's Clothes
Writing about my childhood during the 1980's just wouldn't be writing without the obligatory "I can't believe I wore that" entry. So for all you fans of 80's fashion; here ya go!

My earliest fashion memories stem from the late 1970's. Back then, clothing was comfortable and casual. Much like it is today. Children wore t-shirts and terry cloth, denim and velour. The colors were bland and earthy.
The advent of MTV changed all that.

We didn't have cable or satellite. Paying for television? What a frivolous expense! Yet, MTV style clothing began showing up in the stores. Matching sweatbands and legwarmers, previously available only at Danskin; were now everywhere. Colored tights, once the provence of little girls in cute dresses; were all the rage. It seems everyone was trying their hand at fashion design, and an entire generation suffered because of it. I'm not talking about the late 1980's, either. I mean the horrible, scary, early 1980's. The part of the decade that required you to change your style every month or so.

I remember babysitting all summer long so I could buy a pair on Nike shoes. Two months after I bought them, everyone was wearing Reebok. I was stuck with outdated shoes for an entire school year. But I learned a valuable lesson. I had 9 months to observe a fashion dance that I could never afford to keep up with, and I learned that dressing uniquely gives you more clout that dressing like the crowd. I would always be a fashion wanna-be, if I bought what we could afford. So, while others wore ruffled blouses with matching ruffled skirts, poufy sleeves and string ties; I wore what I liked.

I liked blue jeans and tee shirts without a logo. I liked deep, classy colors like emerald green, royal blue and chocolate brown. I only wore neon as an under tee shirt; so that when you roll up the sleeves, you see neon trim. I don't look good in neon.
Most of the kids in the neighborhood began wearing concert tee shirts. The problem with this was, each style had a stereotype attached to it. Polo shirts and khaki's were preppy, meaning you had tastes beyond your parents' income. Concert shirts were for burnouts, meaning you did a lot of drugs. Whatever was in that year was New Wave or Trendy, meaning you had no imagination. A mish-mosh of everything was low-grade Punk and a mish-mosh of clothes that clashed were hard core Punk. I fell into the low-grade Punk category. People thought I wanted to be Punk, but couldn't get away with dressing too crazy because my mom would kill me if I did.

ok, Now really! Who goes looking for "Sexist Redhead on the internet"??? Why don't you search for a sexist blonde or brunette, for a change. Redheads are not the epitome of life, you know. Geez, stop surfing the net, and grow an imagination!

The 9 year old prostitute

This is one of those stories that I've started and stopped a half dozen times. This time I'm going to finish it no matter how much it hurts.

My best friend had some cousins who lived over on the next block. The older two were both glue heads, the youngest was a prostitute. Her father had been selling her off to friends since she was a toddler. When she was 9, she decided it was time to go into business for herself. After all, why should her father get all the money?

On the outside, she was the perfect All-American girl. She had long blonde hair, lovely blue eyes, and a slender little girl body. On the inside she was hard as nails. She worried a lot about maturing. She thought she would lose a lot of business when she grew breasts. She also worried about getting caught. She only went home when she thought her dad was passed out drunk. If he was awake, he would beat her and take her money. To solve the problem, she carried a certain amount of cash at all times. She had hiding places for the rest.

She had learned the hard way, that her money was never safe in the house; and she hid her earnings in some truly creative places. There were several garages that could be broken into easily, and for a while she hid her cash there. When her brothers caught on and stole it all to buy drugs, she resorted to hiding it in the hubcaps of the neighborhood cars. It was risky; sometimes the money would be discovered, but she saw it as an acceptable risk. At least the money wouldn't be going to her dad.

She spent very little on clothes or make up. She had plans for her earnings. She wanted to go to college (didn't we all!), and be the president of her own corporation. I hope she made it. She was so damned hard. I think she would do well in the corporate world.

I only saw her break down once.
I was out wandering the night, like I sometimes did. It was winter, and it was supposed to drop below freezing that night. As I walked past the Notre Dame school yard, something had me detour. Instead of simply walking past, I entered the school yard and went over by the steps.
She was huddled up in the shadows, wearing nothing warmer than a cardigan. The whole right side of her face was bruised, and there was blood in her very messed up hair.
At first, she wouldn't let me come near her. She kept trying to hide her head. She didn't want me to look at her. She didn't want to be touched. I had no problem with that. Girls weren't allowed to hug each other in my neighborhood.
I thought one of her customers had beaten her up; so I said, "Which guy was it? I'll find him and beat the shit out of him."
She laughed bitterly and said, "It wasn't the customers. I can handle them." And she started to cry. Great, heaving sobs came pouring out of her. I sat down near her, to try and shield her from the wind. I just sat, not knowing what to do; while she cried.

She didn't cry for long, nobody ever did back then. Pretty soon she was telling me the story. I'd like to say my blood ran cold, but it isn't so. It would make for a great story. You know, how I became shocked and horrified; aghast at the cruelty of my fellow human beings. But I too, had grown up here. At 15 years old, her story didn't scare me, it angered me.

When she told me her dad had once again beaten her and taken her earnings, I felt a hard lump of anger in my stomach. When she told me her brothers had held her down while her dad had beaten, and then raped her, I simply added them to my "to-do" list. When she told me they had first pulled out big patches of her hair, and then cut what was left; I put those bastards near the top of my list. And when she told me they had made her get the $600 or so dollars she had hidden, I made their misery my life's work.

She wouldn't go home, but she couldn't stay in the school yard. They would find her there, easily. I told her to come home with me, but she wouldn't. She knew my mom would call the police, and then everyone would know. I suggested that I could walk her to her cousins house. We could sneak her in through the basement window, and nobody would know; but she wouldn't do that either. So I did the only thing I could do. I showed her a warmer, safer place to hide, and loaned her my coat.

I never did get around to killing her family. I suppose it's just as well. I don't think I truly have the stomach for murder. They got some karmic payback anyway. She ran away from home, and was gone for more than a year. During that time, one of the brothers died from drug use. The other one just kind of dropped off the face of the earth. Her father had a stroke, and finally, their home caught fire.
When she came back to the neighborhood, the house was nothing but a brick exterior; sheltering the homeless.

She wasn't very surprised.

Looking Back

Driving through my old neighborhood, I see that both apartments we used to live in are boarded up. It's as if they're waiting for something. Solid brick buildings, with their 1880's interiors; standing silent and strong... waiting. I want to pull over and park, walk around the overgrown back yards, touch the spot where I buried my parakeet and climb the silver leaf maple just one more time.

The sense of danger is all around me. My mind screams, "Get out! Get out now!"
Memories chase after me as I drive on, breathing a sigh of relief when I reach Grand Avenue. Safe now. No neighborhood memories here.

The boarded up houses still stand. When I drove past them, I heard children's laughter; and for just a moment, I was a kid again. I felt again the love that had filled our home. I remembered all the good things.

I wonder if there's still modeling clay jammed in the cracks of the wooden floor? Does the plaster still bleed out the scents of countless meals and cigarette smoke? I wonder about the claw foot tub. If I went inside and looked, would it still be as big as a swimming pool? Would there be any remnant of the child I was?

I could buy one of those places. I could put it on my credit card. The city sells them cheap. I could own the only safe haven of my youth. But what would I do with it?

Last one

I'm out of the running for Blogmadness. Voting is on hiatus, due to something completely unrelated to the competition between myself and Ipse Dixit. I think we both played fair. I really enjoyed the competition, and I will continue voting for the survivors when Blogmadness continues. Thank you to everyone who participated. I encourage you to continue.
Welcome to anyone who found this blog through Blogmadness. I hope you stay a while and enjoy yourself. If you've added me to your blogroll, please let me know, so I can reciprocally link you.

And now... on with my past!

Blogmadness Update

I'm in round 6, and I'm up against the very fine entry "I Am A Sexist Pig: I Open Doors For Women" by Ipse Dixit. I know it's a fine entry because I've voted for it in every round. This time, of course, I'll be voting for myself.
If you click the link above, you'll see two pink boxes. Each box holds 2 entries, beneath which it says Vote!. If you click Vote! You'll see both entries in the left hand side, and the rules in a frame. From there you click the title of each entry. The rules will be replaced with the story. Read the story, then click the other entry and read that story. From there you just click the little dot for the story you liked better, and click the Vote! box. That's all there is to it. No registering, no nosy requests for info about you. So please, go and read. Pick one or the other, I don't care which. Participating is fun!

Links to the other regions are here:
Work Region round 6
Sports Region round 6
Bills Region round 6

Thanks

Tru-Buy

Big nods to Vanessa's Blog for the inspiration to write about the "grocery store" we used to shop at. I would never have thought of it, if she had not entered "Lidl" in BlogMadness. Thank you, Vanessa!

Tru-Buy was the biggest grocery store in the neighborhood. There were others. There was the confectionary 3 blocks west of my home, and there was the place a half-mile away where you could cash your paycheck for a 12% fee. But Tru-Buy had the best prices. There were shelves lining the walls, a freezer and two coolers; the kind that hold meat in modern grocery stores. The rest of the aisles were marked out with masking tape on the floor; an assortment of boxes and tables sat within the designated lines. The coolers never worked right. Everything was either frozen, or just barely cool. I actually thought raw beef was supposed to be brown, because that was the color of the frozen/thawed/frozen again hamburger we always bought.
We visited Tru-Buy on Saturdays and Wednesdays. We always bought the same things: a head of lettuce, a stalk of celery, a pound of hamburger, a pound of chicken, a loaf of bread, 2 packages of garlic bologna, a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, a can of tuna, margarine, ramen noodles or tomato soup, Rice-A-Roni, Hamburger Helper Chili-Mac, and a box of macaroni and cheese. When we weren't buying condiments, toilitries or dish soap; we had money for "extras".
I always loved the weeks we could buy extras. Bonus money bought whatever fruit was in season, banannas, cheese, and sometimes even cookies. The total price tag was around $20.

On rare occasions, we took a bus to Soulard Market, instead of shopping at Tru-Buy. Those were the best trips, ever.
Soulard was always crowded. The prices were hand printed on an assortment of cardboard, paper bags and poster board. It was wonderfully chaotic; with vendors calling out, "Hey pretty lady! Buy my plums! Best in the market!" or "Grapes! You need my grapes!" Several of the neighborhood families had stalls at Soulard Market. We always bought from them before shopping elsewhere. Mom would buy 5 lbs of apples; tossing them up to the vendor, who would catch and weigh them. My sister and I would be jumping up and down, asking, "Can we eat them now? Can we?" The vendor would bag the apples, then wink at us and toss in 3 more. He was either really nice, or really smart; because we would tear into those apples right there at his stall. People would see us and say to the vendor, "And I'll take some of those apples too."
There is nothing like shopping at Soulard.

Elimination Round, Here I Come!

You Don't Know Jackson won his competition against me, so I've been bumped to the Elimination rounds. I never hoped to get as far as I have. I mean, I think my writing is good. You think my writing is good. (Thank you!) The question was -do average people think my writing is good? Because, of course; you all are way above average. :)
In answer to that question, I've made it to the top 25%. I think that's saying something.

Blogmadness Semifinals are underway

This time around, it's "The Race War That Wasn't" vs. "Scenes From The Other Side Of The Tracks" Both entries are great, read 'em and choose! Remember: There's no registration requirements, voting is anonymous, and there's only one vote per family.
Don't forget to read the other fine entries in the Winner's round 4 and the Elimination Round 5. All 32 are pretty darn good.

Pregnancy

"If you don't want your baby, we'll try to find a home for it." Said the woman on the phone.
That was the point where I lost control. Looking for adoption agencies in the phone was hard. Actually talking to the agencies was even harder. For days, the phone book had sat open on the kitchen table, right underneath the avocado colored phone we had picked up at a thrift store. Every time mom went into the kitchen she said, "Just call Catholic Charities. They'll give him a good Catholic home."
After a week or so, it became an incessant nagging from her. "Did you call yet?" "Just call!" "Pick up the phone and dial, it's not hard!"

She had no idea. This wasn't like going to the St. Vincent De Paul Society for a little extra food. This was asking for the biggest handout in the world. This was asking someone to love my child for the rest of their lives, to provide for him, teach him right from wrong, and give him a better life. Mom had no idea how hard it was for me to just pick up the phone.

I had gotten pregnant on the 4th of July, having sex on the floor, surrounded by moving boxes. We were moving from the old neighborhood to a new one. I was looking toward a new direction in my life. I had a job, a car, and a guy I was going to marry someday. I was just waiting on the engagement ring. And while I was waiting, we had a lot of sex.

When August rolled around, and I hadn't gotten my period, I began to worry that something was wrong. I thought I might have cancer or something. My friends all said, "You're pregnant." but I thought, "No, it's cancer. I can't be pregnant. I'd know if I were pregnant."
When I realized my boyfriend was an overcontrolling jerk who belittled everything I said, and dumped him; I thought, "See. It's cancer. I'm removing the dead weight from my life before I get treatment."
When my belly started to swell, I thought, "The cancer is growing, I should really go to the doctor."
When 3 months had passed without a period, I decided to visit Planned Parenthood. Just to rule out pregnancy, before I paid a real doctor to treat the cancer I was so sure I had.

It wasn't until I was sitting in the waiting room, that I allowed myself to see that I was pregnant. When the test came back positive, I was overjoyed. I was having a baby! I had wanted to be a mom for as long as I could remember, and now it was happening! Sure, I'd only get one semester of college before his birth. Ok, I'd have to go on welfare for a little while, until I could work again. Yeah, it might be 5 or more years before I could go back to school; and I wouldn't be moving out of mom's house for a while yet. But all of that was bearable, because I was going to be a mom!

For the next two months, I planned every little bit of my child's life. I put money away for the birth. I priced toys and clothes, and figured out exactly how much I would need to earn to care for my son. The impending welfare stint sucked, but it was the only way to truly provide for him and still get my college education. And then I had a dream.

For those of you who don't know me, I'll explain. I've always had prophetic dreams. Not very often, but frequently enough that I've learned to pay attention. That night I dreamed I was searching for my son's real parents. When I woke up in the morning, I told my mom, "I'm giving him up for adoption."
I was happy. I was at peace, and I was so full of love that morning. I knew his parents were out there, and it was my job to find them. Mom was incredibly supportive. She was looking forward to having a grandson, and she understood that it was my choice. So she did what any loving mom would do. She stood by me, and supported me, and never said a word about the loss she would feel. She was there when I awoke, crying in the middle of the night, because I missed my baby. She was there when my friends didn't know how to look at me anymore. And she was there when the telemarketers would call with their offers of free baby pictures and coupons for formula.
I stopped answering the phone when mom was home. She would pick up for me, and I'd hear her side of the conversation. "Hello?"..."No, this is her mother"..."The baby died. Please don't call here again."
I always wanted to cry out, "He's not dead! I gave him up for adoption and I'M PROUD OF IT!" Yet I knew mom was right. That little white lie was easier than dealing with their curiosity. Before I quit answering the phone, one telemarketer had actually tried to enroll me in a conversation about it. "Really?" she said, "Was it hard?"

I'm not a fragile person, but those first few months, I broke down all the time. I cried on my family, I cried when strangers looked at my recovering belly and asked, "Oh! Are you pregnant?" and I cried when I was alone. Hell, I'm crying right now, just writing about it. Sometimes it still hurts, but it's a strange kind of hurt. When I think of my son, I feel complete; whole. I had 6 months to love him as he grew in my womb. I had 2 days to hold him in the hospital. I have the rest of my life to know he is loved by the best people in the world. The people who are his real family.
How can I be sad about that?
I can't.

The other half of the story

Catholic Charities was extremely rude. They treated me like I was garbage. I am not garbage, and I've never had a problem pointing that out to people. So when the woman on the phone spoke to me like I was less than the dirt beneath her fingernails, I let her know a few things.

I am white.
I am intelligent.
I am drug-free.
I do want my child. I also want my child to have a better life.
And they will never get their hands on my son.

I wasn't done yet, either. I kept her on the phone, letting her know my opinion of her assumptions about me. I asked if she understood how hard it was for me to even make an inquiry. I expressed disbelief in them ever handling an adoption, if this was the way they treated birth parents. I pointed out that my son was a gift, not a burden. And when she grudgingly apoligized, I stated the obvious. I said, "You are the sorriest representative of a company I've ever had to deal with." Then I hung up on her.

That's what happens when a redhead loses her temper.

Comments are down. (sigh)

In reference to the previous post:
Oops, my bad. Pete and Manny created BlogMadness as a non-popularity based contest, where you take your best post from 2003 and pit it against the best post from other blogs. They got 116 entries. Mine is in the "Love" region. At the moment, it's in the "Winners Round 3" part. Go read them! I've found some really good blogs to add to my side bar, you might too. Sorry you can't comment right now. If you'd like to say something you can reach me at randomred (that symbol over the number 2) bitparts (dot) org.

It's been a while

First off, THANK YOU to everyone who has and/or will vote for "The Race War That Wasn't" in BlogMadness. It's gone up against some pretty well known authors, and it's still in the running! Thank you for voting in the spirit of the competition, for voting for the entry you deem best; whether it's mine or someone else's.

Secondly, I apologize for not writing anything recently. I've written all the easy stories; the ones that I've relived often enough in my dreams. Now I'm working on the harder stuff. The tale of the 9 year old prostitute, the times the pervs grabbed me or someone else, the drug dealers, and the ever present violence. Sometimes I wonder why I began this project. Then I remember my friend A, laughing over "And I'm Keeping Your Stick, Too!" and saying in all seriousness, "You should write a book."
Yeah, that's why. To tell the stories that never get told.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

Mom bought a TV Guide from the grocery store every week. Why she did this is beyond me. We got a total of 6 channels; ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, channel 11 and channel 30, which was usually full of static. Channel 11 was, without a doubt, my favorite channel. They showed horror movies late at night, and mom would let us stay up on Fridays to watch. Now that I'm a mother myself, I understand this tactic. If we stay up late on Friday, we should sleep late on Saturday. If we sleep late on Saturday, she won't be awakened at 6 am by the TV. Riiiiight. We were children, filled with boundless energy. We didn't need sleep!

Twice a year, my sister and I would leaf through the TV Guide and decide which Saturday Morning Lineup we would watch for the next 6 months. It was too much trouble to get up off the floor and change channels every half hour, so choosing the right station was crucial. The networks understood this. They would show previews of their new cartoons in the evening during sweeps week. The winter the Smurfs made their debut comes to mind right off. I don't recall how old I was, though the internet agrees it was 1982. We had already explored the new cartoons guide, and couldn't decide which channel to watch that night. Some of the shows looked really good, some looked like garbage in animated form. Whatever we decided on, it was sadly disappointing. We switched channels, found the Smurfs, and were hooked. Yes... That was when cartoons started to really go downhill.

Crappy cartoons notwithstanding, my sister and I got up with the sun every Saturday. We would try to be quiet, but by 9 o'clock mom would be making breakfast for us. Even better than the cartoons was what came on afterward. Wrestling At The Chase. Wrestling rocked! Big strong men in superhero costumes acting out the most delicious dramas. The good guys like Hulk Hogan, sergeant Slaughter and George the Animal Steel, battled stereotypical evil-doers like The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff. Andre the Giant was neither good nor bad, he was more like a force of nature. Once in a blue moon we'd be lucky enough to see him in a "wrestle royale". That's where 20 men fight to be the last one left in the ring. Andre would toss them out like they weighed nothing. Every wrestler had a signature move, and I loved them all. Von Eric had the Iron Claw, capable of delivering a knock out headache. Rowdy Roddy Piper had the figure 4 leg-lock to go with his signature kilt. Adrian Adonis would pause to have his attendants spritz him with perfume before he finished off his opponents. Randy "Macho Man" Savage portrayed a wife beater, back in the day -before it became politically incorrect. He was the man I loved to hate. I also hated "The Millionaire" Ted Dibiase, because he would throw money around, and buy off his matches.

As cartoon quality dropped off, wrestling got better and better. A big part of my childhood involved wrestling, and then; either I grew up, or wrestling just got weird. The managers began playing bigger roles. The best wrestlers retired, and everyone left started looking like body builders. It was a sad day for wrestling when I decided to play outside, rather than watch Wrestling At The Chase.

Everyone Knows To Stay Away From The Pervs

Mom didn't go to the bar. Mom rarely drank, and she absolutely hated beer. She called it "piss water". She looked down on beer drinkers, viewing them as only one step above winos. This kept us pretty isolated from the rest of the neighborhood. All my friends went to the bar to buy cigarettes for their parents. Mom sent us all the way to the gas station. The gas station was a full block away, and to get there you had to pass abandoned buildings and such. Just because an owner doesn't want a building, doesn't mean it is empty. The homeless slept there or used the buildings as shelter. The homeless weren't a threat. It was the pervs we had to watch out for.
The pervs used the abandoned buildings -and the space between them, in the afternoons and evenings. Mom usually needed a new pack of cigarettes around 7:00 pm. That was prime perv time. The pervs would bring their dirty magazines and whack off in the buildings. Some of them needed a more public place to do their business, so they'd use the gravel and glass parking lot between the buildings.

That really sucked for my sister and I, because the parking lot held a short cut to the gas station. If there was even a chance that someone might be lurking in the lot, or the path beyond that led to a hole in the gas station's fence; we would take the long way. Neither of us wanted to get snatched. Snatchings were common, and never talked about.

If you grew up in a good neighborhood, you might not understand. Admitting that you were snatched and violated would be showing weakness. You might as well paint "victim" across your forehead, and be done with it. Weak people got robbed, beaten and raped. Not once or twice, but often. You never, never, never admit weakness in a neighborhood like mine. I think that's why it bothered mom so much when we got robbed. Somehow, we had appeared as victims. After that, we had to be a lot more vigilant. We had to come across as twice as tough as before. We had to convince the neighborhood that there would be retribution on an apocalyptic scale, or live in fear that next time we might be home, and lose more than just stuff. -I know it sounds melodramatic, but it was simply the way things were-

The pervs were another example of the way things were. I never counted how often I saw some perv masturbating in a semi-private part of the parking lot. The boldest perv I remember was standing in the middle of the lot, holding his pants in one hand and his dick in the other. He was looking down at a magazine. When he saw my sister and I, he walked off to a corner, just beating away. He left the magazine behind. We were lucky, he wasn't one of those guys who prefers children. We didn't have to see him look at us and get even more excited, or worse yet, chase us. That happened a few times, too. Being chased by a perv is no picnic.

We had a series of safe doors to knock on. Any of the bikers would have let us in. Also most of the pot dealers, and Tattoo Annie, the neighborhood prostitute. The pervs never chased us very far, though. We never had to knock on any of the doors. At least not for the neighborhood pervs. There were a few incidents being followed by a car...

They never tried the candy bit. Most of them offered money. "Hey, girl. Ya want some money?" Like that's going to bring me anywhere near a perv in a car! Street snatchings you might walk away from. Cars never brought you home.

How did I know this, when no one ever talked about it? I don't know. I think the real meaning of, "You stay away from those pervs." filters into kids through osmosis or something. We just all knew what would happen if you didn't stay away.

Playing With Fire

My sister and I were pretty independent kids. We had to be, since mom came home from work at about 6 o'clock at night. We were intelligent and well behaved. We knew when something was a bad idea. But knowing a thing and heeding your own advice on it are two entirely different things. As a result, my sister and I made some mistakes.

Most were minor, like putting a roast in the oven and then going outside to play. That's how I learned meat shrinks, just like in the cartoons, when you let it cook for too long. Minor disasters included letting the tub overflow, ignoring the dog when she needs to go outside, and hiding crackers in the sofa -so mom wouldn't know you were eating junk. (side note: A box of crackers at Tru-Buy was 44 cents. That's some cheap eats, there. I ate a lot of crackers)

Sometimes, however, my sister and I made some major mistakes. We snuck out of the house and bet on the drunks leaving the bar. We went joyriding with people we barely knew, and once, we set the recliner on fire. It was a complete accident, of course. Neither of us were stupid enough to burn the furniture on purpose.

We were bored. So we invented a game. We had seen a commercial for a game where you remove pieces from a board until the central piece falls. Whoever makes the thing fall, loses. So we got a bowl full of water and covered it with plastic wrap. We put a penny in the center of the plastic wrap, and then we did the stupid thing. We swiped a pack of mom's cigarettes. The idea was to take turns burning holes in the plastic until the penny fell through. The water was insurance, because we were playing with fire. See how smart we were? It worked so well, we invited some friends to play the next day. We played again the day after. By this time, we were confident in our ability to control the cigarettes we were playing with. Puff puff puff on the cigarette until the end glows bright red, flick off the excess ashes and burn a neat hole in the plastic wrap.

It was my fault. I accidentally hit the cigarette on the edge of the bowl and knocked the cherry loose. I pulled my hand back to drop the cigarette in the ashtray, and the cherry flew up over my head and landed on the recliner. I grabbed a pillow and batted at the spot it had hit. Everyone surveyed the char hole, and we prayed that mom wouldn't notice. We were a little shook up at the near miss, but went back to playing the game. The room was full of cigarette smoke, but it was even smokier by the recliner. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of smoke coming from the burned spot that I thought I'd put out. One of the players declared, "The chair is on fire!" I turned to look, and sure enough; there was flame coming from the corner of the recliner. I grabbed the bowl of water and dumped it on the chair, plastic wrap and all. I either missed the spot, or it wasn't enough water. Everybody both ran to the kitchen for cups of water.
We dumped cup after cup of water on that poor old recliner. It seemed to take forever to stop smoldering, but eventually it did.
Our friends decided it was time to go home. The game wasn't fun anymore. We walked them to the stairs and said goodbye, then went to clean up the cigarette game. There was a nasty smell in the living room. We sprayed Lysol all over the chair, and that helped a bit. It was summer time, so the windows were already open; that helped more.
I blotted at the soggy recliner with towels. When I ran out, I used my winter clothes. I cried as I tried to soak up the water. I knew I was in such deep trouble that I couldn't even imagine what mom would say or do. To give her credit, my sister could have stood there telling me how much trouble I was in, but she didn't. She silently helped me clean up the mess.

Once the chair was as dry as we could make it, we covered it with an ugly orange blanket. When mom came home, we told her we had re-decorated, and showed her the new recliner cover. This was the moment of truth. Mom knows everything. Mom would certainly know the chair had been burned. How could she not know? One whole corner was missing. The house reeked of burned fabric and cigarette smoke. She must know. I was just waiting for the axe to fall.

The fates smiled on me that day. Mom must have been exhausted from work, or something. She declared that it was just lovely, told us she was going to take a nap, and asked if we could make dinner.

Months later, when she took the throw off to wash it, she saw the damage and asked what had happened. I fessed up to playing with some matches and accidentally burning the recliner. She said, "Well that was stupid. Thank God you're both ok." And later she commented, "I'm glad I have such smart daughters. You kept your heads, and I'm proud of you."

Go figure.

Getting Out

I suppose every generation in every poor neighborhood dreams up ways to get out. They all believe that they are somehow better than the generations that came before, and they all think they are the first to plan their escape.

The neighborhood eats these people alive.

Every once in a while, I'll run into someone from the old neighborhood, and we'll discuss the people we knew. Denny was going to be a race car driver. He killed a woman while driving drunk. A week and a half later, he died the same way. T had a good job at Anheuser Busch. He supported his mother, sister, aunts and uncle. What little money he had left over paid for classes at the community college. We really thought T would escape. He still lives in the neighborhood, and his family still bleeds him dry. There were boys who carried weights everywhere they went. They were going to be the next Mr. Universe. Their dumbbells were a symbol declaring, "I'm better than this and I'm getting out!"

They all had their symbols. Nunchucks were for the next Bruce Lee. Greasy jeans were for the next mechanic, and a blue work shirt meant you had finally grown up and gotten a job. The girls flocked to these status symbols, offering up their bodies and praying for babies. For them, it was the only way out. If they could get some guy to marry them, and that guy got out, then the guy would take them out too.

Apologies to the St. Louis Bloggers who read me, for the bad timing with the Quinn story. I hadn't checked STLBloggers, and didn't know Mae and Matt got to celebrate a new addition today. Congrats, you two! You're in for a fabulous roller coaster ride!