INTRO
There was that smell. You know, that “old people” smell. I don’t know how old you have to be to start secreting that odor, but I can tell you that nobody over 30 ever lived in that house, and yet that stench clung to the carpet and furniture like a child to his mother. That miserable scent, combined with shades of 70s browns and muted yellows, was my home. Even to this day, as I volunteer in nursing homes and hospital geriatric wards, that particular smell reminds me of it all. A scent to sum up a childhood: old before it’s time.
Daddy Dearest
I can still remember the day my father disappeared forever. It was a day like any other, or so it seemed back then. He had left for work around the time I was eating breakfast, and I always made sure to give him a hug and a kiss, just in case I didn’t see him before I went to bed. His office job, which I can’t remember precisely what he did, sometimes held him hostage until the wee hours of the morning. So I squeezed him tight and held in the chemical scent that emanated from his dry-cleaned shirt.
In retrospect I can remember vague details of the preceding couple of weeks that might hold clues as to why he left, or where he went, but I guess that doesn’t matter now. Just last year we got the police report that he had been stabbed in a street fight somewhere north of Las Vegas. So I was left, at age 6, fatherless. And even more so confused. My mother didn’t seem to let on like she knew what had happened, but I could never shake the feeling that she had seen it coming.
My father, of what I can remember and what my relatives told me later in life, was an honest, hard-working man until a few months before he disappeared. An avid swimmer and allover athlete, he had graduated the top of his class. He met my mother in college, within an odd set of circumstances.
After pulling an all-nighter, my mother had gone to the cafeteria for some coffee to help her make it through her early morning classes. When she popped the quarters in the coffee machine slot, they shot out of the change return. She tried again and again, until finally she became so frustrated that she punched the machine. Being the old rusty piece of junk that it was, the front cracked and fell off, exposing the innards of the mechanical devil. Terribly embarrassed and afraid of getting in trouble, she turned and started walking away. Very, very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that she ran into her future husband. Directly into him, that is. As she smacked into his chest and bounced back, the coffee machine burst into a fountain of Colombian roast. Below that brown shower my future father asked my mom out on the first of many dates.
Now, my parents hadn’t quite planned on having children just yet. My maternal grandmother still rants to this day that my father hadn’t wanted children at all, but my mother would always turn to me and say Pay no attention to that senile old bat. Your father loved you from the moment he found out we were pregnant. I loved that. We were pregnant. Like my father felt the nausea, the back pain and cramps, swollen ankles. Not to even mention the birth. To him, I was a baby doll being given to him to have fun with, and nothing more. A toy he could put away when he was done playing. This much I knew about him. All my vivid memories of him were out somewhere, getting ice cream or going to the zoo, and as soon as we got home I was to leave him be. I was passed into my mother’s care as he lay down on the couch watching evening sports and downing a few beers.
When my parents got married at age 20, the entire family seemed to look upon them in a sort of disgust. The marriage will never last! You’re too young for that sort of commitment! But they went through with it anyway. A small ceremony in their church, no reception. Little did the congregation of family know, inside my mother’s uterus was a 1-month-old baby girl. And when I was born at 8 month’s gestation, my mom simply said I was 7 months. Her “little preemie.” I’m sure all the nurses were confused as hell when they heard this nervous woman speak about a fairly big baby (nearly 8 pounds) as being premature.
I suppose I should have seen the change in him that winter. He had moved from beer to coke and rum. Then straight whiskey. He got fired from his job and sat on the couch, not showering or shaving for days on end, and when he finally did get up, it was only to change his sweat stained tee shirt and to grab another drink. Though, I didn’t know any better to realize that he wasn’t like everyone else’s daddy, who went to work every day to bring home money. I thought he loved me so much that he wanted to stay home and be with me all the time.
Before long, the den was littered with empty Jack Daniel’s bottles and the entire room reeked of alcohol. And despite it all, I never failed to give him his daily hug and kiss before I went off to first grade each morning. Although I was disgusted, and eventually afraid, of that room, I just held my breath to keep the grotesque odor out. Hip-hopping across the room, dodging the glass bottles, I sometimes had to poke my father for several minutes to get him conscious enough to give me a hug. And as I tiptoed back out of the room I’d smile, because as long as he gave me that hug, he was still the same daddy to me. No amount of alcohol and sleep would keep me away from him.
Second Grade
It was mid-July. It had been a few months of my mother taking care of me alone and she started coming undone. As I walked downstairs to get breakfast, I could hear my mom crying in the kitchen. I walked softly, so as not to disturb her, and I grabbed my cereal from the cupboard, the milk, a bowl, and a spoon. I sat across from her at the jet-black table and just stared. She never looked up, just sat with her head in her hands, her hair tumbling over and sweeping the crumbs from the table with each whimper. I hadn’t seen my mother cry unless someone had died or something horrible like that. But that day it was just her sitting alone at the kitchen table.
After a minute or two I stood up and walked over to her. Placing my hand lightly on her arm I asked her quietly Mommy? Mommy what’s wrong? And I tried to hug her, but as I reached around her neck she began to sob harder, shaking with each breath, so I backed up in fear that she was about to explode. When she had finally calmed down enough to speak, she took a Kleenex and wiped the mascara from her cheeks. I’m sorry honey, I was just thinking about daddy. I miss him a lot too, and it’s getting hard to take care of things without a job. We can only make grandma and grandpa pay for so much… Tears welled up in her eyes and she turned away from me this time. As she left the room to clean up, I couldn’t help but think of what trouble we were in.
My mother had never been one to handle stress well, but she had really reached the end of her rope. I would ask her over and over when daddy was coming home, and it seemed to upset her just as much as it upset me that she couldn’t answer. I don’t know honey. He’ll be back when he wants to be. That’s where her big mistake was. When he wants to be. After her saying this numerous times I came to believe that he hadn’t returned not because he didn’t want to be home, but because he didn’t want me.
This is when my self-hatred started. But it wasn’t just a feeling; it turned into actions as well. It began with simple things, like me bashing my head against the shag-carpeted floor of my room. But it rapidly escalated to hair pulling, punching myself, and then came that fateful day that alerted my mother that I needed professional help to deal with this…
It was my 7th birthday that summer. I had always hated having my birthday during summer recess, and I still do. Everyone is off on vacation, making it near impossible to have a decent party with all my friends. So when I asked my mom for a princess themed party, she tried explaining to me that I should wait until the fall. Being the one-track-minded child that I was, I automatically associated “wait until fall” with “your father will come then.”
I got myself so worked up, so very excited, that I started telling everyone I saw. Guess what! My daddy’s coming home soon!! Just for me! And as I told every person in the grocery store, or on the playground, or the street, my mother just stood with this ignorant smile on her face. It was a combination of being reminded that her husband was gone, and that her daughter was mistakenly excited over false assumptions. But of course, my mother being as passive as she was, didn’t correct me. It wouldn’t have mattered by the time September rolled around, but if she had only told me when I first declared my exhilaration, the unraveling events might not have occurred.
The hard plastic of my Pretty Pony lunch box smacked against my side as I ran to catch the school bus. My mother and I had moved across town into a smaller, more affordable apartment. With the move, I was transferred to a new school, so I was sent friendless to the first day of second grade.
My clean pencil box housed neatly sharpened pencils. It wouldn’t be but a month before all of them would be either lost or sharpened down to the metal piece. But that was okay, because for that day it was all clean and happy and nice. Just like me. Catching my breath, I plopped myself down on the nearest empty seat. I pulled a backpack strap off one shoulder and pulled it around the other side and into my lap. I began picking at a scab on my right knee below the hem of my new pink skirt. I sat fidgeting with my backpack, opening and closing the outer pocket and checking to make sure they were still inside. Ten neatly sealed envelopes, purple, with a little glittery heart sticker on the outside. I got to choose ten people to come to my birthday party, and I was beyond excited. I knew I could make lots of friends by inviting whoever I wanted to be my friend to the party.
I was staring out the window, watching as the people walking their dogs trekked forward, yet moved backwards, as though they were moonwalking. I had started a game counting the number of people wearing jackets versus the number without (it was a fairly cool day for early September) when the bus slowed down at the next stop. The few moments afterwards seem to move in slow-motion when I recall that day, though I’m quite positive that it was all happening at a normal pace, if not quicker.
As the dog walkers came to a halt then began moving forward, I looked toward the bus entrance. Kids, big and small, came jumping up the stairs and ran down the aisle, slapping high-fives to friends and hopping into seats. The bus erupted in excited chatter, but I sat quietly, alone in my seat. As the door began closing I could hear a kid screaming to the bus driver to wait. The door re-opened and there he was, climbing those two steps like they were nothing. Billy Vincent. Casual, yet out of breath, he strolled down the aisle and looked for a seat. A few guys in the back popped up and yelled to him. As he raised his hand in acknowledgment the bus driver turned around impatiently and yelled at him to sit down. With my first-day-of-school luck, he sat right next to me. I scrunched up against the window, careful not to invade on his personal space, but I couldn’t help but breathe in his fantastic scent. Now, I’m not saying I smelled him. He just sort of flew into my nose. And I swear to this very day, he was the only third grader I ever knew to wear cologne.
Submission Name: Past My Expiration Date-pts1-3
