A Veritable Household Pet, page 7
I tried to remember what it felt like to take the Thorazine, but it was too fuzzy. I suppose that was the point: to blur my senses. Was it hurting me? I still don’t know. [Scribe’s note: Not much could have damaged her further.]
When Anonymous started trying different kinds of drugs, and then selling drugs to little kids, I felt a little sad, I think. With that feeling came some bit of excitement, because feeling anything make waves in my serene little pool meant I was getting better. [Scribe’s note: Darla showed minimal outward signs of these supposed feelings. Even now, I am not convinced she was ever able to experience deep emotion after the surgery. Much later, I learned that frontal lobe damage of the kind Darla received in the lobotomy can blunt one’s emotions to the point of sociopathy.]
Listening to Ellie read about Anonymous’s adventures with boys made me feel curious in a way I hadn’t before. What was Anonymous really doing with those boys? And why was she doing it? Did other people want to do that? Did Ellie? When I looked at my sister, I could see that she was starting to change. Her hips were getting wider, and the fabric of her skirt was starting to pull tight. Her chest was growing, too, and her skin, which was always so clear, was spotted with pimples. Something was happening to her, and I figured it would come for me, too, one day. [Scribe’s note: I was indeed changing, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Anonymous made being a teenager sound soul-crushingly exhausting, and every new experience she had made me cramp up with anxiety. One kiss from that boy Roger sent her into an absolute tizzy. How could a single brush of the lips hold so much meaning? To me, it seemed that something like that, which had so much power to lift you up, would have just as much power to knock you down. Looking back, I now know just how correct I was.]
Ellie came into my room after school one day wearing a new skirt and a new blouse. They were both pink with green trim, and they didn’t pull across her chest or hips like her old clothes had. I didn’t say anything, but Ellie must have noticed me looking, because she told me she’d borrowed some money from Ma and bought herself some new clothes. I managed to tell her she looked pretty, and she smiled at me the same way Ma used to when I helped her clean up after dinner. I felt warm inside, and I didn’t want that feeling to ever go away. [Scribe’s note: Darla wasn’t the only one who noticed how ill-fitting my old clothes had become. Troublesome boys at school had started to point at me and snicker, and I hated it. Things got so bad that Mrs. Truman, the guidance counselor, called me into her office during lunch and told me that I was becoming a woman, and it might be best if I asked my parents to buy me some clothes that fit my new body. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. After school, I stopped at home just long enough to grab a fistful of cash from Mother’s secret stash in the kitchen cookie jar (luckily Father hadn’t plundered it completely before his death). At the department store near school, I spent every penny on four matching sets in four different colors. I’d have to do laundry mid-week, but that was okay. No one would snicker at me anymore—at least, not because of my clothes.]
We kept reading the Alice book, and Ellie kept helping me sound out the words. When we got to ones I didn’t know, I’d stop and look at Ellie. Sometimes she could tell me what they meant, but other times, she had to run into the living room to look something up in our encyclopedia. Pa had bought it three years ago, and he was so proud of it, back before things got real bad. He’d come home from work and flip through the pages until he found something interesting, then he’d tell us all about it. I missed learning new things, but when Ellie finally told me what ‘Dexies’ and ‘Bennies’ and ‘Heroin’ were, I wasn’t so sure that was what I wanted to learn about. [Scribe’s note: I don’t blame Darla. Reading about Anonymous’s life was a constant rollercoaster, and even though I was ready to get off, I wanted to know how things ended. The diary would have been much shorter if Anonymous had simply had a lobotomy—from what I could tell, she could have used one much more than Darla.
Anonymous was so easily manipulated, it was pathetic. I decided that would never be me… too bad we can’t control everything that happens in our lives, now can we?]
Things got even stranger when I had to ask Ellie what a blowjob was. She looked just as confused as I felt, and she didn’t have an answer for me then—but the next day, she came home from school and told me it was something boys and girls did when they liked each other very much. I wondered if that was something I’d ever do. It sounded silly, and I thought of girls blowing bubbles onto the boys they liked, which made me giggle. [Scribe’s note: I had an idea of what a blowjob was, but I wasn’t clear on the mechanics or the intricate details. Darla’s question had stoked my curiosity, though, so I waited in the bathroom during lunch period, when I knew Nancy Foster would be in there, cracking the window and smoking a cigarette. Nancy was alright, but she was fast, and everybody knew it. I figured if anyone would be able to answer my question without too much fuss, it would be Nancy.
I was right.
She told me more than I ever wanted to know, and then she frowned at me. “Now don’t go getting into that if you don’t have to,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying not to cough as she exhaled smoke into my face.
“Once people know that’s something you’ll do, they’ll never leave you alone,” she said. For a second, I thought she might cry, but she didn’t, just took another drag from her cigarette. Her fingers were stained yellow, like Mother’s. Nancy was pretty now, but I could tell she’d lose her luster quickly. She was already getting used up.
“Okay,” I said, then I left the bathroom.
For obvious reasons, I wasn’t going to tell Darla the truth, but I had to give her something when the word came up again in our reading. She wasn’t quite old enough to understand—and with her damaged brain, I didn’t know if there’d ever be a time she’d be ready to hear it. I also knew, however, that Darla’s body would grow and mature whether her mind was ready for it or not. At some point, I’d have to tell her about the birds and the bees, because Mother sure as hell wasn’t going to do it. Mother had become more of a mosquito in our lives, flitting around, stopping every now and then to feed on us in some way, then flit back into her own dimension of time and space. That’s what it felt like, at least. Like she wasn’t fully there, she didn’t really matter, and she only kept us around because there was no other option.]
Ellie kept on reading, and I kept on listening. I loved hearing about the things Anonymous got to do, and wondering if I’d ever do them, too—if I’d ever get out of my little room, my little life. Her life felt so distant from my own, but sometimes, it also felt way too close, like an itchy sweater I couldn’t wriggle out of. The drugs—there were so many drugs. Anonymous seemed to love the drugs, but also to hate them. It confused me, and when I asked Ellie about it, about why Anonymous just couldn’t seem to make up her mind, Ellie shook her head and told me she didn’t really understand it, either, but that maybe Anonymous was using the drugs to escape. I asked her what Anonymous would want to escape from, and Ellie told me some people have aching holes inside them that they keep trying to fill, and that maybe drugs were Anonymous’s way of trying to fill herself up.
“But it doesn’t work,” I said, almost growing angry at my failure to understand. I desperately wanted to see what Ellie could see.
“No, it doesn’t,” Ellie said. “Maybe nothing does.”
For a moment, I felt unbearably sad, but then it passed, another ripple within my serene pond that quickly settled.
[Scribe’s note: I could understand Anonymous’s attraction to drugs more than I wanted to admit, especially to Darla. I started to wonder if the pills—like Darla’s Thorazine—could be an escape, rather than a prison. After all, my classmates at school frequently talked about their mothers popping Valium like they were candy, how they were much calmer afterwards. Mother could certainly use something like that, I thought, and it would be much easier to get than heroin or marijuana. These thoughts did not leave my mind, and I continued ruminating on them until the urge to act on them was so strong I could not resist.]
After all that Anonymous went through, I felt a new ripple in my pond when Ellie read the ending. I was happy, or something like it. Anonymous made things right with her family, she stopped taking the drugs, she went to school and worked hard, and she lived a good life. Her story gave me hope, made me start to want things I hadn’t knew I wanted—a life outside of this house, people to talk to that weren’t only Ma and Ellie. Something to do with my days beyond pacing my room and trying to read and staring at the walls for hours upon hours. [Scribe’s note: I couldn’t tell Darla the truth. I just couldn’t. I didn’t read the real ending to Darla—about how Anonymous was found dead of an overdose shortly after we’re led to believe all will be right in her world. Instead, I made up the last few passages, and when I saw some new light shining in Darla’s eyes, I knew I’d done the right thing. Anonymous was a selfish, self-indulgent, weak, simpering girl, whose life read more like a pulp story than a real diary. Far too many unfortunate and cruel things happened to a single girl… but then, when I looked at my own unfortunate and cruel life, I couldn’t help but laugh—the sort of laugh that could turn into a scream and threatened to never end.
Much later, when I, along with the rest of the world, discovered that the diary was, in fact, a fake, I laughed again. I laughed so hard one of my interns knocked on my office door to investigate my state of mind. I had no suitable explanation to offer him, so I dismissed him curtly with a wave of my hand, laughing all the while.]
Ma came into my room one morning, not long after we finished the Alice book. Her eyes looked so tired, but at least they weren’t red anymore. She was smoking a cigarette, and the smell made me cough. “How are you doing?” she asked me.
“Okay,” I said, and Ma was so surprised that she dropped her cigarette onto the carpet and had to stomp it out with the heel of her shoe.
“You’re okay?” she said, and when she smiled, I saw her teeth were yellow. Had they always been that color? I couldn’t remember. She picked up her crushed cigarette and walked closer to me. She had her work uniform on, and it smelled like grease and stale coffee.
“I don’t know,” I said, and Ma’s face crumpled back in on itself.
She let out this big sigh, and then she ran all the way to my bed. She grabbed the Alice book off of my bedside table and held it up in my face. “What is this?”
“I don’t know,” I said, even though I knew perfectly well, I just didn’t want to say. Why was she so angry?
“Did Ellie bring this to you?” she yelled.
“Yes,” I said, at ease being able to answer a question I understood.
“Goddamnit!” she said, and I laughed. Ma cursed!
Ma stomped out of my room, still holding the Alice book. I wanted it back, but it was okay. I could read it again later when Ellie came home.
[Scribe’s note: When I arrived home from school, Mother was sitting at the kitchen table. She called for me to come in and join her. I hadn’t seen her in a few days, which was fine by me. I could never predict if she’d be weepy and morose or edgy and frustrated. Neither mood motivated me to seek out her company.
I put my book bag on the ground and joined her at the table. From her lap, she pulled out a book and slid it across the table to me. It was Go Ask Alice.
“What is this?” she asked me.
“It’s a book,” I said, suddenly feeling very tired.
“Do you know what this is about?” she demanded.
“It’s about a girl named Alice,” I said. I know I was being cheeky, but I hardly deserved the slap she delivered to my face.
“Don’t you sass me!” she shouted, spittle flying onto the table’s surface. “This is not appropriate!”
My cheek stung, but I didn’t want to show any weakness in front of her. She didn’t deserve my vulnerability. “And why not?” I asked, girding myself for another slap.
She didn’t hit me again, but her eyes narrowed to slits. “This book is full of hippie drugs and sex and all sorts of things you don’t need to know about. And you know what’s worst of all? Do you know where I found this book?”
My heart sank, but I didn’t give her an inch. “At the library?”
She sneered in disgust. “In your sister’s room,” she said. “Is this the kind of filth you’ve been reading to her?”
There was no sense denying it, so I tried to present the situation in a more positive light. “It’s not just me reading it. Darla can read it, too. We’ve been practicing.”
I could see the confusion, then the shock, then the disbelief pass across Mother’s face. “I don’t believe you,” she said.
“It’s true!” I shouted. “You think she can’t do anything, but you’re wrong! She’s getting better, and you wouldn’t know, because I’m the only one helping her!”
I had struck a nerve, and I knew it. Mother stood up, her chair screeching across the linoleum. She came around to my side of the table and grabbed my arm, hauling me to Darla’s room with surprising strength.
Darla glanced up at us when we came in, looking totally uninterested. Mother dragged me to Darla’s bedside and pushed me closer to her. Then, she opened Go Ask Alice to a random page in the middle and shoved the book into Darla’s hands.
“Read it,” she said, pointing at the page.
Darla looked from Mother to me, then back to Mother. Her mouth was open, and I knew if I didn’t reach forward soon, she’d drool on the book again. I moved to close her mouth, but Mother blocked me. “Don’t you help her,” she said. “If you say she can do it, let’s hear it.”
Amazingly, Darla closed her own mouth and swallowed. She looked down at the page, and I could see her eyes flitting over the paragraphs. I looked away, crossing my fingers that Darla would read the damn words. More than anything in that moment, I wanted to feel triumphant. I wanted to have something to show for all the hours I’d spent with Darla, painstakingly sounding out letters she’d forgotten she ever understood.
“Read it!” Mother repeated, nearly screaming the words.
Darla, never losing her placid expression, stared at the page. She looked back up, at Mother, then at me.
She said, “I don’t know.”
Mother yanked the book out of her hands, nearly ripping its cover in the process. She whipped around to face me, her cheeks red and glowing. “You filthy little liar!” she yelled, and I took a step back. This was not the mother I’d known for thirteen years. This was someone else, someone who had invaded my mother’s body and turned her into a person I didn’t recognize.
It was then I saw how much the surgery had changed more than just Darla.]
I didn’t want to read the book in front of Ma. It felt like my secret with Ellie, and I didn’t understand why Ma was so angry. It seemed safer to stay quiet. If Ma didn’t like me getting out of bed and exercising, I didn’t think she’d like the idea of me reading, either.
Ma was so angry at Ellie, I thought she was going to push her to the ground. She didn’t, but she did stomp out for the second time that day with the Alice book in her hands. Ellie stayed behind, staring at me, until Ma called for her.
[Scribe’s note: Mother threw Go Ask Alice into the trashcan, then covered it with leftover coffee from the pot. She knew it was a library book, but she didn’t care. After this display, she told me I was forbidden from reading to Darla anymore.
What kind of punishment was that? It would hurt Darla far more than it would hurt me. Without me to read to her, Darla wouldn’t make any more progress. Beyond that, she’d be alone almost constantly without me to come keep her company. Did Mother, like Father surely had, hope that Darla would shrivel up and die without attention?
I want to think Mother was just appalled by the book’s subject matter and overcome with emotion, combined with her unresolved grief over what Father had done to himself.
But, if I’m being honest, I think it was more than that. I think Mother wanted to keep me from Darla because my caretaking made Mother look uncaring and cold in comparison. If she wasn’t able to help Darla recover, then she didn’t want me to have any sense of accomplishment, either. It was selfish, it was perverse, and it was sadistic. I didn’t have the words to describe the situation then, so all I did was turn around, leave the kitchen, and lock myself in my room until Mother left for work.]
I thought Ellie would stop coming to my room for awhile after Ma got so angry, but she was back the next day with a new book. This one wasn’t as interesting as the Alice one, but my eyes were getting stronger, and I could read whole pages. I thought Ellie might try to bring Ma in again and show her what I could do now, but she never did. Ellie even told me to keep our reading a secret, and she took her books with her when she left instead of letting me keep them in my room. That was fine with me, since I spent most of my day walking back and forth. I could even go to the bathroom by myself now, even though I sometimes still made little messes.
I even started to think I might go back to school one day, just to be able to get out of the house. Most of the time, I was okay living in my small world, but as I got better at moving around, I wanted desperately to go outside, to get some fresh air.
Ellie was at school and Ma was still asleep when I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. I put on a dress I hadn’t worn in a long time and tried to put my shoes on, but I couldn’t get the buckles to clasp. I did the best I could, then I walked out into the living room and opened the front door as quietly as I was able. It was a bright sunny day, warmish, and I could hear a lawnmower a few streets over. The grass was greener than I ever thought possible, and the sky was so blue it hurt my eyes. The trees were covered in red and gold leaves. I stepped onto our front porch and closed the door behind me.
