Raise It Up, page 8
“Daddy, please.”
“I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it and I don’t care how big you think you are. Youse just try me, Cee Cee. Youse fucking try me.”
“Please, Daddy, I’m sorry.”
“Youse go into your mama’s room and get that fucking typewriter. You understanding me?”
I nodded.
He released me. Then his hand flew out, caught me across the side of the face with such force that I stumbled sideways and fell.
“Youse get that fucking typewriter!” he shouted. “Fucking tired! I’ll show you what fucking tired is! Fucking tired is when youse got a fucking Soviet soldier ass-raping you like a little girl because you let them walk over our borders and destroy this country. That’s what fucking tired is. When those bombs are dropping and the whole goddamn world is on fire, youse going to be fucking tired, that’s for goddamn sure. Now youse get that fucking typewriter, because we’ve got to work to do, and I don’t care how fucking tired your fucking candy ass is. You got me, Cee Cee?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What you fucking waiting for?”
I hurried into his room.
TWENTY-TWO: It’s not much
GEORGE DROVE slowly since the plow hadn’t come through yet and the road was a sheet of white, lined with ditches on either side. The blizzard had been bad enough for schools to be closed.
As long as George kept the truck between the ditches, we would be okay. George said he needed to find a pay phone so he could call his job, make sure they knew he was snowed in and couldn’t make it. I had Kay on my lap, Charlie squeezed between us on the front seat of George’s truck. I knew better than to leave them home with Daddy.
“Ten dollars isn’t much,” I complained.
George said nothing.
“What am I supposed to buy with ten dollars?”
“I don’t know, Cee Cee. It’s better than nothing.”
“If he didn’t drink all our damn money, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
“Lighten up.”
“What are we going to do for Christmas?”
“Santa’s coming!” Charlie exclaimed happily. “Ain’t he, Cee Cee?”
“He sure is,” I said without enthusiasm.
“Is Santa gonna bring me my Easy-Bake Oven?” Kay asked, turning to look at me.
“I hope so, sweetie. Have you been a good girl?”
“Yes,” she said frankly. “Ask Georgie.”
“Georgie, has she been a good girl?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” George shook his head, feigned uncertainty.
“Georgie!” She was mad.
“Well, I suppose if Santa asks me, I could lie,” George allowed.
“I’ve been good,” Kay said. “You’re just a big turd.”
“Youse a turd!” Charlie repeated, smiling. “A big fat smelly turd!”
“You’re going to eat turds if you don’t watch your mouth,” I warned.
“But Georgie’s a big turd!”
“Stop it, Charlie.”
“Watch his legs,” George warned since Charlie was straddling the stick shift and had a tendency to jerk around suddenly. He had popped George’s clutch out of gear on more than one occasion.
I pulled Charlie’s legs close to my own and held them.
The IGA was about a mile from our house, and George pulled slowly into the parking lot. There were two other cars pulled up to the front entrance.
“I’ve got to make a call,” George said, heading for the pay phone.
I took Charlie and Kay and went inside.
“It’s a doozy out there,” Mr. Lowell said. He was the store manager, and he was sweeping around the registers. “How are things, Cee Cee?”
“Okay,” I said, grabbing a cart and lifting Kay so she could sit inside.
“I want to push,” Charlie said, grabbing the handle.
“Be careful,” I warned.
“Heard about your mother,” Mr. Lowell said. “Sure was sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“You let me know when you’re ready to check out,” he added.
I didn’t know what to buy with ten dollars, which was all I’d been able to get out of Daddy. Bread, powdered milk, cereal, of course. Some oleo. Maybe some cookies, if we had money. Maybe some hamburger for goulash, if it wasn’t too expensive.
We were alone in the store. Maybe that’s why I thought of stealing something. Who was going to notice? I pushed the cart slowly up and down the aisles, trying to work up my courage. We needed food. I knew it was wrong to steal, but bread and powdered milk and macaroni weren’t going to go far, and I didn’t want to ask George for money because he’d get mad.
But what could I take? And how would I do it?
I stopped to look at the canned tuna. Charlie ran the cart into the back of my legs.
“Dammit, Charlie!” I snapped, turning to glare at him.
“I didn’t mean it, Cee Cee,” he said, his face stricken. “I was trying to be careful.”
“Just watch it.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding seriously. “I gone watch, watch, watch.”
I glanced about, trying not to appear nervous. Fact was, I could slip a can or two of tuna in my coat pocket and no one would notice. I turned a can over in my hand, as if reading the label while I struggled to decide. It would be risky. Then again, I could mix the tuna with mayonnaise and we could have tuna sandwiches. If I stole a couple of the big cans, we could make a couple of meals out of them.
“Youse gone buy tuna?” Charlie wanted to know.
“I’m thinking,” I said. I was stalling.
Farther down were canned hams, but they were much bigger and much riskier. Still. Canned ham. For Christmas. What else was there going to be this year? Mama would have wheedled money out of Daddy, made sure we had a nice Christmas dinner with sweets and all. The way it was going now, we’d be lucky to have spaghetti.
“Youse gone buy it?” Charlie asked again. He was bored, wanted to move the cart, wanted to get going.
My hands shook as I glanced at him.
Stealing was wrong. I knew that, of course. And we weren’t that hungry.
Not yet anyway.
Still.
I glanced around, pretended I wasn’t trying to scope out the scene, slipped the can into my coat pocket, and began to walk farther down the aisle. I had gone no more than five steps before I stopped. It was wrong. I knew that. I went back, put the can back on the shelf. If it came to it, I would steal. If we had to have food….
If….
After we went through the dairy section and picked up milk and oleo, Mr. Lowell rang up our purchases, handed me thirty-seven cents in change.
“You doing all right, Cyrus?” he asked, looking at me rather strangely.
“Sure,” I said.
“You have enough food at the house, you and your brothers and your sister?”
“We’re okay, Mr. Lowell.”
“You sure about that, Cyrus?”
The way he looked at me suggested he knew something, perhaps had seen me trying to steal the tuna. This information made me nervous. And embarrassed. Hugely embarrassed.
“We’re fine,” I assured him.
“I’ve got some canned goods about to expire. Why don’t you give me a minute and let me put them in a bag for you? Just make sure you use them up quick.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said automatically.
“Son, I know when folks are in trouble. Let me help you. Just don’t tell your father. Okay?”
I nodded, said nothing.
TWENTY-THREE: How about a show?
GEORGE WENT deer hunting that afternoon, and Daddy was asleep, so we listened to records in the bedroom Charlie and I shared.
“Youse gonna sing?” Charlie wanted to know.
I had promised our Lord I would quit pretending to be a singer, but what was the harm? And we were bored. I locked the door to make sure no one walked in on us.
“I’ll do a little show,” I promised. “But we have to be quiet because Daddy will get mad if we wake him up.”
After wrapping my head in a towel, which served as a makeshift wig, I thought about putting on my nightshirt, which would be like a dress, but decided against it since Daddy was home. There were things that Daddy would never understand in a million years, and dressing up like a girl was one of them. So I settled for a towel-wig and a flashlight as a microphone.
“Who you gonna be?” Kay wanted to know as she stood by the record player, watching me flip through my albums.
“Miss Donna Summer,” I said in my best, sultry, slinky voice. “And I’m going to do a little number—” I paused for dramatic effect. “—called ‘Last Dance.’”
Kay clapped her hands together happily. It was one of her favorite songs.
Kay and Charlie crawled onto Charlie’s bed and leaned against the wall. I put the needle on the record, kept my back turned as the opening, magical strains drifted quietly from the record player.
Then I turned and began my performance.
If I had to explain the feeling that came over me at that moment as I set aside my old self—that sad little person known as “Cyrus Hood”—and put on a new self, a fake self, yes, but still very real, if I had to explain all of that, I would be at a loss for words. It was as though I actually was Donna Summer. Not that I wanted to be a woman. Not that I was a transvestite. Not that I wanted a vagina and a set of tits. No. But… I wanted to be Donna Summer. A superstar. A singer. Someone famous, someone important. Someone who mattered, who had an interesting life, who was loved. And not just loved, but adored and worshipped. Someone with enormous talent. Someone respected, admired.
A real person.
For some reason or other, I did not feel like a real person. Had never in my life felt like a real person.
But when I pretended to be Donna Summer or Diana Ross or Rod Stewart or Freddie Mercury or the Bay City Rollers, some feeling or other came over me, and suddenly I was someone else. And that person that I became… well, I liked that person. He was fun. He was daring. He was talented. He was loved. He was confident, strutting across the stage like a superstar, absolutely sure of himself.
He was nothing like me.
But that was only part of the story.
I became the songs. If you were to ask me to explain, I would not be able to. I felt them very keenly. The words, the music, the rhythm, the instruments. They combined into some fierce force inside my head that swept through me. They weren’t just songs; they were living, breathing things that set my insides on fire, living things that pulsed inside me.
I coyly went through the intro part of “Last Dance.” When the beat kicked in, I began to move my body seductively. I didn’t want to overdo it. I wanted to ease gradually into a rollicking crescendo during which I would empty my soul. But slowly. Gently. Like a professional.
About a minute into the song, I was no longer aware of Kay, or Charlie, of where I was, of Daddy sleeping in the room on the other side of the house. I was Donna Summer. I was giving the performance of my life. I was on a stage, like the one on Soul Train, singing my guts out. The audience was wild, ecstatic, crazy in love with me, and I was in love with them, and I gave myself to them. They were not going to leave my performance without my having given them my absolute best.
The record player was quiet. My feet were soundless on old carpet. But there was a roar inside my head. The roar of the crowd, the music, the driving, thumping bass, the violins, the horns.
I was quite beyond myself.
When I sang about needing someone by me and beside me, I meant it. I yearned for those things. I ached for those things. And it showed. In my voice. In my expression. In my moves. I needed someone to hold me. I needed arms around me. Arms of someone like Ollie Kowski.
I knew all about how bad I could be. But all would be forgiven because that special someone would hold me and make it right.
As the song ended, I came back to myself.
“Do another one!” Kay said enthusiastically.
“Hold on,” I said, going to the record player.
I removed my wig, set it aside, and put on my Elton John sunglasses. I found the 45 for “Your Song” and put it on the player. Having exhausted myself with a disco favorite, I turned to something sweeter, something moving.
I sang the opening line of “Your Song” for Charlie and Kay, wishing they could understand the words the way I did.
Charlie sang with me. He knew every word to every song since we listened to them over and over.
I sang for Kay and Charlie now, very much aware of them. I pretended I was a gigantic superstar, but see how humble I could be, reaching out to my little brother and sister! Wasn’t I just amazing? All that fame, glory, and money—it hadn’t gone to my head!
It wasn’t long before Charlie wanted to do “I Got You Babe,” our Sonny and Cher number.
Kay, who couldn’t sit still in the best of times, was soon on her feet and dancing.
Mama said what we were doing was wrong, but it didn’t feel wrong. It never felt wrong. We were just having fun. She complained about how we listened to the “devil’s music.” As if Satan himself had wrote the bass lines and the lyrics. But even if it was Satan’s music, I would not have been able to stop myself from listening.
For the first time in days, I forgot about Mama.
TWENTY-FOUR: You can do this
CHARLIE SPLASHED about in the bath as I sat on the toilet and tried to read Lord of the Rings. I was on the second book, The Two Towers, and if Charlie would leave me alone for two seconds, I could finish it, but every other sentence he was distracting me and demanding attention.
“Look, Cee Cee!” he cried happily, dunking his old G.I. Joe guy in the water. “He’s diving for treasure but the Japs won’t let him get it!”
“Oh,” I said, glancing at him. “You need to wash your hair.”
“I don’t want to wash my hair.”
“You’ve got to.”
“You do it, Cee Cee.”
“We talked about this, Charlie. You’ve got to learn to take care of yourself more.”
“You do it, Cee Cee,” he whined.
“You’re not a baby, are you?”
“I ain’t no baby!”
“Well, you’ve got to learn to take care of yourself more. And that means washing your hair.”
“But I don’t want to wash my hair!”
“Oh? I thought you were a big boy.”
“I am a big boy!”
“Then wash your hair. I don’t make you wash my hair, do I? I’m a big boy and I do it myself.”
He stared at me, his mouth open. He was trying to think of a way to respond, but his brain was coming up empty.
“You do it, Cee Cee,” he said in a soft, sad voice, as if I had yelled at him.
I put my book aside, tried not to be mad, not to be impatient.
“Wanna make a deal?” I asked.
“What?”
“I’ll help you today, but you’ve got to promise me you’ll try to do it yourself tomorrow. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“You’re not lying to me?”
“I ain’t lying, Cee Cee. Lying’s a sin and youse can go to hell.”
“So you promise me?”
“I promise, Cee Cee. I gone be good good good.”
“Okay. I believe you. Let me show you how it’s done again. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I put shampoo in the palm of my hand.
“See that?” I asked, showing it to him. “Put some in your hand. Then rub it in your hair. It’s easy. You’re a big boy. You can do that.”
“You do it, Cee Cee.”
I rubbed the shampoo into his hair, lathered it a little.
“Give me your hands,” I ordered.
Obediently, he held out his hands.
I lifted them to his head, urged him to lather his own hair. “Pretend like your fingers are hungry and they’re looking for candy, and the candy’s inside your head. So they dig and dig and dig, looking for all that candy.”
“Can I have some candy, Cee Cee?”
“We’re just pretending, Charlie.”
“My fingers is hungry?”
“That’s right. Your fingers are hungry and they want candy. But they’ve got to find it!”
“And the candy’s in my head, ain’t it, Cee Cee?”
“It sure is, bud.”
He dug around in his hair, grinning in a goofy way.
“See?” I said. “You can do that. You’re a big boy. You’re not stupid. You’re a smart boy.”
“I’m a smart boy,” he repeated. “My fingers is hungry hungry hungry! And the candy’s in my head! Gonna find me some candy!”
I guided his hands gently, moving them around his scalp, trying to get him to understand that this wasn’t hard, wasn’t difficult, and was something he could do if he would just set his mind to it. My fingers felt the small depression on the back left side of his head. I rubbed at it gently. All these years and it was still there.
He was okay until he suddenly sneezed and dropped his right hand to wipe his nose. Then he rubbed at his eyes because he was sleepy and promptly got shampoo in them.
“Cee Cee!” he cried in misery. “Oh, Cee Cee! It hurts! Owie eyes!”
He rubbed at his eyes even more, trying to make the pain stop.
I fought with him to get his hands away from his eyes, but he kept making it worse.
He burst into unhappy tears, splashed water about.
I rinsed out the washcloth, pushed his hands away, wiped at his face, his cheeks, and his eyes.
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to soothe him.
“Ahhhhhh!” he moaned in misery.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad, bud,” I said quietly.
You had to go easy with Charlie when he got scared. If you didn’t, he would have himself a nervous breakdown and make everything a million times worse. You had to ease him out of it.
