In this prior post, I wrote about the Texas neighborhood in which Mary grew up, in the town of Leechfield. That prior excerpt depicted her mom melting down, and the neighbors turning away. Now I'm going to share an excerpt about her mother's return--with a new husband--to the same house in the same neighborhood in Leechfield:
If the pope had advanced on us, outfitted in embroidered robes with acolytes behind wagging gold incense burners, the neighbors would have been held in less thrall. No sooner had that low yellow car halted in its tracks than every family on the block started from their various houses, prepared to stay a while, wearing wind-breakers and winter jackets and rain slickers in case the fat clouds overhead broke open. They pulled their lawn chairs out of garage storage, aimed them to face us, and sat watching like we were some drive-in movie projected across the soft gray horizon. The misty rain that speckled the air didn’t stop them. Mrs. Dillard just unfolded her clear plastic rain bonnet from its tuckaway pocket and tied it right under her chin, so her hairdo wouldn’t get sticky. Mrs. Sharp wielded the massive black umbrella they toted to football games.
The men who weren’t working stood together under the eaves of the Carters’ garage, smoking, the red coals of their cigarettes visible when drawn on. They were watching too. Don’t think they weren’t. The kids scampered behind their front-yard ditches like nothing special was happening, all but Carol Sharp, who crossed the to stand right at the edge of our yard. I gave her the finger in full view of everybody. That set her loping back to tattle, her Keds slapping against the wet asphalt.
I walked back and forth along the ditch’s slope till it struck me that I’d once seen a cow dog patrol its territory with the exact same level of concentration I was bringing to bear. Mother and Hector toted some more dresses out the house. They were made of silk, colors of whipped cream and beige and palest tangerine shimmering in the gauzy air. I could just imagine the neighbor ladies reckoning their worth—“Why, one of them alone’s worth Pete’s whole paycheck . . ."
I hated them at that instant, hated their broad heavy bottoms slung low in those stripy garden chairs. I hated their church suppers, their lumpy tuna casseroles, their Jell-O molds with perfect cubes of pear and peach hanging suspended. I hated their crocheted baby booties and sofa shawls, the toilet-paper covers shaped like poodles everybody worked on one summer.
For the first time, I felt the power my family’s strangeness gave us over the neighbors. Those other grown-ups were scared. Not only of my parents but of me. My wildness scared them. Plus they guessed that I’d moved through houses darker than theirs. All my life I’d wanted to belong in their families, to draw my lunch bag from the simple light and order of their defrosted refrigerators.
pp. 266-67.
No comments:
Post a Comment