No, Wait

What’s that you say? I don’t hear too good. Yes, disability payments. Yes, Vietnam veteran. My body is falling apart. I have cysts where they shouldn’t be, and your asshole doctors won’t touch them. No, wait. I’m sorry.  

I’m not drunk. I’ve been sitting here for hours. How could I drink? I understand. Agent Orange. Hell, yeah, I was in a war zone. 

No, wait. Sorry, sorry. I won’t do it again. 

Nineteen. Drafted. Fourteen months. They extended me for two months. Disrespecting an officer. He was a fucking asshole.  

No, wait. I’m sorry. I know I said, but I didn’t promise. This time I promise. 

Purple Heart. I threw it away. It was bad luck. Because it never brought me good luck. It must be in your records.

Da Nang. Ever heard of it? Was your daddy in the war? I didn’t think so. 

The base got shelled while we were sleeping. My hootch-mate was killed, and I got shrapnel in my back. That’s where the hearing loss comes from. Seven days in the infirmary. There must be records. Here’s a picture of me wearing the medal. That is me. I was young then. I was mentioned in my hometown newspaper. There must be a record of that. My mom sent me the article, but I lost it. She’s dead. Dad, too.

Don’t you have one of those connections? Do a search or something?

Fire in St. Louis? How am I supposed to recreate records? I’ve given you everything I have.

Fuck you. 

No, wait, don’t go. You’re pretty.

 

Let Me Share

We’re going to be spending some time together, so I want you to know that I can’t stand it when people call me crazy.

I try to be honest with everybody in all my dealings, and I appreciate it when people are honest in return. Some people say I’m harsh, but I’m no harsher with them than I am with myself. I am brutally honest with myself, let me assure you. It’s the honorable way.

I should start with Ed. Looking back I can see he was a bad choice, but he was so handsome. I knew we’d marry from the first date. My fate was sealed at the moment of the first kiss.

Ed asked me out. Mom and dad forbade it, wrong religion, but I went anyway. As soon as he saw me enter the café he raced across the room, took me in his arms and kissed me. I’ve never felt anything so intense. Can you imagine? Seventeen and never kissed a boy.

I hope there’s romance in your life at this stage. Take advantage of it because it goes stale fast. Ed and I had two, maybe three years where we were lovey-dovey, then romance was out the window. Oh, there I am prying again.

Do you want babies?

My four, well, a handful, but a joy too, at times. I did my best. I gave everything I could and always treated them like adults. How else will children learn how to act when they grow up? I’m proud of the way I stood up for all of them.

Poor Steven. To be bashed against the wall as an infant. To suggest it is the same as doing it! Holding the baby by his feet, swinging him around, threatening me, all to get me out of bed, but I was sick. I’d just had a baby. He said I’d been there for months, but it was only weeks. Steven’s feet were so tiny in his hand. Screaming. Terrified. I knew from that moment that Steven would end up in jail.

Things weren’t too bad then. Ed was working steady and earning good money. He bought his first new car. He was so very proud. Kathy was born that year, and Ed was so happy to have a son and a daughter and a brand new convertible.

I’m glad I let him have me that night. I was still sore from having Steven, but he was all hot and bothered, demanding his marital rights. I hated him for it, but we got Kathy in return. Ten months between them. Two kids before we were married two years.

You should watch your step around Kathy. She pretends to be everybody’s friend, but she hates everybody.

We would cruise around town, top down, me and Ed in the front and the kids in the back, waving like we were in a parade. I did love that. It felt like a million bucks.

I was almost happy, except for Ed always calling me crazy. I begged him not to, but he said even mom and dad thought I was, which was true. I hated them all for that.

Oh, God, the fights. We’d be on the couch and then he’d be hitting me. For what? One night I was asleep and suddenly he was in me. I screamed and hit him in the face. He grabbed me by the feet and swung me around his head, threatening to bash my head against the wall. He was doing that all the time. The threats! Oh, it makes my head ache.

Kathy likes to exaggerate. She says she did all the cleaning and cooking, but I kept the house. Sure, the kids had chores, but only at an age when I could expect that they could do them. Kathy liked to cook from an early age, so that was her chore. It wasn’t because I didn’t cook, like she says.

Sometimes it seems like they all gang up on me.

Oh, I’m talking too much, aren’t I?

You’d think the namesake would be spared, but oh, no. Poor Eddie only wanted to please, the one thing he couldn’t do.

Ed would turn into an animal. He stripped Eddie naked, he was a teen-ager for heaven’s sake, and whipped him in the front lawn with all the neighbors watching for the crime of trying to stop a beating. That wasn’t the only time Eddie tried to do that! But once Ed was in a fury, that was it, the blows were going to come, best to get out of the way like Steven did. The only one who could calm Ed down was Kathy. When she would. She’d egg him on sometimes. She liked the tension. Eddie never did.

Poor Mannix. I never should have named him after that TV detective, but by then it was all on me, and that actor was so handsome. Ed was away, as he called it. He would disappear, and that was that. Better, really, because there were times when he was a danger.

Mannix was the special one. Odd in every way. He could cry for days on end. How can you sleep through something like that? Ed had been hit and miss for some time, but once Mannix was on the way, Ed really vacated. Ed said Mannix couldn’t be his, but Ed’s the only one I’ve had in my life. I converted to Catholic to marry him, and I take vows seriously. It’s the only honorable way.

I hope we can be friends. It’s nice to have a conversation with someone who’s not interrupting all the time.

People said I should divorce Ed because he was gone so much and not contributing anything, but that is against my religion. Marriage is a life sentence.

No one can take away from me that I carried the family on my shoulders. Absent husband, no money, four kids. All on me. I did it. Those endless hours in the welfare office. The forms. Ask Kathy about that. I’m sure she remembers those waiting rooms.

Oh, Kathy. Do you talk to her much? Don’t believe what she says. Her story about watching us go at it on the living room floor is not true. We always had a separate bedroom and were civilized about that. She may have seen him rape me, but when she tells the story I’m enjoying myself, and I hated being raped. I’d be asleep, and the next thing I’d know he was at it. I hated to wake up like that. Or he’d beat me up and then rape me. I couldn’t say one way or the other if she saw one of those episodes. One time I was in the back yard sunning in a new bikini, and he came over and then we were doing it. She may have seen that, but she was so little then. How could she remember? Besides, it was over in a minute. Not an hour like she tells it.

Watch yourself around Ed. Kathy says she doesn’t see him, but I know she does. I’ll catch her in a lie. She loves to tell her stories. I’ve seen his car in her driveway, too. It’s no wonder. They always understood each other. I’m just warning you that Ed messed with Kathy’s friends in high school, so I’m sure he’d mess with you.

Ed was sweet in the beginning. When he hit me that first time with his fist, so hard, right against the temple, it was like losing a child. Honestly, the same feeling I had when Mannix ran in front of that car.

Ed caused it. He’d been gone for years, and then there he was. How did he find us? We’d moved two or three times. I was so surprised to see him standing in the kitchen. I know, I know, I should lock the doors, but with four kids, three teenagers, how do you keep a door locked?

The thing that really irked me about Ed was he never apologized. Never a mention of his absence, an acknowledgement of the fact that the children were fed and washed, the house together. If I was lucky he wouldn’t rape me. But he’d always want to fight.

Mannix was the only one at home that day. The others were off to who knows where. He tried to get between us. Ed just threw him aside. So Mannix stood by the door and screamed. Screamed! Where did he get the wind? Ed turned on him eventually, and Mannix ran out the door. Ed went after him. I didn’t see it. I’d say I was knocked out except I heard the squeal of the brakes and the impact so clearly. Oh, the nightmares I suffer.

Mannix knew what he was doing. He was only in the third grade, but he always knew what he was doing.

Ed’s parting shot to me that time, after the police had gone away, was he supposed I’d be going to sleep. Going to sleep? After watching the hearse take my youngest child away? I cried for days!

But the fight was out of Ed after that. He hasn’t hit me in, oh, I bet its eight years now. Course, I haven’t talked to him in seven years, but the last time at Eddie’s funeral he was nice enough.

Don’t you believe what they say about Eddie. He would never be mixed up with drug people. Eddie was born again! He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That coroner obviously switched Eddie’s blood work with somebody else. He went to mass with me the day before he died, so I know he wasn’t an addict.

Now, Steven was caught red handed. He may have been drug-addled, but he carried a gun into that bank. I saw the security tape on TV. I knew it was him. Thank God he didn’t kill anybody! He’s got Ed’s temper. When he gets out I’ll worry about the girl he chooses. She better know how to fight.

I never hit my kids. Why should I, when Ed was so handy. There were times when I was at my limit, but then I’d complete a Rosary, and when I opened my eyes again the kids would’ve settled down. You’d think Ed, being raised Catholic, would be more respectful, but he’d go on hitting while I prayed. He’ll have to answer for that to St. Peter. Yes, he’ll have a lot of explaining to do at the Pearly Gates. I’m happy to have led an honorable life so I can face St. Peter with a clear conscience.

I can see you’re anxious to go. I want you to know it’s been a joy getting to know you.