Hummels and Horse
I submitted this story to a magazine called The First Line. It didn’t sell and I didn’t think it would. I tackled the piece because the premise of the magazine intrigues me — each story in the publication begins with the same first line — and I wanted to submit something.
I didn’t think it would sell because I’m still learning my craft and I knew what I ended up with wouldn’t be very good. Frankly, I hadn’t written much fiction since I was in college. Read for yourself.
Mamma has always had a love for other people's possessions. One of the first memories I have is Mamma saying how much she loved how nice my first grade teacher's car was; Mamma said she wished she could have a nice car like that.
Mamma started taking things when my little sister Nina and me were still kids. Of course, they were lots of little things she took. For one, she fell in love with Aunt Rita's Hummel figurines. Aunt Rita thought she'd gone crazy when the first one went missing. But after that she always knew where to find them.
Mamma raved about those little statues, especially the one with the little boy holding the tuba. She loved how cute they were. "Precious like a baby's fingers," she said. But Mamma, because she took them in the first place, couldn't put them out on display like Aunt Rita did. Aunt Rita might see them and then Mamma would have to explain herself. Then, again, Aunt Rita grew up knowing about Mamma.
And then there was the time she came home from an afternoon social party with some other lady's coat. It was real brown leather with light colored fur trim that wasn't real. It was a pretty coat and Mamma didn't know the lady she took it from, so she figured it would be okay. "Like an even trade," Mamma said. "After all, she gets to keep my coat."
There was also the time Mamma ordered the swimming pool. The neighbors three doors down from us got one of those above ground kind one summer when I was about eight. Mamma couldn't take it from the neighbors, so she ordered one up for us instead. The man came out and took the measurements and a week later they started putting it up. We never swam in it because Mamma couldn't pay for it all. She convinced the swimming pool people to let us keep what they'd put up, which wasn't much, because she did give them a down payment (and the company saw fit to keep all that money). In the winter time, that curved section of pool wall that still stood made a nice fort for snowball fights; in the summer we used it as the backstop for our baseball games.
Those weren't the only things that Mamma ever took, just some of what I remember. I was sometimes a little ashamed for Mamma when she'd take the things that didn't belong to her. Every once in a while, I'd take the things back if I knew where Mamma got them. I especially took things back to Aunt Rita because I always liked her and she just lived up the street then.
"Why does Mamma take these things?"
"She sometimes doesn't know right from wrong," Aunt Rita said.
"But Mamma's a grown up. Shouldn't she know right from wrong?"
"She's always been that way. But, you know, your mama's got a good heart. She don't always know where she keeps it though."
I suppose my aunt was right. I didn't know it at the time, but my Mamma was struggling with something inside that hurt her when she was a little girl. I guess she was looking for something to make it go away. Aunt Rita didn't tell me what it was until later, though. But at first, she told me, Mamma took those things because it made her feel a little bit better by being a little bit bad.
A few years later, Mamma had to go away. She took some things from the grocery store and she scratched a policeman's face when he was taking her information to write her a ticket. She was arrested and they eventually had to send her to the hospital. The doctor there decided she needed to stay. So my sister and me went to be with Gramma.
That was the start of the eighth grade for me. I had a hard time telling other kids why I wasn't with my Mamma any more.
"My Mamma just needs a little time." That's what Gramma told me to say.
"My mama said your mama don't have the good sense to come in from the rain," one of the other kids at school said at lunchtime. I don't remember now who it was that said it, except that I remember his blond head and small ears from when I sat behind him in third grade.
At the time, I really didn't know what that blond-headed, small-eared boy meant so I just sat there and ate my sandwich. I guess, looking back, had I been a different kind of kid, I should have stood up to him. But Gramma wouldn't have tolerated it; and living with my Mamma as long as I did meant I had to take care of Nina and me in other ways. Standing up to that kid wasn't at all like wiping vomit from Mamma's face and hair when she'd get sick from drinking too much; and it wasn't anything like changing her out of torn and bloodied clothes; or getting her a sponge bath so I could put her to bed. "You're such a big boy," she'd say. She'd say it - her tongue still thick from the liquor - even though I was little.
"I know Mamma," I'd always say back. "You lay down now and go to sleep, okay?" It's not like this happened a lot. Mamma didn't always drink too much. Most times she was just like other people's mamas, giving of hugs and kisses and birthday cakes for no reason at all. Which is why I didn't always know why Mamma acted the way she did. I'd just put her to bed and make breakfast for Nina before getting us both ready for school.
But, as it was, Mamma's troubles with taking things didn't get serious until she started injecting heroin sometime after they let her out of the hospital. After living with Gramma for so many years, Nina and me didn't see Mamma again until I was twenty. Gramma didn't allow it. But, I was going to college and Nina was close to finishing high school, when Gramma called to say I needed to come home. I didn't know why and Gramma didn't say, except that she sounded stern (which meant I shouldn't ask questions); so I packed my toothbrush and a couple changes of mostly-clean clothes and headed home on the next bus from Branderville. After six hours, I was there.
When I got to the depot, one of the sheriff's deputies, one I didn't know, stopped me as I walked from the building. Gramma sent him not knowing when I would arrive.
"It's good you came so fast. Your grandma is sick beside herself and Nina has been crying. Get in the car, son."
"Is everything okay?" I said as we climbed into the cruiser. It stunk - as if all he ever did was fart and smoke cigarettes where he sat - and the inside of the car was packed full of electronic radios and such - all with knobs, toggle switches and little colored domed lights that looked like the last time they were touched was sometime before I was born.
"It seems your mama came back from wherever she was at and got herself into some trouble. We got her in lockup. We'll go get your grandma and your sister and take you all to see her."
"What did she do?" I said.
The deputy waited to answer until after the dispatch radio finished squawking. "We got your mama as she was coming out the back of Wendell's Café last night. She was with a man. We didn't get him yet, but we will. Only so many places a junkie can go before he needs a score.
"Your mama's not saying much, but we know her and the man she was with hid in the ladies room until after Wendell's boy locked up. Good kid, but he ain't always so smart. After that, they ate some pie and jimmied the cash drawer. There wasn't much in it, about thirty-five dollars, but it was enough."
I stared at the little domed lights.
He said, "We just happened to be creeping through the alley when we saw them come out the back. The man she was with spied us and took off running. Your mama just froze."
The deputy turned onto the lane where Gramma lived - a long and narrow dirt path just beyond the township limit - and I couldn't help but feel that I wouldn't know Mamma when we got to the county jail. I wasn't like a premonition lile you read about in the tabloids or the feeling you sometimes get when you know something bad is about to happen. It was more like coming to know something real for the first time, like the day you understood what it felt like to kiss a girl or to get your first ever paycheck. Before this, Mamma was always Mamma.
I got out of the car and went to the house to fetch Gramma and Nina. They must have heard the county car, because they came from the house almost right away. Nina didn't look the same, though. She looked a little older, even though I'd seen her over Christmas. Gramma's eyes were wet and red. She couldn't stand to look at the police car, like she was afraid it would make her stay sad that way. I held the door and Gramma got in; Nina and me got in the back.
The drive to the jail was longer than it seemed, like the going always is (the ride back never seems as long). No one spoke except for the deputy when the dispatcher called his car number. Nina held my hand. Every once in a while I'd look at her and she'd turn to me from looking out the window. I guess she could see me in the glass.
We got to the county building and Gramma didn't get out of the car.
"You all go inside. I'll stay here," she said. "I don't want to see your mama."
"No Gramma," I said. "You come in, too. You don't have to see her. But go in."
Gramma looked at me cross, but not like she was mad. She looked at me that way like she knew I was right. I didn't much want to see my Mamma, either.
"That's right, ma'am," the deputy said, leaning into the car. "I'm going inside and I can't let you stay in the car without me."
Gramma ended her protest and came with us inside. The deputy had us sign in.
"Now, your mama won't look like you remember her. She's put some tough days behind her."
Gramma stopped where she was and said she didn't want to come any further than there.
"That's fine, ma'am," the deputy said. "Go on back and wait for us." He led me and Nina down the hall and through a heavy door that separated the rest of the jail house from the cells. I grabbed Nina's hand and gave it a squeeze. She drew closer to me and wiped her nose.
The deputy said, "She's down there on the left. Third one. I'll wait here."
The walk seemed longer than it was. Mamma sat on the edge of the cot. She was thin and picking her left arm. A purple and crimson abscess covered her right hand and it swelled like someone filled up a small balloon under her skin. Bluish-black bruises, edged with yellow, dappled her legs and forearms and were. Her right cheek had collapsed; it had been broken and healed improperly.
"Mamma," I said. Nina didn't look and I didn't want to look. "Nina and me are here." Mamma shifted on the cot and kept picking at her left arm, moving frantic from one sore to the next like she expected there to be a little prize inside each one. She didn't look up. She smelled like the deputy's car, except it was stronger and sharp with sweat. Her hair was matted like she had used mud for a pillow.
"What do you fuckin kids want?" Mamma kept picking. Her esses were soft and her voice was as rough as cinders.
"Me and Nina just came to see you. We heard you was in some trouble. Gramma couldn't come in."
Mamma's shoulders lifted and she scratched her neck. "Your gramma can rot in that fuckin house. You can tell 'er I said that. You tell 'er."
Nina wailed like someone had kicked her in the heart. She let go of my hand and ran back to find Gramma.
"Mamma. Maybe they'll let me come in and clean you up."
"You can't help me." She kept picking her left arm.
"I don't suppose I can."
Mamma died nineteen days after me and Nina went to see her. Dope sickness stole her appetite and the deputies didn't know better until they found her. Doctors figured she didn't eat much anyway by the time the county police picked her up that night behind Wendell's. They said her electrolytes were too low and that's what caused the heart attack. It just shut down and killed her.
#
When I was growing up, I never stopped to think about the things that Mamma used to take. They seemed so unimportant, even though Aunt Rita and the lady with the leather coat would likely disagree.
I finished college and came back home. Later, I opened a small mortgage business and got married shortly after that. Nina finished high school and tried to go to college. She quit after a year and moved to Chicago. Two years after that she overdosed on sleeping pills. After Gramma died, I made sure to spend some time with Aunt Rita, and she made sure to answer my questions as best she could. Things are painful between mamas and their daughters sometimes, so I know it was hard. And still I don't always understand all that was really taken.
Beyond the Hummel figurines, beyond the leather coat lay my family. And before my Mamma, it was Gramma who took a lot of things, too.
Copyright (c) 2006 by R.S. Lloyd. All rights reserved.
Tags: chicago, goodness, intrigue, love, reading
Sphere: Related Content
[...] I mentioned before that I’ve written a story (it didn’t sell) for a magazine called The First Line. I’m gearing up to write and presently plotting another. [...]
Working like an ant with a cookie crumb at 52 Novels
Wednesday July 5th, 2006 at 10:08 am