I read the books she got from The Program. She was supposed to RECONNECT WITH YOUR FAMILY! That meant we were supposed to EAT DINNER AS A FAMILY, but every night, after Scary Mama fixed dinner, she sat on the back porch, smoking cigarettes and yelling through the screen door for me to eat. I wasn’t falling for that. I knew what could happen if she caught me eating.
Even Good Mama could all of a sudden say, “Don’t eat that! That’s dirty!” and stick her fingers in my mouth to get the food out. Even Good Mama could pour burning Listerine on my tongue to get it clean. She always said, “Things can get into you that way.” Bad things could get in through your mouth and make you sick. Just like my germs could get on other things and make them dirty.
When Megan the social worker came to check on us, Mama smiled so hard it made my stomach hurt. She wasn’t going to be Good Mama.
“So, what are we cooking for dinner tonight?” Megan said.
“Oh, we’re having spaghetti.” That’s what Mama always fixed. I had Grandma’s recipe book, but Mama wouldn’t let me cook. She didn’t want me to make a mess.
“How is everything else?” Megan said. “You missed one of the group sessions this week.”
“Oh, everything’s super. I just had a little headache, that’s all. Thanks for checking on us.” Mama smiled and smiled, but as soon as Megan left, she said, “Fucking busybody! It’s like a sitcom with a nosy neighbor always dropping in. Except you’d kill your neighbor if she dropped by the way they do on TV. Kill her! God, I don’t want to be on this stupid TV show anymore!”
While Mama was yelling, Donal took her hairbrush out of her purse and put it in his mouth. Before I could take it away from him, Mama saw.
Once when I was little, I put her pipe in my mouth, just to see what it was like, since she liked it so much. Boiling and bleach could get most things clean, but not the pipe. It was so dirty after I put it in my mouth that it had to be thrown away.
Mama grabbed the hairbrush out of my hand and carried it into the kitchen. I knew she was coming back with Listerine or bleach, so I picked up Donal and carried him into the bedroom. Scary Mama dragged me out of the closet and spanked me until the brush left bloody spots on my legs, but I stopped her from putting Listerine in Donal’s mouth.
After that, I took care of Donal. I fed him and bathed him, because Scary Mama, she would give baths so hot it made your skin bubble.
The Program’s book also said, BE COMPLIANT ON YOUR MEDS, but Mama wasn’t.
“How am I supposed to keep all these fucking pills straight?” she said, but when I tried to read the bottles, she smacked me. When she stopped taking her pills and started bringing home bottles of whiskey, she was Scary Mama all the time. One night, after the whiskey was finished, when Donal and I were supposed to be asleep, I heard Mama’s keys jingle. The apartment door opened and closed.
I wasn’t afraid to be alone, but Donal was too small to take care of himself. He was standing in his crib, whimpering. We were both hungry, because Mama had thrown dinner in the trash can. She said the spaghetti was dirty and the milk was sour. Even Good Mama would throw dinner away, but sometimes Scary Mama did it to be mean.
The spaghetti was sticky and still warm in the middle, and it was safer to eat it from the trash than have Mama see me eat it. After I ate, I took the jug of milk out of the trash and filled a baby bottle. Donal drank it all, and after the bottle was empty, I cleaned it and put it away, so Mama wouldn’t know.
I never knew which was dirtier, my mouth or what I put in my mouth.
Liam was like that, too. He was a bad thing that could get into you. He wasn’t supposed to touch me. He would get me dirty. When Mama was mad at him, she told me, “Don’t you call him daddy. He’s not your daddy. He’s not to be trusted.” She would make me say it: “Liam not to be trusted.”
When she was mad at me, she said, “Don’t you touch him. Don’t even look at him.”
I was dirtier than Liam, because I wasn’t supposed to touch anyone except Mama and Donal, and sometimes not even them. I broke the rule when I touched Grandma and Amy.
The day after she left me alone with Donal, Mama called Dee and asked her to come visit. Sometimes Mama said Dee was her best friend. Sometimes she called her a dirty whore. They must have been friends that night, because Dee came and brought Mama a new pipe. They smoked and drank all night, and talked about Liam.
“He gets inside me. Like an infection. All he has to do is look at me with those eyes. I could just drown in them.” The way Mama said it, I knew she wanted him to get inside her. She wanted him to infect her.
“He has beautiful eyes. Frank Sinatra eyes. Are you really going to leave him?” Dee said.
“I don’t know. What should I do?” Mama was so drunk and high, she didn’t even care that she drank out of the whisky bottle after Dee.
“He wants to see you. You owe him that much.”
The next night, after I was in bed, Liam came. It was easy for me to listen to them talk, because my bed was against the other side of the wall.
“I can’t be with you,” Mama said to him. “They won’t let me finish the program if I’m with you.”
“The program? The fucking program? What are they going to do for you?”
“I’m getting my secretarial certificate.”
“Are you kidding me? Baby, I’m here to take care of you. When we got married, I said I’d take care of you. Pack up your shit and let’s go.”
When Mama came into Donal’s and my room, she was laughing.
“Wake up, babies. We’re going with Daddy.” Her hand was soft and floating when she laid it on my head. She didn’t even notice that I was dressed under the covers, ready to sneak out. Donal and I lay in the backseat while Liam drove us away. I watched the stars go by out the back window.
First, we went to a motel, and Mama took the pills Liam gave her. For a few days, she was Happy Mama and said nice things.
Then Liam took us to the farmhouse that looked down on the meadow.
“Me and Butch got business to take care of,” he said.
“Riding your bike and screwing around on me? That kind of business? I hate you. And I hate this fucking dump,” Mama said. She hated the warped floors, the rust stains in the bathtub, and the way the windows rattled when the wind blew.
“Baby, don’t be that way.” Liam’s quiet voice meant something bad could happen.
“You think you can just leave me here to wait for you? You can think again because I—”
Mama looked surprised when Liam smacked her mouth, but that always happened. While she was crying, he crept down on her, with his hand on the back of her neck, and said soft things.
Then he left, and Mama took off her pretty dress and lay in bed all day. Sad Mama didn’t care when Donal cried, and he cried a lot.
“I’m so alone,” she said.
Donal and I didn’t count.
4
WAVY
July 1977
The first day at the farmhouse, while Liam and Mama screamed at each other, Donal and I hid in the attic. The second day, when Butch came to bring Mama pills, Donal and I hid in the cellar. The third day, I walked across the meadow to see the windmill. I thought that day was my birthday, but I didn’t know, because the calendar at the farmhouse was from 1964.