~~ 1st D R A F T . . . free write ~~
11/3/17
The Godmother
Well, they took it. And they published it. And they didn’t use my name. And that’s really all that was required. So, I’m good.
Right. As if. I’m not good. I’m never good, but I fake it well. I look good. I do good. I fucking fake good like a Catholic school girl and that’s all that matters. That’s all that matters to most. Certainly all that matters to my family, especially at the holidays. All that’s needed to get by in most of my world. Faking good is all I’ve ever needed to keep myself free of the usual constraints that hobble most people: addiction, bad relationships, bad debt, hospitals, homelessness, jail, those lame groups where people identify with their illness first and as a person with daily struggles second. But, fuck it all, I am good. When the doctor asked what matters to me, what I have to offer that goes begging, I said it: I’m a good person. I have a good heart. It’s my best feature. But if I could be a bad person, a bitch — if I could just not care — I’d probably have gotten further. Power, that’s what the bitch has that I want, just a little bit of power. Not power over others, power over herself, power over her environment. Power over her choices. Power over whether or not she gives a fuck.
I have made one little stride in that direction. It’s a feminist publication, where I’ve been published, strident (a re-embracing of that ancient insult lobbed at ‘70s proto feminists), pro lesbian, pro gender neutral, pro whatever might piss you off if you’re that unenlightened version of white, male, entitled, and just uneducated and selfish enough to think the world is made in your image and everybody else should see it that way or swing. Anyway, my one stride is my byline: The Godmother. That is, I hope to make it a byline. Right now it’s just a pen name to protect my privacy. It’s also a beard. I can be both published, all sleek and fat and sassy with the happiness of that, and also still too … me … to get my shit enough together to be able to submit to publication. I mean, I am that woman, the one who writes but who can’t promote herself as a writer. So. I get to be the old me and the new me simultaneously. Delicious.
The last time I felt this delicious was James, the chapter of James. The Bible according to James. That all seems so damn long ago. Lunches, so chaste. Just friends, but I remember telling the heavens — God, the powers that be, call it what you will, I don’t have that many people to talk to — I remember saying I’d do whatever was necessary to have time with him, whatever time we got. I may regret my present — I regret it plenty — but I don’t regret a single choice that got me here. Last appointment, I told the doctor, “It’s all my fault. Everything’s my fault. All day long it’s my fault. It’s winter and the holidays and my worst time and it’s all my fault.”
“Well, obviously it’s not all your fault. Maybe we can start there. Say that to yourself.”
“Right. PTSD. Those PTSD moments, not my fault.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay,” I say as I gather my things to leave, “I’ll try saying that.” I don’t tell him about being published. I don’t know why. No, I know why. It’s more delicious if it’s a secret from everyone. It’s more enlivening. And I’d kill to feel alive. Especially in winter.
My family in winter. My family in any season, really, but in winter they are inescapable. The holidays. When I must fake family delight and holiday perfection. Everyone must go to the fun event du jour for the holidays. It’s tradition. Last year it was… What was it last year? I’ve blocked it from my mind already. Oh, yeah, batiking. We all went to a crafts boutique and made that awful wax fabric, only we had to use Elmer’s Glue. It’s easier with kids to use something that won’t scald, not too mention disinterested adults drinking spiced holiday wine, which came with the package deal, but probably not in the amount I was ladling it down. The theme was Christmas decorations, of course, and the kids loved making trees with festive balls and lights or Santa or, my personal favorite, penguins in striped hats and scarves. I made a martini with three olives. Made my sister laugh, the good one. The other one just gave me the look. She also gave me the perfect Christmas card, variations on a theme every year: perfect family, perfect fun, perfect sisterly affection. She could meet me on the street in a strange city and never know it was me. Worse. I would be the object of pity or scorn. The perfect mirror: yourself on your worst incarnation, that what I am to her: something she would never be.
Two Christmases ago, when the inevitable — the only — question was asked, the answer du jour was both honest and accessible, unusual occurrences for me, but I am learning. “My best friend has moved in with me for awhile,” I replied. The response, however, was the usual. Silence, pause in the time/space continuum, followed by a continuation of whatever topic my father was speaking on before said question. That year he was remodeling the master bath. I know everything about how one expands a master bath to re-plumb for jacuzzi, install drywall when the studs are inconveniently located, how to choose tile for a shower, what things can go wrong and how long it takes to fix them, the torture of permits, etc. I patiently listen. I even try to converse. It’s just that there’s no room in the conversation for me. Strictly speaking, it’s a monologue.
Last year Christmas was at my sister’s house. The good one. Fudge making. It’s easier than you might think. Of course I’m allergic to corn syrup, so I couldn’t eat any of the finished product, and there are simple recipes made with sugar, which I mentioned, but no. This was not the recipe that was chosen.
I invited my best friend to join us that year: Christmas with the family! She was still living with me, of course, but the real reason I invited her was so she could be a witness. I needed some perspective. Is it just me? Or is my family that difficult to navigate? We had a plan, something she devised. Purse wine, two of those six-pack sized bottles of wine that you can buy at the supermarket. Any time one of us headed to the bathroom with her oversized purse, it was a call to arms: time to drink from the “purse wine”. As I recall, we had one on those bottles filled with vodka. Maybe it was two purse-sized bottles of vodka. Family. Can’t live with them, can’t celebrate with the holidays with them without alcohol. There are two ironies here. The first is that my mother was an alcoholic. Okay, that’s not ironic so much as it is an explanation for why holidays at my sister’s have very little alcohol and that mostly low octane. The second irony is that my mother offered me my first drink and, yes, it was vodka. I am not particularly fond of vodka. It was my best friend’s idea. Beth is a sweet girl, not too bright, but sweet and loving and the best friend I’d could ever wish for. She is very fond of vodka. And I must say, her taste in vodka is very good, good enough that I will drink it. Even — especially — at Christmas.
That year, last year, was a good year. I had a place, a roll, a shot at happiness. I shot iPhone video of the family making fudge, the family making fun, making memories. They laughed. I laughed and shouted directions. I had the most fun I’d ever had at a family holiday gathering. Finally I’d found a groove, I’d relaxed into something like a self. If they didn’t know me, well, at least I knew myself that day, and I had fashioned something of a place for myself, a small victory. I was animated on the ride home with Beth and I was several sentences into my triumph when Beth interrupted with, “No!” What? “No, Lu, they aren’t nice to you. They aren’t good to you at all!”
The familiar sensation of confusion set in, only this time the familiar confusion wasn’t familiar at all. Or was it unfamiliar because I was resisting it. I kept trying to get Beth to see how my family was good to me because they did this and not that and she kept saying, No, they don’t treat you well at all, and then she told me why and I was amazed at all that I’d missed while I was busy having what I imagined was fun. I did have fun. That was real. I also drank a fair amount. That was real. And I had Beth to talk to in the bathroom — at last a conspirator! That was real, and, so subtle, so obvious, I also had Beth taking the flak. Even in the midst of the day’s festivities I had seen it; Beth was taking my place. The quiet one. The one sitting to one side. Uncomfortable. Unengaged. Not for lack of trying. Beth was the guest but my family had simply ignored her. It was a shocking breach of etiquette and I continued to circle back around to Beth to bring her into the fold until, finally, she apologize for her state, told me she was having the kind of bad day she’d never let me know about before and asked me not to worry. “Just enjoy yourself. I’m fine. I’m here for you as long as you like. Just let me sit quietly.”
Still, it was jarring, any time I paused to notice it. My family treated Beth the way they normally treat me, as the one ignored, the ghost, the cipher.
Energy is neither created nor destroyed, merely conserved. Transferred. A closed system is always closed.
This Christmas I answered blackjack. Blackjack is difficult for me. I have a virulent anxiety disorder and, even without it, an tenuous relationship with numbers that slips into a complete inability to read once the anxiety disorder takes hold. Still, I need work. I am finally, after decades of disability, able to begin work. Blackjack is work. Being in front of people triggers my social anxiety, and making errors while in a state of social anxiety ramps things up to the point where I lose that capacity to do simple things like remember names seconds after hearing them or manipulate numbers through addition; I can look at cards one minute but the minute I look away they no longer exist. When I look back, they are meaningless symbols to me. All the same, I am willing to deal blackjack. I like the people and the game and I am capable most of the time. I can do this.
This year I answer, “I’ve begun dealing blackjack.” Brief silence followed by my stepmother’s head being turned by a question from my perfect sister behind her. The conversation turns away as well. I look across at my father who is talking about the as yet unfinished bathroom remodel. I know this will happen. It is predictable. Answering my stepmother instead of my father has not changed the pattern. Answering with a job or with a change in my living situation — things that seem mundane enough for my family’s needs — has not changed this. At the end of the day as they head out the door I will hear my step mother say to my dad, almost as a last ditch attempt to do what should have been done, “Did you hear? She’s dealing blackjack.” Followed by … blankness. Still airspace. Not even the drone of the small plane my father will fly back to their home.
I am published. It’s an opening, but I’ve kept the system a closed one. I can’t say why, but I can feel it. Some days it’s a good thing, this choice, some days it’s not. But I know I’m storing up. Getting ready to make an escape. Getting ready is not the same as going. Going is not the same as getting away. Announcing is not the same as already being out of reach / out the door.
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