Writer in the Forest

Chapter 4

Dad had given up on getting us back and moved to Stockton, California, freeing my mother from fear and causing me to fear that I’d never see him again. Does he live in a house or in his car? Does he have a job?  My Dad went off and left us worried and guilty and hungry all the time because there’s no money. You never go to bed full and you sleep on a cot in the closet. Mom says, “I’m flat busted”.

And now I have to worry about cardboard all the time. I bent down to readjust it. If I splash in that puddle my cardboard will fall apart, and there’s no more cardboard right now.

I hiked up 6th Street and picked my friend Diane up on the way to school. I marvelled at her ruffled slip. It was so white! We washed our clothes infrequently and even then in the bathtub with a bar of soap. Nothing was white. I swung my rusty red plaid lunch box that smelled of old bananas and wondered what Diane’s family would do tonight.

For me, Friday nights were forming a pattern.

Me and Grandma

Mom will hang her arm on my shoulder and walk me to Grandma’s.

Grandma and I will crunch on lemon candy sticks and watch the Destroyer wrestle his opponent to the floor while Mom drinks beer with her sister at the White Pig Tavern, known to the Navy as the “Albino Swino”. I will worry she’ll meet a new husband and not come back… and then I’ll make that idea go away because she’ll come back for me and we’ll survive. Mom was a grownup and would make it work somehow.

I will feel the weight of those arms protecting me as we make our way down the dark and rainy streets, a little butterfly in a cocoon rocking side to side with Mom, the sole of my left foot rubbed raw by the wet sidewalk.