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Far
From Home PAGE
THREE: "She just kept asking, she just kept wanting to come in here," Travis stammered. I couldn't believe he was blaming this all on me, though it was my fault. I felt my face get hot at this realization, my stomach drop and my hands chill, like they always did when I heard my mom and dad argue on the phone, or when my sister used to be really late picking me up from school. Before I could talk myself out of it, I ran out of the house, through the mess of plants, and into my own room, where I threw myself on my bed and cried into my pillow. I stayed there until the sun set and I heard the electric garage door opener, signifying my mother was home from work. Deciding it would be best not to tell her anything, I tried to put the afternoon out of my mind, reading Helter Skelter in front of the TV, careful to hide the cover under a pillow whenever she walked in from the living room. But
when the phone rang later that night, my feeling of foreboding returned.
It was, indeed, the Claxtons, and it was, in fact, suggested in
the course of the conversation that maybe I could spend a bit more
of my day in my own house, at least for awhile. My mother was terrifically
embarrassed, and apologized all over the place. In my fear I got
up and turned down the television set, anxious to make sense of
her one-sided responses and any possible defenses I could come up
with for my behavior. The station was tuned to some sort of disco-vaudeville
special very common on primetime TV in the seventies, called something
like Ann Margaret and 100 Men, comprised of singing, dancing
and bad sketch comedy starring "special guests" from Hollywood
Squares. The whole time my mom was on the phone, and in between
listening for her responses, I said a silent prayer to the red-haired
siren on TV, and her imaginary harem. As she turned and twisted
among them in her unitard-cum-tuxedo, I silently made deals with
the God I wasn't sure existed: "Okay, if she kicks up her right
leg next then everything will be okay; if the next guy who spins
her is the one with the red carnation in his top hat, I won't get
in trouble . . ." Whenever it didn't "work," (i.e.
she kicked up a left leg or the guy in the cowboy hat, rather than
top hat grabbed her waist) I'd just begin again: "It only counts
if the seventh time she kicks up her right leg the blonde guy holds
her shoe…" This was a familiar obsessive habit of mine,
but one normally confined to the car where I'd make silent deals
with fate: "If the light turns red before we get to it my parents
won't get divorced; if the next car on the right is blue, my sister
will come home," etc. Soon I heard my mother hang up the phone
and open up the refrigerator. I heard the plastic bottle of tonic
water hit, then bounce, then hiss its contents onto the floor. "Jesus
Fuck," she said, creaking the raffia on the seat of her kitchen
chair as she plunked herself down and lit a cigarette before she
could even begin to contemplate cleaning up the spilled tonic with
one of our Royal Family dishtowels. Plopping into the chair like
this and reaching for her lighter is what she did when she wanted
to signify "I just can't handle this right now goddamn it."
She'd stop whatever she was doing and light up a Kent in protest
of life's presently irritating circumstances, a conscious refusal
to take care of things in a timely manner because it was just TOO
MUCH on top of work, cooking, divorce, children, the logging industry.
Just last night the cat threw up on the rug and she did the same
thing. For the rest of the night every time I went into the bathroom
I had to step across a series of paper towels while she blew smoke
out of her nose. This time only a few minutes passed. When she came
back into the den she didn't say anything to me for a while, just
took her position at the head of the couch, her legs stretched out
in front of her, glass in hand and clean ashtray balanced on the
armrest. In silent apology I rested my head in her lap. To my surprise,
by the second commercial she was stroking my hair. "Noticed what?" I asked. "That they were, you know, while they were playing chess, that they were… I mean I guess they do that all the time; Travis is used to it but they didn't expect . . ." "Expect what? I didn't mean to, it was just so hot outside…." My mother laughed. "Carol said your eyes were as big as saucers. I bet they were. It's a rather odd thing, you know, playing chess in the nude." I hoped she didn't feel me clench. I didn't know what to say, confused as I was by my reaction -- that the fact that I hadn't noticed they were naked was about as embarrassing as noticing that they were. "Well, you'll be staying in here for awhile. You've got to stop bugging them," she added. I sort of nodded my head but my eyes felt hot and my throat went tight. I tried to concentrate on the show, realizing that TV was going to be my most reliable companion in the weeks to come. Seems in my desire to escape the adult world, to play in a pool rather than watch soap opera stars sit around one, I had simply run smack right into it again. As the television droned on I made a silent promise to myself to put my faith in its representations of people more than in those of flesh and blood. I reached behind my head with my hand cupped, the signal for my mother to let me have one of her half-melted ice cubes -- I liked the sharp tang and residual fizziness of them after they had sat in her drink for a while. In front of us the dancing continued, this time with mirrors. They were bowing, lifting, smiling up at Ann's one pure self embraced and supported by 100, 1000, maybe even a million men, their tele-prompted joy bearing her confidently aloft towards a place far from home.
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"Travis,
Jenny. You two are supposed to be outside," Carol said, the
light reflecting off her glasses and momentarily blinding me. 
