Newburyport, MA : Pre-Teen

I wasn’t aware yet I experienced things differently than others. I’d speak of what I saw or thought. Ask an innocent question. People got scared or angry. I’d be abruptly shut out. I was creepy or weird.

I’d been seeing her sister in her house for years. Virginia died young of liver cirrhosis. No one ever spoke of her. At one point mentioning just her name caused a huge rift between us. Virginia retreated for decades.

Before that Gram was one of the more open to my conversations.

She didn’t see communion. Not bonding. She saw dollar signs. But I didn’t figure that out for a long time. Thought it was love. Gram was a clever opportunist.

I was an odd commodity. Broken but maybe a good planter or vase. Turn the crack to the wall.

Family denied her being sprawled on the floor or bringing full bottles to her bedroom indicated a problem. Shut up! Shut up right now! My uncle screamed at me when I suggested alcoholism soon after her heart surgery.

Later I found drinkers cultivated dark coils in their living space. Early on the term Spirits seemed literal to me.

I thought a man in the hat came with all the bottles.

One bright, beautiful bay-side summer morning we were in her kitchen. She had her paper, coffee and buttered roll. I had the ancient frooties she kept for all the cousins.

A plastic cap popped into the air from the counter. A dark mass shot up into the ceiling. She saw it. I saw it. She sucked in her breath but quickly regained her composure. We weren’t going to talk about this, either.

I gave it a shot.

That must be the man. I said.

What man.

The man with the hat. Who took your ring.

My pearl ring?

Yeah.

Her eyes bugged.

What did you do with my ring?

I didn’t. He said you stole it from Miss Jess.

She slowly stood up, put her coffee in the sink, and went upstairs. She told me to go away the rest of the night. I cried outside her door until dawn. Mom picked me up. Tried to get Gram to come out. Gram is loudly snorting and crying through her bedroom window. She doesn’t respond. Sorry, kid. Sometimes she’s hard to deal with.

The next time I stayed with Gram there was an unusual lack of a guilt trip. Mandatory grudge was the way she rolled. Not this time.

She had a hat-box with hand-picked items. I have an idea for you. Maybe for Halloween. She decorated me with scarves and bracelets, silky blouses and velvet trims. I am her sacrificed Scotch Pine. Even the shoes like the bone-dry torture rack we hide under sparkling velvet & crap wrapped in paper.

There! Now you are Madame Alexandria!

Like your dolls?

Yes! It’s very catchy! It’s already known.

Ok. I don’t know if the other kids would get it.

Well maybe for other times. You could be a Queen!

Yeah. Um. I just don’t see when that would work…in…my life. School. I mean. I guess I could…wear it…? I offer weakly.

What if we just practice pretending being one?

Like acting?

Sure.

I AM excited! Can I sing, too?

I was thinking more about you sitting up straight. I have this book. I want you to walk around the house and balance it on your head. Let’s see how long you can do it! I’ll count like I count with you underwater, OK!

Rip-Off! I think. But I want to please her.

She asked probing questions that made no sense to me. She asked about names and things. Scrapbook pictures, pictures in books and on TV.

She repetitively taught many archaic stage notions. An exaggerated hand motion was something she’d drilled into mom and tried with me.

With your hands, you must always give! You must always be giving!

The top graduate of the Norma Desmond School demonstrates.

I was bored without an endgame. Streetwise there was no prize in complicity.

Our relationship deteriorated as I eventually refused all of her manipulative ploys.

I didn’t catch on until I started taking middle school theater classes. The costume was basically there, in the tiny wardrobe in the back of the gym-theater.

She was prepping me for my future career. It was the very, very worst imaginable stereotype of a Gypsy Fortune Teller.