Chapter Three.
The sun hung in the sky like a lemon drop. My mother warns me not to stare but I stare into the sun until I see a black hole and my eyes begin to water. The sirens are aching to climax because the weatherman declared a tornado warning and I am all excited but anxious. I go into my room and collect all of my favorite stuffed animals. I wrap them in my favorite blanket which is blue and has a pocket. I often wear the pocket on my head and declare myself a Muslim with a cape, traveling the deserts with my faithful camel, Mordoch. I take all of my stuffed animals to the basement and there set about to prepare them for the end. They are all nervous. We have never lived through a tornado but we have seen the movie “Twister” and know that the F-5 is wrathful and waiting like a blessing from God.
My father is sitting in his armchair surveying the news. The news is loud and it blares because he is hard of hearing. He likes things loud. He is loud. We wait together. My mother is upstairs making dinner. Clams and asparagus. We do not live on the seashore but the sound of seagulls and the taste of salt bend our smiles North. I like asparagus with olive oil, just so the ends are browned and crunchy and sweet. Kiki is not allowed in the house when father is home. She has her own apartment downtown but I’ve never seen it. Le amour, my stuffed little lemur, is crooning love songs to Dog, my stuffed Siamese cat. I named Dog after our neighbor Tammy’s cat whom she named Dog, I don’t know why. Dog, the live cat, loves to sleep in the car so Tammy leaves her out there all day long while she cleans her house. Her house is very clean and adorned in candles. She decorates the house in honey and bumble bees and I like the white plush carpet that covers the stairs to the attic.
Tammy does something naughty that my mother doesn’t approve of but I don’t know what it is. Tammy and I are best friends and I call her Buzzy. Her cat doesn’t like me too much so I give Dog a lot of space. We like to sit outside on the plastic pation furniture and drink iced tea. She tells me about her father who is in prison. She says she knows that he loves her but she misses him. I don’t know why he’s in prison, and I hope my father will never go to prison. It seems like a place of lost love, a place of confinement and sedation. I never want to go to prison either but I am not entirely sure if I am good enough to stay out of prison. Prison is not my biggest fear, however, my biggest fear is psychiatric wards. No one believes that you are sane and the doctor tries to help you but he can’t understand what you’re going through and all the while you just want to be free. I hate locked doors and I hate shots. I am really careful not to make my mother angry. I do not want her to send me away. This all began when we had a fight, me and my mother.
“You don’t know what suffering is.”
I suffer mother, more than you. When she is done scrutinizing me I sneak into the kitchen and take a serrated stake knife from the block. I go up to my room and begin sawing into my left arm. One line, two lines, four lines and then the fifth across the others like a crooked fence. My body is a fence and I am trapped inside. I cannot escape my reality and I suffer. With barely a tear I replace the knife.
At work where I sling dishes through a silver box my mother is with her cousin. My mother is mocking our fight, she is spilling our beans. “What happens in the family stays in the family.” Is her mantra that rattles through my head. How could she betray me? I start to weep, I cannot work. I run to the bathroom and Jacci, our cousin, follows me. “What’s wrong sweetheart?” I pull up my sleeve and show her the scars. “I’m Emo.” I wail. The next thing I remember is my mother and father cornering me in the bathroom threatening me that if I do not behave they will lock me away in psych ward. I am terrified so I swallow my tears and resign into myself.
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