Memoir triptych

My last class at KSU is a 3-week long summer institute-- the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project. It's part of a larger national network of teachers who get together during the summer to write. The first week we focused on memoir. Here are some pieces I wrote...

You can also check out Jessi's blog (duhpursuit) for some of her writing (her stuff's incredible; Court, you would love her writing).

Dad
A word I never could quite choke
down, a man I could never stomach
came home from work, cracked
a beer, bared his hairy chest,
his man-breasts, and plopped,
Jabba-the-hut-like on the sofa, stuck
to the TV.

We would walk the long way round, tiptoe
down the carpeted hall, sneak
up to the corner, stacked
one behind the other and peek. Creep
slowly in the shadow of the wall,
then haul ass in blurry breaths,
and make the mad dash to my room.

You never were caught, I made sure.
But that much of me, all stretched out
in slurry streaks, must have made him sick.
He would totter down the hall,
pounding heavy feet, brushing wall to wall,
eager to chase his beer with a shot
at me, racing to his wretch,
to throw me up, hurl me out of reach.

The Way Things Were…

I remember the way his eyes glistened and how strange his face looked when he took off his glasses that afternoon. I remember him waking me. It was time to go back to school and get on the bus for the big game. I had been sleeping, napping, on the sofa. Usually I hung out in Julie’s room, but Julie, his daughter, my friend, wasn’t there that afternoon. No one was. Sometimes Coach West’s wife would make me a snack before we left, like I was part of their family, another adopted child, like Julie and Jon. But not this afternoon.

I remember when I opened my eyes I saw him kneeling next to me, his blue eyes shiny, almost wet. He looked like a different person with his glasses off. Something felt weird. Off. I sat up. Didn’t say anything. He put his arms on either side of my legs, still kneeling, facing me with naked eyes flitting back and forth, searching mine.

Suddenly, I felt claustrophobic. He was too close. But I didn’t move. It didn’t occur to me to move. All of this happened quickly, but in my mind the time spread out.

He leaned into me, tall on his knees. I pressed backward into the sofa, nowhere to go. He kept coming, straight at me, straight at my face. I turned my head sideways to get flatter, further away. Then I closed my eyes, winced, squeezed them real tight, tried to shut him out. Next thing I know I feel his tongue in my mouth. I moved my head, tried to get my tongue away, tried to push his out. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t think. Finally he pulled back. I didn’t move. I stayed with my head turned sideways, nearly looking at him cross-eyed. Only I didn’t look at him. I stared. Stared down. Stared off.

“You’ve never kissed anybody before, have you?” he said and smirked.

Motherfucker. This fucking 50-something year old man sticks his fucking tongue in my mouth and thinks I wanted it there? Thinks I was trying to kiss him back? Fuck. Asshole.

“I think we should get back to school,” I said. I got up, grabbed my bag and walked outside.

I remember staring out his truck window, not saying a word, wishing I could hurry us there. More than anything I just wanted to be around people again, lots and lots of people. I remember thinking about telling one of my friends, one of my teammates and thinking this isn’t the kind of thing you want anyone to know, this isn’t the kind of thing you tell people.

I remember Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Passionate Kisses” coming on the radio and Coach West punching the radio off. For a second I almost laughed. But I didn’t.

I remember him telling me he should have kissed me the day before, telling me I wanted him to kiss me yesterday.

I remember being angry. Confused. How could he think I wanted that? Did I want that?

I remember playing Long County that night, scoring 29 points. I was in the zone. I was determined he wouldn’t get to me. None of this would bother me.

I remember the Long County coach talking to me and all her words starting to fade. I wanted to tell her what happened, to spill it right there. I remember just when I thought something in me might rise up and fling itself out, I pulled back inside myself with all these thoughts running wild and me, mute. Mute.

I remember her asking me in her far-off voice if I was Coach West’s daughter. People asked that all the time. Up till that afternoon it almost felt like I was.

I spent every morning in his office, waiting for class and every afternoon, waiting for practice. My teachers would even let me leave sometimes when I finished my work to go shoot baskets in the gym. He taught me how to shoot for real. He listened to me talk about my dad smacking me around. He hugged me when I cried most mornings before school. He even prayed with me and bought me a Bible when I became a Christian. Sometimes we’d ride around in his truck before practice, go get a frosty or something. It was nice. I felt like I belonged, like I mattered. For the first time. Ever.

I remember that long bus ride back to school after the game and being nervous about the ride home with him. He drove me home after the away games. It was too late for my parents to stay up.

But mostly I remember how quiet his truck was that night. How quiet we were. I didn’t know what to say, what to do. I just wanted to fix it. I wanted to go back, make things okay again. So, when we pulled up in my driveway in the dark with my parents sleeping just inside, I leaned over and hugged his neck and kissed his cheek, like nothing ever happened.

Joyride

Lying on my back, staring through the leaves,
I could see this butterfly flecked
with gold and black across its back
going for a joy ride through the woods.
It would flap its wings and climb
to the highest point in the trees,
too high up for me to see,
and then when it had reached a sufficiently dizzying height,
would spread its wings and swoop down
without much wind, nosediving
toward an unkempt group of purple flowers
growing wild in the woods.
It was so childlike, so five-year-old-like
with its arms spread wide,
that I imagined quick little legs turning under it,
barely able to keep up as it threw itself down the hill.
And I couldn’t help but laugh out loud,
I think, because I thought I heard it utter a little laugh.
But the butterfly didn’t care that I was there,
and, like a child, repeated its daredevil stunt.

And I couldn’t help feeling a bit, well, free—
laugh-out-loud free with that giddy, giggly laugh
that spills out of your mouth
and almost drags the drool with it,
it’s so glad to swell up and spill out.
I’d been cocooned for far too long.
Shut up, shut in, closed off, curled in
on myself in this dark, quiet place
where only muffled life could get through,
only half sounds and shadows of light and dark
where I couldn’t quite see clearly.

And I hid.
In baggy clothes and silence.
In quiet rage and bitter violence.
I turned off all desire, shut off every spigot I could find.
The fountain had run dry.

Eighteen years of their lingering, fingering stares,
my dad’s rusty knives, flagrant fists, screams in mid-air.
I couldn’t take any more betrayal
from these men I wanted to trust,
so I pulled the curtain down around myself.
I’d seen too much.
Ten years I stayed like this.
Stuck.
Head down, shadow-bound in my cocoon.
Too scared to lift my head, unable to rip the veil.

And I don’t know when it started,
but my friends starting peeling back the layers,
dressing my wounds,
slowly, gently unwinding my cocoon.
And sometime in the not so distant past,
I felt the last thin layer pass
between my fingers and drift sideways.
I felt a release, a bursting forth
and something in me soared high, so high,
I was like that butterfly coming out of its cocoon,
cutting through the wind, diving and doing tricks.
Oh, what a relief! I don’t know how it happened or why,
but I closed my eyes with arms spread wide
and I thought of that butterfly
and how nice it must be to unfurl its wings,
to stretch wide and greet the sky.
How sweet to be released from such a tight, dark spot
and to leave that shroud behind.
And a smile took over my mouth
and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.