Fall 2010, Volume 9

Fiction by La Verne Otis

The Rooms of Life

Ashford Avenue seemed like a wide street when Mary was growing up.  She and her friends played kickball in that street, rarely having to stop for a passing car.  In the little world of her childhood, her neighborhood loomed large.  The cookie cutter houses built after World War II seemed immense.  Lawns were manicured; flowers filled the air with sweetness.  It was the era of Ozzie and Harriett.  She thought every home in the world was like the Nelson’s; every home, that is, except hers.

Driving down Ashford Avenue her stomach churned.  She had to wipe her sweaty palms on her pants.  It had been twenty years since she had been in this house.  Now she had to see about cleaning the house out after her father committed his final horrendous act of violence; killing her mother and himself.  Her mother had two gunshots to the head.  Her father had a single gunshot through his mouth.

How could a street get so much smaller? Mary thought as she pulled into her parent’s driveway.  Parked cars lined both sides of the street.  When she was growing up families were lucky to have one car, but now it seemed as though every family had three or four.

The old block looked tired.  The houses seemed to sag with the weight of the years.  Weeds grew where grass once dominated; flowers competed with graffiti and peeling paint.  The ancient white picket fence that separated her parent’s house from the house to the south leaned too far north.  If this old house could talk, it would need years to tell its tales.

She sat in her car for a long time not ready to unlock the door to her old house, to the rooms which held so many secrets.  She stared at the window to her old bedroom and imagined herself lying in bed night after night, scared, and sometimes sobbing.

When she finally got out of her car she was immediately hit with the sweet smell of honeysuckle.  Walking around to the backyard, she found that the ancient vine was still thriving and overrun with abundant flowers.  She picked a couple of them, removed the stamens and ran them over her tongue, sucking on them, like a hummingbird sipping nectar.  The sweet taste jolted her senses and she felt ten years old again.  Memories of this delicacy flooded her mind; her taste buds danced—she’d spent so many days in this backyard with the honeysuckle vine.

Approaching the beaten up front door, she saw the gouges she’d made with a church key years ago.  Her father never got around to filling them, he just painted them over.  She was very angry that day, and the only thing she could take it out on was the door.  Her father never said a word about it; he knew he couldn’t.

She slowly put the key in the deadbolt but when she went to grab the doorknob, she had to take a step back.  She sighed and gazed out at the rundown neighborhood.  Finally turning back she tentatively turned the key, and opened the door.

A musty smell hit her as she stepped into the living room.  Nothing seemed to have changed.  The furniture sat where it did her entire life, the sofa and chairs unashamedly pointed toward the television set—the best source of conversation in her home—a 27 inch color console.  Dirty drapes sagged.  The cheap and worn tapestry carpet screamed for a deep cleaning, or even a quick death.

She gazed at her dad’s brown recliner, which always had the best straight–on view of the console screen.  The chair’s coil springs sagged in the seat giving it a detailed impression of where her father always sat.  The two-tiered end table that sat next to his chair was dusty with years of neglect.  Though his whipping stick no longer sat on the bottom tier as a silent threat, she could see the outline of it in the dust.  For a long time she pondered what would set her dad off; how he could bolt out of that chair with such anger, how fast he’d grab that whipping stick.

Turning toward the dining room, she saw the image of her mother sitting on a chair in the middle of the room with a large towel draped over her shoulders.  The dining room table was overrun with newspapers, junk mail, and a variety of other items which had long ago lost their identity, let alone their usefulness.  As her mother sat on a chair in the middle of the room, she saw her teenage self giving her a permanent. She was happy that day—her father had gone on a fishing trip—and things were calm around the house.  But her mother stole the little joy she was feeling.

“Oh, I don’t know why I ever married your father” her mother said, as if she were chatting to someone at the beauty parlor or the corner bar. “I guess I just felt sorry for him; he was so crazy about me.  I don’t know if I ever loved him.”

I am only fourteen years old, Mary wanted to say, but she’d learned to suck things up and to keep quiet; it was safer that way.  Sighing, she fought back tears.  Why does she have to tell me things like this?

“If it weren’t for you I would have left your father years ago.”  Mary’s heart sank; she felt worthless.

Turning, she walked into the small kitchen.  She sat on a chair in the corner nook, which her mother had upholstered a burnt red color.  A recipe book was lying on the kitchen table.  When she opened it she found her mother’s old, handwritten, recipes.  Smells and tastes she had not thought about in years hit her like cold water being thrown in a hot skillet.  She began to go through her mother’s worn recipes, some of which were scorched from the fire that had burned their old house down when she was four years old.

“I never had the energy to copy those recipes over again after we lost almost everything in the fire” her mother said as she stood at the sink peeling potatoes.  “You know we never recovered from that fire.  We didn’t even have fire insurance.  Your father’s never been the same, neither have I for that matter.” 

“I’m sorry, mom.  I didn’t know.”  But her mother didn’t answer; she had faded out of Mary’s life once again.  She had forgotten about that conversation taking place and felt a twinge of grown-up sympathy about how burdened her parents must have been.

Her mouth watered as she unfolded the recipe for yeast buns. She pictured them sitting in round pans rising in the warm air.  She could taste the yeasty, sweet bread, feel the melted butter oozing onto her lips.  Yearning to recreate the recipes from her childhood, she decided to take the book home with her.

She left the kitchen and walked to the garage, unlocked and opened the old hand-raised garage door.  It was heavy and difficult to open.  The garage smelled of sawdust and motor oil.  Her dad’s tools still hung in their places, organized, like nothing else in her upbringing ever was.  She noticed her dad’s favorite hammer was missing, making his old pegboard tool wall look like a jig saw puzzle with one missing piece.  Hearing a noise, she peeked out of the garage and saw her father on a ladder, hammering studs for the frame of the new addition.  He was wielding his hammer with expertise, that missing third finger on his right hand so very prominent.

“Bring me those boxes of nails,” he demanded.

She looked around frantically, but didn’t see any nails. “I don’t see them,” she said.

“Can’t you do anything right?  Are you blind or just stupid?”

Her eyes darted around the driveway.  His pressure made her fail more often than not.

“I’m sorry!” Mary shouted out loud to no one.

As she entered the house again, the old 27 inch color console seemed to be looking at her, a giant dark eye, letting her know it not only brought hours and hours of television viewing, but that it also saw everything that went on; a silent, unsympathetic member of the family who could not stop anything that happened.

She walked into her parent’s bedroom.  Twin beds sat on opposite sides of the room, a silent testament of their relationship.  Several intricate doilies that her mother hand-crocheted sat on the night stands and the dresser.  She wanted to take those doilies home with her, too.

White cotton, popcorn stitched bedspreads covered each of her parent’s beds.  Ancient books of S&H Green Stamps sat on her mother’s night stand along with a thirty year old catalogue.  Her father stood at the open closet door, getting out a shirt to wear. Her mother sat on her bed taking out her hair curlers.

“How was work last night, Richard?”

“Work’s work,”her father replied.

“Did you get more overtime?”

“I already told you the plant’s cutting back.  Can’t you remember anything?”

Hearing the growing anger in her father’s voice, Mary wished her mother would shut-up.  She hated it when her mother taunted him.  She was asking for a black eye.

“I woke up at three and you still weren’t home, Richard.”

“I’m a grown man, Peggy, stop trying to keep track of me,” he said, a growing hostility in his voice.

Peggy kept digging. “Did you go to the bar with the guys?”

“Drop it!” Richard yelled, and he slammed the closet door shut.

Shaking in fear from her parent’s argument that day, she hid in the closet.  Sometimes her mother didn’t know when to shut up, and Mary was afraid her dad might get violent.  She cried herself to sleep, cried softly, afraid she might be heard.  But no one missed her.  When she woke up, she opened the closet door and simply walked out.

Turning away from her parent’s bedroom, she got another glimpse of her father as he walked into her bedroom.  Mary’s breath caught in her throat; she reached for the wall for stability.  Her father was now wearing the same tan khaki workman’s clothes he always wore.  Trembling, she walked down the hallway toward her bedroom, not really wanting to go in there, but knowing for some reason she didn’t have any choice.

She stopped at the bathroom.  The door stood open.  The lock remained broken.  The rosy tile on the counter and bathtub stall sat silent as a salute to the 1950’s.  Lace curtains blew gently in subtle wind.  The window had been open a crack all this time, and the bathroom was choked with dust.  Spiders had taken up residence in each corner.  Dead flies crowded the windowsill.

She saw herself drawing warm water for a bath.  Pink bubbles danced in pounding water.  She looked sad.  She was sad.  A large pellet gun sat on the toilet seat.

Mary was alone in the house with her father.  She was terrified—she would never take a bath unless her mother was home, but her mother was in the hospital.  She had begged her girlfriend to come and stay with her but, for tonight, she was totally alone.

“If he tries to come in here while I’m taking a bath, I’ll shoot him,” she whispered to herself.  She propped the back of a kitchen chair under the doorknob like she had seen people do on that old 27” color console.

A cold sweat broke over her brow as she made her way down the darkened hallway to her bedroom.  Pushing the door open, she was assaulted with the images and memories she knew would be there.  The beautiful white chair rail that divided her room in the middle greeted her.

Opening her old closet door, she found it empty; much like her heart was when she lived in this room, this house.  Hearing a noise behind her she instantly felt like vomiting.  She turned around and saw her father in the open doorway blocking her way out.  Her body faltered as she was caught again with no way of escape.

“You act like you’re afraid of me. You know I’d  never do anything to hurt you.”

“You already have.” Mary replied with an edge of anger and disbelief in her voice.

“Mary, you’re beautiful. You’ve filled out so nicely. Bet you could almost fill a C cup, right?” her father said with a sickening soft tone.  “If you would just relax, you might enjoy it.”

“Don’t.  Please, dad.  It hurts.  It’s not right,” she whimpered in terror.  I’m your daughter for God’s sake.  I’m barely thirteen!”

“You’re old enough to learn, and it’s my job to teach you, not some young punk who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“I hate you.  I wish you were dead!” Mary said with a controlled voice, afraid of setting him off into one of his uncontrollable rages.  “If you don’t stop,  I swear I’ll tell mom.”

“It hurts me to hear you say that, Mary.  But you know you can’t tell anyone about this.  If you say anything, I’ll go to jail.  You’ll be the one who destroys the family.  It’ll be your fault.”

Turning away from the ghost of her father, she wondered why she didn’t tell him that none of it was her fault.  She wished she could have hurt him; stabbed him in the heart like she thought about doing so many nights.  She wished she could have screamed to the world about what he was doing to her, but she was too afraid to do anything except to remain silent.

Her heart pounded in her chest, as she looked out through her bedroom window at the buttery sunshine bathing the backyard.  My father was a coward.  He didn’t care about anyone but himself.  He was a selfish, sick man.  When she turned back, her father was gone. She felt like that terrified little girl again, but it didn’t destroy her like she thought it would.

She picked up the doilies and recipe book and took one last look around the living room.  Mary then walked over to that old 27 inch color console, sat down in front of it, and starred at her reflection in the blank screen.  She reached up and turned it on.  When nothing happened, a mist of tears filled her eyes.  “Don’t worry, friend, I’ll be back for you.  We’ll get you working again.  You can stay with me,” she said flipping the switch off.  Outside, a fresh breeze hit her face, and she smiled for the first time since driving onto Ashford Avenue.

She walked back up the driveway to lock the garage door.  Peering inside she saw that her father’s hammer was hanging in its spot above the workbench.  It hung rusty and silent like it had always been there.  Walking over to the workbench she took it down.  It felt cold and heavy.  I thought about bashing his head in with his own hammer so many times.  But, in a sense, he did it for me.  I want this hammer.  It’s a reminder that he didn’t win.

 

BIO:  La Verne Otis is a 62 year old female who returned to Long Beach City College three semesters ago to pursue her love of writing. She retired in July from a 41.5 year career at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. She is a 2x colon cancer survivor who loves writing, reading, photography, bird watching, traveling and spending time with family.