*Tough As Nails

Photo credit: Black Heart Creatives

I've never been clear as to how she found out the state of our living situation, but she did, and she, my temporary savior, came to pull me out of the circus tent that evening.

Aunt Norma was certainly a tough disciplinarian, but I didn't mind. Strict rules felt safe. She brushed my hair and put it into a ponytail, which I loved as it was out of my face—I never like the irritating, scratchy feel of hair on my cheeks. It drove me crazy. We had dinner at the same time each night. It felt like someone was looking out for me and I didn't mind her telling me I had to be in the house before the street lights went on and I had to stay in the yard. 

She had children of her own, my twin cousins Natalie and Nicole. They were quite young at the time, not much older than three, making this arrangement for me a temporary one; her hands were full. 

For my brief stay, I certainly felt loved and cared for but still my heart sunk. I missed Mum. I worried about her. I missed Tony. I felt a constant sickness in my stomach and chest, and had a hard time eating without feeling like it would come back up, though I forced it with my mind to stay down as I didn't want to get in trouble for wasting food. I fought tears as I realized no one would be there to look after my mother. Who was going to make sure she was up for work on time, eating dinner, and breathing? Would I ever see my brother again?

Aunt Norma didn't like when I barked, so I ceased doing it around her. She didn't need to be protected anyway. Tough as nails, she was. 

Mum sounded as if she were very angry with Aunt Norma that night, but I couldn't understand why. I was obviously an obstacle in her new relationship with Bill and surely Lynn the prostitute had loftier things to do than to dress me up in her leather and spikes on a Tuesday morning. 

Excerpt from Chapter Fifteen: Changes | Everything's Hunky Dory: A Memoir

Paddle Ball With Mum

Why the paddle ball cover art?

“Our relationship became a game of paddle ball—I was the flat paddle, holding still, hoping to connect; she was the red bouncing ball avoiding contact with every sporadic movement, yet attached by an elastic string known as motherhood.”

The type (Zipper) is the same used on the album cover for David Bowie's Hunky Dory, appropriately.

Excerpt from chapter fifteen | changes | EVERYTHING'S HUNKY DORY: A MEMOIR

*Drugs, from the perspective of a nine year old.

Mum’s drugs, to me, were comparable to that annoying relative everyone seems to have—the loud mouth that has no regard for what is going on around her. Let’s call her “Auntie High”. . .

Those friendly with “Auntie High” tend to become like her, careless and obnoxious. Those who avoid her tend to be the ones left to clean up the mess. Like a tornado, she vacuums everything and everyone up around her then drops them back down to the floor, shattering whatever propensity toward security and authenticity one might have had. Always creating a mess to clean up, physically or psychologically, the users sleep it off the next day in a darkened room, non-users expected to sort it all, whilst wondering “Where can I safely dispose of these razor blades?” and “How can I know for sure this is flour?”

I’d notice that the moment drugs entered the room, everything changed, everyone felt different. They were now what appeared to be programmed robots that looked like people you knew but were, in fact, not. When these hyper-cyborgs sat on our sofa, it was as if this warm place that just the night before was a source of comfort on which chocolate chip cookies and Charlie Brown’s Christmas were enjoyed, was transformed into a dark and lonely place where imposters laughed and didn’t listen to each other, though they talked an awful lot, rather loudly. Even if hidden in the quiet darkness of a bedroom closet, one could always tell when the drug was about.

Excerpt from chapter fifteen | changes. EVERYTHING'S HUNKY DORY: A MEMOIR