Big Wheels Keep On Turnin'

Little brudder and I on our Big Wheels.

Our bums could have been permanently glued to the seats of them . . . how could you know otherwise? We were always in them.

Big Wheels.

Just beyond the back tires were tiny plastic cylindrical pieces that would jet out, creating a ruckus when the wheels would turn. That only lasted about ten minutes. Mum quickly cut them out with a butcher knife. 

I complained of the modification at first (thinking what she was doing was physically hurting my Big Wheel friend), then realized the greatness of my new stealth status. I couldn't realistically tolerate the noise anyhow, and Mr. Big Wheel didn’t seem to mind. 

*A Wrinkle in Time, or Thirty

After struggling with the decision, I find it’s important for me to include this chapter of the story, introducing my mother as an innocent little girl, because until I saw her as one, my heart was often cold toward her and I didn’t quite understand her at all. I always loved her with a hunger and deep aching in my chest and sought after a relationship, a friendship, a comforting mother-daughtership with her until the very end, though I was also a bit guarded and awkward, which always proved to be empty and unfulfilling.

We all begin as pure, irreproachable little children having vast hopes, big dreams, unbridled laughter, and intense inquisitiveness. We go about life and our feelings are hurt, others let us down, we fail, we succeed, we win, we lose, and every last one of those moments, those scars, whether treasure or trash, wind up displayed on our faces as we live and age, like a billboard for all to see, to cherish or to reject.

Expectation and sorrow walk hand-in-hand—you can’t have one without the other. And they shape us into who we become, if we let them.

Excerpt from chapter two | tiny dancer | Everything's Hunky Dory: A Memoir

*Self-Taught Reading & Seemingly AWOL Fathers (an autodidact is born)

Ever the precocious child, having begun speaking months before the developmental standard, I taught myself to read when I was three. I used words such as “fascinating” and “interesting concept,” having no idea at the time these words in particular would later brand me the dreaded “different,” preparing early for bullying. I chose a glossy, ceramic plaque, covered in pastel zoo animals as my first teacher. The animals appeared to be holding up a scroll, which was representative of my birth certificate, or really more of a birth announcement. Welcome home, little girl, and cheers to your new life, per various random, smiling animals hanging on a pastel plaque, forever.

Prior to my special birth plaque being fired, Mum had written my birth details on the ceramic scroll in red pencil. After asking her once what it said and receiving a barely pacifying answer my prematurely logic-obsessed brain wasn’t satisfied with, I began conjuring up ways which I could find out, once and for all, the burning question plaguing me. The ever repeated “Don’t ask me again” taught me if I were ever to be curious, to keep my mouth shut and figure it out on my own—a lesson I’d love to say I’d unlearned today, but can’t honestly.

She wrote the details in cursive writing, which posed as quite the challenge for a three-year-old, but I was confident I’d decode it soon, Sherlock Holmes’ style.

With a crayon and piece of paper, I’d draw the letter I had in mind and ask,

“Mama, what is this letto?”

“That’s a C.”

“What does C sound like?”

“It sounds like kuh. Like cat.”

Next day:

“Mama, what’s this letto?”

“That’s an H, like hu, for house.”

I painstakingly went through every legible letter attempting to sound out each one, putting them together like a puzzle. My first major challenge was sounding out the C and H together as they just didn’t seem to mesh. I’d add the other letters, which thankfully seemed appropriate. “Cuharlees” was the sound of the name I proclaimed to be my biological father’s.

Excerpt from chapter three | look at me | 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

*Excerpt from Chapter Seventeen: The Sound of Silence

I wasn’t invited to her ceremony, I couldn’t say goodbye. From this day forward, no one discussed Nana’s passing other than announcing the culprit was a hideous ruptured brain aneurysm. Was it even true? How could I cry when I wasn’t sure? Where was the evidence?

I began to have episodes filled with rage, which I’d take out on hairbrushes, behind closed doors, alone in bathrooms. I’d smash the terribly unsuspecting, innocent objects against the counter until the handles shattered into tiny pieces, of which I’d then carefully pick up each and every speck so as not to be caught. I went through dozens of them, sneaking off almost daily to the local discount shop where I could find them for less than a dollar a piece. 

Shortly thereafter I began taking the anger out on myself, hitting myself as hard as I could, then regretting it, over and over. God forbid I should show emotion in front of the family, it was such an inconvenience after all.

Nana’s death was never spoken of again except for the few short outbursts of grief Mum would express when reaching for the phone to call her mother, a strange phenomenon I’d come to know intimately twenty-five years later.

Excerpt from chapter seventeen | the sound of silence | EVERYTHING'S HUNKY DORY: A MEMOIR

*Excerpt from Chapter Twenty: Hold Your Head Up

(A fourteen-year-old's perspective: finding Mum had become a mistress.)

“How long could a sexual act take?” I'd wondered aloud. It’d been hours. I’d hoped he hadn’t killed her. He was a pretty heavy guy. Rather fat, in fact.

I would often concern myself with the thought of how the buttons remained on Jim’s business shirts. I imagined his stomach to contain the kind of force shared only by a can of tightly packed Pillsbury biscuit dough, so was tempted to cover my face when in front of him for fear they’d pop off and “take an eye out”, as my grandmother would have said. I believe my interest in physics began when I pondered the mystery of how his tiny black belt was able to support his baggy dress pants whilst having two negative factors working against it--a wide, flat rear-end and gigantic protruding belly. Six inches up in back, six inches down in front. Inanimate objects have often brought on deep compassion from me, and his desperately thin belt was no exception (although I was assured the poor thing was well relieved when his mistress was around as it was finally able to take a holiday well deserved).

Excerpt from chapter twenty | hold your head up | EVERYTHING'S HUNKY DORY: A MEMOIR

Everything's Hunky Dory

Oh dear. It’s been quite a while. "Why?" you ask. Well, let’s see. My mother passed away from cancer. I was her sole caretaker at the end. That, and, I decided to write a book about the experience, along with details of our dark, severely unbalanced, yet somewhat entertaining relationship.  And I mention throughout the journey what it was like to have Asperger’s in a world where one’s mother isn’t quite June Cleaver nor Clair Huxtable, but David Bowie (or rather an impersonator of) in all of his glorious eccentricities. 

Yes, this is my story. And there's much more to come, so please stay tuned. :0)