My grandmother, Inez Nordhem, took a picture of
my mom and me and my brother Bill on the steps of
Delray Elementary. I was six and Bill was three.
I had on short pants, Buster Brown shoes, and a bush jacket.
I wore glasses. I had an operation when I was five for being
cross-eyed. My dad was overseas by then. My mother took me to
Miami, to the hospital, for the operation. I recuperated at Aunt Claribel's house
in Coconut Grove. She was the principal of an all-girl school. Can that be right?
Back then, we were related to Ives Dairy on Grandpa Cason's side. The dairy was
in Ojus. Grandma Nordhem was a terrible old stud. She had shacked up with
a mafia hoodlum in Chicago. She was divorced. She smoked cigarettes
in public. Susan said she thought Mom had been sexually abused
as a child. That's a story they didn't tell me. My mother and my sisters
confided in each other. I was left out of that. So was Bill, I think.
He's gone now so I'll never know what he knew and I didn't.
The screen-scratcher with the Positraction toes.
Sneak out of the house and climb up the side.
I was away in the Air Force.
Grandma Nordhem threw a plate of spaghetti at Bill
at the supper table when he snickered when she said,
"I don't eat much, Jack," to my dad.
She lived with us. It was stressful for her.
She was used to being independent.