“Do I have
to go Mom?”
My whining
voice as my mother tried to coax me away from whichever Judy Blume book I was
deeply nuzzled into. She had the night off from school and had a “date” with
the adulterous man she was seeing. My mother dated rarely but when she did, she
went for anything other than what was good for, or could be good, for her. This
particular man was one I had a fiery hatred for. First of all he was married
and while everyone around us told us he wasn’t, his daughter, that he brought
with him on several of his outings, assured me, he was still in fact very
married and while we knew of her, his wife knew nothing of us. Even then I didn’t
have too many hang ups about that kind of thing. To each their own and it isn’t
any of my business to tell grown ass folks how to live. That said, this was my desperately
needing mother and I knew….could tell by the way she selected her perfume from
the glass tray atop her dresser what kind of night she was hoping for. The kind
of knight she was hoping for, and I was sure this black grease wreaking, slow
witted, living in a hotel room user was the polar opposite to what she needed.
“Please
Mouse. Come with us. We are going to that shrimp place”
The words
still a bubble in the air above her head and I was shoving my summer blistered
heels into my Keds, standing tall as I ran my pudgy hand over my
layingaroundallday shirt and with a slightly defeated snarl replied, “Okay
fine! Just make him leave me alone”
So not only
was this man a liar, a user and a cheater, he was also cruel in that way that
only profoundly stupid men can be. Every time I came to dinner he would call me “Hungry
Hungry Hippo” and when he’d call to speak to my mother the first question, out
of his tubby face, “So Sam, you still ugly?” so needless to say spending the
night with Ms. Blume’s perfectly aged stories were a far better option for me
but, well there was that sweet smelling momma of mine, and the promise of fried
shrimp, a thing I had only known because of that grease stinking ape, and the
only thing I could find pleasure in when he and my mother would start kissing,
the sight and sound making my stomach turn….turn right to that bucket of fried
shrimp.
“Nance, you
got your wallet? His thick southern accent oozing with a sickly sweet stench as
we approached the iron rod covered walk up window. Took us like 20 or 25
minutes to get there and it was in a part of town that my mother would never be
caught dead in…the part of town that drew me back years later for its honesty and
truth no matter how busted, broken and sad. I looked up, well across as I was
nearly as tall as she at this point, at my mother and refusing to make eye
contact with me she reached into her purse and pulled out her pocketbook.
Dinner on her, again. “Yeah, I have some cash” she sputtered and with that the
goon belted out his order.
“Yeah, we’ll be having 2 pounds of those fried
shrimps and don’t cheap out on the ketchup sauce! I also want a shake” like he
was a 10 year old getting to pick dinner on his birthday. I was actually ten and
while I sat there, thirsty because it was only his drink requirements dealt
with, my legs dangling off the side of his oversized van thing that looked like
a Frito Lay delivery truck, I listened to the two of them coo and flirt and the
only thing that kept me from either retching or snapping my ten year old leg
off in his dumb ass, the briny, bready, horseradishy aroma and roof of the
mouth scraping of those perfectly fried and cocktail dunked “shrimps”
Fixed coral
colored tails fanned out, deeply brown coating squeezing the flat splayed
shrimp bodies, hard fried just enough that the crunch of their flesh between my
teeth drowned out the ever screeching lies, empty promises and eventual
bickering and tears that were coming from the belly of the van. The spent tail
quarters and nose expanding aroma of cocktail sauce my music as I sat on the
bumper of the van after being pushed out so, ‘the grownups can talk” the grunts
and slow rocking of our chariot teaching me how I never wanted to talk in that
kind of grown up way. The fragrant briny whiff a comfort as I sat in the dark
on a swaying bumper as drug deals, sexual exchanges and toothless homeless
folks passed me by, not noticing, for a second, my Keds dangling from the Frito
Lay looking van. Never seeing me dip my chin into the bucket to hide my tears
of frustration, maybe humiliation as I found the one and only good thing in
that moment, becoming once again a submissive to the seduction of oceanic fragrances.
That and knowing that my mom would be needing extra hugs that night and I would
be the one giving them to her….which was why she begged me to come in the first
place.
The other
night my son and I sat with two very real loves of my, of our lives, and we all
crunched away madly on old school breaded shrimp, this time the submission of
their crunch covered flesh nearly silent compared to the boisterous energy and welcoming
exchange and debates spinning around the table. My voice, his voice, our voices
all bouncing about as the hedonistic tug of thick cocktail sauce, heavily
flecked with serious tatters of horseradish and sweet tomato ketchup were wrapping
me up in a kind of embrace that I so
longed for 35 years ago. I might not have noticed how powerful the moment had
it not been for the nights spent on that Frito Lay bumper and the resulting
tight hugs and hair stroking, another one of our role exchanged moments that
taught me to be just a little stronger.
Can’t smell
the ocean, oysters, clams or fried shrimp without feeling nostalgic and a bit
taller. It’s that kind of observation that reminds me, there is plenty of bad
but if you can, somehow, find some tiny bit of hope, strength, power or courage
in them…someday those bads will smell and feel a whole lot like a much needed
embrace.
