Three (About the Body) Rough
[admin / May 17th, 2011 / Young Bright Things ]When I was three, my mother left my father and me.
When I was five, my father told me he was driving to Denver to pick up my brother. I didn’t know I had a brother. I knew I didn’t have a mother though. Â
My father drove from Canon City to Denver to a place called the Clown’s Den on Broadway Avenue. He didn’t know until he got there the place was a strip club. When he went in, my mother was performing on stage. When she was done, she asked my father if he wanted to ball. I guess that was seventies speak for fuck. My father said no, he just wanted to pick up his son. They walked three blocks to an apartment where my three-year-old brother was alone.Â
The first time I met my brother he held up two fingers and said “Peace.” He had a bowl haircut. His first night with us, my brother slept under the other twin bed in my bedroom. Then he stole my Pooh Bear. Later he won me over playing air guitar and singing, “King of the road king of the road king of the road.”
He was cute.
But he wasn’t a wealth of information regarding our mother.
“Was she pretty?”
“I don’t know, yeah, pretty.”
“Was she nice?”
“I don’t know, yeah, nice.”
“What did she like to do?”
“I don’t know, sing.”
“I like to sing.”
“She gave me peanut butter.”
“I like peanut butter.”
“I got peanut butter for breakfast.”
“You did?”
“I also got peanut butter for lunch and dinner.”
“I like macaroni and cheese for dinner. And I also like spinach.”
Pretty soon we weren’t talking about our mother anymore, and we didn’t speak of her again until I decided to find her when I was twenty-one years old. When I told my brother I’d found her he said, “I don’t want to talk to her.” And he never did.
*
I don’t know why I had to find her. See her, hear her, smell her, hold her even once. I was shy about hugging her though. You wait for something your whole life. Then here she was. The mother is our Genesis. The mystery to me was in there, her body. I held her. Soon as I did, I was scared. My mother lacked maternal instincts. Our entire relationship was comprised of her coming and going. She’d change her phone number, slip away. Resurface. Nothing to hold onto. A ghost.
*
My best friend, Judy, told me a story one time about how her dead mother came to see her when she was alone during a storm. Judy felt scared about being alone; it was the first time she’d been alone without her husband, and her mother’s ghost walked across the room and got into bed with her and then spooned her until she fell asleep.
Judy and I work together. Not long ago, she went on vacation; I didn’t see her seven days. Soon as she came back and I hugged her, I broke into tears. Unexpected. I’d just received news about my mother. About how and where she was. Something about the warmth of Judy in my arms, the body. Here she was.
*
The woman who gave birth to me lies on a slab, is on ice in Salt Lake City. Her body remains unclaimed. She’s been dead 59 days.
Her Mormon family has abandoned her dead. They didn’t agree with her lifestyle, whatever that was, and so they’re leaving her to the coroner to decide.Â
I can’t bring myself to speak to my mother’s family. For one thing, they’re strangers. And for another, they wouldn’t agree with my lifestyle either. So here we are, my dead mother and me, something in common.  Her family doesn’t like us. We don’t trust God.
Forgive me Father, for I’ve sinned. But you’ve no idea about the body. Fifteen minutes in a strip club, fifteen minutes in a delivery room. That’s the body. You cock.
*
What happens to the body once you’re dead? Who looks after you? Is that person gentle? Who cares? That’s the thing: the dead don’t care. Memorial services, funerals, these things are for those of us who’re left behind. I always knew I’d end up taking care of the one person who didn’t take care of me. You bitch.
I hadn’t spoken to my mother in nine years. Someone I didn’t know let me she was dead. They won’t release the body to someone who’s not family. My mother’s friends are contacting me on Facebook. They want me to give the body to them.
*
My mother is never going to show up a ghost and comfort me the way Judy’s mother did. She isn’t going to advise me about what to do.
So I went numb then sad and then pissed before I was sad again. Nobody showed me how to do this.  Like when I was in graduate school, I started to self mutilate again.Â
Something about the blood.
I called my brother. He isn’t one for talking on the phone. He doesn’t like it. Truth be told, neither do I. But I called him and eventually broached the subject of our mother. I was the one who’d have to decide, after all. So I babbled. “Her friends should have her. They loved her. She loved them. I’ve got to let go of her, stop feeling bad about this.”Â
My mother’s friends wish to take her remains to a place they mentioned to me on Facebook, a place significant to them, something I know nothing about. Between them.
And what is there between my mother and me, other than the blood I mean?
As always, brilliant stuff. I can not get over how often you rip open your wounds for your art. Does it hurt less the more you do it? Whatever the case. It’s dynamic and disturbing.
On a much lighter note: yes, “ball” was a term we used back in the day for sex. If memory serves, Marvin Gaye had a song out called, “You Sure Do Love to Ball”.
I sure do love you.
((hugs))
Ouch, my heart.
If what you can do with your writing is make people want to be kinder and love more and be more … humane, I suppose, then you’re doing something incredible, Alana.
Love. x
Nothing to say. ((((Alana)))
Alana, your heart aching bluntness brought a stillness to my heart. It left me with a yearning for my own mother who had difficulty showing love and affection. I guess we never get over mother’s love lost that could have been and should have been. Keep writing…you tell it so well!
You’ve torn me open.
Again.
My God, you’re good at that.