The Rocket Tree

Your house smelled funny.

I always thought it was because of the smell that we were supposed to play outside. Looking back, it was more likely we were told to play outside for the same reason we were told to play QUIETLY. Your mother and grandmother were always slumped in their chairs, smoking, dozing, drinking. They were quiet. Unless we annoyed them, then they were anything but quiet.

I took you as my best friend when I moved to Great Bend. I always sought out nearest misfit - safety in numbers. We both liked to climb trees and play jacks and pretend the tree outside your house was a rocket ship that could take us anywhere. We knew it was a boy's game because girls didn't become astronauts. They could become fashion models/airline stewardesses as long as they were tall, shapely, with great bone structure. We both knew we would never be the kind of girl that would grow up beautiful. We were both taunted and teased. Me for my outbursts, you for your lack of a father or siblings - both for our homemade clothes. We never expected to be pretty here on earth, but in space we would be exotic and idolized.

When we were allowed inside your home, it was to play with your dolls. Old dolls. Your mother's dolls. Your grandmother's dolls. Musty smelling dolls in torn clothing. All your toys in your room were second hand. Other people's left overs. I got new toys at least two times a year. And I had an allowance that I saved up to buy more. That's where we got the jacks. I'd bought them so we could both play with them on the patch of concrete just past the kitchen screen door. Your mom would hover in the shadows of her kitchen. Her dark cotton house dresses made her head and arms seem to float. Sometimes she'd put down her drink and bring us watered down lemonade and stale cookies. The screen would open just wide enough for the glasses or the plate to be set on the step, then it would bang back shut and she would resume her place in the room with her mother.

You were not allowed to leave your yard. 

You were not allowed to walk to the park, or the store.

You were told it was dangerous.

You were told it was your own good.

I bought over a doll my grandmother had brought me. The curly haired doll was 4 feet tall and supposedly looked a bit like me. I brought her twin doll that had been given to my sister.  I hated those dolls. I had specifically asked NOT to be given any more dolls. You lived on the busiest street in town and it seems to me to be the perfect place for a yard sale. I set up a box - put out the dolls and pitched the option of buying them to passing cars. Soon a woman stopped and bought them both and I was left with $10 in my pocket. Your mother was angry at me. I had brought strangers onto her property. What I'd done was disrespectful to my grandmother. I was a bad girl. I was not to come back.

I lived in Great Bend for 2 more years after that. 

I passed your house every time I walked to school, every time I walked to church, every time I walked to the store. And every time I hoped to see you playing in our tree but I never saw you outside again. There were rumors you'd fallen from the tree and broken your arm. There were rumors about your mother and your grandmother and what they must have done to drive your father away.  So many rumors, but no you. 

We came back for a visit a few months after we moved to Lamar. I was in the classroom I would have been in if we'd stayed and I got to make a costume for Halloween. I was a robot space man. All I needed was a box and some dryer vents. The latest rumor around the school was that your mother was dead. She had walked outside of town and hung herself from a tree.  The kids said she probably killed herself because you drove her crazy.  Easy for them to imagine, you were nowhere.

Your house was dark and the space around the house seemed grey and empty. It was as if the house had taken the order to be QUIET to heart and it was quietly falling apart. I stood under our rocket tree and wondered why your mother did not hang herself here? Why walk far far away to a grove of trees you might never be found in? 

Maybe she realized you'd never had a family, a childhood, a chance to make mistakes and learn from them. Maybe she realized what finding your mom dead hanging from your play tree would not do. Or maybe - there was no realization. Your mother hated her life and wanted to die. She died. She was as thoughtless to you in that act has she'd been all your life.

My fantasy is that when you heard your mother was dead, you ignored the screams of your grandmother and went outside. You would climb the rocket tree and close your eyes and imagine a fantasy world were you were precious, exotic, loved. And the magic of make believe would make it so and you would vanish from the tree and find yourself in a tree in a parallel world. 

Your mother would have set out icy sweet lemonade and warm cookies.

And when you jumped from the tree to meet her, she would reach out to hug you and pull you into your home. A yellow glow would seem to surround  everything, and your home would smell like heaven.

Leatherette

The sofa I found for us was leatherette.

I had a budget of one thousand dollars to furnish an entire apartment, a seemly huge amount of money until I priced out the items we'd need. A table and four chairs because I planned on entertaining new friends we would certainly be meeting in our new city. A guest bed for family who I hoped would fly to visit and be impressed by our new home. A chest of drawers or two, bedside tables, lamps, coffee table, end table, book shelves, a fake bentwood cane rocker and the leatherette sofa I pretended was real leather.

I sacrificed a wood table and chairs in favor of a metal/formica topped octagon so I could get that sofa. The guest bed ended up being just the hollywood frame that came with the cheap mattress so I could get that sofa. That sofa was the symbol of my adulthood. No one in my family had ever owned a modern style sofa and no one I'd ever known had one that was leather - or at least could pass for leather. This was my prize purchase and that sofa followed me from apartment to apartment, from city to city, from relationship to relationship, till at last - it became the parting gift in yet another break up.

When I bought it, I had dreams of us laying in each other's arms while we watched TV together.  I imagined that's what couples did once the relationship settled into it's day to day rhythm. You never held me. Until the move it was what I accepted as normal. I had never seen my parents sitting and hugging. My vision came from movies and TV where couples madly in love would be drawn by the force of their need for each other to spend not just their nights entwined, but daytime too. An oversize, overstuffed  chair would be an invitation for the man to pull his woman into his lap where they would nuzzle and kiss. She would feel adored, safe, partnered with her soulmate. A sofa, a buttery leather-like six feet of cushion  plus padded arm rests would be like a magic carpet. In a heartbeat they could be laying heart to heart as rain beat against the wood decking outside. A constant in a changing world. Alone together. A couple.

Our old sofa had been handed down in your family for so many years the cushions had lost their fluff. The fabric on the arms and edges of the seats were rough from all manner of spills. It smelled. You would not consider turning it down when it was offered. It was free. When we were dating we'd had sex on that couch, but when it became ours, I don't recall us even sitting on it together. When we left it behind, I felt all our issues would be left behind too. A new city, a new life, a new chance for the magic that I believed had brought us together to take hold. In our new city, in our new apartment we would finally become the romantic couple I'd imagined.

The minute the leatherette sofa was brought up the stairs and into our apartment, you claimed it for yourself, much like your father had claimed his recliner. You saw it as your throne from which you would rule your family (me) much like your father had ruled his. 

I have two strong memories of you and the leatherette sofa, and both happened on the same rainy day. You were laying alone on the sofa watching TV while I worked at my little art desk tucked under the stairs. You told me to get up and make you a sandwich. I was busy. My art project was due the next day. You demanded I get up and make you a sandwich. There had been nights when I watched TV from the floor when you would suddenly throw things at me. At those times I had said something that made you mad, but that day I'd been working quietly. I suggested you get yourself a sandwich. I'd just returned from the grocery - there was fresh bread and peanut butter. 

I remember how fast you moved from the leatherette sofa to my side. Your displeasure was heavy and threatening. I flinched but kept working on my project. You moved to the tiny kitchen and slammed drawers open and closed. It was my fault, you said, I'd hidden the peanut butter and the bread, how were you to know where they were? 

I remember smiling and laughing a bit at that. The kitchen was so tiny we could not be in it at the same time. There was one cupboard that held the food. I always put the peanut butter and bread in the same place. Open one door and there they were at the front. They could not have been easier to find.

I remember how fast you moved from the kitchen drawer that held our knives to my side. The knife glittered a bit in the florescent light. There seemed to be no light in your eyes, "I SAID make me a sandwich." And I did. I was crying as I did. I knew in that moment we were never going change. You were never going to change. You took your sandwich to the leatherette sofa and chewed with your eyes glued to the TV. You took no notice of me standing, drained and sobbing. The knife was on the counter. As I sobbed I dreamed of using it on my wrists. I dreamed of pouring out the pain I felt by draining it from my body. Then you would see. Then you would realize how much I needed to be held, to feel safe, to be be partnered, to be adored. Your face would soften and I would not believe how fast you would move from the sofa to my side to hold me up as I slumped to the floor, dying. Tears would well up in your eyes and I would feel your tears fall on my face as you looked deep into my eyes as you told me you were so sorry. 

Like a sleepwalker I shuffled from the kitchen across the cheap brown shag carpet. I had managed to slow my tears to a series of rough gasps.  I stood over you, within reach, waiting for you to turn your empty face to me, waiting for your cold blue eyes to meet mine. 

And when at last you acknowledged me, I begged to be held.

IP

Yes, I've read your blogs.

I'll bet you track your visitors, so for the record, that's my address. Yeah, I've been away a long time and I should stay away, but now and then I hear the sirens and can't help but rubberneck. Go on, look back, I can wait. I'm not going anywhere.

I know, I am not your target audience, so who is?

Let's see, your blog is about you, but aren't they all about ourselves, really? And you post photos and art about you, and you include your image in almost everything you create. The word "narcissist" comes to mind. So either your target audience is YOU or people who can't get enough of you.

In simple terms: if someone HAS had enough of you - then that person is no longer in your audience - targeted or otherwise.