Authors: Tom Spanbauer
Spring, the whole world smelled like lilac from the big old lilac bush next to the front porch. During the summer I wouldn't be on the rug but perched on the open windowsill. Like an oven inside the house. Outside at night, crickets and frogs. Inside, Kool-Aid and maple nut ice cream. At night, the smell of chamomile, fresh alfalfa, and water in the ditch. Thunderstorms at night and flash lightning like the world was some 'lectric fuse box gone haywire. One hailstorm so hard it broke the front-room window.
Always, though, and ever, those early days before Russell, come hell or high water, a hundred degrees or below zero, there were always days when Mom played her songs on her piano. Her feet whizzing back and forth on the pedals, her hands over the keys. Mom's hair pulled back from her face, her chin up, her almond-shaped hazel eyes mostly gold, a smile busting through.
Outside the house is where Dad lived. Dad only came in the house at dinner and supper to visit us, then spent the night. Machines were out there with him. The Johnny pop-pop tractor, the combine. Out past our square of lawn, out past the fence, past the gas pump, the acres of yard that spread out to the red brick barn. Next to the barn, Dad's tin square toolshed, during the day the sun so bright on it you could not look.
Lying on the front-room floor, flat on the flowered brown carpet, Tinkertoys all around, Sis with her paper dolls, Mom on the round stool playing “Cruising Down the River,” my father was out there in the big world making things go. I liked to think he was circling us. The way I pictured it, our skinny white house was in the middle of a field, and Dad was out there on the fence line on the tractor, going around and around, each time around he was closer to us in the house. In front of the tractor, dry, flat, tan earth. Behind, big brown chunks of piled-up earth. The smell of the earth dark and full of worms. Around and around, behind Dad's plow a dark shadow circling. The seagulls flying about his head screaming and squawking as if the seagulls were thoughts of his that no one knew, that made him so far away. When Dad finally came in the back door, the field was no longer tan or flat or dry. The field was all shadow, and our house was in the middle of dark brown chunks of earth smelling like he smelled, cow manure and horse piss and sour milk and straw.
Those early days, all my chores were inside the house. My main job was to put the forks on the left on the napkin next to the plate. Sis set the rest of the table. Then after the meal, Mom and Sis cleared the table while Dad had a Viceroy and his cup of tea with two sugars. Mom washed the dishes while Sis and I wiped them dry. Besides making our beds every morning and cleaning up our room, that was it for our chores in the early days, except for on Saturdays, when it was our special job to dust the piano. Both Sis and I had dust rags. Mom poured a capful of Olde English furniture polish onto each of our dust rags, and Sis and I made the piano and the round piano stool shine.
The basement of the house was another special place. Above the coal-room door, lying across on two stuck-out nails, was Dad's fishing pole. Next to the coal-room door and under Dad's fishing pole was Mom's old steamer trunk. Dark, brass-bound, the two brass latches locked in place. It was the kind of trunk that stood on its end. When you opened it up, one side was little drawers and the other side was a stainless-steel rod you could pull out to hang dresses on.
Inside Mom's steamer trunk was like its very own room in the house. Not just a room. The steamer trunk was a whole world. A magic world that existed right alongside the everyday world.
The dress I remember most is the green plaid. Big plaid, maybe some brown in the plaid. There was a blue taffeta dress too, robin's-egg blue, that made a sound when you touched the taffeta or when you walked in the dress. Sis kept the jewels in the top little drawer. Two rhinestone necklaces, a pearl necklace, and a cameo on a gold strand. A gold ring. The scarves were in the second little drawer. Two pairs of high heels. A brown pair that were scuffed suede with open toes and black high heels with an ankle strap. There were hats too. Those strange kind of hats like in LeVine's with veils and feathers that Joan Crawford and Gene Tierney and Hedy Lamarr and Aunt Alma used to wear. In the third little drawer was the red purse with the gold latch and the pair of white gloves. And lipstick. Lipstick was in the fourth little drawer. Red. Ruby Scarlet. In the fifth little drawer was the Avon perfume in the bottle that was shaped like the Eiffel Tower.
When the trunk was open, and the drawers were open, the Eiffel Tower smell hit you and a light spread out magic all around you, onto you, got inside you, magic color like in
The Wizard of Oz.
I was born in that trunk.
Scintillatingly gorgeous, Sis said.
Scintillatingly gorgeous, I said it too.
One afternoon, Mom had made cocoa and cinnamon toast and cut the toast into triangles. Sis was sitting on the green davenport and wearing the blue taffeta dress and the white hat that sat on the top of her head with net on it and a rhinestone pin. I was in the green armchair in the green plaid dress and the shiny black velvet hat with the flower brooch. Mom was on the davenport too wearing the black straw sunbonnet with the wide brim and the black lace shawl over her normal housedress. Her dangly rhinestone earrings.
Mom was talking away, sipping on her cocoa, the plate with her
toast on it balanced on her knees. I was right at home with my cocoa and cinnamon toast, scintillatingly gorgeous in my green plaid dress with my mother and my sister. Those were the best of days. Magic in so many ways, but mostly because the world that we created was a secret we couldn't tell Dad.
Every Sunday we drove the twelve miles to town to Saint Joseph's Church, the house of God. Dad opened the big old wood door, the long creak of the brass hinges. The holy water font, where you dipped your fingers and made the sign of the cross. Then your hands folded, you followed Mom and Sis past the stained-glass windows through patches of blue and green and red and gold to the pew. The smell of frankincense and myrrh, the wood pews, the waxed tiled floor. You genuflected because you were standing in front of God. God up there on the altar, inside a gold box that Monsignor Cody unlocked and took the chalice out of during Mass, and sometimes put God, the Bread of Life, into the monstrance that was all gold with rays of gold spraying out in all directions, and Monsignor pointed God at the whole church, the organ playing, the choir singing, the altar boys waving the smoke of the censers and ringing the bells, and everyone in the congregation, even Dad and tall, skinny Ott Lattig, who were the ushers, beat their hearts and said, Lord, I am not worthy.
There was nothing like it. That special moment of the consecration of the Mass. No movie, no music, not even Mom's piano, nothing at all like the moment during Mass when the Word became flesh. Nothing quite like my mother in that moment when Monsignor Cody said: This is my body. This is my blood.
Mom's head bowed, her fist beating her breast, saying, Lord God, I am not worthy.
God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, who gave us His only son, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father, by Whom all things were made, and for our salvation came down from heaven. And was made flesh by the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary and was made man and crucified, died, and was buried. And on the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. And ascending into heaven, He sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
Nothing, no Wizard of Oz, no Tinkerbell dust, no scintillating
magic at all in the world like the miracle that happened at Mass when the water changed into wine, and the wine changed into blood, and bread became the flesh of God, and my mother was transformed.
Her high heels with the holes in the toes, her nylons with the seams in them, her violet dress with the orchid all the way down the front, her felt hat that sat on the back of her head, the net in front, the pheasant feather, a saucy whip on the side. Her eyes, my mother's almond-shaped hazel eyes, only only at that moment always soft and full of love, the glory of beholding God in them, her face all aglow like a saint with a circle above her head.
Not even piano playing could get you that.
When she played the piano, Mom was happy. At the consecration of Mass, Mom was holy.
I don't know which of those Moms I loved the most.
There were other Moms too. There was pedal-to-the-metal Mom who drove the Buick seventy miles an hour to church. You never could catch her just sitting. Always kept herself busy. When she wasn't cooking or cleaning, or baking cookies or pies or cakes, she was sewing a dress for Sis or for her, or she was darning socks, canning, or doing embroidery. During harvest, Mom helped out driving the beet truck. Then there was rosary Mom, more holy Mom, sometimes twice or three times a day.
But it wasn't so much that all these Moms were differnt because of all the differnt things she did. It was something else. What made Mom differnt was the same thing that made the world magic. All of a sudden, out of the blue, something appeared in her eyes there's no way you could figure out.
Like I said, in the early days, how the world was, which means how I was, was how my mother's eyes looked. So what I was feeling was what she was feeling and I never could keep up with all that I felt.
What kept Mom and Dad together is something I never figured out. Dad was so differnt from her. I can't remember one time he made her laugh. Not a lick of music in him. At Mass he was the usher along with tall, skinny Ott Lattig. Dad just stood there all through Mass, even during the consecration, his feet spread, his arms behind him, at parade rest like a soldier. You never could tell what he was thinking, unless he was mad.
When he was in the house, all he ever did was sit at the table and wait for her to feed him, and then when the meal was over, after she got him his hot tea, Dad lit up a Viceroy and went back to his
Idaho State Journal.
When it was just me and Sis, when Dad wasn't around, sometimes Mom would let loose on Dad. How he came from a family of drunks, and he was a hick and he never took her anywhere and all she did was work work work.
The way I figure it, it was the Catholic Church. Mom and Dad were married in the Catholic Church. That's a life sentence. The sacrament of matrimony. Duty. Honor and obey your husband, all of that dogma crap.
Still, though, every now and then when Mom was talking, in her eyes, you could tell they hadn't always been that way.
Take for example, her favorite song, “Million Dollar Baby.” You should have heard Mom play that song on her old burnt piano. The reason it was her favorite song was because Mom was working at Kress's five-and-dime when she married Dad, so you got to figure there was something special there.
In Kress's five-and-dime the windows were curved and when you opened one of the big double doors edged in brass, the smell of wood floor hit you, and knickknacks, oilcloth tablecloths, tin, the smell of aluminum pans.
The way Mom told the story, she was working her last day at Kress's. Dad drove over from Blackfoot to pick her up because the next day they were going to get married. She said Dad looked like a dream come true, so handsome in his Stetson hat and his new jacket and boots. When she saw him walk in the door she had butterflies in her stomach. It was mostly women who worked in Kress's, salesgirls, and so Dad walking into Kress's was quite a sight for all those unmarried young women. Everyone thought he looked like Fred MacMurray, Mom said, so when he walked in, there was a big sigh and giggles all around. Dad walked up to Mom, who was standing behind the table of glassware and dishes. That's when all the lights went off in the store, and all the salesgirls started singing
I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten Cent Store.
I was even selling china, Mom said.
As soon as the lights went off and she heard the girls singing, Mom
ducked down behind the table. And left Dad standing in the aisle all alone.
I'd say that was a romantic story, a sweet kind of story, but if there's magic in it, it's a muted kind of magic. Reminds me of the only other story I know of their courtship, a story I overheard from my bedroom when my folks had company. It too comes with a song. From the kitchen, there was a bunch of laughing, then clear as a bell, I could hear Mom:
Joe and I had been out on a couple of dates, Mom said. We were driving along between Shelley and Blackfoot in Joe's dad's Buick, listening to the radio. Then a beautiful song came on the radio. It was “Melody of Love.” I said to Joe, So do you even like me a little bit?
Joe pulled the car over to the side of the road, pulled on the hand brake, and said: Like you? I think I
love
you.
I never told that story to anyone, not ever. Not even Sis. My mother a flat forty acres of Idaho field, Dad's tractor on her circling, the shadow folds of earth turning behind him, seagulls screaming. It was my secret. My secret rested in my chest, right next to my heart and was sore there. Weird magic, unspeakable.
Things are differnt now, though. A lot differnt. I can speak out loud and clear that dreaded sinful anti-Catholic word.
Sex. My mother and my father and sex. Holy shit. Can you imagine. I mean, they had three kids, right?
Those days before Russell was born and before he died, the older I got, the more I started going out into Dad's world. Mostly it was my new chores that got me outside. Sis and I had to feed and water the chickens and gather the eggs and slop the kitchen garbage to the pigs. Those chores might sound easy, but they weren't. Carrying a five-gallon bucket of water from the house past the toolshed to the barn ain't no treat. Sis and I and later just me carrying that five-gallon bucket. After I filled the bucket, I picked the bucket up and counted to fifty, and walked fast. Then I set the bucket down. Usually where I set the bucket down was right in front of Dad's tin, square toolshed. So bright in the sun, you had to shade your eyes. Inside in there the air was filled with hooks. Grease and gasoline and forty-gallon drums of oil. Wrenches of all kinds and sizes and one big ball-peen hammer, and an anvil I finally lifted to my chest when I was fifteen. Gathering
the eggs was no picnic either. You had to move those old clucks off their eggs, and they'd peck at you. Chicken poop all over the eggs.