Riding Fury Home (9 page)

One time during a visit from her dad and sister, Mom tried to enlist them in getting her out. They were sitting in the visitors' room at a table, drinking coffee. “This place is terrible! You have to do something. You have to get me out of here,” she pleaded.

Grandpa just shrugged. Aunt Rita tried to calm her down. “You need to be here, Gloria.”

As her father and sister stood to leave, Mom smashed her coffee cup against the table. It broke in three pieces. She grabbed one and bore down hard against her wrist. Mom told me, “Well, I'm sure that
made them think I was really crazy, but I wanted to show them how desperately I hated this place.”

Three orderlies grabbed her. As they dragged her away, Grandpa and Aunt Rita were staring at her with shocked looks. She was taken to solitary confinement, a room that was all mattresses wall to wall. She stayed in there several days.

When Mom got out of solitary, she became determined to leave. She watched who got discharged, and it was obvious: You had to behave. She became a docile, complying, model patient. She volunteered to do chores. She scrubbed floors and washed bathroom walls. She made sure not to complain. She told me, “I said as little as possible, afraid of a slip. I kept my rage and my hatred of the place shielded behind my eyes. I acted grateful and obedient, and finally, they let me go.”

MOM RETURNED FROM the county hospital in the beginning of May, three weeks before my eleventh birthday. Aunt Rita called Mrs. Fredrickson to tell her they were on their way, and Mrs. Fredrickson said I could go wait at my house for them. I ran outside when I heard the rumble of gravel as my aunt, driving too fast, as usual, roared up to our front door. Mom got out of the passenger side. They'd put her back on pills before she left the hospital, but not as many, so she seemed less groggy when she leaned over to kiss me. “Hello, sweetheart,” she murmured. Aunt Rita lifted two bags of groceries from the back seat. She moved briskly into the house, and as soon as she had unloaded them into our fridge, she was gone.

 

 

MRS. JANSEN CAME OVER that first afternoon. “Gloria, let me keep your pills for you,” she said.

“Not necessary,” Mom said, waving her hand while holding her cigarette as if shooing a fly.

Mrs. Jansen glanced over at me, then back at Mom. “Yes, I think so,” she said in a quiet, determined voice.

Mom sighed and shrugged. “Oh, all right.”

After that, every morning and evening, Mrs. Jansen walked through the fenceless side yard between our houses to bring Mom her pills.

But whatever help the neighbors gave us, there was no controlling Mom's driving phobia, which was erratic. You would never know when it would happen. We had a new car, a Rambler American convertible, that had replaced the old Hudson with its burned-out back seat from Mom's cigarette butt. Dad had bought the Hudson from a coworker for $25, so it wasn't such a big loss. The Rambler was white, with fire-engine-red seats, a red dashboard, and a black cloth roof. You could roll the roof back by just holding down a switch. Sometimes when we were about to go out, Mom would give me the keys and say, “Go put the top down while I get ready.” I would go turn the key in the ignition, then hold the switch down and listen to the whir of the motor that lifted the top and the crackle crackle of the cloth folding. Then I would climb into the back seat, pull the cover over the folded roof, and pop all the snaps down that hold it in place. I loved the feel of the leather seats, even if they were really just vinyl.

I already sort of knew how to drive the Rambler, because once a week all through fifth grade, I loaded up our two silver garbage cans in the open trunk, drove the car from our front door to the end of our long driveway, and deposited the cans on the curb before backing up the driveway again. Mom said since we had no cops in Millstone, just a mayor, there was no one around to arrest a ten-year-old for taking out the garbage.

There were no stores in our town except for Mr. Brezniak's little grocery store, so if we needed anything, we had to get in the car. Mom
and I would be driving down the road, going along just fine, when all of a sudden it would happen. I'd feel the car slow way down, then the next second I'd be jerked back as we'd zoom forward, then slow down again.
Fast
/slow,
fast
/slow, sending my head bobbing like one of those Chinese dolls. Mom's face would be squeezed up tight, her arms stiff with her elbows out, her fingers gripping the wheel. Her right foot on the gas pedal was doing a dance of its own—down to the floor, up to the sky, down-up, down-up. How I
hated
that foot.

If there was no traffic behind us, we could go down the road like that for a while—
fast
/slow,
fast
/slow—Mom silent, stiff and sweating, until she somehow got over it and went back to normal. I'd brace my arms against the dash to ease the jerking. Sometimes the person behind us would blow their horn and Mom would pull over. She'd take a Kleenex out of her purse and dab her sweaty face and neck. “Shit, shit, shit!” she'd mutter. I'd pat her shoulder, repeating, “It's okay, it's okay.”

Mom said she was never like that before her electroshock treatments. I was too little when she left to remember if she was or she wasn't. She said this fear would just come over her, making her freeze up. Bridges, cliff edges, any kind of heights meant an instant freeze. I could not see an easy way to melt her. And it seemed like it got worse over time.

 

 

FOR MY ELEVENTH BIRTHDAY, Mom bought me the best present ever: tickets to a rodeo with a special appearance by Fury, the beautiful black stallion from the TV show that I adored. Fury was wild, and let no one ride him except the orphan boy, Joey.

The rodeo was in Princeton, so of course we had to drive there. On the curvy, wooded road to Princeton, Mom's driving fears attacked her, so we lurched down the road and arrived late. By the time we got
there, the only seats left in the bleachers were at the very top. But when Mom tried to climb up those wooden bleachers, she froze again. “I can't, honey!” she told me.

“Come on, Mom!” I pulled on her arm. I just had to see Fury. “You've
got
to, Mom,” I demanded in a loud whisper, aware of people staring at us from their seats.

“All right, darling, I'll try.” Mom put her hands down onto the steps and climbed up the wooden bleacher stairs on all fours like a dog. I trailed as far behind as I could, trying to act like she wasn't my mom.

Once we got in our seats, she seemed okay. I forgot about her while I watched the men on horses roping cattle, riding in figure eights around oil barrels, being flung from bucking broncos. “Whooeee, yee-haw!” I screamed with the crowd. And then, I was silenced by the announcer's solemn voice, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, we present to you the most famous horse on television for a one and only live performance . . . the black stallion known as Fury!”

Of course, Fury had no rider because he was wild. Wild and beautiful and strong. I knew no one could tame him, and I loved that. He came out by himself, his muscles rippling, his coat so black and shiny. He ran in a circle around the arena, and then rose into the air, pawing and whinnying his stallion call of freedom, before he circled one more time and disappeared.

I floated down the bleacher steps to the car, ignoring Mom and the nice man who helped her down the stairs by holding her arm. On the ride back along the dark wooded road, I was lost in a reverie of remembrance of the black stallion. Then—
bam
—my head jerked backward, jarring me out of dreaming. I awakened to the
fast
/slow,
fast
/slow lurching. I stared at the red dashboard. I could feel the hatred gather in my chest. Mom ruined everything. Ruined it.

AFTER MOM CAME HOME, one of the first things I said to her was, “Let's go get Happy.” She managed to drive us okay to the vet's office. When he brought Happy out, I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him tight as his tail beat back and forth. “Let's go home, boy,” I said.

As much as I loved him, Happy had always been a difficult, restless hound. He loved to run loose, and after being cooped up so long at the vet's, he was wild to go. He'd pace back and forth in front of the door and howl to be let out, fraying our nerves, until Mom or I would relent. Then he'd be off, running into the woods behind our house and out of sight. Neighbors reported sighting him several miles away, running through the fields of the dairy farms outside of town.

One day in midsummer, Happy came limping home. I heard him at the back door, whimpering, and went to let him in. “Oh God, Mom,” I yelled over my shoulder, “Happy's hurt bad!” His side was ripped open in a jagged line, with big gashes oozing blood and flesh,
blood-caked fur, and a bit of intestines peeking out. I sat next to him in the back seat as we drove to the vet's, holding his head in my lap as he moaned and shivered. I was shaking, too.

After the vet sewed Happy up, Mom and I tried to keep him in, but as he healed, he started that irritating pacing again. One day, someone let him out—was it me or Mom?—and sure enough, Happy came back with his wound reopened. At the vet's, the doctor said he needed to board Happy for a while until he healed better.

A few days later, Mom said, “The veterinarian knows a farmer who is looking for a dog. Happy would have a big farm to live on, and could run all he wanted without getting in trouble. The vet thinks it's best. What do you think?”

I stared at her, chilled into silence. Then I managed to choke out, “I have to think about it.”

I went upstairs to my room, closed the door, and lay on my bed.
Happy. My Happy
. I loved him more than anything. He was my pal, my comfort. I didn't want to lose him. But the vet had said that Happy's side had been torn open when he'd leapt over a barbed wire fence. I could see that living with us, he kept getting hurt. A sob burst in me, and I lay there weeping.

After I wiped my tears, I went downstairs and said to Mom, “Tell the vet to give Happy to the farmer. I want him to have a good life.”

My mother made no offer to take me to the vet's office to see Happy one last time to say goodbye, and I made no request to see him. Perhaps I understood it would hurt too much to feel him against me, so I just let him go.

THE MUGGY AUGUST NIGHT before my father was to return, I set my hair. Spiky pink rollers with plastic snap-on covers dug into my scalp as I tried to sleep. I had perfected the art of sleeping with an arm under my neck to relieve the pressure of the rollers, but then my arm would go numb and I'd have to give in to the curlers' prickly pain. Spit curls were Scotch-taped against my cheeks—curls that made an almost full loop along the cheeks were the
in
style—posing a problem for me because I was allergic to Scotch tape. I had to stick on the tape as lightly as possible and then rip it off fast in the morning, hoping not to leave a blazing red tape mark. Sometimes I was lucky.

Mom managed to drive us to the airport. In the international terminal, we waited across from the exit where passengers cleared customs. I was wearing my best dress, a full-skirted silk print with a tight bodice that revealed my new breasts, encased in a training bra. I had even wriggled into stockings held up with a garter belt. I peered toward the exit doors intently, so excited I was shivering,
scrutinizing each man crossing the threshold. Someone who looked like Dad was approaching, but he was so short. “Is that
him
?” I asked Mom. “Is that
him
?”

During the year my father had been gone, I had undergone a pubescent spurt; I had grown breasts and bled and lengthened to almost my full adult height of five foot one. Now my father was approaching and he seemed to have shrunk. Dad left as a towering giant and returned a little man.

My father stopped in front of us and set down his two suitcases. “You've sure grown!” He sounded surprised, then reached to hug me.

“Welcome home, Dad!” I threw my arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, scratchy with stubble. I disentangled myself and stepped back so Dad could get a better view. I was hoping he would notice more of the new me, but he turned to Mom. “Hi, Gloria.”

“Abe,” she nodded. They hugged briefly. “The car's in the garage. This way.”

As we walked to the airport garage, Dad kept staring nervously at Mom. It seemed all his attention was on her. I sat alone in the back seat of the Rambler for the first time in a year as my father took the wheel and drove us home.

For years later, remembering that day, my mother would fume, “He didn't even say how nice you looked!” She was right: I had been disappointed and hurt. But it hadn't taken me very long to understand that it was the tension—so thick between them, the bitterness and regret vibrating in the air—that riveted my father's vision and blurred all sight of me.

 

 

THE FIRST MORNING OF my father's return, I awoke and sleepily went to my parents' bedroom to say good morning. Mom
had moved back upstairs to their bedroom with its twin beds. Their door was closed. I put my hand on the knob and swung the door inward. And then I froze, mouth agape. In the farthest twin bed from the door, up against the bedroom wall, my naked father was lying on top of my naked mother. They both turned their startled faces toward me. I was old enough to know what I had stumbled into and be horrified. No one made any sound in those frozen seconds. Mom's eyes met mine—there was a look in her eyes of some unfathomable pain. That look lanced me beyond the simple shame of my bumbling intrusion. I backed out and pulled the door shut.