Mama and the Family

A dozen ways to clean a fish. Kitchen confidential. And all the while mother in the memories with the mammaries crying, “Here, boy, here! Time for food, and then for a nap! We’ve got games to play later!” Always food and a nap and games in the evening. Mama sure loved her games. Mama sure loved rallying everyone together and starting a big old game of Monopoly, or Risk, or even trying to fit a Dungeons and Dragons campaign into one session which was just about impossible. “I love to play and I love to win!” she would say often enough.

And Withers remembered it, too. Withers remembered his siblings clambering onto the chairs, excited for dinner and then a nap and then a big old game. Withers was never excited for this – well, perhaps it’s a mistake to say “never”. He was normally excited for the game Clue, but it seemed like Mama and the others never wanted to play that game. Mama said that the game was far too simple and short, and she only brought it out every once in a while to indulge the Mister.

She would make stew for dinner with cornbread, sometimes pasta with meat sauce, sometimes beef tamales with all kinds of toppings and hot sauces. Withers never liked any of the food Mama made in full – this was because even though he enjoyed the tastes and textures for the most part, he didn’t like the fact that Mama was always on her feet cooking and serving when Pops was plopped on the couch and had a perfectly good set of hands and feet. So he couldn’t completely say he liked the food altogether, because a major part of eating a meal is the communion and the hands who prepared it. His siblings seemed to understand this, too. They shot Pops dirty looks every once in a while right alongside him.

But then again, Pops was a man of mystery. Not international by any means, but a man of mystery right enough. Hard to tell what went on underneath those beady little eyes of his behind the paper or book he was reading. And all the while Mama hustling and bustling and doing her thing, bouncing from one place to the next, one chore to the next, one distraction to the next, bouncing on her feet like a tennis player waiting for the ball to come right back. And none of them could ever figure out why she kept doing it, why she kept this whole thing up, other than the fact that it was just the next thing to do, the next thing on the docket, and someone had to keep this whole charade up, someone had to keep this whole train a chug-chug-chugging along. And it was a respectable thing, wasn’t it, because who would have kept that whole train a-going if not for her? Surely not the kids and surely not the Man of the House, the Father of all Fathers. The kids taking care of business, keeping themselves clean and correcting their homework and cooking and feeding themselves and making sure they went to bed on time? That’s a laugh. Pops standing on his own two feet and walking from point A to point B without asking three times where a tool was? That’s even more of a laugh. The house would crumble, spirits would falter quickly, the entire operation would be rent asunder. The foundation that Mama alone had worked so hard to build would fall to pieces if Mama herself did not work so hard to keep it all together. Altogether now, let’s work hard to keep it altogether!

Oh what was she saying, it was feeling more and more futile every day as she was the sole beam keeping this roof from collapsing onto everything. Oh what was she saying, there would be hell to pay for whoever put her in this position. But wasn’t it she herself who had put herself in this position? Calling the kettle black, wasn’t it. Or maybe that was the wrong use of the expression altogether, maybe she wasn’t even thinking of the expression properly. Were her parents in charge of this whole sordid affair? Had she been married off by her father or mother, her own Mama and Pops, was there some sort of land deal that had been struck? She thought back to the moment in her big old barrel of a brain, feeling insane, every slightly insane, not fully insane, just partially. Partial insanity was fine in moderation, you just needed to monitor where the water line was. If the water line dipped too far down you could lose some inspiration and boldness, if the water line rose too high then it could be dangerous for everyone involved including herself. Just had to keep your eye on the waterline, whenever you could afford to check it.

Withers knew that even as a child, but didn’t Mama know that? Well, Mama was learning, let’s just put it that way. Mama would be coming around the mountain when she comes.

Pops on the other hand, who knew what Pops was thinking and feeling. He could be just as dumb as a pile of rocks behind the newspaper or the book he had propped up – no one could monitor completely if he was actually reading the lines and retaining the information that the eyes were sending to the brain. No one was really monitoring that. So it could have all just been an act. Two giant signs. The sign on the front cover saying: “Leave me alone” and the sign on the back cover saying “I am also intelligent”. Surely a man like that never even thought to check the waterline, not once. But Mama would get there, she was learning, right as rain. Sure enough she was a-baby steppin’, and how else can progress be defined but taking it one baby step at a time?

Withers knew that. But he cared for his Mama. He didn’t like seeing Mama take all those baby steps by herself while Pops just sat in the mud playing with it. No way no how. There was many a time when Withers wished that his parents had never ended up together and that he had never been born. He was glad he was born, but had he not been born then his parents would not have been together, and that just seemed like a better situation for everyone involved. If he and his siblings had not been born, then maybe Mama would be off by herself getting a nice tan on a tropical island, with a few local boys fanning her and another one spreading suntan lotion evenly on her back. If he and his siblings had not been born, then maybe Pops would have to start feeding himself and clothing himself and doing some kind of work so that he could afford to have a roof over his head each month. Pops deserved a little more work and Mama deserved a little more rest, that was how it seemed to him. And instead of “a little”, replace that with “a lot”.

But no, Mama had not been pressured into anything. There were no land deals, no mutual agreements between families, no marrying up for additional riches and resources. Mama chose Pops openly, and Pops shrugged his shoulders and said “Why not”. According to the story they had both been at a winter formal dance, Mama looked across the room at the pimply straggly looking boy who was pouring himself a cup of punch from a comically large ladle, she pointed at that boy, the sea of people dancing on the parquet floor parted, and Mama drew that pathetic little boy over to her with a long and mighty invisible rope. And that was that. The boy had absolutely no say in the matter, he was a fly that had been caught in the Venus trap, even though the Venus trap didn’t have any honey or molasses attached to it at all. And the random thing was, Pops wasn’t even a student at that school. He had a cousin who was attending and was just stopping inside for ten minutes tops, that Pops, to fix himself a cup of punch and then go back outside and wait for his cousin in the car like a good boy.

But earlier that night, as Mama and her friends were getting ready for the dance, powdering their faces and such, Mama had boldly proclaimed to all her friends, “I’m going to get me a man tonight if it’s the last thing I do.” And boy, she sure did. The man had a pulse, he didn’t say no, and he had been corraled like a calf. He followed just as docilely to the altar where the wedding vows were exchanged, and as if a spell had instantaneously be broken, once they were legally married and the crowd cheered, Mama realized she had lost all the power and all the joy she had ever had – not just in the courtship and future planning, but all joy in her life entirely – and Pops had gained his.

It was like Pops had woken up and Mama had died. But the cruel thing was, Pops didn’t choose to do anything to help anyone when he had woken up and been given joy. He just wanted to hide. And so Mama, it would seem, only really experienced fleeting moments of happiness when she was trying her own food or winning at a game with the family. And this was clearly not enough for her, because it would not have been enough for anyone. And so Mama continued to wane, even though this was all a foundation of her own making.

Divorce? Divorce, some people might ask. But that would take humility, a brutal admission of “I was wrong, and I am taking five thousand steps back to regroup.” Far less painful socially to keep on with what you are doing, even if it is killing you inside. And this is how Withers grew up, and this is what he remembered.