Bits and Pieces

I can't remember what the fuck I wrote this for. . .

The worst piece of advice I have ever gotten was indisputably from my eccentric Aunt Zelda. She was a rather disheveled old crone; and my father was fond of mercilessly ridiculing her for it. She had so little self-awareness that watching her going about her day-to-day routine was so mortifying; as if I was watching my mother do a jig for me in front of my Calculus class dressed up as Carmen Sandiego. Not to mention, Aunt Zelda was quite a heavy drinker so naturally, she spewed out this advice to me when she was well under the influence. 

I was minding my own business watching a rerun of The Cosby Show at the time. I was deliberately ignoring Aunt Zelda; the last thing I wanted was to get reeled into yet another of her nonsensical and migraine-inducing tirades about nothing of any particular significance. It was a hot, brooding summer and our defective air conditioning resulted in my clothes melting, sticky and clammy and drenched in sweat, and clung to my flesh like a scalded marshmallow upon the coarse pavement. My tongue was as dry as sandpaper, my palms were soaked, as if I had just finishing rinsing them in the sink; and the uneasiness of it all made that particular day unreservedly excruciating. 

“You want to know something Sally?” Aunt Zelda slurred, rowdily waving her highball of Sidecar in my face, her bloodshot eyes whirling about in her sockets, as gobs of slaver accumulated on her bottom lip like a frothing, rabid dog. 

“Not especially,” I retorted hotly, deadpan.

And just when I thought she may have at long last learned to take a hint, she hurled herself off of the tattered loveseat she was sprawled out on, spread eagle, stood facing me, plunked upon the pale blue carpet, squared her shoulders, furrowed her brow and staggered toward me to the best of her ability, her drink swishing about from side to side in her glass like a sea caught in an irate tempest.

Swell. Just what I need. Today of all days!

And before I could mentally prepare myself, there was Aunt Zelda’s doughy face just inches from mine. Her breath reeked of booze and tobacco, the glower upon her face accentuating her lopsided features. Her flesh, crinkled and leathery, hung on her gaunt and hollow skull like a wet rag on a coat hanger. 

I cringed. Visibly. 

“You know, kiddo, when you go on out to the real world, I want you to remember something. Never try to change for the better ‘cuz it never works, you hear? Do what you do even if you’re hurting people ‘cuz you know what? Screw them! The only person who looks out for you…is you so treat yourself well, and forget everybody else. Oh, and intuitions and gut feelings and all that is crap. Don’t listen to that. It’s all a myth. Just be as unabashedly wretched as you want ‘cuz you only live once,” Aunt Zelda warbled, recklessly pouring Skyy vodka into her highball. When she was done draining the vodka bottle dry of alcohol, she peered up at me from above the rim of her highball. Her wet, cow eyes penetrated into me; they flickered. And she continued to gaze at me with a glassy lack of self-consciousness, her signature look, I scowled at her, mildly yet lividly.  

Well, at least what just came out of her mouth confirmed my suspicions that she is completely off her rocker. Too bad she didn’t put the trend that was her incessant nonsensical and irrational remarks to a grinding halt. 

Clearly, this trend only grew.

I gaped at her, thunderstruck, racking my noggin for something to say. Aside from, “You’re a pitiful excuse for a human being, Aunt Zelda.”

Instead, in my own growing trend in striving to defy whatever Aunt Zelda does or says, I made a promise to myself that day. 

The next time I found myself in an uncompromising position, I will be as receptive as possible. I will try new methods and do my best to change, if all else fails. I will not succumb to Aunt Zelda’s drivel. 

And apparently, this was some weirdass feminist story I wrote. . . 

Jem and Holden dumping us here in this desolate terrain, in the middle of god-knows-where, like a couple of convicts or pariahs, is not even what really hurts me.

Mandy and I are getting tired of being plopped down here in this mosquito-ridden field, sticking our thumbs high into the air, in stone-cold silence. The silence is almost deafening. Yet neither one of us has the heart to talk about what just happened to us. 

“And to think I always thought marrying rich was a foolproof plan,” Mandy blurted, collapsing into the fetal position on the soft, sordid earth in one swift, exasperated motion.  

“Damn men,” I mumbled angrily under my breath. “Where the hell are we going to go now? The fool even took away my pearls, how am I supposed to survive now?”

“You’re preaching to the choir, kiddo,” Mandy said dryly. “God! I falsely accuse him of cheating on me with that trampy secretary of his and he goes all ballistic! I totally thought he was going to go all Ike Turner on me.”

“You didn’t just falsely accuse him, you tied that trampy secretary to her desk chair and poured anchovy paste in the glove compartment of her car,” I snapped, giving my oblivious friend a little recap of her unanticipated rendezvous with said trampy (and also rather infuriated) secretary. 

“Oh, that’s right. I knew I was forgetting something. That was sublime,” Mandy purred, a perverse grin stretching across her face.

“Whatever. They are still spawns of Satan! He even had the nerve to call me slothful! Me? Psh!” “I busted my butt through college. For Pete’s sake, I have a bachelor’s degree in home economics! And he calls me a dunce?!”

After going off on a diatribe to one another, we make an impromptu decision to go exploring.

As we trek off into the bleak horizon, we feel compelled to squint in order to see where we are going. Wild, lush greenery sprouts up just out of my line of vision, making it decidedly difficult to amble through.

“For Pete’s sake, this place is in desperate need of a weedwhacker,” I grumble, thrusting a prickly bush out of my way and promptly smashing my right foot down upon it.

“Amen, sister friend,” Mandy says, her voice, faint and faded, sounds more like an echo.

Suddenly realizing that I cannot, for my life, spot nor hear Mandy, I begin to panic. I start running amuck shouting her name repeatedly, and when she doesn’t answer, I only get more concerned and even slightly vexed.

Before I can worry any longer, I unexpectedly find myself descending, headfirst, my eyelids flapping within their sockets, barreling downward at full-speed, the darkness encompassing me like a warm blanket. But Mandy…where is Mandy?

Suddenly, I find myself lying upon a cold, tiled floor. I sit up, wide-eyed in horror and find Mandy sitting right next to me as cool as a cucumber.

We are virtually speechless.

Hours later, we find ourselves sitting at a particularly ornate dinner table clad in a clean, white tablecloth and boasting several hearty and delectable-looking dishes, with an unusual family. I snuck a glimpse at Mandy. She was unfazed and clueless, per usual. I, on the other hand, was skeptical.

“So honey, how was work today?” the women chirped gleefully, smoothing out the creases in her apron.

“The usual, dear. I’m dog-tired. So son, how was the big game? Want to toss the old pigskin around after we finish our supper?” the man asked.

“Sure pop!” The little boy grinned broadly.

The little girl frowned, running her tiny hands through her hair.

“Mother, the split ends in my hair are just getting to be too much. I need you to schedule me an appointment with Ronaldo as soon as possible!”

“Certainly dear,” the women replied obediently.

This isn’t normal…what’s going on here is bizarre. How can Mandy just sit there like an idiot with a blank expression her face?

“And God, my pores are huge and I just detest my calves! God mom, while you’re at it, call up my personal trailer and dermatologist and schedule appointments pronto.”

“Sure thing, sweetie.”

The little boy looked pensive for a moment.

“Mom, what’d you do before you married Dad?”

“Johnny, why do you ask questions like that?”

“Just wonderin’…”

“I was in college…Smith College. I took many courses and on the side, I was a debutante and learned how to be a lady from my mother. I learned etiquette, and things like that. And on one marvelous day, I met my Prince Charming that I had been waiting for all my life…your father. At a mutual friend’s party. And the rest is history.”

Oh my God, this is pathetic! She went to such a good school and is clearly an intelligent woman but she buys into the whole patriarchal nuclear family thing and well…she is clearly not very autonomous. This is rather sad. Has this woman…lived? At all? What kind of life is being swept away by some man you don’t truly love, and being held captive by him, not really loving him…just marrying him ‘cuz he’s the first to come along? How can you live? How can you find yourself and have adventures…on your own? With your girlfriends? Why get tied down so rapidly?

“What do you do all day as a housewife anyway?” the girl asks snidely.

“Now, Sarah, be kind,” the father warns, narrowing his eyes.

“I cook, I clean, and I get together with my girlfriends,” the woman says, beaming as if she just won the Nobel Prize.

Now that’s truly sad. I’ve got to…get out. This is suffocating me. I wonder what Mandy thinks.

I glance over at my friend, and the clueless grin has been wiped clean off her delicate little face, and has been replaced with a look of shock, awe, and horror. She turns toward me and nods. Instantaneously, I know that she is thinking the same thing as me. 

We need not stay any longer.

We ascend, swiftly and effortlessly into obscurity, without wings, without a plan, and without men. But you know what? For once in our lives we frankly don’t give a damn.  We will make it on our own. All by ourselves. I feel liberated, as if I had just been cast into a tranquil meadow on a balmy, sweet-smelling summer day. 

I am unfettered, perfectly receptive to the world around me. The world is my inviting abyss. It truly is very cathartic to have a revelation.

Sure, I’ve still got worries but I am no longer tied down. Everything does indeed happen for a reason; and with great pain comes great opportunities. I was saved. Pulled out from living hell just in the knick of time. The most alarming thing is that I was so deluded that I didn’t even know how oppressive the environment I was in was. 

I crane my neck, lift my head, and peer upward and I am startled, for the dim and sinister void we initially were enveloped in has ensnared itself in an overpowering shaft of light; forcing me to shut my eyes. We were now leaving the delusional, disheartening life we almost had far behind as we glide further and further into the great beam of light, towering, reaching, into the glistening, luminous atmosphere of our lives that we must revisit.