Page 26 - Finding Tulsa - Preview

18 Jim Provenzano

4. reincarnation proves

ancient telepathic blood

Carrot top.
Through a stroke of genetics, both my brother and I inherited our fa-
ther’s dingy Polish gray-brown eyes and hair, and his square jaw. The cleft
chin, I think, came from the Irish. It was Mother’s Irish side that nestled
inside, I guess.
“Never was an artist in my family before you two,” Dad would say,
surprised and proud of his sons’ increasingly flamboyant skills. Well, may-
be mine were a bit more so.
But the red hair was definitely on Mom’s side.
A gang of junior high kids and I, mostly the theatre crew of Brookside,
piled into Mindy Menck’s mom’s Cadillac to a mall movie showing of
Carrie. I forget who hissed it first, but the moment Piper Laurie stalked
up that driveway, russet red hair shining off a black cape, somebody said,
“It’s Mrs. Grozniak!” And it stuck.
I remember laughing too, but later, when Carrie’s mom turned out to
be a freak, I burned inside. Not that I was really embarrassed about my
mom and her fiery red hair. People already knew we didn’t go to church.
She used to go door to door recruiting wives for the League of Women
Voters, a several-years activity that also got her in the local yawner, The
Brookside Gazette. She wore black and red Pendleton capes and knee-high,
don’t-fuck-with-me snow boots that made the plain folk in town stare. She
was the pioneer of our collection of family news clippings.
I was secretly proud of my mom and her orange hair, and even more
secretly thrilled by her mysterious brothers. They were from Pittsburgh,
where we were all originally born. We got out before I could absorb mem-
ories. One of my mom’s brothers supposedly disappeared. The other is in
a grave in Piscataway, sent by one needle too many.
The most I had of them were photos in the attic, next to an eave
where, possibly still hidden, is the second issue of Playgirl, which I’d stolen
shortly after I grew pubic hair and the balls to shoplift.
Several photos of my Uncle Sean, shirtless, lay stuffed in a box in the
attic of my parents’ home. Him in reform school in Pittsburgh. Him at