Page 51 - WTP VOl. X #6

inane lyrics of Louis Jordan’s “Fat Back and Corn Liquor.” But the ultimate was “We’re in the Jailhouse Now”; we’d howl with laughter at Jimmie Rodgers’ nasal twang and all but die at choice lines like “When a big policeman came and knocked him down.”
When we weren’t laughing, we were bickering. Most arguments ended with Cathy and me turning on Sha- ron, calling her “string hair” and “Sow-ie Lee,” recast- ing “Sharee Lee,” my mother’s pet name for her.
the when.”
By 5:30 or 6, Ma would walk in the door after seven hours at the tavern, knowing she had to make sup- per, and find us all just starting our chores. We were furiously at work, as though we’d been slaving away all day.
”You brats! What have you been doing? Can’t you give me any help? God almighty!”
I felt mean and ungrateful, a rotten kid washing the basement bathroom floor, which gave me the creeps, down on my knees while daddy longlegs crawled by. I could hear my mother above in the kitchen slamming pots and pans and gradually get- ting quieter. “I saddled up and away I did ride,” she sang, more tired rebuke than music-making, though she liked Marty Robbins.
But there were no getaways for a good Catholic mother with six kids. Ma started putting in longer hours at the tavern, waiting to be relieved by the per- sonality behind the bar. “Murph is looking forward
to seeing you,” his ad in the community newspaper declared with a photo of the man himself, who would increasingly stretch out his time away from the bar, watching “Maverick” or “Perry Mason” and drinking down rounds of his shot and a beer.
One Sunday the dining room was set for supper, and he picked up the table and flipped it on its side. There was a crash of china breaking, and Pa was yelling about the food. The breaded pork chops were burned, the air acrid with barely visible smoke, as though an unseen fire had engulfed the dining room, ruining everything. No one dared say a word. After my mother stopped crying, she cleaned up the mess.
I don’t remember if we ever ate any of the food, but we must have. Somehow, I ended up sitting on the back stairs that led to the basement, the stairs I had just washed, guiltily and badly, the day before. The door opened.
“B.T.?” It was my dad standing there. Was he mad
at me?
“E
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very memory is a
piece of time, but I always find myself first recalling the where, not
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