Kris T Parker's Open Salon Blog

1968: Fighting with Debbi

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 23:11:50 -0500

More of this month's National Write a Novel in a Month offering.

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Dori and I walked down the stairs together, arm around shoulder and legs together as if we shared a third leg. We got to the stair with the fish outline ripped out of the black stair mat and we both jumped so as not to touch “the fish stair.” Caryn walked down the stairs behind us and jumped the stair too, with no one noticing.

Once we got out to Odgen Avenue, we saw that Debbi was already across the island in the middle of the street and was running in front of a south-bound bus. Dori screamed “Run, Debbi, faster.” Caryn gasped audibly behind me and then we relaxed when we saw the bus pass with Debbi still running on the sidewalk beyond it. “Debbi, you scared me,” Dori yelled to the wind.

Dori took Caryn’s hand as we looked cautiously before making our own way across four lanes of traffic.

We met up with Debbi in LaRoc’s on the corner of Grand and Ogden Avenues. Debbi already placed an order for an extra large frozen custard. “I was gonna buy sodas,” I said as I looked at the cash clenched in my hand.

“Don’t worry, hon.” Gus, the owner smiled at me from across the counter. “Pay me the difference when you can. Joey, look at these little ladies. Who are you, doll? You with that curly red hair. You’re going to be a heart breaker. How old are ya?”

“Debbi. I’m Debbi. I’m 13.”

“You already broke my heart, doll.” Joey held his hand across his chest and winked at Debbi. He nodded at Dori then, “How ‘bout you?”

Dori stood rimrod straight like her towhead hair over her pale face and enunciated perfectly, “My name is Dori and I’m 12-years old. I’m Noreen’s cousin and these are my sisters.”

“I’m next in age.” I said excitedly.

“Yeah, be we already know you.” Gus looked from me to Caryn. “And you’re Noreen’s little cousin, huh?”

Caryn ran behind Dori.

“No name?”

Caryn poked her head from behind Dori and shook her head for a response.

“Well Joey, we got us here one of each, a redhead, a towhead, brunette, and a dishwater blonde.”

“My hair’s not dishwater.”

“Who said that?” Gus looked at Joey, with a mock of a smile on his face.

“The little one, with no name.”

“Honey, you have beautiful hair. That’s just the color of it. Now, will you tell me your name?”

“Caryn.”

“Caryn, do you want a vanilla or chocolate cone?”

“Chocolate.”

“Joey, Caryn wants a chocolate cone. Can you get it for her?”

“Thanks Gus,” I plopped down my cash and added my order to Dori’s.

LaRoc’s was a fixture in our neighborhood, a hotdog joint that was lit up all night long. Originally three brothers owned it, but Gus bought out the other two and was the only owner that I ever knew at the place. It stood like a beacon, the only building on a full city corner with plenty of parking for the trucks that could have begun their ride down Route 66 at that point. I often imagined that this, in fact, was the point where Route 66 began, on Ogden Avenue in Chicago – straight aways to Cal-I-for-nia. Probably not, but LaRoc’s sure did bring in a lot of truckers. In another few years it would be my first job, if you don’t count making mimeograph copies for the nuns in the rectory.

Walking out of LaRoc’s, we walked around the neighborhood licking our frozen custards. Walking east on Grand Avenue we past the Italian bakery that was closing up shop for the afternoon. I nodded to the owner as she removed some cookies from the window and cleaned the area. Turning to Dori, I asked, “So, why did your father beat your mother this time?”

“Shut up!” Debbi screamed in response.

“Was I talking to you?”

“Er, she walked into a door,” Dori answered like a robot.

“Huh?” I looked from Debbi’s red, angry face all scrunched in on itself to Dori’s calm look that mimicked her mother’s response to me.

“Come on, what really happened?” I looked at Debbi directly.

“Notta a fucking thing.”

“You want me to think that your mother is so stupid that she’d walk right into a door. And what. And rip open her wrist too? By accident?”

“Yeah!” Debbi threw the rest of her cone to the ground – splat.

“Like your father. Look at me, I’m walking in front of a car. Look at me on the ground while a tire rolls over my face. I’m too stupid to get uuppph.”

My cone was suspended in the air as my fist cracked into the side of Debbi’s head. The fight was on. We rolled across the sidewalk toward the traffic. Dori screamed at us to stop, but stood between us and the street to keep us from rolling into danger.

Our fights were always painful events. We could hear Dori screaming and Caryn whimpering as I punched and Debbi scratched at me like a mountain lion. We yelled, swore, ripped at each other’s emotional wounds and rolled back and forth on the sidewalk over melted custard cream and our own fears.

Tired out, we leaned into each other and cried. I cried for my father who I still missed terribly and Debbi cried because she was filled with the rage of both of her parents. We pushed off each other and got back to our feet. We were surrounded by four tossed cones with varying degrees of oozing custard melting out of them. We brushed ourselves off and continued walking. Although we couldn’t kill each other, we still had time to kill.

My mother is four years older than her sister, although she was more of a mother to her than my crazy grandmother Helen, ever was. My mother became the caregiver when they were seven and three years old. There was a fire and their house filled with smoke. The kids were home alone for some reason. My grandfather was at work, since it was during the day. My grandmother was out with her circus friends. Her best friend had a gig as a spinner. She would hold onto a bar by her teeth and spin above the circus tent.

1968: My aunt and cousins move in

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 13:11:52 -0500

More of this month's National Write a Novel in a Month offering.

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I got up to answer the knock on the door. Through the frosted glass, I could see that it was my Aunt Dorothy and my three cousins. I ran in response and flung the door open.

“Dori!” I shouted as she dropped the bag in her right hand and the stuffed pillowcase in her left. We grabbed each other and jumped together, out of the hallway and into the kitchen. As she yelled my name and I yelled hers, in our familiar yelp: “Noree” and “Dori” and “Noree” again.

Debbi stepped on Dori’s belongings and walked in to the room like a zombi with the weight of the world on her brain-dead mind. She mumbled something like, “move this shit so people can get in the house.” Debbi walked immediately to my bed and threw her crap on it.

My brother looked up from the sofa and yelled out “I’m not giving up my bed.” As my mother responded, “you don’t have to. They’re only staying for a couple of nights.” Nicky shook his head and mumbled, “it’s never just a couple of nights.”

Nicky walked past Dori and me, still in our excited hug, he walked past my aunt who had already dropped her own bags in the kitchen and was now stooped over picking up Dori’s stuff. Caryn stood in the hallway as if expecting an invitation from Nicky, instead he walked right past her and then ran down the stairs to the freedom of the neighborhood.

“Come in” my mother waved to her sister “I’ll make us a fresh pot of coffee.” Caryn followed her mother in response. My mother lit up a Salem, shook the match until the flame died and flipped it into the ashtray on the kitchen table as she walked to the electric coffee pot on the stove.

“Noreen,” she called out to me, “help your cousins put things away in your room.” Looking at her sister’s black eye and bandaged wrist she said, “sit down, Dorth. Relax.”

1968: Street Dance

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 12:11:51 -0500

I'm taking part in nanowrimo.org this month and thought I'd share some of my drivel with you. I'm writing about the year 1968. I was in the 6th grade, at a new school, adjusting to my father's death while the world went to hell in a hand basket. Here's a taste:

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Kathy, Geri and I walked to Racine Street and the view opened up to us. It felt like we were in the center of the world, and in one major way – we were. At 11-years old, Geri and I were smack dab in the middle of the Baby Boomer era, and smack dab in the middle of the street dance in front of us. There were as many kids younger than us, and pushed in strollers along the perimeter of the party, as there were older kids leaning into each other to show their intimacy, or trading secrets of how to get out of the Viet Nam war.

The songs united all of us at that moment as “Louie, Louie” ended and “In the Midnight Hour” began. All were welcome at the street dance, the Italian Gaylords, the Spanish Latin Kings, my black classmates from St. John’s, the Polish kids from Chicago Avenue all sang together as badly as any mob that spilled out across three blocks. The songs and our blue jeans united us. We were urban kids at a time when it was great to be a kid.

Looking up we could see that kids were looking down at us from the roof of Silvestri’s factory. The band was in the parking lot of the place where Christmas decorations were made, but since the place was closed and the fire escape ladder was down, I encouraged Kathy and Geri to climb up to the roof with me.

“Are you crazy?” Geri muttered. “We’ll fall.”

”How are you gonna fall? You’re just walking up the ladder steps. I’ve been up there plenty of times.”

“Noreen used to play with Peter, Sammy, and Ricky.” Kathy smiled awkwardly and added, “like a tomboy.”

Geri looked at me and added “With Val too?”

“I don’t know who that is,” I answered while walking toward the fire escape ladder. They followed.

We climbed up with me leading the way. The roof was packed with older kids dancing or lying on top of each other, making out. We walked to the edge for a better view of the scene below. Looking back at the older, more romantic, teens we understood why there were so many open positions at the best viewing spots. I sat on the edge and started clapping in time to “In the Midnight Hour.” Kathy and Geri looked on from a safer distance and started clapping with the audience, the echo reverberating on the brick buildings surrounding the factory parking lot. From our vantage point we could see the crowd sitting on every porch, leaning out of every window, and looking down from the highest third-floor apartment buildings. We added to the noise by screaming out:

I'm gonna wait 'til the midnight hour

That's when my love comes tumbling down

I'm gonna wait 'til the midnight hour

That's when my love begins to shine

Just you and I, oh baby, just you and I

Ghost Supper pix

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 13:11:57 -0500

The Ghost Supper was fun. Really, it was just an excuse to get together with family and friends - and march everyone out with the last of the sweets so I wouldn't eat all the leftover cake and candy.

The Halloween-decked front porch greeted all.

Inside, guests mingled in the Smoking Lounge. Ok, it was a bit cozy.

Aaron got a huge flame by offering a single-malt scotch to his dearly departed. Hmm, it looks like he then dashed behind the womanfolk, although they actually stepped up with their offerings.

My cousin Fran offered the traditional plate of food to the deceased. NoisyNora waited with a bag of dried flowers.

The smoking lounge revealed

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:10:54 -0400