I died precisely one week before I
was born. Or so I’m told. Not exactly the quirky, blush-inducing anecdote one’s
parents tell a child. “The first word out of your mouth was #*$%*@!”
Nevertheless, it is a fable from which I continue to draw meaning. Just as the
swearing toddler would grow into a foul-mouthed little bugger, so I would
become somewhat reckless with my life, my emotions, my soul, on the grounds
that I was invincible. You see how one lie can affect which “far-famed road of
the gods” a person takes? Just think how many of the verbally challenged exist
in the world today, all because their parents felt it would be a grand joke to
tell them that their first coherent symbols of humanity were curses.
Of course, my first words were a randomly obnoxious outburst of numbers. “1, 2,
3, 4, 5!” And yet I can’t pass an algebra test to save my life. I tell you this
so you understand how very little and how very much such histories have
affected me. In all likelihood, my first attempt at speech was to curse my
mother for making me eat Hawaiian Delight Gerber for the fifth time in the same
week. (Adding credence to that theory is my current distaste for pineapple and
my propensity for swearing in tongues.)
Getting back to my birth… I also had a twin, whose name would have been Jeremy.
But I have reason to doubt even that, as my mother never ceases to expound the
merits of the name Benjamin. Be that as it may, my twin died, and so did I. One
week later, after refusing to terminate her pregnancy, my mother returned to
the Iowa City hospital and was informed that my heart was, in fact, beating. As
a result, I was born precisely on time. On September 7th 1984, I entered the
world via the nuns at Mercy Hospital, to whom it is rumored my mother told to
go to hell.
I suppose it would sound nicer, certainly more romantic, to say I was born on a
beach in Bellingham. At least that is what I claimed until I turned nine. And
on that very same beach would follow one of many traumatizing moments in my
young life, involving a persistent gull and a ham sandwich. My uncle informs me
I was enamored with the tiny crabs that infested the shorelines. Their jointed,
be-speckled little legs scurrying across the fine grained sand, skimming water.
Not a lazy one among them. I don’t recall either animal, nor do I remember the
sandwich. All I see is white. White sand, white rock, even the blue ocean was
white. Probably the gulls were white and the crabs. The sandwich in question
was probably white too, as I hate wheat bread. Such is my memory.
Whether on a beach or in the care of highly forgiving nuns, my father was
curiously absent from the scene. I could say he was doing any matter of normal
things. He was so upset and worried about me, my mother, the forceps that he
plum fainted. No one would question that; it’s fairly common. Or he died
tragically two months before, leaving my strong-willed but distraught mother to
raise me on her own. I could even say that labor was sudden and thus quite
unexpected; but you shouldn’t believe that, as I’ve already told you I was born
precisely on time. But none of those are, strictly speaking, correct. Here’s
the truth:
I once—and I stress ONCE—spent two agonizingly long weeks with my grandfather
in Ohio. On top of obnoxious traveling companions, flu and an acrid taste in my
mouth that I now attribute to regret inhibited any enjoyment that might have
been squeezed out. What I got out of the trip was a picture. Okay, if I’m
honest, I’d admit to acquiring over fifty pictures from an album I snitched
before leaving. But those are beside the point. What I got was a picture,
graciously handed to me in the pages of a Harry Potter journal.
My father has my nose. Strike that; a man whose name I am told is Brian Metcalf
has my nose. Off the record, I like my other father’s name more, though.
Bremer. Steven Bremer. Sounds Norwegian
or German. Some ethnicity with history. My mom and I used to joke about
becoming Egyptian. Egyptian names are entirely too long and beautiful for
anyone other than Pharaohs and children of gods to have. Nefertiti. Akenaton.
Anyway, I have two email accounts under that name. Bremer, I mean, not
Akenaton. But I don’t have Mr. Bremer’s picture, so he really cannot resemble
me at all.
And so, when I was born at exactly 2:01 pm, my father was sitting in his car,
parked precariously close to the mailbox in front of my grandfather’s house
nearly 800 miles away. He took a long drag off a Camel cigarette, which he
hated but wasn’t his anyway and beggars can’t be choosers besides. His gurgling
choke drowned out the screeching obscenities of a woman in labor, the horrified
gasps of affronted nuns and the delayed squealing of an angry baby. He threw
the cigarette out the window and left the Sexton residence, his poetically dark
features creased in frustration. Long fingered-hands gripped the wheel in
disgust and fury. His nose twitched once, twice—what will soon become a habit
for me in times of emotional trial.
This picture I have is of poor quality. It’s grainy and everyone’s features are
indistinct, like I’m looking at them not only through 22 years but through a
fog. The dark sepia coloring adds to it a dream-like quality, and I find myself
nostalgic for a time I never experienced. Such is the magic of photography. My
grandfather and his family are grouped on the sofa and floor. Mom is crouched
beside Brian. Her stepsister Denise leans back against her new husband,
comfortable in his arms, trying to ignore my mother, the dark haired young woman, sitting beside
her. Grandpa and his wife Pat hug and smile before the flash goes off. Mom and
Brian barely touch each other, his expression carefully neutral. One of Mom’s
dark skinned hands is perched next to his, her head leaning against him. A
smile is plastered to her face, and I don’t think anyone could shake it in that
moment. Mom is too proud. Flash! Everyone laughs, wondering if they blinked in
the split second it took to record an unremarkable memory. Brian stiffly stands
up, looking around for an exit, while Mom brushes invisible lint from her
sweater. The moment passed minutes ago, and the trying to hang on to it became
awkward. His movements mirror mine, clumsy, a little too forced. Food saves the
day. It’s Thanksgiving, and everyone advances on the turkey, saliva dripping
from their mouths.
In my grandmother’s living room is a frame of five portraits. A celebration of
the female generations, from my great-great grandmother to myself. The first
four have curly jet-black hair and hooded brown eyes. Their smiles are the
same, turned up in smirks they hope resemble DaVinci’s famed lover. The fifth
is a blonde girl, not more than 12. Her bangs flap unevenly in her gray-green
eyes, her slightly aquiline nose barely supporting huge, wired-rimmed glasses,
full lips stretched wide in a Cheshire cat grin that exposed hot pink braces.
She hates taking pictures, and the photographer had apparently mistaken her for
an infant, waving a stuffed teddy bear for her to focus on. But in her pocket
burns two twenty-dollar bills.
I forgot to mention that I also received forty dollars and a Buckeye shirt in
Ohio. Don’t accuse me of anything; they were legitimately acquired.
You know that saying, “Step on a crack, break your mama’s back?” I must have
jumped up and down on many such cracks in another lifetime, because I did just
that. At eight months, I kicked my mother from inside her womb so hard, it
cracked her vertebrae. Her labor pains were much worse than they should have
been, and being denied anesthesia at a Catholic hospital—how ironic, to deny
contraception and then drugs to lessen the blows of reality—my mother screamed
at the top of her lungs exactly what she thought her tormentors could do with
themselves. I was to step—inadvertently—on many more cracks in my life thereafter.
No doubt coping with numerous boxes of hair dye—purchased at first to “express
my individuality”, then to look like the others—and my eventual refutation of
Christianity wore my mother out. By the time I began smoking, she just gave up
and lit my cigarette. Eventually, she would be weighted down incurably with the
burden of dodging my questions, trying to remember what she’d told me a few
months, a few years before.
She doesn’t know I have the picture.
But really, what can it matter? It’s just a picture. I’m not in it. Never met a
couple of people who are. Wish I hadn’t met some others. A typical family
photo, for all appearances.
Mom says I look like Mr. Steven Bremer. The blonde hair that refuses to be
curled, even with chemicals powerful enough to fry skin. Gray-green eyes that
hide—somewhat unsuccessfully—sarcastic wit and scathing commentary on life and
people passing through. My full lips slightly bow shaped, even more so when I’m
angry. She says I have her nose, her mother’s nose, her grandmother’s nose. The
schnauzer that’s been passed down from female to female in the Cline family. No
I don’t. Their noses are short, curved inward, and buttoned on the end. Mine is
aristocratic and twitches involuntarily.
It’s late, or early. 3am to be precise. I’ve just turned eighteen, and gingerly
touch the tattoo on my shoulder. I sit on the pier of Lake Calhoun in
Minneapolis. Not exactly the safest place to be, but I am unafraid; and I
suppose dying near water is the best way to go if one must. The lake is
obsidian, though, not liquid. It is glossy and smooth, like a mirror, upon
which every image is inverted and unstable. I haven’t taken up smoking yet, but
I will two years later, in self-defense. For now, the lake calms me, sucks up
every emotion and leaves me gloriously empty.
I suppose that was the problem. I’d made a habit of going to the lake until it
created a vacuum in me, an absence of emotion. If I’d felt anything before I
leaped off the edge of that mental chasm, maybe I’d have thought things through
a bit.
I blame the entire thing on my roommate. Having heard the truth about my
parentage, Crystal had a temporary lapse of sanity that infected me. It spread
through the hall like a disease, and soon everybody told me I needed to know.
Some Greek guy once said in a proem that we are all on this earth for knowledge
alone. “Ta auto noing est okay enai”. It is the same to think and to be. No,
he’s not prophesying Descartes. If I know—without a doubt—something to be true,
then it exists. What did I know to be true? After the stunt I pulled, I knew
even less than before.
What I do know, is that my father’s voice doesn’t suit his face. I don’t think
I sound like that. But then, hearing my voice on a tape recorder played back to
me is a little surreal. I never quite realize how high-pitched it is until
someone else shows me. Perhaps my voice doesn’t suit my face either. In any
case, I called Brian. Feeling like a stalker or a persistent saleswoman, I
called his number three times before I could let it ring more than twice. Third
time’s a charm. Not really. I was still a coward, but his wife was ready for me
by that time. When I would have hung up once again, she leaped on the phone. I
don’t often regret what I do. Even if it is a sin. But in the background, I
could hear children screaming. Half-brothers, half-sisters; was I the intruder
or were they? She said she would give Brian the message. He called me back
three weeks later. The first thing he asked was if my mom was dead, which is
never a good sign. Usually spells divorce, if that hasn’t happened already. We
talked for a good five minutes. That’s a lie. It was a horrible, disgustingly
drawn-out five minutes.
Jackie left after learning about her pregnancy. It was weird to hear that name
spoken. Mom changed her name to Isabella, but even before that, she was known
by Renee, her middle name. He went with her to the hospital a couple times,
until she bluntly told him to leave. Mom can be like that sometimes. She knows
how to get her point across. Anyway, she had been living with Brian and his
roommate, his best friend. Oh, God! (I’ll beat you to it.) Oh God! The “best
friend”. Where was this going? I asked politely. Was his name Steven? No.
Michael. —thought she was fooling around. —told me the kid was mine. —kid
wasn’t mine. —hospital, but she left me waiting. I haven’t heard from her
since.
I don’t think it
was really five full minutes. Maybe four. Three and a half. It disintegrated on
the drop of the “M” word. No I don’t want money. After that, the awkward
silences became too much for both our nerves. I said I’d call later. He said to
call an agency. I said okay and promptly deleted the hard-won number from my
cell phone.
Sitting there on the wooden pier of Lake Calhoun, I reflect on having three
fathers. I’ve got Brian’s nose. Steven’s hair. Michael’s—what? I’ve no idea
where my chin came from, so it was probably his.