soapboxdiner

A story of family, begrudging and altruistic

Not to detract from Ms. Ethel's heartening story about her recent exposure to the good samaritan, but more to reflect on an experience of my own in like fashion (as a means, and as is my apparent habit, to find a bonding commonality), I shall now tell you a story from the wee distance days of the SBD past. Please feel free to seat yourself comfortably in your favorite comfy computer chair, put on some fuzzy slippers and take off your bra if that's your thing. I mean, sure, bras are great for support and fashion and all, but let's be real here, they were designed by men who apparently never ever in their wildest imaginations conceived of the possibility that over the shoulder boulder holders can cut into your tender flesh and hurt you like a sorrowfully unrequited firt love. Or a vicious bitch slap - take your pick. The point being, bras fucking hurt, okay? You are, most likely, home now - take that bad boy off. If it makes you feel better about it, I'll let you know without any shame whatsoever, right now at this very moment, my birds and flying free, babe. And I tell you, Damn, that feels better.

So, are you comfy yet? Ah... good. On with the story.

So once upon a time, SBD felt a pang of nostalgia for the family she'd not seen since her parents' divorce, lo all those long years before when she was six. She missed her family and wanted to spend her week's vacation from work traveling back over time and across the country to visit and hopefully stay for a day, maybe two, with the blood of her blood, her aunts and uncles - two pairs. They lived in a once fairly booming almost Midwest / not quite Northwest city, in SBD's town of birth and childhood.

In the grips of flowery (if timid) desire to rekindle lost ties, the girl called around - mother, sister, brother and all, for a number. She worked for the number you see, and her work at last bore fruit: ten little digits in which she laid her hope.

She remembered the good times with these people: the Christmases with the trees and the chocolate-laden count down calendars, the Easters with egg hunts and ham, the masses with rosaries and genuflexes. The slumber parties sprawled acrossed twin beds in pastel pink little girl rooms with ruffled floral curtains. The hamper chute in the upstairs bathroom we as young girls slid down to fall into heaped up laundry baskets in the basement. The PlaySkool tape recorders we'd use when interviewing each other on the books we'd recently read - pretending we were the authors giving readings in front of adoring masses.

Yes, SBD remembered these things, and longed to reacquiant her young adult self to these people from her youth. And so she called that number. She waited as the ringer ticked off one, then two, and at last a third brief ring before Aunt S at last breathed a low and soothing, "Hello?" into her receiver.

The girl stuttered out her own greeting and proceeding to give her name.

Ah! SBD! It is been so long since we've talked! How have you been, dear? How are you, your mother and your sister and brother?

And so they spoke for the very first time in over a decade. And it was nice for a while, catching up. It was nice talking about such things as graduations and what followed, about paths and roads and the people and places and experiences that had intervened. It felt not as if time slipped away in the span of one conversation (as the years from primary school to independence are too vastly tranformative to recover) but instead it felt as if a second foundation was being laid atop the familial one of birth. And it was at this point that SBD found the courage to broach the topic purposed.

Auntie S, it has been sooo long. I miss you so. I have some time coming up, I want to come out and visit. You have such a lovely home, large and beautiful with four bedrooms and space galore - could you maybe find a corner for me for a night or two? I wouldn't be a burden. I don't need much. But it would mean so much to me to be able to see you again.

SBD waited through the long silent pause emitting from the other end. She held her breath and hoped despite intuiting that any pause, but most especially one as long as that which she was receiving, could not bode well for her.

I'm sorry, SBD. We just don't have the room. What with your cousin A in Chicago now in law school, and your cousin J, who moved back home with his wife and small child, working out of state, we just don't have any room. There are four of us now in this tiny shack of a four story house, and I just don't think we could make room for another person to come and visit.

We'd love to see you though. Maybe we could all go out to dinner when you come. Just call first, dear. We'll set something up.

And SBD was sad to realize that she was not to be easily reintegrated into her lost family.

Final promises and proclamations of love were made, and the girl returned her handpiece to its cradle. How could it be, she questioned, that her nearly empty nested aunt and uncle could not, or would not, gladly - no - eagerly, unfold a fold out couch for her? How could they not joyfully welcome her? All that space... all that time. SBD traveling all that way for the sole purpose of seeing them again? And they turned her away? They suggested instead an hour in a cold, neutral diner, sitting rigidly in some vinyl covered booth bench being served an RC soda in a 6 ounce glass and maybe a hot dog if they weren't too pressed for time?

Hurt. Hurt and crushed. But more so, just really unimpressed with the hollowness of the offer.

And so, SBD decided "no thank you, dear Auntie S. And as a matter of fact perhaps if I may make a counter suggestion, why don't you kiss my ass? After all, isn't it customary to kiss ouchies? And after that kick you just landed square in my gut that knocked my ass to the floor, it's my ass's hurt I'd like you to make all better."

I've always been a tactfully gracious girl at heart, you see. At least when presented with disappointments such as this.

Yet still, SBD recovered. After all, there was still another aunt and uncle she recalled lovingly. They still lived in the town, in the same small two bedroom house she remembered fondly as the place where Antie A with her raven hair that fell past her waist and down to mid thigh, stood at the stove pit-patting homemade tortillas. It was still the place Uncle A came home to after long days out as a trash collector, only to seat himself at the composite/plastic and aluminum table with a can of Oly beer and pork rinds dipped in picante sauce. They were still in the house where people ate in shifts because there were always too many people for the space. The house still alive with Charlie Pride, Freddie Fender, and salsa music after dinner. Evenings spent dancing in the living room and laughing. Children falling atop each other in exhausted happy slumber. Never enough but never minding.

And I called. I talked with my other cousin A.

How've you been? It's been forever. You know, you were always my favorite cousin. Did you know that? Everyone else was so much older, or so much younger. You and I were close though. I was so lonely for you after what your grandpa tried with me - after Mom stopped letting me go over there. I'd love to see you again.

That would be nice. I'm sure Dad will say yes. You want me to have him call you when he gets home?

That would be nice. Yes, please have him call me.

And he did. Uncle A and SBD chatted. She told him her plan. She asked her question. Here is what he said:

Oh, Girl. Why the hell not. Of course you can come. It won't be the Ritz though, just so you know. What with your Cousin A moving back home with her boyfriend and their baby. Your other cousin, Boy, is back home too with his woman and their two babies. I'd offer you the couch, but the babies are there. I'm sure we could find you a spot on the floor though. We can lay you out some blankets for cushion and another to cover you. But you sure are more than welcome to come stay as long as you're in town.

And I thought, "What kind of hell must it be to have six adults and three children living in such a small house? Only my uncle and his daughter, my cousin A, working. My Auntie would have worked, but Uncle was a traditional man. So she stayed home with the babies. Boy (short for Uncle A Jr.) was a pot head more content to roam the streets - at least by the brief accounts I'd been recounted.

But still, they wanted me there. They offered me a place, no matter how humble. They cared enough for the same thing I cared about, family - to share what they had with me.

The whole experience crystallized for me that you can have all the affluence in the world and still be very poor; but contrarily, you can barely make your ends meet and still have more than even the richest Jones family down the street.

I think I'd rather have the latter. Thanks, Uncle A, for showing me that.

7:59 pm - 08.15.03
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