Wednesday, June 15, 2005
part one: alice & curtis
alice moved her family into a 2-bedroom unit that faced the then chicago stadium. her arrival to manicured lawns, ample green space and a laundry room where the catholic high school graduate with some college under her belt alongside her factory working husband were proud to carve out a corner apartment that was all their own, finally.
curtis: we won't stay too long, just long enough for the kids to get to middle school, then we're gone.
alice: curtis, that's too long! let's leave sooner if we can get ahead by some miracle, know?
curtis: ambitious! i like that a lot!
there, they stayed, and alice and curtis had another child: a baby boy wo died at birth. it broke alice enough to keep her locked in her apartment, leaving curtis to take brooke and michelle to school with just enough time to get to work. nights, he helped them with homework, prepared dinner and made elaborate attempts at explaining why mama stayed in the bed, it seemed, all the time. it was only there that the unexpected happened...i was born, three months too soon.
the collins homes ran from hermitage avenue on the east to oakley boulevard on the west. aolongside the development built in two phases--1957 and 1961, the elevated train lumbered past, it wheels making sparks fall onto the street below. most nights, we pretended it was the fouth of july, a display of fireworks to excite ourselves. lake street was the northern border, and above that steet, wheels of steel carried people over my head for the first fouteen years of my life.
underneath them, mothers caught the lake street bus either east to downtown or further west to see relatives that lived off of cicero or central; kedzie or laramie. there were fathers who once accompanied these mothers on excursions to the loop, but those numbers noticeably thinned out halfway into a generation. the most frequent trips for some turned into paper bag-switching and "doo-wop" notes never to be found on neither a bass or treble clefs. in the end, it was the wives and children who only lent to conversations when spoken in past tenses. in those days, many fathers left to pursue younger, prettier fares who lived in other buildings.
among the kids who traipsed long city blocks to school, i could be counted. though i wasn't one of those who would be cursed to run into their father who'd left to take up house in another part of the collin's homes , i did, however, grow up without him. i watched my friends on those moments, see how caught they were between love and hate. still, they'd go greet him, sometimes hug him. their eyes wide, i saw that relief that released itself into tears as they walked back home to their mother's who knew, but wouldn't let it show.
a short time after alice's miscarriage, she had another baby: another boy. this child lived. they named him lawrence, after alice's uncle. curtis finally had a son to take up the ball with at the park just east of their home. one to teach, finally, the boys-to-men lessons. at his first birthday, curtis spared no expense, and the whole sixth floor celebrated with alice, a seven-year-old brooke and a three-year-old michelle & a two-year old me. over twelve familes filed in and out at various intervals, all knowing alice's joys, remembering losing sons young and old to secret "passings" from abortions to miscarriages to overdoses.
in 1978, alice lost her father and a year after that, lawrence graduated from kindergarten. everyone in the family came: grandma mae, aunt cicely (daddy's sister) and uncle rich (mama's brother) along with brooke, michelle and me, who were already there. neither of daddy's parents came. that was the last year any of us saw him at the same time. phonecalls became almost nonexistent after that year as well.
one day, i just didn't see him for a long time--maybe some years, and when i did see him (the x-mas of, say 1980 when i was about 7, he came by, after all that time. that was also the year my little sister jean was born, celebrating her first xmas on the day my father came by for our mother to sign, unbeknownst to me, divorce papers.
i called him by his first name, intentionally; wanting him to know that i would only call him dad when i was over all those feelings that i told others i didn't feel, though i was going crazy with the charade. twenty-three years later, i'm over it, or so i thought until my youngest sister begin to ask all the questions that her four older siblings never wanted to.
curtis: we won't stay too long, just long enough for the kids to get to middle school, then we're gone.
alice: curtis, that's too long! let's leave sooner if we can get ahead by some miracle, know?
curtis: ambitious! i like that a lot!
there, they stayed, and alice and curtis had another child: a baby boy wo died at birth. it broke alice enough to keep her locked in her apartment, leaving curtis to take brooke and michelle to school with just enough time to get to work. nights, he helped them with homework, prepared dinner and made elaborate attempts at explaining why mama stayed in the bed, it seemed, all the time. it was only there that the unexpected happened...i was born, three months too soon.
the collins homes ran from hermitage avenue on the east to oakley boulevard on the west. aolongside the development built in two phases--1957 and 1961, the elevated train lumbered past, it wheels making sparks fall onto the street below. most nights, we pretended it was the fouth of july, a display of fireworks to excite ourselves. lake street was the northern border, and above that steet, wheels of steel carried people over my head for the first fouteen years of my life.
underneath them, mothers caught the lake street bus either east to downtown or further west to see relatives that lived off of cicero or central; kedzie or laramie. there were fathers who once accompanied these mothers on excursions to the loop, but those numbers noticeably thinned out halfway into a generation. the most frequent trips for some turned into paper bag-switching and "doo-wop" notes never to be found on neither a bass or treble clefs. in the end, it was the wives and children who only lent to conversations when spoken in past tenses. in those days, many fathers left to pursue younger, prettier fares who lived in other buildings.
among the kids who traipsed long city blocks to school, i could be counted. though i wasn't one of those who would be cursed to run into their father who'd left to take up house in another part of the collin's homes , i did, however, grow up without him. i watched my friends on those moments, see how caught they were between love and hate. still, they'd go greet him, sometimes hug him. their eyes wide, i saw that relief that released itself into tears as they walked back home to their mother's who knew, but wouldn't let it show.
a short time after alice's miscarriage, she had another baby: another boy. this child lived. they named him lawrence, after alice's uncle. curtis finally had a son to take up the ball with at the park just east of their home. one to teach, finally, the boys-to-men lessons. at his first birthday, curtis spared no expense, and the whole sixth floor celebrated with alice, a seven-year-old brooke and a three-year-old michelle & a two-year old me. over twelve familes filed in and out at various intervals, all knowing alice's joys, remembering losing sons young and old to secret "passings" from abortions to miscarriages to overdoses.
in 1978, alice lost her father and a year after that, lawrence graduated from kindergarten. everyone in the family came: grandma mae, aunt cicely (daddy's sister) and uncle rich (mama's brother) along with brooke, michelle and me, who were already there. neither of daddy's parents came. that was the last year any of us saw him at the same time. phonecalls became almost nonexistent after that year as well.
one day, i just didn't see him for a long time--maybe some years, and when i did see him (the x-mas of, say 1980 when i was about 7, he came by, after all that time. that was also the year my little sister jean was born, celebrating her first xmas on the day my father came by for our mother to sign, unbeknownst to me, divorce papers.
i called him by his first name, intentionally; wanting him to know that i would only call him dad when i was over all those feelings that i told others i didn't feel, though i was going crazy with the charade. twenty-three years later, i'm over it, or so i thought until my youngest sister begin to ask all the questions that her four older siblings never wanted to.
# posted by Fool That I Am : 5:17 PM
