Guam at Home, Pt. II: Still a Lady

Guam at Home

Are You At All Surprised?

Guam Goes Shopping, Laughs at the Animatrons

Assignment #3: Focal/Vocal Modifications

Crosswalking

Step outside. Evening. Chilly. Zip my coat up some more and walk down the path behind my building. So hungry. Wind blows my hair around, a wild mess. Footsteps on pavement, mine. The shwarma place isn’t too far but I might not make it. Dying of hunger. I walk along and become a famished zombie. Pass by frat houses and parties with giggling girls. Stupid. Much rather’d spend the night listening to records and getting drunk with just my boyfriend. The two of us, alone together. This’s the first time I’m heading out to get our dinner on my own, he usually comes with me. What a sickie, lying on the couch with the Xbox on. Press A and don’t pull the right trigger—X X X!—Don’t miss the mushroom! Watch out! I’m a zombie in Marioland. The Mushroom Kingdom. Crosswalk. Wait for the light to change. Little man lights up. On the main road now, busier, cars rush past. Gotta get home to your wife! Text and drive and talk and talk. Inattentive drivers. I’d rather walk, thanks. Stomp past the bus stop—mangy mutts turn to look at me. Dirties. Wind still blowing but I’m warmed up. Put my hands in my pockets. Stomach rumbles. See a group of Western girls up ahead. I am a zombie, they cannot touch me. I open my mouth and drool, stalking on shaky legs toward them. They stop chattering as they approach me. They are disgusted by the sight of me. Smile to myself. Gotta amuse yourself somehow. Through the tunnel, train tracks overhead. Will I make it through alive? I can see the light at the end! Phew, I did it. Some guy looks at me funny. Pass the tanning salon and the Asian restaurant. I can almost see the shwarma house. So hungry. My zombie stomach is grumbling. Pass Starbucks. Yuppies inside. Not on my life. People at the bus stop, crowded. I push through them, come to the corner. Stop, wait for the light to change. A woman is standing there with her daughter. Little girl won’t stop talking. Man, children bug the hell outta me. The cars begin running parallel to me, but the little man does not light up. The bright orange hand still says stop. Broken. Oh well, cross anyway. The woman grabs her daughter’s hand and begins to cross too.

The little girl says, “Mommy, there isn’t a cross sign. We can’t go!” She’s getting worked up, pulling back on her mother’s hand. “No! We can’t walk! The light’s not green! No, mommy!”

The woman says, “Hush, Amy.”

I walk faster and pass them, but I can still hear the little girl squealing.

*     *     *     *     *

Leave the sitter’s, going home with Mommy. Only a few blocks from our house. I know where that is. We walk down the busy street. Mommy holds my hand. I tell her what I did today.

“Cindy and I made placemats outta leaves. And Johnny liked mine better’n asked if we could trade, but I said no ’cause I made it for YOU!”

“That’s very nice of you to make it for me, but I hope you weren’t rude about trading with Jonathan.”

“I wasn’t rude.” Why would she think that? Wonder if he said something when I wasn’t looking. I’m glad he only comes to Cindy’s on Mondays. I tell mommy about how we collected leaves from the backyard.

“Red’n orange ones, really pretty,” I say.

“I bet. Listen, what do you want for dinner tonight?”

I dunno. I think for a minute. Then: “Psghetti!” Mommy agrees. Yum.

We get to the corner and wait for the light to change. Home is just across the street and then turn at the next left. Number 12. The cars change direction, but the hand is still up. Then Mommy steps forward into the street, even though the little white man isn’t walking!

I say, “Mommy, there isn’t a cross sign. We can’t go!” What is she doing? Doesn’t she realize we could get hit?

Mommy keeps walking, pulling me along into traffic. I yank back on her hand. “No! We can’t walk! The light’s not green! No, mommy!”

Mommy says, “Hush, Amy.”

Omygod, we’re going to die. We’re going to get hit by a car. The hand still says no. We’re gonna die!

“Mommy…”

“Knock it off, Amy.”

My heart is pounding. Thump thump thump! I imagine cars screeching. Crash! Mommy holds my hand even tighter, but she doesn’t have to drag me now. I want to get to the other side as fast as we can. Hurry! I don’t wanna get hit! A girl passes us and makes it across before us. She is ok. She keeps walking, doesn’t look back. We’re almost there… safe! I let out my breath, panting. Phew.

*     *     *     *     *

The restaurant is empty except for the manager. Early twenties. Shirt collar open to reveal a hairy, bronzed chest. I awkwardly order. One chicken shwarma, one lamb. Everything smells so good. Chicken on the spit looks really fresh. The manager smiles at me while making my sandwich. I am a zombie. This guy cannot touch me. Pay, leave. Gotta get home to Thom! I get to the corner. Cars rush past. The light doesn’t change for me. I start walking. I am not dying. I will be home in a few minutes.

Sleepover Experiments, 1: How to Catch The Tooth Fairy

Photograph by Katie Vanderhaeghe, Sweater Eyes. Click to enlarge.

Ella’s over to play, even though we’re only friends some of the time. But she lives down the block, so if there’s nobody else around we’ll play together. Once I threatened to punch her in the stomach because she was bugging me, and she ran home to tell on me so fast that my mom was waiting, really angry, on my front porch. Ella’s mom had already phoned.

Anyway, she’s over and her tooth is loose—her bottom one to the left—and we decide that we should yank it out and then try to catch the Tooth Fairy that night. She could be our secret friend. Well, first we have to get out the tooth and convince our moms to let us have a sleepover.

Ella sits on the toilet seat while I wrap her loose tooth with a Kleenex and try wiggling it in her open mouth.

She looks up at me with doe eyes that I really can’t stand.

“Ez et oerking?” she says.

“Yeah, I think so,” I tell her, twisting the tooth a little. Ella winces a little and I let up, watching her squirm and then regain composure, her jaw hanging slack. The Kleenex is getting a bit bloody.

Whatever. I’m the one pulling it out, not feeling the pain.

I twist the tooth again, stronger this time—and let up again immediately. Coax it along.

“What are you two doing?”

My mother’s standing in the bathroom doorway.

“My tooth is loose!” Ella says gleefully.

My mom narrows her eyes and asks if we’re twisting it. We say no, and ask if Ella can sleep over.

“Please, mom, please? We’ll be good!”

“I’ll call my mom and ask!”

“No,” mom says, “I’ll phone your mom and ask.”

We all smile innocently at each other and then mom goes back downstairs. As soon as we hear her start talking, Ella opens her mouth again, and I go in for the kill.

“Ohhwww.”

Success!

Ella grins with a gap, eyes shining, blood dribbling down her chin, and the tooth in a soggy tissue. So far so good. Ella runs to the top of the stairs and yells down at my mom that her tooth came out, will the tooth fairy know to visit me here?

Ella goes home shortly after that to collect her overnight bag. My mom and I put a fresh spread on my top bunkbed after clearing off all the stuffed animals. There are a lot. I have a collection. I don’t like sleeping far off the ground, which is kind of funny considering I have a bunk bed and most kids like to be up high. I like to climb trees, but other than that, no thanks.

Anyway, my mom and I finish making up my room and then go downstairs to make supper, me plotting all the while.

*

After dinner Ella and I write down the plan in my notebook. It’s from Thrifty’s and is made from the seat of a pair of blue jeans. The pockets hold pens and notes and really any kind of paper you want to hide in there. It’s pretty cool. My older sister has one too.

“We need to make a house for her to stay in,” I say. We’re sitting on my bedroom floor, on the rug with a howling wolf on it. My door is closed.

“It should have a lid so she can’t fly out.”

“She’s not a prisoner.”

“I know.”

We both look around the room but see nothing that would be a suitable house—any kind of container big enough for a fairy.

“How big do you think she is?” I ask.

Ella stops looking around and sits still for a second. “Um, probably pretty big, cuz she has to carry teeth.”

“That makes sense.”

We get up and go to the playroom. There’s lots of stuff in there—there has to be something for a house.

In the bottom of the games closet, under a basket of plastic dinosaurs, there’s a square, pink box with a snap-on lid. It’s pretty big.

“How’bout that?” I point, but Ella’s already working on weaselling it out. We take the blue box and the tub of Barbie clothes back to my room. Before shutting ourselves away again, I look in the craft cabinet at the top of the stairs. My mom has spent years collecting the soap beds from her Clinique face soap, saving them in case she ever builds a dollhouse that requires tiny green beds. I find the box of soap beds—far too many of them, holy moly—and choose the largest. I also find some foam scraps to use as a mattress.

Back in my bedroom, we’re picking out pretty Barbie clothes to offer to the Tooth Fairy and decorating the empty inside of the blue box “house.” We layer the bottom with a nicely folded scarf my mom bought me from a global goods store. It’s pure silk, I think.

There’s a knock on my door. It’s mom.

“What are you girls doing?” she asks.

“We’re going to catch the Tooth Fairy tonight!” we tell her excitedly, each interrupting the other as we explain how we’re going to hide Ella’s tooth so that the Tooth Fairy won’t know where it is right away. Then we’re going to fake sleep. When she flies into the room, I (on watch) will signal to Ella who’ll throw down a blanket to cover the fairy. Then we’ll shut the window and try to convince her to stay. We’ll show her the house we set up and the clothes we’ve picked out for her—some really pretty dresses, shoes, and capes. And we’ll tell her how nice we are and how close we both live—just down the block from each other—which means Ella can visit and play all the time.

I never mention that I don’t really like Ella all that much and probably won’t have her over again, which means that I get to play with the magical Tooth Fairy all by myself.

My mom might suspect this, which is why when we’re finished telling her about our plan, she raises her eyebrows and says, “Really? Great.” She sounds a little tired and looks at me funny. She tells us to have fun and then leaves.

*

Ella and I are “ready” for bed—meaning that we told my mom no, we weren’t going to stay up all night long, that we were going to go to sleep. As soon as my mom says goodnight and leaves, we whisper in the dark to each other:

“I’ll keep watch.”

“I won’t fall asleep, don’t worry.”

We are both so intent, believing so honestly that we can actually catch this secret dream.

*

We both fall asleep.

And in the morning, Ella looks under her blanket at the foot of the bed, where she hid her tooth, and there a shiny Loonie wrapped up in the Kleenex instead of Ella’s gross little tooth.

“You fell asleep!”

“So did you!”

I shrug. “There are other chances, I guess.” More of Ella’s teeth I could pull out, if I could stand her.

“We better go show your mom and dad, I guess.”

Downstairs, even though we’re slightly disappointed and a little annoyed with ourselves for falling asleep, mom’s chocolate chip pancakes in animal shapes cheer us up. By the end of breakfast, we’ve lost interest in the Tooth Fairy endeavour all together.

Photograph by Katie Vanderhaeghe, Sweater Eyes. Click to enlarge.

Look at this scrawl. The plan.

And yet, it is only now, after all these years, that I realize we didn’t write down Catch the Tooth Fairy, the most important part of the whole operation. A rather vital step, don’t you agree?

Photograph by Katie Vanderhaeghe, Sweater Eyes. Click to enlarge.

Experiment 5: turngreen

He looked up at it in silent fury, his fists already balled.

The traffic light, red, stared back at him.

“If only we’d made the light,” his mother muttered. They had been abruptly cut off by another car. He saw it happen.

“Don’t worry,” he told her bravely. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll use my powers.”

“O, would you!” she said breathlessly. “That would be terrific.”

He hunched up his shoulders and leaned forward on the seat a little, getting into position. Then he squinted his eyes and began chanting, quietly but forcefully: “Turn green. Turn green. Turn Green.”

He lost awareness of his mother and the other cars. There was nothing but the light and himself. That red light, so strong and stubborn. Would he be able to do it? Would his special powers change the light? He clenched his jaw and sneered through his teeth, “Turngreenturngreenturngreen,” barely taking breaths now. He could do it, he could overpower it. The other drivers would wonder why the light had changed back to their lanes so quickly, but they would also step on the gas. Grinning at their luck. Yeah, well it’s mine, buster. You’re not gonna win this time, you dirty bright light. You’re gonna turn for us instead of them, you’re gonna let our car through. Mom’s encouraging me, you’re about to turn, yes you’re gonna get green, you’re gonna turn green this instant this very second nnnnnnnnow!

The traffic light changed from red to green and the boy’s mother drove forward with the other cars. He unclenched his fists and relaxed his shoulders.

“I changed the light for you,” he said proudly.

“You sure did! Thank you,” she said, careful not to let her son see the curl of derisive, uppity laughter in her mouth.