Quietly Crazy
by Monika M. Segally © 2006
CHAPTER 3
Hallucinations? How can you tell me what's real and what isn't? You don't see with my eyes or hear with my ears. Do you think that because you have an “education” that makes you an expert on reality? How do you know I'm not your hallucination?
Grandmother is going to be a whole book on her own. She hasn't always been very nice to Mama or me for that matter. And she hates with a passion my Ms. Rosa. I think she's jealous because Ms. Rosa is the grandmother she'll never be.
Grandmother Stone's letters are different now. Before Romeo's funeral, they came regularly – once a week. She always wrote on thick creamy stationary in perfect penmanship. She talked about all the places they had been and charity events she had organized – insignificant things to me. Now she writes all the time, sometimes on notebook paper. Now she writes about who she is and where she came from and what her life is really like. Sometimes she talks about my father. It's pretty interesting, but I feel so weird knowing all these personal things about her now. My grandmother kind of looks like a horse. I think that's why she can't stand Mama. Grandmother told me my father is in the states again. Why doesn't she get that I don't give a shit if he flew to the moon?
Your mother has mentioned that you would visit your Grandparents in Chicago quite often over the years. How is it that you have never met your father if he still lives in their home?
I have met your Grandparents and they seem to care for you greatly. Your Grandfather was extremely upset after seeing you.
My scumbag father is an adult. He knows how to cheat, lie, and hide. He goes away before I ever get to town. He has his own money and probably some of theirs to help him run away.
Grandfather Stone is a much nicer person than Grandmother is. He was my salvation on all those trips. I remember the first time I flew to Chicago to see them. I was six. Before then, they would come to visit here now and then and stay one day at a hotel 30 miles away. They almost never stayed with us. Grandmother thinks Blue Hills is just a one-horse town. (She's actually right because Preacher Ryan keeps an old horse in his barn and that's the only horse in town.) She would come to our apartment, that Mama kept spotless, and always use a lace-trimmed hankie to dust off her seat. Even as a kid it pissed me off to see her being so mean. Mama was so gracious to them in spite of her rudeness. I know it was hard for Mama to see Grandfather Stone because he was an older version of his loser son.
I could tell Grandfather Stone felt terrible for Mama. He treated her with such politeness and respect. Whenever he would visit, we would find money tucked in strange spots all over the house. He knew Mama was too proud to ever accept a handout. It was his way of showing he cared. At first, Mama would send the cash back when she found it. But when he would visit again, he kept on hiding it. One time Mama found him rolling up twenties and shoving them into a vase. She said he had such a look of pure joy on his face while he did that. Mama didn't send the money back after that. She said, “If that's what makes the poor man feel better, as much as I hate it, I won't take it away from him.” It became a game to me. Once the Grandparents went home, I went on a money hunt.
Mama was not happy about this. She feared I would become greedy and materialistic. But I became those things after I visited them in Chicago that first time. It was when I discovered underwear could be made out of silk and fit right instead of drooping. It was when I realized clothes were bought in stores and not made out of fabric that Mama sewed that was haggled off the dollar discount table. It was when I realized we were damn poor and I realized how much I hated being that way.
It was the first time I flew on an airplane. Not many people here in Blue Hills ever get to do that. Nobody ever seems to want to leave here and do that anyhow. I thought I was so brave and adventurous to fly all the way there alone. The stewardess kept an eye on me and brought me my first soda ever. Mama would never allow me to have “teeth rotting juice.” I guess she was right because I rarely drink soda and I do at least have nice teeth.
I was fine until I got off the plane and saw Grandmother Stone. The airport was loud and crowded yet Grandmother stood there so calmly in her pale pink Chanel suit. Her hands were clasped together tight, her purse was tucked under her left arm, not a hair out of place in her crown-like up do. And there was me, soda spilt down the front of my dress, my hair ribbons had fallen out and my new white shoes were already scuffed. The way she looked at me still makes me feel about two inches tall just remembering it.
“Margaret Honora, come along.” She spoke in a clear crisp voice. For some reason I felt glued to the spot I was standing in, as if I had suddenly been struck deaf, mute, and paralyzed. “Margaret Honora, please come along.” Grandmother became impatient. And I couldn't move because I just realized I was spending eighteen days with this old lady who didn't like me.
Grandfather saved me that time. He bent down to whisper in my ear, “Maggie dear, hold my hand. I'm glad you're here to see me.” I did love him right away.
Grandmother Stone is not a horrible person. I do think she loves me now at least. I think she missed out on the thought that being nice to people is human. Sometimes I think she's like some kind of android, she goes on about her business never shedding a tear. It was Grandfather who got all crazy and emotional over me. They took me to the Lincoln Park Zoo that first trip. I was fascinated with the ape house, and making faces through the glass at the apes, and I grunted back at them and howled. Grandfather laughed so hard and Grandmother became angry with the two of us.
I don't know what part of me, or my life, she held against me. I guess I wasn't upper class enough for her. She hated that we were poor. She threw away all my clothes Mama had packed for me and bought me what she thought was acceptable.
When I stayed there, it was constant criticism. “Margaret Honora, we don't speak with our mouths full.”
“Margaret Honora, the Stones do not for any reason run outside in bare feet and our nightgown.”
“What if the mansion was on fire, could I then?” I asked in feigned innocence.
Grandmother squinted at me. I swear I could see smoke coming out of her ears when her face turned red. Well there you are- a human reaction. That was the first one. Needless to say, I did everything in my power to keep her human.
I told you Grandmother sent me letters, right? I hated those letters. They made me feel so poor, and stupid, and boring. She always talked about charity events and the good works she was doing. She spoke of the rich people she knew and the parties she went to, all gala affairs. She even sent pictures of her and Grandfather at Prince Charles' and Lady Diana's wedding. Well I'm not impressed with that anymore because you know how that turned out.
I did write Grandmother back. Mama made me. I wrote a bunch of wonderful lies, like how I had been bitten by a snake and almost died. Sometimes I talked about how much trouble I got into in school because I ran with a rough crowd. Once I wrote her that I was pregnant and had an abortion. I'm smiling now, writing this, though you can't see it. Grandmother never made a comment about anything I wrote. She ignored me.
Grandmother ignored me a lot. I resented it and still do. I resented the mansion they lived in and the fact that my father grew up in that kind of luxury when all Mama's furniture was second hand. I hated that what they put on the buffet for breakfast was enough wasted food to feed Mama and me for weeks. I hated that Grandmother thought, and made me think, that Mama wasn't good enough- that I wasn't good enough to be her family.
I don't think the Stones ever knew what it was to want for anything, to wish for the unattainable, or to hope for the impossible. They are “old money” and can't for one minute guess what it's like to be me, who's already realized wanting is useless, wishes are like spitting in the wind, and being hopeful… well that's just plain dumb.
Maggie you are being very judgmental. Your grandparents gave you a wonderful private education that you really need to get back to. They also are paying an obscene amount of money for you to be here. Can't you be gracious and a little thankful?
I am thankful. Gracious is a word I never learned even though that's a perfect description of Mama. Now she's as gracious as Jackie Kennedy was. I think grace is something you're born with. I obviously was not.
I'm thankful to Grandfather Stone whom I call Granddaddy in private. He doesn't even mind, though Grandmother would be horrified. Grandfather is the one who gave me pieces of himself and not just his money. He protected me from her constant etiquette lessons. “Honora, leave the girl alone and let her enjoy her meal.” he would say when Grandmother would be critical of my manners. He saved me from that horrible girls' school in Connecticut Grandmother tried to send me to. I'm thankful I only was sent to Miss Martha's just over in Knoxville . That's an awful enough place for me to be stuck in. She suggested that I go there to Mama, when they both thought I was so caught up with Romeo.
It was stupid really. I was caught up in Romeo the first time I saw him when I was eight years old. It was summer. It was hot and Romeo… Romeo was like swimming in a pool of crystal clear water. The kind of water that takes your breath away when you jump in, but nothing else could feel quite like it. The first day I met him I said, “I'm gonna marry you when I grow up.” Oh God, I always thought that would come to pass. I'll never marry Romeo. Oh, let me die right now at the thought of it. You wonder why I can't talk? There it is… all stuck in my throat… suffocating me with its blood hot hands. I'll never grow old with him. My life is buried in a hole in the ground in Blue Hills Cemetery . His marker reads:
Romeo William Lovelace
1983-2001
Loved Greatly
How do I erase it? How do you make what you feel disappear? It's written in stone Dr. Carter. That's permanent.
Oh Maggie, no one is asking you to pretend he didn't exist. No one is asking you to erase who Romeo and Maggie together were. We ask you only to go on, to keep living, to not let this stop you from your life. You did not die! You do NOT share a grave with Romeo William Lovelace. You, Margaret Honora Stone, live and breathe!
You, Dr. Carter, are a complete fool and totally missed my point.
So explain yourself then. What will this help? You lock yourself away from everyone who loves and needs you. You won't try to help yourself, or your mother, or even James. He lost a brother. He comes to see you everyday. He holds your hand and you let him. He talks to you and you look him in the eye. Don't you want to tell him how you're feeling? Maybe it would help both of you to heal.
I'm not responsible for the entire world's suffering. Jamie is none of your business. I'm not talking to you anymore. Our daily chats are through.
Fine.
Fine.
I thought you weren't talking?
You really are too young for this job aren't you?
This book is going to be published by Steel Moon Publishing. Details coming soon!