Where's My Wand?: One Boy's Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting (4 page)

“Have some wine,” Dad offered, handing her a glass of Mateus.

“Cheers to Jesus,” I piped up, raising my glass of apple juice.

Mother took the glass of wine and sat down. “It’s like an oven in here,” she muttered, as her breath created slight wisps of frost.

The opening of Val’s and my gifts passed uneventfully. Val gasped with shock at the deluxe set of Remington steam-heated curlers.

“Wow,” I blurted out, with a supreme lack of subtlety, “you sure didn’t see those comin’, did ya?”

I, in turn, attempted to feign award-winning surprise and gratitude as I unwrapped the Matchbox cars and accompanying plastic racetrack.

Val snickered. “Guess this means you’ll have to retire the Barbie Dream House.”

Our mother smiled, trying desperately to enjoy the moment. This struggle, a heroic attempt to find joy in what was, for her, an otherwise joyless situation, was obvious and somewhat painful to watch.

Dad opened his gift from my sister and me, a shaving-cream warmer. These were the glory days when aerosol CFCs assured that even if the shaving cream was heated enough to spontaneously ignite, it remained whipped and frothy. “Wow, hot shaving cream. What a great idea.” He grinned. “I’ll have the softest face on the block.” Val and I beamed.

Mother raised her wineglass and announced, “Unless you can nail that thing to the wall, it’s going back. We have no counter space in that bathroom.”

Dad handed Mother a gift from my sister and me. As she opened it—a burnt-orange pantsuit that Val had picked out at Kmart—she paused. “Well, I
lov
e the color.” She smiled. “Very nice, thank you. You kids have such good taste.”

Val and I glanced at each other, unsure whether to take this at face value. As Mother placed it on the pile of items that would require pressing (which included anything with a cotton fill), she sighed and mumbled under her breath, “One more thing I have to find a place for.”

Our father poured himself another glass of Mateus. I labored to see how many pieces of unrefrigerated sausage I could wedge into my mouth. Val examined her hot rollers with an intensity usually reserved for the contents of a nuclear warhead.

In an effort to remind Mother of the holiday’s true meaning, we decided to keep the wine coming. One drink, and Val and I would spring into action, topping her glass off at a precipitously high level that resulted in her having to lean over to sip from the rim like a dog at a water bowl. This constant refilling made it almost impossible for her to track the amount she was consuming and would transform her, we prayed, into Shirley Partridge, groovy mother to a brood of wildly talented kids.

As each package was opened, the wrapping paper was passed to Dad, who stuffed it into a plastic Hefty bag, which, once full, was twist-tied shut and set near the stairs for immediate removal. The bows—which had been Scotch-taped onto the packages—were placed carefully into a separate bag for reuse, since, as Mother reminded us, “You only use the ‘sticky’ for special occasions.”

After what seemed like hours but had, in reality, been about twenty minutes, it was time for Dad’s “showstopper” gifts to Mother. Val and I glanced at each other, two soldiers heading into battle. I closed my eyes momentarily and envisioned myself in full Endora regalia in one last-ditch effort to summon the magic.

Dad handed Mother a large, professionally wrapped box.

“I hope you didn’t pay someone to wrap this,” she announced. “That’s a ghastly waste of money, and you
are
unemployed.” She lifted the top off the box and gasped slightly. Inside was a mink stole.

Almost in a daze, she pulled it out and wrapped it around her shoulders, stroking it lovingly. A tear came to her eye. Dad winked at Val and me. Nothing celebrates the Birth of Jesus like a dead animal.

Mother crossed the room and opened the doors of the closet Dad had built into one corner of the basement. She gazed at herself in the full-length mirror that hung inside. As she twirled around, admiring herself from various angles, she declared, “Maybe next year you can get the rest of the coat.”

With that, I excused myself to turn over the Christmas album on the record player. Val slunk away to heat up her curlers. Dad quietly began to shave the dried-out layer off each remaining slice of cheese.

“Just out of curiosity,” Mother added, “where am I supposed to store this thing? It has to be kept cool.”

Dad replied, “Well, it’s about forty-eight degrees in this basement. Isn’t that cool enough?”

The Christmas tree turned blue, red, green and made its way back to yellow. The only sound was the Ray Conniff singers imploring us to “Count Your Blessings.” Mother took another slug of wine. “Well, it is a lovely fur, what there is of it. Thank you.”

Dad, satisfied that this was as high a praise as was likely to occur, summoned Val and me back to the scene of the crime. The final gift was at hand.

With a flourish, he ceremoniously pulled the paper off a large oil painting—
A Winter’s Day
by Milton Skudley, a Holiday Inn Liquidation Art Sale winter scene for which he had paid the astronomical sum of three hundred dollars in twelve easy installments. This painting was intended to become the centerpiece of the room no one was allowed to enter unless Billy Graham or Elvis were present—the living room.

As the wrapping paper was shed, Dad, Val and I glanced at one another in anticipation. Days earlier, he had told us that Mother had personally pointed out this painting at the Holiday Inn. Unlike the stole, this gift would be a slam dunk. The evening would end with hosannas and glad tidings as we carried the Hefty bags to the curb.

There was a long pause as Mother surveyed the winter landscape before her. Clouds gathered. The frosty air began to crackle with tension. She rose to her feet and, at a decibel level that could be heard blocks away at the Schnucks grocery store, shrieked, “God in Heaven! That’s not the painting I liked!”

All oxygen vacated the rathskeller. Mom turned on her heel and marched off to her laundry lair, slamming the door behind her. The lights dimmed as she plugged in the iron.

It was quiet for a moment. Dad leaned down and picked up the painting. Without looking at my sister and me, he slowly climbed the basement stairs,
A Winter’s Day
under his arm.

Val cocked her head in his direction. “Let’s go.”

Dad marched into the garage, as we followed him tentatively. He picked up a large nail from his workbench and, without saying a word, began to hammer it into a two-by-four stud on one wall. Val and I exchanged puzzled glances. Was he going to impale himself on it? We prepared to spring into action.

Once the nail had been sufficiently embedded, he picked up the painting and, slowly, as if possessing the eye of a gallery owner, carefully hung it. He stepped back, surveying the wall, taking pains to be sure that the frame was level, and that the light from the exposed overhead bulb flattered it; then silently he left the garage.

My sister and I stood there, gazing at the snow-capped mountain peaks of this distant land captured in acrylics, completely mystified by what had just occurred. Finally, Val, who was older and wiser in the ways of adults, pointed out the obvious. “The painting’s facing Mother’s car. Now, every time she pulls in, it’ll be the first thing she sees.”

Day after day, she explained, Mother will be reminded of her behavior on this holiest of commercial holidays. Eventually, one day, overcome with remorse, she’ll come staggering into the house, sobbing, begging Dad’s forgiveness, a broken woman filled with shame and regret.

We stared at each other. This was a side of our father we hadn’t seen before. His actions were audacious. Cunning. Shrewd.

We were impressed.

As Val trekked back into the house, I stood before the painting, a faint smile creeping across my face. This wasn’t quite the magic I had envisioned. There would be no geisha moments, no singing of carols. But Dad had, at least for the moment, triumphed. And his act of courage and defiance did feel truly magical.

I
spotted the new girl the moment I entered the classroom. Stacy was lanky, blond and beautiful, with a smattering of sun-kissed freckles across her nose. She exuded a devil-may-care confidence as she sat tilted back in her chair, her bare feet on top of the laminated desk, virtually daring the teacher to reprimand her.

As someone with absolutely no backbone, I was wildly impressed by this audacious, defiant act. This girl was a renegade. It was not until an hour later, when we were asked to write our names on a sheet of paper and she picked up a pencil with her toes, that I realized her arms were not lounging inside her mod, daisy-appliquéd blouse.

She didn’t have any.

It was a warm September day, and the twenty-four kids in our fourth-grade class were agog at this oddity in our midst. Stacy could write, scratch her nose, even play the autoharp with her feet. Our teacher, Miss Hooperman, elected not to make any kind of public statement about Stacy’s physical anomaly. Although kind of her, this simply meant that each of us would now have to embarrass Stacy individually.

“Where did your arms go?” Mitch McKirby asked her at recess the first afternoon, as though she had simply misplaced them.

“I was
born
without ’em,” Stacy replied in an uninterested, slightly annoyed tone, as she exhibited a Pelé-like talent with a kickball, sending it sailing to the other end of the playground.

“Do you miss them?” Theresa Tilton inquired, never one to be bothered with thinking a question through beforehand.

“My arms?” Stacy asked incredulously. “Do you miss being pretty? You can’t
miss
what you never
had
.”

“What does it feel like?” demanded Annette Scarpelli, a big-boned girl with a bowl haircut.

“It feels like my foot needs to be in your butt.”

Stacy took aim and Annette fled. The circle of kids moved back to give Stacy a wide berth. Who knew, I thought to myself, that you could be born
without
arms but
with
sarcasm. Here was a girl who had had a cruel twist of fate heaped upon her, yet seemed to have more confidence than those of us with all limbs intact.

In that moment, I knew: I had to make Stacy my friend.

That afternoon, while Val was in her bedroom recording the day’s vast emotional peaks and valleys in her diary, I slipped down to my basement hideout and set to work. Bedspread carefully draped over my body, I imitated a new vertical arm flourish that I had seen Endora execute on a recent
Bewitched
. The bedspread billowed out, obscuring my vision. The chenille seemed to mutate, suddenly, into wings, as I effortlessly glided into the sky for a bird’s-eye view of my school’s playground.

I hovered high above, evaluating the slightly rusted metal jungle gym, the swings with worn black rubber seats, the sea of kids dodging large red balls that bounced and skittered across the blacktop. Then, gently, I floated down to the teeter-totter, where I found myself holding court with Stacy: she, exhibiting her stumps to the amazement and awe of the gathered fourth-graders, and me, extolling the virtues of being arm-free.

“It heightens your other senses,” I declared with authority, apparently unaware that limbs were not generally considered a sense. “Stacy has the strongest legs of any human being that’s ever lived. Step right up and she’ll kick you to prove it.”

My vision of our new friendship continued as Stacy and I dined alone together in the lunchroom, the envy of the biped community. Later, as we boarded the bus for the ride home, the crowd of seven-, eight- and nine-year-olds magically parted, allowing us easy access to our seats in the high-status back row. We laughed together, sharing private jokes and promising to call each other the minute we got to our respective houses. Stacy twittered her toes at me as she exited the bus, her inimitable wave sparking jealousy and resentment in the other kids. I smiled.

 

 

I PRESUMED THAT Day Two of fourth grade would see the soaring of Stacy’s stock to unimagined heights. After all, she was unique, exceptional, the talk of the school. There had never been anyone like her.

Unfortunately, this distinctiveness seemed to be veering off course, toward circus-freak status. At recess, kids who had gotten wind of the “deformed girl” gathered around. Most didn’t speak
to
her, but rather about her, as though she were a zoo exhibit.

“That’s so weird,” Ann Ridgemore said loudly. “How do you get born without arms?”

“It’s what happens,” Shelley Thomas replied with an air of authority, “when your mother drinks Drano.”

“Hey, weirdo!” Tim Turkel, the school’s most attractive and fearsome bully—and my personal torturer—called out to Stacy. “Where’d you leave your arms—on the bus?”

Stacy pushed her way through the crowd, which quickly parted in anticipation of a fight. “Yeah,” she replied, “right next to your
balls
.”

I was shocked by her language and tried to choke back an involuntary chortle. Stacy turned to me. “What are
you
laughing at?”

I stammered, horrified to suddenly be the object of her wrath. “You’re . . . um, funny. You know, in a good way.”

“I could kick you into the middle of next week,” she threatened, moving aggressively into my personal space, her fashionable blond bangs tickling my nose. I blanched.

“Hey, everybody,” Tim called out in a singsong voice, “Stacy’s gonna kill One-Ear!”

Several kids cheered. Stacy immediately turned back to Tim and began to circle him like a lion that has cornered a possum and is debating whether it’s even worth the effort.

“What?” Tim said nervously, looking around for support. “He
is
a one-ear. He can’t hear out of one side of his head. I’m not making it up.” He jabbed his arm into my side. “Tell her.”