Elizabeth Crane - The History of Great Things

Your father digs a grave for Whitey in the back, puts him in a cardboard box. The only thing worse than seeing Whitey in that box is seeing your father close the box. He puts the box into the hole in the ground, shovels the dirt back onto it. The four of you are standing around the grave, staring at the hole in the ground. Can I go inside now? Marjorie asks. Shush , Mother says. You’ve never been to any kind of a funeral before. Your mother asks if you’d like to say a few words. To Whitey? you ask. Can he still hear me? In a way, yes , she says. You know how the lord watches us, and we say prayers to him, even though we can’t see him? You do know, though you have never understood this; the concept is frightening, that entities are watching you that can’t be seen: newspapermen, the lord. Good-bye, Whitey. You have no words. Your frown is like a caricature of a frown, chin out, lower lip forward and trembling. It’s the worst kind of sadness you’ve known, but you can think of nothing else to say. You stand there silent, Marjorie sighs and huffs loudly, waiting for the go-ahead to leave. You remember something from Brenda Starr .

I will avenge your death!

That night, you position yourself at the very edge of the bed, as far away from your dog-murdering sister as you possibly can; a centimeter closer and you’d be in real peril. I know what you did , you whisper to Marjorie, facing away. What? Marjorie asks. She hasn’t heard you . I know. I know.

It’s 1942. You’re six, Marjorie’s nine. You and Marjorie are getting dressed for church. Marjorie laughs hysterically upon noticing that your blouse is inside out. No it is not! Look at the seams, dum-dum, that goes on the inside, not the outside. Shut up! You’re a dum-dum! Hey, I don’t care if you want to embarrass yourself. Mother hears the scuffle and comes in, screwing on one of her real pearl earrings. Girls! What’s this fuss about? Marjorie called me a dum-dum! Lois said “shut up”! Girls. That’s enough. Lois, sweetie, let me help you fix your blouse. She takes your blouse off and turns it inside out, helps you button it up. Told you , Marjorie says. You stick your tongue out at her. Enough, girls. Goodness, you’re on your way to church, this is no way to behave. Why do we have to go anyway, Mother? Lois, we’ve talked about this many times , she says, helping you on with your sweater. Because that’s where the lord is , Marjorie says with no affect, not helping to convince you. You have heard that the lord is other places too, specifically wherever you are. You have talked about this many times, or perhaps more correctly you have been talked to about this many times, but you are coming into an age when new information sometimes causes confusion, where there are gaps between answers and questions, when you could ask about ten different questions in response to That’s where the lord is , though this will come to no good. There’s usually a one-question-per-kid allotment about such matters before you are shushed and given the customary That’s just the way it is , or The lord works in mysterious ways , which is creepy and unsettling, because that could mean anything; if the lord works in such mysterious ways, couldn’t he just creep right into your room at night and spy on you and take your things and who knows what else? But you keep it to yourself, store up your questions. Go downstairs and get your coats on, girls , Mother says, I just have to remind your father when to take the pie out of the oven before we go. How come Daddy doesn’t ever have to come to church? you ask before you can remember to be quiet. Remembering to be quiet has proven to be a challenge. Because he’s the man, Lois. You have by now gathered a certain amount of information about what the man does versus what the woman does. The man, as you add it up, does whatever he feels like or doesn’t, and the woman does everything else. The why of it, you have no idea.

I want to be a man when I grow up , you tell Marjorie. Marjorie laughs, says Good luck . You have no idea what’s so funny.

At nine or ten, during science class, you mix some chemicals together that burn your eyes, and after this you have to wear glasses. Mother wears glasses, so you don’t mind — you like being like your mother — but Marjorie calls you “four-eyes” and so you try not to wear them any more than you have to. Marjorie says Ha-ha, good luck getting a boyfriend, four-eyes , and nine- or ten-year-old you begins to fear you’ll never have a boyfriend; even though you have previously not been so sure you wanted one, you want one now because Marjorie thinks you won’t ever have one, and that is enough to make it a priority in the near future, when people start having boyfriends, which is thankfully a few grades away yet. You have no idea how beautiful you are. When you’ve asked Am I beautiful? the answer more than once has come back Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain , but the meaning of this phrase is never explained to your satisfaction. You are told further that the lord shall cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaketh proud things , triggering a series of nightmares in which your face ceases to exist from the nose down. Nor are you clear on the difference between metaphorical and literal, and by the time you learn about this in English a couple of years later it will be far too late. You will be told how gorgeous you are, often, in that already-too-far-away future, long past the time when it might have settled in your mind as true. Marjorie has always known, but she’s always been jealous, so she won’t be the one to point it out.

Your father gets offered a teaching job in Baton Rouge, nine hundred miles south, and takes it.

Hurricane Betsy arrives when you’re about four. The worst hurricane in forty years, say the news reports. Fred and I find this real funny, since it hits us in Louisiana not long after your lengthy tantrum period has finally come to an end. We lose power for several days, a couple of small trees, but we’re lucky overall. You imagine, based on your knowledge of The Wizard of Oz , that your house could up and fly away with you in it and land somewhere else, that this might be exciting, like, what if it landed in New York City, where Mommy keeps going? You don’t have any clear picture of New York at this point, though I’ve sent you a copy of Eloise , so you more or less imagine your house blowing onto the top of the Plaza Hotel, and you and Mommy and Daddy together again, everything pink and stripey and happy and togethery. Your father explains to you the difference between a hurricane and a tornado, what the winds and rains are capable of doing. A flat, wet house does not sound so great.

I’m going back and forth between there and New York often during this time, but your dad takes good care of you while I’m away. When you’re not at school, he’s on the floor of your bedroom pretending to be the mommy in the kitchen with no complaint, and knowing him, no concern at all about the irony of that; he’s at the edge of your bed reading you books, there are never enough books, he reads you the same books over and over, The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts, Hop on Pop , gets you new books from the library every week. You ask for one more book every night and he reads one more and you ask for one more again and he reads one more again and if you wake up from a bad dream, which happens often, because sometimes he lets you watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (just because the sounds of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin’s names please you), even though you don’t understand most of what the show is about and the overall tension level makes you dream that you’re being chased through your kindergarten by Soviet spies, he comes and sits with you in the dark and tells you that all Soviet kindergarten spies have been apprehended by Solo and Kuryakin, not to worry. He takes you to the zoo, he brushes your hair, he makes sure you brush your teeth; he’s not so good at doling out punishment, but generally you don’t need too much of that. He writes me to say that you’re the best, brightest daughter ever, and that you learn to read when you’re three, can’t get enough of it. You write me letters like this (transcribed by your father, of course):