I'd had colds and the flu tons of times, and she never cared. She'd tell me to stop being so dramatic, it's just the sniffles, grow up. She'd disappear for days. Not call once to ask if I was all right, and when she got home, if I wandered behind her, like a shunned pet, and asked where she'd been, she'd say, "I need to rest. We'll talk later"; but all that happened later was about two gallons of tcha-bliss, missing notes on her keyboard, whining about her arthritis, maybe a fight with Letch.
The wasp sting made her really worry about me. She wet a rag with freezing water and held it on the sting, then my forehead. She rubbed an arthritic hand across my cheek. I kept crying because my skin broke out in a gigantic rash, and she hugged me the whole time.
I kept saying, "You won't let anything happen to me, right?" and she said, "No, baby. I never will."
About a month later, the wasp sting was long forgotten and she was up to her old routine of pretending I wasn't there.
She was out of work again, and it was one of those days where she and Letch couldn't stop screaming at each other. I was supposed to be watching TV and minding my own business, but I couldn't concentrate on anything except their warfare in our stretched, sandy house, as they screamed throughout the desert that was everywhere: a cactus had sprouted next to the TV, a dove perched on it; animals flying, slithering, crawling, running all around our house, our desert; animals, livid and territorial.
Letch saw me looking at my mom and him. "Get the hell out of here so we can finish talking, Rhonda."
Then he slapped her.
I'd never seen him hit her before.
He pointed toward the door and told me, "Now."
My mom rubbed her cheek.
I stared at her, wanted to do something to help, but she said, "Just get out, baby."
I ran into the front yard, ran into the street, ran down it. I was running and I couldn't stop thinking how her saying, "Just get out, baby," was the first thing she'd said to me all day, and I got to thinking about the wasp sting, about her holding that wet rag on my forehead, and the next thing I knew, I ran to where the wasp had stung me the first time. I'd seen the nest but thought I could sneak by without bumping it, but I bumped it, and a wasp flew out and attacked, and I was running there now to bump the nest again, to bump it so hard that the wasps had no choice but to defend their home, their family: The nest was stuck to a telephone pole. I took my hand and, like Letch had hit her, slapped the nest. It was only the size of a silver dollar. It was brown. I slapped it and most of it broke off and landed on the sidewalk. Next thing I knew I felt a sting on my shoulder. My heart started pounding. Throat tightening up. I sprinted home so she could see me crying and see the rash exploding all over my skin, its bright violence. She'd wet the rag with freezing water and make sure I was all right.
About a month after that, I tried it one more time. She'd just gotten home from another of her disappearing acts; she and Letch were going in circles about who she'd been with this time.
"Just me and Lori," she said, and he said, "Lori my ass."
"I swear it was just the two of us," she said, and he said, "I believe there were two of you, but his name wasn't Lori."
She said, "Seriously, Lori," and he said, "Seriously, Lori my ass," and he hit her again, shaking his head, saying, "Yeah, right, Lori."
I sat in front of the TV, but paid more attention to the desert. We barely had a home anymore. Its rooms had stretched to huge distances. The walls had fire ants all over them. Joshua trees and Gila monsters were in the kitchen. Buzzards in the bedrooms, picking at the dead flesh. And the sidewinders, my bodyguards, always slithering in that impossible S-shape of theirs, chasing danger away from me whenever they could.
It was only a matter of time until Letch told me to get the hell out so I left. Went into our backyard. There was now a wasps' nest on the eve of our crappy patio. I'd discovered it a week before and had been waiting for the right time to make one sting me. I almost did it when I first noticed the nest, but my mom was in the middle of her latest disappearing act, and I knew Letch wouldn't care if I'd been stung a thousand times. I imagined myself walking up to him and screaming, "A wasp stung me!" and he'd say, "Sure, Rhonda, I'd love a Bloody Maria, thanks for asking."
I pulled a chair over and stood on it to reach the wasps' nest. I flicked it with my finger. Nothing happened. I flicked it harder. Flicked it like six times. Nothing. I punched the nest and still nothing happened.
The wasps weren't home, and I could hear Letch and my mom screaming, and I didn't know what to do. Was I crying?
I heard Letch yell, "Maybe I'll leave for a while with Lori, too," and my mom said, "Go ahead," and he said, "See you next week," and she said, "Fine by me," and the front door slammed.
I stood on the chair, picking the last flecks of nest off the beam. I didn't want to go back inside without being stung. Then I felt the glorious pinprick of a wasp. On the back of my neck. Immediately, it happened again: the racing heart, the tight throat, skin going all scratchy, splotchy.
I hopped off the chair and said, "Mom! Help!"
I stood there and said, "Mom! A wasp! Help!"
I stood there and I got all dizzy from the sting and my throat was tighter than normal. I could barely breathe. My skin was itchier than the other times, felt like rusty forks were scraping all over my body, almost drawing blood.
I said, "Mom! Help me!"
I ran inside, thinking maybe she couldn't hear, but she was right there, in the kitchen, leaning on a Joshua tree.
"I got stung again."
She didn't say anything, moving away from the tree and trying to get more tcha-bliss from the box by tilting it forward, but only a few drops dripped into her glass. She didn't look at me. She shook the box, but no more wine dribbled out. She finished it in a sip.
"Wet a rag and dab it," she said.
"But it stung me on the back of the neck. I can't reach."
"This is the third time."
"I need your help."
She sighed, held her glass under the box's spout again and started shaking the box around as hard as she could. Nothing came out. Then she threw the box against the wall and it landed in the sand, fire ants crawling all over it.
"Bring me the damn rag," she said.
Writing with Angry Life
I should have known better than to try new things. But I'd convinced myself that old lady Rhonda was right, and I should ask out Handa. So I shaved and showered. I listened to littleRhonda say, "What's going to happen if she sees you with your pants off? Don't you think she might notice you're not exactly Magnum material?"
"You're not helping," I said.
"No, but I'm having a great time."
And despite his wisecracks, I was having a great time, too. I had little-Rhonda and old lady Rhonda and the bag of pruno. I guess, I had Vern, too, though I didn't count him as much a part of my family because I never knew what to expect from him. One minute, he watched me have my arm broken by a cue stick and didn't do anything to help; the next, he gave me the recipe for prison wine.
If I told you I'd named the pruno, would you judge me?
Would you think I was ludicrous?
Well, I named it. Madeline.
I loved having her lie by my bed. I'd see her and I'd think to myself: you are the only person I've ever really taken care of.
Little-Rhonda walked with me down Valencia, on our way to Handa's liquor store. A huge stretch of road had been closed — 18th to 22nd Street — and stripped clean of all its asphalt, a barren stretch of dirt. Down the middle of the road, the workers and their machines had dug huge trenches and now guided dangling pipes into the ground, slowly being lowered by thick chains.