I have some major problems in my life, but sometimes I think the main ones are money and time. I have too little time and too much money. Actually, I have too little of both. Do you think I’d be typing out a sad little tale like this if I had lots and lots of money? For one, if I had a lot of money and wasn’t happy with it there are plenty of people or organisations I could give it to. Most people like having lots of money, even if they say that as long as they have food on the table they’re happy. There can be very few people who are happy if all they have is food on the table. For one, if food was all you had and money for nothing else, your table would probably have to be mortaged. And who, but a stray dog, is happy with food on the floor?
Before that paragraph gets out of hand (and mind you I know that people do stunts like this all the time, that is start a new paragraph implying that they thought it was a good idea to start a new paragraph), here’s a more to the point one. I hope. I am seventy years old, people either don’t care about me or they feel sorry for me. Part of not caring about me means that they don’t listen to what I have to say. They think I’ll talk incoherently or about the old days when I had to walk to school from a farm. Fact is, I’ve never lived on a farm and even if I did walk to school, I am very much aware that many other children still do. Things don’t really change that much. People and life are still royal pains in the arse. Another two major problems as far as I am concerned. Both are so much less than perfect and I include myself in that opinion. I am so imperfect that despite how much other people drive me nuts, no one drives me more nuts than I myself do. Sometimes anyway. Other times I think I’m quite a nice person and at least I’ve never killed anybody. Not that I know of anyway, which basically means that I’ve never directly killed anyone and certainly haven’t committed murder.
I don’t really expect people to care about me considering how I think humans are generally lousy on the whole. I mean, we’re always fighting over something, always disapproving, always dissatisfied. It’s because we’re all different and all have faults. What makes it worse is that there is no real way of defining what makes something a fault or a bad trait. I mean, majority might rule in a democracy, but it doesn’t mean it’s right.
I know I’ve gone off the subject I started off with. You don’t have to tell me. And in fact I don’t want to hear anything about senility, alzheimer’s or general disorientation due to the aging process. Once I was also young, free of wrinkles and wet behind the years. To tell you the truth, I don’t think anyone can ever be completely dry behind the ears. There is no point where you know everything, are completely wise and have lost all naivety. Still, who am I to say something like that?
Ever since I started school, I wore wrapped around my arm, a wristwatch. It would drive me crazy if I forgot it at home. That is why I ended up wearing it to bed with me all the time. And would only remove it for washing, or swimming. Of course, once I heard of waterproof watches, I didn’t even have to take them off. Sometimes I didn’t see my wrist for weeks. In all my years, I have only possessed five watches. They’ve always been incredibly good and I have kept them all. Only one stays on my arm now, the newest one. Despite finding constant access to a watch a necessity, time is a real problem for me. I just don’t have enough of it. You can see an obvious reason for this feeling - my time is running out. Most people don’t live to this age. But I’ve always felt that my time was running out. At one stage I was convinced that I would die by the age of thirty. I didn’t even want to have any children because I didn’t want to die on them. I didn’t want my children to lack one parent. Besides I couldn’t find a suitable father, so that would mean they would lack two decent parents. I reckoned I was pretty decent as long as I was alive.
By the time I hit thirty-one, I wondered if God was teasing me. That was back when I believed in God. Now, I think it is possible that God exists, but even if He does, I cannot worship Him. I find in myself no reason for this sort of religious attachment. I am simply a single being who does not feel spiritual attachments to beings I have never had an emotional connection with. And I have no inclination to set up an emotional connection with God.
Anyway, by the time I managed to hit thirty-two everyone around me was convinced that I was to remain a spinster. It’s remarkable how much this was not in one’s favour back then. People behaved as if you had dogshit under your shoe. They wouldn’t invite you into their houses, they’d act as if you smelt funny, and they avoided the topic. Relatives would try to help out though. “Time is ticking” or “Watch that biological clock” or “Wanda, women usually die during childbirth if they start having babies after the age of thirty-two.” The support was glorious.
But I didn’t have time for babies or men or people in general. Not direct contact with them anyway. I was thrilled with reading. Books are beautiful and it’s amazing what people are able to create with their minds. Mind you, it is amazing what people can create with their hands too. And in that way I don’t think humans are lousy, but they are lousy at interacting with one another and with coping with the world. It is not really something that one can blame them for. It is the way the world is, which isn’t to say it’s easy to accept.
My son is called Dillon and he is now thirty-five. Unmarried, just like his mother. I’ve never been married. Dillon’s never hated me for it. He’s never accused me of cheating him out of a father. The strange thing is that although I hadn’t wanted my child to grow up with only one parent or no parents, in the end I had no choice. I did know a wonderful man who made me happy to an extent and I thought that he would be a good parent to Dillon, but two months after our baby was born, Phil died.
It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. He was murdered. Right in front of my terrified eyes. He was twenty-eight, years younger than me, and despised by my family. No, they had nothing to do with his being killed, but no one shed any tears. Someone went so far as to say it was an act of God, making me pay for my sins. The sins were having a child at such a late stage in my life, having a child out of wedlock and living with the father who was seven years younger than me to boot. There was another reason too.
When Dillon was ten, I told him what had happened to his father. He knew from very young that his dad was dead, but the first time he ever asked what exactly had happened, I told him. I don’t believe in fabricating for the sake for protecting him from truth that is owed to him. I know that is a vague statement. I believe that sometimes it is better to withhold the truth from people and even the people dearest to your soul, depending on the effect telling that truth would have. I knew that telling Dillon about what had happened to his father might frighten, upset and sadden him, but I didn’t feel it would psychologically damage or scar him. Memories affect what one does or thinks in future, but there is nothing wrong with being wary, watchful, careful and distrustful. To an extent. But to which extent I cannot say. Some people say that one can never be too careful. But it may also depend on what one means by taking care. If it means always checking cupboards and behind doors and looking everywhich way, well, it no doubt also means never being relaxed. There is a hardly much point to never being relaxed.
As I was saying though, Dillon was a sweet boy, in his fifth year of primary school and he asked me just before going to bed one night. “What happened to my father?” Not Dad or Phil. I interchangeably called him those two names when speaking in front of or to Dillon, but he had chosen to say “my father”, perhaps to distance himself from the man or to appear more adult. I don’t know. I thought he was brave, asking just before hitting the sheets.
“Your father was a well-known man, Dillon. He wasn’t famous or a personality, but lots of people knew him. At least in the town we were living in at the time. If we’d still been living there now, no doubt you would have found out various things that happened to him, most of which would have been untrue.”
“What did he do?”
“Well it’s not so much what he did. It’s more what his parents did. His parents were sent to jail when he was eighteen. He had just started at university, studying to be a lawyer, when they were found guilty of abusing children. They both taught at the same school, his father being the principal.”
“What did they do to the children?”
At that point, I took his hand and asked him to sit down next to me. He nodded and watched me. “They hurt the children. Made them feel uncomfortable and unhappy, by making them do things they didn’t want to do. Child abuse can take many forms. A lot of times it can involve sex, something children should not be subjected to... Dillon, what I mean is, until you reach a certain age, doing things which involve sex don’t usually interest you. And sometimes adults abuse childen, hurt them, because they feel that children are vulnerable and will listen to them and do what they tell them to if they threaten them. Unfortunately many adults also accept this kind of treatment. But some people just enjoy having sex with children more than with grown-ups.”
Dillon nodded, although I didn’t think he understood everything. “Did my father’s parents hurt him too?”
I sighed. “Yes, they did.”
“And they hurt the kids at the school they taught at?”
“Some of them, yes. Then they were sent to jail.”
“I hope they never get out.”
I didn’t tell him that they were already out.
“But why did my father die?”
“Although he was well-known he wasn’t liked much. You see, he never reported what was being done to himself by his parents. And even when he had started studying law, eighteen years old, he kept quiet. People said that if he had spoken, his parents could have been put away long ago and nothing would have happened to their children. But they didn’t think about him, they only thought about their own children. It is very likely that even if he had spoken out against his parents, he wouldn’t have been listened to because one was supposed to honour one’s parents... do what they say, not speak out against them. He hadn’t been aware what was going on at the school though, but that didn’t seem to count in his favour. And people even suggested that he was carrying on with his parents’ doings. They thought he was doing the same sort of thing to little children, especially because he hadn’t reported what had happened to him. They even thought that he lied about the fact that his parents had in fact molested or abused him too.” I looked at Dillon, but he just kept listening, obviously waiting to hear what had happened. “He did testify against his parents when he heard about the other children, but in way it was considered too late. I think it would be easier for children, now, but still not nearly enough. He wasn’t charged, and he walked free.”
“Did he become a lawyer?”
“No. He dropped out of university when all of this was going on. Most people wouldn’t give him a job, but eventually I was the one who helped him out. At that time I was twenty-five, going on twenty-six, and I felt very sorry for him. I know he didn’t like being felt sorry for though.”
“And he was eighteen?”
“Nineteen by then.”
“You were much older than him!” He was smiling.
“And what is that supposed to mean, you big grinner?”
“It’s just funny, that’s all. It’s like me going out with some girl who’s... seventeen! That is so old!”
“When you reach eighteen, you won’t think a twenty-five-year-old woman is so old. No doubt you’ll think she’s something to be admired. And you wouldn’t mind going out with her. Even if you find it’s not quite possible.”
“Did he like you a lot then?”
“That isn’t what I meant. He was a very angry young man at that time. I was working in a bakery. In fact I was practically running it because the owner, Mr Hillard, was pretty old, and sick much of the time. I tried to keep him away from all the dough and so on because with all that coughing I wouldn’t want to be the customer who ate the goods.”
“Oh, how vile,” Dillon said, giggling. “So Dad helped you out then?”
“Yes, and two years later, Mr Hillard died and he left the place to me. He had a good heart and he never once complained about Phil. He had no problem with employing him as long as he could bake.”
“If people didn’t like him, did they buy from the shop?” What a clever boy.
“Phil was never in the front of the shop. He didn’t do any of the sales. No one saw who was doing the baking at the back or handling the buying. You know, flour and all the ingredients necessary. Of course some people knew anyway. But people can also be two-faced. They hate you and will show you to your face, but if what you do is to their advantage, they will take it. So because they never had to see him, they pretended they didn’t know he had anything to do with the bakery.”
“And then what happened? Did you and Dad work in the bakery right until after I was born?” He pinched together and then stretched his eyes wide open. Despite being very fascinated, he was still very sleepy. Until the age of fourteen, Dillon would be asleep by nine. There were exceptions and this was one of them. He loved to sleep and I don’t blame him. Sleep is a wonderful part of life, cosy and serene, unless disturbed by cold, sickness, heat, bad dreams, tenseness or any other general discomfort. I still think it is sinful to have to get up earlier than one wishes. Still, one must endure, they say.
“Your mother had many admirers, Dillon. I may look like an old hag now, but I was watched by many men, some of whom should have been watching their own wives.”
Dillon, I must tell you, was excessively amused and this was enough to assure me that he didn’t think I looked like an old hag. “Was Dad one of them?”
“I don’t think he was at the beginning. He was so unhappy that nothing could perk him up. In my eyes, he was still young and I wasn’t interested anyway. I thought he was cute, but a child.”
“What about the other men? Did you go on dates with them?”
“Not really. I wasn’t interested in them. They didn’t meet up to my standards. What I mean is, I imagined the kind of man I would like to have a relationship and none of them were like that. One of them... he liked me for a very long time. But he often told me that I should get rid of Phil. He said that he was no good.”
“Did that man kill Phil, Mom?” Dillon had seen in my behaviour, I suppose, that something was wrong. And that it was more than just the disapproval of Phil that made me unhappy to tell him about the person in question.
“One night he came to our apartment above the bakery - Phil and I were living together, you were the tiny black-haired baby in the home-made cot, and the smell was leftover bread rolls we had brought up from the shop. This was long after we had started working together of course. Justin Garish was the man’s name. He was just about a year older than me and as far as I knew had always had an intense crush on me. But there wasn’t really much I could do about it. When he visited us, I thought perhaps he was coming to ask me to go to church. He was the priest at the church nearby and I hadn’t been to church in yonks. Prior to becoming the priest there he studied theology, which is something one studies in order to become a priest, although it is not the only reason people study it. And before that he ran the grocery store next door to my bakery. I was relieved when he sold it and moved on to study. But he came back as a priest. The night he visited was the first time I had seen him in three years. He’d studied quite far away, which made me think that he had gone off me -”
“I’ve got to pee, Mom.” So that’s what that pained expression had been.
When he went off, I made some hot chocolate for us. A cosy thing to do, I know, but sometimes it helps to do cosy things. Like report back on what happened back in your life. It is never reflected as it happened and in fact it feels a lot more comfortable than when it actually happened. But that is what makes stories so great. They’re easier to hold onto than real life. And maybe that is why I am writing about things that happened at a time when it feels like almost the only thing I have to live for is sleep. Sometimes that’s the easiest thing to do. It can be disrupted sometimes though, by hunger or restlessness. I am hungry a lot of the time. I really thought that I would die by seventy and I don’t have any money left really. Dillon helps me a lot and that often makes me cry. Despite this lack of money and how terrible it makes me feel that I have to accept money from my son, I don’t really want to die. And now that I’m nearly seventy-one, I want to live to at least eighty. Pity I can’t make money. Pity I can’t make time. Hey, I shouldn’t be complaining, I’m long over twice as old as I thought I would ever be when I was under thirty.
“Mom!” Dillon sounded very scared. He had returned to the sitting-room to find it deserted. I was in the kitchen making hot milky drinks and he thought some ghost had sucked me up, maybe the ghost of Justin Garish.
“I’m here, Dillon, you cuddle up on the sofa meanwhile.”
He didn’t though, he found comfort in running to the sound of my voice. “What happened when Mr Garish, the priest, came to your place?”
“As I said,” I told him, guiding him back to the lounge, “I thought that he wanted to invite me to the church. He didn’t know that Dad was living with me. Or at least I assumed he didn’t know, since he had just got back to town. But knowing the gossiping nature of human beings, I should have suspected that he knew. The other option was that he was just coming by to say hello, and to ask me to marry him.”
Dillon laughed. “What a stupid man. He should have known by then that you didn’t like him!”
“He was starting to bald at that stage, and his body was much bigger than it had been the last time I had seen him.”
“Did he have scary eyes? Did he look like he was a zombie?”
“His eyes were green, almost hazel actually. And he looked very much alive and real. I was going to let him in myself, but Dad was in a strange mood. He had never even spoken a word to Justin before, but he didn’t want to give the impression that he was hiding the fact that we were living together.”
“Why didn’t you get married?”
“We didn’t feel that there was a good enough reason. Just because other people were doing it didn’t mean that we should. We felt that we were perfectly capable of being committed to each other without being tied together in law or in the eyes of God.”
“You don’t care about God, Mom, do you?”
“It doesn’t really matter how I feel about there being a God or not being one, Dillon. If from what you have experienced in your life you want to have a God in your life, you must do it.”
“I don’t know. Do I have to decide now?” He clung to his warm mug.
“Of course not, darling. You don’t ever have to make up your mind about that. Anyway, your Dad opened the door to this new priest called Justin.”
“What did Justin say?”
“He said: ‘Ah, Mr Krawitz, how wonderful it is to see you looking so well!’”
“Don’t lie, Mom! He hated him, why would he say something like that?”
“It’s the truth. And Dad didn’t know what to say. When Justin saw me, he came over to shake my hand and then he enclosed it in both of his cold, plastery hands.”
“He was wearing plasters on his hands??” Dillon giggled.
“No, but his hands felt like the kind of plaster a cast is made out of. When you break your arm, they -”
“Oh yeah, I know what you mean. Ok.”
“And then Phil punched him.”
Dillon gasped. “Why??”
“Because he was jealous. I suppose he could tell that Justin liked me very much still, and Phil had become quite a jealous man by that stage. He wasn’t happy with the attention I often got paid. Despite people disapproving of our relationship, men never stopped admiring me. I still loved Phil, of course, and I understood where the jealousy came from.”
“Did he punch him out cold?”
“No, but Reverend Garish had needed just that to spark off what had probably been coming anyway. Despite that initial friendly exterior I could tell that he had come to stir trouble right from the very start. He called Phil a crazy man, warped by his childhood, and a servant of the devil. He told me as I stood protectively in front of your crib that I should repent, and give up this man of Satan now.”
“Rotten, he was, wasn’t he?”
“By that time, I had pulled Phil towards me by the back of his woollen jersey. I told him that one more violent move would indeed leave him outside our home, at least for that night. He started crying then. Oh, but he was really a sweet man. You would have loved him.”
“I do love him, Mom,” Dillon sniffed.
Then we both started crying. About ten minutes later I was back into the story and telling him how Justin had told me to beware. Then he had left. But later that week, I woke up in my bed in the blue darkness of a moonlit night to find a knife floating above the throat of my man. “I don’t remember if I screamed, but Phil said, ‘Wanda, I love you and Dillon,’ and then the burly figure beside the bed told me, ‘This is the only way I can make it better for you! Watch and see how not even Satan can keep a man alive.’ By then I was shouting at him that he was going crazy, that he had no right. I didn’t know what to do in case any sudden movement on my part caused him to kill Phil. But then it was over before it had seemed to have begun.”
Dillon was beset by series of frightened blinking, swallowing and sad looks. Then he said, “Why didn’t Dad try to stop him?”
“I don’t know. Lying there, he had looked as if he had given up on this world. I still feel that in giving up on the world, you give up on the ones you love. People aren’t perfect, though, and you can’t blame them for every mistake or wrong they do. I will never stop blaming Justin for what he did though, or your dad for giving up. But that moment was the worst in all my life. Because they were both doing wrong things and because I lost someone I loved very, very much. And because you lost someone you hadn’t even had a chance to get to know.”
“Did that man go to jail like my grandparents?”
“Yes. It doesn’t mean some people don’t believe in some part of their minds that what he did was a good thing. After he was convicted, you and I left town. The last thing he ever said to me was that one day I would thank him for it. I will never thank him for it. And anyway, he died last year when he had an enormous stroke in prison. An artery exploded in his brain.”
“Good!” Dillon exclaimed. “He deserved it anyway.”
I know I started this off saying that my two main problems are time and money, and I haven’t said much about either, but sometimes it is better to let your mind wander rather than focus on one thing or the thing you started thinking about anyway. Most of the time, the things are connected anyway. Time is a problem though, especially when things that happened so long ago affect you so badly in the present and especially when you have feelings that you are going to die soon, and then you don’t even do that. And because I have spent more time on this earth than I thought I would, I have run out of money. I had enough until I was sixty-nine, and believe me, I wasn’t extravagant just because I had a feeling that I would die by seventy, but now I have nothing. I have not sold my house for something smaller because it’s Dillon’s when I die. Yet now I am his burden when I live.
“That’s all right, Mom, I was your burden when I was a child. The beginning is the same as the end. It’s what’s in the middle that’s always different for everyone. The middle is your choice and I choose to help out my brave and wilful mother!” I guess that sweet child is what stops me from taking the rest of my time away from myself. I don’t want to do what his father did. It would be inexcusable. At least Phil was in a more precarious position when he let life and love slip away.
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