Mama phoned me. It was rarely good news when she called.
"Mom, you've got to get out of D.C."
"Honey, I'm going to Iran."
"You can't go to Iran. It's dangerous. You have no idea, Mom."
"Just need to buy my ticket. I need money from you, hon."
"Mom, where are you?"
"16th and G Street, North West."
"16th and G? That's near the White House. Oh God, Mom, what are you doing?"
"In a phone booth, honey. I need money for a ticket. Forgot my passport, too."
"Phone booth? You've got to stop doing this. This is the fourth time in 10 years you've run off."
"I've got Tiger with me. I sold everything for the trip. Had to bring Tiger. "
"Oh God, your cat's with you. And why do you want to go to Iran?"
No answer.
"Mom? You're not making any sense, Mom. "
No answer.
I heard her take a deep breath and take a long pull on a cigarette. She was off her medication again.
"Hold on a minute. I've got to do something. You still there, Mom?"
I heard another deep breath, another pull on a cigarette. She paused, then I heard her exhale.
We had two phone lines in the kitchen, next to each other. I dialed, using the other phone line. Mama was on the phone I held up to my right ear. I dialed, using the second phone line, with the phone held up to my left ear.
I dialed 411.
"City and state, please. "
"Washington, D.C."
"What listing, please?"
"D.C. Police, 911."
"One moment. I'll connect you. "
"Police, Dispatcher Hollings here. What's your emergency? This call is recorded."
"Police? I'm calling you from out of state. My mother is on the corner of 16th and G Streets. She's trying to go to Iran, but she arrived at the airport with no passport or visa and no money for a ticket. She traveled across country to get to D.C., but she's schizophrenic and needs to go home."
"How do you know she's at 16th and G streets, Ma'am?
"I've got two lines. She's on the other one. I'm talking to her now."
"Ma'am, we can take her to a shelter."
"One more thing, Officer. She's brought her cat."
"Ma'am, we can take her to a shelter, but no cats."
"Officer. I understand. But her cat traveled across country with her. Tiger is the only friend she has. I'm sure the shelter will let her cat stay with her."
"No cats. Shelters have rules, Ma'am."
"Please, Officer. I'll take the first plane tomorrow and get there after breakfast. It's already 10 p.m. The cat needs to stay overnight in the shelter. He's in a carrying case. The shelter can put him in the basement. Please."
"I'll see what I can do, Ma'am, but I can't make any promises."
"I understand. Hold on, Officer."
I switched to the phone in my right ear.
"Mom, I'll come tomorrow. I'll tell my office I need the day off, a few days off. Listen, Mom, I just spoke with the police in D.C. They're going to come get you. They'll take you to a shelter. Hold on Mom, while I talk to the police on the other phone. Don't hang up."
I switched back to the phone in my left ear.
"Officer? She's on my other line."
"Ma'am, can you keep her on the line until we get there?"
"How long would that be?"
"About 20 minutes, maybe 15."
"I'll keep her talking."
I switched back to Mama, who was still on the line.
"Mom? You there?"
I heard Mama draw another deep breath. Damn cigarettes.
"Mom, you've got to listen. Talk to me. Why did you want to go to Iran?"
"Help the people fight their government."
"You've gotta be kidding, Mom."
"I need to be involved in these good works. You don't understand, honey. I work for the FBI. "
She took a long pull on the cigarette. She paused. She wasn't answering me. It was a bad sign when there were long pauses in her conversation.
"Mom, the police will be there soon. I spoke to them on the other phone and told them what streets you were on. Just keep talking, Mom."
* * *
The next morning
The taxi drove around the district. A line of homeless people stretched out the door, around the corner and down the street outside the Capitol Hill Sunshine Shelter for Women. Officials doled out cheese rations to those who were waiting in line, outside. There must have been 200 people waiting in line for cheese.
I asked the taxi driver to drive past the Mall on his way to Capital Hill S. E. Crisply dressed Washingtonians wearing suits and carrying attaché cases were walking briskly up the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building. This image jarred me a few minutes later when I saw a fight break out between a black man and two D.C. police officers outside the Sunshine Shelter. The man wanted to get his girlfriend out of the shelter, saying she was pregnant and needed to get to a hospital. The officers told the man the shelter would take care of it. The man pushed past the officers and tried to rush into the shelter, but officers restrained him.
"For women, you nigga bastard. The shelter's for women. We told you, they'd take care of it." The officers roughed up the black man, then arrested him for resisting arrest.
Mama came out of the shelter, no coat, hat, or gloves. Chilly day to be without a coat, mid January in D.C. She looked haggard, worn. It was 11 a.m. I spoke to her.
"Did you eat breakfast?"
"Soup."
"That's not breakfast. You look thin. You haven't been eating properly, Mom. Let's get a bite to eat. The flight's not for two hours. I've got a taxi waiting."
Mama took a long pull on her cigarette. She looked off into the distance, avoiding my glance.
"Mom?"
No response. She was dead to the world, herself, me.
* * *
We stopped in the airport restaurant. The Reagan National was busy. It was Monday morning and most travelers looked to be taking the New York or Boston Shuttle. The bright sun outside the window made the world look warm and inviting. It was anything but.
"Coffee, Mom?"
"No, just water. Not hungry."
"You didn't eat. I'll order coffee for both of us and a plate of pancakes. We can share."
I was fidgeting with my pencil. I was making a checklist of everything we needed to do once we got back home. I was irritated with Mama. I was tired of being the dutiful daughter who always fixed things, always took care of Mama. I couldn't do this any longer. It was time someone else took care of Mama, but I'd no idea who that would be. I'd been taking care of her for 15 years.
"Mom, you've got to stop doing this. You're getting on that plane."
"I'm not going."
"You are getting on that plane. Stop being stubborn. I took a day off, came here, and paid for your flight. And now, I won't be back at work for some days yet."
I was fed up. I felt anxious and sad. I continued.
"Mom, we're going to the hospital as soon as we get off. You're going back on medication, immediately."
"I don't need to go into the hospital. I need to work for the government."
"Oh God. Just stop. We're getting on the plane. I'm taking you home."
I remembered back to when I was 10, when Mama went into the hospital the first time. I remembered the hospital grounds.
Willows had stood in a circle as they faced the hospital gate, their boughs bent in reverence. Roots were gnarled and some were twined together. Hospital windows were barred, many broken.
Grandma had tied the sash of my green organza dress because Daddy didn't understand ‘girl things', and so the three of us, Grandma, Daddy and I, all prettified, piled into the '62 Chevy and drove 30 miles downstate to see Mama in the hospital.
We'd brought fried chicken to the hospital, but no one ate. We'd laid out our chicken on a checkered tablecloth as if we were to have a picnic party on the grass. Orderlies wheeled Mama to us. A pink woolen blanket had covered her lap as she sat facing us, looking fragile. She'd knit booties, in my favorite color, baby blue. I looked up at her, smiling expectantly.
Gone was the fire in her eyes, the rose in her cheeks, the lilt in her walk, the grace in her soul. She'd stared at me as if she did not know me.
After that first time in the hospital, it was a long time before Mama came back to us. And when she did, she wasn't the same. The days when I was small, when I ran to the ice cream truck, when Mama sang to me and brushed my curls as I sat in her lap, nestled in her warm bosom and the cool silk of her robe, were over.
As I sat facing Mama in the airport cafeteria, I didn't know then that years later I'd be sitting with her head in my lap, cradling her and cooing, stroking her soft, white hair, as she lay dying, quietly but surely, resolutely, dying.
I softened. Turning to Mama, I said:
"Come on, let's get on the plane, Mama. It's a long flight home."
She smiled.
"You haven't called me Mama in a long time, honey. Not since you were 10."
* * *
This is fiction, a WIP. Previous segments, chronologically:
MaryBeth, a beautiful soul; and a girl, seriously interrupted
Critique invited.
* * *
Kathryn Esplin-Oleski's book reviews have appeared in The Montreal Gazette;arts, drama and culture articles have appeared in The Globe and Mail;Kathryn wrote many front-page stories on politics from Washington, D.C.for The Ogden Standard-Examiner.
Kathryn has 15 years' experience as a technical journalist for IDG and other companies; Kathryn copyedited Raggett on HTML 4.0, published by Addison-Wesley Longman, 1998.
Kathryn worked in marketing and communications for the W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium, at MIT.
Kathryn's fiction, The Quill Speaks,was published in Pieceworks, a literary magazine, in 2003.
Copyright © 2007 Kathryn Esplin-Oleski
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Comments: 156
BTW, could you mail me to show me how to make the links?
I need to read the Mary Beth stories before I comment further - though I would say two things: I would cut the"mom's" in the dialogue and just use the "Mama" at teh end - I think it might make it more powerful. (Before I got to the end I was going to tell you to make her refer to Mom instead of Mama in the narrative, but at the end I saw your point, so I think I'd go the other way instead.
Also, I tend to try to keep dialogue to a minimum - you might be able to streamline this a bit more, add more description to it - but that tends to be a personal preference (I know in my writing group I was at one end of the spectrum and another was at the other, so it's a matter of finding the balance that works for you)
I look forward to reading the mary beth chapters and then I'll be back!
Another great segment.
The story really begins with Gnarled Trees, follows to No Jonquils, continues with Sego Lillies, then sidetracks with MaryBeth.
Thank you all for enjoying this. Now back to bed for me, before I go to work.
There's a growing feeling of true relatedness as you're progressing through these portraits. Thanks for reminding me to check in.
What I would suggest to make it even "better"=more impact.
While describing the telephone-dialogue I expect more insight in your emotions and thoughts, while you could reduce the dialogue itself.
In the end it definitely gets it's impact and you might even stretch that.
But I'm not a writer, just storyteller.
that's a difference.
Keep going strong, Katrhryn,
Greetings from Amsterdam
The cat in the basement/kitchen, for me it added to her desperation when asking to place the cat in an inappropriate location. It was like she was thinking of her own home and where she could place the carrier out of the way. Suggesting the basement also works well because it shows rational thought in a difficult situation.
Thank you all
Thank you all
The segments make a great series to follow.
PEACE & LOVE
This might sound really mean but somebody should have her doing some of what the FBI does just to let her see for herself if she can do stuff. If not she would "get it" that she's been lying to herself right along.
To me what happened to the cat is not as relevant to this story as the fact that she took the cat with her in the first place or where she was going and above all that she was found safe. Keep up the good writing.
I like the dialogue. Two other observations, though. I think the shelter is a non-existent mixture of several social services.I know of nothing that could fit the description, and the police are very unlikely to have behaved (or, more to the point, spoken) in that manner, particularly in D. C. where the population is predominantly African-American.
Good show, though.
Lamarla, those are good points. I have to research the Reagan era, because federal handouts of cheese were common; I did see people line up during that era in DC, but perhaps it was at a food bank. Some good points about the shelter scene. Thank you.
Jason O., those are good points. When I worked in DC, in 1982 - 1983, i did see some roughing up in the Capitol Hill SE section where I lived, which was not so nice then as now. But I think you are probably right that the racial slurs would NOT be used, probably not then, either. Some good points generally about the shelter scene.
Thank you.
Lamarla, those are good points. I have to research the Reagan era, because federal handouts of cheese were common; I did see people line up during that era in DC, but perhaps it was at a food bank. Some good points about the shelter scene. Thank you.
Jason O., those are good points. When I worked in DC, in 1982 - 1983, i did see some roughing up in the Capitol Hill SE section where I lived, which was not so nice then as now. But I think you are probably right that the racial slurs would NOT be used, probably not then, either. Some good points generally about the shelter scene.
Thank you.
On the policemen: I don't know for a fact what DC policemen said to black residents of DC, but when I lived in DC - in this neighborhood, I did witness some roughing up of the Black residents by white policemen. By the same token, during the same year (1982 - 1983) I did witness Chicago policeman roughing up a white male teenager with long hair, checking for drugs, at an outdoor festival, in which Kool & the Gang had been in attendance. I was a reporter in both cities at the time, and had opportunities to see things I would not necessarily have seen.
I will do some checking around for how police officers in DC currently behave. Or I can take it out. It is not that central. The point I was trying to make was one that struck me hard when living in DC: The two Washingtons - the white, upper-middle class, professional DC and the inner city, DC, poor and mostly black. On a visit to DC several years ago, we stayed at the home of a goverment worker and former Vietnam war protest activist, in the middle of one of the black areas. The composition of the city has changed little in decades; with that sameness, many of the class and social problems are the same. The problem I had was not with the inner city residents but with the privileged preppie kids who were so entitled.
I was curuious, though, about what happened to Tiger. I would have loved to see a brief sentence or two that resolved the challenge you so nicely set up in the beginning.
Wonderful!
Thanks Tom Bross and Peter H.
And now on to what you asked for. Nitpicking first:
The cat's a loose end. Kill him off, give him away, pick him up at the pound, but do something with him. Don't leave him dangling. And I doubt very much the cop would engage in the cat problem - a smart operator would just let it slide and leave everything to the officers picking up Mama (the clincher is great, BTW).
Schizzies don't wait for the cops, smoking silently into the phone (I have some experience with a close relative). They talk incessantly, or just disappear. Mama seems all too docile to be really severely afflicted, more mildly demented than schizophrenic.
I think you should cut the scene with the black man trying to get in. It does not add anything to the story and is only a distraction.
Now the cons: The story is compelling, extremely well-written and above criticisms are minor - I am a reporter by trade, not a writer of fiction (though I am trying). I think the flashback is marvellously done, the work of a pro. This is my first contact with anything you have written and I am looking forward to reading the earlier installments. Again, extremely fascinating storytelling. Heartfelt thanks for inviting me.
A neuroendocrinologist friend/colleague of mine (who has been involved in clinical research for the past twenty years) once told me about some work he'd done comparing the hallucinations and delusions among schizophrenic, bipolar, and temporal lobe epilepsy patients. Among his observations was that schizophrenics could be spotted immediately because they came across as "cold fish". He said that, unlike the bipolar and epilepsy patients, they had no warmth at all.
While I haven't seen anywhere near as many schizophrenics as he has, after he mentioned this to me, I noticed this trait in the few patients who I did see. In my opinion, your mother character comes across as a little too warm in that she responds with smiles and calls her daughter by affectionate terms such as "honey". If she were a little colder and more distant from her own daughter, she might come across as more realistic.
Thank you, sara.
Lisa, a good observation about schizophrenics. In fact, my mother was schizophrenic and this is based upon her. It is true that schizophrenics have a 'flat affect', but this characterization, like my mother, is subtle. My mother did use exactly this kind of expression. The difference between my mother and people who were not schizophrenic was that my mother did not get excited about things, at all. No jumping up for joy, no crying, no laughing, just smiling sweetly and saying, 'honey.'
Thank you Vanda.
Thank you all for your critiques. They are much, much appreciated. I don't know if something works or not unless a reader tells me so. Thank you.
Kate V., generally, I don't have a lot of dialogue. This segment is the most, so far. Also, I had used "Mama" previously to refer to the narrator's mother, but felt that the narrator preferred to call her mother Mom, rather than Mama, but I agree, it is confusing.
Ron, that is a possibility, though I think I might stick with the narrator's assumptions about the mother's POV. I think the mother herself does not have a lot of insight, but you bring up a good point: what is Mama thinking? I will try to flesh that out more.
Kate V., generally, I don't have a lot of dialogue. This segment is the most, so far. Also, I had used "Mama" previously to refer to the narrator's mother, but felt that the narrator preferred to call her mother Mom, rather than Mama, but I agree, it is confusing.
Ron, that is a possibility, though I think I might stick with the narrator's assumptions about the mother's POV. I think the mother herself does not have a lot of insight, but you bring up a good point: what is Mama thinking? I will try to flesh that out more.
Sue, that is helpful to know you like the flashback scenes the best. I apapreciate the feedback everyone's given this piece.
Thank you julia, deven, alrfredo, Barney, Ken C., Paula, donna h., Elaine B., Laurun.
Sue, that is helpful to know you like the flashback scenes the best. I apapreciate the feedback everyone's given this piece.
Thank you julia, deven, alrfredo, Barney, Ken C., Paula, donna h., Elaine B., Laurun.
Have a great day!
This reminds me that a character so seemingly small such as Tiger looms large in the hearts of the readers.
This reminds me that a character so seemingly small such as Tiger looms large in the hearts of the readers.
candi - it amazes me, when readers such as yourself, say they cannot stop reading. I am very pleased. Will write more. Thanks for enjoying.
This reminds me that a character so seemingly small such as Tiger looms large in the hearts of the readers.
candi - it amazes me, when readers such as yourself, say they cannot stop reading. I am very pleased. Will write more. Thanks for enjoying.
KEEP YOUR STORIES COMING