Wiser Page 3

  Instead, I answered with the truest thing I could say, the thing that had to get Miranda off my back.

  “Because I can’t leave my brothers and sisters alone,” I said. “My parents aren’t good parents. My siblings need me. They wouldn’t get fed. They’d start slipping in their classes. No one would be at the trailer to watch them.”

  I could see Miranda’s face caving in even as she made a concerted effort to stay calm and supportive. I knew that I was her hope—that even such a poor student as I was could be saved through her beloved art. I hated disappointing her, but I didn’t know what else I could do. My brothers and sisters really did need me. My parents weren’t fit to raise them. They wouldn’t even try.

  “You’re a good girl, Sandra,” Miranda said finally. “I know that you think you have to stay with your siblings to take care of them, but I hope that you someday realize that you need to take care of yourself, too.”

  And that was it, the end of my relationship with Miranda. I graduated, walking across the stage alone, not a soul there to cheer me on. Summer came and left, and school started up again. I saw my siblings off, my mother berated me about getting a job so I could “help this family for once,” and I went on existing, a shell of myself. I couldn’t even bring myself to sketch, thinking about a room full of my potential classmates in New York, gleaning knowledge that I would never be able to obtain.

  “I’m going to issue you an ultimatum, girl,” my mother said one day after I’d been moping on the couch, watching my siblings. “You get a job or you leave. You’ve been a weight on this family for too long.”

  Her statement made my blood boil.

  “I was going to go to art school,” I said as calmly as I could for the benefit of my brothers and sisters. “Then, I would’ve made this family proud.”

  My mother scoffed. “You were never going to art school,” she said. “That ship has sailed.”

  It had sailed because my mother and father had refused to support me in it. It had sailed because my brothers and sisters had needed me. If I was being perfectly honest with myself, it had sailed because I had let it, afraid that New York City would swallow a simple Tennessee girl like me whole. I couldn’t drag ass back home a failure when everyone had been so certain of it happening.

  “Who’s going to watch the kids if I get a job?” I asked as my mother mixed herself a white Russian. I knew her drinks by sight, smell, and the time of day she had them.

  She took a sip of the cocktail and shuddered. “Miki will do it,” she said, waving her hand toward my nine-year-old sister, who was patiently sharing a doll with the baby. The boys were back in my room, jumping on the bed, from the sound of it. Miki looked up at me, a question in her eyes.

  “Miki’s too young,” I said, forcing my voice to exude patience. “I have to be here with them—or you do.”

  “I’m busy,” my mother said automatically.

  I had to rub my eyes in order not to roll them at her. God forbid anyone should remind her of her duty to her offspring.

  “Here’s an idea,” she said, the ice tinkling in her glass. “Get a night job. The kids’ll be asleep.”

  “Kids wake up,” I reminded her. “Are you guys going to be here with them? Things happen at night. There could be a fire, or a break-in.”

  “Nothing like that ever happens,” my mother said dismissively. “You’re just coming up with excuses to be lazy, to sit around here on your ass all day.”

  The drunker she got, the meaner she got. That was one truism about my mother.

  “Fine,” I said quickly, not wanting my siblings to witness a shouting match. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  And that was how I got my first bartending stint.

  After I put the kids to bed, my mother always either just walking in the door or already with her head lolling on the couch, staring blindly at the television, I walked to the hovel of a bar at the entrance of the trailer park. It was a sad, shady place, but at least I could be close to home. Proximity made me feel better about leaving my siblings alone. Even if my mother was there physically, they were pretty much alone.

  “Do you know where I’ll be?” I asked Miki as I tucked her into bed with the rest of them.

  “At the bar at the end of the road,” she said, pointing in the general direction. The kid had a good sense of direction.

  “Good girl,” I said. “It’s not a trailer. It’s a building. It has Christmas lights on the outside.”

  “I know where it is,” Miki said, yawning widely. She was sleepy, and I tucked a strand of corn silk hair behind her ear. We all had the same hair. Our mother would, too, if she stopped dyeing it red.

  “If anything happens,” I said, “and I mean anything, you take the rest of the kids and you come down there. Now, what do I mean by anything?”

  “Robbers,” Miki recited. “Fire. Flood. Somebody’s sick. Somebody’s yelling. Anything.”

  “Bingo,” I said. “And even if it’s a little thing, you can come running yourself and get me, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, her eyes half closed.

  I kissed her and looked at my two brothers and the baby, all of who were already breathing deeply. I turned on the little radio to the classical music station. It was a trumpet piece, so I turned the volume down a bit. I hoped it was enough to drown out whatever nonsense our mother and father would conduct while I was gone. They fought often and loudly and fucked even more often, having no regard for the fact that the walls were paper thin and there were five of us, crouched in my room.

  The first night at the bar had me outshining the existing bartender, who was working the night shift to help train me. I knew white Russians from black Russians, all manner of vodka and whiskey cocktails, and could open a bottle of beer by knocking the top against the counter. Eighteen years living in the same trailer as my mother and father made me an expert in liquor whether I wanted to be one or not.

  I was eighteen, but I wasn’t naïve. The trailer park had seen to that. The bar was operating illegally, especially since it continued to serve alcohol well after the cutoff point, as designated by the state of Tennessee.

  “If the cops come, girl, all you have to do is run,” the day bartender told me as I drizzled tequila into a blender for a margarita.

  “I’m not very athletic,” I said uncertainly.

  “You don’t have to be the fastest,” he said, laughing. “You just can’t be the slowest.”

  I peered around at the clientele, a solid third of them resting their foreheads on whatever surface was in front of them.

  “I think that’s doable,” I said, sliding the margarita down the bar to a woman who was chain-smoking cigarettes.

  “And if they do catch you, I’m telling them you lied about your age,” the bartender continued.

  “They won’t catch me,” I said. “I’m probably faster than you.” The man was older and had a prodigious belly. I didn’t like the way I caught him staring at my bare legs, looking hard at the frayed cuffs of my jean cutoffs, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. If I didn’t keep this job, my mother and father would kick me out or force me to get another. I needed to be with my siblings during the day. I didn’t want Miki to just become another me—someone who threw her life and dreams away because her parents refused to be parents.

  I lasted all the way into the winter, when everything came to a head. The bar that night was crowded with people and I was working a double, covering for the daytime bartender. The place didn’t have heat, but it was warm enough with all the bodies pressed in there. Something about the frigid weather made people want to warm themselves with alcohol.

  I was wearing a ratty old coat and scarf that had outgrown their use years ago, but I preferred to spend my earnings on my brothers and sisters. They all had new coats this year, and matching scarves and hats. They were purchases my parents would never think to buy, instead spending their paychecks on alcohol and, occasionally, rent. I was also in charge of buying food.


  “Look at her go!” someone roared.

  Bartending was something that I had mastered at this point. I could make everything from a hot toddy to a mint julep without batting an eye. To cure my boredom, I was learning little tricks with the bottles, like spinning them around, holding two or more in one hand at a time, and tossing them in the air. I was currently doing all of the above, making a long island iced tea.

  I pushed the finished concoction down the bar and watched as my father caught it.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, his head bobbing and weaving, already drunk from wherever he’d been before he got here.

  I covered my face discreetly and got on with the next ticket. It was a nonstop night, patrons downing their drinks as fast as I could make them. The old bartender had switched to nothing but days now, so it was just me, the owner, and a couple of dried up waitresses.

  It was ludicrous that my father was proud enough of me being behind a bar to claim me as his own. I could’ve made something of myself in art school. I could’ve gotten out of this town. Maybe I would’ve even made my parents proud of me for something more than just slinging liquor at drunks.

  “She makes a better long island than you,” I heard my father say. I chanced a glance down the bar to see the person he was talking to and my eyes bugged out. It was my mother.

  Stalking down the bar, shaking a cosmopolitan in a mixer as I went, I glared at them.

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed.

  “What, we can’t see how our oldest daughter is doing at her first job?” my mother said, her eyes bloodshot, the eyeliner smeared beneath them. How long had she been drinking? Where had they been before this?

  “You’re supposed to be at home with the kids,” I said, pouring the cosmopolitan into a pretty glass and dropping a cherry in it before handing it off to the cocktail waitress.

  “I’m sure they’re already asleep,” my mother said, barely able to stay upright on her barstool.

  “You’re sure?” I repeated, feeling numb. “Did you see them go to sleep? Did you tell them good night? Have you even been at the house at all?”

  “Don’t you raise your voice at your mother,” my father roared. “She gave you life, you little bitch.”

  The bar didn’t even pause at his shouting. This was more than commonplace here. It was just a part of the chatter.

  “She might’ve given it to me, but I’ve had to take care of myself—and the rest of your kids—for eighteen goddamn years,” I said, my chest heaving. I ripped a ticket out of a waitress’ grasp and slammed four shot glasses on the bar, one right after the other. “How could you leave your own kids alone in the trailer?”

  “They’ll be fine,” my mother assured me. “You turned out fine, didn’t you?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. I was alive, if that was what she meant. Jerking the upended tequila bottle back and forth over the shot glasses until they were full, I grabbed a handful of limes and shoved them into a fifth shot glass before putting them all on a dilapidated tray and pushing it toward the waitress.

  But was I fine? I was bartending in an illegal bar, underage to boot, after giving up on my dream to go to art school, to become an artist or whatever I was meant to become. I was the furthest thing from fine, and I was serving drinks to my alcoholic parents.

  “I’d say she’s better than fine,” my father said. “Come here, girl, and give daddy a kiss.”

  “Fuck off,” I offered casually, as if I were commenting on the weather. “You’re barely fit to be a man, let alone someone’s daddy.”

  He snagged my arm as I tried to walk away and yanked me over the surface of the bar, grabbing my chin roughly with his other hand.

  “The mouth on you, girl,” was all he said before kissing me, square on my lips, slipping his thick tongue between my teeth, rolling it around in my mouth like a liquor-flavored eel. I vaguely heard my mother laughing, like it were all some big, wonderful joke.

  I did the first thing I thought of, chomping down as hard as I could on that hateful tongue.

  A sharp coppery taste filled my mouth—as well as my father’s screams—and he pushed me away as hard as he could. Blood ran down both of our chins. I grinned, knowing that I probably looked like a psychopath, but it was hard not to feel like one. My drunken father had just kissed me—with tongue—and all my mother had done was laugh.

  Neither of them was laughing now.

  I took a shot straight from the tequila bottle in front of me in part to wash the taste of my father from my mouth and in part to shore me up. The liquor burned all the way down, scorching the inside of my throat and coating of my stomach. It was a welcome distraction from my horror.

  Then, I slammed the bottle against the edge of the bar, shattering it. Liquor and glass shards flew everywhere, showering my sneakers and the bar floor. The sound of shattered glass dulled the chatter in the bar, but only minimally. That reflected the atmosphere—there were always people breaking glasses and bottles. Only a few drunken patrons watched me as I leveled the broken end of the bottled at my father’s face.

  “You’ve made a mistake,” I said, coldly and clearly.

  “Can’t a man kiss his daughter?” my father said, his voice thick as his injured tongue tried to form the words. My mother hung onto him, dabbing at his chin with a wadded up napkin.

  “Not like that he can’t,” I answered.

  “What’re you gonna do?” he mumbled. “Kill me?”

  “Maybe,” I said, slashing at him experimentally. Both he and my mother jerked backward, and more than a few bar patrons started paying closer attention to what was going on in my corner of the bar. What would it take to kill him? Would I have to cut him sideways with the bottle, or would I be able to stab the broken bottle into his throat? Would my mother interfere? Both of them deserved a bottle in their necks. They kept me from doing what I knew I’d be good at. They kept me from New York City, kept me under their thumbs here in Tennessee, were robbing me of the best years of my life. They were robbing me of a future.

  With care and no small amount of effort, I swallowed my rage and tried to think carefully. I wasn’t going to kill my father—nor my mother. I wasn’t. It wouldn’t be the smart thing to do and I needed to do the smart thing. I needed to use my brain to get out of here.

  Unbidden, my art teacher’s face sprang up in my mind. Miranda. What was it she’d said to me? That one day I was going to have to take care of myself.

  Maybe that day had been a little too long in coming, but it was officially here. It was time to do what I needed to do to ensure that I was going to come out of this okay.

  “Neither of you deserves to be parents,” I said coolly, not lowering the broken bottle a millimeter. I kept it pointed directly at my father’s face. It was the bottle he looked at, not me, and I was fine with that. I hoped his last memory of his daughter was a dangerous array of glass. It could be his legacy—as well as my mother’s. The daughter who had finally shattered. Let it serve as a painful lesson.

  “We never asked to be parents,” my mother sobbed. “We never wanted it.”

  I looked at her, the slimy tears making trails in her makeup. I hated that I looked like her, hated the blue eyes we shared. I’d go to my grave with the features my parents had bequeathed to me, and I hated that.

  “That much is very apparent,” I told her. “You never were parents, either of you.”

  I brought the bottle crashing down on the bar again, sending even more glass spiraling around. Both my mother and father covered their faces against the assault, and I was out of the door before either of them uncovered their faces, pushing past the gaping bar owner.

  The night air was cold, and my breath came in clouds, puffing behind me like steam from a train as I marched down the street to our trailer. I couldn’t believe that my parents had left my brothers and sisters alone in the trailer. I took comfort in the fact that there weren’t emergency vehicles racing down the road toward our home, but I knew that othe
r, quieter, more terrible things could happen. Maybe one of them suffocated in their sleep, tangled up in pillows, covers, or each other.

  Maybe the heat hadn’t kicked on and they’d all frozen to death. Maybe the heat had kicked on, and with it, carbon monoxide poisoning. The last scenario gave me chills. Someone else in the little conglomeration of trailers had died last winter because of a faulty heater. I spent many nights waking up in a panic and holding my finger under each of my siblings’ noses to make sure they were still breathing. I was always afraid of something happening to one of them.

  My legs quickened to a jog without me even thinking about it. However, after everything that had been wheeling through my mind, I still wasn’t prepared for what was inside that trailer. All four of my siblings were weeping, even Miki. She was carrying around a trashcan, vomiting in it, and attempting to change the baby’s diaper at the same time. My brothers were in the bathroom, and from the retching sounds, they were doing about the same thing.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Miki, trying to keep the shock from my voice and my face.

  “We’re sick,” she said, her voice so weak my breath caught in my throat. “Ma said it was gross and she left with Dad. I couldn’t leave here, Sandra. I couldn’t come get you. I’m sorry.”

  It struck me that I probably should have killed my mother and father both at the bar, but I tried to keep my face carefully neutral.

  “It’s okay,” I said, hugging her to me. “I’m here, now. Help me think, Miki. Did you guys eat anything funny?”

  “I made everyone sandwiches for dinner, but no one was really hungry,” she said, fumbling with the baby’s diaper as the baby wailed.

  I looked at the table, where the half-eaten remains of that meal rested and tried to disguise my rage with purpose. My siblings had been sick since probably this afternoon—and alone, too. My nine-year-old sister, as sick as the rest of them, had attempted to care for everyone when she didn’t have any business even taking care of herself.

  I went to the fridge and looked at the packages of lunchmeat and cheese. They smelled fine, both expiration dates still in the clear. I was pretty sure I could rule out food poisoning. The fact that my mother and father had abandoned their kids at the first sign of sickness enraged me. It was obvious to me that they all had some kind of virus—I’d arranged for all of them to get flu shots through the school during the fall, so it couldn’t be that.