Amy K. Cogswell
Africa
It must be Africa I am in, walking through the expanse of orange, feeling the bitterness of the sun. I imagine I can hear the snakes curl through the dryness; whispering low movement beneath me. The south stretches before me, a rising sea of orange plains. Beyond the rise is wilderness. The unknown; animals and beasts lurking and waiting. But my eyes fool me and I am late for dinner.
Our Father leans back in his chair.
"One night I went into the bush," he says. "And I found a girl lying in the jungle. I grabbed her and took my flashlight and shined it on her head. The back of her head was blown away. She was probably looking for food and got caught in the middle of a fight. She was just looking for something to eat, and her brains ended up all over my hands."
I stop and look down. I can't eat now after hearing the story about the Vietnamese girl. My throat closes, but there's no answer for Father anyway.
Mom sighs and places her hand over Father's arm.
"Don't say such things in front of the kids," she says gently, nodding at us. "They can't eat after hearing stories like that."
Father shrugs. "They can eat; look at them. Those kids are fine, just fine." There's an edge to his voice and it makes me ashamed. I'm not the Vietnamese girl with her brains falling out.
Meggie and Drew shrug and continue their dinner. They don't listen to Father like I do.
Everyone continues eating, and my dinner grows cold.
I mop the dining room floor every day. I hate it. The dining room is a room of dread, of lectures. I move the mop across the room, I squeeze and rinse and go over it again.
"You don't know how to mop," he said once. "Look at what you are doing. See that soap? You leave soap on the floor, it just collects more dirt. And it streaks."
I moved to rinse the mop in the sink.
"What are you doing now? Did I tell you to move? Are you walking away from me?"
I stopped.
"Don't just rinse it, squeeze it out."
I rinsed. I squeezed. I did it again and returned the mop to the bucket.
"What? What is that? What are you doing?"
The mop was in the bucket, sucking the soap and water.
I stopped.
"Did you just put the mop back in that dirty water?"
I stopped again. "Yes sir."
I can't mop when he is home.
Now I wax the dining room table. I remove the crust of hardened cheese sauce on the seat of my brother's chair. I use a green scrubbing sponge between the spindles. I smell the wood wax and the soap and look at my private Africa outside the dirty windows.
They send us to church on Sunday. That's fine with me. Their bedroom is behind mine, and I can hear the headboard thumping against the wall and my mother's groans. When they come out for breakfast, with his pink nipples puffed and bare, I don't want to look at him. But I can smell him.
Meggie and Drew and I sit through church services, scrubbed clean and in ironed clothes. A fat chaplain comes up, with monk's hair: short on the sides, bald on top and in a brown cloak that moves with his arms and round belly. He looks like John the Baptist. His soft voice is background noise while I read the Bible passages over and over. The part where Jesus gets crucified holds my attention. He hangs over and over again while the chaplain speaks.
Mom is out, getting her hair done. Meggie and I come home after a day of swimming at the pool, and Drew is waiting for us.
Drew has a switch in his hands. It came from the rubber stripping on a screen window. He's mad; I don't know why. But he sends us skittering through the house, our sandals slapping against the tile. The switch reaches me across the back of my thighs. I yowl and clutch at the burning. I slide as I run, rubber soles sending me off course. Meggie screams and sobs, scared and mad, and we push each other out of the way, our fingers getting tangled in each other while we try to get away from him. Our brother is silent, his switch talks for him, and the sound of it reaching across us is good enough for him. Then Father walks in, in his flight suit, his gym bag in his hand. He stops in the foyer and sees us running, and he sees the switch in Drew's hand.
Everyone stops. No more crying. Throats close, heads bend down. The switch falls from Drew's hand.
Meggie and I move into our room, our sandals slapping against the tile. We walk quickly and silently, our tears drying on our cheeks.
We shut the door and sit down on our beds and we don't look at each other.
Thumping. Groans. I gnaw at my nails. A low moan and my brother's voice, strangled. My pelvis clenches and I have to pee, but I can't leave the room. Meggie is silent, and our backs are to each other. I hear a crash and I jump up and reach the door.
Groaning. And then, after some silence, low sobbing.
And Father comes out, arranging his belt, tightening it against his waist.
He sees me.
"What is it? What is wrong?" He asks.
I don't want to, but I sob.
I sit down in the hall, and he sits with me and puts his arm around me. I can smell him then, faintly, under the scent of fuel on his flight suit, and I realize the scent of his sweat and salt is my smell, too.
I can't answer.
"He was hitting you, chasing you. Look what Drew did to you. Look at that." He holds my arm up; welled red marks trace the length of my skin.
"Wrong is wrong." He says.
A few days later, I am watching television in the living room when he walks in from work.
"My back is killing me," he says. "Can you walk on it?"
I remove my sandals while he lies on the floor. I check to make sure my feet are clean, and then I step onto his back, flexing my toes. I balance carefully, rocking slightly on the balls of my feet as I move back and forth.
"I'm not too heavy?" I ask.
"No." He sighs and breathes deeply. I listen hard to his breathing; when he lets out long breaths, I move slowly and firmly over the spots that give him trouble.
"Why does your back hurt?" I ask.
"Too many falls." There is a smile in his voice.
"Falls from what?" I know the answer, but I like to ask anyway.
"Helicopters. Three crashes. Two of them blew up; the third hit the end of an LZ and smashed into the bush. The first time I fell out, I thought I was a dead man. I was in the jump seat. The gunner was killed."
I listen and move my feet across his back, balancing delicately across his shoulder blades.
"The last time I fell in Vietnam, it was nothing. Just a jump and a roll out the doorway. But my back doesn't forget."
I don't know what to say, but that's okay. When he talks, I just like to listen and think. I move my feet across his back and listen to his sighs.
When our Father leaves, the house erupts. He is in Japan, training a new Marine flight squadron for three months. My mother's hair turns greasy; she stops dressing. The smell of Kahlua rises from her glass; I stop and take gulps when I pass it. I take puffs of her cigarette, too. Her breath turns sour and her eyes are crazy when she chases us around the house.
My brother Drew tosses frogs onto the roof to watch them burn in the sun.
My sister Meggie hides.
I take my knapsack and thermos and a diary and walk into Africa.
Drew brings home a paper bag and tosses it to me. Inside are a half dozen baby black birds. The feathers are just starting to sprout; their eyes are still closed.
"Where did you get these? Where's the mother?"
"Dead. They're probably going to die."
"Why? What happened?" But he doesn't answer; he's on his way to dissect a frog.
I make a nest out of a shoebox. I use cotton balls and old socks to keep them warm. Mom gives me an eyedropper and a syringe for feeding. I feed them baby formula, I give them water, and the feathers start to come out. They cry often, and I touch them gently with one finger. I am afraid to lift them; they are so small.
I keep them in a warm corner of my room, on my desk. They cry and rock when they smell the dropper, and sometimes the liquid falls over their faces and down their bodies. I wash them gently with the cotton balls; it sticks to their stubbly feathers.
I know they are going to live; I pray over it and I watch them start to open their eyes. For four days I keep watch over them.
I spend the night at a friend's house and return early the next morning to feed the birds. Outside my front door is the shoebox. Inside are the birds, dead.
"What happened?" I cry over my birds, lifting the box to my chest.
"Those dirty crows stunk up your room and you left another mess for me to clean up!" Mom walks out onto the patio.
I bury them over the hill, in Africa.
I write in my diary.
"Dear Diary," I write. "I don't know what to do. Father is in Japan and Mom is getting crazy again. She killed my birds. She's really going nutty this time . . ."
Mom cleans my room and finds my diary.
"Dear Diary!" She laughs. She sticks her face in mine. "Dear fucking Diary! So you think I'm crazy, hmm? I'll show you crazy."
Her breath is sour and I flinch. She rips the notebook in half and strikes at me. "What's the matter with you? You think your life is so hard? Poor you. Poor stupid you. Look at what we gave you! Look around this house and see all we do for you! And this is what you write about me?"
Her hands fall on me, hitting, grabbing my hair, and I reach back. I hit back, my fist is small against her head and falls away, but I keep hitting. She slaps at me, her hands moving from my cheeks to my eyes to my forehead and I hit her back, I hit her as hard as I can, but she is bigger.
"You're a fucking beast!" I scream and she slaps me fully in the face.
I grab my Thermos and an apple and walk into Africa.
The next day, I take a paper lunch bag from the kitchen drawer and fill it with rocks. Drew showed me this trick for trips to the store; take a lunch bag and fill it with rocks to make it look full. Then no one can tell we took candy bars.
Mom is sleeping in her bedroom, the drapes drawn to keep out the light and the air conditioning on to muffle sound.
Meggie and I walk a mile to the store. I put the lunch bag on the candy shelf, open the top and fill it with candy. Meggie forgets her bag, so we use the hood of her windbreaker to put her candy. We are waiting in line to buy milk, and a candy bar falls out of her hood and hits the floor. A Marine dressed in fatigues standing in line behind us stoops down and places the candy bar back in her hood. All of us are silent. We pay for the milk and walk home.
While Father is gone, I get up early. I take my thermos and Father's military protein bars, wrapped in the dark green packaging. "Green Marine bars," we call them. I put them in my knapsack with an old Timex watch and walk over Dead Man's Hill into Africa. I stay on the path, listening for rattlesnakes, and keep myself steady when I see bees. Two miles out is an abandoned farm down below a ravine. I sit and watch it below while the sun climbs. Where I am is over the edge, but there are no more beasts. My skin is hardened to the white sun; it tightens and shines under the heat as I watch Africa.
July comes. Father is still in Japan. The heat rises, and my mother has a party; an animal is roasting on a spit, liquor and food are spread on tables on our lawn, and visitors bring extra chairs and chaises. Father's brother, Uncle Greg, arrives and plays with me. He tosses me in the kiddie pool and pushes my head underwater. I scream and laugh and tackle him and push him into the kiddie pool. I pour a beer on his head and pounce on his back. My mother lies back on a chaise and closes her eyes, a scotch and soda in her hand. There are people everywhere, shadows spread as high as Dead Man's Hill behind us, in and out of the house, streaming figures blackened by the sun. The stereo plays Father's old records, the sounds of The Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" blaring through speakers scattered around the patio.
Uncle Greg and I are in the living room, and he hangs me upside down. I am screaming and laughing and hanging onto my shirt, covering my chest. He slips a hand inside my shorts, and I freeze.
"Stop." A command.
He obeys, and it is over. He releases me gently, and I glide to the floor and he walks outside to the patio. Mom is standing at the door, a cigarette in her hand.
It is bedtime, and Meggie and I are in our pajamas. We have matching Holly Hobbie nightgowns, faded and worn soft. They're getting too small on us, the hems reaching our calves instead of our ankles.
Mom summons my sister and I. She is in the bathroom, taking a bath.
"Did something happen today?" She asks us. Her voice is gentle.
"No."
We sit on the floor beside the tub and try not to look at her. She soaps herself with a washcloth, rubbing in circles across her thick black hair and belly and breasts. I hate it when she brings us in here. I hate looking at her body but I can't help it -- it's right there in front of me.
"Really, come on, girls. I know something happened. What happened?" She looks at us with her nice eyes, open wide and soft.
I shrug and look down at the tiled floor. I hate when she calls us into the bathroom. I hate when she is playacting, trying to be normal.
"Did someone do something to you?" She reaches for my hand. Hers is wet and smells of soap.
"No . . ." I say, frowning. I pull my hand away and she sighs. Meggie chews on her nails and looks at the floor.
"Did Uncle Greg do something?"
"No."
"Come on, you girls can tell me. Did he touch you?"
She squeezes out her washcloth and lays it on the side of the tub, saying, "You can tell me. We can fix this. I know he did something. Tell me so I can help you."
"He tried to, but I told him no."
And the house erupts again.
My mother is a liar. She can't fix this.
She gets out of the tub quickly, silently, soap bubbles moving down the front of her body. When she is dressed, she walks into the kitchen and I follow her.
She calls the police. Her voice is low, smooth. I clutch at her; I try to take the phone. She pushes me away and her voice continues in its smooth rhythm.
"No, no, no. Please don't. Please. We can fix this." I follow her around the house, tugging at her arm, her back, her shoulder. I have to stop her, make her listen to me. She shrugs me off, ignoring me. She moves through the kitchen as though I am not there, straightening out papers and laying a tablecloth on the breakfast table. She sets the kettle for tea and takes out the milk.
"Please. It will wreck everything. What about our Father? Please, Mom. Please, don't do this. Please. We can fix this. Please. Mom, please don't. I don't want Father to know." Now I am crying, because he will know; everyone will know. There's no fixing this.
The sheriff comes and sits across from me at the breakfast table. I tell him my story and I don't cry. I plead with him.
"Please, I don't want to do anything. It's fine. It won't happen again. I know it won't. I told him no; he listened. Please, just forget about this. We can fix this. We don't need to do it this way. My Father can handle this when he gets home. He wouldn't let it happen this way. I know he wouldn't."
The sheriff looks at my mother across the table. "She's a precocious one."
My mother smiles at me, but her eyes are sad. She tries to touch me. I won't let her; I feel sick.
But the sheriff can't forget, and anyway, Meggie has her own story to tell about Uncle Greg, too.
And so we sit across the table; the sheriff, my sister and I, and my mother smoking a cigarette and drinking her tea and we listen while Meggie tells her own story.
After the sheriff leaves, Meggie and I go to bed. We can hear Mom on the phone to Japan, her voice soft and murmuring. Meggie and I sleep together, our nails bitten down to the ends.
The next day, the house is silent. Drew leaves early in the morning to visit a friend and I walk into Africa. I throw away my paper bags. I empty the rocks over the grave of my birds. I sit in the silence of Africa, waiting for Father to come home.
©2003 by Amy K Cogswell
