Memories of Mary

"We do that everyday"

Yeah, but I mean that one time. Remember?

"What the hell are you talking about?"

We were all sitting around watching MTV and complaining because they never show anything good and we should've been walking the dog or studying and stuff.

"Like I said, we do that everyday"

I know, but don't you remember? A Coolio video was on, the one with that big fat sweaty guy and Coolio was all off in the camera talkin’ about
"I guess they can't, I guess they won't
I guess they frontin'
That's why I know my life is out of luck... fool"

"Ohhh yeah. Coolio's face was all up in the living room and all you could see were some big-ass lips all off in your face. Yeah, I remember now. That was just the other day."

Yeah, when Mary saw them big ol' lips, she was just went, "Oooh"

"Yeah, and it wasn't like an admiration type "oooh" either. But more like a 'damn, get the hell outta my face type oooh.' That was funny, huh?"

Yeah.
Or do you remember when we were little and Mary had that big doll about three feet tall?

"Yeah, it didn't have any clothes and the blonde hair was all matted and nappy.
Mary would talk out of the side of her mouth and say, 'I'm Miss Biddings class, now take out your pencils and get to work. Don't ask me no questions because I'm a dork.'
Then we would all take turns whacking it with that big wooden stick that Mom used to roll out the maza for tortillas."

That was kind or morbid.

"But still funny."

Oh definitely, yeah...it was still funny.
She also told us that story about her third grade teacher who was gonna show the class a film and when she went to pull down the screen----It came off the hook and fell on her head and she started crying in front of the class and Mary had to go get the nurse. Now that was a funny story.

"Damn funny."

Remember how when Mary would drop you off at school she would never come to a complete stop and you would just have to jump out of the car while it was still rolling.

"And all the kids would be standing around outside watching and I hoped that I didn’t fall or do something else stupid when I landed. Yeah, eventually the kids at school got to know me as, 'that dude who always has to jump out of that blue Mustang.'"

That was funny. One time, I remember, she took me to the pool and this dude who was about three or four years younger than her kept trying to flirt. He was splashing water on her and wouldn't leave her alone.

"Did she get mad?"

Do you have to ask? He had this smarmy look on his face like he really believed that he wasn’t annoying or something. He just kept on splashing and splashing. 'Till finally, Mary got fed up and called him a "little sixth grade shit" and told him to leave her the hell alone.

"That's pretty funny."

Do you remember when Mom and Pop used to fight all the time?

"Are you saying they don't anymore? What, did hell freeze over and I missed it? You remember how Mom would come to us and be crying and we wouldn’t know what to do or say or if we should say anything at all. All we could do was just sit there and feel bad."

Yeah, then Mary and Mom would go into Mary's bedroom and shut the door and they'd be back there talking about things that only women can understand.

"Yeah, I’m really grateful that Mary was there for Mom all the time."

Always on my toes and looking for an easy laugh. " No, who?"

"Peter" He said.

Peter was our across-the-street neighbor when we used to live next to the telephone company. He was the older of two children. Him and his sister. There wasn't really anybody else around so I guess he was our friend by default. Still a friend regardless. I remember the day we moved into that joint. His family came over to do the traditional neighborly salutations and introductions. They even brought their dog over to meet our dog and when nobody was paying attention my brother and sister pulled the ticks off our dog and threw them onto their dog. We still laugh about that. Anyways, that was Peter--the poor one.

My brother told me that Peter was a tight-wad. But when you're just a kid of course your economical. You can't be a man of largesse when you don't have any money and your parents won't give you any. So it was his parents who would die rather than part with a dollar. But it was funner to say that it was Peter's doing.

Peter was cheap. His mom always had a six-pack of Pepsi in the fridge and would only buy him and his sister one can of Shasta each per week. Peter's parents never took him anywhere and he rode an old bike that he put together himself.

Peter was a miser, and his sister too. Their dad was never around and when he was he always had on bell-bottom pants. Made him and his sister share a bedroom--too economical to buy a house with a better floorplan.

On that day, my brother was going to demonstrate to me the extent of Peter's frugality with indisputable empirical evidence.

"He's got the spaghetti with the stars and stripes."

What?

"The spaghetti with the stars and stripes...you know...the generic kind."

Ohhh. I didn't know that stars and stripes signified generic, but who argues with an older brother. They know everything.

How do you know?

"I saw it. I was there. They had just come back from buying groceries. Stars and stripes plain as day. I saw it when they put it in the cabinets. Yep, a definite indicator of being a cheapskate."

I think you're lyin'.

"We can go over there right now and look if you don't believe me."

We can't do that. What, are we just gonna walk over there and march in like we own the place?

"Yeah."

And that's exactly what we did. We went outside, traversed the steps of the porch that our Pop had made that was also a dog house. Walked through the ugly yard that never grew any grass no matter how much my mom goaded the soil with child labor. We opened the gate to the fence as the pungent smell of something dead wafted our nostrils. We arrived at the street, looked both ways, looked again to make sure that we didn't get flattened by a dump truck doing sixty, then we sprinted across.

While we were happily moseying to Peter's door I couldn't help but wondering why we were doing this. Really, I couldn't believe that we were doing this. I'd never just walked into somebody else's house before. I'd always wanted to, but had never done it. I guess the impetus of an older brother is all that I needed.

We got to the door and my brother, being the bold one, took hold of the doorknob without pretense and with a swift turn of the wrist opened the door and we sauntered in like we owned the place. Peter was there, laying down on his stomach with his chin in his hands and his elbows buried in the shag carpet with waves of different shades of brown. His mom was there too, sitting in that shiny leather recliner. Not the real leather, though, the kind with the fuzzy cross pattern on the inside.

"What the hell are you two doing?" She rudely inquired.

We didn't answer...too busy carrying out our mission: seek and ridicule the spaghetti with stars and stripes.

"Mom, they're going through our cabinets."He wasn't lying either, we were going through their cabinets. Laughing too. We hadn't found the elusive can yet, but already, the humor was seizing us like an angry father.

By the time my brother actually pulled ol' glory from the cubbard, I was already bent over in mischievous joy. Upon receiving visual confirmation, I fell to the floor in side-splitting laughter. My brother was quick to follow and we both ran out of breath and squirmed around with red faces and watery eyes. The can was black and white with some stars, just like my brother had explained to me, but this time it was funny...there was comedy, and lot's of it, in that can. There was also something else...something between brothers...something that can't be explained...something that can only be experienced.

Well, Peter was a spendthrift. I had seen the evidence with my own eyes. Who can argue with such concrete proof?--the spaghetti with stars and stripes. We sure as hell didn't have any of that crap. It's a good thing too, I thought as my brother and I trotted back to our late sixties model trailer house, giggling as we passed by our '73 Nova with the multi-hued green body panels and dented rear end. We wiped our eyes as we stepped over the various pipes and scrap metal our Pop had accumulated in the yard. And there we sat on some old worthless appliances, picked our toes, and extolled our financial superiority.

The Coffin

Sometimes, the whole family would go out there. Must've been in the summer when my brother and sister weren't in school. We'd all go out there to take my dad his lonche. Those were happy times, eating lunch behind the coffin factory. A set of parallel train tracks ran behind the factory and the train would always come by while we were scarfing down our beans, potatoes, and tortillas. We would all hoot and holler and raise hell like the train was some sort of robotic monster. Mom would be wary of us getting too close to the tracks while Pop would tell us tales of how train engineers were evil bandits who would punish children severely for playing too close to the train. Either way, it made it that much more fun.

We used to find these little pieces of steel all around the tracks. My Pop called them train whistles. If you knew what you were doing, you could hold the whistle up to your mouth and blow into it the right way and lo and behold--the train whistle lived up to its name. Pop tried to teach us all how to do it but I was the only one who could ever coax those pieces of steel to sing. Maybe my brother and sister didn't care to learn how, but I thought I was really cool because here was something I could finally do that they couldn't. From that day on I always had a whistle on my person and whenever I needed some positive affirmation I would whip that sucker out and wail away.

We were always short on money so from time to time Mom would meet Pop at the coffin factory and they would both work the night shift together and clean the place up. We would always go with my mom since we didn't have any money for us to get a baby-sitter. But even more important, Mom didn't like to leave us anywhere with anyone who wasn't family. So the whole lot of us would go, late at night...to the coffin factory. The place was always dirty with wood shavings and pieces of scrap brass, copper, and other expensive types of metal laying around. It would've been a great place to play except for the coffins. Everywhere you looked there were coffins. There were some really fancy metal ones that weren't quite done. And there were some finely crafted wooden ones that weren't really finished either. Each one still at each craftsman's work station. Each one a work in progress. Each one a grim omen.

The scariest area of the whole factory was the room where all the finished coffins were kept. This room was carpeted and had quaint dim lighting. Any moment I expected some cheesy salesman to come out and try to stuff me and my family into some fancy overpriced boxes I would fight to the death if I had to. And then he could've put me in one of those coffins...one of the small ones. I never went into that room. I didn't even like to walk by the door. I hated to look in there and see all those damn coffins all in neat little rows each one half open like an open casket funeral.

Well the coffin factory isn't there anymore. The building is still there but the factory is gone. The friendly guard dog that used to guard the expensive mahoganies and oaks isn't there anymore and neither are the Mexicanos who built those eerie coffins. Last I heard the building was being used as a Bethesda outreach center. How ironic!

Eventually, my Pop found another job and I reached school age. Shortly thereafter my Mom found a job too and gone were the days of taking tacos to Pop. Still, sometimes, whenever I hear a train go by and blow its mighty horn, I think of train whistles and wonder whatever became of the lost fortunes of nickels and pennies that we turned to pancakes on those old tracks. I remember when we were all little and my brother wasn't a pain in the ass for everyone that cares about him. I remember when my sister was still "la bebita" and not a grown woman complete with a husband. I think of Mom and Pop and how all our lives they have always sacrificed without complaint for us. I wonder now about the tracks behind Texas Coffin. Do the steel wheels of the train still roll? Rolling on and on, just like life. I bet they do.
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