Hit the Ground
Laughing A MEMOIR
Abigail Higgs
Copyright © 2012 by Abigail Higgs All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author. Published by Lightning Luck Press, Baltimore. “Steak, Peas, Potatoes, Ritalin” first appeared in Urbanite Magazine, 2009. A portion of “You’re Life’s About to Change, Make Sure You’ve Got the Best Shoes” (“Everytime I Set my Fork Down”) first appeared in Freerange Nonfiction in March, 2012.
For my moms, Janet Higgs and Judy Doll
part 1
Your Life’s About to Change,
Make Sure You’ve Got the Best Shoes
part 2
The Legend of my Birth
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Steak, Peas, Potatoes, Ritalin
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Fresh and Hot from my Mother’s Oven
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A Sweeter Kid
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At the Table with Mom
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Some of the names in this book have been changed; some have not.
Your Life’s About to Change, Make Sure You’ve Got the Best Shoes
ABBY HIGGS
LOUD MUSIC AND LOUISE The drive back to Ball State from my parents’ house in Richmond took a little more than an hour. I paid no attention to the time. The sun had set. I maneuvered my old Buick LeSabre up State Road 35 with habitual ease. I had each bend memorized, each farmhouse, each billboard advertisement down by heart: “Tom Raper RVs in The City of Roses, Biggest RV Lot in the Midwest!” and “Pregnant? Scared? Choose the Adoption Option!” I knew where to safely bypass lumbering semis and at which intersection to ignore stop signs. Listening to the same song over and over again helped me keep my thoughts calm and collected. After the fuckedup weekend I’d endured and was still having, I figured a rotating four-song mix of Jane’s Addiction, The Eurythmics, Ween, and Otis Redding would be apropos So I sped outta Richmond and straight into a disorganized music-fueled slough of thought. “You couldn’t have logged on here by accident,” Mom
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said after dinner. She leaned over my shoulder and squinted at the computer. Mom, Dad and I were in the “computer room” at my folks’ house. I was showing them the Reunion Registry site. I sighed. “Well, it wasn’t on purpose, Mom.” “These guys legit?” my dad asked, leaning over me with his glasses on. I shrugged, said I doubted they were. “Why do you want to find her?” My mother looked at the ceiling. I didn’t answer. Excusing myself from the computer, I picked up my belongings and made for the front door. I’d packed before supper in case our meal turned into a fight. After my dinner table confessionn and showing off the confirmation code, my mother’s emotions had run the gamut. She’d gone from sad at first, to angry and defensive, to forgiving me and rustling my hair. It was like someone close had died and she had experienced the stages of grief in the same amount of time it took my dad to wash the dishes. Eventually, she made it back to sad. It was time to go back to Ball State so I lied about having two tons of homework. “Seriously,” I said, hugging my dad goodbye, “Two tons.” I left Mom sitting at the computer, glaring at the Reunion Registry website. ****
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I lit a cigarette, rolled to a stop outside of Losantville and started to cry. Not much, just a little. I felt helpless which, in turn, made me mad. My dad knew Judy’s last name. Did he know more? Jane’s Addiction was blaring from my speakers. Thank God. I hate crying because, when I do it, I feel vulnerable. And feeling vulnerable makes me angry. If I’m crying and listening to a sad song, I’ll just give in and cry some more; I can’t help it. I’ll weep until I gag, as far away from everyone as possible. This occasional reaction to sad songs makes me feel vulnerable. So then I get mad. But if I’m listening to raucous music at the moment I feel sad and want to cry, I just move about. Most of the time, this makes me feel better. I’m an emotional music listener. A Ford Ranger full of good ol’ boys rolled up behind me and honked. I saw that there were four of ‘em inside. Three were gesturing and cursing while one lone fella sat absolutely still in the middle of the cab; he was staring straight ahead, past my car; gawking through my windshield, toward the horizon and the setting sun up ahead. He looked scared of his friends; vulnerable. I swerved to the burm of the road, let them pass. If Dad knows more, I thought, I’ll let him tell me. A tractor had the road monopolized up ahead. Yellow caution lights blinked from its square, green rear-end. What looked like the jaw of a giant metal Tyrannosaurus
Rex bobbed from the tractor’s frame. I thought of my dad, how his jaw looked when he ate, how he ate his food with such vigor, and the dinner table confession began to replay itself again in my head. I sped up, passed the tractor, and for no good reason, I gave it the bird.
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The house at Ball State was eerily quiet. There was the soft purr of the dryer. A fan was spinning somewhere; the wing-beating clicks resonating down the hall. I crashlanded into a chair at the basement kitchen table, drew a cigarette from my pocket, checked to make certain no roommates were in sight (smoking in common areas was looked down upon), and puffed away. The house was a split-level duplex and when viewed straight-on from across the street, it looked as if the front porch was bowing in sad, humble salutation. Astroturf and trash carpeted the veranda. There were three bedrooms upstairs, wood paneling, thick carpet, a kitchen, a full bathroom, and high ceilings. The basement, where I lived, contained a kitchen, another living room, a bathroom, and four bedrooms each the size of middle-management cubicles. The home was constructed for supreme money-making on our landlord’s part. We each paid $270 a month. Times seven, and Don, our super, had $1,890.00 to shove in his pocket each month. He was a weird man, Don. During our initial introduction, he asked me to shake
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ABBY HIGGS
his nubs. He was missing all four fingers on his right hand, leaving his thumb stuck in a perpetual “thumbs up.” He never collected rent on time and showed up whenever he deemed fit. Sometimes this was when a few of us had joints rotating around the living room. I extinguished my cigarette and went to the coffee table. We kept our pipes there, tucked away behind phone books. There were three and, much to my dismay, not one had a bit of resin. Someone had left the mail fanned out like an impressive hand of cards on the floor. I bent down, scanned for my name, didn’t see it, and went back into the kitchen. When the phone in the basement living-room rang, I yelped. “Hello?” “Hey, Abs. It’s me!” It was my boyfriend, Sideshow, who drove me crazy. But not in a good way; I just loved his hair. He had soft tight kinks that spun around his scalp and exploded in every direction. It was the most impressive afro on a skinny white boy I’d ever seen. The first night I met him, I’d jammed my right hand into his hair and, waving a cup of Michelob Amber Bock around with my left, I said, “I’d probably sleep with you because I like your hair so much.” So we slept together but he kept calling afterward, asking me to do things. Having shed at least fifteen pounds since high school, I could fit into tiny little t-shirts and jeans. Guys found me attractive and this, conversely,
scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to be attached to a guy. In fact, I didn’t want to be attached to men at all. Living with five females, one could always locate me in their vicinity, sitting and chewing on my fingernails, studying their curves and the way they walked and talked. I wanted it to be with girls. But, until I found the right time in my life to come out (and that certainly didn’t look like the near future), I settled for drunk sex with men who had innovative hair. “Wanna get a veggie burger at Burke’s?” Sideshow asked. I told him that I was busy and had to go but, if he wanted, he could come over tomorrow. After I hung up, I meandered toward my bedroom. Halfway down the hall, I heard grunts and giggles. It was my roommate, Lauren, and her new English chap, Nigel, having sex. Even Nigel’s grunts were brogue-ish. “Oy, Lauren. Aye, yeah.” Quietly, I walked backward down the corridor and sat back down at the kitchen table.
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When my dad had first seen this crooked-ass house, he’d shrugged and said, “My first place was a pit, too. Your mother hated it. The paint was peeling off everywhere. But it sufficed.” He’d shaken Don’s nubs cordially and helped me unpack. In the kitchen, he’d sized up our fridge. “That’ll hold some beer,” he said. I froze, holding a bag of clothes in my hand. Was Dad making a reference
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to drinking? Mr. I’ll-have-The-Grape-Juice-At-Communion?
“We’ve contacted your biological mother. She’s been looking for you for three years! Can I have your confirmation code, please?” I took the slip of paper from my back pocket and, as if I were prattling off the last four digits of my SSN to a debt collector – deadpan with a hint of exhausted enunciation – I said, “Two. Four. Two. Nine.” “Thank you,” Louise said. “Your mother has been informed that we found you. Expect a call in about an hour. Congratulations!” “Thanks,” I said. I set the receiver down and leaned against the back basement door. The window was ice cold on my forehead. I felt sick. An hour? Just an hour? I stood with my head against the window for quite a while; I watched as two stray dogs sauntered down the alley, nudging at the asphalt with their snouts and squinting into the wind. Who did they belong to? I wondered. I wanted to let them in.
I stubbed out my cigarette, pressing the filter deep into a cup of archaic graying butts that Sally and I kept hidden in the kitchen (being the only smokers in the house, Sally and I figured stowing our ashtray on top of fridge would suffice. But it did fall once onto the head of a visitor who had a fit because, suddenly, there were old, nasty butts in her old, dirty dreadlocks.) I opened the fridge. A bucket of lettuce, a container of mustard, a jar of pickles, a few cans of Slim Fast, and white grapes with brown specks. No beer. I groaned. The living-room phone rang again. Nerve-wracked, I stomped to it, picked up the receiver and exhaled. “Hello?” “Is this Abigail Higgs?” The voice sounded like it came from a woman who had a desk-job. Professionally cordial. “That’s me,” I said. “My name’s Louise. I’m calling from Reunion Registry dot com. Do you know why I’m calling?” I wasn’t sure how to respond. So I nodded. “Miss?” I cleared my throat, said, “I’m right here. Yes, I think I know why you’re calling.”
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part 2
THE LEGEND OF MY BIRTH Judy wasn’t supposed to know my gender when I was born. But, as I was exiting her womb, some idiot RN exclaimed: “Congrats, it’s a girl!” “I wonder if that dumb delivery nurse was ever embarrassed by what she said; if she mustered a quaint ‘oopsydaisy’ before exiting the delivery room.” On the porch swing, I turn to Judy and say, “You mean, you wonder if she vowed to my squealing bloody body in tow that, under no circumstances, would she ever make that mistake again?” Judy smiles and nods. “Exactly.” It’s been a little over a year since we’ve met. Judy welcomes me each Sunday (she only lives an hour from Ball State) with a sweating can of Coke and tells my (brand new to me) older brother and sister to scoot over on the couch, make room for “Li’l Abby.” I’m treated like “the baby” and it’s awesome. Judy is telling me my story on the front porch today. 41
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Last week she told it to me at Pizza Rhea, where she works and takes super-long breaks to smoke cigarettes and chatter. A couple weeks before that, I heard another version of the story in Judy’s kitchen while I was having my spine tattooed by a friend of hers. I groaned in pain, the tattoo gun vibrated while Judy shouted: “I was one lucky woman in labor! You hardly made me flinch, Abby.”
We’re part Cherokee, hence the lengthy title. Judy says, “So the nurse accidentally blurted out ‘It’s a girl!’” This makes her slap her knee, guffawing. “The doctor gave that nurse a quick mean glance, shooshed her, and then handed you off to her. Just like that. I didn’t want to hold you because I would’ve got attached, ya’ know?” Brandon returns and throws a wrapped Popsicle in my lap, runs off before I can protest. Orange. I hate orange. “But I could hear you crying all the way down the hall until I was released. They put you in some nursery alone because you were tiny and probably sick. And, because of Welfare regulations, I couldn’t see you anyway. That’s how it went back then. Heart-rending, huh?” Suddenly, I felt uncomfortable and vulnerable. Our conversation had grown serious; a little sad. I squirmed. “That is heart-rending.” Judy lit a new cigarette. “But, oh well, here you are. We’ll learn more about each other soon enough.” Then, for several minutes, we swung and kicked our legs, watching Brandon play in the sunlit yard. Every once in a while, he’d look up at us and blink.
Judy and I watch my (brand new to me) nephew, Brandon, as he pounces around on the sidewalk. We swing and talk. Brandon jabs his purple Popsicle into flower centers and sucks off the residue. I think it’s very cool that he’s doing this. When Mom asks if I’d like my own Popsicle, I smile and clap my hands. “Go get her one, Brandon,” she barks. When Brandon stomps by us to go back inside, I cross my arms and smirk at him. Now who’s the baby of the family? Like some tribal elder or shaman, Judy serenely smokes generic peace pipes (Tourney Light 100’s). We look alike in some ways – we’re small-statured and we have blonde hair. But she has higher cheekbones; her facial features are more defined. And she tans really well. Which confounds me. She continues with what we refer to as the Legend of my Birth That Lasted all of Twenty Minutes Because She Was in a Hurry and, Apparently, so Was I.
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ABBY HIGGS
A SWEETER KID There are countless videotapes of me running circles in the living room, giggling, twirling, captivated by the swishing of my corduroys. I’d run until the gravitational bulk of my diapered rear-end pulled me downward. On these tapes, I got right up again, teetering a moment, my arms flailing like a cartoon on a cliff until, alas, I found my balance and resumed running circles, giggling. Probably farting. Like a typical three-year-old, I talked too much. Everything was my friend. My dad was my friend. Mickey Mouse was my friend. The couch was my friend. The Sunday edition of the Indianapolis Star was my friend. Also like a typical three-year-old, I reveled in being bigger and older than my tiny, baby brother, Zach, whose first full sentence was, after a long car trip one day, “Shubbub, Abby.” I was too young to be offended at the time. So Zach was still my friend. In fact, I coddled Zach. In one particular video, I caress 64
Zach’s head. I hold him, watch the drool trickle and fork like babbling brooks from his mouth; I look into his eyes while he does this strange maneuver with his legs – bringing them up to his chest while rocking back and forth. Onscreen, my toddler self giggles at him. Now, I watch these videotapes with my family almost every time I’m home. Mom sits on the sofa cooing and crying about how sweet her babies once were while I quietly position myself cross-legged in front of the screen. I watch for previously missed “tell-tale” signs – a quick evil baby cackle, a sly poke to Zach’s ear, my chubby little digits untying the laces of my great grandma’s loafers, burgeoning horns on my temples, anything. All I wish to see by revisiting these tapes are signs that may have forewarned folks that beneath my innocent dancing toddler façade waited my post-surgery alter ego, twiddling her thumbs, biting her nails, grinding her teeth into sharp little fangs. I have my own theory about when and why my babywrath first budded. You see, though I was a happy, farty toddler, I was also a sick baby. I had congenital heart failure. So when Zach and I ran around together, skipping and sashaying to Disney records, I kept up. But I had grinning lips that were always a pale shade of blue. When I was four, I had open-heart surgery. This experience nailed down my first meaningful memories. I remember being stuck in a hospital bed beneath
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snakes of intravenous tubes and getting fruit as gifts. I remember that I was jealous of my hospital roomie who got tons of Lego sets; so many that his family members fashioned them like bricks up the wall on his side of our shared hospital room. I also remember that me and Lego-Boy – in perfect, tubular harmony – screamed at this one poor nurse because whenever she came into our room, we knew it was “shot time.” She carried a blue, plastic basket of needles with her. She reeked of isopropyl alcohol. Blue Plastic Basket Nurse came into our room every day to check our heartcatheters, switch out our IVs and re-administer antibiotic injections. She was terrorizing. I was in the hospital several days before my actual surgery took place. That’s when I learned to kick and punch. I remember fighting nurses and doctors. It’s like I was a little boxer in training and I was being prepped to have my faulty, little heart fixed in a stadium-seating arena.
ABBY HIGGS
new set. Years later, my regular doctor told me that, were it not for the heart surgery I probably would’ve died around the age of twelve. I wanted to ask him, “But would I have been a sweeter kid?”
After my surgery, I remember being in a recovery room building a Lego house with Dad. A ventilator tube had just been removed from my mouth and he kept telling me to stop trying to talk. I’m not sure why this latter recollection is pertinent to my mind. But it is. Perhaps I’d whined about Lego-Boy’s bounty of building blocks so much that Dad wanted to make sure I woke up to my own, brand-
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AT THE TABLE WITH MOM I didn’t plan our dinner. I wanted Mom to see where I worked part-time. She was driving up from Richmond on a breezy, mid-May Saturday afternoon. I’d met Judy three years ago. For most people, that kind of experience alone might define the most nerve-wracking event of one’s life. Hands down. But there I was, a ball of anxiety about a late lunch with Mom at Coop’s Tavern, where I decided to work postcollege. When she arrived, she had an uncertain smile on her face. She didn’t know why I wanted to have a meal and a sit-down chat with her. It wasn’t like us to do such civil things. She hugged me in her usual way – with one arm around my shoulder; a quick squeeze. There wasn’t much for Mom to be super-excited about on my behalf. I’d spent a night in jail recently, graduated Ball State with a cumulative GPA of 2.6; I owed a lawyer and a credit collection company a good chunk of money. We sat down at a two-top. 68
“The grilled scallops are good,” I said. A server brought us rolls. I played with the bread. Then I said,“Mom, I’m sorry if I hurt you when I found Judy. I swear it was really just an accident.” This took Mom by surprise. “Oh, honey, it’s ok.” I suppose I should’ve set my fork down first before coming out with such a conversational thesis statement. But our server hadn’t brought us our silverware yet. “Well, I know it hurt you.” I said. “And that’s not what I intended. And I’m sorry I’m kind of a screw-up right now.” As I spoke, I tugged at my work uniform. I was feeling vulnerable, absolutely uncomfortable. But I kept talking. “I promise, I’m going to be a better person someday. Swear to God. Things are going to change.”
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you, Corky, for your belief in me. Years ago, I promised to plug you in my first book someday. Here ya’ go, my dear! Traci, for your endless support and endless advice. I always appreciate(d) it. Mia, for the cover photo(s) you sent last minute. Such beautiful photography. And thanks for checking up on me. My friends, please check out: www.mia-beach.com Kendra, Pantea and Steve, for letting me email you. Constantly. And for responding back to my emails with kind patience and faith in my work. Austin, for all your help. (Smile.) Alice, for so much that it would take another book to fully express my gratitude. Heck, I just might do that. I love you, girl.
COLOPHON
This book was published in the typefaces Baskerville and Century Gothic.