narrative writing

Moving to America wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. Seeing my mom cry as I left the airport was one of the most heartbreaking moments I’ve ever encountered in my life. She has been a figure of passion, love and advocacy all through my life. The person who cared for me the most and who hid her problems to take care of mine was finally leaving my side.

My mind raced — what would I do without her now. She did everything for me, including any regular teenager chores. What would I do without her? Even when I didn’t realize it, my mother was and always will be my backbone. This is the woman that brought me years of consistent education so I could pursue what I love. The woman who trusted me to go partying after years of keeping me hostage. And seeing her fall apart and tell me “its okay, I love you” as she tried to stop crying made my heart break into a thousand pieces. I felt small and powerless as there was nothing I could’ve done. It’s like watching the happiest person you know break down in a fit of emotions, its something you’ve never seen or ever thought of before. It just seems unfathomable.

Question:
1) Is it ok to be repetitive in my words? For example, I mentioned “What would I do without her” twice

Our house is equipped with a pool, hot tub, tennis/basketball court, play house, trampoline and horse barn. Three dogs, three cats, rabbits, horses, guinea pigs, even a parrot. We have everything that three kids growing up in the woods of Westchester would need to stay occupied, and that’s just what we do. We stay occupied. Unaware, ignorant.

It is seemingly healthy during this time. A drink or two with his friends after a big softball win, or while he’s watching his favorite Grateful Dead concert recording. Either he has it in control, or I’m in bed too early to know.

In our house we have a ‘red room’ which is our lounge. The walls are crimson red, adorned with a giant moose head, multiple couches, a huge television, a Game Cube for the kids and an attached, personal bar for him. The bar doesn’t faze me. To me it is a forbidden castle, not a habit. Most of the memories I will form during this time will be of my dad standing in that bar, with a sort of angelesque light radiating from the window behind him. Most of the memories will be full of love and laughter, of idolization and care. I will never know if that is due to my own ignorance, or his ability to be discrete.

Those smoldering tube-like tunnels rarely disappoint riders.  Everyone can look forward to heat, humidity, buckets of perspiration and funk in a New York City subway station in the summertime.  I dread going down in here.  The heat and humidity slaps me in the face before I reach the bottom of the staircase, but I want to get home.

I’ve already made up my mind not to look in the direction of the person whom I can smell from a distance. The shopping cart next her is overloaded with overstuffed big black garbage bags.  I’m wondering how she hasn’t passed out from all those layers of clothes she has on in all this heat. The truth be told, for me sometimes it makes things a little easier to look away.  This way, my selfish ass won’t have to bear any burden of guilt when I don’t do anything to help her out.

When I reach her, for some reason, I do exactly what I made my mind up not to do. I look directly at her.  At first glance it’s a familiar face. I’m paralyzed. I can’t go any further. My feet are no longer moving. It’s Charlie. That’s what we called her. Her real name is Charlene. This is the person I wished was my best friend when I arrived in the Bronx. She was the prettiest, the best dressed, real fly and nice to me. There was a star up there with her name on it and she was gonna sit on it with her legs crossed. That’s how good she was at everything she did. She was smart and after graduation she was headed to law school. Her popularity let anyone that knew her know that she was loved. Everybody wanted to hang out with her. She was invited to all the parties. And she loved to party. Other people’s boyfriends always asked her out. I’m standing right in front of my old friend. She’s staring straight at me.  She doesn’t even see me.

I’ve always wondered if the rumors were true. I never had any real proof. As a joke on her 21st birthday, some guy and a few of her so-called friends slipped something in her drink. She was rushed to the hospital and was never the same since. I don’t even know if she knows there is a figure in front of her. The sparkle that held a dominant presence in her big beautiful light brown eyes has disappeared. “Charlie”, I said. There is no reaction to the sound of her name or my presence.

 

It was below zero Celsius. In a cold train cart, halfway filled with coals, squeezed against each other were hiding orphanage kids. Marina, my mother, was amongst them. It was her third attempt to run away from the orphanage.

When Marina was 1,5 years old, her mother passed away. At that time, her father was over 70 years old. In the Soviet Union (USSR) government’s eyes, he was too old to take care of his six children. All of them were taken away. He begged the government to keep his children together in the same orphanage.  They did.

The director of Marina’s first orphanage truly loved children. All the personnel was attentive and caring. Marina and her siblings were always fed, had clean clothes and beds. Marina was spoiled there and felt protected. Her oldest brothers, Sergei and Kolya, would always look after her. Nobody could touch a hair on her head.

“Shhhh, be quiet guys. I think they stopped our train for the inspection,” said Kolka, the most dangerous boy in Marina’s orphanage. All the kids were scared of him. When he was at one of his newly planned run-away sabotages, everybody could breathe in the orphanage, especially girls and teachers.

“Mama,” Marina whispered as she heard men’s voices approaching the cart.

After losing her mother and being taken away from home, Marina spoke in a language that nobody could understand. The governmental workers assumed that she had a speech disorder. They sent her to an orphanage for deaf children. Surrounded by mute and deaf kids frustrated Marina, she would often scream at them. Teachers thought that Marina had anger issues and sent her to another orphanage for misbehaved kids.

A sudden and loud knock against the train scared children. They squeezed their teeth to stay quiet but someone made a noise.

“They are here!” Screamed a policeman. A sound of a police whistle made kids deaf for a moment. Then, above their heads, appeared numerous blinding flashlights. Marina knew that this time she would not see her mother, her father, and her sister.

“Get up! Get the fuck up, you stupid filthy kids!” The policemen began grabbing kids by collars, arms, and legs. They were pulling children out as if they were garbage bags.

I remembered beer tasting like shit the first time someone convinced me to take a sip of it at my house. Now I know why I never drink alcoholic beverages ever since. I was the curious little eight-year-old. At this age, I also got into trouble a lot.

I’m in the 3rd quarter of third grade pretending to get along with my class. They were mostly nice to me, but there were the ‘bitches’ that always found a reason to pick on me. They called me a girl for twirling my hair, ugly and took turns bossing me around. They broke me down enough that I went to the corner of the classroom to cry because I wanted no one to see me.

And then this guy named Russell came to me. He was the only one I felt who had a heart for the little guy (me). I became a gangsta or at least I thought I had by his company. One time, my inner ghetto came out during recess when I cursed out his black friend name Joel. I said, “Fuck you! Ass white! and it felt good. He’s like “Yeah! That’s my boy Ryan!”

As tough as I was on the exterior, I couldn’t hide inside my pain.

Any help/comments from you guys would be great.  Pre-apologies to anyone offended by the mature/extreme content.

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Sometimes, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, a song can come on and hold your entire brain hostage.  Images flood through you like a busted dam and all you’re able to do is remember.  For me, right now, that song is The Joker by the Steve Miller Band and all I can see is cocaine and Evangelists.

I’m sixteen.  It’s 2006.  I’m sitting cross-legged on the ground of a circular, high-ceilinged room with huge panoramic windows looking out over the ridiculously beautiful Princess Louisa Inlet of British Columbia.  I’m high as shit from the cocaine I just did in the bathroom with my good friend, Michal.  I look over at her, about six cross-legged teenagers away from me.  Then I look at all of the other people in the room.

There’s about 200 of us with very minimal wiggle room.  My heart rate spikes a bit as the reality of my inability to leave the amphitheater sets in.  Boasting a few long, horizontal steps to provide stadium-type seating, people are situated behind, above, and all around me.  The high wooden ceilings amplify the chatter and I begin to sweat and fiddle with my hands.  I stare at an empty chair and mic stand on the stage, thinking about how I’m ready for someone to start talking to us about Jesus.

The lights dim and a sound begins to pour out of the speakers on the varnished, wooden stage.

“Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah.”

The chatter lessens a bit.

“Some call me the gangster of love.

Some people call me Maurice.”

Where do I know this song from?  Ah, yes, 40-something stoners love this shit.

The song continues on and a brown-haired white boy no more than ten years older than me comes onto the stage with a solemn look on his face.  He grabs the mic from the stand and sits in the chair as a spotlight focuses on him.  He does not look up at the crowd.  He looks down at the mic in his hands.

“I’m a joker.

I’m a smoker.

I’m a midnight toker.”

Someone in the sound room is fading the music.

“I sure don’t want to hurt no one…”

The music is cut and I’m experiencing silence and tension like I never have before.  My knees are bouncing and my teeth are grinding, but I’m not worried about being found out.  I could have ADHD, no one knows my medical history here.

Suddenly, the unidentified white male looks at the crowd with an “I used to be like you” face.  Here we go.

Him

“Hey, just calling in again to check up on you. I texted you three times before, I’m not sure if you saw them anyways call me when you’re free. Love you, bye.”

Anxiously and disappointedly, I pressed the send button and turned my phone faced down on my desk, waiting for his response. I went back to giving my cancer-stricken mother her horse-pill medicine and got ready for work.

Employed by the Jewish Community Center of Bensonhurst for five months now, I was starting to feel adjusted, however the anxious feelings crept creeping in. My boss seemed to appreciate my “hard” work and my work ethic, so it seemed like I was certain to get a promotion so I can help out with my mom’s hospital bills. However, my writing was finally gaining some attention, and I was feeling a wee bit confined as my small chance of an opportunity to chase my dreams and make them into a reality.

As I was returning phone calls to parents that left voicemails asking about the summer program, I saw that I only make ten out of twenty calls and none of the parents sounded like they were interested enough to enroll their child into the summer program. I hated this part of the job. How enduring can I be when my heart wasn’t into this job? I mean sure I’m “helping” making great summer memories—but I highly doubt that I was doing that.

My phone flashed and vibrated. God took him long enough. Can’t believe that he’s actually answering this time.

“Hey big girl I saw your messages, what are you doing?” my dad finally texted back.

I smiled and shook my head. My dad could barely remembered his birthday, so it would be a piece of cake to surprise him.

“I’m at work now, but I wanted to know what are you doing this weekend?,” I quickly texted back.

“Nothing much, why what’s up,”

I told him that I wanted to take you out to lunch and catch up, to see what you’ve been up to.

“Oh cool, lucky me! I’m not doing anything this weekend so sure we can have lunch, I’ll tell Jessica to come along.”

I held my phone in my now sweaty hands and re-read the last text that my dad sent. What a weird joke! As far as I knew my dad was single and wasn’t “looking for anything” at least that’s what he told my younger siblings and I.

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