Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick)

Prologue

Building Castles

Daisy

“You’re a lunatic!”

“You didn’t think that when I had my mouth wrapped around

your dick!”

“That’s because you couldn’t use it to talk!”

“Kiss my ass!”

“Not anymore, babe. We’re done.”

“Like I care.”

“You’ll care when you got no one’s dick to suck to pay your

cable bill.”

My eyes were closed. I was lying alone in my dark room, on

my back in my twin bed.

My bed was lumpy, seeing as Momma bought it from a yard

sale, but I didn’t feel that.

And my room was small and it didn’t smell all that great,

this coming mostly from the carpet. It smelled like that from all the way back

when, when we first moved in. Momma didn’t bother to do anything and got mad

when I complained about it, so I’d tried to clean it myself, three times. But

that smell just wouldn’t go away.

I didn’t smell the smell either.

And I could hear the words but even though they were coming

from just down the hall, I was somewhere else.

I was building castles.

“Do not go there!”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m tellin’ you, do not go

there!”

The door to my bedroom opened and so did my eyes, the

beautiful castle I was building melting clean away.

I could smell the smell.

I could feel the lumps.

I could sense the closeness of the room, its thin walls, its

fading, ripped-in-places wallpaper, the ceiling light I never turned on because

the cover had been shattered on a night I didn’t like to remember and now it

made it too bright when I turned on the light.

“Daisy, sweetheart?” he called.

I looked to the door.

He was in shadows, those caused by the dark of my room and

the hall. The only light was coming from somewhere else, probably her bedroom,

because it was real late.

Tall, he had a beer belly but he also had broad shoulders.

I liked his shoulders. And his eyes. They were always

twinkling when they looked at me. Even when he was mad at Momma, he’d look at

me and it was like he forced the ugly out so all he’d ever give me was just the

twinkle.

And he always used that soft voice when he talked to me.

Always, even when he was fighting with Momma, like just

then.

“Get away from that door!” my mother screeched and

I saw the shadowed man jolt as she shoved him to the side.

He came back, hand up, finger pointed in her face.

“Chill,” he bit off.

I wanted to close my eyes but I didn’t. I never could in

times like these. Times like these, it was impossible to build castles. I knew

this sure as certain.

Seeing as I’d tried.

His head swung back to me.

“I gotta go, girl. You need somethin’, all you gotta—”

“She don’t need shit!” my mother snapped.

His head turned to her again. He hesitated and I watched as

his body moved when he took in a deep breath.

Then he looked back to me.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered.

So was I.

I was young, only ten, but I understood why he was sorry.

But he wasn’t sorrier than me.

“You tell her you’re sorry. You treat me like

garbage and you tell her you’re sorry?” Momma shouted and the shadowed

man jolted again because she’d shoved him again.

He reached in, grabbed the knob to my bedroom door, and

pulled it to.

He did stuff like this too, a lot, because they fought, a

lot. He tried to make it so I wouldn’t see. Coming down the hall and closing my

door. Or when they were in the middle of it and I was in the living room or

kitchen, telling me quietly, “Maybe you should go to your room, sweetheart, and

close that door, yeah?”

But he could never make it so I wouldn’t hear.

With that, he disappeared.

But she didn’t.

Her voice still came at me.

“That’s it? You’re just leaving?”

Nothing from him.

But more from her.

“You can’t be serious. You cannot be freaking serious!”

He didn’t reply.

“You’re such an asshole. A total freaking asshole.”

He wasn’t an asshole.

He was a good one.

The only good one.

Or, at least, the only good one I’d met.

He didn’t hit her. He didn’t hit me. Both of these my daddy

did before he took off and we never saw him again. And other ones did besides

(her and me).

He didn’t steal her money (Daddy did that too). He didn’t

look at me in a way that made my skin feel funny (it was good that Daddy didn’t

do that). He didn’t eat all the food in the house and drink all

Momma’s beer and bourbon and then complain there was never any food or beer or

bourbon in the house and ride her behind until she got in her junker car and

went out to get more for him (and yeah, Daddy had done that too).

Those kinds stayed around a lot longer than this one did.

Too long.

But never that long.

They always left.

Like Daddy did.

And I never missed them.

Yes, even Daddy.

But I’d miss this one with his twinkly eyes and his soft

voice and the way he called me sweetheart not like that was what I was, but

that was what he had. A sweet heart.

No, there were not a lot of those kinds. Not for Momma.

Not for me.

“Stretch!” she shrieked. “You get back here,

Stretch! Get back here!”

The front door slammed.

“Fucking motherfucker!” Momma screamed.

I closed my eyes.

Let myself drift away.

And I started again to build my castle.

“A Southern woman always has her table laid.”

Miss Annamae was talking to me in her pretty dining room

with the big dining room table all laid with the finest china, sparkling

crystal, shining silver, and its big bunch of light-purply-blue hydrangeas with

cream roses set in the middle.

She adjusted a napkin in its holder sitting on a plate that

was sitting on a charger that was resting on a pressed linen tablecloth.

“If she’s fortunate,” Miss Annamae went on, and standing

opposite the table to her, the fingers of my hands wrapped over the back of a

tall chair, all ears, like I always was when I was with Miss Annamae, I watched

her move around the table with difficulty. She wasn’t a young woman. She also

wasn’t a beaten one, even losing both her kids and her husband and having to

carry on alone. “She can change it with the seasons. I have Christmas china.”

Her faded blue eyes turned to me and a smile set the wrinkles in her face to

shifting. “But you’ve seen that, haven’t you, Miss Daisy?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

And I had. Miss Annamae did her house up real pretty at

Christmas. She always made sure I came over so she could show me all around and

give me a tin of Christmas cookies she baked herself.

Momma had been working for Miss Annamae now for over two

years. It was the longest job she’d ever had. She usually got fired a lot

sooner than that.

I reckoned Miss Annamae kept her on as her daily girl not

because she liked her or she did good work and kept a tidy house (which she did

not, not Miss Annamae’s and definitely not ours). I also didn’t reckon she kept

her on because she liked the fact Momma would be late a lot, show up hungover a

lot, call off sick a lot, or one of her “men friends” would show at Miss

Annamae’s big, graceful mansion and cause a ruckus.

No, I didn’t reckon any of this was why Miss Annamae kept

her on.

I didn’t know why Miss Annamae kept Momma on.

Except for the fact she was a good Southern woman.

Miss Annamae turned to the big window that faced her back

garden, calling, “Come here, child.”

I moved directly to her.

When I got there, she lifted her scrawny, veined hand to my

shoulder and rested it there.

It felt light and warm.

“She works in her garden, a good Southern woman,” she

shared, her eyes still aimed out the window. “She cuts her own flowers,

arranges them for her own table.”

We didn’t have any flowers at our house. It was actually

good when the yard died during that drought last summer and became a big patch

of dirt and scrub. It looked better not overgrown. Like someone lived there,

they just didn’t care. Instead of looking like no one lived there, and no one

would ever want to.

The landlord didn’t agree. He got up in Momma’s face about

it a lot. But she ignored him like she always ignored him when he got up in her

face about things. Like the neighbors complaining about the fights or when

she’d play her music too loud, which was also a lot, on all counts.

“You have sweet tea in your fridge, sugar, always,” she said

to me.

I nodded, looking from her colorful garden to her and

feeling some pressure from her hand on my shoulder as she rested into me,

giving me her weight.

I stood strong and took it. I’d take all her weight if she

needed to give it to me. That’s how much I liked Miss Annamae. And she had all

my like seeing as Momma was how she was, her men were how they were, the kids

at school were how they were, the teachers, the lady behind the counter at the

store.

Everybody.

Yes, Miss Annamae had all my like mostly because there was

no one else who’d let me give it to them.

This made it sad that Momma didn’t let me come with her to

Miss Annamae’s house often, even though Miss Annamae always acted like she was

real happy when I came. And I knew down deep in my heart this wasn’t because I

helped Momma and did all the gross stuff, like cleaning the toilets, so she

could have a break from that kind of thing. But I did it a whole lot better

than Momma did so Miss Annamae actually had the house kept the way she was

paying to keep it.

Still, Momma didn’t let me come often. Not even when I was

in school and I had to walk home by myself and stay there by myself until she

finished work (and then again stayed by myself when she went right back out).

I didn’t know why this was either, except, even if it was

mean to think, Momma didn’t like it that Miss Annamae liked me.

I didn’t understand this. If Momma was quiet and respectful,

like Miss Annamae had told me a lady should be, a lot more people would like

her.

I was beginning to think Momma didn’t care if anyone liked

her. So much, she’d rather they didn’t like her so she didn’t have to

bother with people at all.

“No matter what you’re in the middle of, a caller comes, you

open your door to them, you invite them into your home, and you make certain