How I Became a Writer
written by: Angela Carlton
“Why don’t you go to school festivals?” some kids ask, on the playground.
I couldn’t tell them my Mama heard voices. I dare not leave her alone. I couldn’t tell them the only festival I knew of was a tea party between the pages with Alice, and one white rabbit. It’s the book I’ve read 106 times, under pine trees smelling like Mama’s air freshener in her Beetle, the car she used to drive before the voices told her to spray paint it red. Now, it sits on our gravel road under a dead tree. My Grandma hid the keys. She hid them in a Crisco can on the very top shelf because Mama’s not that tall. My Mama’s pretty, even though, “she ain’t right in the head.” Her hair is Cinderella yellow, light copper eyes that shine like new pennies. My Daddy called her “Foxy,” before he left her. Now, he curses, calls her a “Loon!”
I bet those kids on the playground have Mamas that bake cobbler, chicken pies, and warm chocolate fudge. I bet they take them to the new, brick library, and the kids don’t have to worry about a Mama that slaps at her ears to get rid of white noise.
Under the pines, I read words out loud…”M-A-R-M-A-L-A-D-E, W-A-I-S-T-C-O-A-T, C-U-P-B-O-A-R-D-S,” while Mama blasts Rock-n-Roll on the radio with her raspy cocktail, lounge singing voice, the job she had before the voices creeped in.
When I hear her music, read the scenes aloud, it’s the butter sun warming me all over before Grandma makes her shut it off! They’ll fuss, until Mama leaves again to roam the neighborhood. My Mama tossed her best, silver sandals in the creek, so she walks barefoot now. Occasionally, the cops bring her home. They call her “the lost woman,” on the street. They’ll walk her to the door before she slams it and starts smoking again, smoke rising-rising-rising out from all the cracks, until the foul smell reaches my nose, and I pray the place won’t burn to ash, like the doghouse did last year.
Still at night, sometimes, I’d see my old, fluffy poodle, Peppy, sniffing the blackberry bushes, tongue licking my hand as I fed him by his doghouse. I’d see wicked colors, while we wander, Peppy and me with, blue rabbits, enormous golden cats, and lime-colored frogs, dining in our own lush forest, my Mama, all right, glowing, in her creek sandals, until those dreams, all the raw images swirl-swirl-swirl into a magic trick on paper.
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