Chapter five

Sesame Street

     It was in this frame of mind, at this particular moment, that Patricia Hollins Kraft decided to search out her earliest memory. Sitting alone, outside, for another twenty minutes, she guessed, and she wanted to know where she came from exactly. She knew of memories that were told to her; falling asleep on her first birthday cake, the sugar rush going immediately to her brain, she supposed. But her memories did not include that. Her memories did not include her first day of school, nor her first tooth coming in or any of the other memories that people, family, used to relate to her. She did remember school of course, and she was sure it was kindergarten, which meant what, child garden? Patricia ruminated on that a bit, wondering if she would remember to look it up later. Kindergarten had no particular memories for her by itself.

      Her memories of kindergarten were always accompanied by other memories; a TV show that she watched after returning home from school one day, something with a big talking owl, and a Christmas ornament made from a tuna can, not because she remembered making it in class but she did have the memory of hanging it on the tree. It was full of blue glitter and had drawings of cats on it. Patricia remembered these facts only because the ornament hung on the tree until maybe three years ago. Patricia assumed there was still a box of childhood treasures hidden in the house somewhere, even after her parents had moved so often since the kids had grown and left the neighborhood.

     Patricia remembered walking to school. Alone. It has become a completely different world, she realized. Nobody walks alone at six or seven years of age, yet there is no question in her mind that she walked it. She remembers a neighbor, distinctly, who was out there working in her garden, a much older lady, a grandmother most likely, leaned over some vegetables along the sidewalk, a four foot white picket fence the only barrier to the outside world. The actual conversations were long gone from Patricia's thoughts, but the act of standing there, on her way to school in the morning, stuck out in her mind as if it were a horn protruding from her scalp. This was the sixties, she added up mentally. Nineteen sixty eight or nine, she was first starting school. Still, she tried to picture her hometown, small in size in New England proper, and tried to imagine a child alone, at six, walking the six or seven blocks to where the school was (since burned down, Patricia discovered about ten years ago. The lot was sold to some housing authority and there were now projects built at the sight), and could not fathom it. Something always seemed off when she thought way back in her life. Even if it were an innocent time and even though the town was literally a one horse town, there never seemed to be proper connections to her thought.

     Her second earliest memory must belong a year later, moving out of that house, or apartment or whatever it was, and into a bigger town. Not a city, mind you, but a real town at least. Patricia remembered driving away from the parking lot of her building and seeing her plastic tricycle sitting against the rose bushes on the side of the house. She had not ridden it in a year now, at least, but it still hurt her to leave it behind. She wanted to say something about it, to make her parents stop the car, but then the memory was gone and Patricia, her butt getting cold from the concrete in current twenty first century Florida, lost the rest of the memory.

“I blocked out a lot of my childhood” Patricia stated aloud, perhaps to the birds over head, digging through the crooks of the tree branches for any nuts or berries that may have been hidden there.

     “I remember Nixon resigning.” Patricia and Mary Hollins, mother and daughter, were now sitting on the patio, mother in her donated wheelchair from Hospice and daughter in the cushioned wicker two seater beside her.

     “Well that isn't such a strange thing to remember now, is it?” her mother asked.

     “Yeah but I was in second grade, wasn't I?”

     “I suppose.”

     “Seems awful young for a political memory, That's all I'm saying.”

     “You remember the war, then?”

     “Nah. I just remember coming home from school, and Nixon resigned. I don't even think I knew who he was or anything. I just remember the speech. And the face.”

     “That would've been fifth grade, Trish.” When he resigned. He ended the war, you know.”

     “Fifth grade? Really?”

     “uh huh. You and your cousin Connie took that trip to Washington, remember?”

     “We didn't go to Washington Ma. Not until we moved. We drove through there, remember?” Patricia Hollins felt like this was the onset of dementia. Except her mom was too young for that. This was the cancer somehow. But cancer doesn't do that, she thought. Chemo could? She wondered.

     “You and Connie. Not Washington, where was that? Johnny took you to the protests. And all you talked about was the fireworks.”

     “That was New York?”

     “New York. You remember? You and Connie were still in fifth grade. You got a credit in middle school for that trip. Before you went to middle school.”

     “My god ma. How do you remember this stuff and I don't?”

     “It's cancer. Not Old timers.”

     “Alzheimer.” Connie felt like her ma could read her mind somehow. “I remember that trip. You know, I look back now and think there was a lot of drugs around.”

     “Yeah well I wasn't the best mother. We've already established that haven't we?”

     “Ma. I'm just saying. Jesus, I didn't mean anything by it.”

     “Well, what did you mean then? That I let you go off with your uncle, wasted?'

     “No ma.” I mean, was he? All of them, I mean. Jesus Christ you get me confused.”

     “Well, I don't know what he was doing. I didn't know what that crap was until you guys brought it home. How should I know what Johnny was on.”

     “It was just the times ma. That's all I meant. I mean, I didn't realize it then, but I can look back now and think they look like hippies. You know what I mean? Our whole family.

     “yeah well, we weren't all a bunch of drunken losers, Patricia.” 

     Mary Hollins was angry now. Patricia was sorry to have brought it up. Then again, her mom turned angry sometimes at the drop of a hat, it seemed. It was maybe the disease. Or the inability to change the disease. Some kind of coping mechanism maybe. In any case, Patricia decided to drop it and see if that helped to calm her mum down. “your father and I took a lot of effort to keep you away from that garbage. And look at you. All of you.” Her voice trailed off at the end, and Patricia realized that her plan to drop it wasn't working. Maybe yelling ti out would clear the air.

     “Ma. Come on. Do I smoke? Do I drink?”

     “Not any more.”

     “There you go. Do I believe in god?”
     “I don't know what you believe in. How should I know. You just come here and throw it all in my face.”

     “What did I throw in your face?”

     “All of it. You're like all of them. Even now.” Her mother was crying. To Patricia it seemed not a healthy cry, not even a particularly decent cry. She would not accuse her mother of crying for attention, but she thought in all seriousness that it was something similar to that. Some need that her mom had to be noticed maybe, validated. It was not something that Patricia, even to this day, could fully describe to somebody else.

     “Ma. Look I'm sorry. Okay? I didn't mean anything like that. You know it.”

     “It just upsets me, Trishy. You know it does.”

     “What does ma? We're talking about the past.”

     “just. The dope. All the drugs. All that horrible crap you put in your body and it was all my fault.”

     “You know if we hadn't had this conversation, I don't know, a thousand times already, I would maybe respond to that.”

     “You know what I mean though. I didn't know. None of us know. We just wanted the best for you kids.”

     “Ma. You have to stop it!”

     “Patricia, I'm tired. Can we stop arguing now, I can nap?”

     “I love you ma. Get some rest. I have to go to the store anyway.”

     “Ice cream?”

     “I will get you some more ice cream.” Her mother was already drifting off to sleep as the daughter finished the sentence.

     Nineteen seventy six defined a generation of kids much in the way the summer of love defined their older cousins seven years earlier. Patricia had a poster of Shaun Cassidy on her wall just like all the other eighth graders. Judy Blume had already taught her about the birds and the bees and her cousin Connie, three years her senior and almost ready to drive herself to school, had shown her how to put a roach on the alligator clip and hold it to her lips without burning them. Connie went around with roach clips in her hair, flowers protruding from each of them so the family thought it was for show only, not functionality. She had given one to Patricia, who considered the idea of trying to smoke pot without her cousin a bit ludicrous. 

     Nevertheless Patricia wore it, blue and purple feathers flowing down the side of her braid, with a certain sense of pride. She felt grown up, a real teenager, in school knowing that nobody understood what it was, except ,maybe for Miss Martin, who looked a lot like the people you saw after school, hanging out in the park instead of working, playing guitar and spacing out. Hippies, Patricia knew, but her parents always said that word with so much animosity that Patricia was ashamed to even call them by that name. Earth people, she sometimes might have thought to call them.

     They were from the mother earth, and she supposed they kinda smelled that way too. They all knew what the clip was for of course, as did Miss Martin, Patricia was pretty sure.

     That summer before eighth grade, the year when everything would change and Patricia would finally feel like she belonged there, in that school she had inhabited, quietly and shyly, for the past six years, she and Connie and Connie's father Johnny had taken a week long trip to New York city. The democratic convention was there. The Spirit of Seventy six was there, some airplane or such foolishness. And there were fireworks. And boys, Patricia was repeatedly assured of by Connie. “A ton of boys!” Connie had gleefully screamed to her when they first discussed the trip. “Of course you'll come. Please come! I want you to come with us Patty!” Connie was the only one who called her Patty. She was Trishy, or Trish, to everyone else, when circumstances were less formal than Patricia. But going on thirteen now, Patty felt perfect to her; grown up but still able to play. “Patty” she had told herself in front of the mirror many times the past year. “I'm Patty, how do you do?” So of course Patty went with her cousin and her uncle and the summer of seventy six defined who she was much more forcefully than changing her name or wearing a roach clip in her hair.

     The trip up from Boston was fine. About a three hour drive from where they were and the two girls, preteen and teen, were as giddy as imaginable. They sang non stop and even uncle Johnny carried a tune or two with them, being much more aligned, at twenty nine, with the youth of that age than most of their other uncles and aunts and parents. Patricia always felt that Connie had gotten the cool dad, and guessed it was compensation for having lost her mother so young in a car accident. “You might think your dad is half as cool,” Connie had said to her once, “But he combines with your mom, and that makes it even, Patty”. It was not necessarily fair, but in a way it was balanced.

     As that first day wore on into the evening and as Johnny continued to 'nurse' his beer, the dynamics seemed to change. It was nothing that Patty could put her finger on at the time, although in hindsight thirty years after the fact it seemed like every thing should have been totally obvious to her, even back then. The evening wore into night and her uncle grew angry and the anger passed out but woke up in rage so that the next day, when they were supposed to be on Coney Island, they were stuck attending to the hangover instead. And Monday turned into Tuesday this way and Wednesday saw no change on the surface. But there was drastic change underneath because Connie slipped deeper and deeper into herself and Patty became scared because it seemed that her cousin was scared. And if your invincible totally rad and bitchin pot smoking high school attending cousin was scared then something must be wrong. Patricia found no real need for fear, she supposed. Nothing happened, per se, but it was all different anyway. In hindsight Patty knew what it was but back then, during that summer, she just knew she was uncomfortable all the time. Her uncle looked at her and even though it seemed harmless, and even though he didn't say the words, it made Patty feel wrong. Violated was the grown up word, but dirty was the word she would have used back then.

     Patricia was just grabbing her keys to head out for ice cream. She thought about getting her neighbor, her mom's neighbor, Jeannie, to come sit for her but she knew that her mother hated that. Still, if her mom did try to get up on her own she would probably fall. It was back and forth for a full minute before Patricia gave up and decided to just let her mom sleep. She would get ice cream later. She did not want to leave her mom alone. That seemed to be the bottom line. She could pretend it was so that her mom did not fall. She could blame the disease for making her come and live down here with her mom. But in all honestly, Patricia wanted to be here. With her mom. And it would be all lovely if her reasons were valid. For love or for service, two of the nicer answers that came to mind. But truth be told, Patricia was afraid of the world out there anyway. She was scared and wanted her mommy, and she was okay with that. All indications seemed to be that the family, and her mother, were okay with that as well.

     So Patricia sat back down on the couch, the TV on but muted, so that Patricia could do something while sitting there. She thought back to that summer, and to her mom's reactions to that summer. It was as if she knew. And Patricia knew full well that she never told anybody about that trip. She rarely spoke of it at all, and Connie even less about it. And maybe that was enough to raise suspicions, Patricia gathered, because there was no way in the world that her mom would have known directly about what was going on. One more proposition that occurred to Patricia, that perhaps she was a victim herself, her mom being looked at or god forbid even touched by that man. He was on the wrong side of the family though, so that didn't make sense either. And way too young, of course. Still, Patricia felt there must be something aside from intuition at play there.

     Of course nothing actually occurred to Patricia that week in New York. Nothing tangible that would make it into her memoirs some day. It was all just innuendo and suggestion. What bothered Patricia more than anything else, especially now, is that she was so young, so impressionable. When she thought back to that weekend there were a thousand things she understood that she had not at thirteen years old. Things like the way in which Connie reacted to her the entire trip. Where preteen Patty felt anger at her cousin ignoring her, this mid life Patricia saw her cousin's reactions as the only possible defense mechanism available to a teenager. What it came down to, Patricia was still sure in her heart about it, was that Johnny Hallohan must have abused his daughter. Connie would never have talked openly about it while she was alive, but all of the signs were there. And they maybe would have gone on unnoticed if Patricia had not taken the trip to New York with them during that defining summer of nineteen seventy six.

     “Bierre Pauling.”

     “Well that's an unusual name, isn't it, Charlotte?” Connie bumped her elbow against her cousin's arm as she spoke. “This is Charlotte, my younger sister.” Patricia stared up at her cousin trying to figure out what exactly was going on. They were in the elevator of a nice hotel. Patricia figured it wasn't super expensive, but it was nice compared to the part of town they had grown up in. It had an elevator anyway, and five floor. And somebody to help them carry their luggage up, which to Patricia brought this quaint little hotel up three stars by itself. Connie was talking now to this boy assigned to their luggage, the boy who introduced himself as Bierre Pauling.

     “And I'm Nancy. Butler.”

     “Imagine that” the boy, who, Patty thought, must have been younger than her cousin was. He was young looking in any case, but there was also baby fat, slightly puffy cheeks in his face, and just a general feeling of youth. But when he smiled he did so with his eyes and in that smile was something that seemed grown beyond the teenage days the rest of the boy's appearance let on. “From Boston? Your dad's got quite the Southie accent to him.”

     “You know Boston then?”

     “Been there. Yeah.” He was talking to Connie but looking at Charlotte. Patty did not always know what the game was but with Connie, or Nancy in this case, catching on to the rules was always easily enough handled. She tried to look down at her feet, short white socks in buckle shoes. That made her feel self conscious so she tried to lift her eyes, and when they met his she smiled and this whole scene made her feel like she was older and more mature than she really was and that made her blush.

     Which in turn made her again feel self conscious so she returned to staring at her shoes again, thinking she muddled this situation up completely. All the while Connie kept talking and Bierre kept watching and Connie kept bowing her head and the entire seventy five second elevator ride to the third floor seemed to take hours.

Johnny was already in the bar at this point, yelling “Look, this joints got a bar” like some East end Mick gangster, which he may well have been, but winked at the girls as he strolled over to it as if he knew the gag was on him and he was fine with that. So Connie, Nancy, spent what would seem a safe amount of continued flirting at their door, suddenly feeling shy or perhaps vulnerable, now that Bierre would see where they slept tonight, would even possibly have a key available to him, just enough to cool off but not to freeze the potential of more, and Bierre went back to his duties, the girls almost instantaneously giggling as soon as the door was shut and they realized what they were up to.

     The conversation between the two girls was still going fairly strong as they wondered down an hour later looking for Connie's dad and a meal of some sort and Patricia's uncle, much less jovial any way now that the liquor was settling in, found himself annoyed at his daughter's new friend. Scenes that would come to Patricia only years later to give her a clue as to what was going on when she was younger. Tension between the three of them mounted quickly in these situations, Patricia feeling it and reacting to it but not knowing why and at the time assuming, incorrectly, that Connie must have understood and wasn't bothering to let her in on the secret.

      Looking back over the week as an adult, Patricia often wondered if she imagined it all at some point in her life. But as she matured and understood the world as it was, as she looked deeper at her cousin's feelings and reactions since those days, it seemed obvious to her that she was not mistaken. Patricia would notice a hand on her cousin's thigh, a slap on the bum that was meant neither as a punishment nor as a joke. Anger would make it's way into her uncle's reactions, and jealousy into her cousins, as Johnny would ignore his daughter and come close to his niece, the unshaven whiskers brushing her cheek as he spoke and the smell of whiskey and beer coming off of his clothing. And what should have been a great summer trip for two growing girls turned into uncomfortable silences and confused reactions.

     “Icky” Patricia said aloud.

     “What's that baby?” Her mom, stirring from slumber, asked her daughter what was she saying.

     “Just still thinking of things ma.” Patricia stirred the cobwebs from her mind quickly.

     “hmm.” There was a deep smile on her mother's face. “We are getting old if we are reminiscing about our past, Trishy.”

     “Maybe we are ma. Seems we already passed another day behind us now.”

     “Must be why I'm starving. Will you make me soup?”

     “I would love to make you soup, mum.”

     “Thank you Trishy. I'm gonna look for the trial now.”

Patricia got up to go into the kitchen. “You know they might find her innocent?”

     “Hush, you. She lost her baby for a month. How can you say that?”

     “Dunno ma. Just saying.” Trishy was smiling, not for making her ma angry, just because they were talking the same as if it were twenty years earlier and there was a lifetime still between them before the disease separated them for good.