When the Fat Lady Sang

June 27
Dear Sis,
This morning after you left, the house seemed empty, and Mama and I were made...like...naked. I didn't know what to do and it was plain to me that neither did Mama. I realized that she was suffering horribly from your departure and needed some reassurance upon the outset; therefore, I went to her, putting my arms out and she came into them and wept. I stood there and rocked her for awhile, til she was comforted.
But see it wasn't enough--she wanted comfort of a different kind; she commenced treating me with suspicion and snurliness so mindless and wounding, that a big thick rope of long-held grievances uncoiled within my gut and with velocity such, that it sprang at my own throat.
At that instant I felt my whole self a gaping maw, capable of swallowing that woman, belongings and all, and vomiting the whole baggage out into the street, far from me.

July 11
It's taken me two weeks to get back to this letter--I've been busy keeping ahead of all the games Mama pulls out of her bag. For instance, she harbored the notion that I would become the household cook. To thwart that I took refuge in a diet that consisted of only fruit and salads.
She whined and complained but I stayed cheerful as all hell while eating my salad and watching her cook. Today is the first day I've cooked my food. Mama is established in self-cook mode, so I'm safe.
Another game, harder to deal with, is the rent. I've told Mama that I'm living on unemployment for now and it's hard to meet the bills.
She hemmed and hawed and said that she couldn't help me--been helping people all her life.
I told her that when I can't pay the rent neither of us will have a home.
She just stood there blinking her eyes the way she does. Then I asked her how much she thought she could pay (just to stop her from rambling on about years past AGAIN).
She said that she'd have to think about it 'cause she don't know...
I go on about my business.
Then, for two hours, nonstop, I heard Mama in her room praying and chanting and stomping around, beseeching God to find a way to help me with my rent. He'd already found one--she just don't agree with it.
Mama is driving me mad, Sis. She screeches psalms and prayers at the top of her voice. She preaches, praises, chants and talks to God while stomping her feet the whole time. We're talking HOURS. I'm losing sleep. Maybe it's good I'm not working right now.
Your sister,
Ev


July 25
Dear Sis,
Things are not good. I feel like I can't make it to November. God help me to bear Mama that long.
The day before yesterday Mama had given me $50. She had a peculiar look on her face...kept standing there, and then, almost dreamily, began talking to Someone?... "I've been good to people all my life--"
Oh no! Not that "good" mess again!
"--gave 'em all the good I had--"
"You've not given me any of that 'good,' Mama."
She blinked. "I was good to all my children."
"Not me, not to me were you good. Whenever I was sick I had to pay you to keep my kids, even when we were dog-poor. From the time I was little all I got from you was verbal abuse: 'You're just like your damn daddy' and shit like that--all the time. You were always throwing me away, over the phone. Talking to your sisters, you'd say, you'd say 'Evelyn ain't a daughter of mine.' I heard you, Mama, you did that a lot--I never heard you throwing Clara away!"
Mama's mouth gaped, eyes blinking rapidly. "YOU were bad--Clara Jean was a good little girl."
Mama's eyes blazed. "Why, when you were two years old I smacked your hand, saying 'No' and you, you stomped your little foot and said, 'I don't YIKE you, Mama!'"
"Mama," I said, "I was a child."
"Yes, a bad child--you never would MIND me."
Finally, I told her about paying me that piddling $50 and that the times I'd lived in her house since being grown I'd paid her what she charged. And now, the roles are reversed; she's in MY house.
I was furious, and to keep from seeing her snurled up face I went upstairs.
Later, Mama came upstairs, looking forlorn and mistreated, bringing me another $50. Then she just stood. I ignored her. After while, she started. Same old stuff. She's been good to me--
"Were you being good to me, Mama, when you had me hauled to the insane asylum and tried to take my children from me?"
Looking downward, she said, "I was good to my Mama even though she didn't raise me--gave me away to my grown sister, tryin' to get a better life for me. I don't understand you, Evelyn, you're so hard."
"Not as hard as you, Mama."
"I would never have talked to my mama the way you talk to me."
"I've never done to my daughter what you tried to do to me, Mama."
She hauled ass out of my face.
I know this is hard for you to read, Sis. But you wanted me to "report" on how Mama fared here with me and I said I'd tell you. So I'm telling.
Your sister,
Ev

August 8
Dear Sis,
I thought of a way to help Mama comfort herself. You know how she's forever telling about her awful childhood over and over til we have to distract her? I thought maybe if it was on tape, then she could just play it when she feels her story needs telling.
At first she was eager to do it--like a little kid, but then her childlike jubilance turned to childlike fear: what if she hurt somebody's feelings...if somebody got mad at her...they might say she was lying, they hadn't done it to her...what if they--
"Mama," I said, "they are long dead. Besides, you have a right to do something to help yourself in this matter regardless of who might get offended."
So we began, and I tell you that I was stunned at the change that came over Mama. As she talked, she wilted down into the very physicality of a five year old child.
The Child told of beatings, starvings, and work work work. Of being kicked down the stairs in the mornings to hurry her up. She learned to wait hand and foot upon each family member, from the youngest to the oldest. Uncle William enjoyed calling her to him just so he could see how far across the room he could kick that little bitty body with one blow from his foot. He never wore shoes to play that game...
I was weeping.
The Child wept as she told of special humiliations...her naked body exposed to everybody's eyes at bathtime in the big tin tub in the kitchen... later, there was the "beauty" treatment of washing your face in pee--she was not allowed to wash in her own, was made to wash her face in someone else's piss...
I can't go on, Sis. But I realize something. Mama gave her soul in slavish obedience, hoping to obtain better treatment. It didn't work. Still, she survived.
I think I've got the answer now to a question I've asked myself for fifty years: why was it me out of all Mama's five children, that she chose to make pay her for her wretched childhood?
She found my independent spirit unforgivable.
Your sister,
Ev

August 22
Dear Sis,
Mama is for real a little kid, and a brat at that. I'm still being deprived of sleep.
Getting evicted has not cured Mama of the notion that "creatures" are after her. I shudder when I think of how she devastated her apartment by fighting them. She's been trying to claim them here but I block her and she is furious.
The other morning I'm standing in her bedroom doorway and I happen to look up at the ceiling, and WHAT is this? She has chugged sheets of newspaper into the bowl of the light fixture. I recognize this as a statement that the creatures are afoot again--NOT IN MY HOUSE THEY AREN'T!
So I go at her from the issue of safety. And because I don't mention creatures, only safety, Mama has to respond to my concern with good sense. I tell her about these old houses needing their electricity updated--we must BE CAREFUL if we don't want to burn up in our beds one night.
Her eyes get big and scared, like a child's. She hops up on her bed like a nimble eight year old and, jumping high, snatches all the paper out of the fixture...in three jumps! She's cute...well, almost.
The moment I'd first said anything about the paper her head jerked around and those red brat eyes lighted in her snurled up face. She'd been ready to go to war claiming her creatures. It all died the moment I said "fire."
Mama still treats Junior like a six year old, but since he has been living with my son, he's blooming. Can you believe this is the first time in 42 years they've been separated? Edward is teaching him to do things for himself. Junior loves it.
Your sister,
Ev

September 1
Dear Sister,
It's ugly. I went off on Mama. So now it's like we got two little kids in the house, each screaming at the other.
Yesterday, at the market, Mama pulled that non-thinking DUMB shit I've been trying to get her out of, and the result was that I got hurt. She caused other shoppers to ram into my bad leg with their carts.
I was in such pain and so mad I started yelling at her and she went directly to mouthing her famous excuses--you know the drill, Clara--she ain't got no memory and her eyes close up on her and--
"We're not talking about your damn memory or your damn eyes," I screamed at her. "We're talking about you USING your fucking head. You got one of those, don'cha, dammit!"
So we get home. I'm limping and fed up. One thing leads to another and I jump her for the rent til she hollers, "YES YES YES I'll pay you...you can shut the hell up!"
I holler back, "Thank you! And the next time you start haranguing God with a three hour list of my faults, take your own advice--you shut the hell up!"
And then, somehow it goes to where Mama is able to say to me, not to other people over the phone, that, I-am-no-daughter-of-hers.
I walk over to where she sits, and, leaning into her face, say, "But you know, Mama, our lives are similar--you weren't raised by your mother...nor was I."
I leave her sitting there.
Your sister,
Evelyn

September 12
Dear Sister,
I'm so tired. Will November ever come?
The issue of asylum/child-taking came up again. Different times I've brought it up and she's said that she doesn't remember. But this time, I ran her around and around til she was finally trapped in admission. I wish you could have seen the face that stared up at me from out of the trap. The mouth embedded in the face spoke: You deserved it.
God help me. My fist shot out into that ugly little face and cracked that frail little skull open against the wall behind. Blood.
God helped me. As my fist crashed down upon the table, two inches from Mama's face, I understood that what had gone before was my feeling drawing pictures in my mind. I had only felt murderous.
Still choking with fury, I moved lips heavier than iron and said, "You did a thing to me that you know had anyone tried to do to you there--would--have--been--a--KILLING."
She couldn't even deny it.
Your sister,
Evelyn
P.S. It ain't over; I feel it in my bones. Besides, the fat lady ain't sung a note yet.

October 3
Dear Clara,
Good news--I've got a job!
Bad news--Mama still keeps me awake.
Last night I kept hearing all this noise in my sleep til I woke up. I was dreaming that ten men were knocking me in my head with mallets.
It was Mama, downstairs in her room stomping and shrieking praises at God. I rushed down at her, screaming for my SLEEEEEE-EP! Then, sagging against the door, I begged her to let me sleep. I was almost crying--afraid that lack of sleep would cause me to fall apart in my boss's face next day at work.
Mama just stood there looking at me, self-satisfied as all hell, all smug, shaking her head and going, "Umpf umpf umpf, poor thing can't get her sleep, umpf umpf--"
She knew she'd gotten to me and she was happy. Right then, right then I could have choked that woman til she shit!
Since you can't bring yourself to talk to me in this, Clara, I get information from Mama. She tells me that you're saying that your house will be finished and ready for her and Junior by the fourth of November. Oh happy day.
October 24
For the past two weeks Mama has been running away. She leaves each morning, returning each evening with a little bag of food, stashing it in her room. I don't ask where she's been or what she's doing, 'cause I know. My landlady, who lives up the street is telling me.
I can't feel sorry about Mama's running away since I understand that if she weren't, I would be.
Evelyn

November 1
Dear Clara,
Last night, the fat lady sang. It was the most beautiful sound I ever heard.
Edward and Junior had come over. Earlier, Junior had discovered enough tongue in his mouth to tell me how unhappy his life with Mama has been. He'd like for her to stop bossing so much and to be allowed to do some things for his own self. I told him he could tell Mama that. He agreed to.
Still, by the time he and Edward got here, fear of Mama was sittin' on Junior's face, so I helped him get the ball rolling.
When they leave Mama is LIVID. "You gone too far this time, Evelyn, you are a devil, I won't stand for this! As good as I've always been to you--God don't like this, you are a damnation..."
I walk right on past Mama, like I don't see or hear her.
Her voice rises to a screech as she begins her sermon. I turn on the exhaust fan in the kitchen to drown out her sound. Then I go into the den, shut the door, and turn on the t.v. to further drown her out. Yet I can still hear the muffled thuds of her feet as she stomps, emitting piercing screams in her angry praise ritual.
After an hour she's still going strong and has not run out of bad things to tell God about me and good things to tell God about herself. But like I said, she's a child.
Later, I go to the bathroom, passing by Mama's room where she now is. She looks totally crazy. I have not said ONE word since she began her tirade over two hours ago. She's frantic. She follows me, still demanding God to punish me.
In single file, we troop through the darkened living room into the dim kitchen. My scalp tingles--I half expect her to leap upon my back and knock me in the head, but I don't turn around.
I stop at the refrigerator to get some water. She is so close on my heels that she bumps into my body--
Surprise! --it shuts her up for a minute, and she stands there looking goofy. Before she can recover I go on into the den, shutting the door.
Silence. Waiting. I'm aware she hasn't left the door. I hear her starting to chant again, to get up nerve enough to open that door and blatantly IMPOSE herself on me. If she does, she is MINE.
The door opens..."God don't like ugly, Evelyn."
"I'm watching t.v., Mama."
She stands at the door. "I don't know how you can even call yourself a woman, trying to come between me and my son and keep him from me the way you doin'--why I would NEVER do something like that, that low-down."
Red. I see red. "WHAT was that?...You would never--"
I'm walking towards Mama, real slow, but inside I feel as if I am rushing toward her--like a tornado.
"--but you already HAVE done it, Mama, to me. YOU did it to me, FIRST. I learned it from you, Mama!
"The pain and outrage you feel is MY pain and outrage when you tried to take my children and commit me to the insane asylum for the rest of my life!"
Nowhere to go--she's against the wall. "Uh uh uh, well uh, not for the rest of your life, just--"
"Mama! You told me to my face it would be for life as just punishment for not obeying you about my divorce. When the judge freed me after my three day entombment in that pit, pronouncing me SANE, why Mama, YOU went insane, before everybody in that courtroom. You started jumping up and down and ordering the judge to lock me back up--you were looking and sounding so crazy that the people were gawking. They kept on gawking as the judge told you to sit down sit down SIT DOWN! or be held in contempt. As I walked past you, free, you glowered at me with such naked hatred that you looked like a beast from hell."
Mama is looking, now, like a wizened little elf--all drawed up. "You-- you-- you deserved it."
So. She's set in it, then. That's the second time she's said it.
"I'm sure you think I did, Mama."
She's all self-righteous again. "I'm a child of God, I just don't understand how you can be so mean, Evelyn...to talk so ugly to your own mother--"
"I HAVE NO MOTHER!"
"Well, I don't have to listen to this--"
"True. You don't. Goodbye."
"But, but, but--"
"Good--BYE!"
November 2
The plane tickets you sent arrived in the mail today, Clara. Aunt Dora called; she wants to see her sister before she leaves.
November 3
As soon as Aunt Dora arrives, She drags her off into that cave of a bedroom with stuff piled everywhere.
After a short while, Dora comes out, looking hunted, and tells me she wants to "see the house." So I take her on a little tour, with Her tipping right behind us.
Aunt Dora's eyes are full of questions as she prepares to leave. She's been here all of twenty minutes.
She has her coat on, and precedes Aunt Dora outside. Dora asks me where does she think she's going. I tell Dora that I don't know, but to myself I think that an emotionally hungry little girl is ripe to attach herself to an unwilling Dora for the rest of the day, if Dora can't scrape her off.
Aunt Dora goes out to the car where She is waiting like a little kid expecting to be taken for a ride. That's what happens. Dora takes her for a ten minute spin--brings her back home--and gets her OUT of her car.
Shortly, Aunt Dora phones me. She is upset.
She had planned to spend more time with her sister, but was appalled at her behavior.
Did I know that she stashes groceries at my neighbor's houses, telling them that her daughter is poisoning her food?
Yes.
That she is telling these same people that I am the devil and have been since I was two?
Yes.
That I am stealing her money?
Yes.
Aunt Dora is incensed that her sister is going round to strangers, talking this shit.
November 4
She and Junior got off on time this morning. Edward drove them to the airport.
By your continuing silence towards me, Clara, I figure that you probably have a high degree of disapproval of my handling of matters concerning your mother. It's okay. That's life. Don't let her move her creatures in on you, you'll be sorry. Do what you can to alleviate that stranglehold on Junior's well-being.
Evelyn