Patsy Asuncion

Memories of When Marcella Was My Mother

 

The cabbage sped toward my head     I ducked

and it flew through the kitchen window     making Marcella madder

I’d been playin’ around     while she cooked  

maybe makin’ too much noise or somethin’

     I dunno     I was a kid

It didn’t matter     didn’t take much for my drunk mother

to get mad     even when she was     sorta sober

 

When I misbehaved     Marcella took     “a switch to me”   

I had to get     the biggest tree switch     for her to hit me

below the knees     so kids could see the marks at school

 

On summer nights     she’d let a glass of water    cool on the kitchen counter

and I’d sneak a sip

One time     Marcella left     bleach in her glass     to teach me a lesson

               The burn taught me     never ever     to sneak a taste again

 

When I’d come home from grammar school and     see she wasn’t home

               I learned to go lookin’ for her at

the Wood Street Tap or the Milwaukee Avenue bar

Sometimes she’d come home     sometimes not  

               So I’d sit at the bar     drink Coke     while she drank her Pabst

 

My daddy Leopoldo     a Filipino immigrant     hungered for the American Dream so

               he changed his name to Americanized Leo      married White     worked all hours     Money was his

US measurement of success as     the husband     the father     The mother was the homemaker   

 

When I was twelve years old     a woman tried to see me     causing loud cursing     threats     in the tenement hall     

               Later Marcella admitted     it was my birth mother     Kathryn      

                  but added     Marcella had protected me     since I was two

     when abandoned by that 19-year-old Kathryn     a diseased

                          crazy

                          unfit

                        criminal

                              hustler

 

School was     my refuge     a no hunting zone     where I would

               spend weekends     huddled in racks     at the downtown Chicago library 

pretend forever to be     a somebody     in a book

sign up for science classes     off campus     away     away

       grow smiles fed by encouraging teachers    

                      graduate high school early   with extra classes     win a full scholarship     out of the city

            my ticket out of my house     I would not call it a home

I had a 40-year career in schools      giving back to kids like me

 

Marcella told me     all my school success     was because of her but

     she never went to my awards assemblies     never visited me or called me ever in four college years

               My surprise     was not a surprise

 

After 40 years of spousal abuse     cops and I rescued my dad from their house trailer

     where he’d padlock his bedroom at night     for protection

When they divorced     she tried to sue me

               for back child support     for all the years     she was my mother    

not a surprise

 

She moved back to family in Breathitt County Kentucky     where she died     alone