DANCING IN THE DARK

Every morning mom tells me to make my bed but I never do. I don’t see  I should, I’m just going to unmake it tonight when I go to sleep. She watches me a lot, way more than she watches the other kids. I have 3 brothers ad one sister but it’s pretty clear that I’m her favorite. She tells me I’m special and I believe her. She praises me to the sky in front of her friends. They ooh and ahh agreeing with her assessment of me. I’m so good looking I could be a movie star. And smart too! I am smart without really trying and school is so easy.. I always finish the work quickly and then I’m bored so I go read for extra credit or I try to make my friends laugh. I guess my behavior is sometimes a problem for my teachers. I get all A’s for grades butLast year in first grade I had a much nicer teacher. 

I usually have checks on my report cards for not conforming to school regulations. There’s also a box for “keeps profitably busy”. I’m not even sure what that means but I know I like to get attention and I’m very popular. Even the other kids think I’m special and girls sometimes whisper and kind of giggle to each other when I walk by. 

When my mom gets mad at me she punishes me by putting me in the corner of the den behind the tv. I look to see if I can find faces in the grain and knots of the pine paneling. Sometimes I stand so long she forgets she put me there and I fall asleep on my feet. Really!

She is always checking up on me to see what I am doing. I like painting by numbers and gluing parts of models together. If she is happy or feeling guilty for being mean to me, she’ll show up with chocolate chip cookies for me. “I love all my children the same, she says but we both know that I’m her favorite. I’m special. “If you were only as good as you are good looking,” she often tells me. She expects great things from me. If I would only apply myself and find some better friends that would be a good influence on me. But I like my friends. I’m probably the bad influence on them.

Sometimes even though I am afraid to be alone with myself, I wish she would just go away and leave me be. She is always watching me and commenting. I am either doing good or bad so I have to worry and always be on the lookout for her. She’s very good at sneaking up on me. I have to watch out cause if I make a mistake I won’t be so special any more. Others will find out that I’m not as wonderful and perfect and special as they think and then they will no longer like me. 

They like me because I am so smart, and clever and good looking. I'm funny too. Did I tell you that. I am very funny. But then there are times when I am not funny. I am...worried. Worried and confused. Then I read and write a lot trying to figure out how to be happy again. Trying to figure out what's wrong with me, as my mother puts it.

You’re smart Harvey. You can figure things out.  You can  figure out anything if you just tried. "You have a very smart brain Harvey.”

What am I worried about? I'm not sure. It just feels like the world is about to end. Like a catastrophe is looming just around the corner and if I make one single mistake, it will all fall apart and I will fall apart too. These worries, this sense of impending doom makes me very tense. I feel pretty much like I am always tense. Tense and wary. Alert, like a squirrel or rabbit sniffing the air, always expecting to be attacked. 

My mom finds faults. What are you doing, she will say. But it is not a question really. It is an accusation.  And whatever it is I am doing, I guess I'm supposed to be doing something else. “Oh, Harvey. you'll never learn, will you, she laments.with everyone and everything. And she shares her thoughts out loud all the time to anyone and I think, even when no ones around. 

The floors creak and sound seems to echo in our house so I always know where she is, what room she is in. She is cleaning. She cleans the house all the time. We kids aren’t even allowed to be in or even walk through the living room. Once I forgot and the next day I saw that she had raked the carpet to get rid of my footprints. I don’t know why they call it “the living room” if we can’t be in there. There’s some cool stuff on a marble table. Ashtrays made of glass that look like prisms and create rainbows when light passes through  and those metal roosters with their sharp metal feathers. Once I cut my finger while handling the roosters.  Probably serves me right for breaking her rule. I’d like to examine other stuff too but I have to be careful I don’t get caught in there. I told her once, she should put up a velvet rope like they do in the movie theaters to keep everyone in line. 

My mother smokes a ton! Sometimes she 2 or 3 cigarettes going at once but in different rooms. And when she blows out the smoke she often sighs. I love watching smoke continue to curl up out of her nose even after she’s put the cigarette away. She looks like a dragon.

My mother sighs often and heavily. Thinking private thoughts she shakes her head and mutters a complaint to herself. Life is hard for her. At 4 o’clock she has her first martini. 

I can always tell when dad gets home. You can hear him stamp his feet on the outside mat and then unlock the front door. Then after he changes his slacks he’ll fall asleep on the couch watching baseball just before dinner. I eat fast, we all do because the dinner table is where the cold war between my parents can turn hot. Either way dad leaves to go play poker until 2 in the morning.  On weekends he hosts the game in our basement.  There’s tons of swearing and a blue haze of cigar smoke. It’s kinda cool. The men call each other bad names but no one gets angry about it. They laugh and join in. S.O.B is the phrase I hear the most.

Sometimes I hear mom trying to stifle her sobs in the darkness of the living room at night. I can see the red glow from the tip of her Viceroy cigarette and I hear the clink of ice cubes in her glass of vodka. I hear her moaning and I feel so sad for her. She is trying to hold back but can’t. She sobs heavily and her nose runs. Then she might see me worried and watching from the edge of the room and call to me. "Oh Harvey," she will wail and when she opens her arms I run to her and we cry together like it’s the end of the world.  I wish I could make her happy. I wish I could make her laugh and smile. I wish I was bigger. 

And then she will notice me. Notice that I am sad and scared and she will laugh like she is all better and just being silly.  Then she will get serious and warn me,  "Harvey, don't you ever, ever, ever do this to a woman when you grow up. Don't you ever treat anybody the way your father treats me."

When she’s done crying she will she will stand up and say  “C'mon, I will teach you to dance . Dad hates music and dancing;  mom loves music and dancing.  She broke her heel once and fell on the floor dancing at Phil’s Bar Mitzvah. She didn’t get hurt-instead she laughed long and hard. I’m pretty sure she’d had too much to drink. That’s how dad would put it. “Your mother’s had too much to drink”.

First she teaches me to waltz which is pretty easy. My head comes up to her boobs and the sequins that cover her dress are sharp and scratch my face. But I don’t care because I like her hugging me and she always smells so good. 

After waltzing we do the cha-cha. That always cheers her up. I got pretty good at it.. We dance in the dark, just mom and me and no body else, dancing in the dark.