#17 1000 Words

TITLE: Hiding in the Spotlight
GENRE: Mainstream/family saga




All I ever wanted was to be ordinary, to blend in with the scenery. I got off to a bad start from the get-go with this headline: LARGEST NATURAL BORN BABY ON RECORD IN TULSA, OKLAHOMA. I topped the scales at thirteen pounds one ounce; the beginning of a long battle with the spotlight aimed in my direction.

Many newsworthy events happened in '64: Lyndon B. Johnson was president. The Nobel Peace prize was awarded to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Chinese detonated their first atomic bomb. The Beatles arrived in the United States. And my mom broke birthing records—her own. Starting with Rick at nine pounds, then Barbara at ten, Mike at eleven and then … me, Patty.

“That's one enormous baby you got there,” her doctor told her. “I think she’s a toddler already, smiling and looking alert. She’s one heck of a kid. You’re a lucky woman.”

Daddy's philosophy: "If less is more, then more is better." He was, therefore, ecstatic at my substantial dimensions. "That's one fine specimen of a baby," he told her with the enthusiasm of a farmer witnessing the birth of his prized pig.

Mama told me how the nurses gathered around me in awe that I behaved in ways considered too advanced for a newborn. I never cried and looked at each one of them in wonder, smiling. Strangers praised and revered me. I call that my popular period. A shame I have no recollection of it. There'd be no more of it later—when unordinary stretched its limits.

***

I leaned toward nervous, fretful people the way a sunflower follows the sun. I felt comfortable around people who were stitched from the same neurotic cloth as I. For this reason, my grandma Oma and I were inseparable from the day I first learned I could scratch myself until I bled.

A Cherokee Indian, Grandma Oma had none of the Indian pride she was supposed to have (she passed her pride to one of her four daughters, her blue-eyed redheaded wild child, my mother). What Grandma had were concerns, phobias, and disorders that she generously shared with me.

Grandma possessed unhealthy attachments to her chickens, along with a fear of dying. She was afraid of what might happen to her chickens if she passed away, she therefore lived a relatively risk-free life to avoid the possibility of an unscheduled fatality. She dreaded leaving her farm; afraid of riding in a car, she saw death at every turn. The last time she had left the property was to be driven four miles into Kellyville to have her chickens dyed at a beauty parlor; an annual Easter tradition. They came out in pastels.

My first unhealthy attachment was to an empty Aunt Jemima syrup bottle. She (the bottle) served as my water bottle, personal advisor, and imaginary friend. Aunt Jemima, AJ for short, answered any questions directed toward me. Except for my oldest brother Rick, the family became accustomed to this behavior, addressing her when talking to me.

"I don't wanna go to bed," sassed Jemima.

"You will or I'll bust you over my knee," Mama cut AJ a stare so fierce, she'd hide her cold, hard body in my pajamas.

"Don't encourage her," Rick said to anyone caught conversing with the syrup bottle. "It ain't right in the head."


When I was four we took a family vacation to California. I flatly refused to go without Grandma. And Grandma flatly refused to leave her chickens, causing quite a quandary amongst the family—and a stress rash for myself.

Outside, feeding the chickens for the third time inside an hour, Grandma Oma reached for another handful of chicken feed in one of the deep front pockets of her large housedress. The other pocket held her worry list and a water gun. The worry list she'd tell you was her prayer requests.

The water gun was to fend off her evil geese—and a disciplinary tool used on my mother.

Grandma's chaotic chickens ran every which way, plucking at the ground and pecking others within thieving range. With red-rimmed eyes, she muttered to herself while my aunt Melba, "Mouth", the youngest of her four daughters, encouraged Grandma to see us off at the airport. Visiting the airport was a big event for some of the relatives since many of whom didn't know the airplane had yet been invented.

“What about my chickens?” Grandma Oma asked. "You know I don't go nowhere without my chickens."

Now I knew where we stacked up against chickens.
“It's just an airport, Mama!" Mouth argued, hopping up onto a wooden fence. “Besides, dem chickens ain’t the ones you need worryin' about. Ain't you scared they'll die in a fiery plane crash?” "They" meaning my immediate family and myself.

Mouth earned her name because her big mouth contrasted with her small body, making said mouth more prominent. Grandma Oma said the name Melba was Indian for Little Big Mouth. My sister Barbara said because of her notorious failure to be quiet, someone slammed the door on it.

"What fiery plane crash?" Grandma asked as she drew her water pistol and fired away into a thatch of bushes at a combative goose.

What fiery plane crash? I mind-questioned my personal advisor, AJ. She said nothing.

I scooted next to Mouth on the wooden fence, watching as Rick rolled Mike around the pasture in a wheelbarrow, zigzagging through cows, laughing. I wanted to laugh and have Rick push me too, but I had serious end-of-life concerns to contemplate.

"Never mind the plane crash." Mouth winked at me. "They might die tragically when California sinks into the ocean." She was referring of course to the "Big One" the earthquake of catastrophe that would kill us violently. It had been the subject of many a hushed conversation amongst the relatives.

"California's gonna sink in the ocean?" Grandma said, clutching her heart. "Oh, Sweet Jesus, no!"

California's gonna sink in the ocean?