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Narrator recollects stories of growing up with strong-willed women in Chicago during the 1960s. Listening in on spirited conversations, a child makes up stories to entertain her grandmother as they make kugula and make the rounds treasure hunting at thrift stores with a baby buggy.
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Narrator recollects stories of growing up with strong-willed women in Chicago during the 1960s. Listening in on spirited conversations, a child makes up stories to entertain her grandmother as they make kugula and make the rounds treasure hunting at thrift stores with a baby buggy.
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Oh, I think it's about time I introduce you to another one of my favorite characters. And let's go into Peggy's room. After I cleaned up, I went upstairs to the back guest room of the old house on the hill. It was a pretty little room with a balcony that overlooked the gardens below. I stepped outside and could see rows of flowers that my mother had planted, artistically arranged in large curving beds, accented by fountains and statuary. Stone and wrought iron benches were tucked into the bed gardens as well, so that one sat nose-level to rose bushes, able to whiff their scents along with gardenia and lavender and wisteria. Some of those scents rose up to the second story, so I could catch them now. I brought my laptop along with piles of notes and was disappointed that there was no place to write on the balcony, so I turned back inside and I plopped everything, including myself, onto a pile of eyelet pillows and a perky yellow bedspread. When I was a girl, this room was never very pretty. It was crammed to the max, from floor to ceiling, with thrift store finds. The curtains were heavy, drawn tight to keep out the light. My grandmother did not like others peeping in at her, or us kids going through her treasures. We were ordered never to go out on the balcony, or risk falling to our deaths below. Better yet, we were advised to just stay out of this room. I had been thinking about my dad's reasons for going AWOL sixty years ago. His mother, Margaret, a strong Lithuanian woman, would have been the one who was not too keen on the idea of their marriage. She would have been the primary reason that Don needed to talk to his parents before even going out with a woman like my mother. She would oppose and stand firm until compromise was met. She believed that her son could have his choice of any girl. After all, she had been It in her day. And now this made sense to me now, of course. I came to know her all too well. A court-martial would be easier to face than the judgment of this woman. One of my earliest memories with her was of being admonished when I was very young. We were visiting her restaurant, and her back was turned, so I called out, Grandma! She turned abruptly on her heel, came over to our table, and leaned down to whisper coarsely at me. Don't you ever call me that again! Ever! Well, what would you like me to call you? I asked, suddenly confronted by this large set of arms and a huge bosom in front of me. I needed to strain my neck to look up past the mountains to her stern face, surrounded by short curls that were always dyed Carol's most fashionable reddish blonde. The figure stood up to flash me a big smile and looked up into the air. She added a flourishing gesture, twirling her wrist and fingers as she surprised me with her answer, Rita! I asked my mother about it later, who agreed that this response was a new one. She suspected that my grandmother might wish to take a name that sounded more exotic in her own place. A diminutive of Margarita would put patrons in mind of Rita Hayworth, with whom she thought she had much in common, including both being It girls. Clara Bow brought the It concept to the stage in 1927 and admitted that while she didn't know exactly what It meant, Lena Turner was definitely one. Later she added that Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum were also on the list of those who could have anyone they wanted. Peggy believed that there was a time when she belonged on that It list. I could imagine her dancing, flapper style and beaded sequins, albeit maybe fifty pounds lighter. She could have been part of Chicago's Warring Twenties, flashing her toothy smile into the air, responding to the call of Rita. Ah, just call her Peggy, my mom advised, like everybody else does. And so, I always have. Peggy also thought of herself as a free-spirited businesswoman. She purchased property near Bridgeport during the Al Capone era in his territory. She was proud to keep it in her own name since she bought it in bargain times when the economy was collapsing. With money she made catering and tending bar. She liked to hint that she served some of these more colorful elements of Chicago notoriety, including certain underworld figures that must remain nameless. I have my secrets, she enjoyed saying. Peggy also had her prejudices, although she refused to admit them. Why don't you go for a nice Jewish girl, she asked when Don visited her before he got married. See, see, it's not that I'm prejudiced. I'd even give in to that, being such a good Catholic woman as I am, see? She thought she was demonstrating how very open-minded she was about the situation, and willing to compromise even on issues of faith. I would rather see a good-looking guy like you, who could have any girl marry into some money, she paused, than some Irish farm girl. Oy, oy, oy, oy, Yesus Maria. She exclaimed theatrically, oh God forgive me, and one was divorced, oy, with a child, oy, oy, oy, oy, Yesus, Maria. When Don spent time with his father and brother alone, they would be far more encouraging. Do you love her? Well, that would be their only question, which they assured him he did not need to answer aloud. In the end, the good businesswoman negotiated a compromise based on which aspects of the truth they should color. She advised her son that if he chose to marry this woman, they should just tell the family that the child's father died in service to his country, which would be more acceptable. The rest they would need to work through as best they could. I call this section Behind Closed Doors. Arguments were reserved for bedrooms behind closed doors. They never took place out in the open in our house, particularly when children were present. So it was tough as a child to get a good handle on what people really were thinking, and we were taught that children should be seen and not heard, and never to ask questions. As a girl, I could sense the tension between my mother and grandmother without words being spoken in front of us. My grandmother would walk into the room and roll her eyes. My mother would turn on her heel, crunch her teeth, purse her red lips, and walk away. Now, when two people went into a bedroom and shut the door behind them, I knew something interesting must be going on. So I would sneak up the creaky old stairs, praying that they did not squeak, stay quiet as a mouse, and scrunch up my face so blood would rush up to my eardrums to enhance my hearing ability. Now, in this way, only then could I catch if there was something really good to hear. Oh, so what are you calling yourself now to the kids? I heard my mother's voice. Rita? Oh, come on, Peg, you're not a Rita. Get over yourself. You're just too goddamn vain to admit you are a grandmother. Oh, the jealous Irish, my grandmother said. No one would believe it anyway. I don't look like anyone's grandmother. Oy, Lord knows I can't help it. She spoke as if she were revealing a sad secret. Even the minister said I was the most beautiful bride he had ever seen. I was sixteen, you know, and he was a priest, you know. They're not supposed to think such things. Her tone was confiding and sweet, but he said I was the most beautiful bride he had ever seen, she repeated, and that's a fact, and God was my witness. In a holy church we married. She happily clucked as she said this, and then assumed a mocking voice, not a quickie at the JP. Of course they wouldn't let you marry in a church before God. Oh, yes, my poor Donald had to marry on the fly without his family around him. Her voice pitched high and broke theatrically as though she was on the verge of tears. Oh, shameful, shameful, shameful. She paused, and Peggy's voice harumphed again with a self-righteous indignation. I couldn't care less what you think. She chuckled in saccharine sweetness. Oh, well, you poor dear, oh, poor you probably can't help it, like the good book says. She seemed to enjoy the sound of her chuckle and kept repeating it. Oh, so I should feel sorry for you? Yeah, well, yeah, that's how God would teach us. You never had that kind of teaching being a poor, poor Protestant farm girl. God says to feel sorry for the likes of you. Oh, that's such a crock of bull, Peg. You haven't been to church except for weddings and funerals in the past 50 years, and don't give me your holier-than-thou shit. Peg seemed to agree. Maybe true enough, but I sure knew how to raise my boys right. Maybe too good John just married you. My saintly son, he was raised with a good heart, way as a smile, because he felt sorry for you, and we took you in with all of our good Catholic hearts, because we felt sorry for you and your fatherless son, too. Fatherless son, I heard. Did I hear right? My little mind had never suspected that any of my siblings were not just part of the typical American Catholic family, which produced lots of children by one set of parents who pulled through for one another, through thick and thin. This is why leaning against the doorframe, listening to the way adults talk, felt strangely exciting to me. I never got to see this kind of behavior up close. I could hear more gasps, footsteps, things rustling in the room, you know? And then Peggy's voice again. You are so lucky, never to do a thing, leave it to everyone else, such a simple life that you've led down on the farm, without a pot to piss in, just let the good Catholics take you in. No, okay, I could hear more grunts, footsteps and things crashing in the room, and it was all getting louder. I heard the doorknob turn, and I scurried off to the other side of a door across the hall and just peeked at them. My grandmother walked out first, and I could see her face, staring up toward heaven. Oh, despite your sins and growing up on a farm, oh, thanks, Jesus. When she observed me, watching her intently, she nodded my direction and gave herself the sign of the cross and then said, and bless my poor St. Donald, God bless him. We are all just too good. Oh, now, let me take you down to the basement. This space was the stuff of nightmares and wizardry, the mix of old energy, smells of long-gone and present creatures, cobwebs, mouse drippings, and musty relics of ancient treasures never go away. Some smells that penetrated twenty years ago remained within the cement floors from Peggy's dogs, or so I thought I could still smell them. She locked them in this basement and let them out when she remembered to do their duty. So, no matter how clean this basement would be, how neatly organized, I still smelled its pungent history, or imagined it now, perhaps. As children, we were not allowed to open the door that led to the basement, much less ever to play down there. Oy, the dogs will eat you up alive, we were warned. So it was always and ever a mystery place, and now it was one I could explore. One room used to be a coal room, with a sunken pit that stored mountains of coal for heating the house. There would have been a huge burning monster adjacent. It had long ago been replaced by a natural gas economite conversion unit. I thought about how filthy the houses would have been, with soot bellowing from the chimneys and hearths, penetrating the fine wood, the walls, the furnishings, and carpets, making cleaning a massive chore. My dad had been a heating man as one of his first jobs when he returned to Chicago after the service. He apprenticed under his kindly, funny Uncle Pete, who was the only uncle I recall who took a friendly interest in us kids. They would install and service units just like this economite all over the neighborhood. Dad told me that Midco's brand of replacement furnaces were built in Chicago so well that they would never break down. So once installed, the only calls they got were from a few folks once a year to clean and start them up for the season. These gas conversion power burners changed the cleanliness of urban living dramatically in mid-century America, and it was chugging along just fine into the next century. So there was no need for Uncle Pete's services, or my father's, either. The room was now a handyman's workroom with hundreds of tools, bits, and pieces for repairs, like 60-year-old ornate brass doorknobs, salvaged cabinetry panels of lead crystal and solid wood, neat rows of cans containing paints, stains, varnishes, and cleaners. I enjoyed fingering these items, feeling the heft of solid brass and iron, admiring the drips on the cans, and the attention to details like how things were sorted by size and function with dated labels stuck on, now faded, but assurances that care was put into this place. They reminded me of the great amount of work that my father and mother needed to do after they inherited this place. I explored the dark corners and crevices. There was a root cellar, a shower, and giant double basins for washing things. Pipes dropped down from the ceiling that a man over six feet tall needed to avoid. People were shorter when this house was built at the turn of the 20th century. The pipes made handy storage rods where canvas cloth shelving cleverly hung and held treasures from the past. There were perhaps 50 prints of collectible museum art like Manet's, Renoir's, and Rembrandt's as well as cheeky clowns, kittens, and puppies. They were all embossed cardboard with imitation brush strokes given away as prizes from S&H green stamps or grocery stores to award to customers and stored here, neatly, for the past 50 years. I admired a stamped print of a little girl clown with red pigtails and a kissy red mouth outlined in a huge smile of white paint, riding a unicycle and carrying a red parasol, although the more I looked at her, the sorrier I felt for her. Not far from her, stuck in the farthest corner, was an antique black buggy. My heart leaped and then sank as I tugged at it. I opened the pleated accordion hood and felt musty smells from mildew sting my nostrils. Tears welled in the corner of my eyes, but they were not from the musk, but rather from a flood of memories. I recalled the last occupant I saw on this buggy, a round face with rosy cheeks surrounded by blonde curls. She was covered in a baby blanket and dozens of treasures packed over and around her that were obtained from the thrift stores in the area. Peggy would ask me to help load the child into the buggy. She was actually too large to fit properly, getting heavier with every trip and more resistant. So we would arrange her a bit sideways and scoot her legs, which had braces up to the knees, just so. Peggy would then rearrange the blanket so that most of the child's body was hidden except for the angelic face, and so that the silver and white leather braces would peek out just a bit. And off we would go to the Christian thrift stores in search of treasures for Peggy's collections. Eventually I believe my little sister became quite aware of how she was being used to score pity points and discounts. Jeannie put up such a fuss that Peggy quit using the buggy to hold the child, but she still liked to push it around to the shops, and sometimes I caught her bending over and cooing into it as though she still had a baby inside. Peg would try to pick up my little sister Jeannie, who, despite her cerebral palsy, could throw herself down on the ground and make herself dead weight, as heavy as lead. She would kick and fuss to let the world know that, hey, she did not want to be put in that baby buggy anymore. Peggy did not like the looks of Jeannie stumbling around in her braces, so she insisted that my older sister Audrey and I come for the rounds to the nearly new shop and churches. Audrey and I would each take an arm and swing our little sister between us. One, two, three, whoopee! She would laugh and giggle. She lagged behind, pretending we did not belong with her, still pushing the buggy. But if someone stopped to remark about how pretty Jeannie's blonde curls were, and how wonderful we were, such creative big sisters, well, then Peggy would rush up from behind to take possession. She would happily tell them how the poor child had cerebral palsy and would be a cripple for life. Poor dear, poor you, they would cry. What a saint you are for taking care of such a pitiful child. Oh, Jesus, she would exclaim. They would offer food or gifts, which Peggy would refuse at first, oh, heavens, no, and then relent. Oh, yes, for the child, God bless you, and stash it in the baby buggy with her treasures of the day. Tired from all the swinging, oh, my favorite part of the trip would be returning to the house on the hill, pushing the buggy up the narrow driveway to park it in the old carriage house adjacent to the basement, and then unloading the treasures. Afterwards, we would go up to the kitchen to make kugelh. Let's go to Peggy's kitchen. What could be more wonderful to a tired and hungry child than the smells of bacon, grease, and onion? Peggy's kitchen had the largest sink I had ever seen. It was lavender and as long as a bathtub, cast with corrugations for water to flow. Strewn about the tiny room were a clutter of clashing patterns and colors, enough to make a child's eyes dance. A plastic-coated orange, yellow, and pink floral wipe-off tablecloth was set with placements of green and red Christmas plaids. Polka-dotted plastic coasters were displayed on top of old rococo brocades and round lace doilies. Thrift store acquisitions, shown off with temporary pride, were now carelessly tossed into sagging baskets made in Taiwan. Peggy would gather them up in her ample arms and sweep them into a corner of the butler's pantry around the corner. Another load for future sorting that just never found time to happen. The table was now cleared for fun. Peggy was an expert cook, a restaurateur, and I enjoyed the happy energy she displayed when she was in her element. A sack of potatoes was plopped on the only vacant chair and women's work began by peeling and grating each one. All of them? I asked, eyes wide and tremulous. Ya, ya, Peggy said. Audrey and I enjoyed trying to see who could create the longest peels, while Peggy used a faster method of zipping many short peelings into a bucket. She could easily peel six in the time we each did one, but she did not criticize our creative culinary expressions. After rinsing the potatoes, we would shred them on metal graters. I could never escape the danger of scraping my knuckles on the sharp holes. I watched my blood drizzle into the oxygenating shreds, already turning pink with this grayish foam, and I wondered aloud how that might affect the taste. Oh, never mind, Peggy said. It will all blend together just fine. Little girls' blood can't cause any harm. After whisking the bowls away to rinse, she plopped another huge bag and fresh bowls in front of us. Time to grate the onions. While she put the coagula in the oven, she started humming and then burst into song. Oh, I wish I was single again, again. I wish I was single again, cause when I was single, my pockets would jingle. Oh, I wish I was single again. It ruined my life, oh then, oh then, I'll never get married again. I could tell that the part she liked the best, about the jingling pockets, that was the same one I did, so I clapped my hands at that part. My turn! I laughed. Can I tell you something I dreamt while we wait for the coagula? I'm tired, she said. All that shopping and cooking I need to rest. She walked away, knowing I would follow her. Oh no, in this one I fell into a rabbit hole. I tried to entice her. Peggy took off her apron and left it in the butler's pantry on top of the thrift store baskets. She eased her body slowly into a big upholstered chair in the parlor to make herself comfortable. I watched her raise the hem of her house dress up over her knees and unroll thick rubber bands that held up her stockings. Then she rolled her stockings down to her ankles, revealing the flush on her legs. This view was so intriguing to my unaccustomed eye that I remember it in colorful detail. Her worn, puffy legs were mottled in red and purple splotches, punctuated with bug bites, and spotted with pink, dried calamine lotion. She caught my gaze and pulled a dress down again to cover her large, squishy knees. Her bare arms were dimpled with the softest fat, like marshmallows, with a body made of giant, soft mounds between. I resumed vying for her attention. When I fell, it was not earth but soft pillows that you can go boing, boings, I explained. And on the other side was this enormous field of lilies in all colors, I said dramatically as I watched her mouth break into a grin. Orange and pinks and yellows. But when you go to sniff one up close, I paused, it smells like onions. Peggy laughed a sing-song chuckle that came from in back of her throat. She slapped her thighs as a signal that she was ready for me to climb into her lap if I wanted to. It was tempting. I was still much smaller than her. I knew that if I got my arms and elbows exactly right, well maybe, I could sink between the pillows and get swallowed in a perfumed mix of baby powder and lilies of the valley. I sat on a stool beside her instead to resume my dream story. The scent of her onion fingers clashed with the perfume on her dress, which is how my impromptu story line developed. Onions, I repeated dramatically. Onions, oh yes, Yesus, Maria, she responded with a soft chuckle. Oh, and then I chased a rabbit through this large, huge, white, lacy flowers, boing, boing, as big and round as plates. I jumped up to add choreography to my story, twirling and boinging around the living room to a lavender stream that flows quickly over ripples. Then, suddenly, I said, pausing for effect, just then, suddenly, I go to it, step in it, step in it, and then, suddenly, I can see these red streamers making lines in the water. Oy, Jesus, she said, what could it be? A flow of rust? Rust, I shake my head solemnly, ominously. No, it's more pink, pink, like a child's blood. Ooh, well, that could be too scary, I thought. I did not want to make her stop, so I backed off and suggested that it could be from a little animal, not thick and red, you know. I tried to sound wise, as if I knew that adult blood was thick with bad stuff. Mixed with something kind of foamy. Oh, no, Jesus, she exclaimed, tell me, what is it? I shook my head apologetically. I can't, because that's when I woke up. Oh, wonderful story, she praised me. You are such a storyteller. Oh, you had me so scared. Oh, not really a story, I corrected her, just my dream. Kugula's ready, I can smell it, oh, I'm so starved.
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