CHAPTER FIVE: NOBODY PUTS BABY IN A CORNER
“Honey.” Ronda was shaking my shoulder. “Honey, c’mon, wake up,” she persisted.
I drew the covers around me turning away from her and nestling deeper into the soft sheets.
“Honey, the babies awake,” she said as she playfully slapped my ass through the covers.
Sighing I threw back the blankets enough that her shapely naked hip and beautiful back were exposed and rolled out of bed.
“It’s cold” she complained as she pulled the covers back around her.
Pulling on my jeans I murmured, “It could be 150 degrees outside, and you would still be cold.”
It was a beautiful late spring day in March of 1979, and I had big plans. I had lined out a couple of tattoos to do that day and I would soon be on my way to make my house calls. The morning sun poured through the kitchen window of our small apartment at 7th and Locust in St. Joseph, Missouri. The sunlight was peeking around the corner of the bedroom door trying to push back the shadows of the room like a cat stalking a mouse, slowly and surely.
I hurried into the bathroom to relieve myself. While standing there by the stool feeling the weight of my bladder lessen, I could hear Dawn Renee beating on her bedroom door with one of her numerous toys. As I raised the water level in the bowl, I tried to visualize what toy she was striking the door with.
Was it the headless doll? No that wasn’t it. Maybe it was one of her plastic blocks, whatever happened to wood blocks? No that wasn’t it either. Hmmm, what is it? The pounding continued increasing in frequency as I urged my bladder to hurry up. Wait I know what it is, she’s using the head of the headless doll, that’s it. I waved bye, bye as the yellow liquid started its long journey to the Missouri river.
Washing my hands I said, more to me than to anyone, “OK, OK hold your pants on.”
Going to Dawn's bedroom door I opened it just as she took another swing at the door.
The momentum of the swing carried her forward and into my legs.
“Come here you,” I said, reaching down and picking up the 2-year-old bundle of energy. “Daddy” she said gleefully as if she was surprised that it was me who had opened the door for her.
I opened the door for her almost every morning, but she always acted as if it was an unexpected treat. I carried her into the bathroom and instructed her to go potty. She set the toy she was holding down, ah, I was wrong; she was beating the door with naked Barbie. Sitting her down on the potty chair I left to go start coffee.
When she had finished her business, she came into the kitchen and climbed up onto a chair at the small kitchen table as I was spooning grounds into the top of the percolator.
“Want some cereal baby girl?” I asked her.
She nodded her head and started grooming naked Barbie’s tangled hair. Placing the pot on the stove I turned on the burner and adjusted the blue gas flame that danced around the bottom of the coffee pot.
I pulled the box of Captain Crunch off of the top of the refrigerator and shook it, the box was almost empty, and Captain Crunch had abandoned the ship. I emptied the contents into Dawns plastic kiddy bowl and retrieved the container of mixed powdered milk we kept in the fridge.
A gallon of whole milk was a treat that others could afford because they had more money to spare than we did. A box of powdered milk was the staple in our house and would go five times as far as a gallon of whole milk. It had been so long since I had tasted a glass of whole milk that it would taste foreign and exotic to me like fragrant ambrosia caressing the palate.
I poured what was left in the jug over the dusty crumbly remains of the captain's leavings and turned to the cupboard to grab the milk box and mix more. Damn, we’re out! I went to the pad we kept by the door and started a grocery list. Captain Crunch may have gone overboard but I was sure that I would find him as a castaway in the breakfast aisle of the local store.
The percolator was singing its pop, pop, poppity, pop song on the stove, the hot brown liquid within the pot dancing in the glass top button of the lid. I shut off the flame and poured a cup of the bubbling liquid letting the steam and aroma caress my nose. I retrieved one of my yellow home rolled cigarettes and sat down with a sigh at the table across from the ravaged child who was busy polishing off her morning feast.
I lit up my cigarette inhaling a deep and satisfying drag of the acrid smoke. A spoonful of sugar and a spoonful of powdered coffee creamer in my cup and my morning cereal was ready to be consumed. I watched my daughter as she prattled away about whatever it is a 2-year-old prattles about. Smiling I would acknowledge her statements with a nod and an admonishment of “Less talking more eating.”
Dawn was a precious piece of work, and I could not help but to be amused by her animated discourse. Her straggly chestnut coloured hair fell in fine lines across her wide forehead. Her hair was so fine that trying to keep it combed and neat was like trying to keep a pile of feathers anchored in a hurricane. Dawn's steel blue eyes twinkled almost constantly like the smallest of stars in the night sky. Dawn was my stepdaughter, but I did not look at her like that, she was my daughter and had been so from the first time I had laid eyes on her.
As Dawn Renee polished off the last little golden cube that had been the remains of Captain Crunch, I was pouring my second cup of coffee. Grabbing the bowl in her two small hands she lifted it to her lips and loudly slurped its contents, small rivers of milk coursing down her chin to end their journey in her nightgown.
“Look at you,” I said with a small laugh as I took the bowl from her, “you’re a mess!”
Tossing the bowl in the kitchen sink I led her into the bathroom and started filling the tub as I got her undressed. I picked her up and set her down in the warm water as she started squealing, “Bubbles Daddy bubbles.”
I poured a small amount of bubble gum scented soap under the running water and the bubbles began to rise and multiply much to the amusement of the child. I retrieved her bathtub toys from the floor behind the tub and tossed them into the tub as I shut off the water.
“I’ll be right back,” I told her “Don’t stand up.” She heard me but made no comment as she made every effort to drown her rubber ducky.
I went to Dawn Renee’s small room and removed fresh training pants, socks, terry cloth shirt and tiny pants from her dresser drawer. I picked her shoes up from the floor knowing the battle that was ahead to try and fit her kicking feet into them. I set the shoes on top of the dresser next to her small glasses.
Dawn had been wearing glasses since she was 18 months old. Being the world’s clumsiest child, she had tripped on air, yes really air! We never figured out what she had tripped on. She came tottering into the room and suddenly just fell in front of me and Ronda hitting her head on the hardwood floor of our apartment.
Though she had just a small cut on her forehead that required a couple of stitches, she had also ended up with a concussion evidenced by the goose egg on her forehead in which the cut was nestled and a weakened optic nerve.
The attending Physician at the emergency room had made an attempt to accuse me of child abuse. I was able to make it clear to him, man to man, through gentle but firm reasoning that I did not appreciate the insinuation that I would harm my child. I also strove to make it clear by a firm but meaningful grip on his arm that any further attempts by him to go in that direction might result in his firsthand knowledge of Doctor Abuse. I believe that the ER Physician finally understood that it was indeed an accident and that his efforts to suggest otherwise would be detrimental to his health.
My children, one and all, will tell you that I am a believer in tough love. I demand respect not only for myself and their mothers but others as well. I will discipline as needed and give direct guidance. I love my children and I am as vigilant as a bull Elephant when it comes to protecting my young. I fiercely love my children and would willingly give my life for their life. The last thing that I would ever do is harm my children or abuse them in any way and woe be to anyone who would suggest otherwise.
I picked up the small glasses by the nose piece and laid the tiny shoes on the folded clothes. I gathered up the small bundle and headed back to the bathroom. As I entered Dawn Renee was beating her school of plastic fish to death with naked Barbie. I wonder if I could turn her in for minnow abuse? I was just sitting her clothes, shoes and glasses down on the closed lid of the toilet stool when the phone rang. Damn, that’ll wake-up Ronda!
“Don’t move,” I admonished the preoccupied child as I rushed towards the kitchen and the ringing phone.
I swear that the old harvest gold rotary dial wall phone that served as our link to the outside world would make the handset jump in its chrome side cradle every time it rang. I dislodged the handset in the middle of its third ring, almost dropping it.
“Hello?” I queried in a soft tone.
I was trying to keep from disturbing the sleeping Ronda in the next room as if my hushed tone could negate the loud ringing that had just jangled the entire apartment.
“Jim?” a gentle female voice asked.
“Yes, this is Jim George, can I help you?” I offered.
There were very few people who called me Jim, my wife being one of them. My boss as well as my mother in-law and my doctor being the others that would call me Jim. My grandmother called me Jimmy and my mother, and my sister called me by my formal name James, my daughter called me Daddy and to the rest of the world I was Gypsy.
There was a short pause at the other end of the line then the gentle voice identified itself. “Jim,” she began, “this is your Aunt Lula, your Uncle Cecil’s wife.”
I hadn’t talked to her in years even though I had just talked to Uncle Cecil just after the first of the year. Uncle Cecil was a great guy who lived in Topeka, Kansas and had always been the one connection I had to my biological Father, his brother Lee Roy Everett George.
“Hi Aunt Lula, how are you?” I asked.
“Jim, your Uncle Cecil asked me to call you.” There was hesitation in her voice. “It’s about your father,” she continued. “He passed away last evening.”
I stood in the kitchen whose only source of light at the moment was the small amount of sun that was trying to push back the shadows of the early morning, the phone's handset pressed against my ear. My other ear could hear Dawn Renee splashing in the tub. My ears had become separated from each other, one in the real world of a child playing the other in a netherworld of death. I looked down at the twisted phone cord whose yellow knots I was twisting in my fingers.
“Well, thank you for calling Aunt Lula,” I said, “I appreciate the info. I’m kind of busy right now; let me call you back when I have some time.” And without waiting for an answer, I returned the handset to its cradle.
My Father is dead. I rolled the words around in my mind as I headed back to the bathroom. My Father who had gone to prison when I was three.
“Who was on the phone?” Ronda asked as I passed the bed.
My Father who had suffered an accident in prison and had been in a coma for several years before recovering.
“Come on Donnie Rae, Rae, let’s get you out of the tub and dry you off.” I said as I extracted her from the tepid water.
My Father who had talked to me on the phone 3 or 4 times when I was 13 years old after he had been released from prison.
I was drying the wiggling bundle of child off as each rub of the towel brought ticklish peals of laughter.
My Father who had called me one last time when I was 15 and who had promised that he was coming to visit soon and never did.
“Hold still wiggle butt.” I ordered Dawn as I got her dressed.
My Father who I had asked my Uncle Cecil a couple of months ago to contact for me.
As I carried Dawn past the bed Ronda, a little more awake, asked again, “Honey, who was that on the phone?”
My Father who I had plans to meet this summer if it was the last thing I did.
I sat down on the couch hugging my daughter close to me. I could hear the phone ringing far away. I looked out the window as my daughter slid out of my arms and scampered towards her room and the toy box that awaited her within. Was that the phone ringing from across the street?
“Honey, are you going to answer that?” Ronda asked from the bedroom.
No, it’s farther away than that; it’s a phone ringing down by the river. I heard Ronda throw back the covers and hurry towards the kitchen.
“Hello,” I heard her answer a phone in a kitchen on the other side of town. “Sure, just a moment I’ll get him,” she said from even farther away. "Jim, it’s your Uncle Cecil, he wants to talk to you. “
I looked up and there was Ronda standing, clad only in what God gave her, in the doorway between our bedroom and the living room. I can’t make out her features. It has started raining in the apartment and the windshield wipers over my eyes are not moving quick enough to clear my vision of the road ahead.