From the Memoir: The Lanes (Patreon)

As I was combing through my shorter memoir pieces in search of something I could submit for critique to the prose wonks at CRAFT, I came across the following micro-memoir about my conception. Written as a palate cleanser between pages of heavy Dave & Tracy material, the piece was my attempt to tell the origin stories of my parents' love and my own birth using *only* using one-syllable words.

I almost succeeded -- you'll see -- and I didn't end up submitting this to CRAFT or anywhere, but I could see fleshing these bits out, especially the second small section. In any event, I've got a birthday coming up and this right here marks the start of the start of the start of the life journey, so -- why not share it!?

I hope you enjoy it in all of its raw little glory. This is for Patrons only.

Thanks as ever for your presence and support. You make the whole thing go, and I am ever grateful. xotg

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Not my parents. But 100% 1967.

THE LANES

They went to back to the place they met, The Lanes, for their first date. She brought her own ball and shoes. She spun a mean curve. She beat him three for three and he laughed the whole time, laughed and drank and smoked (they both smoked) then laughed some more. In the end, he liked that she beat him. He liked a smart girl with skills, with sass. He lobbed a joke, she fired one back. No slack. She was who she was.

“Try to keep up,” she said. He liked that.

Next stop was a friend’s house. He put the top down, she tied on her scarf, the slant sun still hot in south Dade. It was the Fourth, and the plan was to drink more, dance some, and watch red, white, and blue bombs go off in the sky. They did none of that. Well -- they drank. And then, back on the friend’s bed with the door closed, one thing led to the next. It was his first time. She showed him how. Red, white, and blue bombs went off in his eyes.

He called from the base. They talked late, went out, talked more. Three weeks on, she called him, said she felt sick and did not bleed.

“No shit,” he said. “No shit!?” And then: “No shit!!” Wild with joy, he bought her a ring with his hard-earned Air Force cash, got down on a knee and gave it to her that night. His mom scowled; her folks sighed and prayed. “Too young,” they all said. "Too soon.” But look at this shot of them on the red steps in front of the cross. The fall bride in her big bell gown, all bleached up-curls, lace and collarbones, and the groom with his clean shave, crew cut, big ears and sharp tux, both of them all teeth. I was a two month nub in the womb, no eyes yet and no thumbs, mute yet there in the pleats of her dress but on my way.

It’s strange to think I was there, but I was. From the start. I was there.

* * *

The sky was full of stars, the sun four hours under the rim of the world yet, the dim spring moon half fat. They laid me on her chest while I was still warm and blind and wet. Mom-arms reached for me, it’s what Life told them to do, but the nurse slapped her hands back hard.

“Don’t touch her!” she said.

Mom-arms froze in an arc, then dropped to her sides. She did not ask why and the nurse did not say and all of it made her want to cry. Made her scared to hold me when the nurse gave the all clear.

It is the first thing Mom tells me when she tells me the tale of us.

They said, Don’t touch her.

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