“When you Find Yourself in a Hole…“
by Katherine Jett Hayes
My Granny Edith made outrageous threats. They were so outrageous that it was hard to take her seriously, even at age seven. “I’m so mad, I could pinch your head clean off!” was a phrase that always captured my attention and imagination. Did my grandmother have the strength in her thumb and forefinger to decapitate me? Even if she used both hands, I doubted it.
Another of her favorite threats was, “I could beat the blood out of you.” This phrase conjured vivid mental images and raised several interesting questions. What would I look like with no blood? Where would my blood go? On the floor? Where would it happen? Given my grandmother’s penchant for cleanliness, I ruled out the kitchen as a venue for being beaten bloodless. Perhaps the back porch where she could just hose it off?
According to family legend, my grandmother had killed a peach tree in the backyard of our rural North Carolina home by stripping it of its branches to mete out justice to her two daughters. As a result, she had to rely on branches from a forsythia bush for the next generation of offenders. She always sent the “perp” to get the branch. And we all knew that if the branch was too small or brittle, we would be sent back for a bigger, stronger one.
One fateful summer afternoon, Granny Edith sent me to get the branch. Knowing how quickly her anger would burn out, I wasn’t too worried. However, remembering the crash and broken glass made me wonder if I’d finally pushed her too far. I already felt remorse, but that soon turned to self-pity. By the time I walked around the corner of the house and out of my grandmother’s sight, I began to see myself as a martyr.
What size branch should I choose? Would the traditional thin and whippy branch be sufficient? Or was something more significant in order? If the size of the branch was determined by the severity of the crime, something larger was in order. Drawing upon my vast knowledge of crime and punishment, I ran through my most recent transgressions.
Waking Granny Edith before 3 p.m. – she worked the graveyard shift as a telephone switchboard operator – didn’t typically end in corporal punishment. Swinging on the pasture gate after you had been warned off had been a close call. Plucking leaves off of the newly planted magnolia trees to make a native American headdress, I had narrowly avoided punishment by promising never to do it again. But in those instances, I’d had to do the perp walk to get the branch before she forgave me.
So what size branch was called for when my crime was “skateboarding” across the family room on my brother’s toy oil tanker? That alone wouldn’t have warranted punishment, but crashing into an antique drop-leaf table and shattering Victorian-era glass centerpiece, or as she called it, an epergne? That was a different story. I needed to prepare a defense.
First, no one told me not to use an oil tanker as a skateboard. I had asked for a skateboard for my birthday, but my grandmother denied my request. The crash might never have happened if I had gotten the skateboard. Everyone knows a skateboard is easier to control than an oil tanker. That would be my “it was your fault” defense.
Second, last Sunday, Pastor Edmunds warned against placing too much value on material things. One might go so far as to characterize my grandmother as a little too proud of her antique collection. Maybe this could be my “I did you a favor” defense.
Perhaps God was sending her a message, and I was God’s messenger. Or maybe this time, the message was for me. Perhaps I had finally gone too far. That thought gave me pause.
If she intended to beat the blood out of me, she could not accomplish the task with a forsythia branch. Maybe if I chose something outrageous, she would pity me and forget about the whole thing. Better yet, maybe I could make her laugh. I changed course and headed for my grandfather’s tool shed.
Once inside, I looked around. I immediately rejected a saw, which was not a bludgeoning tool. I considered a hammer, but beating someone bloodless with a hammer, even for someone my size, was a lot of effort. No, nothing in here would work.
As I exited the toolshed, I noticed a pile of branches that had fallen from a walnut tree during a recent storm. Inspired, I selected a large branch and began dragging it across the yard.
I turned the corner, trying to summon an expression demonstrating that I was resigned to my fate and remorseful for my actions. As I dragged the branch up to the back porch where my grandmother was waiting, it became clear that I had underestimated her ability to get over things quickly and overestimated her sense of humor.
“Katherine Rene Jett,” she said using my full name. Children are born knowing that the use of their full name by an angry adult means they are doomed. I immediately abandoned any thought of presenting a defense. She continued, “You take that right back to where you got it and get me a branch, or I swear I will beat you to half to death.”
Has there ever been a time in your life when you knew you should remain silent, but you could not? Before I considered the consequences, I blurted, “What does half to death mean? It doesn’t seem as bad as being beaten bloodless or having my head pinched off.”
She took a step toward me, and just as I’d decided that she probably could pinch my head off, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was my grandfather, John Taylor. That was what everyone called him. Not John, but John Taylor.
“Babe,” he said, addressing my grandmother, “if you kill her, you’ll go to jail. No two ways about it. And I don’t have time to help you clean up the mess. I need to get to the hardware store before it closes.”
When she just stared at him, he continued. “Besides, I promised Kathy I’d take her with me.” He looked down at me, winked, and swung me onto his shoulders.
My grandmother sighed and shook her head in disgust at both of us. “Just get her out of my sight.”
As we started toward his pickup truck, he asked casually, “You wouldn’t know anything about the broken glass in the family room, would you?” When I didn’t answer, he continued. “Why don’t we stop by the florist on the way home and get your grandmother some flowers. It seems like a good day for flowers.”
He walked toward his pickup truck with me on his shoulders. “Remind me to tell you about the greatest American philosopher that ever lived. His name was Will Rogers, and he had excellent advice for little girls who find themselves in deep holes.”
“Okay,” I said, my arms looping around his neck. Then I leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “I love you, John Taylor.”
“Goodbye, Ken”
By Katherine Jett Hayes
March 7, 2009 – Seattle, Washington
His hair is longer than I remember. The last time that I saw him, it was dark and shorter. Now it is a thick silver mane. His face is pale, gaunt, and waxy, and he looks like he’s already dead. Then I hear a rasping breath. He is gasping for air. The woman in the folding chair by his bedside turns and sees me.
“Ken,” she says to the dying man in the bed. “Kathy is here. She stands and motions for me to sit in the chair she has just vacated. “Sit here. Hold his hand, Kathy.” A pause, another rasping gasp for air. “Ken…Ken!” she almost shouts, and he opens his eyes. “Kathy is here,” she tells him.
Hesitantly, I sit in the chair and take his hand. I have seen dead people at funerals. But I had never seen someone die – never seen someone this close to death. I look into the sunken brown eyes, so brown that they are almost black, just like mine. His eyes meet mine, and I see recognition. He tries to say my name, but the effort triggers a rattling cough. “Hi, Dad,” I say quietly.
July 1, 1965 – Hollywood, California
It’s my fourth birthday. I am in a restaurant called the Brown Derby. There are pictures of people on the walls. I sit in a booth in a booster seat.
When the waiter comes to our table. He winks at me and says that I can call him Tommy. My father orders drinks. I look around and see men in suits and women in dresses. I am wearing the new dress my grandmother sent for my birthday, blue with little bows and pearls. Then Tommy returns to the table, balancing three drinks on a tray.
Daddy’s drink is brown, Mommy’s drink is clear, and mine is pink. It is in a glass, not a plastic cup like at home, and it has ice cubes. Tommy tells me it is a Shirley Temple. Pink is my favorite color, but I can’t wear pink because my hair is red. I reach out for the glass. It feels cold, and I put both hands around it and slowly bring it to my lips for a sip. Then slowly and carefully, I put it back on the table. It is sweet, but the bubbles feel funny on my tongue.
For dinner I have soup. It is red and has little crackers floating in it. Daddy orders another drink.
Tommy brings a piece of cake with four candles and puts it in front of me. All the people in the restaurant sing, and I blow out the candles, then everyone claps and says, “Happy Birthday!” Daddy orders another drink.
I am sleepy, and it is time to go home. Mommy carries me to the car. She opens the rear door and puts me on the seat. Daddy is driving, and Mommy gets in the front seat. My eyes close, and I lean my head against the door.
The car engine is loud, and I am thrown against the back seat. Lights are flashing, and I get up on my knees to see out the window. We are going very fast. A car with flashing lights is chasing us. Daddy makes the car go faster. Then I am flying. I land against the door, and my head hits the door handle. I slam into the seat behind Mommy and fall to the floor. I try to stay on the floor, but I can’t. There is nothing to hold on to.
Then I fly again as the tires screech, and we turn a corner and then turn another corner. I land on the floor behind Daddy’s seat.
Then we are stopped. Daddy turns off the lights, and we wait. The car with the flashing red lights goes past, then another one.
Daddy is happy and laughs, but Mommy is very angry. My stomach feels funny, and then the cake, the soup, and the Shirley Temple come up. My new blue dress has red all over the front, and I cry. Daddy tells me to stop crying, or he will give me something to cry about. So, I stop.
That’s the night the dream started. I am in the back seat of the car. I crawl off the seat and into the floor behind Mommy’s seat. We are going fast, and I look out the rear window, and a giant is chasing our car. It gets close, and it lifts one foot to crush the car. I scream, and then I am awake.
March 7, 2009 – Seattle
“What?” I realize that the woman is speaking to me. Her name is Chris. Her call had prompted me to fly from Washington, DC, to the hospice in Seattle, where my father is dying of lung cancer. She is five years older than me and has been my stepmother for about a decade, but I don’t think we’ve met in person.
“It’s nice to see you, Kathy,” she says. I don’t bother telling her that I’ve gone by Katherine for the last 25 years. I turn back to my father as he gasps for another breath.
October 1971 – Aquadale, North Carolina
I am ten. “Take your brother and get in the car,” my mother tells me, pushing me toward his room. My father is drunk, and he is screaming at my mother. I have no idea why. It doesn’t matter. I run down the hall to my 6-year-old brother’s room, but I don’t see him. I know where he is, though. I open the closet door and find him. He is in the corner, sitting with his hands over his ears and eyes closed.
I reach in and take his hand and pull him to his feet. “Come with me,” I say to him, and he nods and follows. He used to cry when they fought, but not anymore. So did I, but there are no tears left. We climb into the back seat of the car, and I buckle him in. I sit beside him with my seatbelt buckled when my mother runs out the back door and leaps off the porch. My father is chasing her. He screams at her. “Don’t you dare try to leave!”
Mom has enough head start to make it into the car, and she starts the engine. She puts the car in reverse before he reaches her. But she doesn’t get the door closed in time. He catches the door handle with his left hand, reaches in with his right, and, grabbing my mother by the hair, pulls her out of the car. The car rolls slowly down the hill with my brother and me in the back seat. I watch as she pulls away from him, leaving him with a fistful of her dark hair. She is running, trying to reach us as the car rolls down the hill.
March 7, 2009 – Seattle
My father is awake now, and he is clearly agitated. He is leaning forward and trying to tell me something, but he can’t get the words out. Frustrated, he collapses back onto his pillow and closes his eyes again.
“Where is John?” My father’s wife asks, referring to my brother. “He’s not coming,” I say, offering no further explanation. What else can I say? There is nothing to say. I don’t know if he will even come for the funeral. There is no way he is doing a deathbed vigil. I wonder again why I came.
December 1982 – Chapel Hill, North Carolina
It is finals week, the first semester of my senior year in college, and I have the flu. At 3 am, the phone rings. I spring out of bed to reach it before it wakes my roommates. I know who it is. My father is the only one who calls in the middle of the night. He is either too drunk or too high to calculate the three-hour time difference between California and North Carolina.
“Hello,” I croak hoarsely into the phone.
“Goldfarb,” my dad uses the nickname he gave me as a toddler, and he sounds happy. “I need you to send me a couple thousand dollars.” I am stunned.
“I don’t have that kind of money, Dad.” I had long exhausted the federal grant and the loan I received from the state for room and board, tuition, and books this semester. I have maybe $15 in my bank account and an uncashed payroll check from Burger King for about $35.
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” he says. He’s not happy anymore. “Your grandparents made you the executor of their estate. Just send me the money.”
While this was news to me. “They are still alive. An executor has control of an estate only after someone dies.” I can barely make myself heard. My throat is on fire.
He cannot argue with that logic even as high as he is. “Let me give you a tip, father to daughter,” he says with condescending amusement. “You wouldn’t sound like that if you smoked a higher grade of grass.” He hangs up without saying goodbye.
March 7, 2009 – Seattle
“The morphine that he is taking for pain depresses his breathing,” the hospice nurse explains. “That’s why he is struggling to breathe.”
December 1991 – Washington, DC
I’m thirty and on the phone with my grandfather. “No,” I am adamant. “I am not going to invite him to the wedding.”
“It would mean a lot to your grandmother and me to see photos of our only son walking our granddaughter down the aisle on her wedding day.” He presses.
“Grandad, why don’t you get her on the line? I would happily share some of my favorite father-daughter memories with you.”
March 7, 2009 – Seattle
My father leans forward again, trying desperately to say something, but he can’t get the words out. I am watching him die, thinking about the horror of my childhood. But we survived. My brother and I are OK.
We have families of our own and something I never had growing up — a safe home. I realize that this man cannot hurt me, my mother, or my brother anymore. I cannot say that I love this man who is my father. But, for the first time, the anger and fear are gone, and at that moment, I feel peace.
He is awake and is trying to speak again. I have no idea what he wants to say, but I lean forward and whisper, “Don’t try to talk, Dad. It’s OK. We’re OK. You and me, we’re OK.”
I look into my father’s eyes, and he looks back at me. He stops struggling, leans back on his pillow, and closes his eyes. “Goodbye,” I whisper, but I don’t think he hears me.