ChapterTen: A Good Pot Of Red Sauce

I think the forceps that the doctor used to pull me out of my mother on the day of my birth caused some damage to my brain. What other explanation is there for my total lack of concentration at school and my incredible ability to flunk every French vocabulary test. I mean how hard is it to memorize a bunch of foreign words? And then to top it off, I got a C- on my algebra quiz. My god, it is a repeat from 8th grade. Seriously, there really must be something wrong with me. I blame it on my mother drinking a beer a day when she was pregnant with me. She said it helped her to gain weight, and then allowing some quack doctor to pull me out by my head with a pair of giant salad tossers!
As I look in the mirror I see no real difference with myself today, on my fifteenth birthday. The only difference is yet another zit slowing appearing on my chin. Happy Birthday to me; to my family this seems to be just another day, no big deal. I awoke to my mother screaming at me and then threatening to throw water on my face, if I didn’t get up right that second. I mentioned that it was my birthday and she said she knew that it was, and it reminds her that she was in labor with me for 36 hours and how much pain she was in because I would not come out! I told her maybe I knew that staying in there was going to be better than coming out. Apparently my mother didn’t hear that over her screaming because all she said was I have been a pain in her ass ever since that day.
Anna gave me a home-made card that read –“Happy Birthday—you smell like a monkey and look like one too.” That kind of sums up what she’s was like as a sister! Complaining bitterly as I dressed that nobody loved me in this god-damn crazy house and feeling as if the whole world was against me. I kissed my mother good-bye, like every morning, mumbling that it was freezing cold outside, and maybe she would want to drive me to school considering it was my birthday? No Reply.
I made my way to the bus stop at the corner of Devon and Hoyne seeking warmth at the Dry Cleaners. As I opened the door, I smiled at the Chinese woman who owned it, saying a silent prayer to myself that she would not yell at me to get out because the wind had kicked –up, and I already could not feel the tips of my toes. She said nothing only nodded looking out the big window which looked out on Devon Ave. It was indeed very cold outside, I agreed by nodding back. For the last eight years that has been the extent of our conversation with her. I have never really spoken to her, we just nod to each other, and on the days that she does not nod back, I stand outside in the cold to wait for the bus. But, today was my lucky day because I got a nod.
It was no surprise that the bus was twenty minutes late—It is a myth to think that the buses run every ten minutes in this god for shaken town!
My mother is not one of those birthday planner types. Never in the course of my young life have I had anything remotely close to an extravagant birthday party with loads of kids and birthday grab bags or rented halls to celebrate my birth. No, the typical birthday for me is dinner, and maybe if I am lucky a birthday cake, and a present or two from my parents. I do get stuff from my Nanna, from Marshals! The problem, my mother likes to explain to me as if she has to, is that my birthday falls to close to Christmas (a month away). My mother goes a little crazy about Christmas—How is it that baby Jesus, who she didn’t even give birth to, gets all the celebration but not her own daughter? Anyway, her explanation is that because Thanksgiving is right after my birthday and then Christmas is a month away it is just way too expensive to do anything for my birthday. Also my sister’s birthday, which is a week before mine, gets in the way as well. Her reasoning is that only for the special birthdays do we get to do anything crazy. I reminded her that never have we done anything special for any of my so called “special birthdays” like when I finally became a teenager—don’t remember anything about that birthday—she reminded me that I had a slumber party that birthday, I then reminded her that it was ruined by the fact that we had to baby sit my three year old fat, flatulent third cousin, Johnny. (I have no first cousins, due to the fact that neither of my parents’ sisters or brothers has married.) Johnny thought it was so funny to sit next to one of my friends and say, "Pull my finger!” which they did, and then he farted.
Before kissing her good-bye, she told me that for my sweet sixteen she would do something nice for me. I then reminded her that I had detention after school and that I wouldn’t be home until 4:30.
“Well at least you will get your homework done,” she said as she rolled over in bed and pulled the covers over her head.
At, St. Scholastica we were granted one out -of -uniform day a month, plus holidays. Most of the popular girls dressed preppy. Once again, it was just another standard uniform, IZod or Polo shirts, usually pink or purple with the collars up, and Khaki pants or skirts. Some of the more nerdy girls chose to dress in ruffle dresses or clothes they wore to church. And the “juvies” they came in tight leather skirts with fish net stockings and high-heels. Their hair sprayed up high with enough aqua-net to set a bomb off. They all looked like they should have been on Rush Street, standing on the corner instead of here on Ridge Ave. with their owlet out eyes and cherry lips. My grandmother thought the same. She called them “ladies of the night”. Anna thought they all looked like they were going to a Halloween party. I had to agree with her on that one, even though I thought some of them looked unique in their own way.
I thought it would be nice to take my monthly out of uniform day for my birthday. My choices of outfits were limited considering that the clearance rack from Marshals had taken over my closet. Nothing really matched or fit me properly. Even if I wanted to dress preppy, which I didn’t, but say I did, all my polo’s were not name brands they were generic knock offs, called “riders” instead of the name brand “Polo”. It was very obvious that all my “polo’s” were not the real thing because mine had a horse head on the pocket instead of the polo rider.
I resorted to wearing a white blouse and black pants, a take off from one of my John Taylor posters. I found an old black fedora hat from the 1940’s in one of my grandmother’s closets. It belonged to my grandfather. It smelled like mothballs but I still wore it. I also found a black velvet cape that buckled at the collar with a silver latch. I had taken the cape and hat months ago but had never told my grandmother about it.
When Nanna picked me up after detention and saw me outfitted in full attire, cape and all, she said that she had bought the hat for my grandfather when he opened his first restaurant and she always hated it. She never mentioned the black cape. I think it was hers, but I never asked.
Mai said I looked like some sort of odd magician, that it was cool, and then she gave me a hand-made card that had a big smiling face on it. She asked me if I wanted to go to a party with her that weekend. Walking into class, Vickie asked me where my magical wand was and if I was going to a Halloween party after-school.
“Good one,” I said and reminded her that it was my birthday.
‘Could have fooled me, I thought the local circus was in town and you were part of the show”.
‘Screw-off,” I said giving her the finger.
For some reason Vickie was also out of uniform that day. She was wearing a pair of tight ass stone washed Calvin Klein jeans and off the shoulder Flash Dance top, and leg warmers. She looked like a hooker. I was just about to tell her that when she turned to Mai and asked her if she wanted to go to a dance with her this weekend over at Gordon Tech. My heart started to race. Mai was my friend. What was Vickie doing? And then I overheard Mai explain that she already had plans to attend a Sock- Hop over at Senn High-school and she was welcome to come if she wanted. And to my horror, Vickie said yes!
“Is the freak coming?” Vickie asked as she took her seat behind me.
“Yes, and I really wish you two could be friends”
“Whatever, she is a freak,”
“So are you, Mai said with a smile, so deal with it.
Vickie and I just looked at each other not saying a word. I headed off to detention my second one of the week.
****

When I got home I found my mother in the bathtub reading one of her romance novels- and blurted out that I was going to a dance over at Senn High-school, and I needed some cash to buy a new outfit. My mother looked at me all queerly and said,” You aren’t going to wear red nail polish, nor are you going to wear any eyeliner. I’ll let you wear a little mascara but that is it.”
I just rolled my eyes in response to my mother’s insane logic. What did wearing red nail polish really have to do with anything? My mother had always had this thing about red nail polish. I remember my cousin, the one who got to attend the public school, Lane Tech. She was wearing red nail polish at our Christmas Eve Party last year, and my mother had a fit in the kitchen. She could not shut up about my cousin’s nails. My grandmother had to finally tell her to hush up, that she was being rude. Well, of course that got my mother and grandmother fighting which meant a lot of banging of pots and pans as well as silverware as they both washed the dinner dishes.
“What does red nail polish have to do with anything?” I ask, taking a sit on the toilet.
“Well, some girls think it is attractive to paint their nails red, and to be honest it is an ugly sight.”
“Whatever. Do you have twenty bucks, so I can go shopping for something to wear?”
“We will go shopping together,” she said sliding back the shower curtain.
“But, I don’t want to go with you,” I whined.
“Then you can wear one of the many outfits in your closet that you grandmother has so graciously bought you.”
“Gross!”
I wondered when my mother had gotten so stuffy as I headed back to my bedroom to go through the mismatched articles of clothing that hung in my closet. I thought I had heard stories about her when she was young, and how she dressed in black and rode a yellow motor scooter wearing her bright red hair in a long braid down her back. She hung with the beatnik crowd, went to coffee houses, read poetry till all hours of the night and smoked a lot of weed. Well, she still smokes a lot of weed, but what happened to her sense of adventure?
I read her copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Some ex-boyfriend gave it to her and wrote in the front page, “Here’s to that road of adventure, even if it means being a little different.”
Of course, I never told her I read it, or asked her what the inscription really meant. My Nanna told me that she would not allow my mother to come up the front stairs because of the way she looked; she had to use the back stairs. Not like that stopped the looks from the neighbors. Nanna called my mother’s look “crazy”. She didn’t want the neighbors to see her. I wonder what Nanna thought of my look.
I didn’t think my mother’s look was crazy when I saw pictures of her in her tight black pants and black sweater with her bobbie socks and Keds on. She wore a silver cross around her neck. I thought she looked cool. But then again, I guess pretty girls can get away with dressing differently. The “plain Jane’s” just look odd when they try to be a little different!
But today, on my birthday in my own special outfit, I liked the sideway glances I got walking through the halls with my black cape floating behind me as I made my way to my classes. I couldn’t wear the hat during school, but it hid my face as I boarded the bus taking a seat in the back next the window. I clicked on my walkman to Duran Duran singing “Hungry Like a Wolf”. This was my neighborhood. This were I have grown –up, I thought to myself as I took in the sights of all the restaurants and Sari shops. It had its own flair. It held something special for me even though I longed to venture to other neighborhoods. I would always call this part of West Rogers Park home with its heavy traffic on Devon Ave and lingering smells of curry in the air.
My mother teased me the whole time, as we ate my birthday meal, about my funny new look, saying to my father that I was turning into a punk-rocker even though she had no clue what a punk-rocker was. I wouldn’t consider myself punk rock, but more new wave with a hint of Romantic, just like my band Duran Duran. Really, what was so bad about trying to stand out a little amongst the blur of pinks and purples and the smell of Aqua net?
At school I knew in the back of my mind that I was on the road to discovery of something new, and my look was just an outer reflection of what I was feeling inside. My mother of course didn’t mention anything about going shopping, but she did slip me a twenty in my birthday card! I smiled over the card at her, taking a good look at her. She wasn’t that bad, she wasn’t that bad at all. Looking closer, I noticed that my mother and I shared the same way of smiling; a full face smile that took over our faces and reached our eyes.