from CHAPTER 2:
Sistatime! was born in April 1977, and I remember the first time I laid eyes on her. My father had brought my brother and me to the hospital the day she was born, and we found ourselves standing in front of an elevator to go visit her and my mother. BING the door opened, and on the elevator was a group of nurses surrounding a little baby. Which for all I knew was the Lindbergh baby, or a football-sized pile of skin with funny marks all over it. There was no room for us to join them, so the three of us stood there dumbly for what seemed like an hour, just trying to avoid the gaze of the mute nurses staring at us until, mercifully, the doors finally closed and the elevator moved on. That’s when my dad turned to us and said “That’s your sister, boys.”
What? You…couldn’t have mentioned this while we were actually looking at this thing? I’m thinking I’m looking at a cat that’s been shaved; you could’ve mentioned at that time “Oh by the way, this came out of your mother a few hours ago and will be living from us from now on. You will not get your hands on the phone after 1986.” Thanks pop!
The one thing I did catch was what I thought were unusual spots all over my new sister’s body. Hey, that’s a normal phrase to say, right? “My new sister’s body.” I am now standing in the shower under scalding hot water...that didn’t really help, did it? Ugh. Anyways, even while knowing that a newborn baby was going to look strange, I was not prepared for the collection of splotches that greeted me on that elevator that day - certainly the most I would see in one place until I accidentally walked into the female health clinic at college (ZTA’s: shame on you!!!) In a word: yeeesh. I decided that she was afflicted with something terrible, and it was probably the Devil that had done this to her and I was gonna do what I had to do to make her normal again. I, Big Brother, was going to team up with God, the world’s greatest doubles partner, and smack the Devil down on this one. I know, I know – I’m an amazing brother!!! The three of us Wilson men went to Mass the next day – a middle of the week, midday service. Which is even creepier than normal Sunday church, what with the only person there under the age of 90 being nailed to a cross. Now, normally you couldn’t get me to speak up and say a word inside church if you tried to pay me with a pork chop slurpee, but now that I was a big brother, I knew I had a job to do and was prepared to do it. There’s a moment in every Mass where random people speak up from the…audience, I guess?...and ask everyone to pray for someone they know; e.g. “For my Aunt Doris who has a club foot and cannot do The Hustle, we pray to the Lord.” That’s the right way to do it, the “we pray to the Lord” line is the cue for everyone else to chime in and say…well, I can’t remember what the fuck you’re supposed to say, to be honest. I do know that nobody gives a shit what you actually say; we all just wait for our cue so we can get that chapter of Mass over with – your cousin Bobby with the sickle cell be damned. Actually, sickle cell here is a bad example; obviously there were no black people in my church. But whatever – the point is, I decided I was gonna step up and get all the people in the house to shoot a lil prayer up to the Big Fellah to rid my sister of those damn spots. So the moment comes, I sense a pause between “pray fors” and then step forward to speak. Actually I don’t think you step anywhere, but that’s how I think of it. In actuality I guess you’d step right into the pew directly in front of you. But guess what? We’re not IN actuality, so let it go for fuck’s sake. Anyway. It was my turn, I was ready, and I spoke up:
“Hi! My little sister’s got a bunch of stuff all over her.”
I coolly stepped back to my seat, so proud of my big brother-ness and knowing that now that I had God on my team my sister would be cured, and awaited a thunderous response from the rest of the church. Following, obviously, a lifetime of gratitude from my sister.
“I wanna watch Care Bears.”
“Yeah, well, we’re watching Adam-12.”
“I’m gonna tell Mom! I wanna watch Care Bears!”
“Really? Did your precious Care Bears arrange with God to have those ridiculous spots removed from your body?”
“I’m sorry.”
Ps – I hope it’s obvious which one of would wanna watch Care Bears, and which one wanted to watch Adam-12. Cough.
Meanwhile, back at the church, I had just delivered my big speech and…nothing. Total silence. Reverberating, even. What the fuck? I looked around at the collection of Miss Marples strewn throughout the place, all completely silent. Then I realized…DAMMIT!! I didn’t give the CUE, I didn’t say the “we pray to the Lord” bit! Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!! So after an awkward silence had passed, everybody else just carried on. I was devastated, I had fucked up the protocol and now God was gonna ignore my request. My sister would be forever afflicted with spots – and, worse, I would become known as the Freak Girl with the Spots’ Big Brother. Greeeeeeeeaaaaat. My first time ever 1) stepping up in the House of God and 2) trying to help someone whose name wasn’t “Me” and it was a total waste. Also: my only public speaking effort to date without an F-bomb. Lesson learnt, people: if you do not make the sheep go “baaaaaah,” you might as well say “fuck.”
Of course, the next day I actually got to see my sister up close and realized those weren’t spots on her body after all; what I had seen were little ducks on the blanket she was wrapped in. I guess it makes sense now…even back then, nobody just threw a newborn onto an elevator without any covering. Hey what the hell did I know? What am I, a goddam doctor? Side note: I get the feeling “what am I, a goddam doctor?” is going to make more than a few appearances throughout these memoirs. Hmm.
I don’t remember how long my mother was in the hospital after the delivery – these were the days before they tried to have you in and out in the time it takes Paula to go from “she's buzzed” to “I can’t wait til this pops up on YouTube” on an Idol episode. But it was not an easy few days for the Wilson Men…in fact, I have no idea how we even survived since apparently my father had no idea where food was stored in his own house. All we heard for days was “where does your mother keep the peanut butter?” “where does your mother keep eggs?” “really? I own a kitchen?” I do remember one morning my dad tried to make us pancakes, which had I been a court reporter would be logged thusly:
7:20am: “GODDAMMIT!!!”
7:24am: “GODDAMMIT!!!”
7:30am: “GODDAMMIT!!!”
7:34am: “GODDAMMIT!!!”
Needless to say, we had hospital pancakes that day.
After a few days in the hospital of course they brought my sister home to live with us. As I’m typing that I’m laughing…like what the hell else was she going to do? “After a few days in the hospital of course my sister found herself a nice one-bedroom studio with a skylight and utilities included…”
I dunno, I guess she just laid there and cried/ate/slept like any baby. One funny thing about Sistatime! was that from the time she could crawl, she could find anything. I swear, she was like fucking bloodhound - you’d say “Sistatime! where’s my red cap?” and she’d scurry off and come back in a minute with the fucking hat. She’d be maybe 6 months old, did not know the language, but she’d find exactly what you were looking for. Amazing. Whoever runs those Amber Alerts things should hire my sister; she’d have been kicking it at a Hardee’s with Natalee Holloway about 9 hours after being given the job. “Aruba, huh? What’s THAT like?” Unfortunately having her at my disposal at such an early age ruined me – if I can’t find something within 2 seconds of looking, if it’s not inserted inside my eyelids so I can see it right away I get completely frustrated and give up “oh, FUCK this, it’s gone!! Great, it’s fucking GONE, people!! Gone! Bye bye, G O N fucking E!!! Congratulations everybody, we managed to freaking lose it!! Kiss it (kissing hand and smacking own ass) goodbye, you sorry ass moth - oh, wait…here it is. Sorry. Found it. Sorry!”
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