Chores

MCG's childhood home

    Mom said that we didn't need a dishwasher. I was the dishwasher. She sat around the house practically naked when it was hot, and I stood over the sink and washed dishes. I started washing the dishes as soon as I was tall enough to reach the sink. When he could be found, my brother who was younger but about the same size, sometimes did the rinsing.

         “Quit going so fast – you're going  fast on purpose,” he'd whine every time.

         Washing dishes put everyone in a bad mood. There were always too many; the counter space was too small, and the dishes piled up so fast that the two sinks had to be emptied before any washing could even get done. That took nearly the same amount of time as washing them. I'd have to line the cups and glasses on the small space next to the sink and make stacks of bowls, and stacks of plates, and a wobbly stack of pots and pans on the stove behind me. The pots and pans were always crusted with food: dried egg, and lentils, and grease, and cream of mushroom soup, and there was always way too much silverware. I hated washing the silverware. It was usually slimy from sitting at the bottom of the sink and hard to get clean unless each fork, spoon, or knife were washed separately.

         Mom always had to remind me to do the dishes, “You gonna do those dishes sometime today?

         If I asked to ride my bike or visit Amelie she'd ask, “Are the dishes done?”

         The answer was usually, “no.”

         “Do the dishes then you can go,” she'd say sometimes smoking a joint, sometimes, folding laundry, sometimes just sitting in her brown chair doing nothing at all.

         Sometimes she'd find me outside not asking to go anywhere, knowing the dishes hadn't been washed in a day or so, and hoping she wouldn't notice.

         “Michelle, get in this goddamn house and do these fucking dishes,” she'd shout from the door, letting the screen door slam behind her.

         I knew to get inside quick before she started throwing dishes around the kitchen making an even bigger mess.

         If my brother was home, Mom made him help, but it was better if he wasn't. He'd just slow me down with his histrionics.

         When we did do the dishes together, I'd try to wash them slowly, but no matter how slow I went, he couldn't keep up, and the dishes would pile up to the top of the sink, leaving no room for rinsing. If I didn't stop washing glasses, the sink would fill and the glasses, would fall into one another and break, sending Mom in from the front room screaming. If I went too fast while washing the plates, a big stack would pile up in the middle of the sink, and the water from the faucet would splash down on them, spraying water all over us. We made a big enough mess with water as it was, all over the floor at our feet, down the front of shirts, and by the time we finished, my arms would be red and irritated from all the soap and water, especially in winter.

         Sometimes, when Amonie whined enough, I'd suggest that he wash and I rinse.

         “Why don't you wash them, and I'll rinse,” I'd say, handing him the slimy wash rag.

         This was always a mistake because since he knew he couldn't wash the dishes fast at all, he'd go deliberately slow; one fork, the tines, the handle; a knife, the blade, the handle; inside a bowl, the rim, the outside; a plate, the front, the back. I could wash the bowls well with just a couple swipes from my rag, wipe front, wipe back, put it in the rinsing sink; a large plate, wipe this way and that that way on the front, wipe the back, scrub any dried food, and put it in the rinsing sink. For silverware I'd lift four or five pieces at a time, scrubbing the top of each, one at a time, and set them in the rinsing sink.

         It would take a good five minutes before my brother would fill the rinsing sink with dishes before I could run the water, and I'd want to bang my head, or his, on the lip of the sink. Instead I gripped the sink with my hands trying not to scream at him to hurry the hell up which only sent my mom running in to smack me upside the head with whatever was handy on the counter, one time a wooden spoon, a spatula, even a hunk of defrosting meat for rolling my eyes at her when she came running in to tell me to shut up.

         There were some chores that I didn't mind doing. I didn't mind chopping wood to make kindling. On the porch outside the front door, I'd take a medium-sized piece of cedar, prop it up on the wood splitting log, and hack my ax through it several times, the cedar making a satisfying splintering sound with each whack, a slice of strawberry blond cedar falling to the ground. The ax got stuck sometimes on a small knot in the wood, and I'd have to bring the ax, which was now stuck onto the piece of wood, down onto the wood chopping log several times until the knot finally gave way, producing a not so smooth piece of kindling, hard to bundle and carry with the rest.

         I also didn't mind hanging wet clothes on the clothesline out in the yard, as long as it wasn't too hot, or the thistles so high they'd scratch my legs as I walked the length of the line pinning a t-shirt, a skirt, a row of socks, and a row of underwear as I went. We had a washing machine, but no dryer, so in the spring and summer we used the line outdoors, and there was one inside too above the wood stove. In the yard, I liked when a strong wind lifted my hair even when I stood still at the line, and I liked holding an extra clothespin in my mouth like I had seen my mom do. I liked when a gray squirrel on a high branch caught my eye or the woodpecker on the hill pecked away in his favorite tree, the sound echoing around me. Taking the clothes off the line in the heat was another thing entirely, they were hot, and crunchy, especially the jeans which were filled with earwigs that crawled in and out of the pockets when you turned them right side in because the jeans we dried inside out to keep the color from fading. You had to give them a good shake before bringing them in the house and earwigs with them.

         Mom must have hated washing dishes as much as I did because she almost never ever washed them. Sometimes I thought she gave birth to us just so she wouldn't have to do dishes and the other chores that she made us do. She didn't seem to mind cooking dinner, but we were on our own for breakfast and lunch. And on the first of the month she did the grocery shopping in town, going only to the stores that accepted WIC and food stamps. The big store in town was less expensive than the little store but shopping in Sonora was the least expensive at all, but Mom didn't always have car that would make it all the way to Sonora or enough money for gas.

         Bursting through the door one afternoon, after returning home from the big store, Mom called my name.

         “Michelle, I have a present for you,” she said, dropping two paper bags filled with groceries onto the kitchen table near the front door.

         “You do!” I came running from my bedroom. She had her back to kitchen sink, and I hoped she hadn't noticed all the dishes in the sink.

         “Yes, I do,” she said, rummaging through one of the bags then the other to find my gift. She didn't usually have money for gifts, only on birthdays or Christmas when she had time to save.

         She pulled a bottle of Joy dish soap from the bag.

         “Here,” she said, thrusting the bottle into my hands, her smile now gone, “Now you can get on those dishes.”

         “Thanks,” I said, and I went straight to the sink.

         “What, you don't like it?”

         “It's fine,” I said, getting right to work. I cleared the small counter space near the sink, lined up the glasses and cups, made a stack of plates, and a stack of bowls, using the clatter of the dishes as a cover, not daring to sniff or use the back of my hand to wipe at my eyes or nose until I knew she was out of the room.

The Food Stamp Diet

I hated when mom made shit on a shingle. She always laughed when she said the name, but I didn't. The name and the combination of the ground beef and the cream of mushroom soup and all piled on a piece of toasted bread repulsed me -- a steaming pile of dinner. Seeing it on a plate in front of me made me want to cry. Shit on the shingle was a mid-month meal -- when there was still a bit of meat in the freezer and bread in the cupboard. And who didn't have a few cans of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup in the cabinet circa Jimmy Carter. Shit on the shingle tasted worse than it looked cold, so it was best to eat up while it was still hot, but I often stalled around so long before taking the first bite that it would have already started to cool, the toast soggy and practically indistinguishable from the rest of the glop. My brother always asked for seconds, and Mom would go back to the black cast iron skillet on the stove where the rest of the sticky white mass waited for its cushion of crispy toast. 

          "Michelle, do you want more shit on a shingle, she'd ask laughing, as if she had cracked some great joke.
          Sitting there on an old splintery picnic bench for a chair at the old, splintery picnic table where we ate, I'd shake my head, looking down at the white mass still on my plate. I tried to pretend it was Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I loved mashed potatoes and gravy and the whole Thanksgiving meal.
          "There's one more piece of toast here, if you want it."
          "No, thank you," I said, not wanting her to think that I didn't like it.
          At the beginning of the month, just after mom got her check and a new batch of food stamps, we'd usually have tacos. Mexican-American tacos with ground beef served in a crunchy corn tortilla that she'd cook in oil, folding each one in half and cooking them until they were crispy on each side, lifting each out of the pan with tongs, and letting the oil drain off into the pan. To soak up as much of the remaining oil as possible, she'd place each hot, crispy corn tortilla on a paper bag. She was careful to make sure each corn tortilla cooked in a way that made it possible to stuff with ground beef, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and tomato without breaking to pieces. Tacos were our favorite even though there was a lot of cutting, chopping, grating, and cooking involved. They made us so happy that Amonie and I didn't argue or even talk until our plates were clean.
           Instead of going through all the trouble of cooking the corn tortillas just so, Mom could have bought taco shells, as they were called in the store, but when it came to cooking Mexican food, Mom didn't usually cut corners, and taco shells were expensive. Tortillas were a staple food in our house, corn and flour, even though she knew how to make the flour tortillas by hand.

     When we got older, my brother and I ate a lot of quesadillas because they were easy to make. Mom usually bought a block of cheddar cheese and a block of jack cheese with her food stamps at the beginning of the month, but when that was gone we made our quesadillas with government cheese that mom would get along with a huge box of powdered milk at the welfare office. Government cheese came in a box. It was sort of cheddar, sort of American in taste, and quite rubbery. The block of cheese was about as long as my arm and weighed about as much as a brick. Hit somebody in the back of the head with that block of cheese, and they might not wake up. You had to use two hands to get that sucker out of the fridge because dropping it on your toe was murder -- I had done it. When mom did make flour tortillas by hand, you didn't dare desecrate them with government cheese -- they were too good for government cheese. A homemade four tortilla just off the cast iron skillet, smothered with butter and rolled up neatly so it fit in your hand, that was the best way to eat one of mom's flour tortillas.
          For breakfast at the beginning of the month we ate Life or Kicks, the only kind of cereal we were allowed to get with WIC vouchers. Cereal, in general, was a treat for all of us because it wasn't something that Mom could usually afford to buy on her own, and because it was easy to prepare without Mom's help. The Kicks always went first. Life Cereal was good in taste, but it got soggy fast. It looked so pretty, those toasty brown squares with a modest sprinkling of sparkling sugar on top, but add milk and get distracted by a fly buzzing around the kitchen table, and it quickly converted into a crappy looking appetite-suppressing goo. Since mom had trouble waking in the morning, having cereal in the cabinet was handy, otherwise we had toast or bread with butter and sugar on top.
          Near the end of the month, we were sure to have some kind of legumes: pinto beans, lentils, and in the winter split peas. Split pea soup with a ham hock was good the first day and even better the second, but by the third or fourth day, it wasn't so good anymore. By the third or fourth day it would harden quite a bit, and Mom would have to add water to stir it. If there was any left in the house, even the ends, mom would serve the four day old lentil soup with buttered bread to cheer it up. Mom always got her biggest pot out to cook in at the end of the month, and if she wasn't cooking some kind of legumes, she'd cook some kind of hearty potato soup or chile beans that would last, and last, and last.

I was careful not to complain because I knew what it was all about, but I made sure to have an extra large glass of water with dinner to wash it all down.

Secret Rivalries

           Being in a class with another kid who has the same name was a drag. It made extra work for everyone, and there is always some kind of confusion or rivalry. Michelle Brewer and I were both in Mrs. Plescia's second grade class; we were known as Michelle G. and Michelle B. We were both petite, but Michelle B. was blonde with dainty English features, and I looked her opposite: dark-haired and indigenous. Our moms were friends, sort of -- they both hung out at the Logger's Club, one of the three bars in the one block radius that made up downtown Tuolumne. My mom and Maureen were both interested in the same guy, so by extension Michelle B. and I became rivals too. Robert Mason was a tall, rugged, blond haired guy, who sometimes wore Indian leather and who all women loved. They would both eventually date him but at different times.

         Michelle and I we just went to school and pretended we were normal. I wore dresses with tights and kept my hair neatly braided. I was polite, respectful, and easy going with the teachers. Michelle kept her unusually long fingernails clean, smiled when she was in trouble or spoke in a cutesy voice. But as extensions of our single, beer-drinking, pot-smoking, bar-carousing mothers, we were at risk of being exposed. 
         We should have been friends, but mostly we tried to pretend we didn't know the other, hadn't both stood around in front of the bar, closer to the little store as cover, waiting for our moms to finish their beers and come home. Michelle's mom, Maureen, also a pretty, petite blond, had a son and a daughter, and was on welfare just like my mom. Just like mine, she had to fill out a monthly income report, meet with the family's social worker in Sonora in the hospital building, and buy food with brightly colored food stamps -- the mark of poverty. The monthly income report had to be filled out every month and sent in or hand delivered by a set date in order for a family to receive its benefits: a check for cash, food stamps, and those green medi-cal stickers that my brother and I used to stick all over each other once we received a fresh batch to be used in the new month. My mom complained about those income reports each month as she was filling them out, usually at the last minute and in need of a ride to Sonora to get them there on time. 
         "The same fucking thing every God damn month," she'd say, rummaging through her purse for the envelope sent by the welfare office. "Every god damn month."
         I had heard this tirade before. I knew that they always asked about how many people lived in the house, if the recipient has made any money, or received any cash gifts, and on and on. And most of the time, the information that she put on those forms was the same information that she had included the month before that and that and that, but sometimes she did lie -- usually about whether or not she was "co-habitating," or not. It seems the welfare system liked knowing if they're single parent recipients were getting laid or not and/or whether parties responsible for making sexual contributions to the head of household were also contributing financially. If that were the case the recipients’ benefits would need to be "adjusted." Michelle B.'s mom, Maureen had to fill out the same forms, and decide whether or not to report the short-term live-in boyfriend whom she had hoped would have lasted longer than he did, not necessarily expecting him to begin providing for her children of her former husband, or as it turned out, to stick around.
         For these reasons, Michelle B. and I were sort of friends; we sometimes played together on the weekends when our mothers took us with them to visit their mutual friends. When our mothers weren't getting along or were competing for the same man, or accusing the other of being bad mothers, we'd argue and Michelle would pinch me on the underside of my upper arm with her long fingernails. At school, we kept our distance, always still aware of what the other was doing, or saying, and to whom.
         We made an unspoken effort not to be associated with the other for several years.  We probably weren't the only welfare kids who worked hard to not look shabby and to blend in. Michelle used her petite femininity, and I just tried to stay out of trouble. As I got older, the biggest complaint from my teachers was that I talked too much in class, but not in second and third grade. In those early grades, I kept to myself and spent a lot of time observing the other students act up and the teachers' reactions. 

         In Ms. Plescia's second grade class, it was Jimbo Dry who had become known for getting into trouble. Jimbo was stout and muscular in the second grade. I suppose his stature, his dark skin, and his often serious face intimidated some teachers; it seemed to make our second grade teacher, Mrs. Plescia angry. Jimbo had what I recognize now as a great deal of difficulty with authority figures and anger issues. And maybe this was the case because his most important authority figures weren't meeting his needs, or because being male and Me-wuk, he was expected to act up and probably to fail, or some combination of the two. Our teacher, Mrs. Plescia, also had anger issues. She was widowed and lived with her sisters in a mansion that bordered the school grounds. One of her sisters, Mrs. Robinson, also taught at Summerville Elementary school; I had her in first grade. Mrs. Plescia was what kids called a strict teacher. She often warned our second grade class to behave, threatening to turn into a "grumble snort" if we didn't
         "Class, you know what happens when you don't listen when I'm talking," she'd warn. "I turn into a grumble snort. You don't want me turning into a grumble snort do you?"

         Frankly, I never saw much of difference between the real Ms. Plescia and her grumble snort, but I did see her very very angry one time, and it was at Jimbo.
         The class had been particularly rambunctious that day and Mrs. Plescia had already threatened us with the grumble snort several times and asked Jimbo several times to do as he had been told. While transitioning from working at our desks to the next activity, there was lots of talking, the sounds of desks opening and closing, chairs scraping the floor, and children milling about. But a much louder commotion brewing between Jimbo and Mrs. Plescia stopped time, freezing each kid in place.
         "I said, sit down," Mrs. Plescia shouted at Jimbo, her face in his.

         Jimbo just stood still, his arms crossed in front of him.
         "Sit at your desk. I said, sit down" Mrs. Plescia repeated, this time leaning in and grabbing Jimbo by the elbow.  
         With that, his face suddenly a dark, dark red, Jimbo, went toward his desk. Half growling, half shouting, he threw the desk over, going immediately to the empty desk in front of him. Mrs. Plescia who had jumped out of the way of the first desk, was now lunging for Jimbo, who was lunging for another desk. Just as he grabbed a corner, Mrs. Plescia grabbed one of his arms, put him in a kind of bear hug, and dragged him writhing and half growling, half screaming out of the room, crashing into empty chairs and desks with kids sitting in them, their mouths agape, along the way. Stunned into complete blind obedience, each second grader went to his or her seat if not already there and sat quietly until a teacher from another classroom came and told us to read quietly to ourselves. We remained in a silent shock until Mrs. Plescia returned alone to the classroom a few minutes later, still breathing hard. We were quiet and on our best behavior for the rest of the afternoon.       

                                                                                                                                                    
         Though no one mentioned his name for the rest of the day or the incident ever again, I couldn't help thinking about Jimbo. Why couldn't he listen to the teacher? Why did Mrs. Plescia get so angry? Didn’t Jimbo know what he did meant? How what he did was now always going to be associated with who he was? It was the kind of attention I avoided, the reason Michelle B. and I pretended we didn't know each other, or that our lives were any different from any of the other kids in our class -- except Jimbo. We certainly were not like Jimb; that much had been made clear. 
         I managed to lay low for a month or so after the Jimbo incident which was still fresh in my mind. I managed not to bring any unwanted attention to myself, my image still intact. I couldn't say the same for Mrs. Plescia who had taken to reading to us often from her favorite Mrs. Piggle Wiggle chapter books, but who we were all still afraid of. One morning after reading a chapter or more, the class was getting restless, and Michelle spoke out of turn.  
         "My mom saw Michelle G's mom at the Logger's Club on Tuesday night. She was dancing and she wasn't wearing any underwear."
         Stunned, I turned my head with a quick jerk in Michelle's direction. Waiting for an audible reaction from the class, she looked smug, her pointy nose in the air. But the room was mostly quiet, probably waiting for my reaction. 

         And I hadn't been there, but I could see it. The Loggers Club. The juke box playing "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy. My mom dancing with some guy, the only lights coming from the juke box display, the lamp over the pool table in the back of the room, and the low lights at the bar. Hazy lines of cigarette smoke and mom dancing in circles, her hands over head, her cotton prairie skirt lifting, lifting, floating higher and higher on a naked gust of wind.
         I didn't say a word.

         And I didn't look at Mrs. Plescia either, but I knew that she was looking at me.