TSCH TSCH KAYE AND A ROCK

TSCH TSCH KAYE AND A ROCK

Loggers and miners and war vets and jobs

and women and children and rocks. 

Finns, and Norwegians and Swedes and Germans. 

One summer I had to sort it all out. 

"Children should be seen and not heard." My Mom's words. She was gone.

I sat still on the sofa. It scratched, I sweat and it scratched more.

My mouth was shut. 

Now Mom could come back. 

Now.

I moved. The sofa itched more.

No one heard me. Grandma and Grandpa saw me. Done.

Now Mom!

I really did not want Grandpa to hug me. I really did not want Grandma to tell me to hug him. I sat still on the sofa, prickled by the scratchy wool fabric made worse by the extraordinary heat that never left the living room.

Grandpa's nose, deep and dark in those nostrils, the hairs curled out, long, reached for me.

I wiggled, the sofa itched.

Yellow walls swirled around the living room, interrupted by a few dark spots and drips. Grandpa's mouth worked a wad of chew, back and forth and squeaky, pushed it in his lower jaw, took a deep breath and pushed it somewhere in the middle of his mouth. With a throaty "hawk", droplets of spit spilled into the air. He aimed the whole wad to the other side of the room. Droplets fell below the projectile in a straight line. Grandpa never missed. Just as good as if he stood right above it.

"Ping," the wad hit the nicotine stained brass spittoon.

Grandma said something in that soft Finnish language with every "ping".

Grandpa smiled and worked his way through another bit of chew.

Don't let him hug me.

Where was Mom?

"Viola." My name slid out of his mouth. His eyes closed. He made a "whew" sound and his lip flapped, and a snore escaped.

I looked to find his neck, it started at the tops of his arms and ended at his chin. His head kind of grew out of the top of that neck, and random wiry hairs popped from his collar. His scalp was visible between the grey brown hairs stood straight up, shaping an M so the point of the hair directed me back to his nose.

I touched my neck, my shoulder, my chin, they were all different one from the other. Grandpa was, I didn't know what: his whole body heaved in and out when he breathed. He snorted. He rattled. He slept upright. Like the ironwood that was so dense it was used for firewood over and over and never turned to ash.

"Tsch tsch" my grandma clicked, she said that every time she said "Kaye." Grandma shook her head at the same time. "Go play with Viola."

Words and phrases stuck to me like glue. Words I heard in the car. My mom was a talker: "stenographer, Nuremburg, Germany, Trial, Mabel, no jobs, mine closed, men back."

Kaye, my cousin, sat next to me, wordless. Not like her mom, Mabel, now in Germany, a stenographer for the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial. It was a mouthful. The mines closed down, men came back from World War II for those jobs. Except Kaye's dad never did come back, I never met him.

Auntie Mabel. She knew how to type. She talked a lot. She left.

Kaye lived in that house, and never said a word. Silent Kaye walked to me and stood. Thick glasses, so thick, like the bottom of a glass milk bottle. Her face looked at me. I leaned forward. Were her eyes open or closed?

White, her skin was white, like waxed paper, I saw blue veins. Skinny fingers attached to the ends of her arms. I did not want to shake her hands, probably break with one touch.

Her mouth opened: a smile? Lots of teeth. I ran my finger over mine, all in one row. She had two rows of them all bent over each other.

I was stuck here. I closed my eyes, "Mom, come back."

Wait, I had to look. If I closed my eyes, maybe Grandma, Grandpa and Kaye would be gone.

Like the day Mom dropped me off, I stood, looked at the house and when I turned around she was gone.

I made sure I could see some of the house at all times.

My Mom told me to do what Grandma said, and because it seemed like she didn't say much, I didn't do much. I sat and waited.

Grandma said, "You go outside now."

I opened the door. Last time I saw my Mom she stood right there. I turned. White paint. Windows. Another side. The house sat in the middle of a hole dug out of a slope. There was no grass cover, only dirt with a few scrubby weeds or sticks and the smell of plants that looked like tumbleweeds that smelled like the desert, dry and hot and no wind just the sun beating down.

I stood outside too long. The sun burnt my face and arms. Four sides to that house, all white. I turned my back to the sun. Outside was better than inside. Inside waited the scratchy sofa, Grandpa, the chew, the nose.

I passed by the kitchen with its small door and step: potatoes boiled, and chicken baked, something sizzled as it dropped into boiling lard.

Behind the house stood a shed. I wasn't about to turn my back on the house so I glanced at it for only a second at a time, as I backed away from the house.

A small crush of glass underfoot stopped me. My one pair of shoes. A brown glass piece narrower on top than the milk bottles and sticky and sweet smelling. A piece from bottles piled up against the shed. Flies buzzed around them. One got stuck and sank down to a cigarette butt sunken in the liquid.

"Viola," Grandma held the door open, "careful with those bottles." She mumbled, "damn boys drinkin' again."

I walked towards that kitchen door, held open.

"Sit here." She pulled out a chair at a small metal table and put a freshly baked slice of bread on the plate and let soft butter melt its way across the bread, she sprinkled sugar on top and cinnamon. I picked it up and the butter dripped down my hands. The sugar tasted like ash and the butter made my hands oily, some of the cinnamon drifted up into my nose and I sneezed.

"Uh, uh, thank you," I said.

"Tsch tsch Kaye, come here, sit, you get some too."

Kaye's glasses stared at me and her small hands picked up the gooey mess and her small bites filled in the gaps between her crowded teeth. Still no words. She stood up, pushed open the door and went outside.

"Go outside, play with tsch tsch Kaye," said Grandma.

I looked out the window, Kaye walked ok. She played "kick the rock," back and forth and when the dust rose, she put her hands on her hips and waited.

"Okay," I pushed the screen door and jumped over the step, and Kaye's shoes.

A two-inch, almost round stone alone, in the dust, a ball, maybe it rolled. There it was the only one in the yard, except for the one Kay had. I looked at my shoes, a small cut from the glass. The rock a toy, it could roll. I might kick it. I remembered the glass piece and kept my shoes on.

I kicked, a pile of dust flew up and fell around the unmoved rock. I touched it with the side of my foot, pushed it a little and tried again, it jumped up a foot and landed only a foot away. I tasted salt drops down my nose onto my lips, felt the sun burn my nose. I kicked it back and forth in the yard.

Suddenly I felt Kaye bump into my side. I jumped, "ouch."

Yellow teeth shone and Kaye kicked the rock I thought I owned. Where was Kaye's rock? I stood still and watched, while she looked back at me and ran at the same time. I turned back to the house, after all my rock was gone. I felt those skinny fingers on my shoulder and turned, she dropped the rock at my feet and walked away.

"Not my rock now Kaye, you keep it, I don't want it!" I opened the kitchen screen door, she followed.

"You keep playing with tsch tsch Kaye," Grandma pulled the door shut.

Voices in the kitchen, laughter, that strange soft sound of a language I didn't understand, a muffled murmur. All eaten up no beginning or end. In the middle I hear my name a few times and "tsch tsch Kaye".

"Stay outside," Grandma said.

Through the gray screen door the neighbor's bodies huddled around the kitchen table, percolated black coffee poured in cups, fresh donuts from the boiled lard were lifted carefully onto the table, then dusted with sugar and cinnamon, the muffled sounds got louder and softer. Grandma's look pierced through the screen, bored right into me. I looked down. Her foot propped the door open and two donuts appeared through the opening.

"You and tsch tsch Kaye," she said.

I took them both and ran to Kaye, the rock forgotten, we found a soft spot on the eroded dust at the side of the property. A poplar tree, tall, few leaves. The sun found me. Only sticks for shade. A tree, the weeds and the yellow dirt.  The only plants that grew in the yellow dirt. 

The powdered sugar and soft donut melted in my mouth. Kaye finished hers off.

I saw my stone, where it was when I first went outside. "Come on" I pulled her arm. Nothing broke. She waited. I kicked the stone in her direction.

The dust flew, the sun quit its burn, Grandma called, Grandpa broke his stupor and "tsch-tsch Kaye" and I went inside.