Part IV: Spin – The Mermaid Dress: #8 (Chapter 68)
I pulled myself up from the pile and dragged the box into the hallway.
What’s
this?
I peeled the tape away and opened it. Several
large envelopes. I opened the top one.
Pictures!
These pictures were larger than the snapshots
tossed in drawers all around the apartment.
Why hadn’t I seen these big pictures before?
The top picture showed Mother in the mermaid
dress, holding a microphone, her eyes closed, her mouth wide open. She wore the
pageboy wig, the one still on my head.
She was singing!
I’d never seen these pictures before.
Why would Mother and Daddy hide them?
I flipped to the next picture. This one looked
like Mother, but I couldn’t tell because she had her back to the camera. She
waved to an out-of-focus audience. Her sequined rear jutted toward the camera,
taking up the center of the picture.
Wow! A
real star!
I couldn’t see how the audience was reacting, but
I imagined the hypnotized listeners applauding to her smoky voice as she sang.
Why don’t
you settle back...
In the next picture, the pose was the same, except
that the mermaid dress was pulled to her waist, exposing her bare back.
Why had the dress fallen off her chest?
The next picture showed a hazy profile of Mother –
the dress now fallen to her hips, her breasts naked – blowing kisses to a
sharply-focused audience of men, horrid men with hungry expressions, scary men
like those who laughed outside the Hamilton Arms at night, like the sugar cube
man in the dirty raincoat.
I didn’t like the way they stared at my mother.
I wanted them to go away.
I hate
you!
I found another picture, a focused front nude
shot. The dress, a once-magical mermaid, lay crumpled at her feet.
Why are
you naked?
I’d seen Mother naked before, but not like this,
not in front of thousands of men – just Daddy Platts – not so clearly and
completely and openly naked.
Why are
you doing this?
In the last picture, Mother lay on top of the
mermaid dress, her back arched, her right hand on her crotch, her left hand to
her mouth, her legs spread. I stared at the picture for a long time, not
wanting to believe, hoping that maybe the picture would change into something
else; even a snake would be better than my mother squirming on the floor, naked
in front of all those men who didn’t love her as I and Daddy Platts loved her.
I clutched the pictures under my arm and went back
to Mother’s vanity. The Hamm’s was where I’d left it.
If beer could make Mother feel better, it’d make
me feel better, too.
I took a large gulp.
It still tasted awful, this Hamm’s stuff, but
something warm and pleasant ran through my veins.
Giddy!
I’ll
drink this too!
I took the can back with me into the hallway and
sat among the discarded clothes.
I drank the rest of the beer and looked at the
pictures again. Somehow, they didn’t seem quite so bad, the men not quite as
scary; maybe that’s why Mother drank so much before going to work.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING???” Daddy Platts’ voice boomed behind me.
