Guts

I grew up with Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. My dad had three albums and a Gibson guitar. Some days I liked to listen to the records, but most days I preferred that he play his guitar. I would sit on the floor with my fists pushing at each cheek and my pink underwear hanging out from the back of my pants. The songs took on a simple meaning to me. I didn't know what the Depression was and I didn't know why my father taught me the words to 'This Land is Your Land' before he taught me "The Star Spangled Banner". I only knew one meaning for a scab and I knew that a union had something to do with my dad losing his job. I knew that I loved singing with my dad. I loved watching his stubby little fingers strum and pick at the strings. His voice was off key every so often, but that was the folkway, he told me so I sung off key also. He said I could be the next Judy Collins if I wanted, but I would rather have been Bob Dylan, mainly because my brother liked him a lot more than the rest.

My dad made sure I always had music. He said that there would be a lot of people in the world that would tell me what to do, but it was only in music that I would find the guts of my life.

* * *

Mom liked to tell me that if I didn't brush my teeth, the toothpaste would expire and dad would raise hell about her buying so much toothpaste. I wasn't even sure if toothpaste expired, but I brushed my teeth anyway, and every day at that.

My brother had a few theories of his own. The most believable to me at age five was his snot theory. He told me that if I didn't pick my nose the boogers would get backed up. He drew me a picture of what my nose would look like with two big cones of dried up snot jutting out from it. That was enough to have me picking my nose until I was twelve. I somehow trusted my brother over everyone else. He was only four years older, but four years wiser to me.

I liked to hang around my brother because something interesting always happened. We liked to chase each other around the house since the rooms in the house formed a full circle and we could run for hours. Mom and Dad didn't like us running and we learned our lesson when I was six. I had a doll that he had wanted to terrorize. We went through the living room and I took the route over the coffee table with the three marble slabs, one of which was cracked. After I had safely landed I turned around to find that his leg had gone clear through the marble slab and blood was getting on the carpet. I stood there in shock, not quite because my brother was near crying or because I couldn't believe he had stepped through marble, but because our fun had come to a complete stop. In a second I had no reason to laugh, like when you get elled at for playing too loudly. Having such a good time, Dad smacks you on the bottom and shoots his red face at you and you sink in between your shoulders sniffling. Only then, however, you've changed emotions. You've gone from laughing to crying and when he leaves you'll be laughing again. But here, we just stood, with nothing in our heads but the picture of each other standing there, one bleeding and the other holding the doll.

My grandma taught me to squat over the toilet. I insisted that that was how pee got on the seats, but she insisted that germ protection was much more important than etiquette. She showed me in her aqua blue bathroom with aqua blue mermaids for fixtures. My legs ached so badly over the aqua blue, fake-marble toilet (she called it a commode). I wondered what she knew about hygiene. A woman who gets her hair set once a week so she doesn't even have to brush it, let alone wash it, for seven whole days could not know much about hygiene. Her hair didn't even look that great, just like someone had built a series of mountain ranges, one after the other, along her scalp and painted them red.

My grandma smoked. Whenever she said anything, smoke would putter its way out of her lips. She always left her cigarettes floating in the toilet like the goldfish my parents forgot to fully flush when I was seven. The water would be yellow and I knew that if I flushed before I went to the bathroom, it would ne a good ten minutes before the water would stop running and I could flush again. My grandma would wonder what I was doing in the bathroom so long and would barge in on me just standing there looking in the toilet.

If I cut my hair, my sister was the first person to tell me it looked stupid, but years of perms had turned her hair into a giant frizz ball with thin strands reaching well beyond six inches from her head. I liked to watch how the light flickered behind her hair when she talked down to me. It looked like some warped halo. I would laugh in her face and not care what she did back because I had seen her making out on our couch, which was ammunition enough in case she should try to rat me out about something.

* * *

When I was a little older than twelve, my dad showed me where he kept the rest of his records. He played me a Koko Taylor album.

"This woman," he said, "this woman is strength."

He said that I was finally old enough for the blues. I knew when the songs had a twinge of sexuality in them because he would look up at me from behind the record jacket to see if I raised an eyebrow or looked oblivious. I knew what they were talking about, but it didn't matter to me because I was enthralled. Dad would tell me stories of his trips to Chicago. He said that he met B.B. King once and afterwards he went home and vomited because he was so excited. My dad played the blues on the piano and asked me if I would like to learn how to play the harmonica so that we could be a duet. I told him that my mouth was too small and that my lips wouldn't pull out far enough from my gums. He laughed at the face I made trying to convince him.

I would have half his records pulled off the shelf when he got home from work and he would help me gather them up before mom came in the room. I told him that I liked John Lee Hooker the best and he kissed me on the forehead.

"I figured," he said.

* * *

My mom ran over a cat driving me to my first day of high school. It wasn't even in our neighborhood. Mom seemed to have thought it might have been better if it had been in our neighborhood. I told her that it was a stupid cat anyway and that we really needed to get me to school. She cried for a whole five minutes as I quickly rearranged my plans for each minute after my arrival at school. I would not have time to double check my locker combination with the office so I would just have to hope I got it right. I would also not be able to hear Sarah's summer trip story. I didn't think that was a big deal because how many times can you hear about all the cute boys that live in other countries? Even the kissing parts aren't good anymore. I saw that mom wasn't getting any better so I dragged her out of the car to say a little prayer over the cat before we moved on. We weren't even religious, but it worked and I made it just in time to hear about how Sarah had moved on under the shirt.

I was glad my brother decided to stay in town for college, although I could not understand why. He had some serious girlfriend from high school and he denied that was why he was staying, but I know how mom and dad whisper to each other and give each other looks when they know he's lying. I didn't like this girl. She was scrawny and didn't take up any room on the couch. I had always loved to see my family all settled into their couch position, but she seemed to just hover over the seat, not even making a dent. Our family wasn't even built that big, but this girl could squeeze into crevices that my mother only dreamed of being able to clean.

We had been down to grandma's house twice the summer after my sophomore year in high school and again, the wallpaper we had put up was yellow and dingy. Even the dogs looked more yellow than before and certainly fatter. She fed us well when we went there though. French fries. She told me that I should come down and see her more often and I guess you can make a promise to anyone. It's just easier to break a promise to someone who you know breaks them all the time. I didn't go down there anymore because I had heard the stories from my mom. I think they have slowly been slipping out when I've been around. My parents don't care as much about what I hear anymore. I just don't know why they get on me about visiting grandma when they tell me she let her husbands beat on my mom and her sisters.

My sister's graduation was the same day as my junior prom. My sister ruined my night with Walter Graham. I had practiced for days for the acceptance speech of sorts because I had heard a rumor he might ask me. Even after I had said I'd go, I had practiced even more about the possible questions he might ask me. I had a set of safety topics in case we ran out of things to say. I scratched the subject of math class and added Beethoven to my list upon Sarah's suggestion.

My mother was the only one that was disappointed that I couldn't go. My father was too excited to have a college graduate in the family and my brother still didn't like the idea of me dating. I made sarcastic comments all week about the fun I would have driving ten hours to New York with my family. My sister caught the flu the night before and someone had to wake her up in her chair when her name was called. That was worth seeing.

* * *

My father died two years after I had finished college, a year after I had moved to San Francisco. He was the one that had suggested I move there. He said to follow my music and I was old enough then to know that he just meant to do what felt right. So, I did it. I cut my hair off and I picked up smoking and I moved to San Francisco. I regretted cutting my hair because it never grew back to quite the same effect. I am sure that it was my face that had changed, but it was easier to blame my hair.

When I returned back to San Francisco after the funeral there was a tape waiting for me. Dad had sent it right before he died. It was the two of us on that tape. We were singing Woody Guthrie and he was playing the piano while I pretended to be Koko Taylor beside him. It was strength and knowledge and guts.