Growing Up Oklahoma: Part 2 (read part 1 here)

Saturdays were meant for early morning cartoons.  It was sorta that cosmic law that the best cartoons were saved for Saturdays.  And it also meant brownies.  Before my daddy and momma split up for good, we got brownies every Saturday.  They were the good kind, thick, rich, and gooey.  My daddy was the special cook of the house.  Sure my momma could make stuff, but everything had rice or noodles in way or the other.

No, my daddy could make the stuff we only saw in TV commercials or at rich folks’ houses.  Christmas time was the best time, cause he’d cook all day.  The whole house smelled like spicy sausages, snicker-doodle candy, and baking pies.  On Saturday mornings, he’d make so many brownies that we’d eat three or four each out of the baking tray and slurp down a glass of cold milk.  Since the earlier cartoons were always the best, my dad would wake us up by saying the brownies were nearly done.  Only a complete fool would sleep through the good cartoons and brownies.

Sundays were different.  It was like the weekend was divided into two halves.  Saturday was fun day.  Sunday was something else entirely.  Mass was on Sunday.  My daddy was as Catholic as any person at St. John’s.  He was a deacon.  He was in the choir.  He painted crucifixes to hang all over our house of the Lord Jesus.  He listened to monks chanting on old records while doing house chores.  Yeah, he was real Catholic.

We were like chickens with their heads cut off on Sunday mornings.  There was only one bathroom when we were living with my daddy on Husband Street.  It had a small toilet that rocked when you took a number two and if you forgot to jiggle the handle, it would run all night.  The girls would take forever in there, not sure what they were doing.  But they looked no different when they got out.  Me and my brother would brush our teeth together over the sink and sometimes knock heads when we both tried to spit.  I got a slug in the arm when that happened.

Some people say that poor folks don’t have wardrobes, but I know that ain’t true.  We had regular clothes and we had Sunday clothes.  Sunday clothes were not for wearing, even to school.  They were almost holy, because they were only meant for church.  Only took one lesson to learn to take them off right after we got back, my daddy didn’t have much a mind for second warnings.  My clothes never fit right.  The slacks were two inches too tight in the waist and a few inches too long in the leg.  I’d wear my brother’s old dress shirts and any two socks I could find, regardless of the color.  My favorite was the white suit that I got to wear at First Communion.  It was the whole kit and caboodle with slacks, a jacket, and a vest.  All in fancy white.  But that was even more special than Sunday clothes.  You only wore that one once, well once for my brother and then once for me.

My daddy was kinda an odd fella.  Maybe it was the fact that he didn’t move his arms when he walked or used too much heel toe in his stride.  When he talked on the phone, my daddy would try to speak with a deep voice, though it sounded weird.  He had a smile that was too sharp at the edges and looking over his thick mustache, which sometimes had dandruff, were his green eyes.  They was eyes that looked at you a little too hard or long kinda like how a snake must look at its next meal.  My daddy had a bit of a wicked smile that made me snicker because I wasn’t sure what else to do.

Yeah, my daddy was odd.  He didn’t like people as much as he liked his science fiction books.  He was always reading them and had thousands of them packed in boxes like pictures of old friends.  They were the thin ones from the fifties that had only one robot character in the whole story.  Not as neat as the comic books from the grocery store.

On Sunday mornings we ran a fire drill.  My daddy didn’t keep up with his socks or his dress shoes, so he’d holler at us to find them.  I was too tired to look so I’d go into the backrooms where the cellar was and pretend to look back there.  I could close my eyes and walk in a circle for a good ten minutes before I got found.  When my momma came and asked me ‘what in the hell was I looking for,’ I got by playing dumb and just mumbling.  Eventually, my daddy would rap someone on the head with his knuckles and his socks and shoes would be found.  Me and my brother wore ties, the kind with the clip-on that I liked playing with during mass.  Click click, click click.  I’d get rapped on the head eventually.  Church was not for fun and we weren’t supposed to act up.  It was real important how folks there thought of my daddy.

After church was over, they would serve coffee cake and juice.  The side hall of the sanctuary had a big black and white checkered floor.  So the four of us kids would sneak off from my daddy and momma and pretend we were chess pieces, hopping over squares trying to get to one another.  I was always a bishop cause I got to run in a straight line.  My brother was a knight cause only he could remember how they moved all funny on the board.  All the fun would end soon enough when we’d run into some lady while we were running about.  Then it was another rap on the head with my daddy’s hairy knuckles and we’d wait outside on the curb until my daddy and momma were done flapping their gums.

When we finally got back home and changed, we were free to play as we liked.  The backyard was funnest, cause we dug dirt trails in the grass to make roads for our army trucks.  We even had wooden swords and shields that my daddy painted for us, though I think he would have changed his mind if he knew how many times we whacked each other with them.  Today my daddy was tired and my momma went to work at the donut shop.  And since we were left to our own devices, the four of us agreed to undertake a top secret mission.  It was time to wake Godzilla.  My daddy was sleeping in his room on top of the covers.  Trish was the bravest and the toughest.  My brother had all the good ideas.  Wendy was just plain sneaky and got a stubborn streak from my grandma.  There were times when she’d sit at the dinner table all night as to not eat her peas.  My daddy always gave-in first and sent her to bed.  I was the littlest and could wail real loud.  Between the four of us, we were a crack squad of commandos.

His room had sliding doors, easy enough for four curious kids to take a peek through.  My daddy’s room smelled like a man that had waited an hour too long to shower with just a hint of Old Spice.  It was a pleasant smell.  Though he was laying in bed with his eyes closed, he had a little bit of that wicked smile on his face, like he was waiting for something.  My oldest sister, grinning with the crooked adolescent teeth that I would get later, took a step into the room.  An excited shiver went down my spine as I moved in after the rest of them.  I was the littlest, but I wasn’t gointa show that I was scared.  My oldest sister grabbed Wendy by the arm and they went to the left side, while my brother and me went to the other.

We were holding our breaths and looking back and forth from each other to the sleeping giant before us.  He was laying in his green Army underwear with a white T-shirt.  He had long toes covered in hair.  I was standing next to one of his feet.  It would prove to be a costly error in a just a few moments.  As if we were solemn members of some long forgotten cult, we placed our hands palm down on the bed.  We all met each other’s eyes and nodded silently.  Our voices were nervous and hushed at first.

“Godzilla, wake up.”

Trish was chanting the loudest.  I started in louder too, but I was ready to run at the first sign of trouble.

“Godzilla, wake up.  Godzilla, wake up.”

We were padding the bed with our palms with each syllable.  Still no signs of life from the mound before us.  Our cadence grew in confidence, yet tinged with anticipation.

“GODZILLA WAKE UP!  GODZILLA WAKE UP!”

We were pounding the bed and all at once the beast awoke in a fury.  With his arms he grabbed Wendy and pulled her onto the bed.  She was squealing and kicking.  I knew she was a goner and I made to run.  With his toes he grabbed me by my wrist as sure as if he had fingers on his foot.  The grip was tight, too strong for me to break.  I turned for help.  Trish and Randy had left the room as soon as the fracas had started.

“Help, help, help!”  I was too scared to notice how girly I sounded.  Trish charged back in from the door.  She had always been my protector, looking after me when I was little to make sure I didn’t get picked on.  It was good having her on my side, cause she played softball, basketball, all the sports.  She was the toughest.  She’d still play softball and throw her paper route with broken fingers.  And all of her friends gave me kisses on my cheek.

She grabbed me by my other arm and a tug-a-war ensued with me in the middle.  How a man’s foot could be so God awful strong was amazing.  Eventually by moving my wrist around frantically, I escaped his masterful grasp.  His toe nails had pinched my wrist as I pulled away.  We piled onto each other onto the living room carpet in giggles, poor Wendy still in his clutches.

When my daddy and Wendy came out of the room together, we were silent with shame.  The three commandoes had left a man behind and that man had been tickled mercilessly.  Later on our bunk beds, we’d sit and talk about what happened.  Wendy would speak as a seasoned POW about her time held captive by Godzilla.  We’d promise to stick together next time when we faced him.

As luck would have it, Daddy was in a good mood.  It was too late for brownies, so instead he made us hot cocoa in mugs with cartoon characters on them.  At Christmas time, we’d drink our cocoa out of Santa Claus mugs that were older than we were.  Daddy put in extra marshmallows that would quickly turn into a white foam if you didn’t eat them fast enough.  I’d eat them right off and sneak back into the kitchen for a second helping before sitting down on the floor to watch Sunday night television.

There was also something good on Sundays and we recorded it on our VHS player every time.  Either because I was good with the clicker or because I was a sucker, I was always the person to hit pause for the commercials.  The remote had a single button on it, Pause, and was connected back to the VHS recorder by a thick wire.  It was as fancy as I’d ever seen.  We’d gather up in blankets on the floor and lay on our big beanbag pillows that our daddy made for us to watch our program.  Mine had the Hulk on it, of course.

My daddy would sit on the couch behind us with his arms spread out over the back, relaxing.  I think he liked these times best, cause he would stay to watch with us and make jokes.  Earlier in the morning, when we were bouncing around looking for his good socks before church as he yelled, I felt like we would never do anything right.  One of us would catch a rap to the head with heavy knuckles or get caught by the ear and dragged to the other side of the room.

For now I kinda felt like one of them regular families, like on TV or like one from the kids at school.  It was one of those small moments that made me feel normal when mostly I knew that we were not.  We sat together on the floor of our living room, watching Battlestar Galactica or the Disney Family Movie or some such, drinking our hot cocoa with heavy eyelids.

My dad was up and down, never sure what you were going to get.  Some days were good and some were bad.  Some days were real bad.

But then again, he always was an odd kinda fella.