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By Bill Spratch Every summer the kids in the neighborhood had candy cane legs all striped. We called it monkey blood. What it really was was what you call mercurochrome. Everybody's mothers and grandmothers would just grab you and daub it on scratches, bug bites, what have you, leaving you stained with bright red and more wounded-looking than when you first ran in the house bawling. And sting? Damn that stuff could sting! -Dr. Jonathan Osgood, Reminiscences of a Country Doctor. I. Me. Trouble like this starts here ever hurricane season which is mainly August. Except this time the people came and got my babies for good. And they took me away someplace else for observation and talking-to. They tole me and tole me I had a munch house condition or maybe a monkey house condition and I guess they were partly right because the boys act like monkeys or even apes with all the jumping and the horseplay. It could just as well be a horse house condition or a rough house condition just as much as a monkey house condition. But these people all went to college and learnt about such things and now they are looking after me which I appreciate. They explained the monkey house sickness they thought I had and said some medicines might help. Other mommas had it too they said. They said some mommas used packets of red flavored Kool-Aid to falsify blood. Then they run into the emergency room screaming and begging for mercy over their fake bleeding babies. My own momma accused me all the time of telling stories. Anytime she thought I was fibbing she'd say, You better not be telling me a story. She tole me that's why I always got so many lie bumps on my tongue. If she saw me sticking my tongue out to the washroom mirror and applying peppermint oil she would make a hmmmph sound and remind me that if I got a bump or two on my tongue it must be because I been telling stories again. But this aint no story I'm telling. If you saw with your own eyes the way they tore through the house knocking things off shelves and fighting over the good TV chair you'd understand why they always look so banged up. You would understand that I have done everything to care for them. They get scrapes and sores and I get out the bottle of monkey blood and the cartoon character Band-Aids. This is how much I love my boys: For my oldest I cover his cereal bowl with plastic wrap ever morning because he has a terror of spiders. One fell from the ceiling on his frosty flakes once. Ever month after that I'd go to the Wal-Mart's and get the big roll of wrap. I covered his bowl ever morning and cut out a small hole in the center for his spoon. They are a world of trouble and joy unto me. Last year during the bad hurricane whose name I forget it stormed for days. Our yard and all the neighbors' yards got flooded and they got out into the driveway and took turns sliding in the mud. I tole them that's a good way to get your selfs all infected or to even break a arm. This aint no story I'm telling. I save them. I try to. I haul them up in my arms and take them to the doctor away from near-death experience. While outside the clouds get all dark and swole up and the storm with the name of a pretty lady hits the coast hard. II. Me again, surprise. See how easy it is to play the baffled simpleton, so overwhelmed by sentiment and a world too large? The people who observe me eat this stuff up just like I knew they would. I feed them tiny bites one at a time. The more hicked-up I get the more they love it. Maybe love is the wrong word. Certainly they are reassured. It is easier for them to deal. The difference between my diction and articulation and theirs delights them, makes them feel better about the situation, as if they can't possibly be wrong this time, as if this cannot be another misdiagnosis. I'm secular shit. I like swimmin and shoppin and layin out sunnin in the yard among car parts and weeds. My husband is an AWOL asshole, gone with the Gs. Gone fishin. My dropped Gs afford these people superiority. They have extra letters. These are honest-to-God bonafide lettered thinkers and they feel pleasure and vindication when others adhere to expected roles. Black scholars refer to this as ghettoization. I need a similar word to wrap up my own situation, a nice Saran-tight, Saran-clear package. One of the first times they came to check on the boys they found me standing in the dewy morning grass with dirty feet and too-short cut-offs. White fringey strings fell down my thighs from the frayed and faded denim. They gaped, stood thrilled. I just smiled and sipped from my sweating can of Dr Pepper, had a cigarette, etc. I must've been the very picture of a bad momma. I know all about Munchausen by Proxy. Anybody who's watched the news would. The TV journalists sit agape in studio chairs and shake expensive haircuts in dismay at the misfired mind that can allow such horror. How can this whole villain/hero complex emerge and enable such harm to children? Here under observation I thought I might continue my secret work. I thought my confinement would include access to books, maybe a card for the loony library. Instead here I am with construction paper, pages torn from popular magazines, some glue. I've got blunt grade-school scissors with green rubber handles, the blades imprinted LEFTY because of course I'm left-handed. That's what they said. I told them I was left-handed. They said of course you are. They hope that I will assemble a collage. They come in wringing hands asking how is it going and is there anything else I need. The collage they hope for should express my feelings, my feelings for my boys, my need to hurt them and my need to play the heroine that saves them. Just like the down-home idea of the angry old God, mean and merciful both. I certainly won't make progress researching my secret condition with purple scraps of paper. My plans for now have backfired. I played my cards all kinds of wrong. Let them believe it's Munchausen by proxy that I have while I eke out the real answer. You know the drill. Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, psychiatry, a form of the factitious disorder Munchausen syndrome in which a person induces or claims to observe a disease in another, usually a close relative, in order to attract the doctor's attention to herself or himself. I've got it down. With all our so-called advancement we probably have more syndromes, conditions, disorders and bad spells today than throughout the sum of history. We excel at shackling ourselves, manufacturing excuses. We cut ourselves up and every piece gets a name. But what I have, what I really have is new, and I mean brand spanking. If I even tried to explain my true affliction I would definitely get the chew toys and padded walls. And that's only if they didn't buy the story. If they actually believed me it would be government men with dark sunglasses and probing. As it stands now there's still the possibility of 20/20, maybe 60 Minutes. It happens after a big rain, hurricane season in particular. My boys--but never me--get the itching and the redness and sores. And only as a result of my touch. Molds trigger something in my own chemistry maybe, and maybe that something makes my own boys allergic to me. This is only one theory. Mold is my best guess, growing thick and fast in some damp ferment. I have not yet ruled out mosquitoes. Still, molds make the most sense: exotic flora spreading like powdery carpet somewhere nearby. Spores everywhere you can be sure. But it's my touch that does it after all. The boys get hurt without intent. My observers never get close enough for a touch. They wait bivouacked behind video screens, watching from the other side of mirrored glass. The small town police will soon develop the symptoms but never figure the link. The few orderlies wear mandated gloves for fear of more common infections. But what about this. What about when your visit is over and weeks from now, after this storm and handshake, you notice the initial redness, then the itching, what will you do? What will you say? Beware the swollen tastebud: lie bumps like my momma said. You might find yourself telling stories. If you would like to link to this story, please use this link. | ||
