Monkey Blood
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.