We move in a few days, and we have received word that the buyer of this home we're about to leave will be putting up a fence. Wise choice, I suppose. So, the Ambrosia Files are coming to a close. I'd been thinking for a while that Ambrosia must've run off to Alabama with her sister. Having gone into my yard at least a half dozen times without having her black-clad body appear in the doorway with a cigarette in hand, it just seemed she had made an exit. Also, the last time I saw her, she mentioned she was thinking about leaving Steve and heading down to Mobile. "I'm afraid my ex-husband would get me for kidnapping," she said. "So, I thought about just leaving the kids with Steve and getting out of here. I got family. I'm sick of his ass. But then my ex would probably get me for abandonment."
"And you'd miss them," I answered, hopefully.
She gave me a sideways like-heck look and said, "Harlan is getting on my fuckin' nerves so bad. I don't think so."
But she clearly got a second wind and decided to persevere, because when I went out to barbecue with my husband yesterday, there she was. She was standing in a semi-circle of lawnchairs occupied by what appeared to be a few of the extras from Deliverance. As soon as she spotted me, Ambrosia came skipping -- yes, skipping -- over to get me. She fairly giddily took me by the hand and led me from my yard, giggling as she half-whispered, "You gotta meet my dad. I swear he looks like a hillbilly chimp." She's mentioned her father's likeness to a monkey before, but I honestly couldn't see it when I met him. I just saw a weathered speck of a man with no teeth, sitting spread-legged next to an enormously round woman in a muu-muu and who also had no teeth. This was Ambrosia's mother, and she actually spit on the grass just before she shook my hand.
Later that evening, Ambrosia brought Meddow into our yard to play dolls with my daughter, Abigail. I don't know where it came from, but as they were making their dolls do cartwheels and kiss, she just sort of blurted out that her parents used to be complete drunks. "I remember drinking beer when I was about three or four," she said. "And having them make me rum-and-cokes when I was about seven. They used to let me stay up drinking myself silly, or they'd bring me liquor as I waited for them in the car. We drank all the time at home. I'd be sick in the bathroom at 4 a.m., go to bed for a couple of hours, and then be off to school for the day." I add this up in my head with the story she once told me of watching her first porno with her parents, when she was thirteen, and I think how amazing it is that Ambrosia is as okay as she is. I realize why she never drinks when her kids are home, even if they're in bed. I realize how hard it is to be Ambrosia and how she's no longer a joke to me anymore.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Chapter 10: The Card
Well, we did it. We accepted an offer on our house and bought another one far, far away from Ambrosia. I've yet to form an impression of my new neighbors, mostly because we haven't moved into the new house yet, but also because none of them were out lounging in plastic wading pools in their yards and yelling, "Don't fuckin' worry about it!" at their kids when we looked at the place. Which is what Ambrosia was doing the day we first took occupancy here.
I haven't seen Ambrosia in over week, but last night she appeared in our yard in a tube top and cutoff denim shorts, took a seat in the grass, lit up one of her smokes, and shoved a little piece of paper into my palm. Folks, I wouldn't say it if it weren't true: Ambrosia has a business card. And it has legs. By that I mean it has a stylized photo of legs on it, sexy legs rendered in pastel blues and pinks. It's sort of blurry and taken at a weird angle, but if I had to guess, I'd say those legs are spread. Egads. I guess the card technically isn't a business card, since no occupation is listed. It's really a calling card. Does that mean I need to keep in touch?
Maybe I would keep in touch. I kept thinking about it as she dragged on cigarette after cigarette in our yard, declining our offer of a glass of wine because she "don't drink when there's kids at the house." I considered it seriously as we talked about movies we like, finding we had several in common. At one point, she even offered to babysit my daughter if I need a break during our moving hubbub. That's when I snapped back to reality: Ambrosia's nice to me. She gives what she has to offer. And if I run her through a certain filter in my brain, the one that looks beyong the Daisy Dukes and foul talk, she's actually been a friendlier neighbor than some of the cleaner-mouthed, cleaner-cut folks I've lived near. I have to admire her for the good she exudes in many ways, and yet I don't see any good places that calling card will take me. Late-night calls to pick up her ex-husband from a bar? Forwarded email chain letters promising my wishes will come true if I just reveal my favorite booze, colors, and TV shows after I forward it on to ten others? Really, should I keep up ties with someone whose offer to babysit makes me reel with fear? Sadly, I'd just as soon leave my toddler at a rest stop.
I haven't seen Ambrosia in over week, but last night she appeared in our yard in a tube top and cutoff denim shorts, took a seat in the grass, lit up one of her smokes, and shoved a little piece of paper into my palm. Folks, I wouldn't say it if it weren't true: Ambrosia has a business card. And it has legs. By that I mean it has a stylized photo of legs on it, sexy legs rendered in pastel blues and pinks. It's sort of blurry and taken at a weird angle, but if I had to guess, I'd say those legs are spread. Egads. I guess the card technically isn't a business card, since no occupation is listed. It's really a calling card. Does that mean I need to keep in touch?
Maybe I would keep in touch. I kept thinking about it as she dragged on cigarette after cigarette in our yard, declining our offer of a glass of wine because she "don't drink when there's kids at the house." I considered it seriously as we talked about movies we like, finding we had several in common. At one point, she even offered to babysit my daughter if I need a break during our moving hubbub. That's when I snapped back to reality: Ambrosia's nice to me. She gives what she has to offer. And if I run her through a certain filter in my brain, the one that looks beyong the Daisy Dukes and foul talk, she's actually been a friendlier neighbor than some of the cleaner-mouthed, cleaner-cut folks I've lived near. I have to admire her for the good she exudes in many ways, and yet I don't see any good places that calling card will take me. Late-night calls to pick up her ex-husband from a bar? Forwarded email chain letters promising my wishes will come true if I just reveal my favorite booze, colors, and TV shows after I forward it on to ten others? Really, should I keep up ties with someone whose offer to babysit makes me reel with fear? Sadly, I'd just as soon leave my toddler at a rest stop.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Chapter 9: Hey, Neighbor, You're Hung Like A "My Little Pony"!
Did you know that we all have penises? All of us -- me, you, your Great Aunt Hazel, every human being that ever walked the earth -- is or was endowed with a Johnson of some sort. I know it must be true, because Ambrosia said so.
I love that Ambrosia can't splurge on some dental work but instead has one of those 2,047-channel cable packages and is forever honing her mind with programs like "Inside the Real ER," "Forensic Files," and "Neonatal 911." It seems that at least once every week she has to recount for me some horrid tidbit she caught while watching cable TV at 11 p.m. with three-year-old Meddow. One recent claim is that we all have penises. Yes, yes, I know that in our first few months in the womb, all that good stuff that eventually becomes Our Stuff is just a glob of ambivalent stuff. I realize that, anatomically speaking, we're nothing but a bunch of Pats, Lees, and Chrisses until -- but only until -- our third month in utero. The exception would be those unlucky folks that Ambrosia variously refers to as "homophites," "hemadites," or "frododites" (basically anything ending in -ites will do it for her).
Sounds like some cable program tried to dumb down the whole sexual development thing enough that people up eating Cheetos and drinking Tequila Rose at 11 p.m. won't get confused and turn their attention instead to some 24-hour wrestling channel, or their bong. I know the program probably had lots of nifty cartoon images of the once-ambivalent stuff taking shape -- sacks dropping or turning inside out, skin churning and plumping with fat into folds, little teardrop-shaped blobs growing or shrinking this way and that. And then it probably explained that the clitoris is, technically speaking, a penis that never came to pass. But I think Ambrosia took this the wrong way, because she has not stopped talking about it for a couple of weeks now. She really believes that the clitoris is a penis, and has been telling everyone she knows that they have a penis. "You!" she says, shaking a finger at me, "You've got one! I've got one! Meddow's got one!" (I'm getting the idea, but she won't stop building her case, so craftily building her case.)
As if it weren't bad enough to tell me I had wee boobies a couple weeks back (see Chapter 5), I guess she's now telling me I've got a small penis, too?
I love that Ambrosia can't splurge on some dental work but instead has one of those 2,047-channel cable packages and is forever honing her mind with programs like "Inside the Real ER," "Forensic Files," and "Neonatal 911." It seems that at least once every week she has to recount for me some horrid tidbit she caught while watching cable TV at 11 p.m. with three-year-old Meddow. One recent claim is that we all have penises. Yes, yes, I know that in our first few months in the womb, all that good stuff that eventually becomes Our Stuff is just a glob of ambivalent stuff. I realize that, anatomically speaking, we're nothing but a bunch of Pats, Lees, and Chrisses until -- but only until -- our third month in utero. The exception would be those unlucky folks that Ambrosia variously refers to as "homophites," "hemadites," or "frododites" (basically anything ending in -ites will do it for her).
Sounds like some cable program tried to dumb down the whole sexual development thing enough that people up eating Cheetos and drinking Tequila Rose at 11 p.m. won't get confused and turn their attention instead to some 24-hour wrestling channel, or their bong. I know the program probably had lots of nifty cartoon images of the once-ambivalent stuff taking shape -- sacks dropping or turning inside out, skin churning and plumping with fat into folds, little teardrop-shaped blobs growing or shrinking this way and that. And then it probably explained that the clitoris is, technically speaking, a penis that never came to pass. But I think Ambrosia took this the wrong way, because she has not stopped talking about it for a couple of weeks now. She really believes that the clitoris is a penis, and has been telling everyone she knows that they have a penis. "You!" she says, shaking a finger at me, "You've got one! I've got one! Meddow's got one!" (I'm getting the idea, but she won't stop building her case, so craftily building her case.)
As if it weren't bad enough to tell me I had wee boobies a couple weeks back (see Chapter 5), I guess she's now telling me I've got a small penis, too?
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