RUNNING

A young girl dealing with alcoholism in her family.

 

           ...."If that screen door slams one more time, I'll!"....but Merlyn was out the door,

 

 and even though she hesitated, once out of the house, she didn't have to worry about

 

 what her mother would or wouldn't do.

 

 

She took off running the two blocks down the brick alley to Bowers Market where she

 

 knew she would be welcomed with a smile.

 

 

It was Tuesday and her mother would be ironing the laundry she had washed and hung to

 

 dry the day before. While she ironed, she would listen to her station WBVP talk shows

 

 on the radio that sat on the kitchen shelf and sip from the quart of Iron City that sat on

 

 the kitchen sink beside the ironing board.

 

 

Little sister Glory was visiting their mom's sister Dorothy for a play day with their cousin

 

 Carol, so, with that concern gone from her mind, Merlyn felt safe in pursuing her own

 

 day, most of which would be away from home until 5 p.m. when her dad arrived home

 

 from work.

 

 

Just knowing he would always be there was her mainstay. She would come through the

 

 door and kiss him on the back of the head, he'd be in his overstuffed rocking chair

 

 reading the evening paper and always act surprised, and then she'd run into the kitchen,

 

 take silverware from the drawer and place a fork on the left and a knife and spoon on

 

 the right of the dinner plates her mom had already set. Supper would already be

 

 bubbling away on the stove for their regular 5:30 p.m. meal. It was what she could

 

 count on.

 

 

Two of the many jobs Merlyn's mother had taught her were how to set a proper table and

 

 how to iron a man's shirt in the correct manner AND ironing had become one of Merlyn's

 

 favorite chores until the day her mom had had too much Iron City, misread her

 

 daughter's use of a paring knife and laid the hot iron on Merlyn's outstretched arm when

 

 she was reaching for an apple.

 

 

As soon as she had realized what she had done, her mom ran for the kitchen sink,

 

 wrapped a washcloth around icecubes and placed it on the iron shaped mark that was

 

 getting pinker by the moment.

 

"Oh, Merlyn, I'm so sorry!" she kept repeating while Merlyn kept sucking her breath in

 

 and peeking under the cloth to survey the damage.

 

From that point on, although Merlyn couldn't control her mother's actions, she made a

 

 conscious decision to control the amount of time she spent with her.

 

And so, she began her effort to fill her time each day until she knew her father would be

 

 home and she and her little sister would be safe. Not safe from her mom because her

 

 mom loved her family and her family loved her, but from the person she became when

 

 the Iron City bottle was emptied, or in later years, the burgundy always hidden under

 

 the sink among the detergents, or finally, the stronger stuff, the Imperial whiskey that

 

 her mom had said had fueled some of her best paintings.

 

"Give me a bottle, my paints and leave me to it and I'll give you a masterpiece,"

 

she remembered her mom saying, and always wondered if she had said those words to

 

 anybody else and if she had, what had been their reply.  She had no answer, in words,

 

 for her mother's statement, but she remembered feeling her stomach give that little

 

 twist.

 

 

Merlyn felt free out of the house and was at the halfway mark down the alley when she

 

 stopped at the huge black walnut tree that grew on the edge of the neighbor's yard,

 

 with its long roots lifting some of the bricks in the alley making little tripping

 

 places she had to watch for in her travels.

 

She stood against the strong trunk and wrapped her arms around, trying to see if she had

 

 grown any toward her own fingertips, but no, the trunk was too large and her arms were

 

 still not long enough to reach, if they ever would.

 

She felt safe standing at the tree. She had collected so many brown paper bags full of

 

 the black walnuts the tree gave every year and her mom always smiled when she saw

 

 her traipse in with a new supply of the delicious nutmeats.

 

The only drawback was the brown stains the walnuts made on the hands that actually

 

 had to wear off with time. Her mom had even used the stain to add color to the brown

 

 eyes on the portrait she had painted of her friend's daughter, when her oil paint tube

 

 had gone low. The stain for the brown and white shoe polish for the highlights that

 

 made the eyes come to life. Merlyn's mom seemed a genius in so many ways.

 

"Hey, Frank, look who it is, little missy come to visit, hey little miss, what have you

 

 come to buy and are you going to eat it here or take it with you?"

 

Merlyn knew the conversation by heart and always welcomed the hug from George, the

 

 butcher, at Bowers Market, and the second from Frank the grocer when she entered the

 

 little store.

 

"Not here to buy anything George, can I sit up to the phone and take the grocery orders?

"

"Oh, it must be Tuesday, right? then here you go little one," and Merlyn raised her arms

 

 as the gentle man wrapped a clean, white store apron around her, tied the ties snuggly

 

 and lifted her up to the stool and phone which hung from the wall.

 

It was her Tuesday job during the summer months, to take phone in grocery orders from

 

 regular customers, print them neatly into a grocery notebook she had been given and

 

 then help fill the cardboard boxes with the grocery items for delivery later in the

 

 afternoon.

 

As she attended to her important job, she had the joy of watching the Bowers family,

 

 tend to the walk in customers who recognized her at her station, smiled and waved,

 

 acknowledging her but not wanting to interrupt her order taking. She was a part of all

 

 of it and loved the time she spent there

.

Frances Bowers, the sister, always gave Merlyn Wrigleys gum to keep her already sweet

 

 breath even sweeter. We don't want bad breath taking phone orders Frances poked, and

 

 Merlyn knew she had to remove her sweet treat before she spoke with customers.

 

 

Frank and George reminded Merlyn of the two uncles in the movie, the Wizard of Oz,

 

 and Pap Bowers, with his bald head and sweet smile, captured what was left of her

 

 heart.

 

Pap was the clock watcher and always reminded her that the cooking smells wafting

 

 down Cherry Alley probably meant that she should take off her uniform and get home

 

 for supper.

 

"Tomorrow is another day," he would remind and tell her what she already knew, they

 

 would be weighing sugar into five pound bags to place on the shelves.

 

He'd pat her on the head and tell her she added sweet to the sweet.

 

Merlyn didn't stop at the walnut tree on her run up the alley toward supper. She was

 

 anxious to get home by 5:15 p.m. and finish setting the table.

 

She was running her life the way she wanted it, running from one family to her other.

 

 

 

Author's Note

Would appreciate impressions.