Clara's Story - South Woodlawn Avenue

Clara’s Story

 

 South Woodlawn Avenue

 

Everything was going along fine until I came along. I was born in 1949.  Mama named me after Clara Bow.  Daddy said she was a beautiful silent movie star. “Maybe not silent enough,” he laughed. “She once said ‘the more I see of men, the more I like dogs.’ Are you trying to tell me something, Bug?” He called Mama “Bug” because she had a mole on her chin that looked like a bug. He thought the mole was beautiful. He thought everything about Mama was beautiful.   

 

Right after I was born Aunt Pearl moved in with us. She seemed more than willing to assume the role of mother and she did a good job.  Mama watched with a mixture of gratitude and resentment as Aunt Pearl cradled me and crooned to me until my crying stopped “My darling. My darling. I’ll never leave you my little mimosa.”

 

It was Aunt Pearl who got up in the middle of the night to give me my bottle. Even after mama recovered from her depression, Aunt Pearl took care of me.  She changed my sheets when I wet the bed and stayed with me in the hospital when Dr. Castenbaum took out my tonsils.  When I was a little older I asked Aunt Pearl what was wrong with Mama. “She just had a breakdown, honey.” That was all she said about it.

 

When I had my shaking spells, Aunt Pearl held me until the shaking stopped. When I wet my bed, she kissed me and let me get into her bed while she changed my sheets. “It’s okay, Clara. Don’t cry. We can change the sheets. Your Mama will never know.”

 

Aunt Pearl got a job packing hot dogs at Swift and Company.  Her hands were permanently stained with red dye from the hotdogs. When Daddy and I picked her up after work, she always had a couple of raw hotdogs hidden in the pocket of her uniform.  I sat in the backseat eating my raw hotdogs while Daddy and Aunt Pearl laughed and talked in the front seat.  When I got drowsy, I rested my head on the armrest and fell asleep to the vibration of the road, the comfortable sound of laughter and the smell of cigarettes.

 

Pearl was content to spend her evenings with me while Mama and Daddy went down to the Glory Hole.  She didn’t try to hide her disapproval as she watched Mama put on her lipstick. Mama never wore lipstick unless she was going out for a night of drinking. When she stumbled home, her lipstick would be smeared and she would be fighting with Daddy.  Sometimes they fought about Aunt Pearl.

 

“Maybe you married the wrong sister. I’m not blind, you know. I can see what’s going on right under my nose.”

 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Rose. You’re drunk. Pearl is here for one reason. I couldn’t trust you not to harm our daughter. What was I supposed to do after I came home and found you’d shut her up in a dresser drawer?”

 

On those nights, Aunt Pearl would lie quietly in her bed, an arm’s length from mine and pray that I would sleep through the fight on the other side of the thin wall. Daddy usually remained unruffled while Mama’s fists pounded his chest. Aunt Pearl knew that if her brother-in-law ever allowed himself to return his wife’s punches he wouldn’t stop until he’d killed her. She also knew that Rose was right. Virgil did have feelings for her and she for him. But neither of them allowed those feelings to go further than a kind word and a sympathetic smile.

 

The post war baby boom meant I had plenty of playmates. Sheila was my best friend. Our houses faced each other across South Woodlawn Avenue. Since neither of us was allowed to cross the street, we played together, separated by South Woodlawn Avenue, confined to our own front yards. 

 

Daddy told me that soon I would have a baby sister to play with.

 

Ivy was born in the summer. It was hot everywhere, but especially in the little house on South Woodlawn Avenue. Mama seldom moved from the couch. She spent the whole day smoking cigarettes and drinking Pepsi Cola. I sat on the hassock watching the rotating fan move back and forth across her prone body.

 

There was a knock on the door and our next-door neighbor Mrs. Evans came in without waiting for an answer. “Rose, you poor child. You look just plain miserable. Do you need anything, honey?”

 

“I need this baby out of me. This is worse than the last time. Look at my poor feet. They are so swelled up I can’t even get shoes on them.” Mama wiggled her toes for Mrs. Evans. “Blair, could you put a little ice in this Pepsi for me. I don’t think I can move.”

 

Mrs. Evans took the glass from Mama’s hand. “Can I fix you something to eat, Clara?”

 

“No thank you, Mrs. Evans. I ate already.” I had fixed myself a mayonnaise sandwich for lunch and washed it down with a glass of milk.

 

“What a grown up little girl you are. Are your taking good care of your Mama?”

 

“Yes ma’am. I am.”

 

I was scared to leave my Mama’s side during the day. Daddy and Aunt Pearl and given me instructions about what I was to do if “anything happened” while they were at work. I was supposed to run next door and get Mrs. Evans and then call Daddy’s work number and tell the lady that answered it was time.  I was exhausted from watching and waiting. When Daddy and Aunt Pearl got home I escaped to the front porch, but I could hear Mama and Daddy fussing with each other through the open front window.  The fights would usually end with Mama going into their bedroom and slamming the door.

 

Daddy would come out to the porch and sit down next to me, still in his work uniform. “Don’t sit too close to me, honey. You’ll get your dress dirty.”

 

I’d ignore him and scoot over next to him. “I love you a bushel and a peck, Daddy.”

 

He’d answer with “A bushel and a peck …and a hug around the neck?” That was my signal to stand up next to him and give him a big hug.

 

“Okay, Clara. Sing me our song” I’d hop down the steps and perform the whole song for Daddy.

I love you a bushel and peck
A bushel and peck
And a hug around the neck
A hug around the neck
And a barrel and a heap
A barrel and a heap
And I'm talking in my sleep
About you, about you

 

“Beautiful, honey. Doris Day had better watch out. You’re going to steal her job right out from under her.”

 

That’s how Daddy was. Always smiling and making jokes even when he was tired and things weren’t going his way.  

 

The day they brought Ivy home, Daddy put her in my lap and told me my most important job from then on was to look out for my baby sister. I looked down at her and silently nodded my head. Ivy was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She was perfect. Daddy showed me how to hold her and warned me about the soft spot on her head. The spot was covered with long strands of dark hair. I loved my sister immediately and began planning all the things I would teach her to do.

 

There are lots of pictures of Ivy and me from that time.  I look happy. My hair is always combed and my bangs are trimmed neatly. Ivy is usually sprawled on her stomach on an army blanket or the living room rug with her thumb in her mouth. She looks happy too. Even in the black and white photographs the colors our ruffled dresses are evident. In one of the photographs I am sitting in a wagon holding a birthday cake while my baby sister and my friends gather round. I pretend to blow out the candles careful to keep my crinoline blossomed dress away from the flames.

    

We enjoyed all the delights that a growing navy town had to offer in the early fifties.  Ocean View Amusement Park was the center of our universe. I loved the rumble of the old wooden roller coaster and smell the ocean air sweetly scented with the aroma of french fries and cotton candy. The Giant Open Air Market was open 24-hours a day.    It had a lunch counter where we could get a fountain coke and a banana split while Aunt Pearl shopped.

 

City Park was an oasis. Located just up the road from where Daddy’s parents were buried, City Park had swings and "monkey bars" to climb on, slides, gardens and an enormous sandbox in a cement enclosure that had been a wading pool before it was shut down by the polio epidemic. There was a large fenced area with farmyard animals, and a big pond where Ivy and I fed popcorn to the ducks.  One day when we were at City Park I was trying to get a drink of water from the fountain. I wasn’t quite tall enough and a sailor picked me up. Aunt Pearl ran over and screamed at him. “Put her down! Put her down right now.” The startled Good Samaritan put me down immediately and looked at my Aunt with a dumfounded expression on his face.

 

Aunt Pearl knelt down beside me.  “Are you alright, honey? Did he hurt you?”

 

“Listen lady. I was just helping your little girl get a drink of water.” But my Aunt Pearl was already dragging me away.

 

“Don’t ever talk to men, Clara. Don’t ever let them touch you. Do you understand me?”

I just nodded my head, too stunned and confused to say anything.

 

* * *

Aunt Pearl bought herself a pink Studebaker Commander with the money she made at the Swift Company. On Saturdays and Sundays she took Ivy and me for rides in her car. 

“Well, girls. What do you say we pick us up some doughnuts and take a ride down to the lily pads?”

 

As we rode along we sang…”I must take a trip to California and leave my poor sweetheart alone…..Let me go. Let me go. Let me go, Lover….. Lambsy dotes and dosey dots and little lambsy divvies…”  When we got to the canal with the lily pads, Aunt Pearl got stopped the car and we got out to sit for a while by the side of the canal.

 

“Can you get me a one of those?” I asked pointing to a lily pad about ten feet from the shore.

Aunt Pearl never said no to me. She took off her Trotters and waded out and picked the water lily. I held it in my lap as we continued on. My new short set was now wet and coated with sugar from the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

Author's Note

In Part II of Pungo Creek we switch to Clara's point of view. Clara is Rose's daughter - the little girl who kills herself in the first chapter of Pungo Creek

Reviews

[jmadams]

I really love this. I've read a couple of your pieces and I really admire your tone. The only thing that bothered me is that it is unclear whether Clara is telling the story at the time it is happening or from a long time later. At some points (especially when you repeat the year and talk about the post-war generation) it seems like a lot of time has passed. At other points it seems like she is still very young. I like both points of view, but it might help if you stayed with one.
At any rate, I love the story, and I'm fascinated by Aunt Pearl. I really want to know more about her and Clara. The parents seem slightly one dimensional, but you get the sense that that's because Clara just doesn't really know them very well, so it doesn't necessarily detract from the story as a whole.