My Bad Eye
memories of my mother
Most people thought of my mother as a peaceable sort, but she had a dark secret. As a reader, she consumed crime drama novels like most people eat goober peas. Goober peas are what they call boil peanuts up in Georgia. I dunno why. Folks are weird, man.
All the times Momma sat patiently in the waiting room while J O Manning or some other doctor Daddy knew from Ole Miss patched up my body from some poorly advised, misadventure. She looked like a lady, but she had one or two paperback books in her purse describing shootings, stabbings, dismemberments, poisonings, stranglings, death by blunt objects, and all the peculiar people who brought the killers to justice.
We primarily associate Edgar Allen Poe with Gothic this and that; his actual contribution to the world of letters was two poems about a haunting lost love (The Raven and Annabel Lee). Those two poems should make him among America’s most memorable writers, but his actual contribution was that he invented from just letters and ideas, the entire genre of Crime Drama.
One day, I will write about what “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee” mean to me, but not today. It’s Christmas. While Christmas is often associated with ghosts, I’m not yet ready to speak to that ghost, although I write about her fairly often.
In one of my favorite Poe stories, a gentle and steadfast manservant is made insane because his master has one eye larger than the other. This is an unusual story in the genre Poe invented. The detective is also the murderer. The memory of his master’s deformed eye made the virtuous Christian aspect of his nature reveal the murderer, which was himself.
When I was young, I lived in terror that anyone would notice one of my eyes was larger than the other. I blamed it on the birthmark over my left eye. My pediatrician, Dr. Alexander, said nobody would notice the birthmark once my eyebrows grew in. I noticed. A case of Bell’s Palsy that never quite cleared up (as it’s supposed to) made what turned out to be my small eye much more noticeable.
As an artist, I’ve always known that all faces are asymmetrical. My twisted self-perception always made my attempts at self-portraiture much worse than they needed to be. Ironically, none of my friends or teachers ever noticed or said anything about it, except for one.
One day, a girl named Monica showed up and said, “Hi, you’re my boyfriend. Now take off your pants.” She was pretty, so I didn’t object. Seems like it’d be worth trying, although my first two attempts at a girlfriend ended in disaster. Well, one ended because I dared never speak of it. The other ended because I wasn’t strong enough to defeat her disease.
Monica did notice my janky eye and made fun of it, but since she was willing to take her clothes off, I figured we were square. One day, at Thanksgiving, her father decided that I could take care of his child, so he didn’t need to live anymore. That’s a more complicated story, and one I’ve told before.
When I was in Junior High at St. Andrews, the drama teacher thought it would help my confidence, speech impediment, and a bunch of other things if I took up competitive oral interpretation. For a child who always preferred to hide, that took some doing, but I liked it.
One weekend, they had the state-wide meet on the coast. Momma and I stayed at the Broadwater Beach Motel. This was before I learned that I was conceived there. She didn’t mention that till they had new owners. We ate at Angelos, the famous spaghetti house that had been destroyed by Camille but was rebuilt. They couldn’t survive the recession that hit the Coast in the eighties, though.
I stood at the podium, waiting for the hand signal to start my performance. My mother winked at me. With my small eye, I winked back. Some bitch of a judge counted off for it, moving me down from third to fifth place.
A few years later, Momma spoke to an audience about what Stewpot needed. Stewpot became her fifth and most successful child. At the podium, she winked at me. I winked back, small eye and all. Nobody could count me off for it.
This Summer, somebody important said, “Boyd, if you don’t stop saying you’re ugly, I will stop talking to you.” I’m pretty sure she knows she doesn’t have to emphasize the point. I’ve done exactly as she says for fifty years. I’m not bucking the trend now.
With Learning Disabled kids, it goes one of two ways. They either think “my beauty is all I have,” or they think “I’m hideous because I’m different. Being different makes you a monster.”
There were several times in my life when I was openly involved with somebody who was miles out of my league. Actually miles. Except for Tracy (for whom I have no explanation), they were always much more LD than I was. They learned to make it through life based on their looks. I learned to make it through life with brute force.
Unless it’s part of the performance, actors never acknowledge the audience. I never had to worry about winking at my mother, because she almost never attended anything I was in. Not long before she died, I asked her why that was. I thought I had caught her at something, but her reply stunned me. “You never invited me, Boyd.”
I think my mother always wanted a reunion, but I just wouldn’t cooperate. At the end, I think she was just as mad and as hurt as I was. From her perspective, I was rapidly approaching my last chance to say “I love you.” From my perspective, we were rapidly approaching her last chance to say, “I’m sorry.”
At St. Dominic’s, knowing her last moment was soon, I held her hand and said. “I’m sorry, Momma, I love you.”
When I was little, I held her hand when I was afraid. During that last moment, I held her hand because I was still afraid.
