I’m a little egg
Lady K, 1976?
From my writing project:
That night, Mom and I took our bath together. I liked this time with her. When Grandma gave me a bath, she was in a hurry, and rubbed my face too roughly with the washcloth. I still feel the harsh washcloth in Grandma’s fingers, scraping my ears. But Mom lingered in the tub.
The water smelled like iron and sulfer. It was from the well. The bathtub was yellow and smooth. I sat between Mom’s stubbly legs.
Mom layed her head back and closed her eyes. I leaned against her thigh. I felt the washcloth float against my skin. I grabbed it and squeezed water out. It trickled and plinked. I put the washcloth in my mouth and sucked it. It tasted like soapy iron.
Mom started to sing an Irish tune in her clear, soft sweet soprano. The steamy air in the bathroom contributed to intimacy, made it a world enclosing just Mom and me. Her voice was a reedy instrument.
When Johnny comes marching home again,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We’ll give him a hearty welcome then
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The men will cheer and the boys will shout
The ladies they will all turn out
And we’ll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home.With your drums and guns and guns and drums, hurroo,hurroo
With your drums and guns and guns and drums, hurroo,hurroo
With your drums and guns and guns and drums,
The enemy nearly slew ye
Oh my darling dear, Ye look so queer
Johnny I hardly knew ye.Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg,
Ye’re an armless, boneless, chickenless egg,
Ye’ll have to be put with a bowl out to beg,
Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye.
I felt a constriction of my throat, and my eyes burned like I was going to cry. I didn’t know why, but I loved that song, and I loved her voice, her passion in singing it. I thought about the chickenless egg and the bones, about the drumstick I ate for dinner.
“I’m a little egg,” I thought.
“Do you know what the song means?”
“No. I like it.”
“It’s about war. People kill each other in war. Governments send our young men to fight wars and they die, or they come back without arms or legs.”
“Why do they do this?”
“Because some people are bad. There are good and bad people. There are good and bad wars, too. But all war is horrible for the people who are in it. Grandpa was in a war.”
“World War II.”
“That was a good war. We fought against the Nazis in Germany. The Nazis wanted to kill all the Jewish people. Grandma’s Jewish, and her brother died fighting in the war. But there was a bad war just a couple years ago. Your Daddy Wayne wouldn’t fight in it because it was a bad war. That was Vietnam. I met your Daddy when he was hiding out from the war.”
“Why was it bad?”
“Because we wanted to kill people because they didn’t want to live the way we do. But people all around the world are different. They don’t have to live like we live. We killed them even though they’d never done anything to us. Our government was wrong, just like the Nazis were wrong in World War II.”
This was news to me. I didn’t know who Mom was talking about when she said the “government.” I didn’t know who the Nazis were or why they would want to kill Grandma. The world had a darker, serious cast to it.
“But we’re all OK now, right Mom?”
“We’re fine for now, honey.”
Lady K & Mom, 1975?