there are no monsters

Mother Dwarf (1926-2005) surrounded by her art
sept 2003 – foto by smith

from CRIMINAL by Smith & Lady, excerpt from There Are No Monsters chapter.

I would give my mother the finger a lot. I would point with my middle finger, say, “See there.” I’d hold up my first three fingers together and ask if she could read between the lines, or hold my middle finger down and ask if she could read upside down, or hold all but the middle finger up and ask if she could supply the missing word.

Mom lived downstairs on the second floor. My space, the kitchen and the bathroom were on the third. She’d come up and say, “Do you need to use the bathroom?” I’d start in on a long explanation about how I was thinking of turning it into a darkroom for photography until she’d make a disgusted noise and go use it.

Every time she’d come upstairs, I’d ask, “You got a ticket?” She never did. Never understood that because we had all these tickets lying around for collage. She could have kept one in her pocket.

I tried to lure her up to the roof so I could collect on her accidental death insurance money. She never would go. Many times, as she came up from downstairs, I looked at her in a confused way, and said, “How’d you get in?”

“I’m your mother, I live here.”

“That’s what they all say.”

Since I could only collect her insurance money if she died an accidental death, I told her, “If you die in your sleep, you’re still going to fall down the stairs, as often as necessary.”

One time she was coming up the stairs as I was taking a big black bag of garbage out. At the top of the stairs, I said, “Ah, bowling for dollars.”

The best time, she was coming up the stairs and I said from the top in a low, gravelly, drawn-out voice, “Prey.”

“No. No prey,” she pleaded. “I’m your mother.”

And in the same slow low voice I said, “Prey… has… no… name.” She laughed so hard she almost fell down the stairs.

Every time a particular ethnicity appeared in a movie, such as Chinese, I’d say, “I have Chinese blood in me.” Even claimed animal, insect, snake flowed in my veins.

“No you don’t. I’m your mother. I know what you are.”

I’d answer, “They put six pints of blood in me in at the hospital, and you have no idea where it came from.”

I’d tell her I had a big penis one day and a small the next. Got so she’d ask, “What kind of a day is it? Big or small?”

We’d be watching a Western movie and see the Indians call a train the Great Iron Horse. I’d turn and say, “The Indians used to call me Great Iron Penis. I was so big I had trouble getting through the tunnels.”

“You don’t say things like that to your mother.”

People who came over thought Mom really nice. Wished they had one like her. I kept trying to sell her to them. Told them, “You could take her for a trial run. You could rent her, or lease her with an option to buy.” They just laughed.

Once I asked her who she was.

“I’m your mother.”

“I doubt this, but you can stay anyway, because I need somebody slower than I when the monsters come.”

“There are no monsters,” she said.

“There will be,” I replied in low menace voice.

mom, me, pappy 1947 – foto of foto by smith