After Joe Brainard

I remember the mall on Saturdays. We tried on clothes, but no one had clothes money so we bought candy cigarettes, makeup, Hello Kitty trinkets. It cost a quarter to ride the carousel, and we rode it again and again. We posed for pictures on the painted horses, teenage legs too long for the stirrups.

I remember the feel of a black rectangular camera in my hands. I would lift the viewfinder to my eye, hold down the shutter button, then wind the film forward with my thumb. Days later, when I finished the roll and dropped it at Walgreens to get developed, my photos would all be out of focus. On the carousel, we all moved forward at the same speed. It’s the world outside that throws everything into a blur. 

I remember metallic lipsticks and nail polish: silver, green, purple, the colors of an old bruise.

I remember buying blank cassette tapes to record my favorite songs off the radio. I bought from the choirgirl hotel on a CD with my own money. My dad bought three tickets to see Tori Amos perform live at the Orpheum. “She’s a good kid, Karen,” he drawled to my mother, who fretted.

I remember going to the Mid-South Fair in September. It was sunny and sticky-hot. Toya got a fried turkey leg but couldn’t finish it. Michele got the phone number of a man with a soul patch who ran the Water Gun Shoot Out booth. I got sunburned. 

I remember coming home that day and finding the message from my dad’s hunting lodge on the answering machine. 

I remember how cold it was in the woods, waiting. My mother sat on an ice chest someone had dragged outside. I stood behind her, like I thought she would fall over. Or like I would.

I remember the long, silent drive to the hospital. 

I remember the waiting room for families of hospital patients in long-term care. There was another father who had a hunting accident. Another patient, someone’s son, who was in a coma. There was a red phone in the lounge that we all took turns answering. 

I remember all the days my older brother picked me up from school. Some days we went right to the hospital, and I sat cross-legged on the vinyl seats to do homework until visiting hours. Visiting hours were only for twenty minutes, three times a day. We took turns sitting in the chair by the hospital bed, telling our dad about school, watching the heart monitor to see if he heard. We held his hands, which swelled and then shrank over the long months of his coma.

I remember taking Toya and Michele to see the Tori Amos concert. One of my dad’s nurses also attended. I didn’t see him there, but we talked about it the day after, in the quiet voices we always used in the ward. 

I remember my mother praying with the other families in the waiting room. She bought a glass pendant that held one small round mustard seed and wore it on a chain around her neck with her gold cross and wedding ring. She brought a little plastic jar of mustard seeds and would shake them out for anyone who cupped their palms. “Have a little faith,” she would tell them. “You can move mountains.” 

I remember I still believed in God then. 

I remember dropping driver’s ed and taking an art class instead. I watched my own hands as if through the wrong end of a telescope. They were painting blue roses and shaking. I cut out columns and taped them to a broadsheet for the school paper. Our faculty sponsor drove me to north Mississippi to have them printed cheaply on thin, off-white paper like a real newspaper.

I remember being driven to academic competitions. I won the French spelling bee. I won some category in the annual writing tournament. In the math contest, I didn’t win anything.

I remember being the last of my friends to have a first kiss. It was outside in the courtyard at school. It was windy, and my hair got in our mouths. 

I remember writing a sonnet in the hospital waiting room, writing my college admissions essay in the hospital waiting room. 

I remember an art class assignment to trace one hand on a sheet of paper using the other hand. We were to cut them out and paint them. I made mine three-dimensional with glue-soaked strips of newsprint. As the papier-mâché dried, the fingers curled in a little, and the hand slightly cupped as if to scoop something up. I painted it glossy blue and hung it on my mirror at home.

I remember skipping prom, skipping the senior trip.

I remember skipping the senior awards ceremony. The principal took me aside and asked why I stopped showing up for school events. I didn’t know what to tell him. I thought everyone knew.

I remember working on my salutatory speech at home. 

I remember that my grandmother said to my mother, “I can come in for John’s funeral or for Sara’s graduation.” She came for my graduation. My English teacher and chemistry teacher came to the funeral.

I remember when my grandmother packed up the car to drive back to Pennsylvania, I asked her to take me with her. 

I remember getting carsick in Ohio. We pulled over, and the station wagon shook whenever a truck barrelled past. “You have to face forward,” said my grandmother. “Keep your eyes on the highway ahead.” But I couldn’t stop watching the road unrolling in our wake. Miles and miles of everything slipping over the horizon, too far to see but never completely gone.