Let Me Introduce You to My Mother

Did I ever tell you about the time my mom held

a gun in the face of intruders who wanted

to mark us  or kill us or rape the other daughter?

But my mom ….she was having none of it.

GET ON THE COUCH YOU BITCHES! Mom yelled right in their faces

while the gun said hello to them right in their faces.

The kind of gun hello that says yes, this gun, this gun,

is going off.  Then mom held still with her target in sight.

She told them it was loaded.  It was.  I was surprised

these four big women could fit on the new couch.

We had heard intruders were coming.

But I was not in control at all…of Mom, or the situation.

But I warned them.  YOU BETTER LISTEN!  MOM WILL SHOOT YOU!

I tried to give these four women a pathetic chance.  I said,

YES…SHE WILL SHOOT YOU BITCHES. SHE’S GOING TO DO IT!

My voice gave away that this kid has seen her mom do some shit before.

I knew what had happened to Mollie.  She was going to testify.

So these big black women thought it would be easy.  To scare a 14-year-old away. 

But mom was home.  And so was her new couch.  And we never

had anything new.  But this new couch held a bunch of women protecting

a child rapist.  So Mom held that gun on them until the police came

to take them away.  Thank God. Thank God.

Thank God mom didn’t want to shoot her new couch.

We knew that Thursday’s were the best days,
to find essentials, like clothes, blankets and a broken toaster.

At eleven, I had no use for mismatched Tupperware,
worn out triple D bras, vacuums that did not work,
and oddball coffee cups with cliché’s
that read, “Best Dad in the World.”

My Dad had no such mug. He did the thinking,
and thought it was a good idea to put me in the drop box,
head first, because I was small, and could do the reaching
for more stuff.  His plan was to pull me out by my feet
in case of danger, like a cop driving up the alley.

Dad had it all figured out if we got caught.  His story included
good samaritans donating sacks of items, when we were really
sneaking the donations into the back of the Station Wagon.

Except Dad didn’t plan on the cop driving by just as
he stuffed my wiry body into the donation box.
And I didn’t plan on Dad letting go of our plan, or my ankles,
when the cop pulled up to get an even closer look,
the door snapping shut as Dad let go.  I could hear
Dad driving away like a drunken adolescent, while I
hung like a retarded bat, two feet sticking out,
never to retrieve any of his jail worthy prizes.

"It Wasn’t Like in the Movies"

In the Colorado street, calling you,
instead, my brother’s voice on your phone.
The answer given from a diplomat.
“They think there’s been a drowning.”

No.  No. 
Don’t do this to me.
Neighbors heard.  Strangers too,
and helped me into the house.  I forgot
I was in the street.  But I remember
they wouldn’t let me stay there
and die.  I tried so hard.

The day before, when I said goodbye.
it was simple.  You forgot to hug me.
To say I love you.   You sat on the couch,
and just smiled.  I in the doorway,
taking a second look, at the first time
I saw you growing up.

I poured out, all over this road, where
the street wouldn’t let me stand up.
Gravel in fists, didn’t help
to understand the news
you were still lost in the water.

I am so tired of the "good girl gone bad phenomena," which is explained in "It Wasn't Like In The Movies," where I describe growing up in a household leading a drug ring, but how I manage to get accepted to a pharmacy school at a private catholic institution and still pay for it...in the regular way...It has been said that my life could be made into a book/movie before I even hit my 20's.

There were many arrests (including my mom and sister) because of huge drug operations in the small community of Norfolk, NE. I raised my sister's children while on rotations (clinicals) during my last year of pharmacy school because of her eventual arrest, as well as the arrest of my mother. Wire taps and FBI spies were common at family gatherings…where I could have gotten arrested simply by having a cup of coffee...and I couldn't expose who my family was while I remained a student, in part so that the school wouldn't discover my family's history of illegal drug operation and kick me out...there was quite a bit of media involvement...even though I had nothing to do with it...and I wasn't at my sister's house when it was surrounded by a huge SWAT team and drawn guns...but there were many instances when I could have joined the family profession...but I always believed in trying to do the "right" thing.  I was in college for ten years.

....

....

I graduate (gave the speech at Creighton and quoted Bukowski).  However, I end up homeless in Arizona on Christmas Eve in 2006 because I quit Walgreen's...I hated the job so much...even at over $100,000 a year. I moved back to Nebraska to spend more time with my sister's children and because I had no where else to go, and I wasn't sure what to do with myself or career...Later, I try to ping pong back again to Arizona...where my writing came to an abrupt halt with the passing of my niece Dakota.  We were  similar in how we decided to make our way in life except she was better...she believed God was always there for her...but the day I left to try Arizona out again, I got the news that she drowned while rescuing another child...I hadn't even made it half-way through the trip when I had to go back to Nebraska to experience the worst tragedy of my life...and in the middle of just trying to get up and out of bed, my grandfather dies...

....

....

But I do make it back to Arizona…which is where I am located as I write this...and I have a home...which is hilarious how that worked out...because it's a retirement community...I'm 32.

....

....

"It Wasn't Like In The Movies" will spill the details on what it takes to remain religious(?), yet ethical when the sky keeps falling down and there's no home, a drowning, a failed marriage and career…It's about having nothing when I worked so hard to have everything. To find out what happens "in the end" you will have to get "It Wasn't Like In The Movies" and find out...at this point, I plan to self publish my chapbook that contains both prose and poetry, but may look at other avenues of interest.......

Someone asked me to post this old poem so here it is.

Sundays...

Sundays were our days.  I would make the long drive

to the Women's Correctional Facility in York.

On the highway I thought about all the homework

I put off, the church I didn't go to…but I would be with you,

on Sundays.

Buzz in at the front gate, stand in line and show them my I.D.

Mark on the line relationship to inmate—daughter.

Mary Moler's daughter.

Walk through the metal detector.         Wait in line some more--

because they had so many doors.

Go into the bathroom and get frisked.

After that I could buy you peanuts and a Diet Pepsi

from the vending machine, and if I were lucky,

there would be Jalapeno chips left…

your favorite because you thought the inmates who cooked

made the food dirty--

            Somehow, on Sundays.

Growing up I could never seem to figure out exactly what my feet were supposed to do.  I even learned to tie my shoelaces left-handed instead of right-handed which seemed sort of symbolic of my feet fate...they would always seem backwards and awkward.  This almost made me flunk kindergarten.  That's backwards, they said.  Can't you tie them the other way?  No.  No I couldn't.  This carried into the rest of my childhood.  One Easter morning I wanted to hurry up and find all the chocolate and eggs, and all that other stuff before my older brother got up and took it all.  I flew out of bed before he did.  But I tripped in the doorway of our bedroom over my nightgown (I think), and he promptly woke up and just stepped right over me as my body that was casually in his way.  He was used to this.  He got all the eggs.  Another time I was trying to hang out with my older brother and his friends as they rummaged through an empty apartment building on our block that had not been occupied for quite some time.  They decided to jump from an outside stair landing and onto the ground.  They did this quite successfully.  I on the other hand, could not seem to get enough lift from my feet as I jumped from the landing.  In mid-jump the seat of my pants got stuck on a nail that was protruding from the edge of the landing.  Why in the world I had not been wearing underwear that day was beyond me.  My brother and his friends ran away laughing as I was stuck dangling from this nail with no underwear and not having any idea how to get down.  It is no surprise then, that when sheets of ice recently covered everything that I needed to take special measures (Underwear?  Check).  Walking out of my front door it felt like I was ice skating to my Blazer.  The neighbors who never said anything at all to me even gave me a warning, "Watch out, it's slick."  I got into my Blazer with a smile on my face as if I had just won a gold medal in figure skating while juggling bowling balls because I had not fallen.  Driving to the mall I wondered if I had finally figured out the nature of my own feet.  I was pretty happy.  Until I attempted to get out of my car.  With one leg out, there was no traction whatsoever as my first foot hit the ground.  Hitting the pavement wasn't the scary part...My body almost got ran over by an old lady in some giant Buick who thought that no matter where she was, she had the right away.  Even in her car.  I had hit the pavement so hard that when I hit the front side of my body it flipped over to the back side.  I saw the faces of the other mall-goers which said, "Shit.  That sucks.  Glad that didn't happen to me."  They just kept walking.  In Nebraska it is ok to stare, so they just stared as they walked into the mall.  I was so embarrassed that I thought about just crawling under my Blazer until I thought it was safe to roll back out. 

He lists his collectibles

in alphabetical order

with the number he owns of each

            Apothecary jars…9

            Fairbury water pump…2

            Robert Browning poetry book…1

            Rock Island Depot lanterns…6

He also lists the running total value

In the right corner of every page.

At $600,000 I wasn't halfway

through the ledger.

"Is there anything you want?" He asks,

but I can no longer pretend

I am still interested

in these items acquired over a lifetime.

I want to tell him to stop trying to hurry death,

stop waiting for it like a bleak, scheduled appointment

in his leather bound book.

His tact so precise, but as if he is working

on an ordinary chore.

How do I tell him, this 78 year old man,

sitting across from me, arms folded,

that I want the Robert Browning poetry book

because his mom used to read to him,

every night, the last thing he did

before bed.

The Search for Andy

I came to your house a couple times,

instead of finding my way to the grocery store

to buy cigarettes for my mom.

And because we both tired those cigarettes,

we became friends.

The summer of 1987 we pooled money,

counted it right there on the hot

sidewalk in front of your house

so we could buy packages

and packages of Black Cats.

You came running out of that screen door,

laughing hard, because you lit a firecracker

in the house, on a dare.  After that,

I couldn't come over anymore.

Years later I didn't even want to stay

in that town anymore.

Nothing was supposed to happen in Fairbury.

The front page photo: 

Your dad in overalls

made for someone who used the land

to support himself, but there he was

standing up in that shaky boat,

standing up to desperation, his back turned.

The fish finder in his right hand

said everything. 

The water near the dam was too high

for anyone else to dare to search with him.

The caption read a few large objects

picked up, but not you. 

It was assumed

you were fishing.  Tried

to get your line

untangled.

Letters from  1107 Recharge Road

One by one they came.

Written with a pencil

you couldn't afford from jail.

Your letters—the return address 1107 Recharge Rd.

Inmate number 94557 became your name.

It was the most you'd ever said to me about anything.

I wanted to show you that I believed every single word,

when you got out, in ten years or so, so I saved

this currency, for more of your attention.

Sometimes you talked about your worn shoes,

jail uniforms and pencils…things you couldn't buy.

But mostly you asked for money, even from behind bars,

which reminded me

I still haven't done enough

for you to say anything at all.

1.  Some of my friends know that I am remodeling an apartment to live in.  Today, I walked into the bathroom carefully enough to avoid the huge hole in the floor that goes straight to the basement.  I gently turned on the light discouraged at what I would see, but then the entire ceiling caved in and fell on my head.  This did not happen fast.  Everything just kept falling and hitting me in the head in huge pieces at a time.  There is an exit from the bathroom to the basement via steps, but one of the steps was missing that I have tripped over many times, and I was afraid I would fall down the basement steps to my death if I took off running.  If I tried to leave the way I came, I was worried I would trip over all the equipment that I stepped over to enter the bathroom in the first place...And since the shower that was once in the bathroom now sat awkardly blocking the bathroom entrance (and exit), my lack of options went through my head like a broken computer.  So I stood there and wondered how long it would take before the guy's toilet in the apartment above would also fall on my head, since I knew it was right above my bathroom ceiling that was hitting me so hard I thought I would still die.  Today, I learned that it is ok to take one of three options even when all of them just plain suck.

2.  I learned my cats could be registered at Blockbuster and at the Pharmacy.  At Blockbuster, they let you add anyone you wish to have on the membership.  After an incident came to mind that happened at the Pharmacy where I work, I decided to register Papa Jose and Stumpy just to see what would happen...they are new members.  At the Pharmacy, it is becoming more and more common to give animal patients human drugs...many pets even have insurance these days.  By law in the state I am in, it is REQUIRED that Pharmacists offer to counsel each and every patient.  One lady seriously made me counsel her dog to see if he liked the beef flavor of his Benadryl.  Today, I learned that it is ok to hate retail but not the patient.

Well.  here I am and it is cold, and I see my breath at night, and even during the day.  It's odd the things I missed.  but I am back, here in Nebraska in an undisclosed location so my tires remain inflated.  I'm doing well, and in a hospital position.  Thinkin' about teaching again.  Doing well. 

I bought a little "egg" that I bought before I left Arizona...complete with a recipe for growing catuses...didn't think they would grow, but there are about 15 in that little egg.  It's weird the things I miss.

I've been thinking about people lately.  The ones I don't miss.  It's good to be home.

I don't aspire to be a bag lady or anything, but...

I have been having a hard time finding time to shop lately, let alone furnish my new apartment...working 40+ hours a week as a new pharmacist, and teaching as well has been killing all my time.  So I  guess I didn't find it that strange when I came home from work the other day, and right in front of the community dumpster sat a beautiful suede-like couch...and I took it home, walking it rather quickly in what I hoped was a non-conspicuous manner into my apartment (with some help) with a smirk on my face as if I had just brought it home from the new and possibly used furniture store.

Because of this find, I was just "glancing" again as I came home the next day.  There sat an antique roll top DESK!  I don't think I could even afford this thing if I had really found it in the antique store...and in such great condition.

So then, the NEXT DAY, I found a really cool movie set looking chair made out of real wood.  That made it into my apartment as well.

And then a FREAKIN WOOD TABLE...but someone else snagged that before I could haul it away.

However, I'm thinking I might find a golden goose or something out there in a couple days.  This is getting fun.

I recently moved to Arizona, so I just wanted to check and see how "Nebraska" I really am...only because I am homesick, and because I went to a yard sale the other day here in Scottsdale, and I didn't even realize those are probably a Nebraska thing too because I was obsessing about their yard sale "setup"...it was a mess...even more so, I have NEVER in my life been to a Macy's.  I think I should have gotten points for that.

I left some of my own comments in parenthesis...

[X] You were born in Nebraska
[] You are proud that you are not from one of those square states
[] You know all the words to There is No Place Like Nebraska
[X] You remember your first trip to Memorial Stadium
[] You have met Tom Osborne and it was a moving experience
Total: 2

[X] You know THE game refers to that weeks college football game
[] You claim to be a husker fan since birth
[X] You can pronounce Norfolk (Nor-fork), Beatrice (BE-at-triss), and Kearney (Car-knee) (I graduated high school from Norfolk...and yeah, that's how they know if you are actually from Norfolk or not, by the way you pronounce it.  FYI...I got my first two college degrees from UNK..)
[X] You know the story of why Norfolk is misspelled. (Of course I do)
[X] You voted/rooted for Tom Osborne for Govenor (And...I am NOT a husker fan).
Total: 4 (I should have subtracted one for NOT being a husker fan...that is sort of a given in Nebraska).

[X] You take pride in knowing that on Saturdays, Memorial stadium is the third largest city in the state.
[X] You know that the statue on the dome of the state capital is actually sowing seed - not bowling (They teach us this on our field trips...I also had a field trip to an actual farm, and I was also a proud member of Future Farmers of America...literally people would come in with cow poo ALL OVER their boots...only then did I eliminate "farmer" as a potential job.)
[] You can drive through towns like Wahoo with a straight face (I will never be able to do this).
[XXX] You know what "knee high by the Fourth of July" refers to. (I was a detassler, and that is how I bought my school clothes and supplies every year)
[] You list your religious preference as "Cornhusker."
Total: 3

[X] You consider using your life savings to go to the Colorado-Nebraska football game. (I'm not a fan AT ALL, but I have considered this once).
[] There's a tornado warning and you go outside to watch for it (In Nebraska you either go outside and stare from the porch, or you RUN LIKE HELL because the alarms are so outdated, when you actually hear the the sirens, you are ALREADY IN DEEP SHIT).
[] You think Abraham Lincoln was named after the capital of Nebraska.
[X] "Little Smokies" are something you serve on special occasions.
[] You think the "Red Sea" refers to the football stadium on Saturdays.
Total: 2

[X] Using the elevator involves a corn truck.
[X] You know cow pies aren't made of beef.
[] You actually buy manure.
[X] You can tell the smell of a skunk and the smell of a feed lot apart (absolutely!!)
[] You consider any building a mall, if it's bigger than the local Wal-Mart.
Total: 3

[X] Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway. (This has happened to me way too much).
[XXXX] You know several people who have hit a deer. (The number one reason in Nebraska people get full coverage insurance).
[X] Your school classes were canceled because of the cold.
[X] Your school classes were canceled because of the heat.
[X] You switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day (have done this this year, prior to the move).
Total: 5

[X] You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition... Example: "Where's my coat at?"
[X] You can actually locate Nebraska on the United States map.
[XXXX] Detassling was your first job.
[X] You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
[] You can't understand why Johnny Carson ever left.
Total: 4 (I was thinking of adding an extra point here because I attended the high school where Johnny Carson donated money to give us a tiny little theater for our acting club)

[X] You laugh at people who drive under 50 on gravel roads
[X] You learned the finger wave at an early age
[] You think vegetarians shouldnt be allowed in Nebraska
[] You eat at Runza at least once a week
[X] Your mail comes addressed with your name and your town and you still get it
Total: 3

[] Its called pop.
[X] You bring your groceries home in sacks
[X] You don't have an accent and are proud of that (I have heard we do).
[X] Out West refers to western Nebraska
[X] You can draw the state outline without looking at a map
Total: 4

[X] You're proud of things invented in Nebraska....Kool-Aid
[X] You think nothing of Hooker County (FOR REAL...there is also a county called CUMING county, and it appears as if the town blew any city funds they might have had for a huge sign stating the name of the county...).
[] You wear Husker Apparel to Church (NEVER, but I have seen this more so than anything else)
[] You refuse to get married in the Fall in fear of missing a football game (PEOPLE SCHEDULE THEIR WEDDINGS AROUND THE GAME)
[] You believe Nebraska really is the good life and could never leave (I already left).
Total: 2

(Bonus Points for ME:  Add 2 for taking Auto Mechanics in high school)

Grand Total: 32

Now Multiply by 2  = "I'm 66 percent Nebraskan"