Stuck

Stuck 

Looking down at her cousin, the fat-faced girl smiled for a second before realizing that forcing her head through the slats of Grandma’s staircase was a mistake. She sat on a red velvet runner and saw her best cousin Millie looking up at her. Vivian Fontenot smiled and used her good right hand to grab a rail slat and pull herself to a standing position, but her head bumped the polished oak. Her butt plopped onto the stair step as Claude came sliding in his socks down the long hall below and stopped when he noticed the girl above.

He fake-fell on the hardwood floor next to Millie and pointed, “Lookit you, Viv! Now you done it! Ha!” Millie giggled with Claude to betray her closest cousin.

Viv concentrated on telling her weak left arm to grab the railing, and when both hands held wood, she pulled her head towards the vertical slats where her ears kept her from freedom the way a stubborn Cajun’s pride could keep him from winning a bet in a poker game with Yankees from north Louisiana. The pain in her ears and neck wasn’t half as hurtful as the embarrassment that settled in her five-year-old soul. She blinked and stared at the pair of curious, yet useless kids below. “I’m stuck, y’all!"

Claude’s exaggerated laughs and Millie’s squeals drew a short crowd of cousins.

“What y'all doin?” asked Angie, a disheveled girl of six.

“What’s wrong with her?” said Zoday, a sturdy cousin with a missing front tooth and light smattering of powdered sugar on his navy dress shirt.

Claude said. “Zoday, good thing you ain’t up there. No way your ears ever get outta there!” He punched his cousin and ran toward the kitchen with Zoday at his heels.

Millie noticed Viv’s for real tears and yelled, “Mom! Vivvy’s hurt!”

Most of the adult females were sitting in a circle in the big living room drinking wine and spiked egg nog while too many kids ran in and around large wads of torn Christmas paper and empty boxes. No parent heeded Millie’s call. Viv squished her eyes together to focus on the hi-fi music below. Zydeco...zydeco...zydeco played in her head as she slipped into a movie daydream.

Viv opened her eyes to see two flying monkeys zoom by. The second one turned and stuck its tongue out at her from its boy’s face. Viv straightened her shoulders and examined the rope around her ankles. A small dog yipped encouragement. “I hear ya, Toto,” she told him. “The evil witch is coming, but I have a plan.” Red and green ribbons secured the girl’s hands behind her back. She flattened the fingers of her healthy left hand and pulled and pulled until it was free, giving the right hand room to also wriggle out. Viv pulled out a red miniature Swiss Army knife from her pocket and focused on its gleaming blade. “Watch out, boy,” she said as she used the knife to saw the rope on her feet right at the frayed knot she had noticed near her left ankle. “Heh! Ha! Ha Ha!” cackled the approaching witch. Viv sawed in fast motion. The rope sagged as a big- eared monkey flew past, its wing hitting Viv’s head. Toto barked. Viv drew her feet under her plaid skirt and put both hands behind her back. “I’ve got you now, my pretty!” laughed the witch as she advanced. The evil green face with its long chin leaned in and pointed a crooked index finger at Viv. The girl’s steady blue eyes stared right back. Toto moved close to Viv’s side.

“It’s ok,” said Millie as she kneeled beside her unfortunate cousin. Viv wished she could see her possible rescuer’s face, but the stair slats forbid any peripheral sight. Millie leaned close to Viv’s head. “I’ll get you out.” Viv smelled peppermint on Millie’s breath and wanted to feel assurance, but the cousin’s first idea to grab her shoulders and yank Viv’s neck and head back fast and hard caused her to shriek like a goat trapped in tangle of barbed wire. The scream had the perfect pitch and volume to reach the soberest parent’s ear and soon Tante Toni joined the crowd below.

“What in the world is going on?” demanded the aunt.

Millie called from above, “Vivvy’s stuck!”

“My goodness, Vivian,” said Toni as she shooed her way through the spectators and walked up the stairs to help her niece. Millie moved down a stair step as her mother climbed and sat next to Viv. Toni’s seven-month-pregnant belly made her sigh before she addressed Viv: “Why in the world you’d wanna stick your head through there, cher?”

Viv’s answer to her favorite aunt was a sloppy “Sorry.”

Toni was mother of five kids and had rescued her oldest from a rabid raccoon and her youngest from a close circle of misguided first graders. She could do this.

“She cain’t get out, Momma,” said Millie as she gave Viv’s left patent leather shoe several soft pats.

“Do what I say,” Toni told her niece.

“It’s ok,” said Millie and patted Viv’s shoe to a steady rhythm.

Toni stood with a grunt and leaned over the railing to hold Viv’s head between her long fingers. “Hold still.” Viv held her breath. “We’ll see if we can slide your head out.” Toni’s steady hands guided the curly head towards her protruding stomach.

A twinge in Viv’s neck caused a squeaky “Owwww” as her ears knocked into the slats.

“Darn big head,” Toni whispered and she pulled harder hoping a little more force would get this job done. Viv heard her neck crack and believed her head was about to pop off.

“Noooo!” yelled Viv. “Owww! No!”

Millie patted faster before Viv’s left foot shot forward and kicked her cousin in her mouth. “Hey!” fussed the foot-tapper as her lip felt the jolt.

There was ohhhing from the short crowd below. Viv shut both eyes and focused on the music coming from downstairs. Zydeco…zydeco…zydeco took her away.

Viv ran through thick woods. Her unusual new friends couldn’t protect her. She even lost sight of Toto. She heard screeches overhead and saw large monkeys with wings. She ran faster, but two monkeys grabbed her shoulders and before she could say, “Help!” her feet with the red sparkly shoes kicked the air. She thought she’d never touch ground again.

“How Santa gonna find Viv if she stays on Grandma’s stairs?” Angie said to no one in particular as she shook her head and pondered her cousin’s bad luck.

Toni, up since six that morning, was wrapping gifts, making sugar cookies, refereeing kid fights, and getting them bathed and dressed in their holiday best while her husband tinkered with the station wagon. Toni had said the rosary before breakfast in hopes that their unpredictable car would make the drive to and from the family’s annual Christmas party two hours away.

Toni now took her frustration out on her nearest child who had tried to calm her stuck cousin. “Get outta my way and go downstairs. Now!”

Millie tasted her salty, throbbing lip and held in her tears as she retreated to the bottom of the stairs and sat down to nurse all her hurts.

Still stuck, Viv let her pain turn to panic and she whispered, “Shit,” a word her momma liked a lot.

Toni turned on the child, “What did you say?!”

Viv remembered that her favorite aunt could imitate the Wicked Witch of the West’s evil laugh when she wanted to, and the idea that she may not be at the mercy of the most maternal of hands entered her head.

“I WANT MOMMA!” Viv cried out in a clear, confident sound she did not know she had in her. Angie echoed the “Momma cry” and dashed to the big living room to find Tante Gerry.

Next Viv shut her mouth like a spring-loaded trap door because her head was suddenly pushed forward as Toni flattened Viv’s ears with the tips of strong limber fingers and pulled the kid’s head hard with the determination of a sober, tired mother of five who had had enough of this Christmas Eve party. Viv felt certain her right ear had ripped off. The intense pain mixed with Viv’s freedom from the stair slats and she let go a rush of fat tears. She sat on the eleventh step right below her former favorite aunt just as a tipsy Momma appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

Toni smoothed Viv’s abundant curls and led the girl down several steps before Gerry had her crying daughter wrapped in a possessive whole-body hug. “Vivvy, cher, Vivvy. You ok, my baby?” Gerry kissed as many tears as her wine-tinted lips could catch. “You ok now, cher. Momma has you.” The zydeco...zydeco...zydeco music wafted up from the living room stereo.

Viv looked down at the green gooey remains of the melted witch. Munchkins skipped and danced around her. “You did it! You did it!” they sang. “Our valley is now free!” Viv batted her eyes before breaking into song, “Come on, baby./ Let’s do the twist. /Come on, baby, Let’s do the twist.” All the munchkins tried their best versions of the dance, and Viv jumped onto a stump to twist like the pro she was. “Take me by your little hand and go like this.”

“Stop squirming, cher,” said Gerry. “I don’t wanna drop you.”

Just then Toni walked past them and almost tripped over Millie on the bottom step of the landing. “Look out! You about made me fall,” Toni told her fourth child. Millie sniffled, gazed at the bottom of her mom’s big belly, and held out a bloody Kleenex. “Get up, girl. Meet me by the door. We’re heading home.”

Viv latched onto her mom like a spider monkey and Gerry took slow high-heel steps downwards. At the landing Gerry lifted her chin over her daughters’ curls to address Toni walking into the big living room. “Merci beaucoup, Toni.”

“De rein,” said Toni.

“How’d you get Viv’s head unstuck?” said Gerry, but Toni was meeting the challenge of rounding up five over-sugared kids on Christmas Eve and packing them into the family station wagon while her husband finished his cigar and solved world problems with the men on the front porch.

Gerry, still entwined by Viv, saw Millie sitting on a living room foot stool near the French doors that exited to the hall. Millie’s white blonde head bobbed up and down as she let out soft sobs.

“What’s wrong, baby?” asked Tante Gerry. “Ya not worried about Vivvy, are you? She’s all fine - see?” Gerry sat with her daughter on the faded recliner next to Millie’s stool. Viv had her thumb in her mouth but took it out to give her cousin a survivor’s smile.

Millie shook her head and pooched out her swollen lip. Gerry repositioned her clinging child and offered her niece a place to sit. “Come here, cher. I bet that hurts and hurts.”

Millie deftly climbed and sat beside her sweetest aunt and stuck out her boo-boo lip. “Vivvy kicked me,” she said.

“She what? I thought Viv was...” Gerry looked from her daughter to her niece in confusion.

“Noooosh,” Viv said around the inserted thumb.

“You did it; you did.” Millie’s green eyes challenged her cousin’s baby blues. Neither child saw the other’s truth.

From the hallway Toni broke the stand-off. “Millicent Ann! Get yourself into the car!” Toni had a kid on her hip as she tossed Millie her blue corduroy coat with the black velvet collar. “Allons!” Millie forgot her cousin, her aunt, and her swollen lip as she slid off the chair and snapped to.

Thirty-two minutes later Viv and her family were home. Gerry kissed her daughter’s forehead and said,“Bon soir, bug.” 

Viv laid her head on her soft hugging pillow and thought, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”