The Porcelain God

The Porcelain God

“Lynne, want to come for a sleepover tomorrow?” Lynn asked as we walked through the teeming halls toward our buses. “My Mom said it was okay.”

“Oh! A sleepover?” I almost dropped my armload of books. Sleepovers were where it was at. I’d never been invited to one but I’d seen the episode where Marsha Brady hosted one at her home. And on Mondays, the clicky crowd boasted about their hip sleepovers ad nauseum.

“Have your Mom drop you off at 4:00,” she ordered. “We can work on our sea creature reports for Freaky Fender. That old bag. Who assigns a project two weeks before Christmas? What a drag.”

“Yah, eighth grade can’t come fast enough. I’ll call you if my mom says no, but likely I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Her face lit up. “Cosmic.” She peeled off to catch her bus.

I grit my teeth. Groovy, cosmic, drag, cool and swinging, coming from someone who wore knee-hiding, home-sewn skirts with button-down white blouses and heavy lace-up shoes was as disturbing as The Night Gallery shows.

Since Valerie moved, I’d become Lynn’s best friend by default. Lynn’s only friend. We were two odd ducks bound together by loss. While everyone at school lumped us together, in reality we were quite dissimilar right down to spelling our mutual name differently. Even teachers were confused whether I was Lynne or Lynn.

The next day Dad drove me over to Lynn’s grayed-out farmhouse with its leaning chimney and muddy driveway. A wrap-around porch clutched together the many additions made to the house. The porch steps were sagging into the inevitable.

“Don’t you gals see enough of each other at school?,’” Dad teased.

“Dad, stop,” I begged. “See ya tomorrow at 4:00, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, I shut the car door and straightened as a fury of writhing black bodies headed toward me in full barking vehemence. I hightailed up the slanting steps. Mrs. Johnson opened the kitchen door and saved my hide.

I had been to the Johnson’s farm a few times, mostly to play in the barn or explore the wood lot and pond for specimens to use in previous tree and flowering plant projects for Fender. I’d only been inside her house to use the bathroom. Today the indescribable house odor I’d sniffed in the past was masked by something recently cooked or baked. Still, the poorly lit kitchen felt shadowy, creepy. I hesitated taking off my coat.

My concern vanished when Lynn zipped in beaming. “Want some hot chocolate? Did you bring your project and those books? Is having pizza okay? Want to go to church service tomorrow and help make sandwiches for the food pantry afterwards?”

Mrs. Johnson frowned and was about to say something so I chirped in. “I say yes to the first – the hot chocolate. And yes to the second – I brought the Funk and Wagnalls volumes you asked for. And I love pizza.” I didn’t know what to say to the last question. Would God be upset with me, a Catholic girl, attending a Baptist Church?

Lynn turned. “Cool. Let’s go to my room. Bring your stuff.” As we made our way down the hall, the old plank flooring spoke in moans and groans as if it was already tired of my visiting.

Her room was dark and cheerless. The one overhead lightbulb revealed drooping, yellowed wallpaper. Heavy, brownish-colored curtains covered the window. Her delicate white furniture with spindles and painted roses seemed out of place. I parked my overnighter on a chair and pulled out the books and my project notes.

Back in the kitchen, Lynn heaved a bulging cloth bag onto the table and slid out half a library of handwritten notes for her project. I looked away and cringed. Lynn’s projects always got the highest marks. How had she collected all that information already? Had her mom helped her? I sipped on my hot cocoa to hide my jealousy.

While we read and jotted notes from the encyclopedias, Mrs. Johnson puttered then baked a pizza. It came from a box! My Italian mother would not have taken it well seeing me eat three slices when my standard at home was two pieces of her homemade pie.

The farm dogs raised a ruckus again. The kitchen door crashed open. Lynn rocketed to her feet and so did I. Mr. Johnson staggered across the linoleum, dropped his black metal lunchbox on the drainboard, pulled a longneck from the fridge then clumped down the hall without saying a word. His uneven walk tapped out “See yah, See yah,” down the hall.

The bedroom door slamming broke the spell. I breathed deeply and almost gagged. The kitchen now reeked of saloon perfume. So that’s what I’d noticed on my previous visits.

Mrs. Johnson scowled then marched down the hall. That door slam set off a muffled shouting match. We focused on our pizza and notetaking as though the whole scene was just an extraordinarily ordinary part of the day.

From Lynn’s Britannica Volume B, I scribbled two pages of notes about blue whales. Her encyclopedias were a bonanza of details. “Whales, whales, whales,” I moaned. “I’m so sick of them.”

Lynn grunted, totally immersed in her work. I had no idea which sea creature she’d chosen for her project. She could be so secretive. Closing the F & W volume with a thunk, she pronounced, “I need your S and W volumes next.”

I stifled a yawn. “I’ll bring them to school Monday.”

“Don’t forget. Let’s get ready for bed. I just got a Neil Diamond album. It’s groovy.” She turned down the hall as I winced over her effort to be hip.

We sang along as we readied for bed. The room’s gloom preserved my sense of modesty over changing clothes in the same room. But hearing her struggling, I glanced over. She was pulling a flannel onesie over her ample torso including her bra. Huh? I quickly looking away. With the sound of the zipper, her grunting and gyrations ended. She pulled out the trundle for me, threw herself on her bed and snapped on her bedside lamp.

Curious, I asked, “Hey, do you sleep with your bra on? Isn’t it mighty uncomfortable to sleep in? I heard it can stunt your growth,” like I was some expert on the torturous contraptions. I tucked under the trundle covers.

She snorted. “That’s so silly. I’ve been sleeping in a bra for years yet I’m the tallest girl in our class. And likely I have the biggest chest too,” she added with pride.

With Twiggy’s flat-fronted, 90-pound frame still being “in”, Lynn’s expansive chest was not a fashion statement. “I---ah. You’ve got me beat, for sure.”

“My mom says wearing a bra at night prevents sagging.” She jumped to her feet. “Dang I forgot to go to the john before putting my jammies on. Do you have to go? Let’s go now, together. Get your toothbrush. Come on,” she commanded.

I hesitated. Two in a bathroom? Ever heard of privacy? Unsure how to push back against her orders, I slipped out from under the quilts and followed her down the hall. I discreetly huddled over the toilet while she brushed her teeth, then we switched places.

Finishing my brushing, I looked up in the mirror. “Why do you wear onesies to bed like a little kid? My three-year-old brother Dean wears them. Seems like a pain when you have to go to the bathroom in the mi...” My voice trailed away as I saw her expression darken like a thundercloud passing over the sun. I whispered, “Did I say something wrong?”

Flushed, she pulled the onesie back on and stormed down the hall. I trailed behind, biting my lip and cursing my curiosity. She crawled onto her bed and doused the lamp. Under her covers she wept.

God, what had I done? I’d hurt her feelings and ruined my first ever sleepover. I tucked the musty trundle quilt close around me and wished I could take back my words.

Lynn gasped, snapped on her lamp, jumped from her bed and strode to the door. She locked it.

“What the hell?” I hissed. Why did the unlocked door freak her out? I’d never locked my bedroom door. I certainly wasn’t going to ask.

She rooted back under her covers and turned her back on me.

Snuggling deeper into my pile of quilts, I decided to go home first thing in the morning and leave this fright-house far behind.

I was still awake when Lynn whispered, “My Mom made this onesie for me since it’s a lot harder for my Dad to take it off of me. Gives me time to fight him off or yell for help.”

What could I possibly say to that? I pretended I was asleep.

At the break of dawn, I flew out of bed and ran to the bathroom. Knelt down before the porcelain god and made loud sick sounds and flushed.

Mrs. Johnson appeared. “You okay?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Lynn’s face pop up behind her mom. Now we were three in a bathroom. Or me with an audience of two. I turned back and leaned over the throne. Ripped a deep bullfrog burp. I didn’t have to say a word.

Mrs. Johnson patted my back. “Must be a stomach bug. I’ll go call your mom.”

I nodded. Staring into the watery depths of that odoriferous bowl, I really felt nauseous. So I leaned back, not turning to look at Lynn still standing there.

After the longest time, she finally went back down the hall, her steps slapping out “Lie – er, Lie – er, Lie – er.” She knew.

When my legs started to cramp, I stood and leaned against the bathroom doorway pretending I didn’t know whether to abandon the bathroom or not. Mrs. Johnson reappeared, ducked into Lynn’s room and emerged with my overnighter and coat. Lynn didn’t come out of her room which was fine with me. Hugging my stomach, I walked past her bedroom without looking in and trailed her mom to the kitchen.

Seeing Dad’s car waiting at the bottom of the porch steps, I slipped into my boots and into the cold December morning in only my PJs. I opened the car door to find my sweet Dad had brought along a blanket and had warmed the car. I burrowed into the seat and threw the blanket over my head. Lynn’s mom dropped my stuff in the back seat and said something I didn’t hear. Then we left. The warm car did nothing to melt my frozen heart.

* * * * *

Kneeling before the porcelain god, I prepared to lose what little lunch I was able to eat. Oh dear God, this was becoming interminable despite all the anti-nausea meds I was taking. My chemo-stressed stomach didn’t like food anymore. The bowl’s odor was the last straw. Ughhhhh.

Tearing off some toilet paper, I wiped my mouth, blew my nose and laid on the cool tile floor. I prayed I wouldn’t have to do this again today. Feeling feverish, alone and overwhelmed by pain, my mind plummeted to the depths of despair.

The buried memory of an earlier toilet bowl surfaced. I massaged my temples hoping it would ooze back from whence it came.

I stood and leaned on the sink to brush my teeth. My best efforts to kill the taste with peppermint toothpaste and mouthwash added to the burn of my raw mouth. More unwelcomed memories seeped back into my consciousness. In that seventh-grade debacle, I’d knelt before the porcelain god pretending to be sick. Now as a seventy-three-year-old spinster fighting pancreatic cancer, I wasn’t playacting but wished I was.

Feeling shaky, I eased onto the seat. My internal gaze slid into the dark well of unsavory memories. I recalled how my playacting had freed me from Lynn’s house with its all-too-disturbing undercurrent. Like an animal fleeing from an unexpected sound, I didn’t have to understand what scared me or what was going on in that household, I just had to run from it. And that friendship. Just like that.

When I cold-shouldered Lynn in school on Monday, she caught on instantly. Our classmates grew perplexed seeing Lynn without Lynne and Lynne without Lynn. When the nosiest of the bunch asked, I said I was just taking a vacation from friendship. I never mentioned that creepy sleepover to anyone.

In high school, I regained my friend-footing and acquired a BFF. But despite what that acronym pledged, my life’s relationships were never forever. My BFF and I hadn’t spoken in decades. Penance for the fickle.

I filled my icepack and stretched out on the couch remembering how I had sliced Lynn from my life and hadn’t looked back. My actions had felt self-protective and righteous back then, but now they had gained the sour stench of betrayal.

A couple of years after our split, Lynn had come up in a conversation between my boyfriend and me. He was pressuring me to have sex. I argued that no junior girls had had sex yet and I wasn’t about to be first. He replied in a snarky, condescending tone that he and four other boys had lined up and debased Lynn in an empty classroom at the end of seventh grade. He bragged that she let them do whatever they wanted with her.

It was too perverse to be true. I slammed my mind’s door on his preposterous tale and hadn’t thought about it again until now. Lying on the couch with an icepack on my feverish forehead, a vision of the evil entwining and choaking the groovy out of Lynn’s life illuminated my mind. “Oh God, no,” I moaned, covering my mouth to contain the ugliest of all thoughts. Nonetheless, it still burst forth. “Her father was raping her.” That’s what she was trying to tell me when we were pretending to sleep.

Excuses poured forth to pardon me. I was so naïve then. I didn’t get it. I couldn’t imagine it. My mind had closed down in self-defense. No father would force himself on his daughter. Look at my wonderful Dad.

Given what her father had done to her in those tender years, was the tale of her submitting to the randy seventh grade boys true? Why had she acquiesced to them? Had her father torn down all her barriers? Was it self-loathing?

Or was it the only way she knew how to relate to the male species? Was she looking for love? Caring? The sneer I heard in my ex-boyfriend’s storytelling voice told me they dishonored her submission, her gifting of herself. It confirmed her status as an outcast. Tears leaked from the corners of my closed eyes.

The evil affected her life. How could it not? Through the grapevine, I’d heard she had married and divorced. Never had children. Did she fear her husband would prey on their children? She had become a pediatric nurse. Was it to fill the void of childlessness or to protect and save sick kids? My feverish brain struggled to understand this broken Lynn for the very first time. Sobs burst from me until I was incapable of sobbing any longer.

Hatred of Lynn’s father overwhelmed me. I sat up and clenched my fists in righteous anger. How could a man to do such a hateful thing to his precious daughter? And why hadn’t Lynn’s mother done more than sew onesies and install a bedroom door lock to protect her from him? She hadn’t done enough, not even close. Lynn was fearful of even going to the bathroom alone. Of sleeping without locking her door. Why hadn’t Mrs. Johnson moved them away or thrown Mr. Johnson out of the house? Damn them both for crushing her life. Finally, the dreadful picture was clear. Sixty years too late.

But was this portrait truly complete? No, not until I acknowledged my piece of it: I

had abandoned her. Isolated her. Forgotten her. This was all my fault.

Could I have blown the whistle on her parents? Today, yes. Then no. Had I remained her friend, could I have pressured her to move in with a relative or neighbor? Maybe. Could she have hung out at my house instead of ever being home alone with that monster? Neither of us could drive yet so that would have been tough to coordinate. Could our friendship have raised her self-worth so she would have avoided those tweenage boy’s advances? Maybe. Could I have influenced her to choose the right loving partner, build a family with him, and live a blissful life together? Doubtful. Trusting anyone would have been an insurmountable feat for her. Because of me. My nails gouged my palms.

The illuminated consequences of my actions and inaction rested like a boulder on my heart. I had added to Lynn’s abasement and isolation. An onslaught of tears poured down my cheeks. I had always prided myself on being a good girl, with a few minor exceptions. Could I claim my selfish innocence and my self-protective fear as excuses for my cruelty? Do such excuses matter? Absolve me? In whose eyes?

Blessed be the poor in spirit like Lynn. She will be enjoying God’s kingdom long before I get there.

Resting my head back on the sofa cushion, I hoped my tears had washed away the last of the evil from my pores. If not, I would wait for and welcome other tear-filled illuminations until there were no more past offenses for me to face here. Then I’ll be prepared for my looming life review with God. Meanwhile all I can do is own, no, embrace the suffering I had caused. For what else was left of my life but atonement.