Mama's Skeletons

Mama’s Skeletons

Written by Tammy Varner Hornbeck

*contains some profanity*

I remember when this one particular family skeleton came out of the closet. It was my thirteenth birthday in 1984. I was living with my mother Robbie in Dallas, Texas at the time. I hadn’t been home long. Before this I had been living with my father in Farmersville. But that is another story.

My mother Robbie didn’t participate in the “motherly” role very often. Usually just holidays and occasionally, but not always, birthdays. I guess she was making the effort because I had just been packed up and shipped off to live with her a week before. I never hoped or expected anything from her—it was less painful that way. So, when she said she was going to come home early from the bar so that we could have her famous spaghetti dinner, I was happy with just that. I didn’t expect any presents and we never had a party.  

Mama cooked like a true Italian. She made her sauce early in the morning and set it on the stove to simmer all day, letting the spices cook into the sauce. It was always our job to keep an eye on it and stir it with a wooden spoon occasionally to keep it from sticking. Then, hours later, she would make the pasta and garlic bread. Unfortunately, and to mother’s intense ire, the sauce rarely lasted until that moment. Us children had a bad habit of eating the sauce as it simmered bowl by bowl with bread and butter and when Mama finally got home from the bar and found out that we had eaten half the sauce, she was livid!

Already half-drunk, she stormed through the small two-bedroom apartment she rented in order for me to come home. She screamed and she cussed the whole time she was opening kitchen cabinet doors to get two small glasses; opening the cabinet doors under the kitchen sink to pull out her Canadian Mist whiskey; and while she swigged glass after glass. Mama could hold her liquor better than most men. She drank her whiskey straight and chased it with water. She was mean when she drank, which was from the time she woke up (it was sitting on her nightstand waiting for her) to the time she went to bed (which was usually four o’clock in the morning). The fact that she came home early to “celebrate” my birthday just meant we had to endure her rages for a lot longer.

Mama had gone all out for this “party.” She had called my older brother Ronnie, my older sister Shelly, and her husband Hoppy. They had all showed up before Mama came home from the bar. They just hung out, ate, and smoked weed. My oldest sister Debbie wasn’t invited, but she never missed a birthday. I don’t know how she found out I was back home, but she did. She showed up with a card and a birthday present. She had bought me a portable record player and a new Elvis Presley album. I loved Elvis Presley and I spent a lot of time in my room alone, so she knew I needed a way to listen to my records without needing the console stereo in the living room. I loved it! So, while my older brothers and sisters hung out in the living room—they came more to see each other and eat Mama’s sauce than to see me, I laid in the floor on my stomach in my bedroom listening to my records on my new record album.

I heard mama’s screaming and cussing over the music behind my closed bedroom door. After about ten to fifteen minutes had passed and I couldn’t tune it out any longer, I got brave enough to open my door and peek my head out. I could see all my brothers and sisters standing around trying to calm mother down. Ronnie was telling her it wasn’t that big of a deal and that she should be used to it by now. He laughed and said, “You know we can’t resist your fuckin’ good ass spaghetti sauce!” Debbie was quietly standing close to the door. Shelly was the firecracker in the bunch, and she went toe-to-toe with mother more than any of us. “Mother, for god’s sake! There’s still plenty of fuckin’ sauce left! Everyone is fed, and that’s all that matters. We’re all happy and Tammy is happy. Don’t ruin her birthday! You just got her back! If that’s what you want to do, ruin her birthday, like you do all the others, then go ahead and keep raising hell! But it’s fuckin’ bullshit!” I crept into the hall a little more until I could see Mama standing at the stove stirring the sauce with one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other.

I crept up Mama’s side and slipped my arms around her waist. “It’s okay Mama, I’m happy. Don’t be mad.” She looked down at me and shoved me away, “Go back to your room Tammy Sue!” Hurt, I slowly walked backwards a few steps. Tears of rejection filled my eyes and fell. I went back into my room and Mama and Shelly started fighting again. I heard Debbie try to support Shelly and mother tell her to “Get the fuck out of my house Deborah Ann! You’re not welcome here!” Shelly saw my tears and got even more pissed. She turned on Mama. Mama was never one to be challenged and she bowed up, poured another drink, and took two steps towards Shelly ready to fight. “Who the hell do you think you are? You ungrateful little bitch! You have no right to talk to me that way. All you are is a bastard child that I had when I was in prison!”

Everyone in the room got quiet. Even Mama seemed to realize what she had let slipped. Her fiery blue eyes grew huge and for a split second you could see remorse or fear in her eyes and then she seemed to shove it down and she gritted her teeth and glared back at all of us. Shelly turned as white as a sheet. Her anger had been dampened by the shock of what mother had just said. Her lips trembled a little and through gritted teeth she spat out, “What are you fuckin’ talking about? What are you saying? Are you saying that Delano isn’t my father?”

Deborah walked out of the door; I think she knew. Ronnie stood erect and shook his head, “God dammit Mother!” Hoppy had been silent and staying out of the family squabbling until then and he got up and stood behind Shelly and put his hands on her shoulders for support. Mother turned and looked at each one of them, and then turned to look at me, and then back at Shelly. She took a deep breath and in an angry gush she let out the whole torrid story…

“That’s right! You might as well know the truth. I’ve kept this secret long enough. You’re nothing’ but a bastard child who was conceived because I fucked a security guard when I was in prison to get milk money for the rest of them while I was locked up! Delano isn’t your father! I was pregnant when I got out and he gave you his name. If you want to be pissed at someone, be pissed at him. Stupid bastard!” Mama turned to look at me and in a softer tone, “Happy fuckin’ birthday.”   

Shelly and Hoppy stormed out. Ronnie sat down on the couch and lit up another joint. I turned and went back to my bedroom, put on my records, and cried. I cried for the birthday party that got ruined. I cried for Shelly and I cried for Mother. This wasn’t the last family secret to creep out. Over the years, and always on a holiday, other skeletons were drug out of the closet in the heat of anger and under the influence of Canadian Mist whiskey.