It's Not About The Mini-Skirt

Trigger Warning : Theme of Suicide

Dad set a rule that we have to take breakfast together as a family. It dropped off when it was just my brother Jess and me at home, but after Harrison got back from Vietnam and Lane and Annie moved in the rule was rigidly enforced.

Fatigue is a symptom of swimming through the quicksand of life in a small nothing happening town. I crawl my way to the breakfast room each day resenting every step. This is a sleep until winter’s over kind of tired. 

Hush! A piece of advice I picked up along my rocky road to – uh - recovery is when you are in a psychiatric hospital never tell anyone you just want to sleep and never wake up.  

It's advisable to rephrase when I talk to my dad too. He’s gone from barely noticing me to overly alert to every hidden sign. Maybe its my fault the morning check ins are back in force.

It’s wearisome second guessing what will send him into a panic, and he never straight out asks how I’m doing.

Or why I did it.

I feel that question is always behind his lips. But it never makes it out of his mouth.

I couldn't explain if it did.

I pour a large black coffee and guzzle it down. I know it’s tawdry that I have to jack myself up on strong coffee just to get out of the door to school each day. Until recently I kicked off each morning with a can of coke and three nodoze. I sorely resent that Jess took it upon himself to purge my caffeine stash.

It was simply a pharmaceutical error and he over-reacted to the sweats and heart palpitations. When I tried to explain to him I would be okay and to ignore any nail biting paranoia, he listened to my run on sentences silently then flushed away any over the counter meds that he couldn't tie back to a prescription. I couldn’t focus long enough to stop him. Somewhere there's a lesson in there

I’m left with the ineffective meds my shrink Creighton prescribes and my own messed up psyche to get me through each day. Who was I before they started screwing around my head with shock treatment and sedatives? Whenever I spark up into a ghostof old me, it’s considered a setback, and when Dad consults with Creighton he simply ups the sedatives again.

I stretch out on the table a hairsbreadth from a coma. My older brother Harrison flicks the back of my head. I ignore him but he keeps at it for a good five minutes.

“I’m conscious,” I mumble. “Stop that now.”

“You’re missing out on the best part of the day,” Although my eyes are closed, I feel him grinning. There is no best part of the day. Reality is muted and predictably awful.

“Quit it,” says Jess. Harrison flicks my head immediately.

Dad, absorbed in his newspaper, ignores us. Once we’re present and accounted for, he loses interest.

“Stop picking on him.” Jess tries over to grab Harrison’s arm and predictably enough Harrison twists his wrist hard enough for Jess to fall out of his chair.

Dad shakes the paper and turns the page oblivious. 

“You are such an asshole,” mumbles Jess climbing back into his chair.

“Please leave me alone,” I say to Harrison.

“Please?” says Harrison. “Certainly.” He smirks at Jess. “Just had to ask.”

I haul my head up so another fight won’t break out between them and, wow, good thing I did because Lane makes her grand entrance to the breakfast room.

Looking at her takes my breath away but today her appearance is nothing short of spectacular. She is wearing a short satin skirt, made all the shorter by pinking shears slicing back the hem line. The ragged shiny skirt is paired with a check shirt with the top three buttons undone and tied in a knot somewhere around her midriff. I gulp. She has outdone herself. Suddenly I do not feel the need for no-doze.

Jesse’s jaw drops. Harrison’s gaze is fixed on her. I slap him on the back of the head. I mime “Jailbait” and shake my finger at him. 

Dad sensing the heavy weight of awe on top of the aghast silence looks up to see what had disturbed the breakfast room.

“Oh, Jesus God,” he says with a frightened glance at Lane’s unquestionably well shaped thighs. I didn’t realize Dad actually noticed that sort of thing too. He looks like he wishes he hadn’t. “Um, you look a little cold in that, um, skirt,” he says finally.

“I think it’s fashionable,” Lane gives us a runway twirl. Harrison rewards her with silent applause that Dad sees but pretends not to. He cuts Harrison an awful lot of slack. He pleaded hard with him not to re-enlist and come home.  Lucky he did. I’d be dead if Harrison hadn’t found me in time.

Lucky. I guess that’s what I mean.

“Look out Paris,” murmurs Harrison.

“Edison is not Paris,” says Dad with overwhelming understatement. “And shut up Harrison.”

“I like that skirt,” says Jess.

What is he saying? He doesn’t see my aghast expression and he continues. 

“It’s like Maryanne on Gilligan’s Island.”

Well, that’s set Jess up for some unkind Gilligan comparisons. Lane’s feeling evil and trashy today and Jess just stuck a big old target on his chest. 

I find evil and trashy a weirdly compelling combination. Lane is nothing like Maryanne on Gilligan’s Island. Jess of course has a big crush on Maryanne. He’s so wholesome he makes Mr. Rogers look like a serial killer.

Harrison’s favorite TV actress is, no surprise, high school sophomore Laurie Patridge on the Patridge Family but he said he’d probably date Rhoda from Mary Tyler Moore instead because it’s more likely she’d put out. Degenerate.

I haven’t told anyone about my crush on the flying nun. That’s definitely a hangover from all that LSD I took before I woke up in the psychiatric hospital.

Our housekeeper Mrs. Greaves comes in from the kitchen with a plate of hotcakes and takes in Lane’s look of the day with a sour expression. A staunch Southern Baptist she is not one to tolerate hippies, free spirits or shipwrecked farm girls. She stands there, lips moving in silent prayer.

“Oh, thank God,” murmurs Dad. “Mrs. Greaves, what do you think of Lane’s new outfit?” Over to you, ma’am. Please help me out. “I think there may be a few loose threads that need fixing. Would you give her a hand repairing her skirt, maybe?”

Harrison and I collapse with mirth, but Jess is too fixated on Lane’s legs to laugh. 

“You cannot leave this house wearing that,” says Mrs. Greaves with a tone of authority. I see Dad’s relief as she takes charge of the situation. “You bend over, everyone will see your butt.”

“I can’t see any loose threads,” says Lane twisting around to see just how much of her butt was on display. Predictably Harrison and Jess check the effect of the contortions on her behind. I try not to look anywhere near Lane’s butt. My feelings for her are too pure. I pour another coffee, wondering how I came to be related to these two neanderthals.

 Mrs. Greaves gives up and firmly propels her from the room.

“Find her a sweater too,” Dad calls after them. “It’s unseasonably cold out there. Tell her to button up.” 

Harrison snorts with laughter at Dad firmly insisting this is weather related concern rather than suggesting she stop dressing like a ten dollar a trick hooker because she’s made her point.

“All these years you’ve been griping about how tough it is raising boys,” Harrison says with some satisfaction. “Payback.”

Dad narrows his eyes and flicks his paper back up, so he won’t have to look at us. 

Harrison acts with all the maturity you might expect from somebody who still lives in their father’s basement at the age of 22.  Possibly he is just immature and finds a profane, teenage girl a source of amusement. Jess, bless his heart, has a theory Harrison acts intrigued with Lane to underline the point that we are average and mediocre, and it is our fault entirely that he has never showed the same interest in us.

Eventually Lane reappears wearing a sullen expression as Mrs. Greaves exudes satisfaction at doing the good Lord’s work. To go with her sour expression Lane wears a tartan skirt to the knees and turtleneck sweater. I swear, Mrs. Greaves, I love her to death, but she takes her job way too seriously. Dad on the other hand looks ready to give her a raise on the spot.

“I have no affinity for plaid,” says Lane grumpily referring to her skirt. “Mrs. Greaves has informed me if I don’t want to be part of a decent family, I should just move home with Stevie which, I have to say, sounds like an all fired good idea to me. Why don’t I pack up my miniskirts and just go home?”

‘Because he hasn’t asked you and he don’t want you there,” says Dad without skipping a beat. “Neither do I.”

Lane shoots him an evil stare. Dad treats her exactly like she’s family now. He’s getting fond of her and that’s how he shows it. He took her and her sister Annie in so they don't have to live with their drug dealing step-brother Stevie. Lane is overly fond of Stevie so she doesn't notice that he's a psychotic criminal.

“You’re dressed just fine, and Mrs. Greaves is doing a fine job.” Dad tells her.

“Only so much to work with,” murmurs Harrison. Lane throws a piece of toast at him as he blows her a kiss.

Why does Dad have this rule again? Family breakfasts just underline how badly he failed at turning out any of us half civilized. I gaze through my overlong fringe at him. He is a good man. He wants to do right by his family and is thoroughly decent. He got the girls out from a godawful situation with their stepbrother but he has no idea what to do with them now they're here.

Same with me. He strong armed the doctors into releasing me after the shock treatment scared us both half to death but now I'm home he sedates me to a point I can't hurt myself and calls it a plan.

Inept but kind. So kind that he has never said anything about the hurt that I caused him. He just doesn’t – you know - love me like he used to after what I did.

Lane’s sister Annie weaves into the room. No miniskirt there. She dresses in black and probably will for the rest of her life as she continues to mourn the death of her father and who knows what kind of trauma he and the stepbrother inflicted on her. Annie’s hair is fluffed out in a wild nest around her pale and interesting face.

She smiles around us a nervously as though she couldn’t quite remember who we are, but we had an air of familiarity. She and Lane have only been living with us for a month now. Lane has an angry resilience, but Annie is broken. She shakes out a pill and swallows it, then takes another.

As she’s shaking out a third valium, I shoot a look at my dad. Naturally, he committed me as fast as the ink dried on the paper, but Annie Tremaine is wandering wild haired and free as a bird in her psychotic state, and nobody is about to put a stop to it. How does that work? It’s as though I put Dad through so much madness he refuses to contemplate what’s going on with Annie.

“Dad,” I feel obliged to say as Annie pops a third pill and nobody seems to notice she’s about to overdose at the table.

I nod towards her pill bottle and Dad follows my glance, but it only had the effect of reminding him I should be medicated too. “Cody have you…”

He can’t quite finish his sentence. He nods towards Annie’s pill bottle. How the hell did Dad convince the hospital to discharge me to his care? “Cody have you uh…”

Trashy skirts and tranquilizers. The old man can’t bring himself to vocalize his concern. It’s as if he thinks if he puts a name to it, he’ll bring down some kind of curse.

“I feel good today,” I say. “I’ll take them later maybe.” 

Lane smiles hearing the words he can’t say, enjoying his discomfort or maybe just glad it distracted his attention. I felt incredibly lucky that Lane moved in with us but did not foresee the downside that she has noticed I have to be medicated in order to function in society. 

“That explains the glassy stare you were directing in my direction earlier,” says Lane with a sweet smile acknowledging both my state of mental health and the giant crush I have on her.

When will I hit rock bottom, I swear?

With a sigh, I get up to leave the table as Lane says. “Not so much as a please may be excused. One would think some old-fashioned table manners might require more attention than the length of my skirt.”

“I’ll get right on it, missy,” says Dad not listening to her or noticing I’ve left the table or taking time to question why. 

#

“Taken your meds yet?” Jess asks I guess for no other reason than to aggravate me. He bounds into our room where I’m trying to hide from today. He exudes Tigger like energy that makes me want to hit him, then take a long nap. 

Today. Yesterday. Might have. Might not have. What’s it to him? It’s my head. My screwed-up brain. My so-called illness.

Then dammit, he brings out my medication. And shakes out two, handing them to me. I swallow them without water. 

“Tongue out,” says Nurse Ratchet.

“When did this become your job?” I grumble, I know I shouldn’t feel so resentful towards Jess. He’s only trying to keep me alive, but I hate him for it. Sometimes anyway.

“Who the hell else is going to do it?” he says shaking out a capsule or three from another couple of bottles. “Dad’s too busy ignoring the fact you can barely make it through a meal. He can’t even bring himself to check you’re taking your meds. I guess that would mean acknowledging you’re a mess. Take this green one and we’ll call it quits. I won’t try to stuff the others down your throat today, and it’s my job incidentally because nobody else seems to have anything invested in keeping you alive.”

That’s unusually harsh and if I wasn’t so numb from the damn pills he wants me to take I might take offence.

Dr Creighton hauled him into some family support group. There’s no way Creighton would ever get my dad or Harrison into group but Jess does what he’s told. I guess they’re up to the Tough Love chapter of the Guide to Keeping Your Loser Sibling Alive handbook.

“Screw you,” I murmur but softly, so he won’t shower me with more tough love.

Dad’s indifference – denial Creighton would call it – is mildly preferable.

Jess screws the lid back on the pills and locks the bottles in his desk drawer. 

“You can stop looking at me like you hate me now,” he says after a beat. 

“Don’t,” I murmur. He raises an eyebrow at me. “Don’t hate you,” I repeat. “Can’t, you’re all I’ve got.”

I look at my shoes. I don’t hate him. But it’s not his job to point out nobody else Goddamn cares.  He probably makes me take my meds because Dad asked him to. Which I guess makes it his job after all, But he’s not my proxy father and I wish he would stop acting like it.

“Dammit,” Jess says wearily. “Tell me when you’re actually listening.”

They couldn’t keep Jess away from the hospital.  It startled me how upset he was. I promised I wouldn’t do it again and that seemed to help his tears dry up some. 

It’s pretty raw sometimes between us but I don’t know how to make it right.

“It’s not just me that cares. I was just mad with Dad… delegating. He’s got enough to worry about with Lane’s skirt length that’s all.”

He waits for me to nod. 

“They care.” He says when I don’t.

Caring but ineffectual. Sure. Whatever.

“I’m okay.” I gift him.

“Now tell me how you really are,” Jess says, his eyes are locked on to mine as if he can tell when I’m lying.

He can’t tell so I say, “I’m okay.” I try to inject feeling but my voice is toneless due to the mixture of chemicals in my system and no sleep.

And I don’t really think I am okay.

“I could hug you if you want.”

Jess can’t bring himself to hug anyone without a 10 second warning, so I won’t put him through that. He pats my shoulder wanting it to mean more. I understand the Fairy Godmothers were all out of tactility when they visited his crib. Instead he got a triple shot of gullibility.

“It feels bad sometimes,” I finally say. 

“I know.” We sit there a while before he says, “It should be getting better.”

“It is.” I tell him, but I can’t do a convincing tone.

 “You’ll be late for school,” says Jess finally. “Hurry up if you want me to give you a ride.”

“I’m walking,” I tell him. “With Lane and her mini skirt.”