Janowitz - Scream: a memoir of glamour and dysfunction

TAMA JANOWITZ has published eleven books, which have been translated into twenty-two languages and made into several films. She lives in upstate New York with her dog, Zizou Zidane, now that the other seven have expired, and her quarter horse mare, Fox, with whom she studies under Stasia Newell.

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American Dad

Slaves of New York

A Cannibal in Manhattan

The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group

By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee

A Certain Age

Hear That?

(for children; illustrated by Tracey Dockray)

Peyton Amberg

Area Code 212

They Is Us

This is a memoir. My memories. It is what I remember. Except some of the people were a lot worse. I changed some names and minor details. Quotes are re-created to the best of my ability based on my keen recollection of the events.

SCREAM . Copyright 2016 by Tama Janowitz. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-239132-2

EPub Edition August 2016 ISBN 9780062391339

16 17 18 19 20 RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For John Laughlin

SLIP

by Phyllis Janowitz (19302014)

My mother blew away in a molecular

diffusion. I never stopped asking her

questions although her answers

could not be heard over weather conditions.

Something remains: a smile, an obsolete refrain.

I remember my mother in Queens; in New Jersey;

in Portugal; Lima; Franconia, New Hampshire.

Clever woman, she is liquid mercury

between my fingers. I see her or touch her

but there is no holding her, not her arms,

not her hair. The little that is leftover

will presently roll out of reach.

As for me, I will continue the family tradition,

vanishing, one part then another

with the argyle socks on the line

cotton sheets and underwear piecemeal

swept off in an easterly direction

the same way I saw her come towards me

when the Amherst bus stopped at Leverett Station

setting her down in a blizzardshe

staggered, hip-deep in snow

rigid cold stiffening her connections

to a house she had never been to,

finding the right road regardless

or when suitcase open, her torn

umbrella turning inside out, she flung

herself from a taxicab in Boston

at midnight, the wind baneful

and Commonwealth Avenue too chilly to welcome

a visitor so temporary, so uncontainable.

contents

I have decided to leave you my property. Its my father on the phone. Please come at once.

Dad has lived for fifty-five years in western Massachusetts, five or six hours away from where Im living in upstate New York. I moved here to look after my mom, and my daughter, Willow, who is seventeen, left Brooklyn to move in with me. Then, I had to put Mom in the home. Now its just me and Willow. My husband, Tim, still lives in Brooklyn, but hell meet us in Albany and make the trip with us.

We take my moms car, a 1995 Mazda: it only has twenty-five thousand miles on it, but it is still a very old car. I have had the wheels replaced, the cooling system, but it seems every time I drive it, it needs a valve replacement or some other bypass operation.

My father owns two hundred acres of swampland. Its mortgaged up to the hilt. Its got a mortgage, a reverse mortgage, and restrictions. Still, its a beautiful swamp.

Dad has summoned me to discuss how I will handle my inheritance.

In particular, he doesnt want my dogs in his house, although he used to have a dog. I guess he means after he dies. Before, when I visited, I had to stay in a motel. Now he says he will cover the floor of the guest room with plastic if I will come to visit, and that I can bring the poodles.

By the time we arrive its evening.

My father greets us at the front door. He is dancing with excitement. Hi! Welcome! Sooooo... my drug dealer is coming over in a little while!

Hes a pothead. Dad is eighty-three years old and has smoked marijuana every day since I was eight. Thats almost fifty yearsnot quite, but lets round it up. And when I say every day, what I mean is he smokes all day. From when he gets up until just before bedtime, every couple of hours. When he started, he smoked joints and the pot wasnt so powerful. Now the stuff is so strong that when his friends come over and he offers a bowl, bad things happen. They fall over in a faint, they go backward in a chair and smash their heads on the tile floor, they fall into the swamp, they get in car accidents.

My friend Alan took one puff and had a seizure! he said once, laughing. Dad barely gets high from it, thats how accustomed to it he is.

He starts the day with a public smoke in his garden room (the one with the hot tub and the orchids). Or at the kitchen table, or on one of the many screened decks overlooking the swamp. Maybe three times a day its a public smoke. Then two or three times a day he goes up to his room for a private tokeyou can smell it as the smoke plumes out under his bedroom door, great wafts of it, gusts of it, like a skunk got in the house, which is what I always think at first until I realize, Oh, thats just Daddy!

There is not an hour when Dad is not stoned. Still, its not enough.

I can tell when Dad needs another few puffs because... well, he starts to decline. The black cloud of rage and hate comes over him and he gets angrier and blacker and bleaker. Then he has to go to his room and sit on his bed, which is covered with beaver pelts from his swamp. He keeps trying to kill all the beavers, but they only come back stronger.

So now hes banging on about his drug dealerthat the guy might be there within an hourbut its nine thirty and I am wiped out. Dad, Im tired, and I dont want to let the dogs out if this guy is going to come up the driveway and run them over.

Nah, I dont think hes coming. Hes very nice. Hes gentle. Hes a nurse at the local hospital. But... hes not the most reliable! Dad cackles with glee.

Willow comes into the kitchen. I know she smokes pot. Once, I sermonized her at Moms house: I would prefer you dont, but I know you do. I am now raising you as a single mother. The neighbors here are peculiar. At any time, they can call Social Services and Child Protection. I can get in trouble. They can make my life difficult. If they took you away from me, I would die. I dont approve of you smoking weed. My dad has smoked for almost fifty years. It is no different than other addictions. But if you are going to smoke pot, dont do it in the house!

So she smokes pot with her boyfriend, elsewhere. I know Dad is just dying to get high with her. I know because he often asks me, Will you have a bowl with me?

And I say, No, Dad.

And he says, I guess Tim doesnt want me to invite Willow.

Dad likes to stroke her bare arm and the side of her face and tell her how lovely her skin is. She, in turn, tries to politely move away. He would ask her himself to get high, but... I think he is afraid of Tim.

Even though he and Tim smoke the pipe or bong together after dinneror maybe more often, what do I knowfor a long time Tim has told my dad, on our twice-a-year visits, Dont smoke in front of Willow.