Candida Lawrence - Fear Itself

Fear Itself

CANDIDA LAWRENCE

Excerpts from The Plutonium Files, by Eileen Welsome, copyright 1999 by Eileen Welsome. Used by permission of The Dial Press/Dell Publishing, a division of Random House, Inc.

Passages from the New York Times, copyright 1990, 1993, 2000 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted with permission.

An earlier version of the chapter beginning on page 19 appeared as Postwar Blue and White in The Chattahoochee Review, 22, no. 1 (2001): 5967.

Several paragraphs that appear on pages 165166 of Fear Itself were first published in Change of Circumstance, by Candida Lawrence (Denver: MacMurray & Beck, 1995), 129130.

Cover photograph of the author at age two by Dorothea Lange. (Copyright the Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S. Taylor.)

UNBRIDLED BOOKS,

Copyright 2004 Candida Lawrence

First paperback edition, 2011

Unbridled Books trade paperback ISBN 978-1-609530-56-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lawrence, Candida.
Fear Itself / Candida Lawrence.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-932961-01-1

1. Lawrence, CandidaHealth. 2. Radiation
injuriesPatientsUnited StatesBiography.

I. Title.

RC93.L39 2004

362.19698970092DC22

2004016269

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Book Design by SH CV

On my first day of school, I encountered the Pledge of Allegiance. At dinner I asked: Whats a pledge? My father said, A pledge is a promise.

Whats leegence? He wasnt quick to answer, and I moved on, Whats a republic?

Its a country whose citizens vote to choose who will lead them. I suppose your next question is indivisible? Yeah, I said. Yes, said my mother, not yeah. Liberty and justice Ill explain tomorrow, he said. I have a headache. Tonight I just want to say that you do not have to recite the pledge when the teacher tells you to, or ever.

But I have to; everyone has to.

He looked pained, No, you dont have to, because you cannot promise to respect a country today when it might not behave well next month, or tomorrow. Understand?

I acknowledge his early influence on a child already not much inclined to follow rules. I wish he were alive to tangle with me today on which windmills to challenge. He died in 1981.

Special thanks to Fred Ramey, always kind, patient, faithful and clever, and to Kathy Chetkovich who has read most that Ive written and has found something to praise even in weak efforts.

Be mindful, when invention fails, To scratch your head, and bite your nails.

JONATHAN SWIFT

There is occasions and causes why and Wherefore in all things.

SHAKEPEARE, HENRY V

Im sitting high up in a eucalyptus tree with a yo-yo in my left hand. Theres a breeze and the leaves are squeaking. The smell is my favorite, better even than horses or kittens. The tree is in a sloped vacant lot next to my house, and the grass below me is flat where Ive been sliding down on a piece of cardboard. My mother is probably in the kitchen I can see from my perch, and shes no doubt washing my baby brother on a canvas table set up next to the sink. Hes okay, but he cries a lot and gets me thinking about things. He must be breakable because my mother never takes her eyes or hands off him. Youd think no baby had ever been born that lived on to walk and talk. Since his arrival she spends less time wondering where I am and what Im doing, and thats fine by me. I guess you might say Im hiding, something I do a lot these days. My sister is with my mother, helping with a diaper or cooing or powdering. Shes two years older than I am, which makes her ten and me eight. Its Saturday, which is why we arent in school.

Lately Ive been asking myself where things come from. I dont mean my brother. I know what they saysperm, egg, womb, getting bornand Ive seen the male cat get on top of our Kit-Kat and later the kittens come out in their sacs and I suppose it was like that with Daddy and Molly (my mother changed her name from Violette to Molly in college and has always preferred our saying Molly instead of Mommy). All that sperm and egg stuff just seems natural, like grass growing and tulips pushing up in the front garden, birds nesting, laying eggs, feeding the open beaks. What puzzles me is the yo-yo in my handand other things, like my skates at the base of the tree and the skate key around my neck. Marbles. My jacks and the red ball.

Heres how I get to the puzzlement. Im sitting in this tree and I think to myself, Im a little girl sitting in a tree with a yo-yo in my hand and Im feeling alone and happy, and then I start wondering if Im the only little girl in the world sitting in a tree and Im sure Im not. I start trying to figure how many of us there are at this moment in the world and I travel in my mind to China, Australia, everywhere I can think of and imagine just oodles of girls in trees. Then I think of all the fathers and mothers and sisters and baby brothers and the houses and kitchens and skates and yo-yos. The world is just crawling with boys and girls and parents and for a moment Im above the world looking down at all these busy ant-people going in and out of houses, fixing food, washing babies, making babies. I tell you its quite a thought to have up a tree and the only place all this occurs to me is right there.

What I cant stop thinking about is not the numbersI know I cant really imagine how manyits what all these people are making, like yo-yos. Skates. I start with the yo-yo because it seems simple and I carry mine everywhere I go. Im a great yo-yo player. Mines made of wood and has a crack where the string goes and is attached with a staple. The wood is half-yellow, half-red on both sides, and when it spins it looks orange. Some of this is easy. The wood comes from a tree and the crack is carved with a knife. Heres where it gets hard. The knife, the staple, the string, the turning orange. Knives are made of steel, but where does the steel come from? The string? Cotton is a plant, but how does it become string? The staple is probably steel too, but how does it turn into a staple? Who thought up string? Who invented a yo-yo?

My mind doesnt spend much time snagged on these silly questions. I know I can climb down from the tree and go ask my smart parents for answers. We have the Book of Knowledge and Daddy is a jittery encyclopedia. They just love for their children to ask questions. They glow when they answer. Its the next stage that I keep a secret, the part where Im wondering if human beings just cant help making thingsautomobiles, can openers, telephones, refrigerators, books, eyeglasses (which I wear), batteriesoh, I could go on and on. And why is it that animals dont, and did it just happen that way or is it a big Plan put in motion somehow by Somebody? I dont let anyone know Im having these thoughts. I dont want to be interrupted. Its delicious to wonder. If they knew, my parents would worry. The truth is that the Somebody idea is like eating a whole tablespoon of hard sauce. (Who invented hard sauce?) It tastes so good but seems to scald the inside of my head, and afterwards I wish Id eaten an apple instead.

Im sitting on a large, flat, warm slab of granite high above our mountain cabin. Nearby is Saucer Lake, and far below me is Echo Lake and cabins and kids and parents and outhouses. I can see the lake, the shape curiously unfamiliar, and the motorboats looking like skeeters on the water. Im not supposed to be up here alone because the adults have rules about hiking. You always have to go with someone, wear a hat, not eat much before or during, drink water sparingly, and chew gumI forget why. Molly thinks Im resting in my tent. Its a rule that you rest after lunch. Another rule is that you cant go swimming alone and not until two hours after eating. All I want to do is practice my swan dive, but I wouldnt be doing that today anyway because another rule is that you cant swim when you have the curse, which I have.