I. My father’s childhood was a cold one. He grew up in a trailer that didn’t hold heat against the Northern Michigan winters. There was no money for heat, anyway–there was no money for anything. My father was babysat by the television and spent mornings winding duct tape around his sneakers, which were always falling apart. His adopted mother kept warm from the cold and kept her bank account low by drinking beer. As a drunk adult himself my father would vacillate about this, sometimes laughing and saying there wasn’t anything to do in that rural area but drink, sometimes raging about the neglect he experienced.
This is how I think of my father’s childhood: cold, lonely, scary. It’s hard to imagine what he ate in a place that often spends at least half of the year covered in snow. My childhood was defined by my father’s drinking and his meandering stories about his development in the Midwest. But he very rarely mentioned food or how it was secured–only that his negative behavioral reaction to childhood abuse and neglect was blamed on Red Dye 40. When he joined the Army to leave that dark, cold place, he had a t-shirt on that read Carob–a hand-me-down from an older hippy in the family.
II. My mother’s childhood was a warmer one. She grew up in Section 8 housing outside of Denver. As an adult she would have a physical reaction if she saw architectural elements like cheap linoleum that reminded her of these dwellings. Her biggest goal as an adult was to do whatever it took not to regress to them. She grew up wearing clothes her mother crocheted. The designs were considered old-fashioned even for the 1970s. Although she was periodically treated to second-hand clothing she despised thrift stores. Her only positive memory of one involved a ghost story about her own mother, who died when my mother was thirteen. I believe her death was unexpected; she is a mythic presence in my childhood. My mother rarely spoke of her again after she died. Her father immediately remarried. My mother navigated her adolescence with the taste of grief and poverty in her mouth.
My mother rarely spoke of her childhood. Her only desire was to leave poverty and her grief behind her. She only told me one story about what she ate growing up. Once in a while her parents–this occurred before her mother died–allowed her and her sister to pick out one candy bar to split while watching whatever Elvis movie was on TV. I can imagine her there, on some cheap, worn-out brown carpeting, fighting her sister over the candy bar. How she is letting the chocolate melt and coat her tongue, her eyes glowing while Elvis dances in his white suit or his red Hawaiian shirt.
III. My childhood homes were cold. My parents divorced when I was five and I lived in over ten towns. The only constants were cold and hunger. My earliest memories are from the second town we lived in. I snatched a candy bar at the grocery store, smuggled it home, and hid it under my pillow. Before I fell asleep that night I ate it so quickly I didn’t really taste it and stuffed the wrapper down the side of the bed. Even then, I was looking for something that could fill me–something that could offer warmth, comfort.
In my childhood food was not predictable and it was never under my control. My father devoured everyone’s food–he would eat leftovers my mother was saving for after classes followed by long waitressing shifts. My parents were poor and the cabinets and fridge were otherwise empty. She would go hungry. Our plates–and later that of my stepmother and half-sisters–were his buffet. During meals he would openly graze from our plates with no comment although there was nothing else for us to eat. I learned that I was not allowed to have boundaries with food or with men. It would infuriate me on Halloween and on Easter when he would pursue my candy hauls. He always knew how to select my favorite candy, that bright orange wrapper with the cloying combination of chocolate and peanut butter. I learned that my father could take whatever he wanted from me.
On rare occasions my father would buy what he considered delicacies–peach preserves, baklava. Unfortunately, our tastes differed. My pickiness and my disinterest in these luxuries enraged him. He would make me eat them. If I did not swallow, he would make me sit with them in my mouth. I tried to swallow. I couldn’t. Eventually I’d run out of the room and vomit into the toilet, gagging from the unwanted sensation of fullness. I could hear his footsteps behind me.
At my mother’s house there was no money. She paid for my school shoes with quarters. She took on shift after shift at nursing homes that scared me. She would make tacos–unheated flour tortillas, lettuce, tomato, tomato, beef flavored with the classic spice packet–and I would finish my plate and ask to eat some more. There was never more, so she gave me some of her own food. Her abuser, there, in the shape of her own child.
In late elementary school my mother learned I ate a frozen personal pizza when I got home from school. She told me that if I did it again she would lock the freezer and the cabinets. There was no talking to her. Little did she know I would often sneak food that she would have a harder time tracking. I would hide there in the pantry, cold metal and smooth sweet peanut butter spread across my tongue. She would watch me try on new bathing suits and tell me not to stick my stomach out (I wasn’t.) She and her best friend would take me shopping. Her friend always pointed out my cellulite. I was not in high school yet.
My mother did not seem to grow up with fresh produce because we rarely kept any in the house, even when she achieved her goal of middle class status. There were always canned vegetables. Once, she took a cooking class and bragged that she could now make something exotic–caprese salad. I grew up eating highly processed foods, often preparing them for myself as a latchkey kid. We ate fast food frequently. Fat, salt, and sugar became my comfort–I can remember the exact taste of a McDonald’s double cheeseburger even after spending a significant part of my adulthood as a vegetarian. I would be lying if I didn’t say I sometimes miss the taste. In high school my mother or stepfather would catch me sneaking out late at night and they always assumed it was a boy or drugs. It was Ronald McDonald. Even when leftover take-out got thrown away I would dig through the garbage and eat cold, discarded dumplings. I would sometimes eat so much I would unintentionally throw up, walking back into a shared living room with college roommates staring at me.
IV. In a parallel universe, my father’s childhood was a cold one–appropriately cold. But there is money for everything: a winterized home, a big fluffy jacket without any holes, appropriate boots. In this parallel universe I even give my father a fireplace, somewhere to strip out of damp mittens and nylon pants edged with snow, somewhere to defrost in front of. The evidence of snow evaporates from him and his body slowly begins to heat up, his pale cheeks red in the firelight. Here, his biological mother–still a teenager when she gives birth but connected to all the necessary resources –-offers him a mug of hot chocolate too big for his hands. Here it plays two roles: delicious, rich drink and warming mechanism. Here he allows the hot chocolate to cool slightly before sipping it, in no rush because he knows resources aren’t scarce. He laughs as the sticky marshmallow clouds his nose. His mother is sober and laughing with him as he tries to lick the sugar off. She recognizes that he is likely hungry because he missed lunch–not because there was no food, not because she was too drunk to care, but because she couldn’t get him in from playing in the snow, no matter how she called and called. She disappears briefly into the kitchen and brings him a local delicacy–a pasty. He takes it eagerly, his eyes lighting up. He knows without asking that inside the flakey crust is his favorite filling–fatty pork, soft hunks of potato, fragrant onion. The savory vegetables are always his favorite part. This young boy does not know there could be an alternative–a world with a mother who does not know his favorites, that would not bother to care.
V. In a parallel universe, my mother’s childhood was a warm one. But she’s sitting in an air-conditioned restaurant, the summer heat outside merely a memory. Here, in this parallel universe, she’s sitting next to her mother, who is still living. Here, she’s sitting next to her father, who never goes on to marry the evil stepmother. His head is propped on his hands and he’s listening to my mother with obvious interest. Here, he still has all of his fingers. Next to him is my aunt, who is included in the conversation lovingly despite her intellectual disability. But once the food arrives the family members can look at nothing else: my mother stares down into a bowl of green chile. The steam mists her face and she can smell the spice. The chiles and tomatillos lend the bowl its green hue. Her mouth waters as she considers the caramelized pork, this restaurant’s specialty, and the smokiness it lends the dish. Lastly, she thinks of the juicy tomatoes and sharp onions. The dish is accompanied by a stack of fresh tortillas–not as delicious as those her neighbor makes outside with the metate, but still soft and rich. She spoons the chile onto the flatbread and closes her eyes to savor the familiar, delicious taste. Her mother’s laughter sparkles in the background.
VI. In a parallel universe, my childhood homes were warm. I was exposed to many cuisines and was encouraged to eat. There is no shame. I have tried all kinds of foods, midwestern pastries and southwestern chiles. Even the ubiquitous peanut butter and jelly (grape is the only acceptable flavor and my mother never forgets.) In this universe my father buys me a large bowl of clam chowder–a rich, creamy broth studded with chewy, salty clams and hunks of underseasoned potato. He laughs at my passion for the oyster crackers, bland, floury rounds topped with salt. No one is angry when I eat multiple packets and seem happier with them than the bowl in front of me. He just wants me to be happy. In this universe my mother does not struggle for money. She buys me Connecticut-style lobster rolls–New England hot dog rolls (the only acceptable kind) that are piled high with lobster meat–multiple claws–all of it swimming in rich butter that drenches the toasted bread. No one cares about the fat content. She just wants me to be happy.
Callie S. Blackstone writes both poetry and prose. Her work has been published in Hayden's Ferry Review, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Her debut chapbook sing eternal is now out with Bottlecap Press. Website: http://calliesblackstone.com/
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