Katie Smith - Dream House on Fire

 

Picture it. It's November of 1977 and my family and I are pulling into Phoenix, Arizona in the late 1950s, maybe early 1960s. Four Door Ford Fairlane, dirt brown. We live in it. We've lived out here on the road for three and a half years. Sometimes it's a car, sometimes it's a van, sometimes it's a yellow school bus. But we've lived out here for three and a half years. And I'm sitting in the backseat and I'm cross legged because there's so much junk that you can't put your feet on the floor. There's so much trash in our car. And we're pulling into Phoenix, Arizona.

 

Now, my mother's in the passenger seat. My older sister Abby is right next to me. She's 11 and I'm 9. And my mother's boyfriend is in the driver's seat. His name is Lucky and he sure as hell isn't. [audience chuckles] And we're pulling into Phoenix, Arizona, and my sister and I, we're really excited and I'll tell you why. Because we're going to get a house. We're going to get a trailer. We might even get to go to school this winter, which is pretty awesome for us. Now imagine in a city. There's houses and neighborhoods and I don't know what you think of when you think of a trailer park. There's old people and there's the little gravel yards. Well, that's not where we're at. See, every city in America has one of our trailer parks. It's over here. And it's where the monsters live. And it's where the whores and the drug dealers and the people who are afraid of INS. It's where the old people who can't afford a house live.

 

There are Bambies and fifth wheelers and campers that are actually up on sticks, and that's where people live. But then, me and Abby were really excited. You know why? Because we get indoor plumbing. You have no idea [chuckles]. Out here for three and a half years, there's a mason jar or a bucket. We're lucky in the winter we get a house and we get a trailer. It has shag carpet. This is 1977. And this one's old [chuckles] for 1977. It's got the wood panel walls and the shag carpet but we've got a room. We've got a room with a door and it doesn't close altogether, but that's okay with us because we've got a room. We've got a bunk bed and I'm on the bottom, Abby's up there on the top.

 

And every trailer park, like where we live, there's a 7-Eleven down on the corner or a Circle K or something like that. There's always a Kwik-E-Mart. Me and my sister, we go down and we scavenge because that's what we like to do. Be surprised things people throw away. People throw away treasures. People throw away food. Now us, we scored ourselves a Barbie Dream House. Let me tell you what, it's pink. It's covered in Magic Marker. Some pretty, not so pretty drawings. But we took our own Magic markers and we turned them into flowers. There's one of those elevators that goes up and down. Then we took and it's broken. So, we took a shoelace and we made it so it goes up and down. And we got ourselves a little room.

 

I got myself a bag of Barbie parts that I have been carrying it around for three years. Pieces of it have been growing. We put them all together. We play, let's have a good time. And this is where we are. Now, it's Christmas and we're sitting in our little trailer and we're at a round dinner table. Now, me and Abby, we've gone and scored ourselves in our scavenge. We went and flocked Christmas trees. You got to picture it. It's white plastic and it's pretty scary. [giggles] We got ourselves some Christmas decorations. We got ourselves some lights, but were too afraid to plug them in because we figured if somebody plugged them in, they're probably going to burn down our house.

 

Okay, so we've got ourselves and we're here in this little dining room. And the tree is in the corner, it's got some bad decorations on it, but we're pretty pleased with ourselves. I got five whole dollars to go buy Christmas presents with. I didn't really spend it on presents, probably spent it on food or candy or something [chuckles]. But I made Christmas presents with a little bit of yarn. I'm not very good with the crocheting, so I just used my fingers and I made a toothbrush holder that you can hang from the rear-view mirror. I made a little-- like a little scarf that's kind of sad looking. And I made a potholder, you can weave it with your fingers. All little girls do it. I'm sitting there at the table and Mom's got a canned ham and a box of Stove Top stuffing and some instant mashed potatoes and we're having dinner.

 

And then it starts. He's mad because I gave him bad presents and it's my fault. He starts yelling. Mom starts yelling back. He starts hitting mom and mom hits him back. This happens every day. They're either hitting each other or they're hitting us. Because that's the way it is in our world every day in all the houses next to us. And all the houses we come from. I think it's my fault. So here we are, me and Abby, we've gone to bed. I got pajamas, which is pretty exciting. On the road I sleep in my clothes because you kind of have to. But I got pajamas and I'm on the bottom bunk and they're screaming and yelling. And we're awake because while on the road we get downers to go to sleep and uppers to work. And here we don't have any, so we're wide awake. He's dragging mom down the hall by her hair.

 

We can see a little hole in our door. She's got Mama by her hair and she is thrashing back and forth trying to get out of his grip, and her hands are up like this. She's flopping back and forth like a fish. And here's where it's different. My older sister Abby, she takes herself from the top bunk and she launches herself through the door on top of him. And it's different because he drops mama and he takes my sister and he rips her off and he chucks her into the wall maybe 5-6 feet. These are those wood panel walls. There's a hole where her head hit. She's kind of disoriented, but she's able to stand up. And mama yells, "Run." Mom does not yell run very often. This happens all the time. But when it happens, we do. So, we head out the door.

 

You got to imagine-- picture it. It's a long stretch way down to the 7-Eleven. There's broken asphalt, broken glass, and I'm running barefoot and we're running and mom's screaming. Now I don't scream anymore. I don't scream running one. I don't cry. I just run. Because I know that's how I'm going to live. And so we're running. We're running down towards the 7-Eleven. It's like the face of fucking God. We're getting to the 7-Eleven. There's Santa Claus. It's bright fucking red. It's Rudolph's red nose. And here we are, we are running. You got to imagine it. The lights around us are turning off. All of the neighbors' lights are going off as we pass them. Because nobody will call because they don't want the cops there any more than we did. But we are running and I am not screaming.

 

And here we are, we're at the 7-Eleven. And that lights come, there's flashing lights. It's finally Christmas lights, and it's the police. And they take us to one of those shelters, those battered women's shelters. The walls are all neutral colors and the mattresses are all rubber and they got giant jars of peanut butter on the bottom shelves with spoons for all us poor kids. But we're not safe yet. Me and Abby, we know that. And it's because we are still here with her. She is as quick with the back of her hand as he is, sometimes faster and she turns more quickly. We are not safe because we are with her, because she will go back and we know that. It's not very long of course. She calls him on the payphone. We meet him in a parking lot.

 

There we are, piling in. This time, it's a Lincoln Continental, rust colored. It's huge. It's got a lot of space in it, doesn't have very much trash in it yet. And we're piling in and we're moving on. Same thing. We're headed, I don't know, east, I think to Oklahoma, bunch of Bible thumpers and whatever, who knows? We've been there before. Only it isn't because not very far down the road we pull into a Greyhound bus station. Mom buys two bus tickets and she puts us on this bus. She says, "You're going to go visit Sydney for two weeks. I'll come get you." She turns around, she's walking off the bus and I got a window seat. I'm pretty excited. I called shotgun. I like the window seat, keeps me from getting car sick. And I'm sitting there in the window and Mom's walking away. She says, "I love you. Be good. I don't want people thinking you are trash." And she's out there in the car.

 

Our bus is pulling away. And as clear as a bell, I'm looking out the window at mom in the car and a handful of Christmas presents on the back dash, which would have been where I was sleeping. And I think I am 9 years old, only 9, and I will live to see 10.