'Three Blogs' by Mark Phillips

Three Blogs

by Mark Phillips

September 27, 2002:

Why's she unable to say my name?

1962. Thin young woman with died-black hair in that Jackie Kennedy early '60s flip. Speaking earnestly to a child of about five, fidgeting on a cheap metal-and-vynl kitchenette chair. Vibrant red cowboy hat, blue jeans, plastic six-guns on each hip.
"People in the country treat children differently than you're used to. They say, 'children are to be seen, not heard'. That means you won't be able to tell them, 'I want to do this', or 'I want to eat that'. The grownups'll decide for you." Soft voice: this is important to her, it's something she wants badly. "Sweetheart: understand?"
He doesn't. He's a smart kid, but he has no experience to compare this request to. It seems to him that all people always say, "I want to do this," or "I want to eat that," and it doesn't matter how old they are. Grownups just the same. How does being a child enter into it?
She tries another angle. "While we're there, I want you to pretend you're somebody else. I want you to be quiet. Never talk unless you're spoken to. Hold still. Be patient. Don't ask for things. Be the best little boy they ever saw. It's just two weeks. Just until we're home."
He doesn't understand this either. He needs to be somebody else? What's it mean to be somebody you're not? Why's it wrong to be who he is?

In my early forties I tried as delicately as possible to change that. "Could you please not call me those names? 'Sweetheart', 'honey': all those patronizing terms. They hurt my feelings. I'll be grateful if you'll use my real name instead."

She thought about it for some while. We were in the car. I thought, this is good, she's thinking it over. When she was ready to reply she said, "How about, 'babe'?"

The two weeks never end. He refuses to role-play a different identity. She's unable to stop insisting. They grow apart. He learns to hide the things that are important to him, to protect them from damage. She stops using his name. It continues to this day. He refuses to relinquish his sense of self, for instance he won't go to costume parties. She carries a locket with his picture at five, before his identity became an issue. If ever she talks about him it's about how cute he was in his red cowboy hat and six-guns.

September 6, 2002:

There was a night when she glowed in the dark.

Our first summer together. The house I live in as a senior in college. I've inherited the largest bedroom, one side of the place, filled with books inside milk crates, and a single mattress on the floor. A dark, dark night. Blinds and curtains closed, doors closed. It's quiet. I awaken. There's light dancing on the ceiling. Peach and gold, rippling like a pool of liquid jewel. You're asleep in my arms. We're naked beneath a single thin sheet, which has fallen around our hips.

I thought at first I was dreaming, but, I was able to change things inside the room, and in the morning they were as I'd changed them. For instance, I turned the electric clock face-down, to be sure it wasn't light from its red LEDs I was seeing. It wasn't.

I waved my hand in the air above her head. It made a gray-colored shadow on the ceiling. I moved it over her back: the shadow moved. Closed my palm into a fist: the shadow became smaller. Opened and spread my fingers, the shadow grew.

The light came from her. Peach like the color of her skin, gold like the color of her hair, rippling in rhythm with her breathing. I watched it a long time.

September 2, 2002:

As a child her father would lock her in the closet, often for hours.

It was intended as punishment, but, she learned to like it. She could be alone there with her imagination. She invented fantasy worlds that over time became central to her identity.

One of these was that her hateful father was not her real father. He was secretly her stepfather. Her mother had hidden this fact from the family to protect them. Wanted the two younger boys to treat their older sister as their equal and peer. One day the real father would announce himself.

He did. She was twenty-six. A man called. "I'm your uncle. Your father would like to get to know you."

It was true. Her fantasy in real life. He was a nice guy, too. A gentle man, a pacifist. Everybody loved him. She loved him like mad. She changed her life around to be more like what he wanted. That wasn't too hard. She didn't have that much of a life outside her fantasies.

Her father died. She's spent the rest of her days dreaming in a chair. One day she'll have a house of her own. Doesn't know how, or when, just that she will.

This has been the great fantasy of her adulthood. She's never done a thing to make it happen. Never talked with a banker or a real estate agent. She could have bought ten houses, but hasn't. Maybe someday someone will call and say, "I'm your other uncle. I want you to have my house."

She's almost seventy now. Sitting in her chair dreaming about the furniture she'll put into the house she'll own one day.

There's a lot of her in me. This is what I fear, anyway. I spend my life alone like she does, writing down fantasies. One day I may stop writing them down, and then I'll be her exactly.

ABOUT MARK PHILLIPS

Mark works at the intersection of narrative and Internet technology. Since 1999 he's been "Cyberbard" for SmartMonsters, a San Francisco company exploring multiuser role-playing games as literature. His work "TriadCity" at www.smartmonsters.com is home to thousands of participants from around the world.

Email Mark – mark@markphillips.com

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