just the roots , exposed clean

If I was feeling courageous , as well as hungry, I'd flick the light on and off before taking a deep breath and heading down. The basement was grey and shapeless , but to the left of the stairs , and just beyond the dangling string of the next exposed bulb, was the freezer. Sometimes my father brought pastries home from this recent job as a delivery driver from Toastmasters, and if the box was open I could take one and assume it would go unnoticed.

But mostly I knew those Tuesday nights meant I could watch tv , stay up past my bed time and work on my dance moves in the whole front room . My 2 younger brothers got sent to bed early and my mom reminded me to draw the drapes and lock the door after she left.

My father slept so deeply , new to shift work, tired of life, sleeping off things, some real, some imagined, some drank and swallowed, sleeping away everyone. I knew it was impossible to wake him , because I tried the time he hadn't made it to bed and remained frozen and heavy and in my way though he never moved from the couch.

I thought maybe we could watch Ironside together , or he could clap when I danced to the theme song of Mod Squad, but it was as though I had my own murder to solve, the corpse laid right out in an burnt orange grave.

My mom always phoned me as soon as she got to our neighbour's house. She got together every Tuesday to play cards with a girlfriend. Instead of hanging up I left the phone hooked over the base, the line open to the few houses down and across and half way along the next crescent.

I remember a few times , watching specials instead of favourites. Like Tom Jones . And me swinging my hips and long red hair , as groovy as any of his back up dancers.

I'd take Tang and dill pickle breaks. Or crackers and maybe one thin slice of bologna cut off the long roll , wrapped, and put back just as I'd found it .

I had mixed feelings for Irv Weinstein and the others on Channel 7. His sombre nightly, reliable, greeting "It's 11:00, do you know where your children are? ", meant I had to rush to get my pyjamas on like I should have done hours earlier. It signaled my mom's return and I'd have to stop imagining I was Julie Barnes or Nancy Sinatra, and tell her everything went fine and get to bed. My brothers rarely woke up, and if they did, looking after them was easy and barely interfered with my plans.

Those Tuesday nights came to an end of course, when my father decided to use his truck as his own personal delivery place. He rigged a shotgun between his legs and outsmarted George Harrison, getting to see his sweet Lord sooner. I didn't see the hole, or any brain matter , as his jaw and forehead were all pasty and lumpy , put back together again so I could be a good girl and do what my mom said and kiss him goodbye.

But I liked that news anchor and his voice, because I felt like he was talking to the splitting off me . I knew where my children were I'd think .

One was on her way, the others were sleeping.

I knew those nights were added to the things I didn't talk about with my friends at school . Being 9 or 10 was for swooning over Donny Osmond or making cootie catchers or trying to decide if it was still cool to play hopscotch.

I knew that I was aware now, of this other girl self. That I was acting more than I was being, and sometimes I watched myself respond and talk and take care of, conscious of cheek muscles straining to smile, eyes following grown-up cues so I could respond appropriately. I could hear my voice slowly rising from where I carefully offered it, looping back so I knew what I'd said on the outside of my private chatter and screaming .

I became a she .

Who paced quietly in the back room of the small duplex when the police came . She waited to be called , though her mom's scream made the inevitable obvious .

She looked past the overflowing ashtray, and the comb clutching the brush on a dusty tray, up into the mirror above her parent's bureau. She saw no tears yet, knowing the adults out there were quickly struggling to find a way to say what she already knew.

Lowering her gaze , where it would stay for years, she started toward the place that had been just behind the one she had been dancing in so freely.