the halter top story

First,let me say that I'm a big believer in the power of story. What are we, but all of our personal stories combined? Only by facing our stories can we move beyond them. That's my opinion, anyhow. Here is a story from my childhood. Every word is true. No names have been changed to protect anyone.

The Halter Top

Charlotte came to me when I was in fifth grade. She lived with us, along with several other people, and she and I formed a particular bond. Charlotte moved in to help take care of my great grandmother, who I called Grandma.

Grandma was ninety then, a wizened bun-wearing woman with wire rim spectacles. She always wore a dress with front pockets loaded with butterscotch candies. She'd occassionally offer me one.

“Would you like a butterscotch, Tim?” She’d ask.

“Yes, thank you.” I’d answer, casually throwing in “My name is K-K-Kim. I’m a girl.”

Try as I might to teach her otherwise, to Grandma I was always a lanky boy named Tim. These butterscotch interactions were pretty much the extent of our bonding. She spent her days watching Another World, sipping her afternoon glass of wine or her pre-dinner glass of Iron City beer, and sitting around watching everyone.

Charlotte was a fortyish friendly woman with wavy dark brown hair.  Also residing with us was my grandmother, who I called Memmem (She was my mom’s mom, Dad having left when I was a baby), and Connie, our housekeeper who functioned more like a relative, albeit one who did all the cooking and cleaning. Connie’d moved in when I was four. With Connie around, Mom had it pretty darn easy for a single mom, especially for one who never had a penny to her name, let alone a bank account. Her brother, our Uncle Duke was her ace in the hole. 

Duke was what you might call a good fella, paying Connie’s weekly wage, and plenty of other expenses, like the rent, which mom’s salary didn’t cover. He paid in cash, one of his famous slogans being “Caasssh, Baby…You gotta have cash.” I always figured him for a hitman, but could never be sure. One of Duke’s quirks was his pathological need to be within reach of a handgun at all times. At his house, guns could turn up anywhere: coffee table candy dish, toaster oven, medicine cabinet. Visiting him was always like an Easter egg hunt, only with guns instead of eggs.

When Charlotte moved in, my latest scheme was teaching myself to sew. Mom had bought a sewing machine the year before. She had no interest in sewing, but the machine was half price. A sucker for sales, She couldn’t pass up the opportunity to save eighty four dollars. I figured I could test out the machine and expand my wardrobe at the same time. Charlotte was my ally in this project. I took to seeking her out as soon as I got home from school. We’d talk and drink hot tea in the kitchen while Grandma sat dozing or contentedly starring ahead in a wine and butterscotch induced euphoria.

Charlotte liked games, so we’d sneak in a round of crazy eights any time we could. Discovering that Charlotte could sew, I got her to take me to Kmart for fabric and a pattern. We decided on an easy halter top pattern and a peachy terrycloth fabric. A couple days later, I had made a perfect halter top, which I treasured. It had wide collar lapels and tied in the back and at the neck.

A couple weeks later my, birthday rolled around. Usually, the highlight was going to The Red Bull Inn for dinner. It had tablecloths and they’d give you a red bull bank on your birthday. Getting my hands on the new red bull bank was a thrill I’d loose sleep anticipating. This year, Charlotte surprised me with a big pink plastic sewing box. It had tons of compartments, a clear removable tray top and a carrying handle. She had stocked it with threads, scissors and seam ripper. It was almost too good to be true. Not only that, she also got me a dainty teacup; the kind where the cup part sits atop a thin stem anchored to a wide bottom portion. The cup had little red and yellow tulips circling the outside. I was crazy for it, never having owned any personal kitchenware up till that point.
     A few months later, into our household came Alex, the Ojibwa Indian guide who’d been working for Memmem some twenty-five summers at her Canadian cabin. Alex had come to Pennsylvania for a couple of months to do some carpentry work for Uncle Duke. Alex had befriended a man named Kemp on the long bus ride from Northern Ontario. Kemp had a wooden leg and no particular place to go, so he came along with Alex to our house to help with the carpentry. Kemp and Charlotte began spending time together. Apparently, they fell in love.

Several weeks later, I woke up to hear that Kemp and my Charlotte were gone. They had run off together in the night never to return. I don’t know what prompted the secretive escape. Perhaps she was breaking a contract, or feared hurting Grandma’s feelings. Maybe Kemp owed someone money. If the adults knew, they never told me. I mourned her loss deeply.

Six months after Charlotte left, it was announced that we were moving to a mobile home park in Florida. Connie didn’t come with us, as my oldest sister, Karen, was now, at fifteen, deemed old enough to take on the cooking. Laundry and cleaning would be split between both sisters and me while Mom worked at her office job. We girls were sent ahead to stay with a relative and start our new schools while Mom packed up and came with the moving van.

Not only did we miss our friends, but we soon discovered that most of our stuff didn’t make it. Our Pennsylvania house, rented cheaply to us by its wealthy eccentric owner, had had seven bedrooms and five bathrooms. Mom had pared down severely for the move. That’s severely as in let’s be thankful our clothes and shoes made it and not even all of those. My halter top and flowered cup were gone.

Flash forward six years. We are living in Pennsylvania again, having moved back after less than two years in Florida. Mom never liked to stay in one place for long. I am visiting Uncle Duke in Pittsburgh. He has a tall skinny row house in Bloomfield. The attic has been converted into an apartment where Memmem lives part of the year.

Duke, Memmem and Mom have gone out. I’m alone, a perfect opportunity to finally get to snoop in Memmem’s attic. She is like a magpie always accumulating random stuff, which interests me. I’ve seen her pull paper towels out of the trash because they weren’t fully used, in her estimation. Toss a carpet scrap or broken lamp to the curb and she’s on it like a vulture to carrion.

I climb the creaky steps to gaze around the room taking in all the little bottles and containers on the dresser and nightstand. A card table hides under mounds of old mail and bills. Memmem carts her paperwork around in suitcases wherever she goes only to splay it into piles, rearrange the piles numerous times, then pack it all up again. Behind a little partition are racks and bags of clothes. This is definitely the room of a woman who has lived through the depression.

Some of the bags of clothes are clear plastic. Scanning them, my brain suddenly chinks in recognition. My eyes back up, zero in. Is it the color, the fabric, or something about the shape pressed against the side of the bag that grabs me? At first, I reject the notion. Can’t be, I tell myself. But I’m compelled to kneel and work open the bag. I run the peach terrycloth against my cheek. My halter top, or the halter top that was mine. It’s Memmem’s now. Clearly. To ask for it back would only get me chewed out for snooping and I don’t have the nerve to steal it back. I am too afraid of getting caught.

After a while, I carefully put it back and continue my investigations. In her little bathroom, I notice my red and yellow flowered mug on a shelf. I should have known. She’d always admired the cup, using it for her morning coffee after Charlotte gave it to me. Memmem always seemed to be taking things from me. I run my finger over the rim then turn off the light and go downstairs.

When Memmem died years later, she left everything to her one surviving child; my aunt Wanda. Wanda distributed the gold charms from Memmem’s grandmother's bracelet, with our names and birthdates engraved on the back, to each grandchild represented. That charm was my only legacy. I wasn’t surprised when I flipped it over and read: Kimberly 4-7-61. I wasn’t surprised at all. My birthday is 2-19-61.