February 08th, 2012

Michelle Dotter 's Story

Birth Year: 1987




Table of Contents





    My grandmother used to flirt her way out of parking tickets.  Eighty years old, and her winsome smile could still pull a good-old-boyish grin out of the cops who sirened down her rusting baby-blue Cadillac, tapped their fingers against the rim of the window and tipped their cowboy hats almost involuntarily to the carefully lipsticked woman behind the wheel.
    She would bat her eyelashes and tilt her chin with a charm no doubt left over from her years as a young soldierís bride, the kind of sparkling intensity that transformed into unflappable rigor when she came back to her four young children and husband forging through a medical degree.  The kind of no-nonsense discipline that had her standing over the children at naptime with a flyswatter, keeping them down with a sharp flick if any one dared raise its energetic head.
    "Maíam, do you know how fast you were going?"
    That backwater Oklahoma accent highlighted the polite question every time, almost hinting at good-natured comedy as she clicked her fuchsia fingernails against the peeling plastic dash.
    "I couldnít say, Officer ñ I suppose I might have been going a little fastÖ"
    A blatant lie.  The woman drove like a demon, tearing up the long strip highways under the vanishing traction of her purposeful tire treads.  My grandmother didnít drive for idle pleasure ñ she knew where she was going, and she was getting there as fast as the speedometer allowed.  Time moved slowly in Okeene unless you were behind the wheel of Aliceís car.
    They let her off with a warning every time, dimples blossoming along their cheekbones at the funny little lady theyíd encountered and her bright cerulean eyes.  She had one of those gazes that shifted like the desert sky ñ one instant roiling with the fierce command of a thunderstorm, the other so endlessly clear that when you looked at her you almost fell right through, tumbled between the feather clouds and soaked up all the sun.  It was hard not to listen when she spoke ñ harder still to defy her.
    "Well, you just make sure to be careful, Maíam," theyíd say, leaning into the car so as to pat her padded shoulder and give a wink to whoever waited silently in the passenger seat.  "We just donít want you getting hurt now, you hear?  Speed limitís there to protect folks like you."
    Sheíd always laugh to herself as they drove away ñ a quiet, lithe chuckle that ghosted just beneath her breath and almost made you feel like you should be chastising her, reminding her to take the copís words to heart.
    As soon as they were out of sight, sheíd gun it again, shrieking down the highway like the whole world was waiting up the road and not just a tiny, crumbling town where sheíd lived most of her life and the sharp plaster of the only house that didnít scream decay within a two-block radius.  And whoever sat beside her was left to simply shake their head, half wishing they could reprimand her for behavior that befitted a blooming sixteen-year-old, half wishing they were crafty enough to get away with it themselves.
    My grandmother was a real estate agent.  Sometimes I wonder what the world would have made her into if it hadnít already been so busy elsewhere, locked in the Depression and the Dust Bowl and the trials that brought out World War II.  It seemed to me that she might not have stayed in boondock Oklahoma if her life hadnít nailed her there, raising her in Alva and dragging her growing family to roadside Okeene when the hospital offered Grandpa a practitionerís job.
    In a way, the highway town suited her ñ things were hectic enough with four small tater tots in the house without involving the endless rhythm of a city.  But in another way, I think she had too much drive to really belong in that come-and-go market ñ too much go-get-ëum that never went and got anyone, and had to regale itself to monopolizing the property market.
    My grandmother was a product of her day, and I guess in some respects we all are ñ but I donít think her day really suited her, nor the ambition and iron-fisted severity that showed in her eyes sometimes, even after the long lazy years had worn her sharp, reflective edges away and left a river stone instead of a square cut.
    Thereís no knowing now ñ but sometimes I wonder what Alice wanted to be when she was too young to know that the world had limits, too small to understand how personal desire has to take second fiddle to the flickering web of human affairs.  Her history tells me she was born to be a mother, a wife, and a firm landlord; I wonder what her soul would have told me, before her father died and left her mother and sisters to scramble at the ends that ñ far from meeting anymore ñ were slipping farther apart with each passing day.
    My grandmotherís world view was black and white.  Going outside without shoes on would catch you a fine cold.  My cousin dropping a few pounds would land her a man.  If you kept your head up and remembered what your name was, the right path would lay itself obligingly before your feet, smooth as Dorothyís yellow brick and twice as appealing.
    You could see the effect of history on her perceptions, too: Recycling meant saving the tinfoil in the cabinet and pulling it out next time.  Lifeís resources came equipped with only four choices ñ use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.
    There was no excuse for wasting money; and new inventions, upgrades to things that worked just fine already, were a waste of money.  Not that their money wasnít plentiful in the later years ñ but it could stack to the ceiling and rot before she spent it unnecessarily.  That kind of an upbringing is something that just doesnít go away, I guess ñ no matter what kind of a windfall the passage of time throws into your hands.