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My mama had a real big crush on Chuck Berry ever since I could remember. She told me he would’ve been my daddy if we didn't live where we did. I remember her my entire life playing those old records and 45’s, twirling her cigarette around in her fingers and blowing the smoke in my face as she danced. She’d lean in real close to me whenever songs like ‘sweet little sixteen’ played and she’d tell me, ‘you know, Evelyn. This song might have been written about you’.
I was only seven years old. I didn't know what I meant. But I remember the look on my brother's face when she said it.
‘But mama, Evie’s only in the first grade. Sixteen is real big stuff’.
‘I know it is, Vincenzo (he was named after his father, you see, we were all named after our daddies), but one day she's gonna be just like your mama. And lord pray you don’t end up a thing like your father.’
But even at seven years old I knew I wasn’t much like my mama at all. She liked men. She liked men a lot and she liked a lot of them. Which I suppose ain’t really a big deal till you got four kids with four different daddies. But nobody is perfect. And that’s one thing my mama taught me that was right on.
I think about her a lot that way. When she tells me I’ll grow up to have her same long hair and pleading eyes. The same thing that had my father so interested in her for two full weeks. The same eyes that if I remembered correctly; “she’s just got to have about half a million framed autographs”. I really hated that song. And I hated the way my mama sang it to me.
I don’t hate her though. Not as much as Cenzo (who’d rather die than go by ‘Vinnie’), Michael, Oreste, and I tried. It was sad really. No one should feel pity for their mama, but we all did. “Her wallet filled with pictures, she gets 'em one by one become so excited. Watch her, look at her run. Oh mommy mommy”. I guess it wasn’t pity as much as it was curiosity.
I was curious how I was anything like her at all.
I guess if I spend enough time looking in the mirror. Tearing apart the every feature that made me who I was. Every soft dimple and light scar and tanned line. I guess I could see it. But just cause I could didn’t mean I want to. Cause I still remember the first time she came up behind me in that mirror. Like something out of the original snow while.
‘Stop picking at that, Evie, you’ll give yourself a scar. Pretty girls like you don’t want scars. Don’t mess with perfection. You are your mothers daughter after all.’
Sure didn’t feel like it.
‘You really think I look anything like you mama?’
‘You look more like me than I do.’
I never really understood that for the longest time. Didn't know if she had truly lost herself that badly or was starting to find something new in me. Either way, I didn’t like it one bit. I didn’t like the way she smiled at me with those false eyes and even more fake smile. Hands where the intents of her many wedding rings still remained. A walking history exhibit of bad choices. I didn’t wanna be like her at all.
‘You look like your daddy too, Evelyn. You got his smile. You should smile more.’
I didn’t know if that meant she wanted to see me happy or she wanted to see him again. Either way. I didn’t wanna do it. So I made me a pack to myself. I wasn’t gonna smile as long as lived. As long as no one understand what it was like to be a living ghost at age nine. Guess that’s when I met Steve Randle. He got me smiling again real good after that.
I was never really good at promises or packs. My mothers daughter.
I wished I got to know my father more. If I had anything more of him in me than just his smile. But there wasn’t much my mama talked about. For as much as she talked, it was never about him. I wondered if he would be proud of me for not ending up like her. Or if that’s why he fell in love with her in the first place. Even though it didn’t last long, my mama always said he was the man she loved most. Guess that’s why she loved me so much too. Too much.
“Oh daddy daddy, I beg of you. Whisper to mommy, it’s all right with you.”
So I look back down at the photos on my dresser. Me and Steve sharing an ice cream cone. Cenzo and I dressed up like the swamp monster for Halloween (even though my mama wanted me to go as Rosie the riveter). My daddy holding me at my birth and Michael poking at me like I was an alien invader. My three brothers with fake shotguns pointed at the camera like a tv special. And then there was my mama. She looked around my age in that photo. Sixteen.
“She's got the grown up blues, tight dresses and lipstick. She's sportin' high heel shoes. Oh, but tomorrow morning, she’ll have to change her trend.” In a small cheap wooden picture frame. The corner of the glass cracked from when I’d set it down a bit too roughly. Shattering it. Shattering her.
I looked at that photo almost as much as I looked in the mirror. We looked nothing alike. I saw right through her eyes like it was the last time she had anything in them. One hand over her stomach like she was real proud. I guess she has every reason to be proud. She's made it this far and we’ve all turned out alright. But I still can’t help but feel like wishing that it’s not some kind of cruel history project for school. Looking at it and talking to Steve bout getting a test the next day. Like a time machine in my own body and mind.
I didn’t wanna be like her at all. But then there I was. I ain’t pregnant. So that’s good. That’s something. But I ain’t exactly living too much either. Cause there's not much living you can do when you’re already a ghost.
Which I guess makes me real haunted like. A haunted individual. That’s me. An old creaky house filled with spiderwebs and memories at the mere age of sixteen. Some sweet little sixteen.
Like my mama was when she wore that same haunted look in her eyes and deep down in her soul. I wonder if her mama made her wear that god awful skirt too. Or if she gave her the same sainted red lipstick. Told her the same three short phrases. I wondered if my mama thought the same things I did at my age. I wondered it all. Cause if I wasn’t her, then I don’t know who the hell I am.
“And to be sweet sixteen. And back in class again.”