Women of Power: Mom, Gran, Me (And Nancy Too)

By Jack Marshall

Charlotte Boggs has power. So does her mother and grandmother. They can talk telepathically. They can enter the minds of others and sometimes influence them. Charlotte wishes she were normal, but she isn't. Now that she's in college, she's writing the story of her experiences so far, hoping to understand herself and her abilities. Perhaps if she can understand her power better, she can learn to control it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9780996662703

Book preview

Biography

1. The Misfits

Maybe I’m a girl, but I’ve got enough power to knock every player on the Dracker High football team on their behinds. That’s a fact. Only, why would I do that?

I’m in college now, in Houston, studying hard because I’m going to be somebody. Because knowledge is power—real power. The other power is…I don’t know…it’s there. I have it.

My boyfriend Elroy loves superhero movies and no doubt fantasizes about superpower. But if he really had it, I’d bet he’d change his tune. The burden can wear you out. I know. Mom has power. Gran too. We all have it.

Fantasy heroes use their power to save the world—but that’s just make-believe. The power I have works on one person at a time. I could turn it on and off quick enough to deck a football team, but that’s hardly worth the trouble. And who cares about football? It’s a stupid game for stupid men.

I guess my power can be useful—but only sometimes. Mostly it’s confusing and overwhelming. What’s it good for? That’s my question.

Mom felt so overwhelmed by her power that two days after graduating high school, she cruised out of Dracker in an eighteen-wheeler driven by my father. He married her in Nevada and dumped her in California. When she returned to Dracker, it was only long enough to leave me with Gran and escape once again.

Dracker sits on the edge of the Texas desert, about an hour by freeway west of San Antonio. It’s a pretty boring place with few jobs and not much in the way of fun. Most kids graduate high school and hit the road. But not everybody wants to get clear of Dracker. Gran sure doesn’t. You can usually find her at the Cactus Café which she owns and where she buries herself with work. When you see her at the Cactus, you think you’re watching a cartoon mouse zipping around so quick the cat can’t see her. But Gran’s no workaholic robot. Not entirely. Much as she loves that little café, she loves me more—though I can’t say I always appreciated that.

Gran tries to squelch her power, though not completely. I know, because when I was a kid, she used it on me all the time. Back then, I didn’t mind Gran poking around in my head. Didn’t know any different, really. I thought all grandmas and granddaughters were like us. For years, Gran knew everything I did and thought. If I read a book, Gran could read it through me, and then we’d think about it together. Sharing a book that way is wonderful.

Gran also planted notions in my mind that I didn’t particularly notice at the time—like study math more or study science more. She never managed to instill a love of math or science, but she did keep me focused enough to earn B’s in both subjects, so I guess having her poke around in my head when I was a kid was mostly a good thing. But as I got older, I wanted privacy, wanted to think things out for myself, develop my own ideas. The day I discovered I could shut the doors of my mind and keep Gran out was new beginning for both of us. She had to talk to me using words, just like everybody else. Of course, she grumbled a bit, but what could she do? Besides, Gran was smart enough to realize that I had to learn independence. She couldn’t expect to control me forever.

I spent the first ten years of my life with Gran. Mom visited Dracker from time to time, usually about once a year, bringing me clothes that didn’t fit or books that were too simple or too strange—like that book called How to Win at Poker. If an alien from another planet landed in Dracker, it probably wouldn’t have seemed any weirder than my mom. Long before I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew what I didn’t want to be—my mother.

In the years before I started school, Gran followed the same routine. She hopped out of bed long before sunup and at 5:00 a.m. started serving breakfast to the early-birds. The Cactus used to serve dinner too, but once Gran took on the responsibility of raising me, she only opened for breakfast and lunch. That way she’d be home when I got out of school. If I finished my homework early, we’d play Scrabble or read together. I think with Gran working the dinner shift when Mom was a girl, along with serving breakfast and lunch, Mom was left alone too much and that made her a little crazy. In my psych textbook, I read how neglect and isolation can mess up a person’s brain. Raising me was a second chance for Gran to get it right, and this time, I think, she has.

When I arrived on the scene, Gran hired Lulu Bolt as a babysitter and let her live in the garage apartment with her son, Elvis. Lulu’s daddy, Isaiah, kicked her out of his house for getting pregnant without managing to get married. Lulu’s mama Carmine came by to visit whenever she could, but she had to do it on the sly. Luckily that wasn’t too hard. Isaiah preached every Sunday, but collections after his sermons brought in very little. To support his family and his church, he worked as a plumber, keeping too busy to know what his wife was up to. Carmine said that when she’d gotten pregnant with Lulu, Isaiah did his duty and married her. As Isaiah saw it, if he did his duty, then the skunk who knocked up Lulu should do his duty too.

That anyone could fall in love with Isaiah was hard for me to imagine. His bulging eyes poked out of a bush of hair and beard, and his mouth was forever spouting hellfire and damnation. Maybe Isaiah looked less scary when he was younger. Of course, lots of folks claim love is blind. Well, blind or not, Carmine got stuck with Isaiah as a husband, and Lulu got stuck with him as a father.

Carmine, who volunteered Saturdays and two days a week at the Dracker Library, always brought a pile of books when she came by the house. Reading aloud makes kids smarter, Carmine said. So Lulu read to Elvis and me every day. We both enjoyed listening to the stories, but Elvis didn’t take to reading like I did. By the time I was four, I could read simple books, and by five I was up to a fourth grade level.

Other than Elvis, I had no playmates till I started school. Maybe that’s why I learned to read so early—books were always more interesting than Elvis. I usually didn’t bother with him except for special times—like when Lulu gave him a brand new used bicycle for Christmas. She couldn’t afford training wheels, and every time Elvis tried to ride, he’d coast about ten feet and fall off. Although I was a year younger, I knew I could manage a two-wheeler.

Let me try, let me try, I begged him again and again.

Girls can’t ride bikes, he said.

Let me try, I kept insisting.

Finally Elvis broke down and let me ride, mostly because he was so embarrassed from always falling off that he wanted me to fall too. But once I shoved off, I could think the bike upright and rode all the way to the end of the street and back.

Humiliated that a girl, a whole year younger, could ride better than he could, Elvis was more determined than ever to master that two-wheeler. Feeling exhilarated after my ride and sorry for Elvis, clumsy dork that he was, I thought him upright and kept him balanced all the way to the end of the block. Then I noticed a cat I’d never seen before and tried to coax it into letting me pet it. But when my hand was almost close enough, the cat scampered off underneath the house. Looking around for Elvis, I saw he was still down at the end of the street falling all over himself. That boy was a real slow learner.

For a full hour I thought the bike upright while Elvis pedaled up and down, up and down. At last, the dumb bunny got the hang of it, and I tell you, I was exhausted. An hour balancing a bike can be a mental strain for a five-year-old.

That evening I told Gran how I balanced Elvis. This was the first time I’d ever used the power to do anything besides talk to Gran. I thought she’d praise me for patience,