Me and Mary Ellen

By Nancy Lee Davis

Ida Lee Gudgali is a typical fifteen year old high school student and her seventeen year old non-typical sister Mary Ellen. You see, Mary Ellen has a mild form of Autism, so even if Ida Lee loves her beyond the sky and sea, she can’t hug her. Mary Ellen hates to be hugged. Mom struggles with her daughter’s teen issues when life should be happier, gayer, more fun. . . and Dad? He has no time for all that, at all. He finally abandons the family; as later, does Mom, in search of the youthful life and loves she left behind, leaving all in the hands of Ida Lee. So, Ida Lee and Mary Ellen, find themselves adrift, unprepared, approaching homelessness. On their own, but determined, in spite of the odds of making it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665527712

Nancy Lee Davis

NancyLee has been writing all her life, while growing up in Minnesota, raising her family on a historic lakeside farm, raising and showing horses, trying her hand at auto racing, including the fine art of racing on the ice of frozen rivers and lakes in a series encompassing northern United States and Canada. During those early years, she wrote her own column in a weekly newspaper. She also assisted in the education of mentally disabled children for many years, including those with autism. Now retired to the snowless south, she shares her experiences of a grandchild who was diagnosed with autism, and his special brilliance at the little things in life.

Book preview

© 2021 Nancy Lee Davis. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  05/28/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2772-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2770-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2771-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021911106

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

44707.png

C RAP.

I could smell it the second I opened the door of our apartment building and entered the dim, stinky little foyer.

Over the usual smell of stale beer and old sweat of the pee-colored little entry area, I could smell the eye-burning smoke. I knew that smell,

and exactly where it was coming from. There was no mistaking burnt baloney. There was no mistaking that shrill squeal.

Mary Ellen was at it, again.

I sprinted to the stairway and was glad no one was in my way. I could hear my sister’s high-C as I leaped upward, three steps at a time. I felt like Super Woman, dodging empty drink bottles, old newspapers and what looked like, and smelled like, a used diaper. I took the corner like a ball player rounding third and dashed up to the second floor. The minute I flew into our apartment, the stinky cloud surrounded me. My eyes burned.

My sister was frantic, flapping a dish towel and dancing her knobby-kneed flailing dance, and shrieking, NO! NO! NO! STOP! The gaping microwave belched smoke. I stopped, took a deeeep breath, and made myself not panic, even though she was leaping about, arms waving the dishtowel, sweeping, sweeping the smoke into hurried swirls, wailing OH-OH-OHHH! like a fire alarm.

She grabbed one of our kitchen chairs and climbed up, whipping the towel through the swirling smoke, her skinny arms and legs all every which way like a giant spider.

At least I saw no flames.

I took a breath, and another. Deeper. And willed my thumping heart to ease up as I closed the apartment door, so the smoke would not set off the hallway alarm, again, and hung my purse on the door knob, as calmly usual.

Hi, I cheerily called out. I walked to the smoky air of our little apartment like it was any old day. It was normal, everything was hunky-dory. I pretended my heart was not pounding, my legs not wobbly.

Hi, she gasped, not even slowing her dance. She sounded almost cheerful.

The smoke clouded across the ceiling, curling and swirling with each of her windmill pirouettes.

What’s going on? I asked. I purposely set my jacket over the back of the other chair, cool as a cucumber, turning away to hide my burning eyes.

I’m fixing dinner, my sister gasped, looking at me, grinning her fake grin when something went wrong. How one could grin so cheerily while her eyes rolled in panic was beyond me. It was just her way.

It burned, she said. She shook her fingers and studied them.

Pizza bun, she stammered. The cheese didn’t get melty. I like the cheese re-ee-aly MELTY! So I set another two minutes. Sorry. She stood on the chair and gave me her best puppy-dog look, complete with pout.

Oh well, I replied with a little shrug. It was cool. I was cool. Being calm and cool would make everything normal in her world.

Oh, well, she echoed.

It was a good thing I had taken the batteries out of the kitchen smoke alarm. Not only did the screeching of the alarm make a screeching MaryEllen, but crabby Mrs. Orlando always came down from the apartment over ours to bang on the door, or yodel her threats down the stairwell, making MaryEllen, screech louder. Then she’d dive into her closet under her clothes; her panic spot. I didn’t blame her. I was a little afraid of Mrs. Orlando, myself.

I’m home, I said.

Yeah, she replied. She oozed herself onto our kitchen chair, catlike. So cool.

What’s for dinner? I asked, as though the scramble was ho-hum just another day. "What was for dinner?"

Pizzabuns, my sister said, as I plopped down on the gimpy, brokeback sofa. I ducked my head below the wisps of smoke that burned my eyes. Eight hours waitressing, and my feet throbbed. I longed to just sit and melt down, but, I didn’t dare.

MaryEllen gave me a guilty-looking grin and turned back to the microwave. I’m going to make more pizza buns. Good ones, she said. Better ones. Not black. Not s’ploded. Ok?

Sounds super. Just two minutes one time, remember. I said, yawning for the effect. As I sat, making myself quiet and patient, she very carefully gathered the ingredients and had another go at dinner.

She got out two hamburger buns from the pack, laid them carefully on the counter, face up, arranged exactly so on the microwave platter and proceeded to assemble the cheese and bologna slice on each face-up half bun.

Need help? I offered.

Nope. I can do it. Just two minutes one time. And, she could, as long as I ignored the smoke, which, thankfully, was thinning out. While she immersed herself into the task, I got out our trusty scorch-scraping spatula and scooped the black crud out of the microwave.

She patted each of the assembled pizza buns, for good luck, I suppose, and placed them into the microwave, carefully setting the timer.

Wash up she said as she studied the rotating dinner through the smeared window. Almost ready. It was the routine, and I obediently played my part. I washed up, and ignored the image of the irked and straggy-haired girl in the bathroom mirror. I was fifteen years old to Mary Ellen’s seventeen. I looked ages older. Ancient.

I smiled. She-in-the-mirror grimaced. I finger-combed my hair and added lipstick. Nope. I still looked like a haggy, beat-up waitress in a little neighborhood café.

I could hear Mary Ellen humming. She sounded cheerier. A good thing. If Mary Ellen sounded cheery, the world wasn’t all that bad. No matter the crap of it, my aching feet, the crummy apartment and money worries, the ugly neighborhood. If Mary Ellen hummed cheerily, it was okay. Her happy world was wherever we were and the cheese on the pizza buns was melty.

Dinner was ready when I went back to the kitchen. It actually smelled like. . .dinner. Mary Ellen put on her oven mitt and took the bubbling pizza buns from the microwave one by one, arranging them carefully on two plates. My plate and her plate. I kicked off my stinky sneakers and wiggled numb toes.

Pizzabuns. God, I was sick of pizza buns.

Can’t we have fried eggs? I asked MaryEllen, knowing better the instant the words hit air.

She assumed the posture of frustrated teacher lecturing the class dunce, Eggs on Sunday. Friday, pizza buns. She squirted catsup on the buns and set the plates on the table.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday, pizza buns. Tuesday, Thursday, wieners and beans. Sunday, fried eggs and tater tots, Silly. she recited with practiced precision. Silly of me, indeed. My diet calendar for the year was set in stone. I could actually count how many pizza bun dinners until Christmas. Oh, God.

I groaned, set the table and poured us each a glass of soda, my job, while MaryEllen served the dinner, precisely two half-buns each. On the edge of each plate she carefully placed a buttered graham cracker square. That’s right. Friday; graham cracker dessert.

I had two hours before I left for my second job. I worked Friday nights, too, cleanup at the movie theater two blocks over on Haines. Tomorrow we’d have leftover popcorn to snack on. Earl Haverstad, the owner of the theater, let me take home all the popcorn that was left. Roughage. Mary Ellen loved that word. Popcorn was roughage.

Weekdays, I waitressed at the Fork In The Road restaurant, an old and slightly stinky place, but a neighborhood gathering spot for probably a hundred years. If you consider that a full chicken dinner was five-ninety-nine and the steak special was seven, you can imagine the tips were barely more than loose change. Still, it was something, since my hourly pay at the Fork-In-The-Road was eight-fifty. In all, not too terrible.

Sometimes I got to take home leftovers if no one had touched them, like someone looking at his plate and complaining it was too done, or gristly, or whatever. Or after the last customer and at closing we had a little mashed potatoes or coleslaw left and Lenny, Leonard Grimes, the owner, offered it. Never turn down leftovers.

How’d I get a full time job at fifteen? I lied. I told Lenny I was eighteen. If he suspected, he never said.

The crappy apartment was four hundred a month, and the rest was for pizza bun makings, soda, graham crackers, wieners and beans, peanut butter and jelly, and whatever else was on sale at the grocery. Didn’t leave much for a Bahaman cruise or shopping at Macys. But we get by, me and MaryEllen.

Sometimes, MaryEllen made a few dollars walking Mrs. Pluhm’s Pekinese. The old lady who lived upstairs on three. There’s a little patch of weeds on the corner between the apartment building and the alley; a scruffy little triangle, and we arranged that Mary Ellen could take Willy Woo down the stairs and to the little patch a couple times a day. I helped her practice a few hundred times before I felt she could do it herself. Right down to picking up WillyWoo’s poo with a bit of paper towel with the accompanying ewwwww.

Mrs.Pluhm lived alone, except for Willy Woo the dog, of course. She and Mary Ellen became friends; well, we all did, and Mrs Pluhm said she’d pay Mary Ellen to walk Willy Woo and save her from going all the way up and down the stairs. A quarter every time, which made it a dollar most days. Mary Ellen was happy, which made me happy, too.

We saved whatever we got from Mrs. Pluhm, and every now and then, we’d actually pay to see a movie, instead of me sneaking MaryEllen into the movie theater on my working nights, when Mr. Haverstad nicely looked the other way. I hated to leave her alone at night; it was bad enough to be gone as much as I was during my days at The Fork In The Road Cafe. I told her and told her never to leave the apartment, and she never did.

When I sneaked her in to the theater, MaryEllen usually sat in the very back row and fell asleep, anyway, unless it was a cartoon kind of movie. She simply adored cartoons and movies with kids or animals. She hated the mushy romance ones, or the noisy ones with guns and fighting. When the audience screamed, she’d freak out, and I had to be excused for the time it took to get her home and calmed. That sometimes meant I could not go back at all, but had to sit by her bed, give her the pills, talk in a calming voice, and wait until she fell asleep, which sometimes took an hour or more. When we ran out of her medicine, I started giving her Tic Tacs, and it did just about the same.

MaryEllen sat motionless across from me at the table, her hands folded, staring at me, until I signaled with a nod. Then, she said the prayer.

It’s me, God, MaryEllen. And this is my sister, Ida Lee. Thanks, God, for this day, even if it was cold out and I burned the pizza buns. Bless the pizza buns and soda pop and graham cracker. Bless me. Bless Ida Lee. Bless Mickie Orlando who got another black eye today. I think his mom whacked him, again. Bless Mrs. Pluhm who gave me an apple. Bless Willy Woo. He’s really cute and pooped where he should. I cleaned it up with a paper towel and put it in the poop bucket like Ida Lee said. Bless Daddy, even if he ran away, the bastard, and Momma even if she eloped and didn’t come back. Bless the money for our trip. Amen.

That’s me; Ida Lee, most hateful name in the whole universe, in my opinion. I couldn’t even make a decent nickname out of it, like Gerry for Geraldine or something. When I was born, Momma wanted to name me after her momma, but Momma’s momma’s name was Helga, and Momma’s momma said she always hated her name and would have no granddaughter named that, but since her favorite actress was Ida Lupino, and she really liked that name, I could be named after the actress. Momma could not name me Ida Lupino, the whole name, so she named me Ida Lee. Close enough. If it made grandma happy, then my momma was happy.

Momma was going to write to Ida Lupino and tell her, until I reminded her that the movies she liked were made eons before, and Ida Lupina was probably ancient by now or dead and wouldn’t be sending a lot of money cause some kid was named after her.

Ida Lee Gudgali. It sounds sorta like it’s spelled. If Ida Lee wasn’t bad enough, I had more than enough teasing about the Gudgali. All through elementary school, the teacher would call role, last names first. Every time she called my name, the whole dang class turned into a pack of hyenas. I was doomed. Gudgali Ida Lee was what they all called me after that, clear until I was in junior high. Gudgali Ida Lee, did Teach give you another pity A cause your such a geek? Gudgali Ida Lee, did you trip over your own shoe laces and flip your lunch tray ..again? Oh, boo-hoo.

Our Momma did the best she could, I guess. She was lonely, though. Even I could see that. She started being lonely even before Daddy left. And, Daddy left little by little, ducking out with his buddies, playing cards, or weekend fishing trips, working on some project, usually on the fishing boat he kept tied up at a friend’s dock, or just out. It wasn’t much, that boat, a tiny dingy he named. He painted Farfaraway on the back, all one long word. Little by little,Farfaraway until he was far far away and never came back.

Momma had friends, once, a lot of them. She and Daddy’d go dancing all the time, and they all laughed a lot and went to dances and parties that lasted all night, sometimes even at our house. And, if a neighbor called to complain about the noise, they were invited over, too, and added to the racket.

Momma loved those parties, getting all dressed up and coming home a bit tipsy and still dancing a bit, all floaty about the fun time they’d had. Oh, I just knew they were the best times she ever had. I remember watching her come into the room like a movie star, and she’d pose this way and that with her bright red smile, and eyes sparkling like a skyful of stars, and her hair all tossed up on top, full of sparkles, not mommy hair at all.

Daddy, when he was there, would take her hand and twirl her around, and he never stopped grinning at her, and calling her his own gorgeous darling. and he’d take both our hands and we’d laugh and dance a little before they went out

But, after Daddy left us, Momma had to get a job, she didn’t go to dances anymore. She wasn’t happy and giggly any more. She had nothing to talk about to all her friends on the phone, talking about all the other people they knew, wasn’t he so handsome, and wasn’t she just too flirty.

MaryEllen was just about twelve, and I was in fourth grade when he left. Mary Ellen didn’t know what was going on, but I did, even then. I knew why Momma cried late at night after we were supposed to be asleep. I knew why she was still in bed when I got home from school, and Mary Ellen hiding in the closet cause she made a mess and no one cleaned it up.

We all missed Daddy; he could make us laugh and make the whole world seem happy. Even Mary Ellen would laugh, the loudest and longest. Even after the rest of us were done laughing. It was her way. Momma had to hush her when Daddy would finally ask, can’t she ever… be . . .quiet.

Mary Ellen doesn’t really ever remember Daddy, except in the stories I tell her. Maybe she remembered and just wanted the stories. I tried to make the stories better than the times. Anyway, I was Daddy’s favorite. I was the one helping rake leaves or paint the garage. He didn’t have Mary Ellen help him much. He didn’t have much time for Mary Ellen at all, I realized, as I got older. Maybe that’s why she didn’t remember him like I did. I was the one remembered him teaching me how to ride a bike and build a campfire. I don’t ever remember him teaching Mary Ellen. She wouldn’t like it anyway. She wasn’t one for teaching, and she cried and screamed a lot and hated anyone touching her, or hugging her. And, if anyone corrected her, said try again, there’d be a royal fit and slamming doors, Daddy yelling just shut her up, and Mary Ellen in the back of her closet again.

I remember him ducking one shoulder down, like someone was going to hit him, every time Mary Ellen went into one of her screaming fits. She did that a lot. When she was little, I guess it was just baby screaming. But, when she got older, it was screaming that was like glass in the brain. Spanking her only made it worse. Everything only made it worse. Momma would try to catch Mary Ellen and hug her to show everything was all right. But, nothing was all right, and Momma learned Mary Ellen hated to be hugged. Daddy just went to work on his boat or go fishing, or bowling with his friends when Mary Ellen started screaming.

They had a fight once, Daddy and Mary Ellen. He was on the phone talking about his work with someone; something with his business. Important. Mary Ellen was humming, loud, nonsense words. Shut up, he told her, but it was like she wasn’t hearing, and kept on making her noise, playing some loud game all by herself, her dolls talking to each other real loud. Daddy had to stretch the phone cord tight so he could finish his call inside the closet with the door closed. When he came out, he was mad, and he called her a name.

I’m not a retard, Mary Ellen screamed back at him. I’m not a retard. I’m artistic. She followed him and kept saying it until he went out to the garage and shut the door.

No matter what he did, Mary Ellen’s noise and puttering bothered him. Mama tried, but she couldn’t keep her eyes on Mary Ellen every second. If he was fixing something in the garage, the mower or something with the car, she would find him, taking tools to play with, tripping over stuff he took out of the car, and one time he hit her. Really hard. Then, he looked all shocked for a second, and walked out. That became his walking out time. He’d look and look at her, and finally he would just walk out. To the garage or with his friends. . I never really knew where. For hours. I could never stay awake long enough to hear him come back.

After Daddy went away for good, Momma still went out, only then she went with just her girl friends. And, she went out smiling, and came home mad, kicking off her shoes and slamming her purse on the table if the baby sitter called her home early cause Mary Ellen had done something goofy, like plug the toilet with too much paper and then wouldn’t stop screaming when the water went everywhere.

It was hard to keep a babysitter. She was too old for a baby sitter.

Mary Ellen hated strangers, and spent most of those evenings hiding in her closet, crying, the snot running down and wiped on her sleeve, or getting stuck in her hair, calling for Momma or me, and I’d end up sitting in the closet with her that whole time, until Momma came home. I became the sitter when Momma finally quit trying to find someone.

After Daddy left, Momma had some dates, but the men never came back after they got nowhere with Mary Ellen. Some I liked, some were okay, some I hated. But, Mary Ellen hated them all. I’d hear Momma, late at night, after some dumb man didn’t call anymore, crying in her bed, pressing her face in the pillow so we couldn’t hear, but I did.

Weren’t we enough? I mean, we were her kids. But, I guess after Dad left, she needed . . .someone. Some adult. Anyone.

Of course, some of her ‘anyones’ were real losers. And, then, if she dared bring anyone around, make them a nice spaghetti dinner or something, all happy to be cooking and liked, there was Mary Ellen.

Momma really needed to be liked. She needed to be special. I got that. Momma beamed when she had a boyfriend; she floated, she twirled. Without one, she plugged along like in the story of Black Beauty when the horse could not pull the heavy cart one more step and fell down in the street to die. One night I heard her crying, and she cried and cried all night long.

Finally, when Momma got this new boyfriend, it seemed the sun shined all the time. Momma wasn’t a good singer, but she hummed a lot those days, no real tune, just a happy humming like a bird on a Spring day. He wasn’t too bad. I saw him from the window when he came to pick Momma up, and she would wave and trot down the walk to get in his car, all dancy and giggly and happy. He drove a convertible, not a brand new one, but nice, anyway, and Momma hopped in like it was something ritzy. I guess it was, though me and Mary Ellen would never have fit into it with them.

We never met him. Momma always met him downstairs, dashing out as soon as he pulled up. He wore a suit, mostly, and held the car door for her and looked happy at her.

She had smartened up, and didn’t bring him in to meet us. She was back twirling and happy, and finally he popped the question, and she was like Christmas morning and getting the thing she most wanted.

I didn’t know real grownups eloped, but they did, to Vegas. She never said where they would go after. She just didn’t come home.

It’s my last and final chance for happiness, Baby Momma said to me. She even had the nerve to ask me to help her pack, asking, this one? Or the blue?going through her things picking out the prettiest ones, and leaving her raggedy stuff in a pile for the dump.

Your daddy left me because he couldn’t deal with it. With her. You know how he was, the bastard. Left me to look after the two of you. And, now you’re nearly grown and . .

She hugged me then,