“Introduction” by Kristen Gentry

They’re getting closer, and I can’t believe she’s going to say it even though I know that’s what they do here.  I came with Mama because she asked and her future seemed to hang on my answer. I really just want to go to Mark’s Feed Store with Zaria and celebrate the end of the semester with a fat plate of ribs, but I don’t want to fuck things up. Mama’s happy.

Earlier, she sat on the toilet in her underwear, kneading her brown body with lotion, her hands pleading an apology for all the years of war.  The C cups she implanted when I was twelve (just getting the A’s she’d passed on) plumped against the lacy black trim of her bra. She got her thighs liposuctioned as a forty-eighth birthday present five years ago even though I begged her not to.  Even then I knew Mama still had some perfect parts left and I wanted to preserve them.  At twenty-one, I still don’t have her brickhouse hips that had my daddy talking marriage within a week, but I want to see what my body can still become in the event of a miracle—a baby, a delicious supplemental shake—that could help me gain weight.

She spritzed perfume onto the tender insides of her wrists that starred in my nightmares and spread on white pages I couldn’t fill with anything else when she wouldn’t answer the phone. They made me consider driving two hours from Bloomington to Louisville for the unsettling relief that she’d only spent days in bed trying to disappear into sleep. The radio in the kitchen blasted Bonnie Raitt’s “Something to Talk About,” and Mama seemed to be serenading herself in mumble-sing as she put on her make-up.

So I know this is important, but being here makes me feel anxious and stupid that Mama and I dressed up in our Christmas gifts.  And way stupid for almost crying in the car when Mama said, “I’m really happy you’re coming with me, JayLynn.”  The Token Club, with its old tables and folding chairs that scratch and scrape against the dirty tile floor, is not the kind of place that should be cupping fragile moments like this.  The room is blank, marked only with the Twelve Steps and Traditions. I’m dying for a “Hang in There” kitten, a field of sunflowers—something else. There should be someplace else for Mama to have to say, “My name is Claudia, and I’m an addict.” Someplace carpeted so those concrete words don’t thunk so loudly.  Someplace with cushioned chairs that doesn’t smell like smoke.

But nobody else seems to notice.  Two ton words are crashing all over the place, and nobody else is wobbled in their aftershock.

“My name’s Jeremy, and I’m an alcoholic.”

Jeremy stands on the back wall next to Vick, who’s just introduced himself.  Jeremy’s legs are blue-jean sticks. His face is ruddy like he’s been getting smacked around his whole life, but he smiles and tilts his head back to take a deep swallow from his Coke, that looks like it’s the best thing that ever happened to him.  Jeremy, five introductions away from Mama, is next to a woman who says, “Ramona, addict-alcoholic,” whispers something in his ear and giggles, all up and down and shaky like a baby bird just pushed from the nest. Jeremy just nods.

I’ve been staring at Ramona since I got here.  She’s wearing berry lipstick too severe for her pale skin, and her curly blonde hair is frizzy, but she’s wearing the baddest coat I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s a rainbow of fur—red, burgundy, mustard, sapphire, jade—patchworked into one piece.  It’s so bad that I almost don’t care if it’s real fur. Mama noticed it, too.  It’s just the kind of thing that gets us passing her US Weekly magazines across the kitchen table to one another, sharing dreams.

But I don’t like Ramona’s introduction.  It was quick and sparse with too many spaces—“Ramona, addict-alcoholic”—leaving it up to other people to make connections.  It wasn’t a declaration like Jeremy’s.  I can see Ramona at Kroger in the near future, placing her items on the counter: bologna, frozen lasagna, six-pack of beer, apples, peanut butter. The cashier stops the conversation about prom dresses with her friend in the next aisle to say, “Oh my god!  Your coat is insane.  Tammy, look at her coat!  If I had a coat like that I wouldn’t wear nothing else, ever. I wouldn’t even need a prom dress.” She is barely paying attention as she calls for a manager to scan the beer that she is forbidden to touch.  I wonder if Ramona’s got a closet full of tricks like this, and immediately I see a point beyond comfort in a woman named Kate’s University of Kentucky sweatshirt and green sweatpants. When Kate introduced herself, she stood, waved, said, “Hello, everybody. My name is Kate, and I’m still an alcoholic,” and I liked her right away.  She’s one of the loudest voices in the greeting chorus, and she smiles at everyone as if they’re a newborn swaddled in her thick arms that she’s seconds away from Eskimo-kissing.

I don’t want my mama to have to say the words.  I’d rather be eating barbecue and hot steak fries dipped in ketchup, laughing with my cousin, forgetting that my mother stands near a black edge every hour because she’s addicted to pain pills, but since I’m here and she has to say the words I want her to say them right.  I pray to God the knock-off boots I bought her and all the compliments I threw when she was finally dressed won’t get in the way of that.  I was too afraid to tell her she was beautiful when she was stripped in the bathroom.  Calling attention to what she believes to be her most unacceptable truths has, in the past, only led to more alterations, cover-ups, and withdrawal. When she and Daddy divorced, I was almost more relieved than sad.  Daddy’s love, like something straight out of the Bible—epic and long-suffering—read to Mama like a ghost story where the spirit never tires of chase.  In spite of all this, I still want to punch myself for playing possum instead of nudging her to see what’s real.

When Bert’s done, it’s Mama’s turn. She looks at me and smiles a Kate-smile before looking back at everybody else and saying, “My name is Claudia, and I’m an addict” without even a deep breath—like the one I took— to prepare. I’m the loudest when everyone says, “Hi, Claudia!”

Then it looks like my turn because I’m sitting next to her. I didn’t expect to have to say anything, but since I’m in the circle and everyone else has shared it doesn’t seem right not to introduce myself so I say, “My name is JayLynn, and Claudia is my mother.” The whole room, including Mama, greets me, and I offer a half-smile.

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Kristen Gentry is a Kentucky girl who lives in Rochester, NY and teaches creative writing at SUNY Geneseo. She misses Louisville winters that end without a fight, being able to find cans of fried apples in the grocery store, and people who say “pop,” but she’s able to find all of these home comforts at the scratched and dented desk the department chair’s wife found discarded on the curb.