Kudzu Queen

By Tamara Ducote

The diagnostics were bad. He needed major surgery. He wouldn’t be able to do normal stuff for a while.

This truly distressed me because the “he” was my trusty Blazer. We have another car, but there is no way that my daughter and I can share a vehicle for any length of time without Court TV becoming involved.

I scheduled the battered Blazer’s surgery for Spring Break week. My daughter wanted to take the good car out of town then, for fun and frolic with her friends. It was her senior year, she said, pleading her case. It was her last chance to enjoy Alabama. Come August, she’d be off to college and I wouldn’t hear from her again until I read about myself in her memoir, “And You Thought ‘Mommie Dearest’ Was Bad.”

“Sure, go ahead,” I said. “I can live a week without a car. I’m grown and intelligent. I can certainly entertain myself for a few days.”

What I had not realized when I cavalierly volunteered to be housebound for a week was that being trapped alone with my own mind is not a vacation, it is a horror movie.

“You wuss,” my friend Wayne said derisively. “I could easily handle being alone with my mind for a week.”

“Yeah, but could you handle being alone for a week with MY mind?” I asked.

He shuddered. “Stop, stop! It’s too horrible to contemplate.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” I said.

Midway through Day One I began to wonder why in the name of God liquor stores don’t deliver. True, I am in recovery. But in desperate situations like this one, the Serenity Prayer only carries you so far.

At least I still had my pets for company. I directed the force of my personality towards my companion animals. I awoke the morning of Day Two to discover the dog dragging her blankie and her toys out of the dogloo. I watched as she placed her toys in the middle of the blankie and then wrapped them up, hobo style, in preparation for running away. I went inside to complain to the iguana and found him briskly stuffing romaine lettuce leaves into a tiny green suitcase.

“Et tu, Goo?” I asked.

“Sorry,” Goo the iguana said, “But enough is enough.”

You’re probably thinking, “You should’ve just asked somebody for a ride, for crying out loud.”

I hate asking people for rides. I’ll give somebody a ride, in a heartbeat. I’ve been known to stop people I see walking and ASK them if they need rides.

“Excuse me, ma’am. Would you like a ride?”

“Uh, no,” the elderly lady said, from behind her shopping cart. “I’m just two rows over, in Lane Four. Thank you anyway.”

“Hey, bro, you need a ride?” I asked the man standing in the middle of the street.

“No, I’m the school crossing guard,” he said. Then, rather than thanking me, he less-than-politely inquired about my mental status. Shows you what kind of home training HE had.

Asking for rides always seemed to me like asking for money. I was brought up with this tangled dysfunctional skein of DO NOTS, chief among which was asking for money or rides (Beating your children or drinking away the child support money was OK.). I contemplate asking somebody for a ride, and I hear a parental voice resonating throughout my cranial cavity, vividly describing what a lowdown deadbeat I must be, to not have my own working vehicle.

But by mid-morning of Day Two, I was past all that. I called two of my closest friends, both of whom I’d given rides to in the past, and both of whom had volunteered, “Call me if you need a ride this week.”

Friend One had to arrange his mother’s funeral. Friend Two had to have exploratory surgery or some such shit.

Excuses, excuses.

I’d foolishly stepped outside of my family’s value system, and been burned, twice. I’d never ask anybody for a ride, ever again.

Thank God I still had the telephone.

I wore out most everybody I actually knew by the end of Day Two. But there were still creditors and telemarketers.

“Tell me again about that long-distance savings plan,” I said into the telephone. “I want to make sure I catch all the nuances of it.”

“I’ll tell you why my car payment is late if you’ll talk to me for 10 minutes,” I said to the next caller. “In fact, I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you’ll talk to me for 10 minutes.”

On the morning of Day Three, I truly frightened myself. I searched the house until I found the vacuum cleaner, and I vacuumed. Then I dusted the furniture and the baseboards. Things were well past garden-variety pathological, now. Things were deeply scary. I got out the Windex and sprayed “REDRUM” on all the glass surfaces in the house, before wiping them clean.

I found myself developing and nurturing a deep and abiding resentment towards every living person who had access to a working automobile. Or motorcycle. Or skateboard. Or those goofy-looking tennis shoes with retractable wheels. I stopped short of resenting folks with wheelchairs, but only because even my evilness has limits.

At least I still had the Internet. I sent overly long, needy missives to everybody in my e-address book, including folks I hated. I even sent one to the dude who committed the unpardonable sin of stealing my Waylon Jennings CD two years ago. As I pathetically pecked at my keyboard, I deeply regretted being kicked out of every single chat room I’d ever found even moderately interesting.

At least I wasn’t banned from AOL entirely, anymore. After a period of penance, and a promise from me that I would not ever again be mean to feeble-minded retards, AOL had generously allowed me to resume paying them money. So I was not entirely cut off from civilization, even though I missed being able to inflict myself personally upon it.

The body shop called mid-afternoon, Day Four. I went and got my car. And the very first thing I did was…go home.

Turns out it’s not about going places and doing things. It’s all about having the element of choice removed. Once I had the means to motor to wherever I wanted to, I was quite content to stay home and relax. What had been my prison for four days became once again my sanctuary.

I’m not sure what all of this means, but hey, if you need a ride, holler at me, OK?

Contact Tamara Ducote at TDDucote6@aol.com.

Archives