HOLY DAYS: Bettina and Susie

 Lately, I've been finding a lot of strength looking at family photos. Here is a photo taken in 1957 of my mother, her beautiful red hair in pin curls, my great aunt and her movie star pretty girlfriend. They seem to be looking at a family photo album - fitting. My aunt and her girlfriend were brave. My mother welcomed them; no one else in the family would receive them. They came to do my mother's hair and insisted on having a reason to come when my mother would say, "Oh, just come over!"

Here is a chapter from my novel, Holy Days inspired by my Great Aunt Bettina and her love, Susie.

REVERE, 196-

BETTINA AND SUSIE

“In the home,” Daddy was saying, his voice cracked with sobs, “they never let us...”

“Take it easy, Billy,” consoled my mother’s Aunt Bettina, with her deep voice,  “that’s all over now. You got a nice family now and a nice home. You made it out of there. Right?” 

With her own strong grip, she held his trembling hand across the kitchen table. He didn’t often do that, break down about the home in which he had spent much of his childhood, but, occasionally, if the conversation hit a nerve, he crumbled.

They’d been talking about me reading at the dinner table, how I always had a book and whether or not it was a good thing. Daddy broke down because the priests wouldn’t let them read books. If they were caught doing nothing, as the priests called it, they’d be given work to do, like scrubbing the toilets or the long staircase in the rectory.

Aunt Bettina had a voice as deep and gruff as a man’s could be. She fooled me every time she called on the phone. 

“Rosie, there?” she asked in the playful tone of a man, who was strange to me, but who seemed to know Ma secretly and very well.

My back went up like a little porcupine. Who was this guy who thought he could talk to my mother like he was her boyfriend? Annoyed, I handed Ma the receiver.

“It’s a man,” I said, disapprovingly.

She looked quizzical. Her insurance broker? A salesman?

I could hear the male voice laughing, deep and loving, echoing along the little space between Ma’s ear and mine.

“It’s a man, Rosie! It’s a man!” Aunt Bettina teased.

Ma laughed, looking my way and shaking her head.

“It’s your Aunt Betty, you stupid,” she said, affectionately.

We were supposed to call her Auntie Betty, but I couldn’t resist calling her Aunt Bettina, which was a much prettier name. She was a small woman who wore her thick brown hair short and combed straight back from her noble forehead. She smoked more cigarettes than Daddy. When she visited Ma, she drank Lipton tea, but I always envisioned a heavy set glass of whiskey rather than Ma’s crockery mug with the tea bag’s tiny string and label dangling out that seemed so fragile in front of her square body. Aunt Bettina was Grandma’s sister, but our family was the only one who would receive her.

She came, always, with her girlfriend, Susie, who called her Tina, in a secret pet way, which was lovely to hear. Susie had pressed gold hair that she wore in the style of the glamorous movie stars of the Thirties, like Carroll Lombard or Betty Davis, in permanent waves cascading close to her skull. She held her neat, golden head very erect upon her tall, thin frame, like a ballet dancer. 

Bettina and Susie had to have a purpose for coming, usually to do something for Ma. Maybe, that was their way of rationalizing this risk to Ma’s standing in the family. I had no idea why Aunt Bettina wasn’t welcome at Grandma’s house, Grandma, who was the most generous person I knew, but the only thing wrong with her was her voice and her hair, so, I assumed, whatever these were clues of, that was the reason. This “reason” floated above Bettina and Susie like - curiously enough - halos, since it seemed to single them out for a perverse kind of sainthood.

In fact, there was something uncannily sweet and fine about Bettina and Susie. Bettina and Susie. Why do some of the names of our pasts ring out like the bells of heaven? And others like the tolls of hell? Bettina and Susie, two saints, two angels kicked out of the church, but, I was sure, not out of heaven.

On this night, Susie stood and retouched Ma’s hair with Blondex while everyone talked. I was reading Dickens, “real reading,” not for school. I always read every book the author had written, not just what I had to read for school. “Real reading” became like a song for me.

Ma sat without her glasses, her beautiful eyes puffy from the shampoo, a towel spread over her shoulders, the squirmy terrier in her lap. Susie called Tareyton, “La Pishashta,” in bastardized Italian, the little pisser. Ma handed Susie bobby-pins as Susie sectioned the wet, dark red hair, spun the ribbons of hair on her finger and pinned them in little circles against Ma’s head, till Ma’s hair disappeared and she was wearing a bathing cap of tight red spirals. Daddy sat with us, which was a phenomenon, a tribute to Aunt Bettina, really. He kept trying to give her “a little shot” with her tea.

They were asking me about the tiny print and the thin pages in my book.

“Look at the pages! So thin! Like the Bible! How the hell kin you see those words, Gloria? You’re going to ruin your eyes! Billy, you should get her a magnifying glass, no shit.”

Daddy laughed, kind of proud of me, “Ah, she loves that stuff! The smaller the print, the thinner the paper, the better! What’s that? Shakespeare?”

“Dickens.”

I called all the books by their authors now, no matter what the title, they were Dickens or Stewart or du Maurier.

“Oh!” he said, like he knew.

“She should be a teacher,” Aunt Bettina advised.

Susie agreed. She nodded, bobby pins jammed in her mouth.

“I’m going to be a writer,” I said.

“Mmmm!” Susie murmured, impressed.

“A what? What, like for a newspaper?” Aunt Bettina growled.

“No, like for books.”

“That’s no good! Be a teacher! You get your summers off.”

Everyone agreed, I could travel, they said. I’d get paid for my summers and have them off too. 

“She’s always reading,” Ma told them. 

“Oh, yeah? You should be a teacher, then.”

“She even brings a book to the table. I have to tell her every night, no reading at the table,” Ma said, proudly, handing Susie another bobby pin for her mouth. 

“Oh, that’s no good. You shouldn’t read at the table,” Aunt Bettina told me.

“I can’t stop,” I said. 

That’s when we noticed Daddy’s eyes had gone all red and the tears started to drop, one by one, on the table. He sniffed and Aunt Bettina asked him what was wrong.

He told us about the orphanage. Things leaked out, from time to time, about his past, things leaked, just like his tears, one by one and fell before us. I still don’t know everything I should about my father’s life, all the mysteries, all the reasons. But, I couldn’t stand to see him cry. My stomach hurt, as though someone powerful had grabbed it full in his fist and twisted it mercilessly. Tears gathered in my own eyes, Susie looked pained and Ma looked down at the pins held tightly in her red-tipped fingers. 

“I keep having this dream,” I said, quietly.

They all looked at me.

“What? Like Martin Luther King?” Aunt Bettina joked uncomfortably, trying to break the tension.

I smiled. “Kind of. The Communists come marching down the street. Right down Hichborn, with tanks and soldiers doing that step - what is it?”

“The goosestep,” Daddy sniffs.

“Yeah, the goosestep. I can see them and hear their feet coming right down our street where we use to play and I’m terrified. Next thing I know, they’re storming up the steps to my room; they make so much noise it scares me to death. They have guns with bayonets and big boots and helmets, like the Nazis. I keep getting them mixed up with the Nazis. They start tearing the books off my shelves and they’re going to arrest me and take the books away and burn them. It’s funny, one of the books they take is The Diary of Anne Frank. And in my dream, I walk right up to the leader, the sargeant, or whatever he is, and I say, “You can’t take them from me. I’ve already read them.”

They were silent a minute, then Aunt Bettina said, “You should come down and talk more often, Gloria.”

It was true. I never came down from my room. I’d created another world up there with my books and my heroes. But, I’d made a special effort this night because Bettina and Susie had brought me clothes. Beautiful clothes. Aunt Bettina’s old cashmere sweaters that had a faint odor and coating of dry cleaning which clung to my hands like a film of oldness after touching the soft cushy fabric, but I didn’t mind; the colors were deep browns and greens, the colors of the forest at night and no one had ever given me anything so fine. There was also a fuchsia wool jacket of impeccable tailoring, not that I would have known what such a thing as impeccable tailoring was, I just knew it when I saw it. The jacket had short sleeves and I marveled that a woman could be cool enough to need a jacket, but warm enough to not need sleeves.

It was then that Jakey walked in the back door with Rick right behind him. 

“Where you comin’ from?” Daddy asked Jakey.

Jakey shrugged, “Nowheres.”

Aunt Bettina studied them both. Susie went on with Ma’s hair as though she had no need to study them, she already knew what she’d find. 

“Clean your feet!” Ma hollered, after they were on their way upstairs.

As he passed me, Rick mumbled, “Body by Fisher” and Daddy’s head jerked round in my direction.

“What did he say?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. It was from a car commercial, something about the sleek body lines of the car. Earl Rizzo had started calling me that.

“He’s a little scumbag, huh?” Aunt Bettina asked Daddy.

Daddy polished off the dregs of his beer.

“You said it!” he agreed.

“What the hell happened to his face?” she asked.

There was an awkward silence for a minute while we waited for each other to answer her. 

“He was hit by a truck when he was little,” I said.

“Jesus!”

“Want some more tea, Betty?” Ma asked her.

“Sure, Rosie.”

“Kin I interest ya in a wee drop o’ the creacha’, Betty?” Daddy teased with a mock Irish brogue.

It was amazing how quickly and how often my loyalties shifted. How war wasn’t as simple as it should be - it was more like the stories people tell afterwards, as when a prisoner actually has to live with his enemy and the enemy takes care of him, nurses him back to health, and, finally, hides him from his own side and helps him to escape. There was never a time when I could forget, never a time when I could believe that Daddy was my father. At times, he was the enemy and I was his prisoner, and at other times, I was caring for him and hiding him, sorry we were enemies. Never did I plan his escape. No, in fact, I was sure I should kill him. If I were honorable and brave, I would have killed him by now. No hero would have eaten his food or drunk with him at his table. I should have run him through with my sword a long time ago. That much was clear.

What was not clear was why his tears cut through me like a sword. Why it made me proud sometimes to think of him. Why it repulsed me right now to watch him getting another drink, and absentmindedly scratching one foot with the rough, peeling skin of the other. Why I let Rick talk to me like that. Why I was proud to have him think I had a Body by Fisher. Why I was proud that he’d been hit by a truck and was so tough he was still walking around. I should kill them both. I should kill them. Why didn’t I? Why?

©Patricia Goodwin, 2015

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

Reading the Internet is Dangerous

Pierre-Antoine Baudouin, The Reader, c.1760

The Internet Makes You Stupid. The Internet Makes You Smarter. The Internet Makes You Lazy. The Internet Makes You Fat. The Internet closes bookstores. The Internet is Dangerous. The Internet Makes you Anti-Social. Internet Porn Ruins Young Men. Online Gaming is Addictive.

You can Google the Internet makes you ______ and find pages and pages of articles to back up any claim.

But, did you know that all the things that are said about the Internet were once said about books? Especially novels.

As someone who has studied English Literature, these absolute statements made my ears twitch. I’d heard them before. About the first novels, and the 18th through 19^th Century reading craze, especially among women.

Reading novels was considered, not only frivolous, but, like the Internet, dangerous to society. In her introduction to the book Women Who Read Are Dangerous (Stefan Bollmann, Abbeville Press, 2016), Karen Joy Fowler quotes the 18^th C philosopher, Johann Adam Bergk, when he said of novel readers, “senseless extravagance, insurmountable reluctance to undertake any effort, boundless love of luxury, suppression of the voice of conscience, becoming tired of life, and an early death.” And from Karl G. Bauer in 1791, “The lack of all physical movement while reading, combined with the forcible alternation of imagination and emotion, would lead to slackness, mucous congestion, flatulence, and constipation of the inner organs, which, as is well known, particularly in the female sex, actually affects the sexual parts.” The painter, Pierre-Antoine Baudouin, in 1760 depicted just such a lady, who, though dressed to go out, has apparently been diverted by a sexy novel, pleasured herself, and now lies recumbent in disarray. I know of at least one novel during this period, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, that was pretty steamy stuff. Pamela was a maidservant pursued by the young master of the house; she rebuked his attentions until, finally, he married her. So, virtue rewarded. The danger of reading novels was not just a feminist issue. In the 16th century, Cervantes' Don Quixote was inspired by romance novels to embark on his improbable quests. Novels made him unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. There was also Paolo and Francesca in Dante's Divine Comedy  - a 13^th Century love story in real life - whose reading about Lancelot and Guinevere had disastrous consequences.

Every day we hear the same phrases about the Internet, young people and the devices they use to go online – phones, computers, laptops, iPads – all of which seem permanently attached to their hands.

Kids who keep their phones on all night, open to Twitter or Instagram, waking at that buzz, sneaking under the covers, if need be, that intimate, artificial glow on their faces from the lighted screen. Likewise, a child reading with a flashlight, or before that, a candle. Parents are encouraged to get their kids to put their devices down and run around in the fresh air. They may even show a kid reading a book out on the lawn in any of these public-service announcements.

If you’ve ever watched an 18th - 19th Century period piece and wondered why the characters are visiting friends, or running off in a carriage with a lover, but have a book covering their faces – like any kid with an iPhone - it’s because reading was a fad at the time, and a book was considered a hip, intelligent accessory – again, much like an iPhone.

Also, according to Fowler, there was a phenomenon called “silent reading,” which was considered subversive. Apparently, reading had been more like lecturing, or a sermon, with the “reader” reading aloud to a congregation of other humans, meant to be instructional, educational, not necessarily, fun. The idea that people, women especially, had their heads bent silently, entering an unknown world, a world known only to them, not supervised, not devotional, perhaps moving from idle thought to strong feelings, all this was considered dangerous to the health of individuals and society.

Recently, on the BBC TV show, "Downton Abbey," the kitchen maid, Daisy, who holds the bottom-most position in the household discovers she is good at Math, takes a Math course, and talks about leaving service to improve her life, perhaps to become a bookkeeper. Thus, Daisy accomplishes what the ruling class had dreaded for a very long time, since reading and mass education began to get a foothold – she manages to break through the stone ceiling of her class. In one episode, Mrs. Patmore, the cook, mumbles something about Daisy “getting ideas above her station,” which is exactly what Daisy does get, more than an idea, she gets a better job. It wasn’t only World War I that broke up the old class system of England, it was reading.

On that note, the modern internet has also provided something vital for people that may have been lost in most cases since the Industrial Revolution when city districting codes were put in place and poor people who depended on the extra income of cottage industries could no longer make the hats or grow vegetables gardens or keep pigs or bake cookies that used to supplement their income. The internet has brought back the cottage industry in sites like Etsy or eBay and individual, personal websites where people may sell their crafts. The freedom of being able to create and sell is enormous. 

Today, thanks to the Internet, we are no longer at the mercy of the mainstream media for our news, which is highly censored and delivered to us in cute, tasty, albeit bad-for-you, homogenized, brightly colored junk food packaging. Turn on the network news, flip the channels; you’ll find the same stories presented in the same fashion on every channel. Thanks to the Internet and orgs like Organic Consumers Association, Institute for Responsible Technology, and Food Democracy Now! we know about GMOs in our food. Mainstream media would never have covered GMOs and they still don’t talk about them. Events like Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, Protests at Standing Rock, even the true story of what was happening at Hurricane Sandy, and the riots at Ferguson, these were covered online by sites such as YouTube, Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Sandy on Facebook and Twitter, and other renegade online news sources, such as Democracy Now!, Native News Online, Alternet, Anonymous, and Unicorn Riot. After such off-the-charts, in-your-face coverage, mainstream media could no longer ignore the riots, the killings and the demonstrations. Mainstream news began to cover what they couldn’t ignore, but only with a generic, fast-food wrapper, returning as soon as possible to stories that promoted a more positive, feel-good national agenda, even repeating news stories that served the message the network wanted to convey.

Right now, even as I write, the NSA could, if so inclined, look directly into your eye (or your room) via the camera on your computer. We know this because Edward Snowden sacrificed himself to tell us. More than that, retail outlets are listening in on your conversations at home or any where in the presence of any device into which you may speak, and are sending you promotional emails and ads in response to your spoken wishes. If only they paid for these wishes too! That would be like rubbing Aladdin's lamp!

Every day President Trump horrifies Americans by deleting more and more Twitter accounts and web pages, from orgs he disagrees with such as the National Parks Service and even his own White House pages on veterans' rights, civil rights, women's rights and climate change. He also wants to destroy the free internet. Spiteful and mean as a schoolyard bully, he'll take our lunch money and toss our hard-earned sneakers to dangle over the telephone wires. Well, I'll walk home hungry and barefoot. I'll wear a T-Shirt and I'll carry pamphlets! 

On another subject, just as urgent to many, it's been said that Internet porn has ruined young men for any real relationships. And, many people also become addicted to online gaming. The Internet has also been blamed for surveillance, stalking and murder. Yes, the Internet has had many ill effects. And, sure, it’s dangerous for our society to be so dependent on the Internet. Businesses, government, banks, stores, etc. would collapse – for a time, at least – without an Internet connection.

But the Internet has also caught many murderers, made crime-fighting tools such as DNA, fingerprints, CCTV and facial recognition much easier to use effectively. Social media has allowed criminals to find victims, but it has also made it possible for police to turn that same social network around to find and arrest those very same perpetrators.

As for porn, Internet porn addiction is very real and has ruined a lot of young men, many of whom can no longer get an erection. Yes, guys, it can get worn out. Only complete withdrawal from Internet porn can fix it. I've never heard of reading causing such a problem, though our ancestors certainly feared it would!

Online gaming is also a serious addiction, as harmful as heroin. One of the stories that sticks in my mind and heart is the tragedy of the couple who forgot to feed their baby because they were playing a game involving their virtual child online. In another story, a clinic in the Netherlands that was treating cocaine addiction soon found that many of their patients were actually using cocaine to try to stay up all night and play in an online gaming community they couldn’t leave for a minute without falling behind. Their cocaine addiction was actually an Internet gaming addiction.

I’ve heard that the Internet spoils you. The research is certainly wonderful. I can get answers to my inquiries in seconds, answers that once would have taken days, weeks, months or years to receive. Interviews can be conducted via email or social networks, interviews that would have required not only travel, but, in some cases, repeated travel, as people often are reluctant to talk. However, one still has to read books, even though you might think that information in books becomes outdated – it does sometimes – but not as often as you’d think. One woman I know read 150 books – as well as years of study and practice, of course - to write the book she needed to write about perfume. Another writer read a very long book just to use one word accurately in his own. In my own case, one thing the Internet has spoiled is my sense of timing. I feel deep down in my bones that everything should only take as long as one click to finish. Waiting has always been hard. Now, it’s brutal. But, I’m not alone and the Internet is not entirely responsible. Do you know, for instance, what the attention span is for a New York editor who is reading your work? That is, how much time you have to impress her before she moves on? Half a second. That was in the ‘80s. Maybe it was the cocaine then, but I’m sure, by now, with the Internet, and all that clicking all day, her patience is even shorter.

I may be spoiled, but I also find myself wishing I could turn up the brightness on the page when I am reading a book. Most books – even quality paperbacks – are no longer printed on quality paper. The publishers cut costs by printing on a darker shade, which reminds me of the old math paper we had in school for doing preliminary sums. We called it scrap paper. As a publisher, I’m proud to say that Plum Press has always printed on the best quality paper, bright white or light cream. On the other hand, I do sometimes find myself wanting to turn down the brightness of my iPad screen while I use my Kindle reader app.

I’ve never heard of anyone getting sick from marathon reading, however. Lots of people have stayed up all night to finish a book only to be groggy and wobbly the next day, but I’ve never heard of anything more serious.

Nevertheless, reading can be dangerous.

Reading has produced a new class. An educated class, regardless of monetary rank in society. Anyone may educate themselves. Even rich people. Trump has proven that rich people do not need to be educated. They have people who do that for them. However, we the people need to be and I’m a firm believer in self-education. Cross-referencing, and not believing everything you read, either online or in books, but checking up on facts through more reading and learning through actual doing. Reading online has produced a more informed electorate. Oh, yes, even after this last election, how many butts are burning from past mistakes, causing more reading and, thus, more learning, to be currently taking place. People are learning how to do things for themselves online: from carpentry to plumbing, from cooking to dressmaking, from herbal remedies to acupressure, we are sharing what we have learned. Every day I go online to learn what is going on in the world, in my world and every other world. I can watch politics or take a break and watch a kitty video. Maybe Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance in evening dress. Maybe Michael Moore’s latest remark. Or Meryl Streep’s acceptance speech. I can watch everything from protestors to surfers, the choices are endless and each is being done by fellow humans all over the world. I can comment, I can write and I can share what I know. Shepard Fairey’s new work, his inaugural series, does not depict the new President. We The People is his theme. We can Learn. We can Do. We can Empower Ourselves.

One more thing: Scientists have also found that, not gaming or heroin or cocaine or reading produces the most dopamine: Love does.

Love on!

©Patricia Goodwin, 2017

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.