Memoir of a Barbed Wire Fence
An Excerpt
One Halloween Mom sewed Joey’s costume on her black and yellow painted Singer home sewing machine. Joey wanted to be Dorothy and I did too.
Both of you can’t be Dorothy, Mom said.
Why not? I asked, and clicked my heels together.
Because, she said. Joey is going to be Dorothy. And that’s that.
I want to be Dorothy! I screamed. I want to be Dorothy!
I ran naked circles around Joey and Mom while she fitted him for his dress. Pat Benatar wailed “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” out of Mom’s boom box on top of the coffee table. Mom and Joey towered above me. They tried to ignore me away, but I wouldn’t let them.
Bug off, Joey shouted.
Fuck you, I thought, then climbed on top of the coffee table where I kicked Mom’s Vogue Patterns and boom box on the floor. With my fists punching the air, I hollered: I want to be Dorothy. And that’s that!
Mom didn’t have enough time to make me a new dress so she rigged me up in a green sequined number she found in her closet from her cocktail days. She applied blue mascara, long fake eyelashes, and I even wore Mom’s two sizes too big green pumps, her blonde wig, and two coats too many of purple eye shadow. Mom took a Polaroid picture of us and I pinned it to the wall above my headboard. That Halloween my family dressed out of the Wizard of Oz. Bobo our Mutt was Toto, Mom was the Wicked Witch of the West, Joey was Dorothy, and I was almost Dorothy.
Memoir of a Barbed Wire Fence
Hayden’s Ferry Review Spring/Summer 2007 Issue 40
