Read Online Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lucy Grealy
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and he looked at me steadily and sadly for a minute before asking if I knew what it was. I'd been told I was going to have chemotherapy, but it had been described as simply another drug, another injection, maybe one that would make me a little flushed, no more. I'd had some unpleasant scans involving injected dyes, which had transformed the world into something woozy and hot, but nothing so bad that I felt unable to face it again.
My explanation wasn't what he was expecting, but, unable or unwilling to finish what he'd started, he mentioned something vague about chemical changes in my body, about how my hair might be affected. Having no idea what he was talking about and sensing something serious I'd rather not pursue, I made a joke to Evan about how my hair would turn green, my eyes purple. This was the second time an adult had tried to approach me directly and seriously about my situation, and it was the second time I had turned it around, refused to tackle it.
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Death had become part of my vocabulary when I was six. The gerbil was the latest in a long line of family pets to die, and with my sister Susie, who was twelve at the time, I was disposing of the body behind the house. Our dog Cassie had died a year or so before, and though I missed her, at the time I had felt confused by Susie's irrational tears and bad tempers in the days afterward. Now the gerbil was also dead, and though I'd had no real attachment to him, I was sorry. He lay on top of a brown paper bag from the A&P, soon to be his final shroud. His fur parted and clumped together in a strange way, the deadest thing about him, and when I touched him I couldn't believe how hard, how cold, he was. Susie picked him up by his tail, and the sunlight suddenly illuminated the dullness of his still open eyes. A strange idea entered my head, an idea so preposterous it couldn't be true. How could it be? Surely Susie would laugh at me for even suggesting it, but I felt I had to make sure anyway, for my own peace of mind.
I paused for a moment, considering how best to phrase it. I went for the negative approach.
"People don't die, do they?"
She looked at me with the surprise I'd hoped for, the faintly amused look that told me my fear was unfounded, but her response became proof positive that one should never ask a twelve-year-old sister
anything
With glee in her voice she commenced to describe in great detail how you went into the cold dark ground, how the skin fell off your bones, how your eyes fell out. In a truly inspired touch, she began singing:
Â
The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
in your stomach and out your mouth.
Â
I don't blame her. I was an easy mark, and had I been in her position I'd have done the same thing. Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people, and for the specific job of being a twelve-year-old with a younger sister, cruelty is de rigueur.
As we stood there near the driveway, Susie had no idea what she had just implanted in the deepest part of me. No one had any idea, not my parents or teachers or friends, because there was no way I could discuss it. If the word
death
was even mentioned in my presence, I would collapse. At night I dreamed of being carted off and left alone in a dark, cold room filled with bones, bones that would wake up once I was in there and dance around me. There was a small, dark hole in the steps in front of our house that led nowhere in particular, but in my new dreams it became the gateway to a world that terrified me, a world where people had no heads or, if they did, they were filled with worms and beetles. This was what awaited me, there was no way I was going to escape death, and as the days passed I became more and more frantic. If I saw a movie or television show that involved someone's death, I'd hide under the covers. When a schoolmate I didn't even know died tragically in a fire, I was convinced that I was somehow responsible.
Why had we been born
My explanation wasn't what he was expecting, but, unable or unwilling to finish what he'd started, he mentioned something vague about chemical changes in my body, about how my hair might be affected. Having no idea what he was talking about and sensing something serious I'd rather not pursue, I made a joke to Evan about how my hair would turn green, my eyes purple. This was the second time an adult had tried to approach me directly and seriously about my situation, and it was the second time I had turned it around, refused to tackle it.
Â
Death had become part of my vocabulary when I was six. The gerbil was the latest in a long line of family pets to die, and with my sister Susie, who was twelve at the time, I was disposing of the body behind the house. Our dog Cassie had died a year or so before, and though I missed her, at the time I had felt confused by Susie's irrational tears and bad tempers in the days afterward. Now the gerbil was also dead, and though I'd had no real attachment to him, I was sorry. He lay on top of a brown paper bag from the A&P, soon to be his final shroud. His fur parted and clumped together in a strange way, the deadest thing about him, and when I touched him I couldn't believe how hard, how cold, he was. Susie picked him up by his tail, and the sunlight suddenly illuminated the dullness of his still open eyes. A strange idea entered my head, an idea so preposterous it couldn't be true. How could it be? Surely Susie would laugh at me for even suggesting it, but I felt I had to make sure anyway, for my own peace of mind.
I paused for a moment, considering how best to phrase it. I went for the negative approach.
"People don't die, do they?"
She looked at me with the surprise I'd hoped for, the faintly amused look that told me my fear was unfounded, but her response became proof positive that one should never ask a twelve-year-old sister
anything
With glee in her voice she commenced to describe in great detail how you went into the cold dark ground, how the skin fell off your bones, how your eyes fell out. In a truly inspired touch, she began singing:
Â
The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
in your stomach and out your mouth.
Â
I don't blame her. I was an easy mark, and had I been in her position I'd have done the same thing. Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people, and for the specific job of being a twelve-year-old with a younger sister, cruelty is de rigueur.
As we stood there near the driveway, Susie had no idea what she had just implanted in the deepest part of me. No one had any idea, not my parents or teachers or friends, because there was no way I could discuss it. If the word
death
was even mentioned in my presence, I would collapse. At night I dreamed of being carted off and left alone in a dark, cold room filled with bones, bones that would wake up once I was in there and dance around me. There was a small, dark hole in the steps in front of our house that led nowhere in particular, but in my new dreams it became the gateway to a world that terrified me, a world where people had no heads or, if they did, they were filled with worms and beetles. This was what awaited me, there was no way I was going to escape death, and as the days passed I became more and more frantic. If I saw a movie or television show that involved someone's death, I'd hide under the covers. When a schoolmate I didn't even know died tragically in a fire, I was convinced that I was somehow responsible.
Why had we been born
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