Read Online The Tooth Fairy: Parents, Lovers, and Other Wayward Deities (A Memoir) by Clifford Chase - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Clifford Chase
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psychologist. For a moment I fell asleep, and a British voice said, ‘Everyone
accusing you. It’s too much. Don’t you think you need a pardon?’”
Fred’s falsetto “British” accent: “Rock lobster?”
The phrase repeated over and over, as if it could mean anything—and does.
Another brief dream in which I wanted to saw my way across a bridge—destroying, going to a lot of trouble and turmoil for
nothing, just to clear the way that was already clear.
“I wish my life would stop, so much happens … I have been getting closer to Liz sexually … I just looked out the window. It
is a beautiful day—rainy, cloudy, some sun, and the grass is all brown … I love rain and cold in summertime.”
I considered staying in Santa Cruz for the summer; I wondered if Liz being there was a plus or a minus.
Regarding Liz: “So we got to the shirt-taking-off point, and then she wanted to take my pants off and I just didn’t want to
… I’m beginning to feel like such a freak—cold, gay, whatever.”
Despite the oral exam, I graduated with honors.
At the graduation ceremony, which was outdoors, a crazy woman from town named Cosmic Lady yelled from the back, “All right,
all you mother-fuckers and father-fuckers!”
In the sunny courtyard I stood and smiled with my parents as an acquaintance took our photo.
Ken hadn’t come up for the ceremony.
Evaluation for my fiction workshop: “His stories ‘The Neptune Visitor’ and ‘The Mother’ both tried to capture the tragedy
of human alienation and the results were provocative. The language Cliff employed in most of his stories allowed for the narrative
to take place on two levels, and even though this may not have been his intention, it worked well.”
3
I MOVED MY stuff out of the dorm and back to my parents’ house in San Jose.
At breakfast, the rubber-banded box of frozen sausages and the plastic bag of frozen diminutive corn muffins.
I rubbed our dog’s floppy tan ears, which were whitish with age.
My father had retired two years earlier but my mother still worked part-time, as a bookkeeper for a music and arts center
up in the hills.
“He just sits in his chair all day,” she whispered.
During an argument over Christmas break, she had said to me, “Why are you shutting me out?”
I continued trying to decide what to do about Liz.
I went for a run—lawn, street, lawn, street, lawn, street, and scarcely a person to be seen.
All the houses made of stucco.
I considered visiting old teachers but decided against it.
I mowed while my father carefully trimmed along the sidewalk.
I napped on my old bed, feeling the perfect breeze that always blew through that house.
A summer dinner from childhood: corn on the cob, sliced ham, sliced tomatoes, and watermelon for dessert.
“Oh, that’s good!” said my father.
Presumably he made cracks about nuking Iran, and presumably I ignored him.
The jasmine blooming along the fence under the window of the dining room.
The speckled whitish slightly bumpy linoleum under my feet.
“You knocked the heating register out of place,” said my father, so I bent to fix it.
My parents sat watching TV, which I disdained.
I drove my mother’s white boxy Dodge to the house of an old high school friend, and we went to see
The Shining
.
“Heeeere’s Johnnie!”
In the darkened theater I began to shake uncontrollably.
When I got home, my parents had gone to bed and the house was dark.
“Tonight I saw the most frightening movie that I have ever seen in my life … I’m very upset. I’m even crying a little … I
feel like I’m on LSD … When I came into the house—suddenlyI understood paranoia. Literally everything is potentially frightening, harmful. I just looked at the [blank] TV screen and
the reflection in it and a chill went down my back … Mirrors or open doorways seem horrifying—what is to be seen in them?
… The most frightening image: a hallucination he has. God, I
accusing you. It’s too much. Don’t you think you need a pardon?’”
Fred’s falsetto “British” accent: “Rock lobster?”
The phrase repeated over and over, as if it could mean anything—and does.
Another brief dream in which I wanted to saw my way across a bridge—destroying, going to a lot of trouble and turmoil for
nothing, just to clear the way that was already clear.
“I wish my life would stop, so much happens … I have been getting closer to Liz sexually … I just looked out the window. It
is a beautiful day—rainy, cloudy, some sun, and the grass is all brown … I love rain and cold in summertime.”
I considered staying in Santa Cruz for the summer; I wondered if Liz being there was a plus or a minus.
Regarding Liz: “So we got to the shirt-taking-off point, and then she wanted to take my pants off and I just didn’t want to
… I’m beginning to feel like such a freak—cold, gay, whatever.”
Despite the oral exam, I graduated with honors.
At the graduation ceremony, which was outdoors, a crazy woman from town named Cosmic Lady yelled from the back, “All right,
all you mother-fuckers and father-fuckers!”
In the sunny courtyard I stood and smiled with my parents as an acquaintance took our photo.
Ken hadn’t come up for the ceremony.
Evaluation for my fiction workshop: “His stories ‘The Neptune Visitor’ and ‘The Mother’ both tried to capture the tragedy
of human alienation and the results were provocative. The language Cliff employed in most of his stories allowed for the narrative
to take place on two levels, and even though this may not have been his intention, it worked well.”
3
I MOVED MY stuff out of the dorm and back to my parents’ house in San Jose.
At breakfast, the rubber-banded box of frozen sausages and the plastic bag of frozen diminutive corn muffins.
I rubbed our dog’s floppy tan ears, which were whitish with age.
My father had retired two years earlier but my mother still worked part-time, as a bookkeeper for a music and arts center
up in the hills.
“He just sits in his chair all day,” she whispered.
During an argument over Christmas break, she had said to me, “Why are you shutting me out?”
I continued trying to decide what to do about Liz.
I went for a run—lawn, street, lawn, street, lawn, street, and scarcely a person to be seen.
All the houses made of stucco.
I considered visiting old teachers but decided against it.
I mowed while my father carefully trimmed along the sidewalk.
I napped on my old bed, feeling the perfect breeze that always blew through that house.
A summer dinner from childhood: corn on the cob, sliced ham, sliced tomatoes, and watermelon for dessert.
“Oh, that’s good!” said my father.
Presumably he made cracks about nuking Iran, and presumably I ignored him.
The jasmine blooming along the fence under the window of the dining room.
The speckled whitish slightly bumpy linoleum under my feet.
“You knocked the heating register out of place,” said my father, so I bent to fix it.
My parents sat watching TV, which I disdained.
I drove my mother’s white boxy Dodge to the house of an old high school friend, and we went to see
The Shining
.
“Heeeere’s Johnnie!”
In the darkened theater I began to shake uncontrollably.
When I got home, my parents had gone to bed and the house was dark.
“Tonight I saw the most frightening movie that I have ever seen in my life … I’m very upset. I’m even crying a little … I
feel like I’m on LSD … When I came into the house—suddenlyI understood paranoia. Literally everything is potentially frightening, harmful. I just looked at the [blank] TV screen and
the reflection in it and a chill went down my back … Mirrors or open doorways seem horrifying—what is to be seen in them?
… The most frightening image: a hallucination he has. God, I
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