22.el Niño

          I awoke early the next morning to throw open the bedroom curtains and see that things had not changed one damn whit since yesterday. In fact upon closer scrutiny it appeared what little had melted in the sun yesterday afternoon had refrozen over night, adding another level to the veritable icy deathscape that was my yard. I checked the news: travel was still seriously advised against. And per my near-death driveway slide from last night, I knew I was housebound for the day once again.   

          But today, unlike yesterday, I decided not to fret over Thad, and would rather occupy myself with projects. After breakfast and a steaming shower I began a list of Things to Do Whilst Trapped in the Death Snow. Making the list was easy, as I always had ideas on how to improve things. The first item I noted was daunting:  Clean Out the Files in the Attic. But with no other prospects of entertainment, I sucked it up and headed upstairs.

          One of the glories of my old 1925 house was that it has a full attic. And we’re not talking a dangerous half-space, but rather a giant full-size room that ran the entire length of the house. It had hard wood floors, decent lighting, windows, and enough room to park a Hummer. It was really only about $50,000 away from becoming a completely functional second floor master bedroom suite, but as I had never gotten around to saving that kind of money, I presently used it for storage. And for a packrat, nee hoarder, this much storage was a godsend.

          The walls of the attic held clothes racks packed with all of my 80’s and 90's wear I just could not part with. This included normal daywear like spandex shorts, acid washed jean jackets and David Bowie long cotton dusters, but also including all of the costumes I wore when I worked the door at Roundelay. These treasures included giant fur hats and sequined bolero jackets, a coat covered in silk flowers, and a fun fur caplets; all the frills of my bygone fabulousness.
           All of my holiday decorations were up here also, stored neatly in boxes, labeled and lined up in chronological order from Valentine’s Day to New Years. And in the remaining spaces were all of the furnishings of years gone by that I just could not part with, including interesting furniture, odd lamps, and the mannequins I once collected, standing sentry over my collected treasures. The whole room had a very Harry Potter sort of Room of Hidden Things feel to it. 

          After some maneuvering I found what I was looking for behind the second chimney stack, but before the pile of old vinyl records: my personal files. These ‘memory boxes’ held items that went back twenty-five years to high school. Years ago I had organized them into three distinct sets: Personal Effects (cards, notes, movie stubs, etc), School (including notebooks back to 9^th grade) and Business (where every credit card receipt, bank statement, and pay check stub I had ever been issued were housed). I had decided that I simply could not and should not part with the personal effects, but could stand to weed down the school and business files, as they were less sentimental. My goal today was to clear out the school notes, and later I would figure out how to weed down all of the sensitive business notes.            

          Being a hoarder is a hard thing to explain: everything has value, especially once it had been saved for more than a year, because then beyond its intrinsic value it also then has historic value. I am not sure why my hording instinct developed, but it had settled in around me during high school and was only beginning to loosen from about  my neck.

In the last three years Thad and I had been back together I realized that holding on to every shred of crap from the past was maybe not the best way to enjoy the present. Thad helped me see how the ‘now’ was more important than a box of handmade flash cards from my 1988 Botany class. I had also recently realized that I should keep some mementos from my past, but not all the mementos, every last one, as I had been doing.  Plus, he had begun to watch that dastardly A&E Hoarders show, and telling people, “Oh, that’s Michael. I expect to find a family of raccoons living in the attic any day now…” So to prove him completely wrong I had decided to weed some of these miscellaneous boxes out.

For the next two hours I worked through seven big 'School' boxes. As I began to peck and sort, I started two piles around me: ‘To Save’ and ‘To Toss.’ As I went through my high school and undergraduate notebooks one by one, sorting and moving paperwork, I kept finding more and more to put in the ‘To Save’ pile. First I found an exquisite high school Creative Writing paper I had made an A on. And then there was a  funny drawing someone had done on the cover of a notebook; I had to save that. And then I found a college bluebook that I had doodled the name ‘Thaddeus’ on, circa 1991; well, that certainly had to be saved.

 Then I moved on to the boxes of my graduate school notebooks, rediscovering many papers I had written on elusive literary topics including Justice and Spencer’s Fairy Queen and Homoeroticism in Melville’s Moby Dick. Well, I had to keep those. And then I got to the dissertation papers, I decided those were even more valuable. My dissertation, Dickens as the Lonely Everyman, had taken two years and many sleepless nights to finish. My research had also produced reams and reams of paper, all of which I now found immaculately organized, labeled, and boxed-up before me. After a breif go-over I decided I couldn’t part with any of it, as I still wanted to revise it to point where I could possibly get it published as a book. Now granted I finished my Ph.D. over a decade ago, and had never done a thing withj my dissertation, let alone all of these random notes, but I still could. And if I did rework it, I could possibly need every bit of this information. It all had to stay.  

As I finished off the last box, only a few random things sat in the ‘To Toss,’ pile, whereas everything else was piled in the ‘To Save’ pile. This made me very happy.

The phone rang and I sprinted downstairs, assuming it was Thad. 

“Hey,” Becky said, rushed.           

“Oh, hey," I said, disappointed. "How are you handling being snow bound?” 

“It’s okay. The travel agency is closed again, so I’m just watching the Oprah network all day.”

I told her about my attic project, and how it appeared imperative that I save most of the boxes of school notes I had originally intended to toss. Charlotte Brontë crawled back into my lap, cold.

“I still have all that stuff over at Mom and Smith's in their attic, so I never have to deal with it. I don;t think I could get rid of it."
"Yeah. Thad's called me a hoarder."  I began to get nervous, thinking of the empty ‘To Toss’ pile upstairs. I rose and Charlotte Brontë took off.

“Anyway," she continued, "Can I tell you something that you won’t tell Mom?” She sounded serious suddenly.

“Yeah.”

“And you have to swear Thad not to tell her either, as I know you’ll tell him no matter if I made you promise not to tell him anyway.”

“True. Okay, I’ll make him promise too.”

“Witch’s honor?” She said, using the old Bewitched phrase we had used since childhood to signify a pact of the utmost secrecy.   

“Witch’s honor,” I said making the V-sign on my face, as they had done on the television show.

“Okay,” She began, “You know I told you Ray and I had checked into  possibly becoming foster parents, and then maybe adopting, since, well, you know…” She trailed off.

“Yeah,” I knew her implication was ‘since I can’t have a baby of my own.’

“Well, we took those foster parenting classes about two years ago, and DHS was going to contact us if they had a child they wanted to place, but we had never heard back from them. Right?”

“Yes?” I did not like where this was going.

“They just called.” She laughed. “They have a four year old boy they want to place with us. Isn’t that great! His name is Pablo. And I’m thinking about doing it. Isn’t that great? We might finally have a child in the family!”

“Yeah. Is he white?”

“No, a little Mexican boy, from what they’ve said.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of responsibility. Have you really thought this through?” I was stunned.

“Well they just called. But Ray and I had really talked it out before and we were serious. So, I think so. Don’t you think I should?”

“Well, I don’t know.” I said in my 'adult, serious' voice. Becky was doing good to take care of herself, let alone a child. Those two terrified cats of hers were enough reason to know that she was not good with small messy things. I never thought she would be that good with a child. And with Ray out of the picture now, this would mean she would be raising this little Mexican kid on her own.    

“What?” She asked sternly.

“Becky, I don’t want to upset you, but what about Ray?”

She sharply drew a breath.

I continued, “Didn’t you and Ray sign up for this, that you would both be doing it as a couple? And now, it’s been how long since you have seen him?”

“Almost five months, but he texted me the other day.”

“For what?”

“To see if I had that big brass belt buckle of his. I do, but I told him I didn’t,” She snickered. “But that’s not the point.  I am almost forty. I want a child, and with Ray or not, I would like that experience of raising one, of having a son.  Plus, it’s a poor little kid who needs a home. And maybe with a kid it would make Ray see what he’s missing out on a real family. I mean, if I tell him, which I guess I will. But the state will give me, like, $300 a month to raise him, and that’ll pay for him. And this might be my last chance, you know? And it’s only foster parenting. It’s not adopting. I might not even be able to keep him, even if I wanted to, you know? So it's not even permanent.”    

“I know, I know, but what about the paperwork? Didn’t you sign up to do this as a couple? Won’t they pull out if they know, well, that it’s just you now? A single parent versus a couple?”

She was silent for a minute, and I knew that I had hurt her, but it was necessary; she could not take in a child willy-nilly, just as some sort of ruse to give her life meaning and as a ploy to get Ray back. She had to want to do it seriously, for her sake as well as the child’s.

“But we’re not divorced,” Becky said, “We’re not even officially separated. On paper we’re still a couple.”

“I wouldn’t lie to the government.”

“But it’s not a lie. According to the paperwork, we are still a couple.”

“That’s crazy. And unless you tell them it will just be you raising him, at least for now, it sounds against the law.” 

“No, no, it’s fine. I just need to think about it. I just thought you would be happy for me; to have a child in the family for the first time.” She sounded very hurt, which hurt me. 

“Oh for God’s sake Becky. What you are basically saying is that you’re going to take this little Mexican child under false pretenses and then raise him yourself. If Ray doesn’t come back, are you prepared to be a single mother?” I was just exasperated. I did not want to see some random child, already hurt by poor circumstances,  emotionally damaged even more by Becky's instability. But I couldn't tell her that, Lord no.   

“Look, I’ll call you later. And don’t tell Mom.”

“Becky, just think of the child first, here, okay? I know you are sad with Ray gone and all...”

“He’s not gone,"She snapped. “He’s just up in the City.”

“Okay, Fine. But even with him just up in the city, I would really recommend you thinking about this before you bring a child into the mix.”

“Oh, I’ll think about it. Bye.” Her voice was icy as the day.

I held the phone and knew that she was absolutely going to take that little Mexican child. Poor kid; without his even knowing it, he was in for a world of Becky.

I called Thad immediately who responded with an unsympathetic whoop of laughter and a chant of “Andale! Andale!” He agreed with me that Becky did not need a child now, and we commiserated on the possibilities. It was nice to talk to him, just to hear his voice.
He went on to say he and Bettina were watching the Oprah network and thinking about making soup for lunch. I told him about cleaning out my attic files, but not about sliding under the truck last night during my fit to go pick him up.   

"Since we're still snowed-in," he said, "Bettina is fine with me staying another night."
"Yeah, that's great," I said through clenched teeth. 
 They had big fun plans for the afternoon, which I just grunted at. He did say he would call later and check on my progress. 

“We’ll see how much you can get rid of…” He said snidely, which scared me, as I was afraid he might be right.

I really had not gotten rid of much yet.