In the middle of December in 2015 I had the brainstorm to run my memoir idea by my mother. I was charged up about hitting on a decent idea to write about: the murder of my friend. This hyper burst of energy, translated into broadcasting it to anyone who would listen.
My mother was one of the few people who had memories of Patty. I would not only blast her with my ideas about how to run with this story, but I’d be a sponge. (Would it pushing the sponge metaphor too far to say that I was hoping the story would fill up my holes?) I’d not only pump her for information, but absorb each and every bit of it. My only reservation was that this so called exchange meant mucking around in the past, in my delinquent behavior — never a skip through the park. My mother never shied away from hard truths, but she was protective of me. We were protective of one another. A sure way to agitate her was to bring up my friendship with Patty. I’d have to set aside worries about agitating her.
My parents questioned my motives when I explained I was intent on seeing justice done for Patty. Unlike me, they were thinking less about her betrayals, and more that it was a waste of time. My father knew nothing of our history, and cared less. But this day, sitting around in my parents’ living room, he felt free to express his opinion on the matter.
“Why waste your time?”
My mother nodded her agreement. Adding “yes, why?”
Who knows maybe I thought I owed her this. Patty showed up at that time of life when you’re convinced nobody understands you. And Patty seemed to understand me. So I dismissed my parents’ comments out of hand. Still, there were days that I questioned myself, when I found it confusing myself.
It is a cliche we assign to our beloved that they would give you whatever they had. But that was what I remembered most clearly about Patty. I only saw hints of the violence, the thieving that would come later in our relationship.
I parked myself in the spare bedroom, leaving my father to watch baseball in the living room and soon my mother joined me. She seemed somewhat shaken up, just as I thought she would be. I half thought to apologize to my mother for all the trials I put her through. I knew it plagued her, thinking I might end up living rough, a drug addict, or worse, end up murdered in the street like Patty.
I pictured grabbing her by the shoulders shaking her as if to loose the bad memories from her head. When we’d last talked about Patty my mother described the last time she saw her, the night Patty showed up needing a place to crash. The night before the morning Patty robbed her blind.I wanted to tell my mother what I’ve worked out, that it wasn’t me that showed up at the door that night, half naked and shivering. I ended up okay. And it was her commitment to parent me fiercely, to bounty hunt me when I ran, to let it be known that perhaps I began a slide, had decided to go down with Patty, but that I never ultimately slipped down that descent of no return. And that I didn’t is to her credit.
