Mama
ALLISON JONES
The cigarette butt in the crack between pavement squares distracts me just enough to where I nearly bend down and pick it up. There’s enough white paper and tobacco left for me to get a buzz. Since I can’t afford my own cigarettes, stolen puffs still make my head spin. It’s those moments where the world slides to and fro that my head rushes, my stomach fills with butterflies, and I feel okay. I feel calm. I forget my needs, everything, and for a precious moment, I can just breathe.
I don’t pick it up for a couple of reasons, first being that it's still light out and I am surrounded by business people. I don’t want them to judge me. Hustling away from court or their offices to the downtown upscale pubs they will have expensive dinners and drinks before driving off in their new cars to their children and loving spouses. Were I more in my element the ten or so blocks down 4thAvenue I might have picked the cigarette up. It fits better there, where my kind scrape together their pennies to have drinks inside the comfort of dive bars which most are too timid to enter. Why would I want to hang out with homeless people I bet they think. But the people in there, they’re not all homeless, just humble and unafraid like my mother—my angel.
I learned very early my mother and I were all each other had. To this day, she is the only warmth I have known. I miss her so much, everything about her. I miss her soft hands, her smile, her laugh, though I still get to hear it on those special occasions I feel relieved enough to let one out. It’s rare but it happens, and when it does, I feel her with me. I feel her inside me. I miss eating McDonalds french fries for dinner with soda, Coke only when I didn’t have school the next day. We would laugh, joke around, and cuddle when it was chilly at night. Her face, her hair, the way she talked: she was perfect to me.
Today, I need her warmth. Making my way block after block to see her, the cold bites my face but hasn’t yet reached my bones. It’s not bad outside, a mild winter day—feels like it might snow. I’m glad I passed up on that cigarette as I pass two women, rougher than me, standing outside one of the bars I was thinking of earlier because I remember what a nasty habit it really is. The sign is half-lit, half burnt, making the bar look closed. But now that the sun is starting to set I know it shouldn’t deter any down-on-their-lucks tonight. Though I don’t find it nearly as cold as it could be, they’ll take any excuse to drink and smoke the night away.
I remember seeing less of my mother each year as the sun went to rest a little earlier every day heading into winter. I would sit on our sunken couch by the front door of our apartment, when we had one, and wait up as late as I could for her to come home. Usually stumbling, sometimes she brought company, well-intended or otherwise. Mom would come in and hug me, sloppily, and I would smell the bar on her, cigarettes and liquor saturating her body. She covered me like a blanket, always whispered she loved me, and sometimes, that she’s sorry. Once, half asleep next to me on the loveseat, “You look so much like Troy.”
“Who’s Troy, Mama? Who’s Troy?”
But she was already asleep.
Cigarettes remind me of my mother’s bad days which is another reason I did not pick it up. Always after an eviction, a break up, or losing her job, she would spend our last ten dollars on a pack and smoke it all in one night. The smoke would fill both of our lungs. Maybe that's why I crave them sometimes: for the comfort. The disgusting comfort.
The sky is still holding onto some light at its seam along the mountains, but it's dark now; thankfully I’m almost there. My hand is deep in my jacket pocket and my wrist is warm where it is, but I need to know what time it is because I don’t want to be late. I rustle it out and look at my watch. I have five minutes, oh no. I quicken my pace though I know mother will be there, no matter what time it is. I know she safe, I know she’s warm, and hopefully I will be soon too. I see the wrought iron fencing and I feel more lightheaded than I ever would from a cigarette. Mom. Mom’s in there. I’m nearly at the gate just as the man bundled in black winter gear with reflective embellishments begins to shut it. I start running.
“Wait!” I call out surprised by my own voice these days.
“Ma’am we’re closing now. Open tomorrow. I’m sorry.” As I draw nearer I see his face soften. I’m not a ma'am, but still a child to him, though it's been many years since I felt like one. I think I remind him of someone he once knew, maybe his own daughter, and for a second I think I can change his mind.
“Please? Let me in? I’m just here to see my mother, sir.” But my best attempts at pity fall on deaf ears; he shuts the gate in my face.
It's fine, I’ll see my mother the old fashion way. I pace outside of property until I see an SUV pull out and drive away: it's the guard leaving. I assume off to his home. I should have told him that my home is behind these fences with my mother; the only place I know that I belong is by her side. I’m not trespassing, I’m going home.
I find a quiet break in the slow trickle of cars passing by and take my opportunity. I jump to reach the top bar of the fence, but I can’t keep hold and fall onto the melted snow beneath, cursing. But I try again and again until I grab it and fight my way up to the top and over, avoiding the spears topping the fence, and jump the rest of the way down—inside at last. I land, shaken. It hurt, but I’m okay. I’m closer to mother, I can already feel the warmth.
I walk between the rows of headstones, and I notice snowflakes starting to fall around me. There are some headstones that are upright, some flush with the ground, nothing more than a square foot of embellished concrete covered in the elements no matter what time of year. Before my mother was here, I imagined all headstones stood tall and proud, though I was not a bit disappointed when I saw her plaque. “Loving mother and friend,” it reads. For me, she was both. She was everything.
I find her track easily using the treasure map to her in my heart. I count the plots until I reach her, 5, 4, 3, and I see it. Mom. I didn’t expect the cry that croaked from my throat, but I hear it, even though it sounds far away. I collapse onto her, a child longing deeply for their mother.
“Mommy, I miss you. I miss you so much.”
I’m here, I hear her say, I’m here my love, I’m here.
On my knees in the snow, I cry, for my mother and for me. I feel her arms around me, she’s here, she’s hugging me, holding me with her angel arms, whispering in my head.
I’m here, darling, I love you. I love you so much. I will always be here for you.
“I know Mama, I know.”
I lay on her frozen grave for a while. The snow wets my hair, my clothes, my face, but inside, I am warm.