the last TANGERINES before silence

Mass Communications & Marketing

Chapter 1

The television set was not very big so it wasn’t a chore to get it down to the curbside. Besides I become quite fit lifting and throwing all this heavy wet clay around.  She ordered it six-hundred pounds at a time now.

Remembering dates was never a strong point for me.  In my my former life I employed a full time executive assistant for my professional matters as well as a student assistant to help with my personal life. I can’t imagine it now, in this small house with these limited amenities.  The day I stopped talking should be a day I remember, but I haven’t pinned it down.  I know that I stopped talking in early 2008 and that for several months before that I had intentionally limited my conversations with everyone around me.  Preparing everyone for my silence was never a consideration.  Being thoughtful by pulling away slowly wasn’t the point. It just happened.  The kid was only trying to fulfill the course requirement but it irked me. He was a local Mass Communications major from the community college.  He produced an unauthorized documentary about my pottery.  When I wouldn’t cooperate on camera he changed formats and did a two part print series.  You know, here’s this artist but she doesn’t want publicity and why?  Apparently not wanting to be a celebrity is cause for concern in America.  After the travel piece ran I started getting cards and letters from places that I’d never heard of.  People wanted to know what I stood for. Some wanted to lecture me on how I was wasting God's gift of speaking, and that I should be ashamed.  Most of these I suspect came from the parents,  or spouse's of the hearing impaired.  I think I liked that someone was angry with me.  I hoped that it was a preview of my ending.  I never minded being a selfish bitch. Not even in my former “civilized, luxurious” life.  

At first these letters humored me and I opened every one.  Lately I just put them into boxes, closets and cupboards. Climbing a rickety ladder to the attic would make it hazardous to put them in the attic.  Perhaps death and justice wait.  Maybe now that I am writing, I will start tomorrow and answer each one.  Maybe I won’t.  It would probably take me four more years.  Shredding them to make artsy, eco-friendly handmade paper for the gallery is also an option.  I am too tired to think about all that now but recycling seems more appropriate to me now. Delaying unpleasant thoughts and decisions is a personal specialty.

Being a latchkey kid allowed me unsupervised access to network television and taught me being mute.  Ophra Winfrey interviewed a woman that had been raped by her mother’s boyfriend when she was only eight-years old.  Her name was Marguerite Johnson and after she reported the rapist and was convicted he only spent one night in jail before being released.  He was killed sometime right after his release.  This girl was so upset that she stopped talking altogether.  Here’s the thing, she was worried that her words had gotten a man killed.  She said his name and the rumor was that her brother and uncles killed him in retribution.  She didn’t silence herself because of the horror of being raped and I’d never insinuate that it was not an event that shaped her life.  I’m just astounded that she cared so much for humanity, even her monstrous rapist that she gave up her voice.  She learned to be still and listen.  She memorize long volumes of poetry and literature and after several years it was reciting those works that helped her speak again.  It’s a good thing, too!  This young girl had much to say.  She was a pimp, a card dealer, a singer, dancer, a wife to several men, a mother to child and a grandparent his children.  So was also an esteemed biographer, poet, professor, civil rights activist and cultural icon who counted people like Billie Holiday, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Oprah Winfrey as close friends.  Early in her career a friend would encourage her to change her name to make it as memorable as her performances.  She has thirty honorary doctoral degrees and many awards.  Dr. Maya Angelou’s not afraid to embrace the terrible things she witnessed in this world.  Instead she sharpened her focus and tried to inspire the public to examine these issues, too.  Oprah taught me all about this stuff when I was in the fourth grade.  If Oprah said it then is was true, right? She was really was assaulted, Maya not Oprah. Odds are good that she actually had a tiny bit of responsibility in getting the rapist murdered.

I am not confident or vain enough to ever compare myself with the great Dr. Maya Angelou with any significance.  Her years of silence and the desire to for change are the minor things we do have in common.  I could almost be proud of that, if there wasn’t the little difference; she had not condemned an innocent the way I had.  I’d feel much better if I had a hand in killing a rapist.  I’d probably have bragged about it.  My morals, I’m guessing, are much more flexible than Dr. Angelou’s.  Coincidentally the child that died because of my apathy, ignorance and arrogance; he was only eight-years old, too.

My silence wasn’t born of my own personal pain.  I failed to speak on someone's behalf while something monstrous happened.  Failing life’s most crucial task left me with nothing else. When you fail to save a child its easy to lose your taste for small talk.