Oops
Josephine died in the middle of the night on the running wheel she had lived on. I'm pretty sure that's what woke me up: the staccato eee-eeek eee-eeek of the turning wheel that formed the perverted third-shift background rhythms of my own sleep suddenly stopped. Not just paused – that happened a lot when Josephine got too tired or jumped off the wheel to go get some food or water – but this was different. And, somehow, in the nether regions of sleep, without the impediment of conscious distortions, I knew.
Josephine wasn't mine; she was my brother Roger's, and he, ten years older than me, at age 19, was in the middle (at least that's what we thought) of his one-year Vietnam service in the Army. I was just taking care of her until he got back. It was my tour of duty for my brother, and entered into much more willingly than my brother's own reluctant servitude.
“'Oops',” he'd said to me just before he left, “take care of Josie (that's what he called Josephine, but I restored her dignity and called her by her proper name after he left) while I'm gone. Don't let Old Lady Marmalade catch her, now.” He'd laughed and hugged me real tight when he said this. I just stood there and tried to be much more grown-up than I felt and not cry in front of him like Mama told me.
Okay. Before I go any further, I guess I need to explain a couple of things. First, my brother (and later, everyone else who knew me) called me “Oops”. I was a little older than I was when Josephine's wheel stopped turning when I realized what it meant: I was the second child in my family, born ten years after my brother, when my parents were both already looking forward to freedom from the one kid they'd had. Oops.
The second thing I probably need to explain is about Old Lady Marmalade. Well, when I was about 3 or 4, my folks rented this rickety old farmhouse out in the country surrounded by weeds, in support of the mistaken notion only my Dad believed wasn't a joke that we would somehow become farmers and live off the land. It took my Dad a few years to recognize this for the “oops” that it was, but it was after Josephine's wheel stopped, so I won't go into all that.
Anyway, in the back of this old house that could have been transported from the set of Psycho, there was an old dugout cellar. Besides some broken shelves and spider webs and the skeleton of an old light fixture and some empty, mostly broken, canning jars, there was nothing down there but this old photograph in a broken frame. It was the old lady that my Dad said used to own this place and who had died in our house years back standing in front of all these shelves (probably the shelves in this very cellar back before they were broken skeletons of themselves) full of different jams and preserves. She was holding up a jar of something that my Mom said looked like marmalade (I still don't know what that is til this day), and smiling real big like she was proud of it, so Roger started calling her “Old Lady Marmalade”. He used to scare me by telling me Old Lady Marmalade's ghost was still running around our house, and he told me with much conviction that my room was the very room she had died in. My Dad didn't do much to reassure me when I told him all this, and he said, “Well, Oops, I don't know which room the old lady passed away in, to be honest.”
Roger used to joke that it was Old Lady Marmalade's ghost chasing Josephine (only he said “Josie” like he always did) that made her run all night long and sleep all day long.
And my first thought when I woke up that night the wheel stopped and turned on the light to see if Josephine really had stopped or just paused was, “I guess Old Lady Marmalade caught her.” Oops.
It was several days later when we finally learned that on the same night Josephine's wheel stopped turning, Roger had been killed by someone in his own squad when Roger raised up, I guess to try to get a better look at the enemy they were trying to kill, and was shot from behind by one of his best friends.
And I could just hear whatever god there was over there shrugging, and saying, “Oops.”
Josephine wasn't mine; she was my brother Roger's, and he, ten years older than me, at age 19, was in the middle (at least that's what we thought) of his one-year Vietnam service in the Army. I was just taking care of her until he got back. It was my tour of duty for my brother, and entered into much more willingly than my brother's own reluctant servitude.
“'Oops',” he'd said to me just before he left, “take care of Josie (that's what he called Josephine, but I restored her dignity and called her by her proper name after he left) while I'm gone. Don't let Old Lady Marmalade catch her, now.” He'd laughed and hugged me real tight when he said this. I just stood there and tried to be much more grown-up than I felt and not cry in front of him like Mama told me.
Okay. Before I go any further, I guess I need to explain a couple of things. First, my brother (and later, everyone else who knew me) called me “Oops”. I was a little older than I was when Josephine's wheel stopped turning when I realized what it meant: I was the second child in my family, born ten years after my brother, when my parents were both already looking forward to freedom from the one kid they'd had. Oops.
The second thing I probably need to explain is about Old Lady Marmalade. Well, when I was about 3 or 4, my folks rented this rickety old farmhouse out in the country surrounded by weeds, in support of the mistaken notion only my Dad believed wasn't a joke that we would somehow become farmers and live off the land. It took my Dad a few years to recognize this for the “oops” that it was, but it was after Josephine's wheel stopped, so I won't go into all that.
Anyway, in the back of this old house that could have been transported from the set of Psycho, there was an old dugout cellar. Besides some broken shelves and spider webs and the skeleton of an old light fixture and some empty, mostly broken, canning jars, there was nothing down there but this old photograph in a broken frame. It was the old lady that my Dad said used to own this place and who had died in our house years back standing in front of all these shelves (probably the shelves in this very cellar back before they were broken skeletons of themselves) full of different jams and preserves. She was holding up a jar of something that my Mom said looked like marmalade (I still don't know what that is til this day), and smiling real big like she was proud of it, so Roger started calling her “Old Lady Marmalade”. He used to scare me by telling me Old Lady Marmalade's ghost was still running around our house, and he told me with much conviction that my room was the very room she had died in. My Dad didn't do much to reassure me when I told him all this, and he said, “Well, Oops, I don't know which room the old lady passed away in, to be honest.”
Roger used to joke that it was Old Lady Marmalade's ghost chasing Josephine (only he said “Josie” like he always did) that made her run all night long and sleep all day long.
And my first thought when I woke up that night the wheel stopped and turned on the light to see if Josephine really had stopped or just paused was, “I guess Old Lady Marmalade caught her.” Oops.
It was several days later when we finally learned that on the same night Josephine's wheel stopped turning, Roger had been killed by someone in his own squad when Roger raised up, I guess to try to get a better look at the enemy they were trying to kill, and was shot from behind by one of his best friends.
And I could just hear whatever god there was over there shrugging, and saying, “Oops.”