The Terrible: A Storyteller's Memoir by Yrsa Daley-Ward (2018)
The Terrible: A Storyteller's Memoir by Yrsa Daley-Ward (2018)
ONE
8.8
All I can think is,
Beauty makes everything bearable (38).
10.1
Beauty makes people stay, I thought. Beauty makes people listen to you. Beauty makes people fall in love with you and not know what to do with themselves. It was in all the songs and it was in the Disney films. It was even in the Bible. Song of Solomon, my favorite book of the Bible so far, was all about beauty and lovers and love. I couldn’t wait till my life changed and I looked more like a thing that people liked. The boys at school made a list of the most beautiful girls in the class from 1 to 15. I did not make the list but that’s because they all agreed that I didn’t need to
because I was more of a Cool Black Friend,
not a girlfriend, you understand,
but a Cool Black Girl Friend
with spongy hair that was dead cool (67).
THREE
RE CREATION
If, God forbid, anything should happen to you
(I hold my breath every time you leave the house
for a good twenty seconds
so it does not
but if it does),
if it does and someone (anyone) asks me what first struck me about you, remember, I would say your face. The openness of your face, your kind eyes. Large enough to see the wholewideworld. And your thick hands, and your gentleness. Those are some solid things to remember about a person. You are a strapping Taurus and you know how to stay (136).
an end
What is the difference between the beginning and the end? I stare hard at my hands and do not recognize them. I take off the diamond to wash up the plates
and won’t or can’t put the thing back on.
One week later,
the ring was-is-still
on the kitchen
sink. What’s the difference between love and
the end? There isn’t a difference, is there?
William asked about the ring again and I said,
“It’s on the sink, where I left it.”
He saw it in my face; I saw it in his.
William watched me slink away.
William watches me slink away.
You haven’t put your ring back on for a while,
says William, a week after that.
No, I haven’t, I say. Not yet. I just . . .
I just . . .
And we stand there
seeing each other for the first time,
not crying about it. Neither one of us is dead.
It’s just time to move on, I figure.
And so,
that week ends and another week starts and it
looks like I’m moving out. No more fixed shape.
I can only see things in fits and starts. In pieces.
I cannot have a family; freedom is all I need.
I need to be free to catch up with myself (150).
FOUR
awayness; an almanac
You may not run away from the thing that you are
because it comes and comes and comes as sure as you breathe. As certain. The thing is deep inside your linings, way down in the marrow. People have a lot of words for it.
There are ten thousand names for it and you. Wherever you are, it catches you up. It catches you in South Africa. Wherever you are and whatever it is, the terrible is trying to grip you and sometimes you’re walking down the street and it tries to knock you clean off your feet and send you right underground. The terrible comes like a bang in the night. It takes a drink and several more and comes to plague you in the morning; it damn near poisons you with all the drink it needs to stay alive. It toys with you the morning after-stays the entire day, squeezing you by the shoulders, making your hands shake. It smiles at you, the terrible. Sitting, arms folded, in the corner of the room. It just can’t help itself. It just needs friends.
It’s such a lonely thing.
The terrible needs to eat and it eats whole lives up in one sitting.
The terrible claps its terrible hands and everything falls right through them. The terrible is here one month and gone for a while until the middle of the next, allowing you to catch your breath-and just when you almost think everything is okay and when you are not over- or under-breathing, it surprises you in the middle of the night again. You find another kind doctor, with long hair. According to him, the terrible needs to drink more water, to take more walks-the terrible needs vitamin D and does not need anti-anxiety medicine; perhaps a dose of CBT on account of the OCD. On account of the mild germ phobia.
The terrible breathes a sigh of relief. It will not take pills because it doesn’t believe in them but it does believe in spirulina, becomes vegan, becomes gluten free, takes some long walks in the sun,
detoxes, removes the heavy metal from its terrible system. It wants to stop drinking but can’t, wants to call Roo but never, ever does. The terrible screams at your mother in amber nightmares and cannot understand for the life of it why you don’t want to take it to bed with you. It climbs in with you anyway; and it’s just as you thought. The terrible wakes up shuddering and BELLOWS
and you try to lock it out of your room but it seeps under the gap between the door and the floor.
The terrible meets a strange man in a bar who tells you that black people in his country are lazy and the terrible jumped right out and almost stabbed him;
the terrible shocks you in ways that you could never imagine,
tripping you up, doing things you shouldn’t do and things that you wouldn’t do,
making a fool of you. It is shifty, and sometimes invisible, or on holiday. A good decision here, some abstinence there, some moderation there and you’ll think it’s left you alone but then you’re walking and the terrible is a hole waiting to catch you. A fucking hole in the ground. The terrible is why you cannot call your grandparents and the terrible is why no one can hear from Roo and the terrible is no Roo and distance from Samson and the reason why, when Grandma takes Marcia’s ashes away from the house, nobody complains. The terrible is a wall of smoke, always getting in the way, obscuring everything. William calls on your birthday, this year and the next and the next, and the terrible will not return his calls, making you wonder what kind of godless spirit destroys a perfectly beautiful thing. It trips you up to trip you up to trip you. It gathers around your neck like a charm, a teardrop of rust. It puts a hole in your throat and stuffs it up with yarn.
The terrible sighs (again).
The terrible gets warm inside when the man that is trouble buys you one last whiskey, the one to take you over the edge.
The terrible cries and cannot believe it when you’re picked for the job over the other girls; its flips turn your belly upside down; the terrible takes you out for ice cream and no dinner when you sell Marcia’s house after Two and a Half DAMN YEARS and starves itself of alcohol. Perhaps it is your friend. Perhaps the terrible is your heart. Perhaps the terrible loves you, after all?
Don’t you know I’ve been carrying you throughout all this?
says the terrible.
Don’t you know you’re one of the lucky one? shouts the terrible. Don’t you know I’ve got you, you ungrateful, ungrateful creature? You wretch! Don’t you know those dark times kept you stronger? (thus sayeth the terrible). Don’t you know without me you would be just another girl with an everyday life and an almost-house always under construction and a man you tolerate and don’t really love and a father you met but who stopped you from doing anything and seeing the world, don’t you know you’d be a boring woman with bills and a horrible job and wrinkles around her eyes and babies and babies and a mortgage and savings and boring sex or no sex and a lukewarm life, DON’T YOU KNOW I FUCKING KEPT YOU SAFE??? bellows the terrible, its yellow eyes gleaming. Don’t you know I gave you the best timelines, a glittering story, a punch line, a reason to live, don’t you know the drugs didn’t kill you-they could have or should have and never did, don’t you know your life has been one magic spell cast after the other, are you stupid, screams the terrible . . . well, are you? Don’t you know that without me you diediedie in the mundane? Have you learned nothing? Don’t you know you earned resilience? Don’t you know I KEPT YOU RICH!!! No . . . I didn’t think so, sniffed
the terrible, shaking his.her.their head(s) violently in the wind,
turning away from each other and the world,
and why did you never love me?
demands the terrible,
her.his.their glittering yellow eyes wet with rage.
The terrible has always been there for you. It’s true. At least since books and Mum and the worktop. It appears to you in many forms. In the night, you are arguing with Marcia, who becomes Linford. David is knocking at your door, grinning the grin of death. The light switches won’t work. There is a cat on the ceiling. Your grandparents wear glittery wings and fly into your room late at night. You answer a knock on the door and the cat walks in, seething, just like he owns the place. Just like that. There is a lion in your bed. There are scratches on the kitchen floor. Mum camps out in your dreams, your father appears, his back to you, and when he turns around he is Scott Bakula. You can’t sleep at night. What are the codes for the good and happy things?
Did I drown?
What are the coordinates to a place above sea level?
No one can tread water forever. No one can swallow salt and brine and bile forever. And if we are to survive, what’s it for what is it all for and why why why all the pain why natural disaster why politics why war why danger every single day why the everlasting blanket of short breath and stress, anxiety and panic, why the frequency of fear are we coming of age till we die might we burn up in hellfire because we are wrong things always wrong things doing the wrong things why does the world hate black people is this a world is this the only world is it true, all of it, the Bible? Is there God is there a God and is God for us or against us? Did we displease the Holy Trinity might we die will we die will we live will any of us live and make it into the eternal life afterward is the earth ruined for good. Is it global warming why is the climate shifting. What turns a milk sky pink? Is it the sins of the world, bleeding up into the atmosphere reddening the clouds up above or is it love. Could it be love? Jesus Christ,
can there be love (196)?
ONE
8.8
All I can think is,
Beauty makes everything bearable (38).
10.1
Beauty makes people stay, I thought. Beauty makes people listen to you. Beauty makes people fall in love with you and not know what to do with themselves. It was in all the songs and it was in the Disney films. It was even in the Bible. Song of Solomon, my favorite book of the Bible so far, was all about beauty and lovers and love. I couldn’t wait till my life changed and I looked more like a thing that people liked. The boys at school made a list of the most beautiful girls in the class from 1 to 15. I did not make the list but that’s because they all agreed that I didn’t need to
because I was more of a Cool Black Friend,
not a girlfriend, you understand,
but a Cool Black Girl Friend
with spongy hair that was dead cool (67).
THREE
RE CREATION
If, God forbid, anything should happen to you
(I hold my breath every time you leave the house
for a good twenty seconds
so it does not
but if it does),
if it does and someone (anyone) asks me what first struck me about you, remember, I would say your face. The openness of your face, your kind eyes. Large enough to see the wholewideworld. And your thick hands, and your gentleness. Those are some solid things to remember about a person. You are a strapping Taurus and you know how to stay (136).
an end
What is the difference between the beginning and the end? I stare hard at my hands and do not recognize them. I take off the diamond to wash up the plates
and won’t or can’t put the thing back on.
One week later,
the ring was-is-still
on the kitchen
sink. What’s the difference between love and
the end? There isn’t a difference, is there?
William asked about the ring again and I said,
“It’s on the sink, where I left it.”
He saw it in my face; I saw it in his.
William watched me slink away.
William watches me slink away.
You haven’t put your ring back on for a while,
says William, a week after that.
No, I haven’t, I say. Not yet. I just . . .
I just . . .
And we stand there
seeing each other for the first time,
not crying about it. Neither one of us is dead.
It’s just time to move on, I figure.
And so,
that week ends and another week starts and it
looks like I’m moving out. No more fixed shape.
I can only see things in fits and starts. In pieces.
I cannot have a family; freedom is all I need.
I need to be free to catch up with myself (150).
FOUR
awayness; an almanac
You may not run away from the thing that you are
because it comes and comes and comes as sure as you breathe. As certain. The thing is deep inside your linings, way down in the marrow. People have a lot of words for it.
There are ten thousand names for it and you. Wherever you are, it catches you up. It catches you in South Africa. Wherever you are and whatever it is, the terrible is trying to grip you and sometimes you’re walking down the street and it tries to knock you clean off your feet and send you right underground. The terrible comes like a bang in the night. It takes a drink and several more and comes to plague you in the morning; it damn near poisons you with all the drink it needs to stay alive. It toys with you the morning after-stays the entire day, squeezing you by the shoulders, making your hands shake. It smiles at you, the terrible. Sitting, arms folded, in the corner of the room. It just can’t help itself. It just needs friends.
It’s such a lonely thing.
The terrible needs to eat and it eats whole lives up in one sitting.
The terrible claps its terrible hands and everything falls right through them. The terrible is here one month and gone for a while until the middle of the next, allowing you to catch your breath-and just when you almost think everything is okay and when you are not over- or under-breathing, it surprises you in the middle of the night again. You find another kind doctor, with long hair. According to him, the terrible needs to drink more water, to take more walks-the terrible needs vitamin D and does not need anti-anxiety medicine; perhaps a dose of CBT on account of the OCD. On account of the mild germ phobia.
The terrible breathes a sigh of relief. It will not take pills because it doesn’t believe in them but it does believe in spirulina, becomes vegan, becomes gluten free, takes some long walks in the sun,
detoxes, removes the heavy metal from its terrible system. It wants to stop drinking but can’t, wants to call Roo but never, ever does. The terrible screams at your mother in amber nightmares and cannot understand for the life of it why you don’t want to take it to bed with you. It climbs in with you anyway; and it’s just as you thought. The terrible wakes up shuddering and BELLOWS
and you try to lock it out of your room but it seeps under the gap between the door and the floor.
The terrible meets a strange man in a bar who tells you that black people in his country are lazy and the terrible jumped right out and almost stabbed him;
the terrible shocks you in ways that you could never imagine,
tripping you up, doing things you shouldn’t do and things that you wouldn’t do,
making a fool of you. It is shifty, and sometimes invisible, or on holiday. A good decision here, some abstinence there, some moderation there and you’ll think it’s left you alone but then you’re walking and the terrible is a hole waiting to catch you. A fucking hole in the ground. The terrible is why you cannot call your grandparents and the terrible is why no one can hear from Roo and the terrible is no Roo and distance from Samson and the reason why, when Grandma takes Marcia’s ashes away from the house, nobody complains. The terrible is a wall of smoke, always getting in the way, obscuring everything. William calls on your birthday, this year and the next and the next, and the terrible will not return his calls, making you wonder what kind of godless spirit destroys a perfectly beautiful thing. It trips you up to trip you up to trip you. It gathers around your neck like a charm, a teardrop of rust. It puts a hole in your throat and stuffs it up with yarn.
The terrible sighs (again).
The terrible gets warm inside when the man that is trouble buys you one last whiskey, the one to take you over the edge.
The terrible cries and cannot believe it when you’re picked for the job over the other girls; its flips turn your belly upside down; the terrible takes you out for ice cream and no dinner when you sell Marcia’s house after Two and a Half DAMN YEARS and starves itself of alcohol. Perhaps it is your friend. Perhaps the terrible is your heart. Perhaps the terrible loves you, after all?
Don’t you know I’ve been carrying you throughout all this?
says the terrible.
Don’t you know you’re one of the lucky one? shouts the terrible. Don’t you know I’ve got you, you ungrateful, ungrateful creature? You wretch! Don’t you know those dark times kept you stronger? (thus sayeth the terrible). Don’t you know without me you would be just another girl with an everyday life and an almost-house always under construction and a man you tolerate and don’t really love and a father you met but who stopped you from doing anything and seeing the world, don’t you know you’d be a boring woman with bills and a horrible job and wrinkles around her eyes and babies and babies and a mortgage and savings and boring sex or no sex and a lukewarm life, DON’T YOU KNOW I FUCKING KEPT YOU SAFE??? bellows the terrible, its yellow eyes gleaming. Don’t you know I gave you the best timelines, a glittering story, a punch line, a reason to live, don’t you know the drugs didn’t kill you-they could have or should have and never did, don’t you know your life has been one magic spell cast after the other, are you stupid, screams the terrible . . . well, are you? Don’t you know that without me you diediedie in the mundane? Have you learned nothing? Don’t you know you earned resilience? Don’t you know I KEPT YOU RICH!!! No . . . I didn’t think so, sniffed
the terrible, shaking his.her.their head(s) violently in the wind,
turning away from each other and the world,
and why did you never love me?
demands the terrible,
her.his.their glittering yellow eyes wet with rage.
The terrible has always been there for you. It’s true. At least since books and Mum and the worktop. It appears to you in many forms. In the night, you are arguing with Marcia, who becomes Linford. David is knocking at your door, grinning the grin of death. The light switches won’t work. There is a cat on the ceiling. Your grandparents wear glittery wings and fly into your room late at night. You answer a knock on the door and the cat walks in, seething, just like he owns the place. Just like that. There is a lion in your bed. There are scratches on the kitchen floor. Mum camps out in your dreams, your father appears, his back to you, and when he turns around he is Scott Bakula. You can’t sleep at night. What are the codes for the good and happy things?
Did I drown?
What are the coordinates to a place above sea level?
No one can tread water forever. No one can swallow salt and brine and bile forever. And if we are to survive, what’s it for what is it all for and why why why all the pain why natural disaster why politics why war why danger every single day why the everlasting blanket of short breath and stress, anxiety and panic, why the frequency of fear are we coming of age till we die might we burn up in hellfire because we are wrong things always wrong things doing the wrong things why does the world hate black people is this a world is this the only world is it true, all of it, the Bible? Is there God is there a God and is God for us or against us? Did we displease the Holy Trinity might we die will we die will we live will any of us live and make it into the eternal life afterward is the earth ruined for good. Is it global warming why is the climate shifting. What turns a milk sky pink? Is it the sins of the world, bleeding up into the atmosphere reddening the clouds up above or is it love. Could it be love? Jesus Christ,
can there be love (196)?