Evidence of Insanity - Softcover

Piner, Carol

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1452079927 ISBN 13: 9781452079929

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2010

Synopsis

Carol Piner remembers her Carteret County, NC childhood with candor and sensitivity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life, it is suffused with Piner's endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Piner's debut is unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster with righteous rage and prevails over her extraordinary life. Kelli Creelman, Rocking Chair Bookstore "a remarkable achievement . . . formidable, honest and direct, funny and gut-wrenching . . . a book a first time author should be proud of" Rod Cockshutt, Professor Emeritus, N C State "it is the very, very, very best book I have ever read in my life" Susan Dail "Was up at 5:30 reading Evidence of Insanity by Carol Piner. I'm halfway through & I'm crying and laughing even harder . . . I love to read and if any of you out there do, then you won't be wasting your money . . . Oh, I forgot to add, it was 11:30 last night when I laid her book on the night stand, turned off the light and fell asleep, still chuckling" Nina Moser "Fasten your seat belts! Her book sales are about to go through the stratosphere! . . . If more people had her spirit and sense of humor, we'd have a lot less crazy people out there" Christy Robinson "Cool, you go, girl! I'm gonna look up one day and you are going to be on Oprah" Frances Davis Cushwa

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

EVIDENCE OF INSANITY

By CAROL PINER

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Carol Piner
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-7992-9

Chapter One

... Evidence of Insanity ...

I am not quite sure when I realized it was there. Or, out of all of us, who had it and who didn't. I think I got it with my gene job. Hey, don't blame me. Hell, the insanity was all around me. Why fight it?

But, when you came down to it, all I knew was it made me lucky. When God decided to pop my ass into some unknowing womb, like bread in a toaster, He gave me a gift. When I popped out seven months later, He had made me Mama's child.

ONE HOPPED-UP FEMALE

I thought of him as Big Daddy, not because he was, but because he was stupid enough to think he was. I called her Big Mama because she knew how to be one. She was only five feet three inches tall, but the lady could take up a whole lot of room. "Feisty" was not the word for her. She was way more than that. She'd get your heart going so hard you'd get a nervous stomach, and you wouldn't know if you were going to throw up right on the spot or what. Mama'd do it for fun and giggles. This cranked up lady was not boring.. not for a second. I worshiped her. I wanted to be just like her. A kick-ass kind of woman. I heard her before I ever saw her. Me? I was a fetus so I'm not really sure. All I could do was listen.

Once I was a baby, I realized there were people who were in front of what I would later come to realize were eyeballs. While going through the unique process of getting to know my fingers and toes, I slowly started paying attention to whoever the hell this person was that seemed to buzz around me a lot. I didn't know what I was doing to warrant so much focus from the monster with long hair, but as long as it didn't piss me off, I would go along with it. Genius here, huh? I didn't remember if it was the Mama creature or the Daddy thing who first did something to get my attention, but let me tell you this, I felt the impact. You know, the whatever somebody did that got you looking at them funny for the very first time. You would stop all that babbling and stare at them like they had lost their minds. Then you realized all those sounds are actually directed at you. What in the world could they want? I tried getting some of the Mama and Daddy responses going back at them. Aha! They were happy if I made certain noises. Then they would go away and leave me alone. I was so smart I even knew which noise was which. That was cool. It was better than laying there letting my head loll around from boredom. I don't know why, but I couldn't hold the damn thing up. I also learned to cuss, but I didn't want to talk yet. Nobody knew but me. Cool.

I went from a fetus, to a baby, to a walking, talking pain in the ass to Mama. Eventually, I could dress myself and pretend to brush my teeth. That was about five, right? Who knew? Those early memories.. what joy they brought. One memory was my fondest recollection of our very own parental nightmares. We were all in the kitchen. Specifically, the kitchen at the Eagles Nest, a home we lived in for awhile on Thirtieth Street located in a small Southern coastal town in North Carolina. It was game-on time. I remember all five of us kids would be in full battle stance, gathering weapons, while Mama had Daddy up against the wall and was scratching his eyes out the best she could. Whap! Whap! Mama could slap you so fast you couldn't slap back and that would really piss you off. Daddy didn't have a chance. You can't even imagine the amount of screeching the woman could do while she banged his head upside the kitchen wall. You know how the cops make a lot of noise to confuse you? She did that before they ever thought of it. Screeching and hollering at her highest level, Mama finally got hold of his hair. That counted. That was known as control. They can't teach this stuff in college.

Watching her grab that head of hair was one of Mama's finest gifts to my childhood. I would be running back and forth, hooting and hollering, trying to make as much noise as she was, waiting for the mane event. I would be getting into the mood of it all when Mama would take him by his pride and joy; that seven inch long, white tressy treasure of his. I knew she was ready to kick-ass when she got him by the hair. She knew he was not about to fight back because he knew damn well he was going to lose some of it if he moved. If he did, she yanked, and Daddy wasn't willing to lose one more strand than the good Lord took. Mama would ride it for all it was worth. She'd carry on like an Indian in an old western. My fab Mama always took him to that point of no return, eased up and then went back at him again.

She would be banging away at him, screaming at the top of her lungs, the five of us standing there with our shoulders up around our ears in sweet anticipation chanting, "yes, yes! Git 'im, Mama, git 'im." We weren't ready to lunge at him yet because she was still winning. Mama wasn't at her worst until she felt him try to act like a man. It got its ugliest when the tide started to turn. If he started to lay one hand on her, all five of us were ready and we'd cover him like molasses. We'd get right into the fray. We were like trained dogs, but like most dogs, having a good time wagging our tails, puffing and drooling. Whining for more. Waiting for that signal to close in on him.

All he had accomplished up to now was a plaintive little "now, Anna". I've heard that a time in my life as he tried to settle her butt down. Mama didn't settle down until she expended the exact amount of rage she thought she could get away with. She could get as much damn rage going as she damn well pleased, like she had it in a bucket with no bottom. I felt all of us start to ease up a little, tails wagging a little slower. We were all thinking, come on, Mama, get back into this thing. Don't let us down now. I was watching everybody, peeking for all the different emotions on their faces. It never crossed my mind to think about what mine looked like, but I would venture to guess it bordered on ecstasy. You see, I just loved it when she took him apart. There aren't enough loves to go around to describe how much I loved it. One, she was good at it; two, he always deserved it; three, this was when life in the household got really good. Nothing, absolutely nothing, got better than this.

Genius that I am, I picked up on it first. She was getting ready to blow. I'd be jumping, beating my fists against my head, hollering, "Blow, Mama, blow! Come on, you can do it!" Running back and forth, arms a `swinging, pushing and shoving the other kids to get them riled up. I hold the world record for instigating. Its good for them. Gets them motivated. On a good day, major damage could occur. My favorite time of all.

Like I said, she had him up against the wall doing the head banging thing when he finally got the nerve to attempt to take a stand. He started that huffing and puffing thing that made him look so stupid. His face got red and fatter like a pissed off balloon. The air would get so tight and thick, you figured every one of us would be having trouble breathing normal. You could hear little, short gasps coming from us like we were all dying.. but it was really loud when it was times five. We could have launched our very own air balloon, just like Daddy's, right there in the room. Daddy would start to inflate. I guess his manhood had finally found a foothold. Mama wasn't going to have any of it. She started coming apart at all the seams, lots of seams, and was egging him on. The hell cat would put that little bitty index finger right in his face ... wiggle it a little with that little "buster, come on if you've got the nerve gesture." Made him mad, it did. It would really piss him off. Really, really piss him off. Lord God Almighty, was I having fun or what? I couldn't make anymore noise than I already was because I didn't want to divert their attention from whatever violence they longed to partake of next. That was more important than anything. So, I was stuck wriggling around on the floor about ready to pee myself.

I was rooting for fireworks. Dying to jump in there to make things worse. No doubt about whose kid I was. Mama's little volcano job had been completely exhausted. She was ready to move on to better things. When she cocked that eye at him, it was time for lift off.

Daddy was inflating, like I said. Mama saw it coming and was daring him to even take one more breath in this lifetime. Larry was tensing. Everybody was primed and ready to go. We were so excited we were on our tip toes, tilting back and forth towards whomever was hollering loudest. He took a weak swing at her. Didn't he? Was that a swing? Didn't look like a swing to me. Feeble, you know. We all looked at each other. Hell, it was good enough for us. Let's call it a swing even though it was more like a pale, limp fish hanging off the end of his wrist. All hell broke loose. I hit the floor again. I was ducking blows and screaming encouragement to everybody all at the same time. The kids piled on him like he was a ladder. I hit him low because I was still on the floor laughing. I had my legs held together as tight as I could so I wouldn't pee myself. It's distracting. My job was to get him wobbling. Hell, if I could get him off his feet, he'd be a goner. I was also at that level because I was still short, so it was about as high as I could go. I was biting his ankles, but he wouldn't fall. He sure didn't mind swiping at me like I was a mosquito. Larry got him at the highest point, though he really wanted to take Mama down. Mary was holding onto his waistline, whining about getting along. Crissie was totally bewildered by who's doing what, not to mention why. Buck was tap dancing and running back and forth pulling for both sides, because he wasn't sure which way it was going to go. Finally, finally it happened. Mama whacked Daddy so hard he bounced off the wall. Twice. Twice was a double header. Ten for Mama, zero for Daddy. The wall had served its purpose for today. It's not there to hold up the house, it is there to give Daddy something to crack into that is really, really hard. You don't want a wall with any give in it, hell no. Right along with the sound of him rebounding off the wall, l was whooping and screaming in joy like you wouldn't believe. Most people never have a chance to make this much noise in their whole damn lives and we got to do it every other day. Then, everybody stopped dead.. we tensed. We suddenly realized that Mama had pretty much run the violence phase, so she went into her next mode. All five feet three inches tall, one hundred ten pounds of her seemed to grow upward and outward. We went into Phase II, in spite of my major disappointment and whining for Mama to hit him one more time. Smack him or something, but it was over. Time for the trip to the water. Damn.

If you were from down South, and grew up in a family like mine, you knew what a trip to the water meant. Mama did not merely toss Daddy's clothes into the yard. No sir, not her. She had to take us, burdened with his whole damn wardrobe, down to the water. Across other people's yards, no less, so the whole damn town would know what Daddy had done. Then, we'd throw them in. Everybody knew when Daddy was messing around with other women long before us but we pretended we were the first to know. They came out of their houses and watched us go by like we were the train that went through town. They'd snicker because they knew he was going to have to find a clothing store somewhere. We only seemed to sell fish in this damn town. The reason the man would need to buy new clothes was so Mama would have something to throw away next time. There would be a next time. Bank on it. She told us it was to get that "whore stench" out of the house. Ew.

There we were. Like a precious little duck family on the way to the shore. Mama would lead the way while we ran along behind, sharing in our little warm togetherness way. What you could call the righteous Public Humiliation of Big Daddy. Worked for me. You could call it public humiliation, but you have to give a shit to be humiliated and neither of these folks understood that concept. We kids were past struggling to understand when other people said "Weren't you humiliated?" Hell, no. I'd be jumping up and down with my right arm pumping. Hey, you only have one life so I think you should enjoy it. Gimme a reason to throw his clothes out.. gimme. Great grits!!

At the edge of the water it looked like a baptism of sorts. Only it was the clothes burbling as they went down, not us. Daddy would not be following, of course. He would be back at the Eagles Nest either trying to figure out if this was the worse it got or was she going to come back and get real mad. Then again, he could have been trying to figure out how much this latest tart was going to cost him in new clothes. If he didn't just drive down main street with them, it would be so much cheaper. He had a five year old who sat him down and tried to explain it to him, but no such luck. He just didn't get it. He could have chosen not to take them to church with him. So many tough decisions in life. The first pew? Stupid.

I think he would have been disappointed if he knew his clothes just sank. He wasn't God and they didn't stand up for him. Puffed up jerk. He probably thought they reared straight up like a battleship before they went down, flags a'flying. After all, he was Somebody. Yeah, he's somebody. An idiot without the savant. I'm not going to tell you his real name. Sure I am. Teen. Winner there, huh?

Well, too bad Chad. They just sank. Down they went and we'd head back to the house clothesless, with Mama leading the way. Righteous indignation aglow. The filthy other woman's smell on those clothes are outta here. I wasn't going to ask her if she had smelled his car lately. That was not her perfume, fellas. Of course, the five of us were not being silent. We were young-un's so we were screaming and carrying on like headless chickens. Good times. Larry would be yelling about how he didn't know how a woman could shame her man like that. Piss on him. Mary would be going on relentlessly about how we should act like family. Weren't we? Who, other than a family would act like this? Crissie would be trying to be a part of it all. Buck would have just about figured that Mama was gonna win this one. She always did. He just never caught on to it. Me, I was having the time of my life doing spins and cartwheels; flinging my tiny self all over the place, 'cause I knew it was nitty gritty time. Now, the full fledged power play could go into effect. In front of God and everybody, and I mean everybody, Mama cut Daddy off. Mama did these things very publicly and very, very loudly. She was like a foghorn on crack when she cut him off. She didn't do this in the house. The street worked just fine for her. For Anna, it was like turning off a spigot. He was not going to get anywhere near her sweetness any time soon. What is that, by the way? Am I supposed to know that at five years old? Whatever. The bad boy had been running on her again. He'd never learn.

For the record, we did not consider this domestic violence so I don't want to hear any crap from anybody. I didn't. If this was violence, it was my kinda thing. This was just a hellaciously good time. Didn't everybody live like that? We figured it was how everybody brought their kids up. Now I wonder, if not, why not? Worked for me.

Let me introduce you more clearly to the children, of which I was the baby. Larry, my oldest brother, was primed for his oldest brother routine; being smarter than anyone else in the history of the universe. Mary was raring to start controlling everybody's life down to the finest detail and was only slightly less dominating than Mama. Crissie was completely oblivious that this could be a life or death situation but satisfied that it wasn't her role to figure it out. Buck was a favorite sibling of mine at the time. He was being Buck.. nothing, nowhere, like an amoeba. Basically shapeless, meaningless but everybody's favorite. Translated that meant he was not going to take any stand whatsoever. No how, no way, until it progressed enough for him to be able to judge the winner. Then, he'd jump in like he'd been rooting for them all along. Ergo, the favorite. As a rule, he wasn't very smart, but he could do a world class suck up. For him, that was about as clever as he got. He always got on my nerves. Always. I had heard boys had things called balls. Hell, I'd seen his. Maybe they just malfunctioned or something. Then, there was me. Little Callie. Everybody's little sugar pie. Yeah, right. I was young, and still somewhat stupid, but it was ok with everybody. Five kids in six years and people wondered why Mama was mad all the time. I'd a sure been mad.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from EVIDENCE OF INSANITYby CAROL PINER Copyright © 2010 by Carol Piner . Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1452079927
• ISBN 13: 9781452079929
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 324