It Hit Me Like a Ton of Bricks: A memoir of a mother and daughter - Catherine Burns L.

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to retake the SAT until I get a decent score. The first time I say to myself, “This is the most important test of your life.” I score a combined eleven hundred. The next time I say, “This is the least important test of your life.” I score eleven hundred. The third time I try a more moderate approach: “This is a little bit important but not that important.” I score eleven hundred. The fourth time I go in high as a kite and make a design out of my answers. I still score eleven hundred.

      I am the only one to graduate this so-called community with no college to go to. I throw all caution to the wind and don’t write the senior speech that everyone else is writing about how lost and selfish they were until they came to this school. My speech is called “This Year’s Armor,” and it is about how I am no longer going to dress myself in armor and be so tough all the time. It’s not true but I wish it were. It is about my mother. I do not want to be my mother. But I’m sure it’s too late. I already am her. I don’t get a star next to my name ever again.

      

      “I don’t understand what the problem is,” my mother says.

      “Do you really want to know?” I ask, knowing better. The plywood walls of the makeshift phone booth in the girl’s dorm are covered in scratches and messages and threats and phone numbers.

      “Yes, I do,” she says.

      “The psychiatrist thinks I have low self-esteem.”

      “Low self-esteem. I don’t understand.”

      “Well, I don’t think much of myself.”

      “That’s ridiculous. You are bright and attractive. I don’t understand. What’s the matter with you?”

      “She thinks it might have something to do with the summer you sent me away to live with Michael and Leslie because Daddy died and you couldn’t deal with me and I overheard them saying they didn’t want me either.”

      “That’s ridiculous. You know why nobody wanted you, don’t you?”

      “Actually, no.”

      “Well I’ll tell you. Nobody wanted you because you were a pain in the ass.”

      “That’s what I’m talking about.”

      “What?”

      “You were always telling me I was a pain in the ass. It made me feel like…I was a pain in the ass.”

      “You were. You were an absolute pain in the ass.”

      I hang up and let some other girl call her mother.

      

      After graduation my sister and I use part of our inheritance and go to the Bahamas. We sneak into corporate breakfasts because they are free and the pineapple is delicious. We eat dinner in the Howard Johnson’s because it is cheap. We order fried clams because we assume they are fresh. The last night of our vacation my sister reads all the fun facts on the sugar packets. Fun Fact #114 is: “Did you know all our clams are flash-frozen and flown in daily from our warehouse in Queens?” When I get back to New York my mother says she can call her friend and get me into Barnard.

      “Who’s your friend?” I say.

      “The president,” she answers.

      I write an essay about how I had neglected to realize the importance of a women’s institution. Not a word of it is true. But I get in.

       THE FINGER

      I choose premed as my college major. But after my first multiple-choice bio test (which reminds me a lot of the SAT) I realize I will never get into a medical school that is not in the Czech Republic because I don’t test well so I might as well have the career that I want as a weeping actress. My mother will be ashamed of me either way. I take an acting class and don’t tell anyone. The teacher says I am excellent. He says I am the only one in class who breathes like the character. People pretend to know what he is talking about but they don’t. I do. I want to use my life to breathe life into other people. I don’t want to breathe my own life.

      

      My homework situation has lightened up considerably since dropping premed so I hang out with my sister every weekend doing massive amounts of cocaine. She works at Saturday Night Live. Everyone there does it. We stay up every weekend until dawn doing lines and talking about my mother. We pretty much blame her for everything. It’s so fun. We talk about how she never let us mourn for our fathers so we blame her for never getting over it. We confirm that she never has room for all of us in her heart at the same time so one of us is always out on her ass. Except my brother, who is a boy. He is always in favor because my mother feels the sorriest for him.

      “It’s a man’s world, Cathy. Don’t you ever forget it, Cathy,” my sister says, rubbing her finger along her top gum.

      “His father died, when he was six you know, boohoo,” I say sticking the straw deep into my nose.

      We laugh and pretend to scream in her face. “Yes, we know! OUR FATHERS DIED TOO!” More lines. Then roleplaying.

      I am my mother. “Well I think it’s very hard for a boy to lose his father.”

      Then my sister is my mother and adds, “And the women in this family are just much stronger.” We laugh so hard we have tears pouring down our faces. We talk about how she always told my sister she was slow and me that I was a pain in the ass and now we have no choice but to wear those descriptions like dog tags around our necks. Nothing is our fault. We are simply a product of our upbringing! More lines. We agree that we will never amount to anything in her eyes if we are not widowed with children before the age of twenty-eight. And then we pretend to feel sad because my sister is thirty-one and already blew it. But it’s okay, we console each other, we can just do more lines. I go to every taping and the party after. I see Elvis Costello throw his guitar down on stage and change songs in the middle of the live show and throw everyone into a panic. Me and Gilda Radner throw up side by side in the bathroom at Gallagher’s. It is the best time of my life.

      I want to be my sister. I try on all her clothes and pretend I live in her apartment. We do more and more and more and more lines. We have a blast. But when the drug wears off it is unbearable. I wish I could sleep; I wish I were dead. But I am wide awake, my skin is crawling and my loneliness has turned my heart into a scab the size of a baseball glove. I feel severed. My torso is lying useless on the couch that used to belong to my parents. My legs are somewhere in the bathroom. My sister and I are forging an alliance out of hatred. And the closer we get the farther out my mother gets tossed. “This is wrong,” I say. “Can’t we all just find a way to live together?” But then we burst out laughing. I need more drugs.

      

      I have lost thirteen pounds. My mother hasn’t said anything. At night I see my boyfriend. I wear short shorts and high heels. I take the Seventh Avenue IRT from Cathedral Parkway and change at Times Square for the RR. I get off at Union Square and change for the L and walk to Avenue C. The later the better. My boyfriend is impressed with my street smarts. He should be. I am not afraid. I am too angry for any motherfucker to fuck with me. I defy them to fuck with me. I want them to fuck with me. This is my recurring fantasy: I will take the subway to my mother’s house and get in the bath in my old room and slit my wrists and die in the warm water and have her find me. But I am afraid it will hurt. What a pussy. What a fraud. I am never having children. What if they hate me a fraction of this?

      

      I throw up all day. Vomiting causes the release of endorphins in the bloodstream. A surge of endorphins causes euphoria. No wonder I do it so often. Between self-imposed euphoria and cocaine I am okay. I arrive in a taxi across town one night clutching my $120 in cash, only to discover that I am cut off from my dealer. I plead with her. She says my sister doesn’t want me to buy anymore. I say, don’t you want me to buy anymore? I’m a really good customer, aren’t I? Yes,

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