The Book of Numbers.

My name is Four. I am not green. Be careful who you tell, though. There is a girl you might know and I don't want her to know differently. I am not green, but she believes it anyway. And I don't want her to know differently because I am her favorite. And I think it's important to her.

Why green? I think it's because green is the earth. And the color of a jealous lover. And it's material. And it's naivete. But it's also the color of her mother's stone - and now her daughter's. Sometimes it's the color of her eyes. The first car she remembers her father driving. The color of the carpet she stained at fourteen. She was much too young. So it's her favorite. And so am I. And don't we always want to lump all of our favorites together - find how they are all the same? Mint chocolate chip ice cream - you like that don't you? She does - it's green. Pistachio dessert, too. I hear she favors BP gas stations, even. Might drive a little further just for the color of them.

She has a sister, like me. Mine is called Three. She's older, I guess. That's what makes me Four. But she's the baby, really. Her skin is still pink and she's spoiled and she's been coddled by my parents, One and Two. I love her, I do. But she is lollipops and hair ribbons and crocodile tears.

And this girl who thinks I'm green - she has a Five, like me, too. Don't we all have a Five? That boy who waltzed in late to class every day. He'd roll those navy blue eyes and you thought you must be the ugliest girl in the world by the way it made you feel to look at him. You'd make out with him in the darkest room at a party until his nasty friend Six - oh, that orange headed creep - found him out and dragged him off in a rush. Six's older brother, Seven, was always waiting in their muddy brown Camaro, smoking a cigarette with the window rolled all the way down, even in winter. They would always blow the juvenile party for some sophisticated college girls. And you'd stick around in that room for awhile, wiping the sloppy spit off your chin, tugging your shirt back down, feeling as muddy as that car. Feeling as blue as his eyes. Green as I'm supposed to be. Smelling of stale beer and bad pot and elation. When you'd finally come out, Eight was always waiting like a good friend does. Round as an eggplant, worried as a grandmother. He'd shake his head, open his arms and let you cry for a bit on the way to the Dunkin' Donuts. You'd listen to Eight talk about the boy he liked too for a little while, but your mind always drifted back to Five. Midnight blue Five.

I am Four and sometimes I feel green but I'm just not. How can I be green when my mother's hands are the color of butter and my father is white as clean sheets. But, then, how did Three get so baby pink? I guess I'm not really that far off from green. Aunt Nine has always been the color of forest trees. Nice smelling pines. Moss that grows over rocks. So maybe. But I don't want to be green like Aunt Nine - to never marry and live all alone! To have yarn quilts and outdated plaid furniture. Wood paneled walls. Cats shedding. Has dinner at her pastor's house every Sunday. I don't want to be green like Aunt Nine. She went deaf at fourteen. I don't want to go deaf like forest green Aunt Nine.

This girl who likes green. She is the fourth, too. And so I am her favorite. And so she would always wear my name when she played sports in school and call me out loud when there was a guessing contest. She thinks about me a lot more than most people, I think. And so I'd like to stay green for her - whether I really want to be or not. Just because it's important to her. And I know I'm really not that green so it doesn't confuse me about who I am to pretend. Don't we all pretend a little bit to please those we're important too?

My name is Four and I am not green. I just sort of had to tell somebody - but just be pretty careful who you tell. I don't want her to know differently.

If we are judged by the company we keep.

This is not another Tonight. But tonight the full moon was encircled by an overexposed rainbow against black night. It was hideous. And I was disappointed because this natural occurrence validated all of those horrible Wizards and Warlocks paintings I like to scoff at. All that was missing was a white unicorn with a topless woman riding past. And I am afraid to look out the window now for fear that I will see that as well.
_______________________________________________

I listened to a debate between a group of artists. I didn't have much to contribute - though I've thought about the topic a lot on my own - because I'm tired of trying to uncover the answers. Yet, still, I think about it. What is better: to do something first, or to do something better? To be authentic or to be thorough and skilled? I believe Authentic. Some do not. All that can be agreed on is that bad imitation is laughable. In art. In everything.

But what wasn't discussed is how our perception is changed by the order we receive things. When Garbage was popular I was not too interested because I already had Curve for years. A friend who did not have Curve loved Garbage. When I introduced her to Curve I was convinced that she would immediately recognize Garbage's rip-off factor as well as the overall superiority of Curve. She did not. She stuck with Garbage. Garbage was her Curve - simply because they were first to her.

When I am working, I am constantly afraid that I am ripping something off. That I am copying. That an inspiring memory of someone else's work is subconsciously coming through in mine. And sometimes people probably think I am ripping something off - that I am copying. I would much rather be authentic. But it's so damn difficult - everything's been done and I'm no visionary.

But, also, copycats tend to be louder, pushier, more popular.
_______________________________________________

I used to be fairly unreliable when something was asked of me. I would tend to offer more than I was really willing to give. But over the last few years, through good friends and a good daughter, I have overcome that problem for the most part. They taught me the reward in doing what you say you will, and the reward in saying no if you don't plan on following through.

And lately I've noticed that karma is paying me back for those earlier years. Because I've been trying desperately to follow through and I've been getting little help in doing so. What lesson is this? I want to believe it is: When you're trying to follow through but the person who asked you to do so is not offering assistance, give up. Give. Up.
_______________________________________________

Gabe, Art Professor Extraordinaire, said that he loves fine art showings because of the anonymity and humilty the artists display during their "performance." I agree. I agree. I agree. So how does dear Gabe explain the artist who recently grabbed my ass at his own show and announced that he was "THE STAR!"? Simply, "that guy's a douche."

Grave digging

My nanny.

I know that when Bapa died everybody treated her like property. Her own kids. Dividing up the things and packing them up - away.

There are plenty of pictures of all the women gathered round the table with brown coffee mugs. In most of them all you see of my sister and me is the backs of our shiny hair half-covered by thick Marlboro smoke. My own mother can't tell which one of us is which because of the way the sun bleached my sister's dark hair strawberry. We colored with waxy crayons from the Big Boy at that table. Poked toothpicks into potatoes while they bragged about their money troubles, the floosies next door.

I know that she birthed five babies.
But I only knew two aunts and one uncle.
That baby didn't have a name, I don't think.

I know that she lied to say she was fourteen just so she could marry my bapa. And that she never could read. I know that Bapa's daddy was such a son-o'-bitch nobody bothered to investigate when he was found shot dead in a ditch. And that they all lived in a tent until my mom's little sister was born.

I wrote a Thanksgiving poem that rhymed so well she made me read it every year before we began.

We used to sit on her carpet and watch the ants circle the crumbs, carry them off. I hated it. I felt embarrassed to have a nanny and bapa like that - ants on their living room floor. The sunlight so hot through the picture window. And all she ever talked about to us kids was the squirrels stealing the bird seed. All we wanted to do was go up to the attic and look at Bapa's dirty picture books. She'd slap our arms when she'd catch us on the stairs. We loved her, I think. Sometimes she'd hug us good and hard.

I know that love was terror to her. I think I knew it even so young, lined up with all my cousins, our chosen switches in hand, waiting to get a lickin'. I know I can be as cold as her - as my mom - when I love enough to get scared about it. I know I'm glad Claire won't know her. I know I feel guilty about my gladness.

She had an endless supply of mason jars. Some with handles, even, for drinking sweetened ice tea. She pinched the tomato bugs in half with her bare fingers. She threatened to fire us up if we snapped her lillies. The bottom of her meat freezer was stained brownish-red from cow blood. When she made cocoa gravy she'd let us peel the hardened film off the top.

I know one day she said something about me being like my bapa in a whisper to my mother as I ate my chili. When I looked up, they were watching me, smirking. I don't know for sure, but I think it might've been about the way I hold my face too close to my plate. I've always been self-concious about it since. She told my sister once that she was the only grandkid who looked like the Indians we was. And I know my sister's been self-concious about that too.

She told me another time that I shouldn't talk too much about the good things happening to me. My britches not fitting anymore. And since then I've always sort of thought I needed a man who could just keep me nice and quiet. Give me reason to not talk too much.

I know that, even still, when the women gather together we channel her way of talking. (Even, now, writing about her.) Calling the kids "little whippers" and leaving off the ends of words. Even me. But especially my mom. And I see the way the men look at us - like it's a worthless tribute. A wasted last-ditch effort for her kisses. I think it's just a way to say we all held those switches.

After she lost my bapa she just let them run her house down. And she refused my mother's sanity - her unconditional love. I was never really surprised about how easily I hated her after that. I think I probably always did - a little bit anyways. I think I might have always known about the way she raised my mother. How her fear would eventually allow them all to box my Bapa's memory up - away.

Once when my bapa was sick she had to drive my sister and me someplace. We were just kids. We buckled ourselves in the back and she went and sat in the passenger seat. We sat awkwardly silent for a bit until she jumped up, embarrassed, and went around to the driver's side. We were nervous as hell that ride. We giggled about it later to my dad.

My sister wouldn't go to her funeral. I only went so I could place my hand on my mother's back as she cried over the casket. Nobody else really spoke to my mom that day. They all had the little bit of money my bapa had saved in their bank accounts by then. They had it even before she was gone herself. They resented my mother for not wanting some too. They resented her for not taking his things away to sell right in front of my nanny. For not nodding along while they took her house from her. For not playing along for dirt. They hated that if Nanny and Bapa were really together again above he was yelling, "Earlene, you gone an' messed up with Elaine. She always was the only one who never asked for nothin' but love. Nothin' but love and you turned her out the door."

I know that my Bapa was good.

Sometimes when I watch a movie or read a novel about children who've had something bad happen I get a weird feeling for her. It's almost like I miss her. It's almost like forgiveness. But I don't know exactly what for. Just for her fear, I guess. For her ignorance. For that cold part of my mother. My sister. Me.

She never came to my wedding. We got a response in the mail with something scribbled in on the will attend line. My mom and I thought it might have been her - trying to write her name, afraid to ask one of them for help. I wonder sometimes if she put on one of the few nice dresses she had and tried to fix her hair up all by herself. If she sat on the edge of her bed with her black patten-leather purse in her lap - her matching shoes - in the back room of my aunt's house. If she sat in her own pride all night while her good daughter's baby grew up. I wonder sometimes if my mother wouldn't have cried in the same way over her casket if she would have just come to that church.

I know my mom didn't belong to her the way the others did. I know that I must not have belonged to her hardly at all, then. It's a hard thing to sort out. I felt so much love from her and I felt so much distance. And I blame her easily for the detachment inside of my mother - and my mother for mine. And I feel this forgiveness, but I'm not sure for what exactly. For her fear of losing? For living life best she knew? It's been so easy to blame her and then just put her away.

It seems I've taken her out now. Over ten years have passed and I've taken her out to cry for. For what exactly, I'm not sure.

I know that there is a photo of her with my cousin on his prom night in one of my boxes. There is a genuine tenderness in her face. A sincere warmth and comfort. When I look at it I easily remember what the soft fuzz of her face felt like against my cheek. Her bedroom. The rumpled towel that hid her cigarette box in the bathroom. How she fried us catfish in her trailor in Florida. The chintzy christmas ornaments she bought for us from the Avon catalog. The way she loved us so much it turned into terror.