Sans Souci and Laurita
Photographed by their father

Birthday Doll
By Sans Souci from her upcoming book, “The Cerebral Jukebox”
 
I might have been twelve, so
you were six and under my care;
mom worked.
She brought home the groceries after a day
at the Dictaphone machine and
the ninety words per minute
typewriter,
stepped out of her high heels,
returning to five feet tall.

She handed me five dollars and told me
to take you to buy a birthday present.
OK, Ma, I think I dutifully answered.

She must have been tired, really tired,
to have forgotten to pick up a gift,
and to send us out in the dark.

I suppose she was going to start making dinner.
Sometimes, after we ate,
she’d clear the little kitchen counters
and set up the typewriter,
the old Remington.
She would sit on the thick Manhattan Yellow Pages,
atop the step stool, typing briefs for the
law firm on the corner, and invoices
for dad’s camera repair business—his second job.
I don’t know how such a little woman
could work so much
and still take care of a family.

It was a December evening,
around five o’clock,
a Wednesday.
We put on our jackets,
took the elevator down;
it was dark and cold,
my stomach was quaking.
I held your hand
and clutched the five-dollar bill.

We walked ten minutes or more,
under the lamp lights,
around the playground,
down the wide stairs
onto Fourteenth Street,
Avenue B,
then to Avenue A.
A bus lumbered along Fourteenth Street,
coming from Union Square,
bringing people home from the subway,
and shoppers from S. Klein’s—
the best bargain department store around.

If I were to walk those city blocks today,
I know they would seem shorter and
possibly more interesting;
but then, the streets seemed endless
and in the darkness they took on an aura
that was familiar yet distorted by neon.

Our side, the Stuyvesant Town side,
was lined with pink building after pink building,
each eleven stories,
now grayish in the diminished light.
Across Fourteenth Street, the stores were lit
and beckoned brightly like a circus:
The Prince of Pizza on the corner,
where I would have my first slice and burn my mouth;
Town Rose Bakery,
where the lady with black hair and long red nails
stuffed pastry into boxes and tied them up with red and white string;
The little law office, where mom sometimes worked;
Woolworth’s,
where we bought our pet GiGi, the Java Temple bird,
PermaCut,
where we sat in airplane seats in the basement and Mr. Joseph cut our hair;
John’s Bargain Store,
where we’d pick through bins of vinyl and plastic;
Thom McCann Shoes, where I would later get the first pair of little heels
that I wore to Paul Leonard’s bar mitzvah;
Barricini Chocolates,
on the corner of Avenue A, where the smell of cocoa was overwhelming;
Pam Pam Burgers, juicy, with the shiny, puffy bun,
and maybe twenty more stores in between.

It was nice to feel your hand in mine;
I was so adult and in control,
a small mother. My ears rang with cold, under my hat.
You were probably in kindergarten,
no longer a four year old with a
baby tummy, full and rounded from your chest down.
Still small and fragile, with large blue eyes and ash hair,
you ran to keep up with me.

We arrived at the corner of Fourteenth Street and First Avenue,
where the subway was,
the LL line to Brooklyn that we knew went to
our two grandmas, and to the beach.
Traffic picked up here, yellow taxis honking their way
uptown on First Avenue;
we turned right at the corner.

There were shops embedded into the First Avenue side
of our cookie cutter buildings;
a Kodak store
where dad’s photo of me and another little girl
was blown up into a poster and once displayed;
a Good Humor store—or did that come later?
An original Howard Johnson’s restaurant that
later became something with an Irish name.
McKenna’s?
The First National City Bank,
its name on a highly polished brass medallion.
Banking hours: 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM

And then! There! Next door!
Murray’s!
Toys!
(My dad once took a picture of tiny me
pointing at the toys in the window.)
Toys to the right.
Housewares, pots, curtains, measuring cups,
appliances, to the left.

When we entered the store,
we left the darkness and chill behind,
and fluorescent lights took over.
Metal trucks, cars, bubble blowers, things to build, puzzles,
games in long rectangular boxes, coloring books – they all beckoned.
Then we found the dolls.

You pointed to a baby-doll
in a cardboard box,
looking out through the cellophane window.
I see myself reaching for it, pulling it down,
handing it to you;
and in my pre-teen awkwardness
I asked in an overly loud, take-charge,
impatient, parent voice:
Is this the one you want?

You liked the blue dress and
the glass eyes that opened and closed.
I handed the man the money.
He put the box in a bag and
gave me change.

We went out onto the dark, busy street;
it felt like midnight, and I wasn’t ready
for the burden of responsibility.
I silently questioned why
it was given to me.

We walked back the way we came,
the neon now on our right,
the wind pushing us along,
to lamb chops, or meat loaf, or chicken.

I can still feel your hand in my hand.
 

Link back to the Poetry Wednesday tour Laurita’s page

deletereply sugarpiehuny wrote on May 4, ’09 such a sweet memory.. loved the photo

Comment deleted at the request of the author.

deletereply gypsy4you wrote on May 4, ’09 A fond memory indeed!

deletereply sugarpiehuny wrote on May 4, ’09 I read it again, to a friend.. He loved it too!

deletereply starfishred wrote on May 4, ’09 love this one to

deletereply gileson wrote on May 5, ’09 Marvelous!

deletereply caffeinatedjo wrote on May 5, ’09 Great pic! I read your poem and could picture ya’ll, hand in hand, walking down those streets….loved the descriptions.

deletereply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 7, ’09 Can see why you chose this one, it’s a lovely poem with so many memories for both of you. What a lot of vey dark hair you both had. For some reason I always thought of you both as blonnd !!

editdeletereply lauritasita wrote on May 7, ’09 Loretta, Sans is naturally a brunette but she went lighter in recent years, like in the picture of her on the sign in page.