A Backwards Paradigm

A Memoir of (Hope)lessness

Marlene Mercado

By:

contents

Episode 1. Mango Madness Episode 2. The Phone Call Interlude Episode 3. Daddys Girl Episode 4. The Microtel

1.
Her lipstick. She wasnt one to normally wear lipstick. A few nights ago she decided to class it up a bit and apply the Mango Madness color. By the end of the night she had reapplied at least five or six times. Naturally, her lips are a little larger than most. In the sudden beams of light throughout the night you could see that the lipstick was now on the outskirts of her lip-line and it was fading. It wasnt that vibrant color you see when a woman first applies the lipstick, it was that dried up, crusty-looking, faded, unattractive mess. She never stopped puckering her lips, almost as if she were intent on eating her gums. My nose caught a scent. A scent that I recognized. It gave me a gut wrenching feeling. My senses registered and I realized it was Vanilla Musk. Just as Sarah Barthel of Phantogram was singing on the speakers of the car, ...and everyday I say this time around my visions gettin clearer.... I couldnt help but think there was no way Leahs vision was getting clearer in this muck. The repetitive notions started to become noticeable. The inclination to run, run fast, and far away was beginning to settle into my bones and lurk. I didnt even know if I was right, I didnt know if I was just making shit up in my head. But it was that feeling, that intuition, that sixth sense that was starting to set in. The feeling that used to get my heart pumping too fast, the feeling I knew all too well. This is when I was certain that she had relapsed, when I knew she was driving while the heroin was flooding her veins. Everything she had said to me before we got in the car was a way to cover up the lies; a way to cover up the self-loathing; a way to cover up that stone wall looking face that she gave when she got lifted from the ground and out of consciousness. I just knew, and really thats all I can say about it.

2.
That well known feeling began with a phone call. There I was lying on the rugged carpet where I could smell the musty cigarette smoke embedded deep within it. I couldnt see anything because my eyes had become swollen shut from the tears. They were that noticeable type of swollen, the kind where you can read pain just from looking. My self-pity session was interrupted by the ring of the telephone. He was the first person to crawl into my mind. I hope its him, please be him. Wait I dont know, do I want it to be him. Fuck please be him. Hello?... HELLLOOOOO....?! I said. No response. I could hear my cousin Ben and him talking. DAD!. Still nothing. This is when I realized it was an accident. A pocket dial. My mind expanded, contracted, expanded, contracted. The uncontrollable feeling of anxiety set in, like when your gut deep down inside of you is screaming. I could hear myself screaming inside of my head. I was screaming to myself in an empty room and no one could hear me.

No one knows the truth besides you, said my dad. Well Mike, dont you think its time you tell your family whats really going on? replied Ben. Fuck no, they are all ungrateful. I did this to teach them a lesson. If I can make them learn how to appreciate me when Im gone, then I can make them do what I want. He had told us about the drugs, the drug deals, the late nights, and visits to the strip clubs. But he couldnt tell us the truth that he wasnt really leaving us. That he in fact was staying at a hotel until things cooled off. I think back to this and wonder if things would have turned out differently had my father known I overheard this conversation because of the pocket dial.

Interlude
I cant recall if this is the first time I felt the dagger, but this was the first time I can vividly remember knowing it was there. The dagger, as I call it, was the sharp, pointy feeling I would get when I knew things were seriously wrong. It felt as though it could have been physically painful. It was so realistic, and when it would come on I would focus on it; the more I focused on it the worse it got. It all started as just a sore feeling on my back, but the more I concentrated the more intense it became until the dagger was fully lodged into my right adrenal gland. I remember, before the dagger, I could see my dad and things were normal, but that was a long time ago...

3.
As a child I always wanted to be around my dad. If he was in the garage working on the truck, Id go to make sure he had everything he needed. I just wanted to be in there and hang out with him, talk to him and learn something. Bring him another tool when he needed it. I wanted to be the little badass that knew how to work on trucks. I would wake up early in the morning when he was getting ready for work and sit down and pretend to drink coffee with him. I hated the taste of the black coffee, but I tried to drink it anyways because I thought he might think Im stronger if I did it. I loved that people always said I resembled him, even though he is a man, because I thought it meant I was stronger and smarter. Because that is what most people made me think, that men were smarter and stronger than women. Little did I know that I didnt want to be like him at all. It started with the visits to the road side market out on the east side of town that we never questioned. Every time we visited we got at least a couple pieces of candy, I always chose the Duvalin or Matzapan. My sister always got a popsicle, and my mom a Sprite. The piatas hanging in the market varied in size and color; the little Chinese man was usually swapping them out each time we came in. My dad would walk straight to the cooler, grab a Pepsi and head for the register for his goods. I could never hear what he asked for at the counter, but the little Chinese man would grab a black pill container and fill it

to the brim. I could hear the pills dropping into the black container one by one. Even though I was seven or eight at the time, something in my gut told me what was happening had to be wrong. How could I have known at the time that it was the beginning of the end.

4.
I found myself in the two-bedroom suite of a Microtel off I-95 right outside of El Paso when I was twelve years old. I was sitting on the windowsill of our hotel, my sister Maxine and I were rummaging through the bags from our recent shopping spree. We both had an idea where the money came from, but since the only new item Id gotten in several months was my school uniform from my grandmother, I couldnt help but be excited. I knew my dad felt as though what he was doing wasnt wrong because he was providing for his family. Unfortunately his definition of providing was skewed. We were living in a hotel off of the main interstate. I picked a lava lamp from a store named Spencers at the mall. I was sitting there intently working on plugging it into an outlet to see the globs of lava slosh around when I heard a thud in the bedroom where my parents were staying. My sister and I had grown accustom to life on the edge; we both dropped everything in our hands and ran for the bedroom. I saw my mother, her face was swollen red with anger. I smelt her body spray, Vanilla Musk, that scent I would grow to be disgusted by. The same scent that would later trigger my senses. My father had that look in his eye again, the hollow, lifeless look. We could see that they had been arguing, about what this time - who knows. Do you guys know what this is? shouts my Dad as he throws a bag of cocaine on the table. Maxine and I look at one another and then back at the bag, even if we did know what it was - and we did- what were we supposed to say? Oh yeah Dad, we know exactly what that is and it is totally cool with us that youre a drug dealer. Well! Do you? Do you know what I do for a living? Or what I do every day ?!. Neither one of us wanted to answer. Maxine, Marlene, this is what I do! I dont plan on doing this forever, but I have to right now. I dont have any other choice. Im trying to get us out of this mess. Both of us stood quietly, I choked as I held back the tears. I shared my story and experience with Leah in hopes of helping her and showing there is a different way of life. But She became someone who normally wore lipstick, Mango Madness turned into her favorite color to apply, and she did let it fade.