My mother was no shrinking violet and here lay the secret to her success in getting me to
practice daily. When I saw my first Fellini film, I could relate to the size of the women
because my mother was of such a size. 5'11" and 220 pounds, she had a commanding
presence. Like Mr. Gumbs, she too had a strap, but her's was brown. But more than our
discrepant sizes or her strap, what probably fuelled her insistence most was the fact that
she did not learn to play the piano, despite her childhood piano lessons. She used to
write the answers for the theory questions in her hand; she didn't practice. It was not
until her adulthood that she realized that she had cheated herself. I suffered for, or
benefited from, her misgivings.
After my return from school and my afternoon snack, my mother would
start in ..."Jackie
have you practiced? This was of course a rhetorical question because
she had been there
all the time and knew that I had not practiced. I would diffuse the
issue by continuing to
dance around the kitchen, making jokes; in short, I would distract
her by hindering any
progress being made on the dinner frontier. This maneuver usually bought
me 15 to 20
minutes of freedom.
The second and final reminder to hit the ivory always came in the form
of a
command..."Jackie go and practice. However, during my teen years, the
second
reminder was sometimes not enough. I had more legitimate reasons not
to practice-
hordes of homework. Furthermore, the amount of practice time necessary
to keep my
competitve edge was averaging 90 minutes daily. Probably most importantly
though, I
was now taller and hence less fearful of "Madame Drucilla". Alas, when
the second
reminder came I was already well into my homework, my foremost concern.
The third and final reminder was always a bit of a shock to the ear
from such a
churchgoing soul..."God dammed, get your ass on the piano (complete
with all the
expected mannerisms of a Caribbean woman). That third and final remark
would always
do it. I knew that negotiations were off when I'd provoked "Madame
Drucilla" to this
level. Her "brown belt" would be the next step. Quick as a flash, I
would take my place
at the piano, exchanging my piano music for my math text.
As in the Gumbs' regime, in the Hodge regime, there was little room
for negotiation. I
did try nonetheless. For years I tried to get my mother to leave me
at home when she
attended some of her grown-up functions, particularly the least colorful
ones. However,
the biggest problem I had was the Caribbean community at large. Heavens
me! Word
had already spread like wildfire that I was masquerading as Mr. Hodge.
Whereas
invitations arrived at other households addressed to "Mr. & Mrs.
so-and-so", at our house
the envelopes read "Mrs. Drucilla Hodge & Daughter". In our church
community, there
were several households in which the fathers were absent. Attrition
through divorce or
separation was the rule, rarely through death. However, those mothers
received
invitations addressed only to "Mrs. so-and-so. I had my just desserts!
While I was
focusing on my schoolwork, eavesdropping on my mother's phone conversations,
and
eating myself into a "junior Madame Hodge", mother had beaten to the
punch. She had
already established the ground rules - i.e. "I accept no invitations
unless my daughter is
invited too." While this had a supratentorial effect on her (piece
of mind) as we attended
her functions, it gave me a variety of subtentorial illness not dissimilar
from
gastroenteritis.
