Discipline
2010; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 33; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/cal.2010.0052
ISSN1080-6512
AutoresAi .,
ResumoDiscipline* Ai It was Vegas. It was 1954, one hundred fifteen degrees in the shade and my half-sister,Roslynn, was on her knees, begging Mom not to whip her. She said she didn't mean itAs tears streamed down her cheeks. She was getting what she deserved, because she hadTaken a hairpin and scratched the toes of all my mother's shoes, plus ripped out all herDress hems. I'd known she was up to something in the closet. I'd been told to watch her,While Mom went off to play the slots with a girlfriend, but I preferred to read aboutSir Lancelot, while Roslynn did the deed and now I was going to pay for it, because accordingTo Mom, I hadn't done what she'd told me—"Watch your sister and don't let her do anythingWrong." Ha! As if I could control the little monster. Still, I was going to pay in a big way, but IWouldn't beg, or anything else to let Mom think I was a baby like my sister. No, I said to myselfAs Mom grabbed the heavy tooled leather cowboy belt with the copper buckle that had aLonghorn engraved on it. As she swung that sucker down, I saw my chance and ran outThe screen door and down the dusty unpaved street. After a block, or two, I realized I had nowhereTo go, but back to face the rock 'n' roll, so I took the scenic route through the park, by the kiddiePool, then I thought of my grandmother who just might save me. I stood quietly on her front porchA few minutes, hoping she'd open the door, but I suddenly remembered that she was working some party [End Page 590] Where the high rollers tipped big. She was a cook and my mother was an army wife. My stepfatherWas stationed in Korea and he couldn't help me either, so I moved on with a scene from myFavorite cowboy movie, High Noon, playing in my head, the one where Gary Cooper goesTo the shootout and proves what a man alone can do, but I was a little girl and I remembered when I wasFour and playing peekaboo with my mother, right after Roslynn was born. When she asked me to stop,I wouldn't until she threw a tin of baby powder and hit me in the right eye. As I screamed in pain,She said, "I told you to leave me alone." Yes, she did, and she always meant what she said. I hung myHead, as I stood forlornly in the yard. When Mom opened the door and said, "Get in here," I got. It wasOver quickly. I licked my wounded pride and later, pinched my sister until she cried. When sheComplained, Mom said, "That's tough. You have to learn to take your punishment."I was only seven and I had already learned enough. [End Page 591] Footnotes * "Discipline" is reprinted from No Surrender: Poems by Ai. Copyright © 2010 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright © 2010 W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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