Sandra K. Friday
While Ellen opens her narrative in the past when she was little and thinking of ways to kill her daddy, by the top of the second page she confides that she leveraged herself out of her dysfunctional family, and now lives in a clean brick house with her "new mama," where there is plenty to eat. (One of my sample lesson plans compares the juxtaposition of these two passages.) A psychologist at school who sees her routinely tells her that he thinks she is still scared, and Gibbons uses this as Ellen's segue into the past when she declares,
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I used to be [scared] but I am not now is what I told him. . . Oh but I do remember
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when I was scared. Everything was so wrong like somebody had knocked some-
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thing loose and my family was shaking itself to death. Some wild ride broke and
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the one in charge strolled off and let us spin and shake and fly off the rail. And they
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both died . . . (Gibbons 2).
Students will mark and discuss this passage and its powerful metaphor to learn how Ellen introduces herself at ten, remembering clearly the terror of being part of a family in a mortal crisis. I hope some students will circle the phrase, "Everything was so wrong," because for Ellen to declare that everything about her family was wrong is a drastic condition for a ten year old. The metaphor of a circus ride shaking and breaking and spinning until it flies off out of control, carrying the members of her family to their death, is an image of horrific, physical violence.
Ellen, an orphan with parents
Prior to this graphic death throe, Ellen describes the ends to which she goes at ten, trying as an adult would, to nurse and run interference for a frail mother with a weak heart from her alcoholic, abusive husband.
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I try not to leave her by herself with him. Not even when they are both
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asleep in the bed. My baby crib is still up in their bedroom so when I hear
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them at night I throw a fit and will not stop until I can sleep in the baby bed.
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He will think twice when I'm around. (Gibbons 8)
After they have marked and discussed this passages among themselves, they will share their observations and questions, and I hope that some students will identify or ask about the emotions that are driving Ellen to spend the night in her baby bed, and to be watchful of her parents whether they are awake or asleep What kind of physical and psychological toll would that degree of vigilance take on anyone, especially a child?
After her mother has taken an overdose of heart medicine and dies, Ellen says that her daddy is home less than before, if that is possible, staying away for days, never giving a thought to whether there is food in the house, or heat when it gets cold, or whether Ellen has a winter coat. Ellen does not complain about these omissions; she simply states that the daddy of her (only) friend, Starletta, took her to town and bought her a coat. It was also Starletta's daddy who "called the heat man." So it is largely through simple facts, and the juxtaposition of Starletta's daddy's care and concern for Ellen with the absence of her own daddy's care and concern, that we learn what Ellen is up against. Ellen is an orphan in her own house well before both of her parents are dead.
