Prologue

 

My Mother         December 1950 

(Voice Over)

The birth was as eventful as most births are: of particular relevance to the personages in attendance, but of no significance to the greater world at large. The season was East Coast Winter, the month January. The stars and moon were accountably absent ; but it was under the sign of Capricorn for those to whom such things matter. The day, the sixteenth, divided the month so precisely into before and after, as it defined the life to come. The year was 1951 in post-war flush America where cars could sport both the presage of tail-fins and the prestige of running boards and still remain fashionably correct

The family history reeks of mixed heritage, rich in lower class and imagination if little else. It records a blizzard as the setting for a night trip to the local hospital in the muted tones of a snowscape by Edward Hopper or a tone poem by Delius. But it provides little documentation of much else beyond the hearsay musings of senile or deceased elders. It does not record for instance, whether the forthcoming birth was either desired or not

Nonetheless, the birth occurred, with the compulsory amount of discomfort to a twenty-one year old girl of highly spirited nature and rather indifferent demeanor. A lover of life she fancied herself. But not, apparently, of its consequences. Consequences whose embrace she was about to now experience in a new variation. Rumor has it that an infant girl would have appeased her more in this exchange. But stuck she would be with the ambiguous doll whose sole recognizable feature was a miniature replica of the very appendage responsible for her freedom’s demise.

The birth was recorded by the State and in the family bible in the same fashion; as having occurred. The Christian name entered on the birth certificate was W______, appended by M______, then S______. 

W______ may have been a homage to the girl’s deceased father. The name may also have served as a charm to expunge associations of guilt from the father’s death, the news of which she’d received upon her rebellious return from some surreptitious endeavor requiring her absence an entire day. The name was doubly appended perhaps to ward off a repeat occurrence of the girl’s present circumstances. The official record bears the entry Ralph, plus surname, for the father. Unrecorded is the exact time of birth, or the names of those in attendance beside those absolutely essential. 

And so on January 16, 1951, beneath the cold mantle of falling snow, the pressures of circumstance compress both beginning and ending into a single shattering sound: The entrance wail of first breath harmonizing to the exhausted scream of release and relief. (FADE TO BLACK)