This is a story about revenge.
It has been said that revenge is a dish best served cold. Perhaps this fictional warrior planet simply didn’t have the capacity to do it any other way. Or perhaps they thought it was dishonorable to add dissembling to vendetta. In my case, my revenge came in the best way possible. Innocence. One cannot calculate how to pull off what I did… if “did” is the right word.
Massachusetts. 199… let’s say 5. I was about nine years old. My mother would drop me off in the cosy suburban area on the other side of her college campus. One of her old acquaintances lived there with her professor husband and their two male children, about my age. My sister and I would while away the time and attempt to study while my mother was in class and couldn’t directly watch over us.
It was a hot, humid, almost unbearable spring day, and I wanted to get as far away from sunlight as possible. Even pine-tree dappled sunlight that came through the paneled bay window of the professor’s study. While wandering around the house in my light pink socks, I was unusually stopped by the lady of the house. She handed me a small tumbler. About half an inch of thick, opaque, pink liquid sat in the bottom of it. “Try this,” she half-barked. I got the distinct feeling that I was not allowed to say “No,” or “But why?”
Out of politeness, I said “Oh, it’s good.” It was sweet and cool, both of those things were good to me on a hot day like this was.
Just as quickly as she had caught my attention, she went on to whatever she was doing in the kitchen. I went back to finding a place relax or play.
A few minutes later she came and found me. She told me to drop whatever it was that I was doing and come and have the smoothie she had made for me. My sister wasn’t there, but I noticed that she hadn’t made any for her sons or herself. Just for me. I knew that it wasn’t for a lack of food that the smoothie had be presented. But I took the sweet drink, in hopes of a greater refreshment than when I tried the sample. It was now in an extra tall tumbler, and full to the brim. I had to be very ginger about my movement to not spill some of the mix. The first mouthful was almost as good as the sample I had earlier. The second, too. But right on the heels of it came a bitter, over-ripe aftertaste. On the third sip, it tasted downright rotten.
One more for politeness, and then I stood on my tiptoes to push it onto the kitchen counter.
From behind me I heard a voice yell “You will drink it all! You will finish it.” The lady of the house came walking, stomping almost, towards me and reminded me that I myself had said it was good.
I didn’t know that kind of polite conversation was binding.
She stood over me until I was done. Never mind that it wasn’t a meal time, and the heavy drink was too much for one who was not hungry. As I swallowed rotten mouthful after mouthful, I began to wonder if she had put something in this concoction that was supposed to induce weight-loss. After all, almost all of my classmates teased me for this matter, and no doubt she had opinions about it, too. I didn’t know whether to be insulted or not. After all, I have absolutely no idea what she put into the blender that day.
Sulking, I finished off the glass and ran back to playing, making sure to not force a “Thank you,” form my lips as the “treat” wasn’t really desired. I found my own way to entertain myself, as I often did, and didn’t feel hungry as meal time came and went.
***************
When my mother arrived, it felt like it was about 7 pm, and upon having some free time, she began to chat with her old friend. They talked in English and Spanish, leaving me out of the conversation, as I was monolingual. The sun set and I, who had been nursing a stomach ache, told my mother I wanted to go home, that I wasn’t feeling well. I walked outside into the covered parking space beside the screen door of the kitchen. I hoped it would help my mother want to leave. It didn’t.
I tried to focus on anything but the growing pain beneath my left rib, singing to myself, talking to myself, walking in circles beneath the orange ceiling light of the parking area, the pattern of beige moths’ wings making the whole room seem to flicker.
Before the conversation seemed to be showing any signs of ever slowing down, my mind and body seemed to descend into a worse and yet worse state. I was sweating, I thought from the heat, and would have been asleep if not for the piercing pain constantly growing, keeping me awake.
“I want to go home and sleep in my own bed. I’m feeling really bad!” I moaned. Through my choppy, too-real-to-be-normal vision, I could see that my mom was too chipper to be going anywhere soon.
“Okay, baby, we’ll leave really soon. Just a few more minutes.”
At some point my dad called to ask where we were. I remember talking to him on the white, block-like receiver of this woman’s kitchen phone. The spiraled chord seem to go on forever. I could have walked into the parking space outside with it. I asked him if he could come get me. He assured me that mom and I would leave “soon” and also told me that he wouldn’t come to rescue me from this place.
Defeated, I went back in, and sat at the office-supply strewn table, to silently try to not feel a thing.
I tried putting my head down on the polished oak wood. Not more comfortable, and no chance of sleep.
And then it happened. My beautiful revenge. For the bad smoothie. For the pushiness. For the long time I had to wait.
Without remembering what had happened the moment before, I vomited… all over the pretty oak table. It spread out like a liquid tablecloth, in a fluid motion, quickly and evenly. The two women screamed, stood and picked as many objects off the table as they could before my tyrannous fountain overtook them. I got the stapler. And part of the legal pad, which was cardboard-side up. I got little spots onto both of their clothes, I later found out.
The woman of the house ran to get her nice dishtowels to mop up my fragrant and all-too perfect gift. My mother informed me later that I had passed out from the pain, and that I sat back for just a moment with my eyes rolled back in my head.
Clammy, I stood up and with the two women screaming around me, I walked outside briefly to give them space, and for a moment felt badly about the trouble they were going through and the shock they incurred. I heard the woman of the house ask in a shocked tone:
“Did I feed her something bad today?”
“No, no,” my mother reassured. “Kids are just that way sometimes.”
And as I thought about it, I noticed I wasn’t in pain anymore. I was slightly cold, and still quite tired, but no funky vision, no sweats, no pain.
We left not too much after that. And when I walked out of that door, I think we both knew she did feed me something bad, and I’m pretty sure she never force-fed children strange drinks again.
Because I apparently said “I’m sorry!” weakly, after it happened, I was immediately absolved, and the only other thoughts turned towards me that night were ones of sympathy and pity.
This is a story about revenge. And innocence. It is best served at body temperature, spread evenly across the offenders dinning room table.
