Post by Regan Voorhees on Jan 22, 2021 23:08:47 GMT -5
Nine grueling months on the wagon were enough for Mother to evict me from her womb with the utmost of urgency on an unseasonably frosty Alabama April morning. A minute later, she called for a cocktail to ease her nerves before being formally introduced to her red-faced but otherwise flawless daughter. The nurse was good enough to bring her a surprisingly decent Spritz Veneziano, a perk of bringing me into the world in a hospital wing named after my grandfather. My actual father missed the entire bloody, screaming affair so that he could fire a regional manager with twenty-five-years of experience face-to-face, all over a misfiled patent on a new type of chicken. The escaped prototype would eventually find some success as a tic-tac-toe hustler, before his lucky streak ended when his coop caught fire one evening. Voorhees Farms had nothing to do with the tragedy, of course. An hour later, when Father finally arrived clutching a bouquet of roses his secretary picked out, Mother couldn’t help but notice a lipstick stain on his collar, coincidentally in a shade his secretary also picked out. Empowered by an entire bottle of prosecco and that fresh maternal furor that comes with a newly minted person tearing through your womanhood, she verbally lambasted him. Her words drowned out the compliments from the doctors and nurses about how perfect her new daughter was. Father eventually called for a drink of his own, until they murmured fake apologies and settled back into their marital cold war. All in all, they made a dismal first impression for both themselves and the human race.
Cousin Tillie claimed that I ruined her wedding when I was five, but I would argue it was first and foremost ruined by virtue(a term used loosely in Tillie’s case) of her being the bride. Still, it paled in comparison to the ruin of her new husband’s life. The duties of a flower girl did little to hold my interest. So while Mother and the rest of the harpy bridesmaids busied themselves with the Sisyphean task of making the bride desirable, away I sneaked, in search of more engaging company. The wedding was held at one of our more picturesque farms. The ones we use for promotional photos so our customers can delude themselves into thinking their dinner came happily to their table after a long, fulfilling life. The animals were similarly photogenic, all part of the charade, like they were brought to life from a children’s book. The type of thing that looks good in a pamphlet about why Voorhees Farms is the only choice for all your meaty needs.
Like me, they were blissfully unaware that they were pawns in a larger game, but they did know that a visit from me meant treats. Never one to disappoint, I absconded with a massive platter of cheese straws that my little arms could barely carry. The goats and cows and ponies and alpacas were always happy to see me, but none so much as my precious pigs. Any attempts to evenly distribute the feast were met with brusque snorts, and ultimately only the goats and pigs were even interested in cheese straws. The pigs, of course, were more interested. I indulged them, tossing handfuls of treats in the air, delighting as they scattered to catch them. But my euphoria was short-lived when I heard my mother scream for me from the guest house where they went about polishing the soon-to-be-married turd. Mother has always had a piercing, banshee-like wail. Hearing my voice in that timbre was enough to startle me and send me tumbling from the fence I was standing on. I landed hard in the mud, splattering my fuchsia abomination of a dress to an irreparable degree. My brain scrambled for an explanation or an escape, but I knew all hope was lost when Mother’s serpentine eyes burned into me. The fall and her arrival were enough to make the cheese straws seem unimportant. But when Zeus, the farm’s largest boar, saw the plate sitting on the ground just beyond the fence, he was consumed with divine fury. Striking like a thunderbolt, he barreled through the fence in an explosion of splintering wood, charging forward to claim his delicious prize. A creature of logic and ambition, with no barricade left to oppose him, Zeus was content to feast. But his comrades were a chaotic lot. A dozen pigs led the goats, cows, ponies, and one particularly spit-happy alpaca to freedom. Their siege laid the wedding plans low. They chased guests, assaulted decorations. They frightened and defecated and fornicated, and while ultimately the task of returning them to their enclosure would not be an impossible one, Tillie’s special day lay in ruins.
It was all quite wonderful. While his army attacked, Zeus lapped up the remaining cheese straws, then came over and gave me a thankful, snotty nudge with his snout. I scratched his ears as Mother advanced on me, her eyes full of fury. The rage had little to do the abandonment of my flower girl post and everything to do with the fact that I made her look unfavorably in front of the family. Nevertheless, a beastly daughter just wouldn’t do. This offense would doom me to years of etiquette and deportment classes, drilling grace and gentility in my core until I thought it had always been there. Tillie was a wreck, of course. Screaming, crying, cursing. More than once, she called me an animal.
That didn’t seem so insulting.