My Mothers Lies

My mother once told me that my dad was an alien.

I was six when she told me that. Now, my parents were born and raised in another country, Peru. They moved here after dad got through med school, and did his residency in Chicago. So, I first thought she meant he was born in another country. But looking at her vacant eyes and expressionless face, her mouth open like a child, her hair unkempt and pointing at all angles, I realized she meant the flying saucer kind. Then she said,

-Thats why you are so good at math and science.

This is the first time I realized my mother lived in a slightly different world than mine. One with more color, and better stories. Where fantastic explanations lived everywhere, hiding the mundane, simple explanations for things. She believed things not because of solid facts, but because it was delightful to do so. And because it gave meaning to an otherwise futile powerless life.

I was born in the US, and had grown in a small plain white house in Indiana. My parents had no American friends, spoke Spanish at home, and still lived with the customs and morals of a Peruvian family. My parents would surprise me sometimes with how different what they considered normal behavior and that of my friends parents. Thus, while I nurtured a healthy doubt that my dad was a space alien, it really wouldn’t surprise me all that much. I still kept an eye on him to watch for signs, an unguarded moment, where he would take out a laser gun or go work on his flying saucer he kept hidden somewhere in the house. But no sign was imminent. If anything, he seemed like a guy that worked hard and was exhausted every day when he came home and was essentially friendless and a little sad. He would come home from work, make a double Jack Daniels, and quietly watch TV while sitting on his Lazy Boy. I usually showed up and he would make room and I would scootch in next to him. There was just enough room. We would watch TV together for a couple hours, hardly saying a word. The Lazy Boy had the antiseptic smell of Jack Daniels.

One day, after work, I asked him during a commercial break if he was a space alien.

-I wish I was. He said. But, no, I am not. However, your mother definitely is not of this world.

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I have asthma. Usually its controlled. And no problem. But sometimes, if I haven’t had water for a while, some saliva can go the wrong way, and my larynx will seize up and I start gasping for air as if someone was strangling me. In fact, it sounds exactly like strangulation.

As we were hiking, this happened. My mother walked about 10 feet ahead of me, some saliva went the wrong way, and I stopped and started choking and gasping for air and making strangling noises. I stopped walking and fell on me knees as I struggled to get enough air in. She walked up slowly, concerned, unsure what to do. After about 10 seconds I was able to breathe again, and I started to gulp air again.

-You okay now? She asked.

-Yes. I swear, I swear, I swear someday I will die that day.

She looked at me with a serious probing look in her eyes, like she was looking through a veil. Then she smiled.

-No you wont. She said, and turned around and kept walking.

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My mother read Nostradamus. Or, at least a book about him. She had read a book by William Blake and one by Aleister Crowley. She had read about Wicca, and told me one day she had always been a witch. She had read Chariots of the Gods, and believed that aliens had landed in Peru. And had made people.

-Read the Incan creation story, she said to me one day while I was trying to watch Charlton Heston play Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea. My mother did not believe in parting waters. And while my mother had lived her entire youth in a large modern city, Lima, she would always describe Peru as a magical place that invented corn. Where the Incas slept outside on the mountains, using snow as a blanket. Where the Incas rode animals called llamas that were like unicorns, but without the horn. And where they worshiped the sun as the Father and the moon as the Mother. And they spoke to the Father, not by mumbling at ignited shrubbery, but by ingesting ayahuasca, a powerful tea, and by studying the twisted entrails of their llamas. Most importantly, the Incas were the First People.

-Don’t watch that crap. Jesus was just a poor man. But the Incas dressed in gold! I looked over at her, wishing that for once she could just shut up while I watched TV.

-you'll see. You'll see. She said. We are part Inca. Especially your dad. He is an actual alien.

-alright mom, alright. I said. Now, can you please let me watch TV?

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My mother and I were walking up Green mountain. Earlier this week, she had called and insisted we go. My divorce had just gone through, and I’d also had a rough week at work, so I was glad to go. She started hiking after her divorce. We shared a love of the outdoors, so she and I would go for hikes together.

It was early, just past dawn. We walked through a thin, chill mist at the base. The sun would burn off the remains of the fog as the morning wore on. I carried a backpack with energy bars, a couple bottles of water, and egg salad and a baguette. I pulled off my windbreaker, and stuffed it into my backpack. My mom walked quietly today, looking down at the trail. Normally she smiled and chatted in these early morning hikes. But not today.

Green mountain was about 3000 ft high. It would usually take us about 4 hours up, at the rate my mom hiked. She loved to walk, and in particular liked to push herself. Normally she walked quickly, and I almost had to jog to keep up with her. Not bad for a 65 year old! But today she walked quietly, with purpose, a vacant expression on her normally cheerful face.

-mom, at this pace we wont make it to the top before noon. Are you feeling OK? You look a little sick.

She looked up at me and grimaced and shook her head.

-well, we will see how far we can go. You are right, I am not at 100%. There is a cliff that I want to get to, though, at least today. I have been thinking about it all last night. Its a really beautiful view, about half way up. Lets at least get there and reevaluate. OK?

-yup, whatever you say. But, just take breaks if you need it.

I knew better than to argue with her about this. We walked. I took the lead as I outpaced her, stopping to turn around and wait for her from time to time. Weather apps told me it would be a hot sunny day today. I kept stopping and turning to see where she was. We spoke so little that nature seemed loud: the birds were chirping, we could hear the cicadas singing, the wind sighing through the trees. After about an hour, came a moment when the sound stopped altogether. I thought it odd, so I stopped in my tracks and faced her. When she caught up to me she said,

-listen to that.

-what? There is nothing.

-that is the sound of time stopping. Time has stopped around us.

I rolled my eyes.

-mom, there’s probably a bear. Or some kind of predator. Just keep your eyes peeled.

She smiled at me, like she always did. Like she would when I pontificated on the Easter bunny or Santa Claus when I was little, like she didn’t want to burst my reality bubble. A large bird flew overhead, which looked like a hawk. It was pretty high up, and I really couldn’t make out what it was. Since my mother was a birdwatcher, I pointed at it and asked her,

-see, there. What kind of hawk is that?

She shook her head.

-don’t be silly. That is no hawk.

-is it a falcon then?

-of course not. That is a spirit. Its a sign of the end of the world.

I looked at her while pursing my lips. I turned my back on her and continued to walk. I didn’t care if I outpaced her, right now. I loved my mom, and I hated her bullshit, but she was always there for me. She was getting worse lately. I knew I would take care of her for the rest of her time on this planet. I suspected dementia? How do you care for someone who is so at odds with reality?

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My father left when I was sixteen. It was right after a big fight which culminated in her throwing a clay vase I had made in first grade at my Dad’s head. It was heavy, like a baseball. It bounced off his head and he staggered up. He didn’t yell. He was done. He walked to the bedroom, got his favorite watches, work clothes that he threw in a travel suitcase, and drove off in his sports car. We watched from the driveway as his taillights receded in the half-light of evening. We were both so stunned we didn’t speak while we both walked back to the house. Once inside, I finally erupted, saying something that had been brewing up inside of me for years.

-Way to go, mom! You finally really fucked up! I screamed at her.

She lived mainly on diet coke, cigarettes, and lies. I don’t know if she showered anymore. There was a constant haze of blue smoke in the kitchen, and a two liter bottle of warm flat diet coke in front of her. When she wasn’t on the phone she would monologue to me about my father, all while rocking back and forth slowly, her eyes squinting like she was talking to someone from another dimension, like she was possessed. For next few months, she was on the phone. She called everyone she knew. She called all her family. She told them all that she had caught my dad cheating on her with a prostitute, and that she had kicked him out. When she was done ranting to every single person in her family, she called my dads sisters, in Peru. She convinced all three of them that my dad was off whoring. They were shocked. They all lived in Peru., and acknowledged that my dad had always been a little different, a little difficult, but they had no idea. They agreed men were shit.

When they stopped returning her phone calls, she started calling people at my Dad’s job. Any woman she had ever met at the office holiday parties and summer picnics. The secretaries, the doctors, the wives of the doctors. My mom already had a bad reputation among the staff for being "out there", so I like to think she was ignored. Nevertheless, my mother continued in her crusade to convince the world my dad was an evil whoring man who abandoned his family.

I called my dad the next day at work, from the corner drugstore payphone. I told him what was going on, but he refused to acknowledge it. He refused to talk about any of the details, not even to deny that he was whoring. I needed to hear him deny it. But he wouldn’t. The truth was, he actually was seeing someone. After a few months of these covert phone calls from the drug store, he invited me to his new apartment. He told me I would meet someone.

At that time, I stayed home as little as possible. When I came home from high school, the house was dark and sulfurous, she was sitting in the kitchen, her face lit by the cigarette. No longer dallying with the niceties, she would rage at me, because I represented men. Her screaming fits would end with a request to go buy her cartons of cigarettes, and more diet coke and bread and lunch meat. Which i would. After i brought her her supplies, I would tell her I loved her and I went off to see my friends. then I would stay at my friends houses as much as possible. This, in fact, was the lie I told my mother when I went to see my dad at his new apartment.

I felt fear as I buzzed his apartment. My sixteen years of life had not prepared me in any way for a moment like this. My dad opened the door, and gave me a big hug that had been months in the making. Then he walked me upstairs and I met a young woman, only 10 years older than me. To my surprise, she seemed shy, and probably more nervous about meeting me than I felt. She was kind, genuine and warm. I looked for excesses of makeup and gaudy jewelry, fish-net stockings, thigh-high boots, which was my image of a prostitute from the movies. But, surprise, she was no prostitute. In fact, if anything, she was a bit of a hippy, had long braided hair, a flowy tie-dye peasant blouse and bell-bottoms, and began sentences with "man,". She worked with my dad. They had known each other for years, and were friends. She had actually been one of the women my mother called, and had left an incoherent voice mail. She laughed about that. But she also felt terribly sorry for my mother, convinced that she was alone, misunderstood, and desperately in need of professional help. She said,

-Man, its tough being from another country. Think about it, she is thousands of miles away from anyone she ever knew. She only had your dad and you. And then your dad left. She is the last person on the face of the earth.

I found the music of her laughter and empathy extremely healthy. It made me understand I was living in absurdity. What I also found absurd was my dads vulnerability. This was novel to me. I had never seen a trace of emotion from him until that point. But now, I felt that it mattered to him that I accept her. Which, of course, I did.

A year later, my mother confessed to me, dry-eyed, collected, and certain, that my dad had not actually left her for another woman. He had gone back on his spaceship and flown away. The more often she told me this, the more details she added. She would look at me, almost daring me to disagree, but each time, I just acknowledged her, her story, her mental state. Its what her story was really about. Acknowledgment and acceptance from a man. In her own way, this represented her way to forgive me and, men in general, of our betrayal. My dad was an alien, not a man. She still liked men. At least, the ones that were from this planet.