American Gypsy Girl
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Language
EnglishVoice Age
Teen (13-17)Accents
North American (General) North American (US General American - GenAM)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
Chapter one April 28th 1969 A child is born Yee hah! I've always hated my name. It looks pretty enough On paper C h a r l e N e But the triple lies in the pronunciation. My name is pronounced Char Lene, as in charbroiled or Charlie with it. And at the end, I've spent most of my time on this Earth correcting people who say Charlene, as it should be, said the weight. Every other female with my name says it, Charlene Simple. But then again, there was nothing simple about my childhood. So I guess the name suited me. The whole name disaster was Daddy's doing. He must have thought it would be some grand tribute to name his first born child girl or not after himself, Charlie Rey Booker. I had always figured that he had wanted me to be born a boy. That's the impression I had growing up anyway. But in the end, I learned different. Daddy had never wanted to be a daddy at all. But the fact that the child he didn't want in the first place came out a girl didn't matter much to him with her. Without a *****, his offspring would have his name. After I was named Charlie and Ray Booker, wrapped by a nurse and a thin white blanket with blue and pink stripes on the edge and handed someone reluctantly to my feeble alcoholic mother, Daddy drove us home from the hospital on his rusted green pickup that looked like it had been dredged out of a late. Of course, I don't actually remember that day, but I doubt that the real story is too far off. From what I imagine, what I do know is this. On May 8th 1969 Daddy brought Mama and me home, and I use the term home because it was where we lived. But to most of the human population are home was a camper, 26 foot airstream Oh, Verlander, with the chrome pitch on the front and blinkers on the back home sweet home. I imagine the rest of that day was much like every other day in the cramped camper Onley. Now it was even more cramped because there was a baby nestled in the laundry basket on top of daddy's clean undershorts and striped boxer shorts. I know that they kept me in that laundry basket on top of the little foldout table where they ate because they have the picture to prove it. There were only five photographs in my possession to prove I had a childhood at all, all of them taken with Daddy's Polaroid camera and this the baby in the basket was one of them. It was the very first photo of me and was taken by Mama. I know Mama was the photographer because you can see Daddy's Harry knee and the far left corner of the pictures, he said. At the table, you have to tip your head slightly to the right to view the picture properly. Which is another reason I'm sure it was Mama who had taken the picture. Although the images slightly askew Mama didn't manage to capture my tiny face peeking out of the thin white blanket that had been wound so tightly around me, Mama wouldn't have been capable of such a nice rap, which is why I imagine the nurse did it. I can also speculate that Mama tried in the next days and weeks over and over again to wrap me in that blanket the same way the nurse had I could envision Momma crying because she couldn't get the edges right and that my feet kept poking out or an arm. I can hear Daddy telling her to give it up, that she was no damn nurse and didn't need to wrap me that tight anyway from what was the damn difference anyhow. Then Mama would wipe her tears and pull the bottle of vodka from the Cabinet under the little sink and get happy again. I imagine vodka was one of the reasons there's only one picture of me as a newborn. That and Daddy's unique, uninterested style of parenting. I often wonder how long they kept me in that clothes basket and where, when she was sober enough to do the wash Mama put the clean clothes. To this day, I have an irrational fear of anything covering my face, and I believe that basket has something to do with it. For all I know, I slept in that basket until I was four, the age at which legitimate colors of my childhood were painted in my memory