I'm Down: A Memoir by Mishna Wolff Read Free Book Online

was like Julia Child for the food stamp set.
    I headed home with Anora. I was full and still thinkingabout how great Zwena was, when we turned the corner onto our street and noticed there was something going on in front of our house. A crowd of people had gathered, and orange cones blocked traffic. As I got closer I could see what all the commotion was about. Lyman, Reggie Dee, and Eldridge were watching Dad behind the wheel of the huge orange backhoe tearing our front yard out and putting it in a dump truck parked nearby. The rock garden my mother had worked on, the front steps—it was all being torn off and hauled away. I had no idea what he thought he was doing, but I had to stop him. I ran up to the backhoe and practically threw myself in front of it.
    “Dad!” I screamed, but he couldn’t hear me and just kept dumping dirt in the truck. He brought the claw back around, and that’s when he saw me in front of what was left of the rock garden. He motioned for me to get out of the way, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Finally he cut the engine.
    “Get the hell out of the way!” he screamed.
    “What are you doing to our house?” I asked.
    “Remodeling!” he said, and then realizing I didn’t understand, “I’m making it look better.” There was dirt everywhere and a ten-foot drop from the front door.
    “It doesn’t look better!” I said.
    “It’s not finished!” he yelled. “Now, get out of the way!”
    But I couldn’t let him keep going. It looked like our front yard had been bombed. I sat down in the dirt, not completely unsure he wouldn’t scoop me up with his next clawload.
    Dad stood up and cut the engine and said, “Everyone take a little break.” Then he climbed down the backhoe to stand next to me.
    “Mishna. You gotta understand there’s a project gonna happen here.”
    I folded my arms.
    He bent down and explained, “We are building a second floor underneath.” He pointed to the front door. “You see up there is where the deck will be, with stairs down to the street level.” And he pointed to a corner area. “And over there is where your new room will be. It’ll be done by the time you finish third grade.”
    “But,” I said, “I liked the way the house looked before.”
    “Yes,” Dad said. “But you don’t know how good it’s gonna look. Just wait and see.” Then Dad bent over and dried my eyes.
    “Can we have flowers again?” I asked. “Like the ones Mom planted?
    “Pfft,” he said, dissing her flowers. “Better flowers. Now, can I finish what I was doing?”
    Then I watched him climb up the steps into the backhoe to continue fucking up our house.
     
    The rest of the summer, I spent every day with Zwena, Little Lyman, and Anora. We were inseparable, and we almost never saw Big Lyman, Lordess, or Dad. We’d browse in Chubby and Tubby, the hardware store, till they kicked us out. Or sit on the overpass over Martin Luther King taunting passing motorists with rocks and middle fingers. We ate at Zwena’s step-grandparents and we climbed fences to get everywhere, so I knew what everyone’s backyard looked like and who had a pit bull. And on the days when I came home, our house had the same Fall-of-Berlin look it had the week before, just with new building materials in the yard. Once the cement was poured and Dad built some wooden steps up to the back door, nothing else really happened and all the materials just sat in the yard. And the front door remained where it was, suspended ten feet in the air.
    When I brought Zwena and Little Lyman over, Zwenasaid, “How do you get into your house?” And when I showed Zwena the back steps she laughed, “Dang, your daddy ain’t never gonna finish your house!”
    “That’s not true!” I said defensively. “He’s making a new room for me that will be done by next year. He’s probably working on it right now!”
    Then I led them into the house where Dad and Big Lyman were sitting at the dining room table in front of three