Book cover: Karavan Press; picture of Diane Awerbuck: provided
Tears before bedtime
Diane Awerbuck
Karavan Press
ISBN: 978-0-6398626-0-6
Read an excerpt of one of Diane Awerbuck’s publications.
About the author
Diane Awerbuck is a prizewinning writer, reviewer and teacher. She writes femme/goth thrillers (Home Remedies); memoirs (Gardening at Night); pandemic/cowboy science fiction (South and North, with Alex Latimer, as Frank Owen); doctorates on trauma (The Spirit and the Letter); children’s books (see Book Dash catalogue); poetry (As above, so below) and short story collections (Cabin Fever; Inside your body there are flowers). She has some poems in the current Ons Klyntji, and is fine-tuning a collection, April Fool’s Day, even as we speak.
Excerpt
Everybody hurts
This a joke book – except that all the dialogue is real, and from my family, over a period of fifteen years. I have been taking notes.
Telling jokes is one of the ways humans connect with their communities. Humour is illuminating when it comes to social and sexual anxieties, and it helps us find meaning and healing and support in our shared experiences.
And for fun, goddammit, because what are you going to do? Cry about it? As my first stepfather used to say: ‘I’ll give you something to cry about!’
The conversations are also preserved, of course, because the things capitalism considers side effects – domestic minutiae or women’s work or things unworthy of payment and respect – are in reality the only systems we can’t do without. They are fundamental to who we are and what we make of ourselves. Philosophy, technology, currency, thought, progress: these high-flying ideas depend on the solid ground of home cultures. There are rocks, and there are cradles, and after that we choose what we do with our hands.
That said, the whiplash emotions of family life are hard to set down on paper. Home truths are best considered in their aftermath, from the couch, with a stiff gin. If you can’t work out their contexts from these dialogues, then you’re welcome to sit here in bewilderment with the rest of us. Cheers.
Some things to note:
Yes, my children were planned. How dare you.
Yes, they have an active father. He took the front cover photograph, which tells you everything you need to know about patriarchy and the division of labour.
Yes, I am an expert on child-rearing and animal husbandry. I’ve taught hundreds of high-schoolers and university students of all stripes over a span of three decades; I’ve had a couple of pretty stripy children of my own; I’ve been a stepchild and a half-sister and a full-blood sibling; I have a doctorate in language, war trauma and social media; I’ve researched and written lots and lots of things – articles and novels and stories and prescribed textbooks and poems and reviews and social science modules and thinly, thinly veiled memoirs and visions of the apocalypse.
Somehow none of that is terribly useful at four in the afternoon: the tears before bedtime are generally mine.
I love my kids. I’m not saying either of them is the Messiah but, like the Virgin Mary, I’ve stored these things up in my heart. I’ve remembered every comment, and I will be avenged. Bet on old age and treachery, the playwrights and cyclists say. Old age and treachery will always triumph over youth and skill. My mother went one better. ‘I hope one day you have kids,’ she said. ‘And then we’ll see who’s laughing.’
Three Years Old
Three-year-old: My juice bottle is empty.
Me: What’s your point?
Three-year-old: Will you fill it with wine for me?
Me: And what’s your kitty’s name?
Three-year-old: Satan.
Me: Satan?
Three-year-old: Like my friend, Matthew Satan.
Me: SUTTON.
Three-year-old: Look at this bear. She’s name is Tomato.
Me: But you hate tomatoes.
Three-year-old: Yes. I HATE tomatoes.
Me: Well, why don’t you play with one of your other toys?
Three-year-old: They all died a long time ago.
Three-year-old: Mom. Say, ‘Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!’
Me: Why?
Three-year-old: I’m stepping on your shadow.
Three-year-old: There’s a bug. Take it out.
Me: Oh, it’s a little Christmas beetle. Isn’t it lovely?
Three-year-old: A Christmas beetle?
Me: Yep. That’s how Father Christmas knows if you’ve been naughty or nice. He sends the beetles to spy for him.
Three-year-old: Kill it.
Three-year-old: We are all getting teddies from Santa Claus. Fluffy, teeny-weeny bears to love and to hug.
Me: Ah.
Three-year-old: Do you want a teddy from Santa Claus?
Me: I’ll all teddied out, thanks.
Three-year-old: But it’s little. And it’s blue.
Me: …
Three-year-old: IT’S A TEDDY OR NOTHING.
Me: Have you finally finished that snack? Can we go back in now?
Three-year-old: Those people don’t understand I’m a crocodile.
Me: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Three-year-old: Listen. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
Himself: If I have to come over, there’s going to be trouble. BIG trouble. ENORMOUS trouble.
Three-year-old: Will you fall on me?
Rich Lady: Oh, I saw you on the way to school this morning.
Me: You did?
RL: Yes. You were on the side of the road.
Me: …
RL: I didn’t say hello. You looked busy.
Me: …
RL: Your little girl seemed to be having a wee.
Me: What would you buy?
Three-year-old: Chippies. Chippies. CHIPPIES.
Me: Well, that’s not going to happen, friend. And what if you were REALLY rich?
Three-year-old: I would buy a new mom.
Three-year-old [in bath]: And INSIDE, there’s a clitorish.
Five-year-old [in bath]: Mom, do you eat clitorish?
Me: Not at this point.
Three-year-old: Tell us about the rabbit in the moon and his mom who went away.
Me: Why do you like that sad story?
Three-year-old: We want to cry.
Three-year-old: Don’t you have a mommy?
Me: No. My mommy’s dead.
Three-year-old: Do you want to talk to her on the phone?
Me: … Okay.
Three-year-old: Hello! [Hands over receiver]
Me: Hello, Mom.
Three-year-old: Hello! How are you?
Me: I’m well. Really. And how are you?
Three-year-old: Oh, fine. Fine.
Me: So … where are you right now?
Three-year-old: Playing on the big bed. With all the dogs.
Eight Years Old
Me: Did you wash your hands WITH soap?
Eight-year-old: They’re clean.
Me: That’s not what I asked.
Eight-year-old: My hands are super-clean. I’ve been licking them all day.
Eight-year-old: When I am on holiday, I have another mother.
Me: OH, REALLY.
Eight-year-old: Yup.
Me: And can I ask who has replaced me?
Eight-year-old: This fluffy red blanket. It can do everything that a mom can do.
Me: …
Eight-year-old: I call it ‘Mom’.
Eight-year-old: Mom, have you ever had sex?
Me: How do you think you were made?
Ten-year-old: With chicken wire.
Eight-year-old: More water, please.
Me: Up you get.
Eight-year-old: Why don’t you get it?
Me: WHY DON’T I GET IT?
Eight-year-old: But I am a prince. And you are my servant. Actually, I am a Komodo dragon, and my tail swipes with the force of a sledgehammer.
Me: I am a mom, and I also swipe with the force of a sledgehammer.
Eight-year-old: So thirsty …
Me: ALRIGHT.
Eight-year-old: I feel a bit nervous when I look at those ladies singing and dancing.
Me: I think that’s the plan. The song is called ‘Single Ladies’.
Eight-year-old: But they want me to look at their bums!
Me: They’ve worked very hard to get those muscles, my boy. They want to show them off.
Eight-year-old: Can they do any tricks?
Eight-year-old: Mom, can I tell you something?
Me: Uh-oh.
Eight-year-old: I know a good reason that you gave birth to me.
Me: I’d love to know. What is it?
Eight-year-old: I can make up LOTS of songs about drunken animals.
Me: Well, that was worth the eleven-hour labour.
Eight-year-old: But what is the cat SAYING?
Me: Meow, I thought. What do you think he’s saying?
Eight-year-old: SURRENDER YOUR HOUSE, YOUR JOB, YOUR FAMILY TO ME. LET’S SWAP LIVES AND SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT!
Me: Ooh, storm’s a-comin’. I feel it in me waters.
Eight-year-old: You don’t have waters. This is a drought.
Me: Eighty per cent of the human body is water, bucko.
Eight-year-old: That’s mostly spit.
Eight-year-old: Hey! What are those two goats doing?
Me: Playing hopscotch. Oh, no, wait. It’s definitely … piggybacking.
Eight-year-old: Mom. Those goats are mating.
Eight-year-old: What happened to your hand?
Me: I told you. I was cutting vegetables, and by mistake I took off the top of my thumb. But only a little bit.
Seven-year-old: Was there a lot of blood?
Eight-year-old: I bet you were swearing. What swearwords did you say? Did you say–
Me: DON’T SAY THEM.
Seven-year-old: Ooh! Did you say Jesus Christ? Or did you say Cheeses Crust?
Eight-year-old: DID YOU SAY SHUT UP?
Me: LEAVE ME ALONE.
Eight-year-old: Because you have a dirty mouth.
Eight-year-old: Your boob is chewing my neck.
Me: You know, in some countries, children just let their parents hug them.
Eight-year-old: Just kidding. You have the bosom of a, of a –
Me: Yes?
Eight-year-old: – a female Chewbacca.
Eight-year-old: Are you sure I’m not adopted? Didn’t a lady who couldn’t look after me leave me and this amber necklace in a basket on your doorstep?
Me: Nope. You’re mine. Sorry.
Eight-year-old: But how do you KNOW?
Me: This guy, your dad, saw you coming out of my –
Eight-year-old: DON’T SAY IT.
Me: Say what?
Eight-year-old: Something like, The Glorious Beginning of the Rainbow Bridge. When actually it’s more like The Golden Gate to the Sewage Farm.
Eight-year-old: So can you do big letters AND little letters AND cursive?
Me: The woiks, baby. I can do it all.
Eight-year-old: What about chicken language?
Me: You got me. What do chickens talk about?
Eight-year-old: [Mimes throat-slitting]
Me: So you’re saying chickens live in a constant state of fear?
Eight-year-old: Life and death. Whose turn it is. That’s all they talk about.
More information about the book available on the website of Karavan Press.
Also read: