Carol Piner remembers her Carteret County, NC childhood with candor and sensitivity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life, it is suffused with Piner's endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Piner's debut is unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster with righteous rage and prevails over her extraordinary life. Kelli Creelman, Rocking Chair Bookstore "a remarkable achievement . . . formidable, honest and direct, funny and gut-wrenching . . . a book a first time author should be proud of" Rod Cockshutt, Professor Emeritus, N C State "it is the very, very, very best book I have ever read in my life" Susan Dail "Was up at 5:30 reading Evidence of Insanity by Carol Piner. I'm halfway through & I'm crying and laughing even harder . . . I love to read and if any of you out there do, then you won't be wasting your money . . . Oh, I forgot to add, it was 11:30 last night when I laid her book on the night stand, turned off the light and fell asleep, still chuckling" Nina Moser "Fasten your seat belts! Her book sales are about to go through the stratosphere! . . . If more people had her spirit and sense of humor, we'd have a lot less crazy people out there" Christy Robinson "Cool, you go, girl! I'm gonna look up one day and you are going to be on Oprah" Frances Davis Cushwa
EVIDENCE OF INSANITY
By CAROL PINERAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Carol Piner
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4520-7992-9Chapter One
... Evidence of Insanity ...
I am not quite sure when I realized it was there. Or, out of all of us, who had it and who didn't. I think I got it with my gene job. Hey, don't blame me. Hell, the insanity was all around me. Why fight it?
But, when you came down to it, all I knew was it made me lucky. When God decided to pop my ass into some unknowing womb, like bread in a toaster, He gave me a gift. When I popped out seven months later, He had made me Mama's child.
ONE HOPPED-UP FEMALE
I thought of him as Big Daddy, not because he was, but because he was stupid enough to think he was. I called her Big Mama because she knew how to be one. She was only five feet three inches tall, but the lady could take up a whole lot of room. "Feisty" was not the word for her. She was way more than that. She'd get your heart going so hard you'd get a nervous stomach, and you wouldn't know if you were going to throw up right on the spot or what. Mama'd do it for fun and giggles. This cranked up lady was not boring.. not for a second. I worshiped her. I wanted to be just like her. A kick-ass kind of woman. I heard her before I ever saw her. Me? I was a fetus so I'm not really sure. All I could do was listen.
Once I was a baby, I realized there were people who were in front of what I would later come to realize were eyeballs. While going through the unique process of getting to know my fingers and toes, I slowly started paying attention to whoever the hell this person was that seemed to buzz around me a lot. I didn't know what I was doing to warrant so much focus from the monster with long hair, but as long as it didn't piss me off, I would go along with it. Genius here, huh? I didn't remember if it was the Mama creature or the Daddy thing who first did something to get my attention, but let me tell you this, I felt the impact. You know, the whatever somebody did that got you looking at them funny for the very first time. You would stop all that babbling and stare at them like they had lost their minds. Then you realized all those sounds are actually directed at you. What in the world could they want? I tried getting some of the Mama and Daddy responses going back at them. Aha! They were happy if I made certain noises. Then they would go away and leave me alone. I was so smart I even knew which noise was which. That was cool. It was better than laying there letting my head loll around from boredom. I don't know why, but I couldn't hold the damn thing up. I also learned to cuss, but I didn't want to talk yet. Nobody knew but me. Cool.
I went from a fetus, to a baby, to a walking, talking pain in the ass to Mama. Eventually, I could dress myself and pretend to brush my teeth. That was about five, right? Who knew? Those early memories.. what joy they brought. One memory was my fondest recollection of our very own parental nightmares. We were all in the kitchen. Specifically, the kitchen at the Eagles Nest, a home we lived in for awhile on Thirtieth Street located in a small Southern coastal town in North Carolina. It was game-on time. I remember all five of us kids would be in full battle stance, gathering weapons, while Mama had Daddy up against the wall and was scratching his eyes out the best she could. Whap! Whap! Mama could slap you so fast you couldn't slap back and that would really piss you off. Daddy didn't have a chance. You can't even imagine the amount of screeching the woman could do while she banged his head upside the kitchen wall. You know how the cops make a lot of noise to confuse you? She did that before they ever thought of it. Screeching and hollering at her highest level, Mama finally got hold of his hair. That counted. That was known as control. They can't teach this stuff in college.
Watching her grab that head of hair was one of Mama's finest gifts to my childhood. I would be running back and forth, hooting and hollering, trying to make as much noise as she was, waiting for the mane event. I would be getting into the mood of it all when Mama would take him by his pride and joy; that seven inch long, white tressy treasure of his. I knew she was ready to kick-ass when she got him by the hair. She knew he was not about to fight back because he knew damn well he was going to lose some of it if he moved. If he did, she yanked, and Daddy wasn't willing to lose one more strand than the good Lord took. Mama would ride it for all it was worth. She'd carry on like an Indian in an old western. My fab Mama always took him to that point of no return, eased up and then went back at him again.
She would be banging away at him, screaming at the top of her lungs, the five of us standing there with our shoulders up around our ears in sweet anticipation chanting, "yes, yes! Git 'im, Mama, git 'im." We weren't ready to lunge at him yet because she was still winning. Mama wasn't at her worst until she felt him try to act like a man. It got its ugliest when the tide started to turn. If he started to lay one hand on her, all five of us were ready and we'd cover him like molasses. We'd get right into the fray. We were like trained dogs, but like most dogs, having a good time wagging our tails, puffing and drooling. Whining for more. Waiting for that signal to close in on him.
All he had accomplished up to now was a plaintive little "now, Anna". I've heard that a time in my life as he tried to settle her butt down. Mama didn't settle down until she expended the exact amount of rage she thought she could get away with. She could get as much damn rage going as she damn well pleased, like she had it in a bucket with no bottom. I felt all of us start to ease up a little, tails wagging a little slower. We were all thinking, come on, Mama, get back into this thing. Don't let us down now. I was watching everybody, peeking for all the different emotions on their faces. It never crossed my mind to think about what mine looked like, but I would venture to guess it bordered on ecstasy. You see, I just loved it when she took him apart. There aren't enough loves to go around to describe how much I loved it. One, she was good at it; two, he always deserved it; three, this was when life in the household got really good. Nothing, absolutely nothing, got better than this.
Genius that I am, I picked up on it first. She was getting ready to blow. I'd be jumping, beating my fists against my head, hollering, "Blow, Mama, blow! Come on, you can do it!" Running back and forth, arms a `swinging, pushing and shoving the other kids to get them riled up. I hold the world record for instigating. Its good for them. Gets them motivated. On a good day, major damage could occur. My favorite time of all.
Like I said, she had him up against the wall doing the head banging thing when he finally got the nerve to attempt to take a stand. He started that huffing and puffing thing that made him look so stupid. His face got red and fatter like a pissed off balloon. The air would get so tight and thick, you figured every one of us would be having trouble breathing normal. You could hear little, short gasps coming from us like we were all dying.. but it was really loud when it was times five. We could have launched our very own air balloon, just like Daddy's, right there in the room. Daddy would start to inflate. I guess his manhood had finally found a foothold. Mama wasn't going to have any of it. She started coming apart at all the seams, lots of seams, and was egging him on. The hell cat would...
