Chapter 13. How Angie Kills Her Dad
These are our modern stars. The third-generation stars. Made from the same plasma. Polluted by the first, and the second-generation stars.
Monday 09.03.26
Ignites
Done my mum is white. MY MUM IS WHITE has been done. What did I learn? I learn that there is nothing special or rare about being mixed-race. White women. Mad, white women are calling the shots. Women are calling the shots. Women are calling the shots.
I am massively disadvantaged by my mum schooling me, in the Reno. I need exactly the opposite type of training, My nana would have been a better fit. For her to be a prostitute would have given me high status. For her to know the word on the street. The grapevine. The gossip. Back scratching has high stakes. How to pass the hive's information. How to trade the here and now. The shortcut. My mum simply refuses to be lumped in with the other white women. She is better than everyone else. Her clothes are straight. There are no sequins. There is nothing to translate she does anything different than the queen.
Tuesday 10.03.26
Ignites
There is nothing more glamorous than a black guy holding his brandy glass loosely his trilby pushed back. His less glamorous older brother is holding space for my dad to hold court. And his squeeze Esme who always looks good in clothes. Who has poise. And my mother stood by the bar, the piano.
Crazy
I'm crazy for feeling so lonely
I'm crazy
Crazy for feeling so blue
I knew
You'd love me as long as you wanted
And then someday
You'd leave me for somebody new
Worry
Why do I let myself worry?
Wondering
What in the world did I do?
Crazy
For thinking that my love could hold you
I'm crazy for trying and crazy for crying
And I?m crazy, for lovin? you
Crazy
For thinking that my love could hold you
I'm crazy for trying and crazy for crying
And I'm crazy, for loving you
She's not feeling lonely at this moment. That handsome fucker loves her back. She is warm in his arms. They are so far away from her boat; and his ship. They are each others SOS.
Each has thrown a float overboard and they bob and they bob to the rhythm that will swell then hit shore one day. But not today.
Both are on stage. Both tell a good story. He has the wait for the reveal. She has the wit. Escaping poverty. Her of love. Him of cash.
Wednesday 11.03.26
Ignites
Fuck. Maybe I have a 12-seater table, maybe I descend the Bette Davis stairs in Factory International to sit at a 12-seater table because Angie has a 12-seater table. And there are 4 photos. A close up of my pram. And one of my family, of us unauthenticated kids, of us usurpers. And one of me in the Reno, waiting to go to the Reno which makes me better than everyone else. That act, that sheer will to perform that act, to excavate it, makes me indelibly better than everyone else. Then I celebrate it by declaring myself the mistress of my own plantation. Not because of my dad. I am, not because of my dad's plantation, but to usurp Angie's plantation. When they come out of the pictures that day and Angie sees them and she runs to her dad and her dad judges them. And maybe my mum didn't run off. Maybe they are dragged off. Could this even be to entice her back?. But she can't go back. Not just cos I won't fit in. But, she loves him. And he judges her. His wife is a Christian women. I meet her on the way to Pisgah. To get my mail. Her hands are clenched over her handbag. And no one else is in sight. This is how she projects herself. This is who she is. As he gets older he too has a cross over his head. Both of them are waiting for Old Nick. Both of them are waiting for Old Nick's judgement.
Thursday. 12.03.26
Ignites
Imagine the gossip when Angie gets home that night. 'She saw them coming out of the pictures.' 'When they took her in.' 'When she was defiled.' 'She should have known her place.'
Imagine her image in the mirror. When they took me in. When they knew I was defiled. She has a soft spot for Mr and Mrs Stanners who take the docket and bring her back shoes for the 4 kids. Who will swirl. Swirl. In my nursery, as ghosts, when she tucks me up at night. How could they not?
They are the mobile above my cot. You have to do better than everyone else. Because it redresses her shame. Of a man who pushes her down on a river bank and fucks her. And then they judge her just the same. And drag her off to the Magdalene Home. Where she washes sheets for the nuns. She's never the same. When the son she has dies she jumps out of the window. And runs back to her nana who used to weed marigolds for the priest. But no more. Cos her mum is a whore. Imagine the mirror she looks in.
But one day, as if she has been coached, she pulls up her bootstraps, and weds the most eligible bachelor. What a woman. A cathedral marriage, no less. And now she is coming out of the pictures. Probably North by NorthWest. One of the white men my dad fashions himself on. One of his heroes. They are probably laughing. I can probably hear their laugh inside her tummy. I am in her tummy. Part of their fantasy. Part of the insanity they are telling each other. Part of what they will never get away with. She might have good days. There may be days when she picks me up and hugs me without guilt. There may be days when her fat Irish milk is given not tainted by shame. There may be days when they can look at each other in the eye and enjoy their love.
Then there is Angie. 'Dad, I saw mum coming out of the pictures with that guy who lives in her mum's house with his brother'
Friday. 13.03.26
Ignites my star, my sun. That my planet orbits.
How Angie Kills Her Dad.
Object: The Pictures
12 Associations.
- Coming out of the pictures
- A love story
- The table going over
- His alcoholism
- Run over by a bus
- Tragedy
- Greek tragedy
- Mount Olympus
- The gods
- Pawns
- Myths
- Stereotypes
Angie may have innocently told the story. She may have relished it. She may have luxuriated in it. She may not be the person I meet, yet. She may be a a little girl. She is 12. She sees, she sees her mum coming out of the pictures. I'm not sure if it matters to her or not that he is black. They mix well. They have the same kind of sentence structure. Long. With flowers. They love language. Naturally. Infectiously. This is my stereotype of black men and Irish women. I know one black man. But I also know his brothers. And his nephews. Who come to borrow money. Not ugly-like. Not because they are in trouble. But because this is how they trust each other. They turn up to the front room. We are never allowed in the front room. This is the men's hut. More stereotype from me. More misogyny. More culturally sticking them all together. He goes into the front room with his family. They drink rum. Not in the way I view white men together stereotypically drinking rum. It's not to get drunk. I think you can't have an empty hand when family come round and you are the man. The host. The god. He views himself as a god. They are expected to view him as such too. I don't know how and I don't know why. Maybe, because Miss Peggy loves him so much and she can, no, he can wrap her around his little finger. Or maybe they remember her in the pub with her big lungs and her white woman Ella Fitzgerald. A tisket. A tasket. Summertime. And the living is easy. We know she is feeling good when she sings this. Summertime and the living is easy. Your daddy's rich. And your mamma's good looking. There is a time in the halcyon period when this is true. When they are the hosts. Before Angie's dad dies. And they begin their ascent up the property ladder. When Angie comes, the messenger again. 'Under the back wheels of the bus.' He has fallen under the back wheels of the bus. The red bus. With an open platform. His alcoholism worse when she leaves him. He turns up at Maine Rd. Our house with the plaster plaques. Where the blue and white jug flies. He begs her to come back. My dad sits him down at the triangle table. Which is not quite big enough to hold both their glasses. You can see his suits have been good once. And she gives him dinner. He is a walking tragedy. After she upends his 12-seater table.
A Greek tragedy. When she sails. Making a pact with the gods. A pilgrimage to see the 3 kids she left behind. In return she's asking them to heal her sick heart. And make him love her again. 'Make him love me again.' Her first attempt is crossing the sea back to Ireland. A pact with the gods. And a ruse with him. Will he miss me? Will he want me back? The games grow and they grow till one day she calls death. She asks it to hold the bottle while she takes the pills. Strewn across the table. The ugly cold tile-topped table that replaces the trendy warm triangle table. She is on the floor. There is piss and vomit when Elaine comes home from school. He steps over her like niche is new. The pawns call the ambulance in the latest phase of their love story.
And the Arts Council on Mount Olympus. No, stop right there. Stop there. What the ... I remember ages ago, and I don't know where it began, when people began to look at mixed-race. And the latest put down is — 'They don't know their culture.' 'They need to know their culture.' A myth. Let me tell you this — my dad is not a pan of rice and peas, or reggae, or ginger beer, or braiding your fucking hair. He is up and down and round and about and in and out and happy and sad. And the Gods hold him by the legs, stationary on their chess board, immobile, immovable, and say, 'Tell us what he is like as long as he is like this and we will give you a leg up in the arts.'
Day 1: Ignite Your Star, Your Sun
Sacred hour. Sacred place. Evolve your sun.
Like I have just done. 8-station mind-map your original gas cloud for the last time. When you have exhausted its discoveries, listen for a title. What tangible object do you see associated with your title. Do not second guess yourself. Do not set yourself up for the story you think you want to tell.
- Title
- Object
- 12 associations.
- 20 mins to write. You must use your object, 12 associations, under your title.
Day 2 — 5: Evolve Your Planet That Orbits Your Sun
Day 2: Sacred hour. Sacred space. Collect all your files. Assemble in order.
- Your 8 x 12-word stories.
- Your, dated, 1st, 2nd & 3rd generation stars' mind-maps plus ignited.
- Your star's mind-map plus 12-word story created yesterday.
- Your manuscript so far, is the mass of your planet. Create file. Log it there.
Day 3: Sacred hour. Sacred Space. Read manuscript. Do not edit. Quick dash discoveries.
Day 4. Sacred hour. Sacred space. Isolate 8 discoveries. Mind-map them.
Day 5. Sacred hour. Sacred space. Mind-map a couplet derived from your 8 discoveries. Exhaust its discoveries. Listen for a title. What tangible object do you see?
- Title
- Object
- 12 associations.
- 20 mins to write. You must use your object, 12 associations, under your title.
- Type it up — don't change anything.
- Pair it with its mind-map.
- Create a file — log it there.