Holding Court

hold·ing (hldng) n.

1. Tending to impede or delay progress: a holding action.

2. Designed for usually short-term storage or retention: a holding tank; a holding cell.

court (kôrt, krt)n.

1. The retinue of a sovereign, including the royal family and personal servants, advisers, and ministers.

2. A formal meeting or reception presided over by a sovereign.

I woke up in the middle of the night to someone pounding on the glass door in the back of the house. I felt a rush of fear and dread. I somehow knew, even in my sleepy stupor, this ruckus was related to me. I was spending the night at Tracy Higgs’ house and I heard her Mom and brother walk down the stairs toward the disturbance, whispering anxiously to one another. And then I heard Go-Go. The humiliation was excruciating. Up until now, the Higgs’ home had been a sanctuary for me –a place Go-Go had never been or seen. A place free from her bad behavior. I lay frozen in bed as long as I could stand it, hoping that the house would go quiet again and it would be over as quickly as it began. But that was not Go-Go’s way. Once she had it in her mind to have a conversation with someone after the bars closed, there was very little anyone could do to stop her.

Go-Go began to get nervous whenever I formed relationships with girls whose homes I preferred to spend more time in than my own. I was only eleven, but I was already starting my pre-teen rejection of her. The Higgs’ family adopted me for dinners, sleepovers, after school snacks, and weekend outings-I was even enlisted to canvas for George McGovern for President. The family was from Colorado and I guess you could say they were hippies. Tracy’s Mom, who insisted I call her Barbara, had long hair which she wore in a thick braid down her back. She wore long skirts, Birkenstocks, and drove a Volkswagen bus. She was raising her four kids by herself, which was just one more reason Go-Go was suspicious of her – that and the peace sign on the back of her VW bus.

When I came downstairs Go-Go was sitting on the couch, Barbara Higgs and her oldest son Mark were sitting across from her, held hostage by their own politeness and maybe their love for me. I don’t know what was more humiliating, her smeared makeup and slurry speech or watching my friends sit, like statues, unable to interrupt this bizarre and crazy night time intruder, my mom. She went on and on, which was her way when she was this smashed, speaking about things she would otherwise never dare mention; politics and the upcoming election between Nixon and McGovern, how strange their family was to her, how she wondered why I liked them better than my own family, and much, much more.

I don’t remember how long she stayed or how she got home. In my fantasy I imagine a light suddenly going off for her and she stands up and says goodnight – maybe even recognizing how pointless it is to torture these innocents. A more likely scenario is that one of the boys walked her home-our apartment was only a couple hundred feet away. I do recall pleading with her to please leave and let the family go to sleep. Maybe I was the one who finally got my clothes on and dragged her out of the house and aided with her stagger home. Maybe I stayed home rather than wake up the following morning to face the humiliation of the Higgs family seeing me for who I truly was. Maybe I went back to sleep with the rest of the Higgs family and pretended it never happened. Or maybe I apologized for her, which would also have been my way.