Read An American Story for Free Online Page A

never-ending demands, she would never have had any privacy. She was smiling then about something, her hands momentarily still.
    â€œMama, what you listening to?”
    The sound of wailing and warbling in some bizarre language rang tinnily forth from our raggedy radio. Daddy had found it mangled by the roadside and reinforced it with strapping tape all around; it looked mummified. A pale, sickly green, both its casing and its dial were thoroughly cracked. Most significantly, it had no knobs. To change the channel, you could either shake it just right or use a pair of pliers. In neither case could you control where you landed.
    When Daddy had brought it home and lovingly bandaged it, bitterly proud of its battered condition, we’d had to swallow our tongues. He gave us females no choice but to accept it into “our” room. Though at first that banged-up radio served only to remind us of all the things we couldn’t afford, eventually it became “our” radio. It was our little window on the world, a trapdoor we could escape through when north St. Louis in general, and 4933 Terry Avenue in particular, became too claustrophobic. Because it was often too much trouble to change it, and only likely to land us someplace even weirder, we listened to speeches, the Mamas and the Papas, Lawrence Welk, the emergency warning signal, political debates, bluegrass, big band, foreign languages . . . whatever poured out at us.
    In the evenings, when our work was done, we women sat there reading, crocheting, and drinking Lipton tea with lots of lemon and sugar while our valiant little radio entertained and educated us. As a strange side benefit, Wina and I were unbeatable at “Name That Tune.”
    Apparently, the wobbly sound pouring out at the moment was singing because crashing cymbals and plucky-sounding instruments swelled up to join it. It was so surprising-sounding, like a sudden clash of metal and hundreds of running feet, I couldn’t help laughing.
    â€œMa, why you listening to this? Want me change it?” I held the pliers ready. Much as I’d enjoyed the sounds, I still didn’t think they were music. To me then, the radio was like a carnival ride, enjoyable only for its capacity to thrill and quickly past its usefulness. Later, as Daddy cut us off almost completely from the outside world, that radio became our conduit to fresh air, but that day, it was merely a diversion.
    She gave me a strange smile. “Leave it be. Them folks could be trying to tell us something special.”
    So we listened to the radio together while she cooked the potatoes in a trance. She mixed all the wonderful ingredients together in her big fairy-tale pot, never measuring, never counting, never without that otherworldly smile and unfocused eyes.
    â€œMa, the potatoes,” I called. “How you know when to stop peelin?”
    I might never have spoken, so small a dent did I make in her reverie.
    â€œMama? Mama? Mama?”
    I thought that was her given name; I liked whispering it there in our gingerbread kitchen like an incantation. When I was nine or ten years old, I would be introduced to the concept of the “maiden name” and that she’d not always been my mother, that we’d not always been “the Dickersons.” I became hysterical. But I was happy that day, calling for my mama again and again and again so softly I knew she wouldn’t register it consciously but might well weave it into whatever fantasy she was entertaining. Eventually, though, I had to have her back.
    â€œ MA. How much fillin is that?”
    She looked surprised, as if she’d missed her bus stop and didn’t recognize the neighborhood. Then, a shrug toward the pie shells lined up on the counter.
    â€œ
That
much.”
    The tone of her voice let me know I’d asked enough questions. The ritual was complete when I got to watch the last drop of sweet potato pie filling exactly fill the last waiting