Hard Blood

The hardened blood runs thick through all our veins, but it is most striking in the women of the family. My father has three sisters, Alex, Sam, and Rea. As reflected in the shortened versions of their birth-names that they go by, they are proud of the hardness in their blood.

My Aunt Alex is the most straight forward of the three, seemingly given the largest dose of hard blood. This is a woman who was shocked to hear that I'd made it to the age of twenty-four without ever being sexually assaulted; she was almost offended. She avoids one-on-one time with family members, though she likes their general presence. She only feels comfortable discussing things that are killing us and the hopelessness of the world.

At my family reunion, I obtained several wounds from drunken wrestling with my male cousins. I spent the rest of the week flaunting these wounds, bragging that, no, those boys never did get that damned float from me! I got some strange looks; someone even suggested that I was suicidal, a point I did not care to dispute. Only my Aunt Alex gave me the response I was seeking.

"They may have kicked the shit out of me" (I point at my black eye and fat lip), "but I won!" Aunt Alex's eyes flicker at this boast. "That's my girl!" she says with pride. I immediately feel the irony of my own statement, but my Aunt Alex is thrilled, and I smile.

My Aunt Rea's hardness is more covert. She is a devout worshiper of Jesus Christ, a motherly figure himself. The religion she advocates encourages love, but in classic hard-blood manner, she emphasizes the inevitable end of life:

Aunt Alex's grandson, Isaac, grabs a sand bucket to dip into the pool, and Aunt Rea's son Jude helps him gather water into it. Issac holds the bucket over his head, grinning at Jude, and overturns it. The grin doesn't leave his face for a moment as the water flattens his hair and darkens his clothes. He sees that this pleases Jude, so he goes in for another. Again he tips the bucket onto his own head. All of us at the pool enjoy this show immensely, so he continues the act until we lose interest. Seeing our growing boredom after four or five times, he looks at the floor of the pool for fresh ideas. Suddenly, he hurtles himself straight at Jude, and Jude just barely catches him in the water. They laugh hysterically. Isaac gets out for another go, and Jude is ready. They go at it like this for a while, and the scene draws a bit of a crowd. We all laugh along with them.

"Someone ought to teach him." my Aunt Rea interjects. "One of these days he's going to do that when no one is around. He needs to learn to be afraid." She's subtle, but affective. I notice Jude's smile shrink with Isaac's next jump.

"How old is he?" I object.

"Three," she turns to me with a grimacing smile; she likes a challenge.

"Hmm" I respond.

She loves it. "Don't you think he should be afraid?"

"At three?" I counter. She lets her eyes grill me. "Someone should be watching him." I offer.

"Ha!" She's visibly tickled. "No, he needs to learn. There won't always be someone there to watch him, and what if he does it then?"

"Well, why won't there be? He's only three. Someone should be watching him all the time at that age."

This is so obviously absurd to my aunt that she can barely respond. I look over at Jude, and he is no longer having fun catching Isaac, who remains in blissful oblivion. Uncomfortable with the argument, Jude passes Issac to his brother, Job, who takes up the cross and scolds the ecstatic child for being so reckless. I consider this the loss of the argument and merely smile at my aunt.

"What's he doing now?" Isaac's mother wonders up and projects to the pool.

"He's been jumping into the pool, and I was just saying that he may do it when no one is around to catch him. I was explaining how he needs to learn to be afraid...."

"Yeah! Let 'im drown!" she screams obnoxiously, as if she were drunk. "Put the fear in 'im! Job! Let 'im go! Let 'im drown!" I imagine maniacal laughter after her exhortations. All the while Issac is smiling bigger than his mouth will let him and giggling to no end in Job's arms.

"I was telling Ingrid here that he should be scared." My Aunt Rea won't let me off without a little more fun.

"No, Ingrid, he needs to know! If no one is there to catch him, that's it! He's dead!" Why is she yelling like that? So excitedly. My Aunt Rea just smiles triumphantly at me out of the side of her face, but I don't respond. I force a smile at the ground and steal a glance at Jude. He's out of the pool now.

Several years ago, I would have told them how much their envy corrupts them. They can't be carefree and happy, so they want to rob their offspring of it, the sooner the better. I would have happily dug my heals into their chests to carve out the word 'lazy'. Why watch the children and spend time with them? They're going to die anyway, and we should make sure they remember it. Let's make them as miserable as we are!

I'm older now, though. It wouldn't change anyone to rant like that. I no longer fight with authority to get my aggression out. Now, I am my own authority; I fight with myself. Besides, I don't claim to know how to raise children. Let them have their ways, and me, mine.

My Aunt Sam displays the hard blood in the most complicated way of all. To me, she was always Pepsi and cigarettes, that and a blue station wagon with a German Sheppard in the back. She always seemed to be on the outskirts of everything, watching. Everyone jumped around the poker table, screaming at the one scooping up the money; she'd be outside, smoking a cigarette, staring into the dark. She was the wallflower, cleaning up after everyone, looking after the forgotten, staying up the latest and waking up the earliest. If anyone ever cared to look her way, she wouldn't stand for even a glimpse of pity from them. She didn't want recognition; she'd rather be ignored.

Aunt Sam was always my favorite.

I throw my arms around her behind the chair. She puts a hand on the one under her chin. "You always were my favorite," she tells me, outright, in front of Jude and my Uncle Hugo. I smile in surprise. "Yes, you turned out well, certainly the most beautiful." I look around nervously, are my cousins or sisters around? Jude glances up at me, and I blush.

"Well, thanks, Aunt Sam." I give her a squeeze. I want to tell her she's my favorite, too, but I don't want to offend my Uncle Hugo or anyone he might tell. In a family of talkers, I can't believe she'd said it so openly, as if she didn't care if the whole family were standing there. Though I'm more than flattered, I find the whole thing quite strange. She gives my arm a rub, and I let her go. It didn't seem like a confession. It didn't feel like she was fawning on me. It was as if she were merely stating a fact, and there was something melancholic about it. This is the only interaction I have with my Aunt Sam the entire week.