Maggoty potatoes

Today, my wife recounted me scenes from Glass Castle, a book she had read about a family raised by alcoholics. The neglect and abuse was astounding. Although my story is less severe, I had dizzy spells listening to her, and could see many similarities. 

“They even had to pick around maggots in their food!” She mentioned.

I suddenly recalled a time when our potatoes starting rotting. I am not sure if many readers have smelled rotten potatoes. The starch in them ferments, causing a smell like rotting flesh. It is a truly horrendous smell.

One day, when I was about ten, my dad told me to take our rotten bag of potatoes and wash them off to find the good ones.

As I took them out, I found that they were not only rotten, but crawling with maggots. 

I gagged, and protested, but he simply told me to keep doing it. 

I remember distinctly holding the potatoes under the tap water and rubbing them vigorously, without looking at them. I did not want to know if I was knocking off “eyes” from the potatoes, or maggots. It was disgusting. I had to keep stifling the urge to vomit.

This was a one-off experience. My dad did not often ask me to do this, probably because we did not often have maggoty potatoes.

What stands out to me about this experience as I recall it was the cold flippancy with which my dad told me to wash them. Always the compliant child, he knew that I would do his bidding. (Good luck getting my two brothers to do this task!) When I protested, he just didn’t care. It didn’t make the slightest impression on him that I was retching into my mouth, and completely horrified by the vileness of the task. He just told me to have it done by suppertime and left the room.

The other thing that stands out to me is that he made me do it. He didn’t do it himself. 

I suppose, to be fair, dad did do dirty work sometimes, such as cleaning out the sewer when it got clogged. But then he made a point of showing me how dirty his hands were, so I would feel guilty about clogging the pipes…I still feel a twinge of guilt when I think of him standing there, with that look, showing me his hands. But it seemed to cost him nothing to make his son do such a dirty job.

If I were to compare this to myself, there are a number of things that I would not do:

1. Potatoes are not expensive. Although my parents often (melodramatically) complained about being poor, they were steadily employed in a  blue-collar industry. I have never made more than them, and have lived in the same town. I can afford a new bag of potatoes, and so could they. 
2. Were I to try to rescue food, I would gingerly pick out the good ones out of the top, and chuck the rest. I wouldn’t wash off the maggoty potatoes. I can’t imagine ever being that desperate! (And this from someone who actually has done dumpster-diving!)
3. Were I to do such a disgusting task, it would cost me dearly to see my son doing it, and retching into his mouth. I couldn’t handle it! Because I am a healthy person, I would have too much empathy to do this to my son
4. If there were unpleasant tasks, I would share them equally amongst my children. My dad was not able to do this, because his other two children were fundamentally out of his control most of the time. One would rebel, the other would cry. Only I would obey: and so I got saddled with the lion’s share of responsibilities. But I try (and, I think, succeed) to share burdens far more equally. Because (despite being a far “gentler” leader) I am actually in far more control of my children and household than my dad ever was of us.

***

As I reread this later, I feel like my mind wants to pair this memory with another memory, the time that I passed out as a child. Aside from the time that I passed out due to being forced to breathe in lead fumes while helping dad, there was another time when I passed out from cutting cherries. 

It happened in the same place, at about the same time in my life. I had been cutting cherries for cookies, alone in the kitchen. I came to the sink and looked at my hands. They were very red with cherry juice. Perhaps I thought it was blood? I walked to the bathroom and passed out on the way. 

My parents freaked out, and freaked me out: I went to the hospital and was found to be anemic: our diet did not contain enough iron, apparently. And so I got a lot of gingerbread cookies for a while.

Anyways, it occurs to me that perhaps the real reason I passed out at this time, in this place, was that it triggered this previous memory of working with the maggoty potatoes? Perhaps this, combined with the sight of blood caused me to pass out?

At any rate, what stands out to me in both of these memories is the servile position I took. 

My parents would tell me to do tasks, and I would do them. While my brothers sat and watched TV or fought, or did whatever they did. It was always me doing the work. 

It's just the role I was groomed to play in that home.