Heidi Smith

URNSLARA nnC A B

ANN

Fiction / $15.00

w w w. m o n ke y p u z z l e p r e s s . c o m

the clara ann Burns story is an expression of child

abuse & neglect witnessed through a patchwork of short prose

reflections, poems, one minute plays, scholarly studies, & photographs.

“Heidi Ann Smith’s unflinching novel viscerally tracks the ways trauma can break our contract with language, how it can hybrid-ize hearts and mouths, and how our tongues might, in the end, fork to speak it all:

Heidi Ann Smith grew up in Illinois & currently lives in Denver, Colorado.

HE

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Daring in Both content & structure, The Clara Ann Burns

Story explores multiple genres & is courageously self-reflective.

revelatory, plural, here.

The Clara Ann Burns Story, through text and image, offers amap by which to read the geographic/familial underpinnings of our emotional and physical bodies so that we mightarticulate our own hermeneutic of triumph.”

- Selah Saterstromauthor of The Meat and Spirit Plan

www.heidiannsmith.com/wordpress

by

The

Story

MONKEY PUZZLE PRESS

Story

The

annHeidi Smithby

MONKEY PUZZLE PRESS

urnsBnnALARAC Story

The

MONKEY PUZZLE PRESSPO Box 20804

Boulder, Colorado 80308M O N K E Y P U Z Z L E P R E S S . C O M

ISBN-10 0-9826646-7-2 ISBN-13 978-0-9826646-7-4

- DISCLAIMER -

Any likeness to persons living or dead in The Clara Ann Burns Story is coincidence.

This book is an attempt to speak for those who suffered loss and abuse but were deprived the luxury of speaking - it exposes details that might have otherwise been unnoticed, ignored, or forgotten.

This story is fictional, but a writer can never extricate his or herself from the creative process.

Cover Art by Jenna Smith

Interior Design by Heidi Ann Smith & Jenna Smith

Victorian Lady & Lace Brushes by Nadinepau

Old Postage Stamp Brushes by Alex Dukal

COPYRIGHT © 2011 HEIDI ANN SMITH

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Derrida- Jacques

. . . that you will be able to read it,hold it in your hands,

on your knees, under your eyes,in you,

that you inherit it and guard it,reproduce my pictures and captions —

and above all that in my absence

you again be seduced in my confessionto the point of dying

for love.

Sometimes

a story is so terrifying

it is easier to imagine it happened

to someone

else.

I T ’ S T H E T R U T H

I A M A

B R O K E N G L A S S

P I E C E S M Y

M O T H E R T H R E W

AWAY C U T T I N G

H E R F I N G E R S

T O T H E B O N E

I T ’ S N O T T H E FA C T S I ’ M W O R R I E D A B O U T

W H E N I

WA S A S M A L L C H I L D

I S AW M Y M O T H E R ’ S S H O E S

B E F O R E S H E F O U N D M E

T O U C H I N G M Y S E L F

U N D E R H E R

B E D

001

I don’t remember each moment seamlessly flowing from first thing to

last but sometimes pieces of the story come to me so clearly as if

I’m watching myself on a movie screen I’m back in my old blue mouse

infested bedroom with my mother and stepfather and as I watch I

become absorbed like whenever I watch that Godfather scene with

Connie and Carlo only I’m Connie and they’re Carlo and

we’re not fighting about a woman but a boy who called so when

Carlo slaps Connie across the face I feel how hard his fist feels and

while Connie runs around the apartment breaking the china I see myself

running for the bathroom door my stepfather taking off his belt us

hitting the floor him straddling my waist my right breast in his left

fist while his other fist breaks my nose my mother picks up his

belt whips my bare legs with the buckle so when Connie takes that

knife out of the kitchen drawer I want her to use it but she decides

not to and drops it for a split second I think we found a

safe place and then I see the mistake we both made this is when

the camera stays focused on the bathroom door letting the viewer

imagine me taking a razor from the medicine cabinet not having the

guts to push down while Connie screams the picture fades and I find

myself just sitting here trying to figure out a way to tell you

002

P L A C I N G

T H E P I E C E S

T O G E T H E R

003

f i r s t c o m e s p r e s s u r e

t h e n l i g h t

a n d s h a d e s o f c o l o r

a n d t r y i n g t o c a t c h y o u r f i r s t b r e a t h

a n d t h e n y o u h e a r y o u r s e l f c r y

f o r s o m e o n e

t o c o m f o r t y o u

a n d y o u d o t h i s

f o r t h e r e s t

o f y o u r l i f e

004

005

A BABY GIRL IN A SHORT YELLOW DRESS IS LAYING IN A CRIB ON

THE HEADBOARD IS A DECAL OF A LAMB HOVERING ON A PINK CLOUD

THE SHEET IS DINGY HER LEGS AND FEET ARE BARE HER DIAPER

IS PUSHING AGAINST HER PLASTIC PANTS HER MOUTH IS CLOSED

BETWEEN HER NOSE AND TOP LIP ARE TWO ROWS OF ALMOST INVISIBLE

BROWN STITCHES HER BROTHER IS HANGING ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE

CRIB THE TIPS OF HIS SHOES ARE STICKING THROUGH THE CRIB SLATS

WHILE ONE HAND IS GRASPING THE TOP RAIL THE OTHER IS REACHING

OVER HIS SISTER’S HEAD TO PLAY WITH A MOBILE THE MOBILE IS MADE

OF COAT HANGERS STRING AND STUFFED REALISTIC LOOKING BIRDS

ONLY THE BELLIES OF THE BIRDS ARE VISIBLE TO THE BABY A

FLOWERED CURTAIN IS OPEN THE SUN IS SHINING THE BABY IS

SQUEEZING HER EYES SHUT

006

I had to drive back and forth from home to hospital after you were

born. You had a hole under your nose and the front part of the pallet

of your mouth was missing. Even after the doctors sewed your mouth

together you couldn’t suckle. It took a long time for you to start

talking. Now we can’t get you to shut up.

One time you put your hand in the poop inside your diaper. You

smeared it all over. I don’t know what you were thinking.

When your brother was born I walked into the maternity ward in a

tight sheath dress. Your father had to explain to the nurse that I really

was pregnant. Your brother weighed 4 pounds. He slept all of the

time. You were a colicky baby.

baby s t o r i e s

008

009

A SIX YEAR OLD GIRL IS CUPPING AN EASTER EGG IN HER RIGHT PALM

TWO PINK FOAM CURLERS PROTRUDE UNDER A BLACK LACE HAIRNET

HER ROBE IS SNAPPED AT THE NECK HER EGG IS DECORATED LIKE AN

EASTER BUNNY NEXT TO THE GIRL IS HER SLIGHLY TALLER BROTHER

HE IS WEARING A YELLOW COLLARED SHIRT A STAINLESS STEEL WRIST

WATCH HOLDING TWO EGGS BETWEEN THE ENDS OF HIS FINGERS

ONE EGG IS NOT DECORATED THE OTHER IS LIKE HIS SISTER’S

BUT HIS BUNNY’S EARS ARE LOPSIDED HE IS MAKING A FUNNY FACE

THE GIRL IS FAIRER THAN HER BROTHER HER SKIN IS FLAWLESS

EXCEPT HER UPPER LIP IS ELONGATED TWO BARELY VISIBLE SCARS

WHERE A REPAIR WAS MADE

010

when I was five I started touching myself under my parents’ bed it

felt like I was giving myself a present I tried to be quiet then I

heard my mother’s footsteps moving across the kitchen linoleum I

saw her shoes between the edge of her bedspread and the olive

green carpet I tried to hold my breath I asked Jesus for help

but by then her shoes were pointing at me her hand flipped up the

bedspread her face was red with one arm she pulled me out

dangling me in the air she hit me wherever her hand landed you

are bad she said you know what we do with bad little girls she

dropped me on the carpet dragged me down the hall by my foot onto

the cool bathroom ceramic tiles locked the door turned on only hot

water said strip and get in I took my clothes off slowly

pleading please let it cool off when the bath was half full she

picked me up and dropped me in pushed my head under

pulled me up by my hair so I could catch my breath when I stopped

flailing my arms she asked did you learn your lesson

012

In 1893, my great grandmother was born in a small town outside Berlin. By the time she was fifteen, her mother and father were dead from tuberculosis and she was separated from her two sisters. Through family connections she became a maid for a wealthy family in the United States. She missed her family and sought comfort in the arms of a man. When her son was born, he was given to a distant relative in Racine, Wisconsin. She claimed no respectable man was willing to forgive her sin and married a bootlegger who became a bartender after prohibition. After my great grandfather died, when I slept overnight at my great grandmother’s house she let me sleep with her in her queen-sizebed. After prayers I asked her, “Please, tell me my favorite story.” She told me what it was like being a maid for the rich family. They had elegant parties with shrimp forks and real gold serving pieces. When no one was looking she snuck a piece of cake into the pocket of her maid uniform. Before she went to sleep, she pretended to have a tea party with her sisters, Lizzy and Anna. She held out a glass of water to give each a sip and divided the cake into equal portions.

After the party she placed her sisters’ cake under her pillow. She asked Jesus to let her dream about a real party with them. The next morning she scooped the crumbs from under her pillow and put them in her pocket. When she took a break from her chores, she went outside and fed the crumbs to birds, whispering, “Find my sisters and tell them I love them.”

f a v o r i t e b e d t i m e s t o r y

016

CLARA’S FATHER DIED SHE MOTHER WERE IN A HEAD ON IT WAS SNOWING

SNOW DRIFTS

EACH SIDE

STREET

OF A GIRL IN CLARA’S

WAS DRUNK

THE IMPACT

IN A MAROON BATHROBE

ONTO THE FRONT PORCH OF IN HER HUSBAND’S BLACK

“I CALLED FOR HELP!” WAS PLACED ON A STRETCHER

IT WAS HER NECK

BROKEN EYE SOCKETS FROM

CLARA AND HER BROTHER

THEIR SEAT BELTS AND ON THEIR FOREHEADS

TOOK THE CASE

STEPFATHER

SIX MONTHS BEFORE

HER BROTHER AND HER

CAR COLLISION

FOUR FOOT

WERE ON

OF A TWO LANE

THE FATHER

FIFTH GRADE CLASS

AFTER

A GRAY HAIRED WOMAN

CAME OUT

HER BRICK BUNGALOW

GOLASHES YELLING

CLARA’S MOTHER

LIGHTS FLASHING

A BROKEN NOSE

THE STEERING WHEEL

HAD BRUISES FROM

MATCHING BUMPS

THE ATTORNEY WHO

BECAME CLARA’S

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THE ACC IDENT

039

BEFORE HE MARRIED

MY MOTHER

MY SOON-TO-BE STEPFATHER PROMISED

HE WOULD

“TAKE CARE OF ME”

AND

HE DID.

040

ONE ACT PLAY

CHARACTERSMother(pretty blonde wearing three diamond rings)

Daughter (16 years old with small scar under her nose and long blonde hair)

SETTINGTeenage girl’s bedroom

PROPSBedroom door (rear stage) Hot pink bedspread on queen-size bed Letter on pillow of bedLight blue wallsWhite lace curtainsLeaves on branches of tree visible through curtains Record player Black Sabbath poster over bed An open ballerina jewelry box on top of a wood dresser

One minute before the curtain opens each audience member is handed the following handwritten letter and instructed to read it.

056

DearClara,

That presence you feel inside of you is Satan. Your troubles - the heaviness inside your heart - are of your own choosing. You are not a part of this world. There is no happiness here for you. Satan devours the souls of even the most innocent. Every action is measured. Nothing can save you. This world is torment. Heed what the Evil One is tellingyou. Love, Daddy

057

MONKEY PUZZLE PRESS

Story

The

Heidi Smith

URNSLARA nnC A B

ANN

Fiction / $15.00

w w w. m o n ke y p u z z l e p r e s s . c o m

the clara ann Burns story is an expression of child

abuse & neglect witnessed through a patchwork of short prose

reflections, poems, one minute plays, scholarly studies, & photographs.

“Heidi Ann Smith’s unflinching novel viscerally tracks the ways trauma can break our contract with language, how it can hybrid-ize hearts and mouths, and how our tongues might, in the end, fork to speak it all:

Heidi Ann Smith grew up in Illinois & currently lives in Denver, Colorado.

HE

IDI A

NN

SM

ITH

TH

E C

LA

RA

AN

N B

UR

NS

ST

OR

Y

MO

NK

EY

PU

ZZ

LE

PR

ES

S

Daring in Both content & structure, The Clara Ann Burns

Story explores multiple genres & is courageously self-reflective.

revelatory, plural, here.

The Clara Ann Burns Story, through text and image, offers amap by which to read the geographic/familial underpinnings of our emotional and physical bodies so that we mightarticulate our own hermeneutic of triumph.”

- Selah Saterstromauthor of The Meat and Spirit Plan

www.heidiannsmith.com/wordpress

by

The

Story