Hole/1

Keep Me Whole Until Morning
Chapter 1 -- Tulsa to Norman

I thought I would have to ride the Greyhound bus from Tulsa to Norman where I am going to college, but a few days before I was due to leave Zeke volunteered to drive me in his truck. He pulled it into the driveway and watched while mom and I loaded my two plastic foot lockers, several boxes, one trunk and three soft sided duffles. We waltzed the heavy boxes carefully out of Pandemonium Central and into the load bed, each of us taking an end and going: "One, two, three...Lift!" so we would not hurt our backs. He admired our matter of fact approach and the quiet way we went about our work.

Zeke sometimes says that Mom and I could be sisters because we think alike. I don't know how he sees that. I think he'd rather not think about either of our histories. They are sordid. The fact that I'm now in college doesn't change that.

Zeke sometimes sees things Mom and I (forget Dad. He's clueless and very problematic.) don't see or won't look at. Then again, Mom is good at solving problems that baffle Zeke.

This was not my first trip to Norman. I had taken the bus there in early July for a day long orientation. I went up there two weeks later for an additional honors meeting. I went to Norman when I was sixteen too. Zeke insisted on that trip. I was supposed to be learning to drive and...Zeke gave up teaching me after a week. "That girl doesn't see straight does she?" he drawled at Mom who explained that I had strabismus and some "eye muscle issues, and impaired depth perception.... A lot of people have this and still drive... Rimona can do anything she has a mind to."

Zeke said: "Cut the crap Zoe. You need to take that girl to an eye doctor. How long has it been since she's been to one?"

Mom made the appoinment at the University of Oklahoma Opthamology Clinic. We went to Norman and they gave me tests and told me not to cheat. I guess they caught on that kids cheat on those things and they cheat right and left. They also gave me some tests on which I couldn't cheat. I was still blinking from the drops when the eye doctor delivered her verdict. I have eye muscles that I don't really control, zero binocular vision, almost no fusion in the distance, and the world beyond arm's reach jumps around for me. I probably can read because I do it fast and up close. I probably will never drive a car and probably should not learn because I lack the focusing ability and ability to judge the distance of moving objects that most people take for granted. I have 20/30 uncorrected vision in both eyes. Accuity, though isn't everything.

Zeke took my diagnosis hard. Mom just shrugged. I think Mom expected something like this. There is a lot a nondriving teenager can do. I can read a map and navigate both by landmarks and dead reckoning. No one in our family, that is the Hektors, not all the step parents and step kin, gets lost. I can't drive, but I can navigate. I can also walk and take transit. That means I run errands and ran them all summer.

Sometimes I even ran errands just for fun or to satisfy myself. I walked everywhere. Mom told me of how I'd have to build up my legs for college anyway. "College students walk everywhere and they walk very long distances," Mom explained. She told me the story about the counselors at Cornell Adult University who were Cornellians and who treated their charges with no malice but no mercy. If they had an activity in town or on the far end of a huge campus, they walked two, three, four miles, and up and down hills that we don't have here in Oklahoma.

The walking baffled Zeke. I would have done it had I lived in New York where I grew up until I was fifteen. I would not have been strange there, but here in Tulsa, everyone drives everywhere. Zeke would always interrogate me when I got home. He'd inspect anything I bought. He'd ask me about my route and whether I felt safe. Crossing through traffic scares the crap out of poor Zeke, but it's a necessary survival skill.

The truck to take me to the University of Oklahoma was crowded. Zeke and I sat up front because I was navigating. Mom sat in the back seat and Zeke's two boys sat on either side of her. One of them cut his newest fake fart in honor of the occasion. Zeke turned on the Country Western station that plays "modern music," and we were off.

There was a line of cars at the Cate Center loading dock. There were two professorly types who greeted the procession of arriving freshpeople. "This is it," Zeke sighed. He did not fully approve.

"It's Honors Housing," Mom reminded him.

"It needs work," Zeke answered.

Two male students who looked a bit like football players helped us load my trunks on to a dolly cart and bring them inside. We got the service elevator to the second floor and half way down the hall found my room. I dug out my keys and let the dust moats dance into the hall.

Mom and I unloaded in silence. In another place or time, Mom might have helped me unpack but she wanted to get back to Zeke who wanted to take his sons out to eat. She said goodbye to me a few feet from the loading dock and sped away. With that, I was on my own.

I can not really fret about being on my own. I am eighteen. That makes me an adult. In another place or time I would be on my own at fourteen. My great great grandmother ran away from home at sixteen and came to the United States. She died in 1984 and I am named for her. Her name was Rebeccah. My first name is Rimona. My middle name is Qaoar which was a newly discovered planet which is now an asteroid just like Pluto. Oh well, R.Q. Hektor sounds like a great name doesn't it?

Rimona Q. Hektor

Rm 216 Cate Center

Norman, Oklahoma