{"id":2017,"date":"2021-11-30T21:10:40","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T01:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=2017"},"modified":"2021-11-30T21:12:22","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T01:12:22","slug":"the-making-of-crazy-fred","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/creative-nonfiction-archive\/the-making-of-crazy-fred\/","title":{"rendered":"The Making of Crazy Fred"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"GJ

I Think I Love You by GJ Gillespie<\/p><\/div>\r\n

The Making of Crazy Fred<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Kelly Dorgan<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Pieces of Uncle Fred\u2019s story spill out of me. It\u2019s rare, but when it happens, they come like fragments of old family recipes, slipping from a tattered book, symbols nearly indecipherable. I try assembling them, but they crumble under the weight of my cravings. So, I borrow Mom\u2019s memories, pouring them into me, and I churn them, some becoming creamy, others messy. I wish I didn\u2019t have to keep borrowing from Mom. She won\u2019t always be here to help me remake her oldest brother.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mainly, when I think of Uncle Fred, I see the wooden swing he hung for me with thick, coarse rope from a huge tree. Also, I hear his laugh, rich and savory. But those tasty memories dissolve quickly. Sadly, I\u2019ve bitten into bitter pieces, tougher to swallow. Those are about how he got made into \u201cCrazy Fred.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mom grew up on an orchard in Idaho. Over eighty now, she doesn\u2019t talk fondly about the place.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Dusty.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Dark.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

These were the main ingredients of her childhood home, at least the way she tells it. I like to believe that she had a good home, that her disgust came, in part, from what happened to her on the school bus.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cOrchard rat,\u201d school kids doused her as soon as she\u2019d climbed aboard. Guess the slur changed her appetite for her orchard home.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There were other ingredients in the complicated mix, though. From what I\u2019ve gathered, her family\u2019s secret ingredient was, well, secrecy.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cNo one ever talked about anything,\u201d Mom says. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Usually, her voice is effervescent, a crisp beer on a hot day. But when talking about her childhood, it drips dark, acidy, sweetener noticeably absent. This is especially true when she shares with me any tidbit about how her brother got made\u2014or, more accurately, how he got remade.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In seventh grade, as the story goes, Fred rode his bike down a steep grade. He hit a pothole, sending him flying, his head smashing into hardness. He lay there for hours before anyone found him, and he languished in the hospital for weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This accident was the starter for the making of \u201cCrazy Fred.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mom didn\u2019t have much during her childhood, but what she did have was pure appeal. She still does. People are drawn to her like a toasty, aromatic kitchen.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Years ago, her ebony hair yielded to wispy, flour-white strands. She\u2019s gorgeous, her eyes frosted blueberries. To me, Mom has always been beautiful. I have old photos of her, and I love staring at her stylishly handmade dresses, the skirts shaped like upside-down strawberries, her hair gleaming like the blackest vinegar. The youngest of five, Mom became more alluring as she aged. Meanwhile, Fred became more alarming.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI remember growing up with him,\u201d she whispers, hairline cracks in her voice. She sprinkles out for me a few recollections that I\u2019ve never heard, ones about Uncle Fred\u2019s sudden spells and strange ramblings.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As she speaks, she creates an image in my head: her as a child, so tiny, so young, sitting in the pew during Sunday mass, watching helplessly as her oldest brother rises and rants before the entire congregation. She must have been around seven.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When she shares these childhood stories, her juicy eyes go dry, her warm smile cools. \u201cI\u2019d die from embarrassment,\u201d she admits, flecks of shame evident after all the years. I hope Mom will forgive herself one day. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mom bore the label \u201corchard rat.\u201d Her elder brother bore another.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cCrazy Fred,\u201d school kids taunted him, the accident having left him changed.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mom layers stories of Uncle Fred for me, but those layers are thin. I stack them, one on top of another, trying to make something substantial, and I sprinkle them with my extrapolations and interpretations. Seems that Mom grew up witnessing a lot of cruelty toward her brother, leaving a bad taste in her mouth.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cHe was always at the mercy of people\u2019s jests,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Her compassion for her brother didn\u2019t ease her humiliation. In third grade, she hid from him as he lumbered across the schoolyard, invisibility one of her main ingredients to surviving in a small town. Apparently, she became pretty good at being invisible where Fred was concerned, so much so that when the taunts turned to torment, Mom was there to witness something she shouldn\u2019t have.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

After school one day, a pack of eighth-grade boys pounced on Fred, chanting \u201cCrazy Fred,\u201d punching him. Worse, Fred\u2019s younger brother joined in on the beating.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mom won\u2019t say much more about the beating of Fred, and I don\u2019t press her. The impression left on her was too \u201chorrific,\u201d her word, not mine. Maybe that\u2019s when the frothy concoction of worry and panic first started rising in her. I\u2019ve seen it. I\u2019ve experienced it. When she gets scared that her family may be harmed, those emotions bubble up and out of her, splattering those closest to her.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI felt so sorry for him,\u201d she says to this day.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Still, she and I will continue piecing together the crumbling fragments of Fred.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Fretting about Fred got passed down to Mom like a recipe for a grotesque family meal.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWho will take care of him when I\u2019m gone?\u201d Grandma had asked hours before her own passing. Grandma served up worries to Mom before a death rattle punctuated their final spoken exchange.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

One of the sweet morsels I\u2019ve gotten from family stories is that Grandma didn\u2019t fear Fred. She was afraid for him, but not of him. One of the unpleasant bits is that others did fear him, including Mom, at times.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mom rarely talks about Fred\u2019s fugue states, but she has told me about one night in particular that sours my stomach. Only a teenager, Mom had been sitting at the dinner table with her best friend, Gail, playing canasta with Fred. Suddenly, Fred laid down his cards, stood up, and stared vacantly. Then, he looked down at Gail and asked:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0\u201cDo you want to go to the basement with me?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0\u201cNO!\u201d Mom screamed, whisking her friend out of the house.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This story, while only a dash of something dark and unknown, leaves me unsettled. What had Mom been so afraid of? What would\u2019ve happened to Gail in that basement? Mom can\u2019t give me answers, so, again, I\u2019m tempted to stack thin layers until I have something to dig into.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Especially about that basement.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In family lore, that basement provides an unnerving backdrop; I\u2019ve fixed it in my imagination as a stew of greasy grays and oily shadows. I don\u2019t know if anyone ever went down those stairs with Uncle Fred. I\u2019ve been told that Granddad tackled and pinned Fred to the ground, accusing him of raping a family member down there. The story gets sloppier, grosser, and I never know what parts to leave in and take out. Mom cleans up matters for me somewhat by identifying the rapist as another relative, someone who never got punished for their crime.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

On the other hand, punishment got heaped on Fred, no matter what he did or did not do.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The last time I saw Uncle Fred, Grandma had been dead for a while. Mom and Dad had stuffed us into their Subaru hatchback\u2014the shape and color of a lopsided dinner roll\u2014and drove from our Appalachian home to Idaho. Five days later, we arrived, but we didn\u2019t pull up to the orchard home, the place where Uncle Fred had once hung a swing for me during a previous visit. Instead, we turned into a bland suburban neighborhood and stopped at a bland house.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The way I see it, Grandma had been the primary source of nourishment for her family, so once she\u2019d gone, some things turned to rot. I could be wrong, though.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

During that visit to Idaho, I swore I picked up warm, honeyed hints of Grandma kept in a room off the den, the chestnut door closed, locked. Somehow, I got inside but don\u2019t recall how. What I do recall are the old hutches lining the walls, hunched in shadows, shelves filled with Grandma\u2019s teacups. The bone-white china, dotted with delicate flowers, glowed in the charcoal light filtering through the single window. To me, the room hummed, just like Grandma had.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

By contrast, the den brooded, cast in hues of used coffee grounds and stale wheat bread. Granddad sprawled in a recliner, Uncle Fred standing at his side, friendly smile gone and a bizarre clacking emanating from his mouth when he spoke.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWhy do you make that noise?\u201d I\u2019d snapped. Once an adoring niece, I\u2019d turned into an annoyed tween.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Gently, Uncle Fred told me about his ill-fitting dentures, how they slipped, raking and inflaming his gums, agonizing him anytime he talked.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As an adult, I work to understand how the uncle I remember, the smiling, laughing one, got remade (pounded) into a silent lump of a man. In my recollections, Granddad appears indifferent to his son\u2019s agony. Decades later, Mom gives me the element I\u2019ve been searching for; she tells me that her father had always thought of Fred as \u201clesser.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The fragments are coming together, allowing me to better understand the making of my uncle, and how he wound up getting stored away like Grandma\u2019s teacups after her death.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

After Grandma died, Uncle Fred took to disappearing, going on long, dangerous walks, as if searching for his beloved mother. At some point, someone discovered him in their basement, curled up and filthy from traveling along a dirt road. I don\u2019t know whose basement. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s that <\/em>basement from those nastier family stories. All I\u2019ve been told is that Fred wanted to die, to be reunited with Grandma.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When Uncle Fred got found in that basement, his younger brother, the very one who\u2019d joined that schoolyard beating decades ago, fetched him and drove him to a facility for the \u201cretarded,\u201d according to family tales. That\u2019s where Uncle Fred got left.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When it comes to Fred\u2019s institutionalization, I\u2019m back at that old stack of family recipes, picking up scraps, desperate to create something more satisfying. Mom fills in what she\u2019s able, which isn\u2019t much. Too many years, secrets, and miles kept her from truly knowing her brother, or his fate.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There\u2019s some sweetness baked into this part of Uncle Fred\u2019s story, and I gobble it up, delighted to hear that he loved the facility, supposedly. Too, he\u2019d finally found a girlfriend. These elements cling to me like powdery sugar, alongside the memories of him twirling me and hanging a swing for me.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Inevitably, I bite into something hard.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWhen he died,\u201d Mom says, \u201cthey said he suffered an aneurysm.\u201d And she lets slip something so foul I want to omit it, but it\u2019s an important piece.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI think he was murdered.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

She\u2019s added this suspicion to the mix only twice, and I\u2019m sickened each time.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Apparently, Uncle Fred had been institutionalized for years. Details get murky, but at some point, he got his arm broken. Mom never could get a good explanation for his injury, no matter how hard she\u2019d pressed.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cHe was always so vulnerable to abuse.\u201d She blends these words into most of her stories about Fred, helping me better understand my uncle.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Truthfully, though, I\u2019ll never really understand him, at least the creation some called \u201cCrazy Fred.\u201d Maybe I\u2019m not meant to. Maybe some old recipes are best forgotten. Instead, I\u2019ll focus on my remaking of him. For starters, I\u2019m going to drizzle a lot more honey, sweet and raw, into my version. Uncle Fred will rise, and I will relish memories of him, the kindly uncle who twirled me, his laughter swelling, delighting in my delight.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Kelly A. Dorgan<\/strong>\u2019s work appears in The Delmarva Review, The Nasiona, Motherwell Magazine, and Performing Motherhood. An award-winning author of over 40 nonfiction publications, she explores illness, gender, sex, race and culture. Raised in Southern Appalachia, she has rooted herself in the mountains where she teaches at East Tennessee University. Connect with her at www.kellydorgan.com<\/a>, https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/kadorgan\/<\/a>, and https:\/\/twitter.com\/KADorgan<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Making of Crazy Fred Kelly Dorgan Pieces of Uncle Fred\u2019s story spill out of me. It\u2019s rare, but when it happens, they come like fragments of old family recipes, Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5161,"featured_media":0,"parent":1310,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2017"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2213,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2017\/revisions\/2213"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}