Michael C. Keith
Wrapped in an Enigma
It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. – Winston ChurchillAmong the things Mark Cowell most hated as a kid back in the primitive days of the mid-1950s was going to the store for what his mother cryptically called her “woman things”– as in “You’ve got to pickup my woman things.” He had asked her what the mysterious brown box contained after being teased by some older boys on the way home from Zip’s Variety.
“Ignore them,” she advised, placing the anonymous carton on the top shelf of the bathroom closet. “They’re just immature boys.”
“What are Vlad Rags?” he asked repeating one of the terms they used for the package he was carrying.
“What? I never heard that one before,” she replied with a smirk that further aroused his curiosity.
“They said you have the curse,” he continued. “What does that mean?”
“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” she said, her expression hardening. “Stay away from those kids. They sound really stupid. You’re a whole lot smarter than they are.”
Mark was nine and felt caught in a mystery he could not solve or understand. It took a handwritten note by his mother to obtain the product she wanted, and that added to his growing wariness about what he was transporting the three long blocks from Zip’s to his house. The next time he was sent on the arcane errand, he asked Mr. Zipola if he would put the troublesome box in a bag to conceal it.
“Why you needa da bag? You only gotta’ one ting and it easy to carry, lil’ boy. You go take it to you mama. She need... she need now,” he responded with a combination of irritation and urgency in his gruff voice.
What was the need he referred to, Mark wondered, his apprehension growing? As fate would have it on his return trip home he encountered the same menacing kids as before. While attempting without success to conceal the box under his arm, he increased his pace to get passed them.
“Hey, wait up. Let’s see what you got?” said the biggest of the boys trailing close behind Mark.
“Yeah, give that to us,” said his friend yanking the box from him.
“It’s for my mother and she needs it!” he protested trying to grab it back.
Before Mark could do a thing – not that he could have, given their size and number – they tore the box open and fished out its contents.
“Hey, stop!” he shouted now convinced that whatever was in the box was crucial to his mother’s continuing existence.
“Lookie here, snot head, you know what this is? It’s a Kotex pad. Bet you never saw one of these before. Your mom’s riding the bloody bronco,” said the kid who’d snatched the carton from his hands.
His two friends laughed and removed other pads from the box while Mark stood there feeling helpless and embarrassed.
“Women use these so they don’t bleed all over the place. What’d you think was in the box? Tootsie Rolls?”
“I know what they are,” Mark objected. “Give them back to me, or I’ll...”
“What? Tell the cops we stole your mommy’s Kotex?”
“Yeah, bet they’d arrest us for that. Maybe give us the chair,” joked another boy who until now had remained in the background.
“They’re good if you got a big wound. They used them in the war to keep the soldiers from bleeding to death. Tape them on like a big ol’ Bandaid,” said the kid who towered over his friends. “Say you got a bullet right here,” he continued placing the pad on his private area to the delight of everyone but Mark.
By now he was convinced his mother was in dire need of the healing power of the gauzy objects, and he began to have images of her lying in a pool of blood on the living room floor awaiting his arrival. Fearing for her well being, he suddenly found the courage to take a stand wrenching the pads from his tormenter’s hands and dashing away before they knew what had happened. Amazingly he managed to reach his house before being caught, and he stormed through the front door shouting full throttle for his mother while expecting to encounter a gruesome scene.
“What?” she replied emerging from the kitchen looking fit as Esther Williams. “What the... what happened, for heaven’s sake!” she blurted catching site of her son clutching the Kotex pads and gasping for air.
“Here, he said, handing her the few Kotex he had managed to seize. You’ll be okay, right? You won’t die?”
“Die? Who told you that?” she asked completely perplexed. “Where’s the box they were in? What’s going on?”
His mother listened attentively while he gave her a complete account of his disturbing experience on the way home with her package of woman things, and when he finished she hugged him and gently kissed his forehead.
“What’s wrong with you, Mom?” he asked still full of trepidation.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, honey,” she replied, reassuringly.
“Then why are you bleeding?” he asked and after a long pause she gave an answer that only compounded his confusion.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not that bad, honey,” she stammered adding, “You’ll understand someday.”
The next few times Mark went to Zip’s for his mother – something he insisted on doing despite her concern – he managed to elude his antagonists, who eventually lost interest in him and his cargo. It was not until he was a couple years older that he learned women experience blood loss every month, and then his mother told him something that greatly lifted his spirits.
“I don’t need them anymore,” she told him wistfully.
“So how come you look sad, mom” asked Mark perplexed by her look of melancholy.
“Oh, nothing, honey,” she replied with a sweet smile. “Just feeling old.”
Mothers sometimes are very hard to understand, he thought, wondering why she would feel sad about finally being cured.
Michael C. Keith is the author of numerous books, articles, and stories, including a critically acclaimed memoir published by Algonquin Books. He teaches communication at Boston College.
