Rusty Nails
I’m always wrong. They say so. They tell me it’s my habit to come up with excuses, to blame it on anything else but me. They tell me to stop it. They tell me to stop hiding in my room and do something useful around the house for a change. They stopped telling me things because I stopped calling. Just like last time. And now, for the second time, I’m… somewhere. Home is where the heart is, so I’m not sure if this is home. I don’t think I was ever sure of that.
I stepped on a nail, a rusty nail. I was in a good mood, right before I stepped on the nail. She and I had just come back from a shopping mall. We walked around, just like old times, when I was much younger. When I wore what she picked out. Actually, how did I end up in a good mood? She actually didn’t put me in a good mood when we met each other at the mall. I’d arrived earlier, and was doing some exploring of my own. I saw a shop selling musical instruments, and I went in to look at their violins.
I love the violin. They probably don’t think so, because they judge based on how much I was motivated to practise. Back when I was… 12, I believe. That’s when I stopped taking lessons, after only achieving Grade 4. I regret that, and I want to pick it up again. So I ask the people in the shop about lessons, and leave feeling good about myself, like I had done something worthwhile. They would disagree. I didn’t think about that, or I wouldn’t have decided, when we finally met up, to share what I’d learnt with her. I asked if she thought RM399 for a violin was expensive. “YOU HAVE ONE, DON’T YOU, WHY ARE YOU BUYING A NEW ONE?” was my mother’s response.
Who wouldn’t cringe? I did, anyway. Still, she did have a point, and I recovered quickly enough, hastily mumbling that I guess I’d forgotten, of course I’d use the old one if it still worked. Then I made the mistake of telling her I probably would have to start at a lower grade. “WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO HUMBLE? YOU SEE, THAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND US, WE ARE NOT LIKE YOU, YOU ARE ALWAYS TOO HUMBLE! WHY DO YOU WANT TO SELL YOURSELF SHORT? DON’T YOU KNOW THAT WHEN YOU’RE IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD, THEY WILL ONLY WANT TO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED GRADE 4, NEVER MIND THAT YOU HAVEN’T BEEN PLAYING REGULARLY, WHY ARE YOU WASTING ALL THAT MONEY?”
Was I now a vampire, to be staked through the heart so? I seized upon the first thing I could to retort. “Is this about money? Is that the first, most important thing that you’re worried about?”
“Yes.”
Fine. I allow that she’s concerned with money. After all, that which she spent on me seems only to go down the proverbial drain. So I say, “I understand you don’t want me to waste my money, which I will be spending to pay for this, once I have my own income. If that’s the case, I’ll just practise on my own until the instructor, who will be assessing my proficiency after 10 years of not playing the violin, is satisfied that I am a grade 4 student, as I should rightfully be. How’s that?”
“Ohh, going to spend your ‘own money’, huh? Well go ahead! Don’t let me stop you from spending your ‘own money’ once you ‘have a job’, since you’re so independent. Go ahead! Let the instructor assess you then, start from a lower grade, why not?”
I am quiet. I knew it would come to something like that. I could have shut up earlier, but where would that leave me? Misunderstood in her eyes yet again, forever the child? I cannot agree that she’s right, and I cannot tell her she’s wrong. Even if I try to make it my own burden, I’m still wrong. I want to tell her how her “outside world argument” doesn’t even make sense in this context, I want to tell her how it hurts that she drew a line between me and some ambiguous “us”. I want… but it’s useless. It’s just useless. She’s my mother.
She cheers up after some shopping. I just follow quietly behind. She’s excited about the delicious laksa we had. I speak up when I remember I have some things to send back to my girlfriend, and she’s impressed when I can write down her address and my –mom’s–home address from memory. More shopping. She’s excited at finding some cheap orchids, and I have a good time helping her by picking out those I think have the prettiest flowers. Now you know why I was in a good mood.
Fast forward to home, about 8-ish in the evening. I want to help her water all her beloved plants. The poor drooping gerberas, the other orchids near the wall, the lime shrubs, too. I want to do something nice for my mother. I want to show her I can do something useful around the house for a change. I don’t watch my step, and suddenly I am pierced. I look down and see, in the dim light, several planks laid in a scattered, criss-cross fashion. Most of them have nails, rusty ones.
“What happened?” she asks, upon hearing my yelp of pain. I said I stepped on a nail.
“WHY DID YOU STEP ON A NAIL, THERE’S SO MUCH SPACE THERE, WHY DID YOU STEP ON THE PLANKS, CAN’T YOU STEP AROUND THEM? WHY DID YOU STEP ON THE PLANKS?”
I lost it. I really lost it. “WHY MUST IT ALWAYS BE MY FAULT? IT’S MY FAULT THAT I STEPPED ON A RUSTY NAIL ON THE PLANK, IS IT? WHY DO YOU HAVE TO ASSUME I STEPPED ON THE PLANK WHILE LOOKING STRAIGHT AT IT? WHY CAN’T YOU ASSUME THAT I JUST WANTED TO WATER YOUR PLANTS AND ACCIDENTALLY STEPPED ON THE PLANK? I’M INJURED AND THE FIRST THING YOU DO IS YELL AT ME?”
“Fine! Come inside!” she says, still loudly, but relatively calmer. I move to obey– “STOP! Go wash your foot!” I grumble under my breath, “tell me to come inside then tell me to go wash my foot, make up your mind!” as I get some water and proceed to wash the wound. From behind me, she goes, “Just splash some water on it! What are you doing, cleaning out the wound?”
“I thought that was the POINT of washing,” I say through gritted teeth as I finish up and walk towards her.
Inside, we head into the dining room. She hasn’t said a word since, and maintains her fierce silence as she takes out the first aid kit. She pulls out a chair and I misunderstand, placing my foot awkwardly on it, sole up. “Sit down!” is all she says, before handing me a piece of cotton wool. I sit, and she leaves the room. I wonder if this is her way of telling me that she’s done with me, that I know full well what to do now, so I rummage in the first aid kit for some antiseptic. I find a bottle labeled “antiseptic” just as she returns. I ask her if I should use it, but am greeted with silence. Instead, she brings out a different bottle, and proceeds to pour that onto the piece of cotton wool. I wonder if I should refuse her help, but I imagine it would set her off one some mad tirade again, so I let her do her motherly duty. Her duty done, i.e. my wound disinfected and protected with a clean cotton swab, she packs up the first aid kit. I take this opportunity to go and see what I can do about the rusty-nailed planks. I think I should flatten them, but I want to ask her if I should, in case she needs the nails in for some unknown purpose. I find her sitting at the dinner table, flipping through the newspapers.
“Mom, should I flatten the nails in the planks?”
“No, don’t do anything! I’ll deal with the planks!” I can’t understand why she’s still shouting.
“But mom, I’m free now, just tell me if it’s okay for me to flatten the nails in the planks. If you need them for something else I won’t but if you don’t, tell me so I can do something about the nails.”
“I SAID I’LL DEAL WITH THE PLANKS! WHAT IS IT THAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND? YOU MADE ME ANGRY AND NOW YOU WANT ME TO JUST SWALLOW ALL THAT IRRITATION? I CAN’T DO IT! I JUST CAN’T, SO JUST DROP IT!”
I am pierced again, through my heart this time, not my foot. “I MADE YOU ANGRY? HOW DID I MAKE YOU ANGRY? I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T STEP ON THE PLANKS INTENTIONALLY!”
“MUST YOU ARGUE UNTIL YOU’RE PROVEN RIGHT? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? YES, I ADMIT I WAS WRONG TO PUT THE PLANKS THERE, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? DO YOU WANT ME TO APOLOGIZE TO YOU? DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY THE PLANKS WERE THERE? I TOOK THEM FROM THE OPPOSITE HOUSE, ALRIGHT? THEY DIDN’T NEED THEM SO I THOUGHT I’D USE THEM TO COVER UP THE HOLE OUTSIDE SO YOUR SISTER’S CAR WON’T FALL INTO IT WHEN SHE PARKS THERE! I WAS GOING TO DO IT TOMORROW, HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU’D GO AND STEP ON IT TONIGHT? I ALREADY SAID I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO KEEP STRESSING THIS ISSUE? WHY?”
All the noise brings my father down. “What’s going on here?”
I speak up first. “I stepped on a nail, dad.”
“YOU COULD HAVE STEPPED AROUND IT, THERE WAS LOTS OF SPACE THERE, COULDN’T YOU SEE THAT THERE WERE BOARDS SCATTERED ALL OVER, COULDN’T YOU USE YOUR BRAIN AND WORK OUT THAT THERE MIGHT BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THOSE PLANKS AND AVOID THEM?” is what my mother said.
“I wanted to ask mom if I should flatten the nails, and she started yelling at me.”
I should have known better than to expect my supposedly logical father to side with me, but I did, and he didn’t.
He began with an exasperated sigh and a disapproving shake of his head. “I don’t know what to say to you. Why are you like this? Why can’t you make a decision?” He was going to say more, but I didn’t interrupt him. Mother did. She told him to forget about it, that I was just trying to prove myself right, this was a pointless argument, she didn’t want to hear any more about it, and more along those lines. They turned their backs on me, again.
How many times? How many rusty nails have they been leaving in my heart, poisoning me? I let her lead my father out of the room, then spoke to her. “Why is it that no matter what I do, I’m in the wrong?”
She whirled, furious again. “HERE YOU GO AGAIN, ALWAYS FORCING THE ISSUE UNTIL YOU CAN BE PROVEN RIGHT. WHY CAN’T YOU JUST ACCEPT THIS? WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LET ME BE? I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU, THAT’S IT! JUST ACCEPT THAT!”
“Fine,” I say, “if you want to be left alone, I will leave you alone. Now I just want to find out why Dad thinks I’m wrong too.
“WHY, SO THAT YOU CAN BE PROVEN RIGHT? HOW LONG DO YOU WANT TO KEEP ARGUING? I AM YOUR MOTHER, YOU KNOW? I HAVE THE RIGHT TO SCOLD YOU!!”
…
..
.
I mutter, “as a person, I have the right to fight back,” and I walk out of the dining room as she repeats cries of “COME ON THEN, FIGHT! FIGHT BACK!”
I find my father outside, hammering out the rusty nails. So this is what he meant by making a decision. I see his point, but before I can say anything, he does what he always does. What they both, I suppose, have always done. “How, son, how are you going to work for anyone? Nobody wants someone who has to ask so many questions before getting any work done. Nobody. People in the outside world want their employees to know how to do the right thing without having to ask all the time! Nobody wants to be bothered with stupid questions. Look at these nails. Couldn’t you have just taken them out on your own? Is it not enough that you got hurt? Do you want to leave them in for someone else to step on them? Why didn’t you exercise your judgement instead of asking your mother?”
I want to tell him how I have worked with people who hated me for doing too much on my own, I want to tell them that some people value an employee who takes the effort to get things straight before doing things. I stand there, thinking, and he attacks again with “Why are you just standing there? Get something and help me!”
I can’t ask too many questions, so I ask where the hammer is. He answers with the most useless answer imaginable: “In the toolbox”. Of course, silly me, I might have thought it was in the refrigerator otherwise! Afraid to ask more, I spend too much time hunting for the hammer, and by the time I find it he’s almost done. I still manage to hammer out a few nails, and no more discouraging words are said. No encouraging words, either, but even you, reader, know what to expect.
I walk up to my room, not even feeling the little twinge in my left foot because of all the rusty nails I’m starting to sense inside of me, scattered through time. A deep, pervading sense of injustice, of good intentions but poor expressions, and a kind of loneliness. Is this what it means to come home after 3 years being abroad?
