Dwarf: A Memoir (9 page)

And for the first time, I felt the shape of a rounded doorknob in my hand, as opposed
to the handles my father installed at my height. It was firm and solid. It felt so
good. It was a whole new world for me, and I felt that I’d earned it.

Dad may have hated her for it, but my mother made the right decision with the lengthening
surgery. Soon, another operation was scheduled to take the pins out of the tibias
in my shins and drill a new set into the femurs in my thighs. Altogether it was about
two years of surgeries, recovery periods, and exercising until the pins came out.
Then, all that remained were tiny clear bandages called Steri-Strips taped across
the holes in my skin to help them close. These were my first battle wounds, and my
first real sense of what it was like to be more independent.

My legs felt like feathers once they were free from all the metal, but they were also
weak, and I struggled to stand and walk. Light bed linens felt like heavy down blankets
and I could barely move my legs underneath them at first. The stretching continued,
but now Dad turned off the vacuum. And one day, he came home
and gave me a boom box of my own— with a fancy dual cassette player and removable
speakers so that I could play music while I kept up with my rehab.

“I’m sorry,” Dad began. “The Fair didn’t have one in pink.” He placed a black boom
box in front of me with a smile.

It was topped with an enormous pink bow.

Too Small for Texas

At my mother’s air force swearing-in ceremony in Sudbury, Massachusetts. We moved
to San Antonio shortly thereafter.

I
N JANUARY 1991
, the Gulf War played out like a movie on TV. I sat in my living room, transfixed
by the live shots of soldiers and marines in camouflage crossing the desert with loaded
rifles. Elsewhere on the dial, tanks fired and bombs exploded, and suddenly the idea
of war— previously relegated to history books— felt very real.

One unseasonably warm winter afternoon,
he
was coming over: a recruiter from the US Air Force. Mom wanted to enlist. Not long
before, she’d announced to my dad that she wanted to do her part for our country and
work with the troops that we’d seen on TV.

“It’s never too late to do what you want to do in life,” I’d heard her say on many
occasions.

Our front door was open, and the screen let in the breeze. I sat with my new, four-inch-longer
legs stretched out in front of me, waiting. The Nintendo that Nick had let me borrow
was plugged into our big, boxy TV, and I was excited to play his
Top Gun
game, which I’d specifically chosen for the recruiter’s visit. It was my way of showing
off.

With my fingers poised on the controller, ready to hit “start,” I saw him. Dressed
in a deep blue uniform with stripes and ribbons decorating his arms and chest, he
was far more handsome than the camo-clad troops from TV. The recruiter’s hair was
dark and cut short, and when he smiled, he flashed a set of gorgeous white teeth that
were as shiny as his black dress shoes. My mouth dropped open and my controller clattered
to the floor. He was Superman. No, he was better than Superman, because Superman wasn’t
real, and this recruiter most certainly was.

As I stared at him, wondering whether he had flown in the jets I’d seen on commercials
but feeling far too nervous to ask, he looked down at me through the screen.

“Hello,” he said in a loud but friendly voice.

Mom then appeared from around the corner.

“Say hello, honey,” she said as she welcomed him inside.

The recruiter walked in, removed his hat, and asked with a smile, “
Top Gun
?”

I stared at his uniform. There wasn’t a wrinkle in sight. He was like a living, breathing
billboard for the United States military, and all I could do was watch him in stunned
silence, managing only a weak nod. It was one thing to see the jets and the bombs
on TV and the men with rifles standing their ground without so much as a flinch. It
was quite another to be in the presence of a man who may have actually sat under the
dome of a fighter jet or behind the sights of a rifle.

“Outstanding,” he replied, reaching into his bag and handing me a blue and white baseball
cap. “Here,” he said, handing it to me. “You’ll need this.”

The cap had a fighter jet stitched onto the front with red smoke trailing behind it.
I watched my reflection grow larger in the recruiter’s dark aviator sunglasses as
he bent down to give me this fabulous gift.

While I got my bearings, the airman and my mom sat at our round dining room table,
discussing all sorts of things I didn’t understand and rustling papers between them.
Mom looked back at me and smiled. I tried not to keep staring, but he looked so crisp,
clean, and official. I couldn’t understand how a person could look so handsome and
so intimidating at the same time. Mom signed things, and he signed things, and throughout
it all, no one asked my dad to sign anything.

“I have to do this, Gerry,” I heard her say later that night. And then she issued
an ultimatum of her own. “Come with us or we go on our own.”

A couple of days later, Mom explained to me that we were going somewhere important
where there were more men and women just like the recruiter, but that my dad had decided
not to come with us. He didn’t want to leave my brother.

I’d repeat part of my mom’s reasoning in school when Katie asked me why we were moving.
“We have to do this,” I told her, even though I didn’t understand why.

It was a confusing time for me, but I was used to feeling confused about my family—
my dad’s side, anyway. No one ever talked about the DiDonatos in front of me, but
I did manage to hear bits and pieces about them from my parents’ arguments. I never
felt comfortable bringing up the subject myself.

I did think about the DiDonatos, but I didn’t feel like a major
piece of my life was missing without them, since I had no concept of who they were
to begin with. I didn’t even know if I had aunts, uncles, or cousins on my dad’s side.
No one ever said anything about my paternal grandparents, either. While I didn’t spend
time wishing for a reunion, I did wonder where they were and what they were like.

What sort of houses did they live in? Did I have cousins who were little like me?
Did we shop at the same grocery store? Had I seen them there before without even knowing
it?

During the holidays, I would only see my mom’s side of the family. Every Thanksgiving,
the Pryors would gather at Papa’s long, wooden kitchen table to celebrate. My mom
and dad took separate vehicles. Armed with their best side dishes, my family members
would arrive, greeting one another loudly with hugs and kisses, and pats on the head
for the kids. Then the group gathered in the den for hours to watch the football game
before we sat down to eat. It was always a festive, happy mood around the dinner table.

But after the pumpkin pie was sliced and served, Dad would always leave early.

“It was good to see ya, Gerry,” my aunts and uncles would say, the exact same way
every year. Dad responded in kind. “Yah, yah, it was good to see you, too.” Before
long, it all started to sound very rehearsed to me.

“I’m just going to the store,” Dad told me if I asked where he was going. Or, in his
typical secretive fashion, sometimes he would simply say: “I’ll see you back home.”

Then he’d pull on his heavy brown coat, give me a hug without looking me in the eye,
and shuffle down the narrow walkway from Papa’s front door to the driveway. From the
window, I’d watch him back his truck out onto the street and then I’d pretend, like
my mom, that it was no big deal to go on with our holiday
without him. But inside, I wondered where he went. Eventually I figured it out: Dad
was going to see
his
side of the family.

And I wasn’t allowed to go with him.

Once Mom finalized her decision to enlist, she went away for special training. After
what felt like a lifetime without her, Dad and I drove to Logan Airport in Boston.
We looked up her gate on the big arrival screens, and I held his hand as we waited
for her flight to arrive.

Mom was returning from MIMSO (Military Indoctrinated Medical Service Officer) training.
As people filed off the plane and greeted their families, I spotted her. She was dressed
in a deep blue skirt that touched just below her knees and a button-down blue dress
shirt. Her hair was different. She had chopped off her gorgeous blond locks and returned
with hair so short that it practically stuck to her head. Mom had a special pin on
her shoulder and ribbons across her chest. She looked like one of
them.
I ran with my arms spread as wide as I could to hug her. I never wanted to be without
her again.

Our new home on the Medina air force base near San Antonio was sizzling, stifling,
and flat. Mom and I were going to be stationed there for the next couple of years.
The houses were made of brick or stucco and no one had wooden fences like so many
back home in Douglas. Instead, tall stacks of gray cinder blocks outlined everyone’s
property and their windows were covered with twisted, wrought-iron bars that reminded
me of black licorice. The whole neighborhood was outlined with barbed wire.

The houses weren’t the only big differences from Massachusetts. Texas had snakes,
fire ants, giant spiders, scorpions, torrential rainstorms, flash floods, tornadoes,
and heat that didn’t feel “dry” at all— someone had lied to us about that one. These
new additions were poor replacements for the many things I missed dearly, like our
stereo system, Bruiser, my Papa and his favorite dish that he would always make for
me when I came to visit— linguine with clam sauce. And, of course, I missed my dad.

Mom and I moved into a plain-looking brick duplex fastened to a cement slab. The nameplate
attached to the small parking pad read:
1st Lt. DiDonato
. That part always made me smile. In the background, rapid gunfire popped in the air.
The airmen were doing training exercises, and I swore they were right in our backyard.

We walked into our new house through the kitchen door. Our moving truck took up the
entire driveway and part of the street, too. Men wearing back supports hauled boxes
upon boxes, each of them numbered with a neon orange tag, into our new home. While
Mom stood with a clipboard in her hand, checking off each one, I took the opportunity
to explore my new setting. I was disappointed to find that the kitchen was nothing
special. It was cramped and stark white and it had just one tiny window above the
sink— far too high for me to see out of it. The dining room was also small and opened
up to the living room, which had a sliding glass door. I pressed my face up against
the glass and peered out. We had the view of a dirt road, some stubby trees, and a
big cactus. I wondered how many rattlesnakes might be curled up underneath.

“I can make anything look like home,” Mom said, approaching me from behind. She rested
a hand on my shoulder and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. I only came up to
her waist.