Piggy Bank
This story contains a lesbian encounter, a first time coupling, witchcraft, mind control and humiliation. Be warned.
My Bunica was a clay witch.
She'd make things out of clay. Pots, sure, but also bead and charms. Effigies, like little people. Even symbols, she'd hung them in the window or over the door, protection for the house.
All good stuff! Not like voodoo where you want to hex somebody or cause pain. Just safety stuff, fun stuff, things to do with protection, kindness and affection.
She'd make them for neighbors, her friends down at the Senior Center. When somebody got sick or was depressed, she'd make them something, they'd feel better. I thought at the time, because she'd done them a kindness, made them a pretty gift.
It was just a fun craft, an art.
That's what I thought, anyway, growing up. All she'd let me see. Because I was a kid, because she loved me? Because she was afraid of what it could do, if somebody really talented got ahold of it?
I took the stuff when she died.
Mama had boxed up everything in her room, was going to take it to Goodwill.
Even the charms! The beads! I said No! Mama, let me keep it. To remember my Bunica, I loved her so.
Mama wasn't going to let me, she said I shouldn't mess with this stuff, it was dangerous. Best left behind, best left in the old country, it doesn't belong here!
Pffft. Silly talk, it was fun! Pretty things, things that appealed to me. Made me want to hold them, warm in my hands. They seemed to talk to me, when I held them.
So I took the box she'd put by the curb, hid it in my closet, behind my suitcase. Kept it, all of it, the little dolls, the box of beads. The animal figurines.
My favorite? A pig, a little piggy. The face was exaggerated, grotesque even, ugly. I felt sorry for it, called it my little copil, my fiika!
I remembered it from afternoons spent in my grandma's room, while she sat in her rocker, a bag of soft clay from the art store. Rolling it in her hands, chanting things in the old language. Making beads or geometric shapes, little animals. Working in things she'd found out on her walk, bits of feather, pretty stones. She'd bake them in the oven when Mama wasn't home, smell up the kitchen and Mama would complain when she got back, scold her!
The piggy sat on a shelf, alone, special. I'd asked about it, if I could hold it.
"Nu! Nu! My fiika, not for you! Not for me!
"I'm too old, and you, too young! One day, perhaps, not that long from now. You will know when."
I took it down, curious, under her careful eye.
It was a little-girl pig, you could tell by the rows of nipples along her belly. And other things.
"How does it work? What will I do with it?"
"You drop a little talisman, a vraja, into it. Hold the one most dear in your mind! Important to think of only the one!"
"And then, what?" I looked at the pig, curious. I knew of toys where you dropped something in a slot, it would move or walk.
This was just a chunk of clay.
She laughed, her tinkling quiet laugh that seemed so incongruous coming from a heavy old woman.
"And then, you will know then. Now put it up, carefully!"
I'd put it back, and then I'd saved it from the junk by the curb. And kept it, and remembered Bunica.
It sat on my dresser, Mama didn't recognize it so it was OK.
And Piggy had a slot in her back! For coins? A piggybank!
It had been in a bag with little coins, play-money? Anyway, little wax disks, a funny symbol pressed into them, all the same. Some stuff embedded in them, yucky stuff, bits of hair or feather, something that smelled, sticking to the wax. I left those in the bag, in the closet.
I'd put pennies in Piggy. Then I'd use a kitchen knife, fish them out again when I wanted to buy candy.
Nothing ever happened, not when I put them in, and not when I took them out. No magic there, just a clay container.
I grew, and forgot the pig, it gathered dust on my dresser with my other things of childhood, my music box and bits of ribbon and other evidence a little girl had once lived here.
Nineteen and never been kissed.
In Senior Year I met a boy.
Well, I knew the boy, and watched the boy, and thought about this boy, all the time. I imagined a life with this boy, me the Mama and he, the Tata and our little family of copil.
I imagined he would hold me tight and kiss me, and tell me he loved me!
But he didn't know me. He didn't even look at me, he had other girls he went out with and talked to. It was ok, one day he'd forget about them, and we'd meet in the hallway and he'd see me! Realize I was the one!
It almost happened. I was walking to my locker at the end of the day, to put my books away and he came quickly down the hall toward me, looking at me! Smiling at me!
I lit up like a sunrise, my sweet!
And he called "Linda! Wait!" and brushed past me, even knocked into me, made me drop my books.
And glanced at me, disdainful, "Sorry!" and hurried away after his sweetheart, leaving me.
I rubbed my shoulder, and gathered up my books, my face red, embarrassed, maybe angry.
I was stupid! A stupid little girl! To think he could love me!
At home I ignored my Mama when she asked How was your day? I slammed my door, threw myself on my bed and cried.
Well, I tried to cry. I thought I should cry, and even got some few tears to track down my face.
What did I feel? Not sad; not angry. Resentful?
Yes! I felt resentful. He was a stupid boy and had hurt my feelings and made me feel shame.
This was all his fault!
Mama knocked, asked Are you all right? and I said Go Away! So she went away.
She wouldn't understand, she would just lecture me, make me feel more shame, that's what she was good at.
I missed my Bunica! She could make me laugh, tell me old stories, always the woman fooling the man and making him feel small, and know how stupid he was. Those were good stories.
I stood, walked to my dresser, picked up the pig. Dusted it off.
Little pig? My little copil? Do you understand?
And I felt, she did. Her little grotesque face smiled at me, I could see she was smiling! She understood.
I shook her, nothing. No pennies, I'd robbed them out and spent them on foolishness.
And I remembered the tokens, that I'd hid away with the rest.
It took a moment to dig out the box, set it on my bed, to take out the curious little objects. The box of beads, grooved and marked. The little figures, so lifelike! Each like some real person, with personality, some person long gone by now.
A bag, a little cloth bag, empty, almost. But for the little wax tokens. What had she called them? Talismans!
I picked at the string, dumped them out on the bedspread.
