I don’t remember when my mom’s typewriter started to type me to sleep. It wasn’t everyday, because the weekends were with Maman and the weekdays were at Meme’s.
At Meme’s it was the sound of French feuilleton or black and white Truffaud or Jeux Interdits that lullabied from the loud tele. But mom was always a cancan music box late into the night going tickey tack. Her gnawed off fingers would wiggle all night hitting keys that got stuck on mildew as she kept moving till dawn. The little house she lived in was tiny—a candy shack in the middle of a Paris Garden. Bohemian chic. The one and only bedroom upstairs with a double bed was up the steepest stairs you ever saw, and we all fell down them a million times as we were trying to get a shot in the arm. Autumn would cover her ears all night blocking out mom’s typper-writter tapping and then she would bambi me in her sleep.
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